THE UNOFFICIALFOOTBALLERSFAN ARCHIVE↗Transcript links use the exact YouTube video’s clock. Machine transcripts can contain errors.
The newly opened Megalabowl awards its champion a 2026 Listener League place, a UDK for life, and global bragging rights. Registration stands at 6,395 after more than 20,000 prior entrants, the hosts hope to exceed 30,000, and they credit the tournament with creating friendships.
Mike's studio chair keeps dropping and is declared to be giving up the fight. The show runs its actual BREAKING NEWS animation, asks Al Borland to follow Mike's head downward with the camera, demands auto-tilt, blames workout muscle weight, and briefly cuts to three laughing producers in Ducers Alley.
The FootClan's top sleeper Jacory Croskey-Merritt becomes Bill Croskey in an explicit Bill Brasky reference. The hosts build a Chuck Norris-style dossier spanning impossible speed, size, doors, mathematics, languages, time, onions, bowling, the boogeyman, rain, a unicycle, and a drowned fish, repeatedly interrupting analysis and the mailbag to add more.
The hosts ask Kyle to verify whether the NFL can suspend Quinshon Judkins before he signs his rookie contract. An immediate off-camera answer says the personal-conduct policy still permits suspension, and the show proceeds with the corrected rule.
Greasy snacks are banned from a working keyboard unless a boxed replacement is ready for one final dirty run. The hosts then design a one-use milkshake beer helmet with thick tubing and consider grape-jelly party meatballs, fork-and-knife pizza, and pre-shelled pistachios as hands-clean draft food.
Complete published-video review shows Andy, Jason, and Mike live at the desk in ordinary clothing throughout, with no missing host, fourth host, cardboard bear, Jay Griz image, Jay cue, or special costume. A generic black bear briefly appears inside the standard animated opening montage, but—as in accepted corpus convention—nothing identifies it as Jay Griz. The opening also displays a five-person WITH THE DUCERS portrait card: Brooks/Judge Giamatti, Josh/Papa Josh, Jeremy/Owl Borland, Matt/The Falcon, and Kyle/The Borgogon. Because the card is prerecorded, it is not used by itself to claim that all five are physically present. The Megalabowl announcement gives its winner a place in the 2026 Listener League, a UDK for life, and bragging rights; registration is at 6,395 after the prior field exceeded 20,000, the hosts hope for 30,000, and they say friendships have grown from meeting in the tournament. Mike's deep sleeper Kyle Williams is hurt, which is called true Fantasy Hitman condition, and the pick returns the show to Rookie Town. The physical production story begins when Mike's chair keeps sinking. The published video really runs the reporter-style BREAKING NEWS animation, the hosts ask Al Borland to keep tilting Mike's camera downward as his head drops in frame, and a later live DUCERS ALLEY shot catches three producers laughing; the dark booth shot does not safely identify all three seats, so it is not used to promote portrait-card credits into live attendance. The FootClan's top sleeper Jacory Croskey-Merritt then becomes Bill Croskey through Bill Braskey-inspired impossible feats: seven feet tall with 4.40 speed, able to slam revolving doors, divide by zero, hear sign language, speak braille, decide the time, make onions cry, dribble a bowling ball, sleep under the boogeyman's bed, build a snowman from rain, wheelie on a unicycle, and drown a fish. The hosts repeatedly abandon real questions for the joke, say the Ducers are dying, propose that Bill perform the mailbag drop, and carry him through the Megalabowl plug and close. Kyle is directly asked to check whether the NFL can suspend an unsigned rookie and immediately answers yes from off camera; targeted video remains on the hosts. The final online-draft snack discussion creates a disposable-keyboard policy, a one-use milkshake beer helmet, party meatballs with grape jelly, fork-and-knife pizza, and pre-shelled pistachios. Targeted review confirms that none of those foods, helmet, keyboard damage, Bill feats, or chair repair is physically shown; the verified visuals are the studio chair and set, five-person Ducers card, Megalabowl rear monitor, Breaking News package, standard Mailbag/Sleepers graphics, and brief three-human booth cut.
Foot Clan. Leagues are starting up. It is time to get prepared for all your trophies, all your championship belts, your rings. If you won last year, you've got to go to fantasychamps.com. You can use the code ballers to get 10% off everything and they are doing super fast shipping. You will get it in time, fantasychamps.com. The fantasy footballer studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host. Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Wednesday, August 20th, Jason Moore, Mike Wright. I'm Andy Holloway, the fantasy footballers podcast. We're back. Oh, we're so back. Some of us mid-draft right now, some of these slow drafts going on. I'm in the middle of one. I cannot tell you.
what it felt like to have to draft breeze hall in this draft oh you really oh no it did not feel good oh no but at some point look we are trying to be you know independent thinkers and go with the flow of a draft we have all independently decided that breeze hall is not a good draft it just depends where this is an expert draft with a bunch of other industry people and i will tell you this the reason i bring it up at all is because Everybody in that entire draft are, you know, the heads of different companies within the space. And apparently unanimously, we all despise Reese Hall. It is not like somebody believes. Nobody believed. Do you want to take a shot at a guess where he went? Fifth round. To me? Nope. Nope. This is a two QB, though? It is a two QB 12 team. Let's go. I'll go sixth round.
Yeah, it was 608 is where I took him. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. 608 is where he finally went and it was like, I just felt like his ADP, I think. Yeah, I mean, there's like 35 or something like that. Reese Hall is a talented player who has obviously been a top 10 fantasy asset and he's young. There's plenty of reason to like him. I think why we disparage him here is because he's being drafted like he's a belcow on a good offense in a lot of leagues. Like are you taking Breece Hall or Joe Mixing right now with the Jim Mixing injury news? Because that was my choice. That's tough. That's really tough. And it feels so. And I needed like I had gone a couple quarterbacks, a couple whiteouts. I had Trayvion Henderson. I don't know if you've heard of him, Mike. He's kind of one of my guys. I've heard. I've heard. But I needed to like make a choice here for an RB2. Right. And I'm looking at it's like.
Joe Mixing on the board or Breece Hall for RB2. Aaron Jones or Breeze Hall? Like that's what I was up against. And so I pulled the trigger. I'm in an expert league right now, a Super Flex, three wide receiver full PPR. And I'm in the fifth round. Still there? And I don't have a running back yet. I started wide receiver wide receiver wide receiver. Wide receiver. Right. I'm getting rid of all the T. Low T. You're in the same boat I was in. Like no white out through four rounds. Just or no running back. A couple picks ago, Breece Hall went.
Okay. And I was like, yes. So where did he go? He went at the four or five turn. Okay. And this is 608 is where I got him. I have Breece Hall above Mixing in my rankings. Yeah, it's just too difficult to take. If I can take Mixon, like if I had taken running backs earlier, mixing can be my RB3 shot in the sixth round. I would have done that. But man. You're getting too close to this season. Like now it was nice to dismiss things a month ago or three or four weeks ago for any of these players, for Terry McLaurin, right? Because holding out that doesn't pay off generally in terms of fantasy production. He has not been around. Yeah, all the Matthew Stafford fears. Yeah, you're getting too close. It's August 20th. So.
Many of you are in the middle of drafts. You're about to do drafts. I think this upcoming weekend is kind of the biggest draft weekend, but you'll have them the following weekend and, you know, through Labor Day. We've had data before. I don't have it on me for this last season, but we've done these studies many, many times over the last 11 years and often have the tip of don't buy the injury dip. You know, every now and then. Joe Mixon will fall in drafts because he missed the whole camp and turns out he's active and healthy and you get a value but the majority of time it turns out that the guys that are injured the whole preseason and training camp are are actually hurting and not good I mean it's funny because as soon as as we switch to in season mode and it's like okay I'm setting my lineup all of a sudden the guys who aren't playing really matter
It goes from like this theory to like, oh, shoot, I get zero points for them. What do you do right now with Devon Aitian, who's a super high pick? How is that going to feel good right now? Yeah, we, I know myself and Andy, I think you did as well, Mike, but we moved Devon Aitian down a few spots because where I had him, I think he was my running back five. There's a chance he doesn't play week one because he's dealing with a calf injury. I'm not going to take him over other stud running backs just because I think he's going to be a PPR machine, which I do. I'm going to.
you know, take a holistic approach and look at the big picture of what you need. And what you need primarily, first and foremost, is for them to play football. That is a prerequisite. Tip one. Yeah, no, that'll be our tips and tricks. We had a big announcement yesterday. The Megalobul is open. You can go and enter right now at megalobole.com. That is the... Largest Fantasy Football League on Earth, the winner gets a spot in our 2026 listener league, a UDK for life and bragging rights upon the Earth. It is a huge, amazing league. We're up at 6,395 people have entered so far. Last year we're up over 20,000. I think we can get up over 30,000. Oh, whoa. I think we can do it. It would be the most megalist of all. It is a really fun league. If you want to play with us, play with our listeners, play in a format that we enjoy and that you're challenging yourself, right? The people that are going to be in this league, they all know what they're doing. And also, I know a lot of friendships.
And, yeah, they've been built. Yeah, they've been built from meeting people in the Meglabel. So check that out at megalble.com. And then if you don't have it yet, the ultimate draft kit, the number one tool to dominate your draft with the upcoming weekends, ultimate draft kit.com to check that out. A couple reminders here real quick before we jump into the quick question. You can follow us on Instagram. Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers over on X at the FFBallors. And you can watch the show on YouTube. YouTube.com slash the fantasy. Footballers had a fun little video go up yesterday. The socials are hot. The socials are good. They're nice. It's fun. It's been very fun. All right, quick question of the day. The question is around what I think Brooks is calling a super stack. Basically, he's talking about how we feel regarding, it's not the quarterback wide receiver stack or the quarterback tight end stack. It is a couple of players at different positions on the same team. So running back.
maybe running back quarterback would count, you know, Hurt Sequin, running back tight end, you know, going CMC and Kittle in your draft, going Chase Brown and then one of the wide outs for Cincinnati. How do you feel about those type of all eggs in one basket, but both guys can't score in the same play? Not great. I mean, that's my approach. I don't love it. I do enjoy a great quarterback wide receiver stack. It adds a little bit of volatility, but it gives you explosive weak winning potential. You know, we did a study on that and showed that it's not just for bestball. Like that was a common best ball strategy because you're going to have to score the most and you get the stacks pretty much automatically when that wide receiver gets a touchdown. But in your redraft leagues, it's a it's a wise strategy. That's why a lot of times people are reaching a little bit ahead on Joe Burrow if they happen to.
have Jamar Chase, you know, or choose to grab him maybe over one of the rushing mobile, you know, Jalen Hertz or or Jaden Daniels even. But when it comes to a wide receiver running back or having a wide receiver tied in for the same team, it takes a very special use case for me to actually want, like they've got, they've got to be two absolute dominant players. And I don't know that right now. McCaffrey, George Kittles. I think CMC Kittles is the big one, because I was going to ask you if you don't like it, but if both of those guys are where they're supposed to be, are you actively dissuaded from a Kittle selection in the third if you took McCaffrey? No, no, I guess that's true. Because you're not talking, usually in the past, when you're talking about the best running back and the best wide receiver, I think the clearest example was when Levion Bell and Antonio Brown, they were, he was the number one running back of the number one wide receiver.
Those were both first round picks. It was hard to get them, and it cost you everything. If CMC falls, you know, to the beginning of the second where his ADP is, and I'm getting a value, and then I'm getting George Kittle in the fourth round where his ADP is. That's also a value? Yeah, I'm down with that. And if that happened, you bet your booty, I'm getting Brock Purdy. Because you're playing to win. Well, yeah. I mean, if you're making your bets that CMC is going to be good and Kittle's going to be good, If you win that bet, if you win that idea, well, Brock Purdy's going to be good. Like, there's not really a world where those... It can't happen. Like, we sometimes have a quarterback who has two very successful wide receivers. And at the end of the day, you're like, ah, that quarterback was okay. Goff is the one that comes to mind. Matthew Stafford's an example. Yeah. Where you're all in on maybe Puka and Kyron, but you wouldn't be in on a Stafford. But I get it. I get what you're saying. That would be the super stock I'd be the most terrified of, by the way, the Rams.
Multiple Rams players with this one shoe to drop that is a creaky back. Yeah. So I think how I would summarize it, if a value presents itself to me, I'm willing to take it. But at cost, I don't really want to do that just because threading the needle is so difficult. So difficult. Yeah. All right. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by progressive insurance. All right, let me dust this button off over here. The dolphins are activating Darren Waller. Oh, hey, hey. Off of the PUP. I've been saying every day in the office. I'm like, have you guys heard anything about Darren Waller? Like, what? He's, he's had a long ramp up period, but it's nice to see he's actually going to play.
Brady Henderson reporting from ESPN. Zach Charbonnet of the Seattle. Close your ears, Mike. Seahawks is, quote, going to have a significant role in the Seahawks backfield this season. It honestly, he should. Like, to me, where Ken Walker is going in drafts, it doesn't change how I'm projecting it, but Charbonnet should have a big role in this offense. Coupiac said, yeah, Kubiak said, What is he looking for basically in this run heavy offense? He's instilling. Number one is intelligence. Number two is longevity or just availability. Guys that are available for the whole game. The best backs that I've been around are super smart. Our top two guys are really doing some good things. But Charbonnet, his mental approach to the game is impressive. He does not flinch. If he ever has a question, you know you didn't coach it good enough because that's how on it he is. Really impressed with him.
Availability has not been the middle name for Kenneth Walker. That doesn't mean when he's available, he won't be great. That is very possible. But I think that maybe some of the approach this offseason has been a mentality of like, if Ken, like the CMC mentality. Like if CMC's healthy, he's a dominator, it's also possible there's a middle ground on Ken Walker. If he's available, he could also just be okay or pretty good because Charbonnet is so involved in the offense that. you know, both of those guys can have success at the expense of one another. That is an outcome that doesn't exist really for CMC. Yeah, I mean, earlier this week, we added Zach Charbonnet to our values list in the UDK because he seems inappropriately priced right now. He's being basically drafted like just a pure backup. But this is a guy who I think will be involved, will be a flex option when Kenneth Walker is active and then has the upside. The upside.
that also has high probability. You know what I mean? I mean, just based on of his history, Jason. Sharbonnet's fantasy finishes, I don't have the missed games by Ken Walker up in front of me, but he had. You can see it in the snaps, really. Yeah, you're right. I mean, he was RB 15 in week two. He was RB7 in week three. And then you move on later when he's got 80% of snaps two weeks in a row, weeks 14 and 15. The running back one, the running back one, the running back 18. running back 23, like, you know, it could go really well for him. And it was a slow start. As a rookie, he did not look apart. No, he did not. And you guys came in leveling, loveling. Loveling. Yeah. Loveled him. No, you loved what you saw at UCLA. I did. I loved Charmody too. And he just looked like it didn't work in year one. He looked a little slow, tentative, no explosiveness. Maybe that's more of those, you know.
Some players, it takes a little bit of time to look the part. Not only that, but, you know. Yeah, he is a good player. Charbonnet is a really good player. I remember when he came in, the role that they gave him, like, I think they asked him to add weight, and it kind of slowed him down, and he was more of like that banger, which wasn't really what he was in college. So he was always a big dude. Yeah, like we don't need him bigger. We need him lean. Because he did. He looked slow as he did. So I think, I think he's.
getting in his playing shape and should be pretty valuable this year. Well, Isaac Garando has returned to practice. CMC has his number one backup back on the field, and Patrick Taylor was placed on season ending IR. But Garando being back, it's a big deal. How do you guys feel about Garando of like he? I know it's a short sample or a small sample, of course, but it's like, he seemed like he's got the injury bug too. Not that all 49ers don't, but it's like Grendo, he seems like a premium insurance running back. Should McCaffrey miss time, which historically McCaffrey has missed a lot of time in the last four years. And it's like, Grendo is this plug and play guy. And then we plugged him in and it was like, can he do it? He's got one of those play styles, man, where he's just, he's trying to get hurt on every play. And he succeeds a lot. I am.
encouraged about garendo because the team let jordan mason go and they actively moved him on purpose like it was i think that was a confidence in garendo to be their backup now they all get hurt and they all have in san francis just saying like do you still if you're taking mcalfrey are you spending like because you you you got to go a couple rounds early to make sure you get garendo uh i mean i don't know if you do i mean i if i can get him with the last two picks i'm i don't think you I think you'll get him, I mean, where his average draft price is. Maybe you go one round earlier, but where is he being drafted right now? Well, his ADP is very low, but I'm saying when you get in real drafts, like, you will have, you will have the McCaffrey truthers, and then you will have the complete anti-McCaffrey people who are like, I will not draft him ever, and I'm going to draft Garendo.
Yeah, I'm not fighting for Garindo like that. I'm going to take him in the 13th round, 14th round, 15th round. Yeah, right now he's the 1312, so he's out that 13, 14 turn. I mean, to me, if you're that late and now I'm in the 12th, okay, I'll take him if I've got Christian McCaffrey, that's fine. I'm not taking him earlier than that, though. Malik neighbors, Cam Scataboo, back at practice for the Giants. Yeah, we like it. All the news around Scataboo's injury was negative, and then he's back at practice. It scares me a little, because it was. It was kind of one of those things where the expectations started to be probably not there for week one. And now if he's back at practice, I'm like, dude, don't have rushed it. Because I want a scataboo season. I want him to take over by the end of the year. And just stay healthy. Jaden Blue returned to practice. Cowboys running back on Tuesday. He had been missing time, which meant that everybody had to watch Giovante Williams and Miles Sanders do more things on the field.
which had to have been depressing. Yeah. And we also have reports to the Jets. 49ers and Vikings are all monitoring the trade market for potential whiteout additions. That would be things like Tara McLaurin, but also the free agent group. Marty Cooper still out there, players like that. Romeo Dobbs. That would be a perfect trade acquisition for these teams. They don't really need him. He's not, I don't think, part of their long-term plans. And he's a good. wide receiver to, you know, go and fill one of those spots. Gabe Davis did not sign with Pittsburgh. He is still trying to find a team. He's visiting with Buffalo now. I am shocked. You're trying to go back to. Former my guy, Gabe Davis. Wow. Trying to go back to Buffalo where it all began. Hey, good for you, Gabe. What did he have the, it was the three touchdowns in that Kansas City game? Four. No. Might have been four. I mean, it might have been 50. It was four. It was four.
Kyle saying it was four. Yeah, it was four touchdowns. That was one of the coolest football games I've ever seen. It was. And it was a trap that we all kept stepping in for years. It's a trap. He did have his time in Buffalo. He was good for. For a time. For Josh Allen. For Josh Allen. All right. That was News & Notes, sponsored by Progressive Insurance. Quote today at Progressive. Progressive Insurance Company affiliates and third-party insurers. Not available in all states or situations subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. All right, we've got a sleeper show today. I don't even know if I teased it at the top. I'm a terrible host. But that's what we're going to talk about in a moment. You slept on it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was doing this intentionally. Thank you, Mike. We'll take a break. We'll jump into sleepers. All righty.
It's time. Sleepers. All right. I have looked at the picks for today's show. And again, we are in the midst of these episodes where we're picking one name individually, bringing it forward. Sometimes, you know, there are guys right on the cusp of what you'd call a sleeper versus a breakout, middle round pick. I think all three of these names today are true sleeper to deep sleeper category. Yeah. these are players that like it should sound a little bit irrational or illogical to tell you that they're going to do well if it didn't they would all be drafted in a place much much higher than where they're being drafted or if they're undrafted it needs to have a thing a few things go their way to happen but talent circumstance opportunities scheme uh different reasons they could kind of shine so um
I think, Mike, why don't we kick it off with your sleeper pick? Right now, this is a player that is very, very late in drafts, not drafted on ESPN, 11th, 12th round on the other platforms. And in true fantasy hitman condition, he's hurt right now. Oh, yeah, baby. I think, I don't know if he's in protocol, but concussion protocol, but he did, he. I think he was listed with the head injury. It's Kyle Williams. Welcome back to Rookie Town, everybody. Kyle Williams of the New England Patriots. He was a third round pick. And the reason why I want to bring him up is just the, you know, still paying attention to the New England Patriots of what this team could become. Looking at them last year, they had 176 passing yards per game. The team.
really did an overhaul here, including the coaching staff, all of that, and then bringing in some talent, including Stefan Diggs. They said, we got to find some people here for Drake May to get this going. And while Stefan Diggs and Pop Douglas, to me, those two are locked in. The third spot is up for grabs, and it's between the big competition will be Mack Hollins, Kishon Booty, and Kyle Williams. the what I've seen so far of Kyle Williams again it's preseason he's working his backups but he looks the part and that that jives with everything that we've been hearing out of camp you know we got uh he like he he made noise at the at the senior ball
And in that process, Daniel Jeremiah, great college scout, you know, part of NFL. He's like, Kyle Williams has really helped himself a lot. He's this name who moved himself up into the third round. And then just watching the film in the preseason, he is, like he's roasting DBs. Like he is getting absolutely wide open. There was the first week. He had this slant route. And I don't remember who was playing backup, but just totally, he's just wide open. It's the most layup touchdown of all. Quarterback misses him. Then you go back to this past week, a couple plays. He's just, he is burning people. He's beating people with great route running. He's beating people with speed. He's, he's a 511 190 guy. He ran a 4-4. So not like the elite speed, but running a 4-4, like that can get you open. That can get you open on nine routes. And I think there is a huge opportunity here for someone to step up while Pop Douglas is locked into the slot.
Will that turn into anything of fantasy value other than a floor where I think that Kyle Williams, if he comes in and establishes himself, he can turn himself into like a flex type of a play. I'm getting burned out on New England wide receiver hopes in the draft lately. I understand. I understand. Tyquan Thornton, right? Yeah. It was one. We had booty. Yeah. Like they have not spent super high draft capital. Well, Thornton was a. I thought he was a second rounder. Yeah, I mean, we're just sitting here like kind of hoping. And look, I like Kyle Williams more than either of those players. Nothing about that depth chart. I mean, the players you talked about him competing with, it's like, okay, Matt Collins is the definition of a journeyman, a barefooted journeyman. And he does not intimidate me. Like he does, those players do not stand in the way of an emerging player. In fact, nobody on this team does. Not even Stefan Diggs stands in the way of an emerging player. If Kyle Williams could take that step forward and become.
You know, we've got all these situations where, like, whether it's Bo Nix and some of his young receivers, Caleb Williams, and we talk about Luther Burden and Roma Dunzee, like, you want to build the future of your team. I mean, the guy I'm talking about is connected to a young wide receiver as well. Quarterback. Quarterback, yeah. And so you want to kind of build that connection, and it's not going to be Stefan Diggs and Drake May for the next five years. And it could be Kyle Williams. Yeah, and this is a deep sleeper. I mean, unless you're in a really deep league.
maybe you don't even want to draft Kyle Williams. You just, you need to know his name. Part of this process is not just the draft. Like we're building a foundation of knowledge and guys to keep an eye on for actual in season. So like if, you know, week two comes and it's like, dude, look at Kyle Williams peripherals. You know, he didn't get the targets today, but he got the snaps. He's getting the routes. Watch the film. Does this look like the ball is going to eventually find this player? Yeah, if Drake may. is really good. Yeah. And comes out and has that sophomore season that the Patriots hope he has. Some wide receivers are going to have to be valuable. The only problem is the Patriots drafted him. And so it's probably here's. They've been pretty bad. Here's how bad it is. This is, I saw this tweet from Andrew Cooper. Wide receivers drafted by the Patriots over the last 15 years. Oh, boy. 15 years. All right. Name the wide receiver who has scored the most total fantasy points.
of all that they actually drafted that they drafted over the last 15 years that is a huge span i so edelman is not in that range he was drafted before that 15 correct okay it's hard to even name some yeah it's not nekeel harry right golly yeah oh yeah nikiel harry's in the group of guys around complete failure yeah there's a lot of you are you going to say it's the mario douglas no it's braxton barrios Oh my gosh. That's a 15-year run of failure. Yeah. So maybe Mike Rabel had a better influence. I was going to say the non-bill years. Are we any better? Yeah, Bill doesn't know whiteouts against. We're not any worse. He was great at signing Randy Moss, an existing. Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame. And Trading for Welker. I think Randy Moss is good. And trading for Welker. Yeah. No, it is a player that's exciting. I'll go next just because it's very similar.