Mock Draft! + A Final Farewell - Fantasy Football Podcast for 5/21

Two words. Mock Draft. We've got it on today's episode. Don't miss a minute. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah, welcome in. Tuesday, May 21st, Mike the Fantasy Hitman Wright. I'm Andy Holloway. Jay Gris back in the building. Uh-oh. Get it out of the way.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, well, look, mock draft episode today, sure to be interrupted. I do feel better about the fact that that's been handled. It's sensational. I enjoy the drop very much. We knew that Jay Gris was going to be here today. So the fact that you guys had not upgraded to like some sweet graphic stuff. Happening on the YouTube. Oh, yeah, yeah. Pretty disappointed. That's Ketren's fault. So no Jason this week. Pretty disappointed. Not disappointed in that. Oh, no, that's great. Yeah. So Jason is enjoying a week away from the show before things get real. We've got 11 days until the ultimate draft kit is out, which is exciting. So if you order it before June 1st, more exciting because you get the lowest price and you get some discounts.

You get like a $10 gift card to fantasy champs and some money for shop ballers and a free digital copy of our book and the lowest price, like I said. So ultimate draft kid.com. It releases in 11 days, Mike. I am ready. The ultimate tease. Mike and I are going to be doing a head-to-head mock draft on the show today. I am very excited for this. If you hadn't noticed, the free rankings. are live on the fantasy footballers.com right now. Yes. So the three of us have our projections done. But why I have not done really is any mock drafting or I'm not really a best ball, bro. You know, shout out to all those, the DGens who are hitting the in the streets. Yeah, you're in it right now. I get it. But so I like ADP, I got, I got no idea, man. Well, yeah, it'll be fun.

And you and I are drafting at the two and three spot on today's mock draft. So, you know, be careful with your snipes because they're coming right back around you in the next round. So that'll be fun doing that today. We've got some news to talk about a reminder. You can follow the show over on X. Now you saw this. Yeah, yep. Even the domain is X.com. It's official. We are X. Yeah, I guess. Whatever. Throw it up, Mike. It's just like, yeah. I mean, it's done. Follow us on Twitter. I saw the explanation, which was, you know, it's long gone are the days of like, what was the original character limit? 1.26? Wait, one. I'm seeing nods, but we're saying different. We're saying different numbers. I thought it was 240. That was the expansion. That was the expansion. Do the 140. Kyle says 140. Who knows? Whatever. It was very small. The explanation was that.

You know, it's no longer a place with little short bird-like tweets of 140 characters. Now it's the place for everything, which is why X. You know what I mean? Okay. X encapsulates all. I mean, at the FF ball. If any social media site is just crushing code red mountain dew right now, it's X. X. It's extreme. At Andy Holloway. Follow us on Twitter. at FF, Hitman. And there you go. The communities join the foot.com. The free Discord channel, Ballers Discord.com. Mike, you're shaking your head still. You'll never recover. It's a very short domain. It is. You know, yeah. X. I mean, it's just so cool. Yeah. So cool. That's what I'm trying to say. All right. Into the news we go. News and notes from around the league.

Mike, prepare yourself. Me, me, me, me. David Johnson. One more time. I know. I know. The man, the myth, the legend. I needed to let it sit there because David Johnson has officially retired from the NFL after. Look, they say eight seasons, but it feels like three. Yeah. In a lot of ways. He burned too bright. If you have listened to this show, which is going into its 10th season. You will know that David Johnson has a very special place on this show. He was drafted 86th overall in 2015, finished his rookie season as the RB8. He's actually in the Hall of Fame for some of his rookie numbers. 2016, the number one running back in fantasy. Yes, he was. Burn Bright. And we had a lot of fun on the show with David Johnson. Good friend of the show as well. Yep.

We had Jason's 2017 attempt at singing the David Johnson song, which you can go see it on Mike's. A fan of the show was kind enough to share it, so I retweeted. But it's one of the best moments of the show. Jason tried to sing, and it didn't work. So it was funny. But his 2016 year was an all-timer, the second best PPR season for a running back since 07. Yeah, so like over the last 15. plus years. That's crazy. Yeah. McCaffrey has three of the top seven. Yeah, it does. The, man, the, the, the 2016 David Johnson season was so much fun. He just, he looked unstoppable. And we will, we will remember his career fondly. We'll bid you it fun for well. Yeah, it, I mean, it, it, it went, it went quickly. But, but, but the man, he gave us some, some fantasy goodness. The man got some schmoney.

Yeah, I traded for him right before 2017. Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did. Broke his hand, I think, in that, in that Lions game. Yep. And scored 10 points on the season. So that didn't work out. But it was a fun ride. We wish you the best, DJ. And, man, it's tough. You're a running back and you work your whole life. You get like four years. And then you worked four more years to get like a shot at doing anything. He did play for Houston for a couple of seasons. Pretty decent the first year in Houston. Yeah, not too bad. And then that's it. So the NFL schedule release last week, Mike. I like to make fun of the schedule release because it's a schedule release. Yep. That's the main reason I make fun of it is it's a release of the schedule. And then it's built up like it's, you know, a theme park ride. Yeah. And there's. But then I realize after it happens, I'm like, ah, there's a lot of cool insights to this. Yeah. The thing where, you know, I'm trying to.

look at some stuff where we're getting all of our tools ready for the three ultimate draft kit looking at strength of schedule and the thing that that jumped out to me was jared goff and the detroit lions opened the season with two home games and kyle it was the rams and the bucks i want to make sure i'm remembering correct yeah rams and bucks at home they will be favored and it's just like there is There is an ejector seat in all single quarterback drafts that is Jared Goff. That no matter what you're playing, like if your plan gets completely torpedoed, whoever, you know, when you were targeting a quarterback in the draft, Jared Goff is going to be sitting there for you. Settle on golf. Just two weeks of what should be magic. Because Goff at home, when he is favored, he has, he just, he comes through.

It's like a, you know, you do scientific experiments when you're growing up in school. And it was like under the right conditions, this amount of sunlight and this kind of fertilizer, life grows. And golf needs the right situation. Then it works out. Also, we have two weeks at the end of the year, week 12 and 14. So I guess we skip 13 there where we have six teams on by towards the end of the year. So, you know, I'm fine with that personally to have the. by apocalypse is late, but. Yeah, I wish I had more insight into, like, how do we have, so week seven, the Cowboys and the Bears. Yeah. Week eight, everyone plays. Week nine, the 49ers and the Steelers. And then you have these weeks where six teams are on by. I mean, honestly, with so many fantasy relevant players on both Dallas and San Francisco in particular.

And you could even throw the bears in there potentially this year. The fact that there aren't a lot of teams on buy those weeks means that those upper echelon players, you have better pivot options potentially. Right. The other side of the coin is your opponent might not have a buy and you might have a buy with those players. So all of our strength of schedule tool information, you can break that down in the UDK and you can break it up into different chunks. We obviously use... the data that we have from last year and there's a lot of turnover and those things get updated throughout the year as well. And then this is in here. I'm fine with it. Yeah. Yeah. Good news, Mike. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports, Naji Harris has changed his diet and his workout routine to get him into the best shape of his life before the 2024 season, which you know what? I got to hand it to him. Wait in three years to do this. You know, year four is the year when it's a contract season.

Yeah, I agree. It's kind of funny to have gotten to this point for this to now happen. But I love it. It's part of my, part of my ethos is when a running back cuts weight before the season, I'm excited about it. I think he desperately needed to do this. If he indeed, he's playing for his career. I mean, he's going to sit there as one of those down to the wire on draft day decisions, I think, for fantasy players. Yeah, that's fair. How does camp go? Like you talk about, I guess we haven't mentioned it a lot this year. Draft as late as you humanly can. Yeah. Our draft this year in League of Record for the first time ever is going to be before Thursday Night Football and get as much information from camp and the way this, you know, Arthur Smith offense is going to look because Naji's sitting there as a potential very high upside player. He's also a high risk player because Jalen Warren exists. Yep. I'm leaving the light. Not on. We'll go.

partially dimmed. This is not the fridge light though. No, no. I think there is a chance that Najee is, I mean, just where he's going to be going in the draft. You're not drafting him to be like the stud of your team. You're just drafting him to be a part of it. And will it work with Arthur Smith? And this is like for his career. If Najee Harris has a good season. Yeah, he'll go get a job. Then I, well, I think that if he has a good season, I think the outcome is he gets a mid-level contract, he comes back to the Pittsburgh Steelers. If he has a bad season, I mean, it's. It's AJ Dillon for life. It'll be, yeah, it'll be over. I have to read this quote. Okay. This is from Mark Cabley on X, Mike X. Okay. The cool place to be. Yep. So this is a senior Steelers writer for the athletic. Give me the quote.

What I hear coming out of Steelers camp is that, or out of the Steelers, is that players absolutely love Arthur Smith's offense. One told me that it is unreal. It is. I mean, we're in agreement. It is unreal. Oh, man. It's unreal how wild it can get. No one sees it coming. Yeah, Atlanta fans can attest to the unreal nature of it. So any other news that you guys have seen that you want to talk about? Anybody back there in Deucers Alley? No. No, sir. Did you guys ever figure out how many characters in a tweet? Kyle was right. It's 140. 140. And then it went to 240 and. In 2017. Now it's everything. You can do whatever you want there. It's X. It's X. You can do what you want. It's time to mock draft. The fantasy footballers mock draft. Well, it is a head-to-head mock draft. We had randomly selected

draft spots and we were assigned the two and three spot. I have the two, Mike with the three. We're drafting a 12 team half PPR, one quarterback, two running back two wide receiver, one tight and one flex four bench. And I've already clicked start on the draft and Christian McCaffrey's off the board. Okay, no surprises. And so sitting at number two, Mike at number three, very interesting to go through this exercise for the first time in a while, first time since rookies have been a part of this. the equation, right? We did a very early mock draft, early rankings, but now we've done our player projections and we get to go ahead and jump in. And that's what mock drafting is all about. It's about experimenting with different philosophies, plans, game plans, see how things work out. So, you know, I think this is a place where a lot of people are going to have a tough decision to make in general with upper echelon wide receivers and C.D. Lam, Tyree, Jemar Chase, and then that next tier of running back behind Christian McCaffrey,

You know, Breece Hall, Bijon, Jamira Gibbs, and so on. My philosophy has not changed in recent years. I want to find the backbone of my team at the running back position. Okay. I recognize that there is, I think, less risk to taking a Tyree Killer, a C.D. Lamb here, but that is not what I'm going to do. I'm going to take my number two overall running back with this selection, and I'm going to kick off my roster here with Breece Hall. Okay. Brise Hall at number two. I didn't, I had no idea of which direction you were going to go because at least last. You're talking positionally? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, positionally. Last year, you know, the, we, the community, we really only had the faith in Christian McCaffrey. So it was like, it was McCaffrey and then there was a run. There was some Echler. Oh, yeah, no, yeah. There was the Echler. Okay, okay. Yeah. I couldn't remember who was. It was, it was Echler. We've tried to forget, but it was indeed Echler. And then there was a huge run of wide receivers, which.

I will start the run. Okay. Between, to me, it's Tyree Killer C.D. Lamb, and Cedie Lamb, he's currently my number two wide receiver. I really didn't think he would be. That's just, that's where the projections brought him into. He's number two for you and I, and I think Jason has him at one. Okay. I mean, he was an absolute monster last year, so maybe, you know, what I'm saying, a guy who had. 135 catches almost 1,800 yards of 12 touchdowns. It was just because the run was so incredibly hot from the, when the change happened really basically since the by week. How can this possibly continue? And when you really dive into Dallas and everything that they have done this season or during the off season, I don't know how it doesn't.

Or at least attempts to keep it going. Again, I always have focused with CD Lam on the fact that, yes, he had a great run to end the year, but it's not to in the year. It was week six on. That's five weeks where it wasn't great. Right. And the rest of the entire year, that's, you know, two-thirds of the season. But it, wait, it's just so I just wanted to talk to see real quick. But I am still going to take Tyreek at number 103. So you'll stick with your rankings there. So you went wide out. I went running back. CD-Lam goes four.

Jefferson five. Holy wide receivers. Chase six. I think you're going to see that a lot. Team seven took Bijan and then you go Amon Ra and AJ Brown. So six out of seven to finish. Nope, nope, I just didn't have the screen over enough. Okay. Wow. I was like, this is not an eight team draft. So yeah, we went Tyreek, C.D., Jefferson, Chase, one running back in there, Bijon. And then Amun Ra, AJ Brown, Pooka, Garrett Wilson, Marvin Harrison. So Harrison goes in the first, and you have, what is that, nine wide receivers and one running back after your pick, Mike. Yeah. That's crazy. That's a wild run. It makes me feel good about taking the wide receiver, but the- Makes me feel terrible about taking the running back. I was going to say the tier, though, of running back, it is pretty.

dried up already just with the handful of names who are gone. And Marvin Harrison going in the first, man. Are you comfortable with that? I want to look at who he was taken over. So I'll read you the second round and then we'll talk about it. After Harrison, you got a run on running backs, which by the way, Jemir Gibbs ends up in the second round here, Sequin, Gibbs, Kyron, Taylor. And those four players, I could see a lot of fantasy players not knowing which one's going to outperform the other, putting them in the same bucket. And that's why the priority on wide receivers might have happened. Then Devante Adams, Drake, and Josh Allen goes 207, Alave and Ayyuk. So a lot of wide receivers off the board. So yeah, Harrison over Adams, I'm cool with that. That's fine. Harrison over London, fine with that. Alave, Ayuk. Yeah, not a big deal. Harrison in the first isn't going to happen very often because Taylor, Kyron, Gibbs, or Barclay, one of those or two of those guys are going to go in the first most often.

And then you would have been talking Harrison somewhere in the first part of the second round or the middle second round. So the run on wide receivers is what changed that to me. I don't think he's in the wrong spot. I mean, that puts him at nine, and he's ranked in my rankings at nine, that wide receiver. It's so tough. So I'm on the clock here. But I can't imagine taking him over like Gibbs. Right. Like it happened in this draft. At the running back position is we have HN here, Josh Jacobs, Travis ETN. King Henry. So, I mean, it's it's kind of a tier of players that I feel like with my short turn, I can choose to pass on that. And at the wide receiver position, Stefan Diggs and his name power is pulling himself up here at the top. Pittman is, I don't know if he's in consideration. He's not. Evans after last year. Nope. For this point of the draft with the wide receivers available for me, it's Nico Collins.

or Debo Samuel. I have Debo higher in my projections. I think that they are both riskier players at this point. I think you could take a safer pick because there's, look, there's a chance that Nico had the best year of his career. And there's, and Debo just, he fluctuates up and down. But I'm going to go Debo. I'm going to stick with my rankings here. I start with Tyreek and Debo. And I'm pretty happy about that. Yeah, so Tyreek and Debo Samuel. I have Breece Hall here. You mentioned A-chan. My running back five is still on the board, and there are seven running backs gone. Yeah, Travis E. T.N. is my running back five. Okay. All right. I don't love digs. I don't. Yeah, universally, we're all pretty lower on digs than what seems to be out there. The wide receivers have thinned so dramatically already in this draft. There are 14 wide receivers off the board.

So, you know, I'm going to take my RB5, and I'm a quick turn here. So I'll take what's left a wide receiver or look at my other options. It might even be as high as going at Jalen Hertz. We'll see. And you'll find out right after we come back. All right. My cast, Tyreek, Delo, Samuel, with his first two picks. I went Breeze Hall and Travis ETN with my first two picks, opting for ETN over the more volatile Devon A-chan based on my rankings. A-chan is just, it's the worst. It's the worst. I just feel like the potential for disappointment is tremendous. Oh, it's massive. It's, it's ridiculous, right? Yeah. The risk on H.N. is, is outrageous. The risk of not picking A-chan is just as outrageous. That's what I'm saying. I know. The situation is, I can't, he's, he has to be.

like amongst the most exciting players to find out what actually happens in in 2024. So A. Chan and Diggs went next and I'm back on the clock and I have a long, long wait. All the tight ends are still available. So Mr. First Round, Travis Kelsey is sitting there in the third. McBride and LaPorta in third. Here's what I'm looking at at Wider Sears. Tell me if you agree with this. There's a bunch of names that, you know, the Sleeper ADP has near the top like Nico Collins and DJMR, Mike Evans. Evans is the next highest on my rankings. But then if you were to go down a ways and you look at the Devante Smith or DK Metcass, I think those guys could be maybe in a very similar tier as the names that are way up high. I mean, Waddle's still there in Pittman.

So I'm very tempted to test the waters on seeing what kind of wide receiver comes back around to me. And take what? Well, I could go. Are you going high tea? I could go Jalen Hertz. Okay. I could go Travis Kelsey. Or I could go back to running back and go high tea with a Derek Henry. Do you still have Kelsey as your number one? Travis Kelsey is sitting at one. Okay. Is he your number one? He is not. Who's your number one, Laporta? Scoring format matters. Kate Otten? It's between my guy, Trey McBride, and Mark Andrews. At number one? And so that's pretty different. The numbers are the numbers, my man. Well, look, I guess I didn't know what your numbers were. So I got that old man, that old busted tight end at number three. Travis Kelsey? Yeah. Where's Evan Ingram? What?

Why are we jumping right to have an Angroom? It's the third round. Because I want to know where you disrespected him compared to me. Your guy? Your guy, smabbing smangro? Well, not just mine. Jay Gris loves him too. I have him currently at number five. Do you? Yeah. Wait, where do you have? Now there's just a tight end situation. Where's LaPorta? Four. Oh, okay. That seems fine. All right. I got him at Titan 13. I'm really having a hard time. You are struggling. I really am. I'm just talking about other stuff. Don't worry about my draft pick. I want to talk about Mike's tight end rankings. I'm going to take Jalen Hertz. Okay. I'm going to take Jalen Hertz at 302 because I have Allen and Hertz in their own space ahead of Mahomes and ahead of Dak and Lamar. So I didn't have to be the first to take one.

I take the last one in the top tier in the third round. And I'm going to see how it rolls. I've got a lot of consistency in ETN and Briseau. I hate what you have done to me. Okay. Because my draft was it's two players. Okay. It's Isaiah Pacheco, who I love this year. He is firmly inside my top 10. I think that he should be, he should see workhorse usage. And. assuming the Kansas City Chiefs don't bring back McKinnon, like Shockus was something with a late edition. If you get Pacheco more involved in the passing game, which he was already seeing some work towards the end of last year, I think he could be an incredible pick. And he's got juice. And then you have Rashad White, who drafting him in the third round, despite what my rankings are telling me to do, that feels terrible. You have a long wait like I do.

I'm taking a running back here. Yeah, you have to. You got Derek Henry sitting there, too. Yeah, he's a little bit lower than these other guys. Pacheco and Rashad White, to me, will see three-down usage. Rashad White mean. I pointed out because I think a lot of people are going to be sitting there in this situation with the big name of Derek Henry. And passing on Derek Henry for some of these other players may be difficult. I like Derek. He's, he is my running back 10, but Rashad White is at 7, Pacheco's at 9, and I'm just more confident in their usage. But so for, for White, yeah, they brought back Chase Edmonds and the rookie Bucky Irving is there. So maybe he. Sean Tucker, maybe he takes, yeah. The Sean Tucker, it feels like that's past now. But, oh, God, all right, I'm taking Rashad White. That's so disgusting.

So you're actually just, you're kind of unhappy with how it feels. Yeah. And it, it felt great. R.B.1, Rashad White. It felt great if you drafted him. Last year it would have been incredible, but I just. Mike Wright and Rashad White. Yeah. Yep. Partners in crime. Laporta goes next. So the tight ends were going to go off the board. Then Evans, Henry, Kelsey, Nico. Jacobs goes at 309. He'll be a very polarizing pick. Malik Neighbors at 310. Neighbors would have been somebody I would have loved to have slipped. But we are drafting at the front of these rounds and it's a long way. Lamar goes next. Then DJ Moore rounding out the third round. Pitman, Waddle, Mahomes, Pacheco. Not too far from Pacheco falling to you, Mike. Yeah, that would have been awesome. Stroud goes next and then four whiteouts just to twist the knife in my decision making. Cup, Devante Smith, Flowers, and Keenan Allen.

which puts you back on the clock. You have Tyreek Debo and Rashad White. So looking at what's happening right now, Trey McBride and Mark Andrews are both still there. It's pretty appealing to go after one of them. I have the short wait. Strategy-wise, I would look at what you guys have done, what the edge has done. Andy already took a quarterback. That's not going to stop you from getting a tight end. That's not going to stop me from taking a second quarterback. I was like, yes, it will. That will stop me. I'd put that close to 0% of a second quarterback. But going with a onesie and how long you have to wait, it would be a bold decision for your. Atlanta wanted me to take a second quarterback, by the way. Their GM just called me. Just in case. Just in case my first guy goes down.