Fantasy Football - AFC West Breakdown + Jason's Devastating Curse - Podcast for 7/12

It's Corlin Sutton. You're listening to the Fantasy Footballers. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. It's a bad day to be a lawn, guys. That's the truth. It's a Saturday edition. Lots of feedback on the lawn-related manual labor discussion. We had a couple of... episodes ago some people asked mike and i to mow their lawns for them because we were pro labor some people uh were with jason certainly and uh one one person said uh very proudly that they they have a very expensive house and a yellow lawn and they're happy and proud and be lazy with your lawn which i find revolting

Yeah, I mean, I find revolting too. If you can afford that house, get some landscapers. You know what I mean? Take care of business. But you just don't do it yourself. Too bright and outside. Well, it is Saturday. We've got our third show of the week. It's a divisional breakdown of the AFC West, wrapping up the entire AFC. And then we'll take a break. We'll do a mock draft episode next week and jump into the NFC divisional breakdowns at that point, which is, uh, which is going to be fun. Today's division's fun. I mean, we're in the AFC West. It is very fun. And so AFC West, it seems, you know, on the surface, like maybe discussions around who will win the division seem moot at times because, what, it's been nine straight years of chiefs on top. But there are just a lot of very interesting teams for fantasy and good teams. Yeah, very good teams. So that's today's show. We got some news. We got some answers.

around nausea Harris. Oh man. I don't think we had talked about it. I don't know that it's a full answer. We talked about it on the footcast, but we did not talk about it on the main show. Yeah. So, well, it was the rumors were too scandalous. The problem. And unsubstantiated. The problem is, is that they were rightish. Yeah. Like, you know, it's one thing to be like, oh, the internet, ah, you just say things to say things. It's another when it's mostly right. And no one came out and talked about it. And we'll get to it momentarily. It's just.

Yeah, we'll discuss. The ultimate draft kit available right now. Do not miss your chance to get in there. Dominate your draft, all our sleepers, breakouts, bust values, player projections. We've got, you know, you can see the stats of every single player. We're making updates to those all the time. It's not some dead magazine where once it's printed, it's done. When things change, we change, we change projections, and we adjust. And then we've got the draft analyzer available right now, too. So lots of cool tools and resources. It has been the kind of the keystone product for the company for the last 10 years. It helps people win at their drafts. And we've got 10 years of refining that product and making it better and listening to you, the Foot Clan, and your feedback on that product. And, you know, you communicate with our team over here and Papa Josh. And they get, you know, get the bug reports over to the dev team and fix things. And, you know, it's a living, breathing, you know, machine.

that helps you win at your draft. And you can check that out at ultimate draft kit.com. You can follow the show on Spotify, Apple. You can watch it on YouTube. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Very thankful that Jason put a shirt back on this morning. Oh, brother. Barely. Right before showtime. We did some pickleball before. the show and he felt the need to air it out, I guess, is the expression. I think he was drying it off. I showered and then I got out and I did not stop sweating. And so I was like, I got to sit shirtless in front of a fan. I was so sweaty. Like right when you pushed the intro music to this show, I took my phone out of my pocket and that phone was drenched from my pocket. That's scary. Did you replace your chair?

No, I'm just, the chair's gonna do what the chair's gonna do. It is only his chairs. Yeah, I'm really, I don't care. We're okay, it's mine. You ever sit in that chair, Mike? No, no, don't recommend it. Different people have different slowdown speeds on the sweat after a workout. Yeah, some people can kind of recover quickly. Mine's about two hours. Jason's always been like a very long after the shower sweater. After the workout, it's not the shower that caused me to sweat. No, but even like through the shower. Yes, yes. The shower. doesn't do anything to slow it. It cleans the first layer. How hot are you taking these showers? No, I take a freezing cold shower. Do you? Yeah. I end like, I'd spend like the last three minutes totally cold, all the way cold. Hmm. I'm a weird guy. No, that's, I don't think that's a weird thing to do. I'm saying I'm weird that I can sweat through that. It's weird that it doesn't stop you from sweating, yeah. Have you tried the whole thing cold? Hmm. No, not really. Oh, okay. Well, I know what my next shower feels like.

Let's jump into that news. Let's talk about Naji and what happened. News and notes from around the league. It is debatable as to whether we have what would be called cold water in Arizona because you can only get it so cold through the tap. Yeah. It runs out pretty fast. It does. Naji Harris is agent. Well, let me set the stage. He lost an eye. That was the stage. That was. That was the. That was the hardest thing we heard online was that in a 4th of July accident, something happened with Najee Harris. He injured his eye. Some people were saying he lost his eye. And we have NFL history, Jason Pierpaw. Yeah. Fireworks accident. It's Saturday, July 12th today. July 4th was a long time ago. And we heard nothing.

on this issue and it was all speculative but then you had like some of the the evidence was like beat reporters were posting hearts on like naji's posts like like and i and we still to this day do not know the the real details of how bad an injury was but finally yesterday his agent came out and said he is expected to be ready to start the season after sustaining what they're calling a superficial eye injury during a fireworks mishap that sent multiple people to the hospital so obviously terrible terrible thing to have happened I don't know what happened with the NFL insiders, no reporting from his camp setting the record straight. And we don't know the severity of a superficial eye injury, but it seems like he'll be ready to play football. But it got hairy. Yeah, it was, that was strange. And when I say mostly right, it's like it'd be one thing if, you know, yes, he didn't lose an eye, thank God. But he did have a fireworks.

4th of July injury and we knew about it for seven days and no one talked about it so hopefully he is okay hopefully everybody else involved in the incident is okay but that is the latest update because when you start hearing things about you know maybe losing his career over this accident which is what was being talked about pretty terrifying yeah and a superficial eye injury means his eye was injured it didn't penetrate the deep parts of the eye but it he probably did have his cornea affected um it This doesn't... Superficial eye injury does not mean he has no eye damage. So... We're still waiting. Yes, still waiting, but... Does he get one of those cool, like, the anime scars? Oh, if it went like... That goes across? Yeah. Like, how were those guys getting those scars in their eye? No, my eye is... They squinted. I mean, the knife came down. I blocked your sword with the thinnest part of skin on my body. Yeah.

Like, how are they getting those? They are cool. They are cool. If I do a character creation screen in a video game, I add one of those every time. If you've got deep inset eyes, you know, and it's just far and up away, I think that's what happens. The problem is people should be poking the eye. They shouldn't be slicing downward. Yeah. That's the mistake on them. All right. Where are we? It's Saturday. 49ers wide receiver updates because we need more of those. We did have a report that it's not out of the question. according to the often inaccurate San Francisco Bay reporters. I love this report. A little disrespectful, but we've been fooled by them over the years. But it does say it's not out of the question that Brandon Ayuk can play in week one. But you know what else is not out of the question? Well, landing starts on the pop. Yeah, landing on the pup is still likely. Which you know what else is not out of the question that Tom Brady plays quarterback this year? Like they are saying it's not of the question that he plays week one, but also.

He may not be allowed to play until week five. And there's no guarantee that once he's right off of the pup that he goes right on to the field. Like, do you have any idea what's going on here? San Francisco? I do. ACL MCL menis. Very, very unlikely he's there in week one. Surgery was in November. Yeah. And if he is there in week one, do not expect him to be anywhere near full strength. DeMarcus Robinson pleaded no contest this week to a misdemeanor DUI charge was sentenced to three years of probation. He also plays for the 49ers. So he'll get a... So he'll get a... What is it? Four game? He'll get something from the league. They have not ruled on it yet, but the legal likely suspend DeMarcus Robinson. So in reality, DeMarcus Robinson and Branniuk were probably both miss the first four games of the 2025 season. So the Ricky Pearsall discussions and, you know...

Whoever you like there in San Francisco in the wide receiver room for the first four weeks are going to have opportunities. And also reports that Christian McCaffrey looks healthy and, quote, so explosive. Wait, who said that? Oh, use check said that. No, wait. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's good. It's not even regular explosive. It's great to hear. It's funny because when I saw this, whatever, it's a fluff piece, but it's, you don't want to hear. that he looks bad or that he's going to be at full strength soon so this is good but you combine he looks so explosive right now with the 49ers schedule no but i mean i'm just thinking this is a team that is projected to win a lot of games be up and a lot have easy defenses man we took christian mcalfrey in the scotty fishbowl that is a large you know you've got to play against thousands of people and so

It's because you play to win. Yeah, exactly. That's the argument for Christian McCaffrey. It is not an argument that he's guaranteed to stay healthy. Correct. That would be a dumb argument. It makes no sense. We literally walked down the road of disappointment with Christian McCaffrey making these exact same arguments. Everything going into the season, the argument to draft him last year was he should be fine, he looks explosive, he looks healthy. We got a million reports. Did they say he looks explosive and looks healthy? No, no, no, genuinely, because last year it was. He's injured. Yes, that is a difference. But he went. We expect him to. No, I know. Everyone was saying he should be good to go by week one. He should be good to go by week one. But that's different. Like it was, they were saying he should be good to go by week one because he wasn't. Correct. And that's on us to be like, I don't know, man. Maybe we should have had a little bit more. We also had reports middle of the season that he was looking really good when he then missed more time due to Achilles tendinitis cropping back up. No, no. He was, that was the PCL.

He came back. Well, no, I know he had the secondary injury in the Buffalo game. I'm just talking about predating that. There was a lot of anticipation about him being okay. A lot of reports about him being okay before he missed prolonged amounts of time due to the tendinitis lasting much longer than people expected. The truth of the matter is he is and will not evade being injury risk. And he is young enough on a good enough team with enough talent and versatility to win you your league. circling back to the main point. Christian McCaffrey is a draft pick to not finish fourth. He's a draft pick to not finish third. You're not taking players hoping that they're pretty good. Not everybody where Christian McCaffrey is going can put up a season that Christian McCaffrey can do. Even if you throw out Josh Jacobs, like Josh Jacobs's best season, Christian McCaffrey's best season are very, very different. So you can take Jacobs under the guise of safety, which no player is really that safe.

Yes. So if you want to play to win the game, McCaffrey is an eligible lottery ticket that could lead you to the Scrooge McDuck vault. I think that's the biggest takeaway, Andy, is no one's safe. Nobody, nobody, no running back in the NFL is safe from injury or missing games. Nobody's safe. But you can also avoid them if you want to. Because if you don't want to go through that again, or you just went through it last year. Yeah. If you want to deal with it, the pain from a fresh face. Yes. Then just take someone else. Pain. Yeah. If you want to, like a versatile, different variant pain from some other person you can hate next year, draft somebody different. Bejohn is safe and immune from injury. Oh, my goodness. I don't even know what to do with that statement. He's playing 17, people. You guys are mad at me? You think I.

Yeah, because what do you mean are we mad at you? Who says stuff like that? Nobody just comes out and says that a certain player is fine when we didn't bring him up. Matt just hit the 17 snaps. Now you know that's going to hang over your head for every minute of this entire next category. He's fine. I'm the one over here that's like Chris McCaffrey's going to be fine. Yeah. Which side do you want to be on? Neither of your sides. My own side. All right. We will or maybe, I don't know, maybe Jamir Gibbs side. Maybe Sequin's side. I don't know. We'll go ahead and jump right in. We're going to get into our divisional breakdown right here right now. Let's get divisional. No one's talking about Bijan. No one says anything about Bijan. Out of the bushes, he goes, Boo. You said, we weren't naming names. No, but you said no player is safe. Yes. And I was letting you know there is one that is safe.

Because Saguans coming off crazy volume at 28 years old. Derek Henry's old. Devon A. Chan's undersized. Jemir Gibbs is undersized. You got a young? All caps. Kyle just said, I hate you, Jason. Al just said, shut up, Jason. Bejohn had over 300 carries. He's a young man built for it. He's fine, not scared. What was Breeze Hall? Was he a young man built for it? He was a little smaller. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Is he? Of all the dumb things you've ever said on the show, that was the dumbest. That can't be. That was the dumbest. No way. I'm looking at at least the weights that are being recorded to us, Jason. Breece Hall, 511, 217. Bejohn Robinson, 511, 215. Yeah. I'm not surprised that what he said was wrong. But one of those is a small guy. One's a really big guy built for the workload. Yeah. Same height.

I'm going to look up their weights and tell you what the real guys are. Why does that matter? None of that matters. Of course that matters. No, you can still get hurt. Of course you can get hurt. We're playing with dark magic right now, Jason. There's nothing we're talking about is rational at all. I'm just telling you he's playing 17. And you're waiting. Yeah, you keep saying 17. You wait in your ACL. I'm not saying what. Go look at weight and ACL correlation. I'm not sure that they are together. Would you say that Devon A. Chan is a bigger injury risk than Brees Hall or Derek Henry? And if so, based on what? Based on his past injury. Yeah, past injury. Oh, really? He's gotten injured before. I wonder why that small guy's gotten injured. It's not that they don't get banged up easier. It's that I don't think there's a direct correlation to snapping a knee ligament. In fact, some of the smaller, more athletic players are the ones that turn on a dime more. Hold on, hold on. I got to update you here. Here's Christian McCaffrey listed.

5-11-2-10. Christian McCaffrey's always been known as a slightly undersized back. Always. He came in at like 205. When was his first injury? How old was he? I bet he was pretty young. It was year four for him. I want to sign documents making sure I'm not held responsible for what was uttered on this show when it goes south. Sorry, Kyle. For no good reason. For no reason. We're into the AFC West. This show is about offseason changes, players that have changed teams within the division, rookies, coaches, and we'll look at the offenses, we'll look at how they can function, we'll look at our takes and the wind totals and what we think's going to happen, and answer some of the big questions about these four teams, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Denver, and Las Vegas. The Chiefs have won the AFC West nine years in a row. In fact, if you want to make it... Kyle, what was the Patriot run?

Divisional? Yeah. I want to say it was double digits for sure. I mean, like 11 to 13 is my guess. Maybe 14. Yeah. Kyle will figure that out for us. Yeah, it had to be like 14. I think it was something like that. Because they won when Brady went down. I don't know if they won the division in the castle year. I know they made the playoffs, I think, but I don't know if they won the division they are. I believe they did all. But Kyle, Kyle, you know, he's crying because of what you threw it out there in the universe about B-John right now. He should be happy. He's a Falcons fan. I just let him know good news.

From 2003, 2009, they won every year except for the castle year. Except for the castle year. Oh, okay. Yeah, so that wasn't consecutive. Kyle's told that back to us in a very. That is. So what was the longest run in that stretch? Kyle. It's looking like 10. Okay. Okay. 11. It was 11. So you got some. Oh, no. Brooks said NFL record 11 straight AFC East Division titles. Here's some stats around the, around the chiefs that are even more ridiculous. They have one AFC West loss on the road with Patrick Mahomes as a starter. He's 33 and 5 in the division. This one's the crazy one. Since he became the starter in 2018, the Chiefs have played in every single AFC title game in five of the last six Super Bowls. So it's as good as it gets. And when we talk about the 15 and 2 Chiefs, last year, they were 12 and 0 in one score games. Impossible. And so it was kind of annoying.

There were fluky games, missed field goals, block field goals. There were flukes. However, you're going to win more of your one-score games with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. That's going to- They create their own luck. They do. 72% win percentage in one-score games for the career for Mahomes. So 12-0 outlier, 15 wins, too many. They were projected to win 11.5, and this year it's 11.5. And if I was Vegas, I'd make it 11.5 every year until Patrick Mahomes retired. They do have the 27th hardest schedule. Now wait. Does that mean it's difficult? Yes. Goodness. That would make it the 27th hardest. That would make it like the fourth hardest, right? And that's how it would work. Oh man. This is a Saturday. Yeah. So, Kyle, to be clear, this is one of the worst schedules. Is that right? It is very, very hard. So that would be on a scale of hardest.

Out of 32 teams, what is it? I added hardest to help you. But you made it worse. You got it incorrect. Hardest is, it's not the 27th hardest. That would be an easy schedule. They have the 27th most difficult schedule. No, they don't. No, they don't. But you've got to set the scale. They have the fifth most difficult schedule. That's what it is. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yes. But you're fired. Yeah, can we start the show over, please? Oh my gosh, we are not here. Jason's still sweating. He just guaranteed Beauchon's healthy. We all know the chiefs are going to win the division. Look, their schedule might be hard. I don't know. Oh, my gosh. It's either really hard or real easy. Oh, my gosh. It's a difficult schedule. It would be the fifth hardest schedule. That's the truth. Oh, man. They were 12th and points per game, 19th and yards per game. It was not a special offense. The defense was special.

This is kind of the equation now with Kansas City is you look at them for fantasy options like you did in the past, and it's harder to find when your defense is that good. When you can manage the game and win, you went 15 and 2 with the 19th best yards per game offense. Yeah, this is the opposite of the Bengals. We talked about the Bengals, and one of the reason we like them so much is because they have good offensive pieces that are required to try to score 35 points to win. When you are up, and your defense is shutting the other team down. You can run. You can dink and dunk. You can do little screens, take up a lot of clock, win the game and one score games very easily. That was frustrating last year. They were probably the worst, best team of all time to watch play. Like no one enjoyed watching Chiefs games last year, and they can do it again.

Well, Chiefs fans. Yeah. Okay, sure. Don't say nobody. Well, I'm saying that no fans of football other than people that have a vested interest enjoyed that brand of football. It was not enjoyable. The Bengals have a bad defense and so they could score. So we've got to project the defense going forward this year. They've got Chris Jones back. I think their defense is going to be basically just as good as it was last year. So they can win ugly games again. They do play tougher teams. Or so we think. And the player subtractions, no more DeAndre Hopkins, Justin Watson, P. Ryan, whatever. The additions, whatever. Jew Smith Schuster. Elijah Mitchell may be. 30 going on 50. Elijah Mitchell doesn't, might not make the team. Cream Hunt will make the team. And the addition is Rishi Rice is back. Rishu Rice is back from injury. That is correct. To me, I said this many, many months ago. I do believe that Isaiah Pacheco has a path to be.

the dominant force in the backfield. At the time, we saw him come back from injury at the end of last year. He was not himself. Kareem Hunt had a big role. Kareem Hunt's a year older and a year slower. So I do think Pacheco, I'm just trying to find fantasy value on this team right now. And, yeah, Pacheco's drafted late, you know, compared to last year. I mean, Pacheco's the running back 22. There is a path. If he is healthy. Which at the end of last season, he just wasn't. He came back. He looked terrible. Kareem Hunt looked better than him. So the way that I've got to project it because around the goal line and in the passing game, Kareem Hunt was very much involved. He was involved as much or more than Pacheco down the stretch and they got all the way to the Super Bowl. So I can see them just re-rolling that. Kareem Hunt knows this system well. He's a great veteran. And even if Pacheco has a little bit more juice, they might trust Hunt more. I think it will be a split. But if Hunt, who wasn't explosive in his own right, a year older,

and a young Pacheco a year healthier, yeah, that's the pathway for Pacheco to just come out and be the workhorse that he was for two weeks to start last year. He needs it. Like Pacheco is, he's very fast. And in terms of like his running back skills of the way I look at, I think he is, he's a starting running back. I don't know that I think that Pacheco is a real special talent. So I think he would need. to get back into that. More work. Getting all that volume. But in terms of, like, the ADP is. Let me, let me test it for you. Let me give you names that are right there. He's going right at the exact same spot as another running back. They're both averaging the 606. It's Isaiah Pacheco and Aaron Jones. Oh, man. Yeah, I might not want to answer that. That. I'll probably take Aaron Jones.

I think so. If you were to go wide receiver, you could go Chris Godwin or Jerry Judy. Would you rather have Pacheco or one of those wide receivers? I mean, I like the value on Pacheco there versus wide receivers. When you're talking about the players, the running backs who are not being drafted, what running back number is he? 22. Okay. So he is slightly inside the top 24? Yeah, that's not that. That's not low enough. Andy, Andy, in the 7.09. over a full round later, you can get D'Andre Swift. Would you rather have Swift? Yeah, if they were both there at the sixth round. I'd still rather have Swift. I thought so too. Yeah, no, okay. So maybe he's not as discounted, maybe you're going to get more of a groundswell and training camp. And as of right this second, you've got Judkins, Henderson, RJ Harvey, all behind it. All right. Well, I'm sorry, I brought him up. No, no, it's a wordy conversation. I was with you. I thought we were getting to the place where Pacheco was becoming more interesting. He needs to fall a little bit.

And the team's always willing to trust less athletic guys to just fill the role. I mean, Kareem Hunt is not in peak form. Samadji P. Ryan, not peak, has had a role before. We've had different running backs in Kansas City that just kind of, I mean, Clyde had a role. Yeah, the question for the Chiefs is the passing game. And the passing game comes down to primarily Travis Kelsey. Does it now? Let's find out after this break. Sorry, we were a little late on the break, Jay. You were talking about the passing game and that is going to come down primarily to Travis Kelsey. So Travis Kelsey has always had a 24 to 700,000 percent market share of this offense. Even last year, now granted, Rushie Rice went down to injury and, you know, he's still in a down year. His usage was really good, 24% of the targets last year. However, those first...

three weeks when Rushie Rice was playing, 15% of the targets, 14% of the targets, 14% of the targets. We've never seen Travis Kelsey around there. The rest of the season when Rushie Rice was gone, that's when he was up at 26% of targets the rest of the way. So I, you know, I think you've got to project him first to know how much is left for Rushie Rice, for Xavier Worthy. Is it just going to be... All of these guys, Hollywood Brown, and there's really no value to be here. They're not going to have to score a lot of points because of their great defense check out. Or Travis Kelsey takes us to, you know, just a demotion in the packing order, and Rushie Rice is a star. Or Xavier Worthy, who broke out the second half of last year as a rookie fastest man in the NFL with Patrick Mahomes. Now, maybe they're talking about airing it out downfield. Who are you putting your chips on? I'm going with Rishi Rice. Looking at the receiver room.