Fantasy Football - Week 1 Hype + Changing Opinions, Undrafted Gems - Podcast for 9/2

Philadelphia, the champs on the road on Thursday night to open the season. If you do that, oh my gosh. But they did not do that. He will walk down the street and the pimp coat. When I walk in the gas station and I buy all my lotto tickets, I'm like, if I win, I will be king. But guess who's not going to win? This is the NFL. It happens all the dang time. There's a reason I haven't almost upset every week. And it never makes no, no, I'm not doing it. I thought about it. I thought about it and I'm not doing it. No, no, I don't believe in it. But we get surprised every week. We'll be surprised this week. I promise. Sure. All right, but maybe not on Thursday. So I'll go Devante Smith officially. Jason, you'll go DJ more. I will. And Mike, you split the difference. I would. I'd play Smith. All right. Logan in Charlotte, North Carolina, should we finally allow doubtful status to be IR eligible?

Chris Godwin's situation being the example. This would be a way to solve a lot of the annoyance of certain moments on platforms where a player has not been declared officially out, but you know they're not going to play. There are a lot of situations that you know that. The team has come out and set it, but maybe they didn't formally make the move. They're asking about doubtful VO. You can turn that on on Sleepers. Yes, you can't. That's, I don't mind it. I don't mind having that. It's not like if the guy's active, you'd have to cut somebody else. Exactly. So I think it's fine to allow that. It gives, there are so many situations where even a player is announced, like he is going to IR or he is out this week. Right. But then the team doesn't make the transaction for another day or so. And you're just waiting. So I don't mind that. I think I would, I would allow this. If it came up for vote in our league, I would say. Can I.

Can I share my favorite moment from the draft that you just reminded me of? Sure. My favorite moment of last night, we have a time before the draft where people can bring up different rules and moments that, or sorry, rules and things for the league, and you can bring them up to vote. And so every year we've had a few things is how we got rid of kickers one year, and that's how we added league median scoring. And I just got to give a shout out to the moment of the draft for me, which was Jason Moore, he silenced everybody down. We had whatever, 20 people. He said, hush now. He said, I've got a couple of things to bring up. Important votes. And he's been thinking about this. He knows. I had a, I had a Slack notification reminder that went off yesterday. I didn't know that. Six months earlier, two big things I wanted to.

bring up to vote league changes that are impactful well here's why i'll i'll say what the vote what what i argued yesterday uh-huh is that safeties right yeah in fantasy football for you for your dst should not be two points i mean you get in the actual game you get two points then you get the ball it's like an interception moment an interception is two points So a pick six, you get two points for the interception. Right. And then your DST scored, so you also get the six points. Exactly. So I felt like two points for a safety is absurd. And so I wanted to move it to three points. Yeah. And then in the middle of you kind of sharing your. Uh-huh.

you know you looked up you were you knew that the vote was going to pass oh i said what this is right so you you pull it up because you're the commission and you were like going to go already and change that in this in the system and then you saw that in our league safety's worth four points they're already worth four points so i knew i was i almost nerfed it you withdrew your your uh suggesting real quick yeah yeah i did pass another one though We now get a point for a stop on fourth down. That's a cool one to bring up. Yeah, when your defense stops the opposing team going for it on fourth down, we're awarding a point this year. It is a turnover. Yeah, I, I'm like 80% of the way fully on board there. I guess I don't really have context for how many times it happens in a game. Not much. Probably not a lot, right? Maybe one or two times max.

It really depends on... I guess it's kind of tough. Are you playing the lions? Well, it's... Yeah, one of the teams that goes. It's the fourth and short. It's goal line stands. Mm-hmm. And then it's also desperation, right? Right. End of half type stuff. Now, would it count as a fourth down stop? If you're on fourth down with like five seconds left in the half and you throw a Hail Mary? That'd be a fourth down probably, right? Yeah. So there's some nuance there, I think, that I might not be a count of four. Because you didn't pick up the first down, you're saying? We will beta test it for the people.

And we'll let you know if, like, defenses are getting five extra points a week. That was my worry. But, of course, Kyle says he'll just look up the data. Okay, Kyle. All right. Nerd. Let's jump into another voicemail question. Hey, ballers. This is Dr. Fumbles. I just got done with my draft. And I want to look at my projections. And it's got me projected for last place. I got all the good players, Marian Hanson, maybe on Henderson, Golden. Abuka, Josh Allen. Is there anything I can do to change it from me being last place? That was four rookies. That was four rookies. I saw a team. Yeah, that would be why you're projected for last, I would imagine, because whatever system you're in, you can't, like properly projecting a rookie is difficult. You know, like Trayvion Henderson is right now the backup. Ramande is probably the starter for a few weeks, if not the whole season.

So how do you like properly say, no, the RB2 is just so much better. He's going to weigh outscore his projections. Don't even worry about that. Also, Dr. Fumbles is a fabulous name. Fantastic name. It's also how you may have been ranked last as well. Right. I will say this. Somebody sent me a note this week and they said, one of my teammates drafted all rookies and was bragging to everybody. And we all made fun of them. And I, and he showed the roster. I was like, he's starting Gentie and Hampton. Then he's got. you know, Egbuka, Tet McMillan, Matthew Golden. He's got Tyler Warren at tight in. I'm going, this team. That's a pretty good team. Now, I also think you put like, Cam Warden. And I was like, that's where I go a different direction. But it was like, you can draft all rookies right now and probably be in really good shape. This, if you're going to do it, this is the year to do it. Also, RJ Harvey and the flex. I don't know where you got the draft grade, whether you, if you're using the draft analyzer.

be a little bit more worried. If it's on the platform, I feel like if a platform itself gives you a good post-draft grade, you did a bad job. Yeah, the post-draft grade doesn't matter. Not at all. It helps you if it gives you analysis. Like that's why we built an analyzer that doesn't just give you a grade. It's more about like how you can improve your team. But if it's just a grade, I mean, we all want to be graded high. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We all want the... The zero and zero record victory lap. Don't worry about it. Matt in Canada riding in. Which part of Canada are we talking about? He says bonjour. Oh, wow, bonjour. Okay. Why is the fantasy community so eerily quiet on Justin Herbert? He's a year removed from being a monster hype pick. Seems healthy, stud young running back, quality receiving options. What am I missing? He did go on our draft yesterday.

Do you feel like the fantasy community is eerily quiet or appropriately quiet? I think it's eerily quiet. When I look at the opportunity for a really successful fantasy season, the addition of Keenan Allen, Quentin Johnson being back, Ladd in year two, a more capable running back in the receiving game, there are clear and obvious ways how it works. for Herbert. He's one of those guys that in most single quarterback leagues I see he has not drafted. And I always wonder if that's a big mistake. If you should even just scoop him up as a second quarterback, keep him in case he ends up with a breakout season. Because he has the capabilities. He is a quality. I think we all just worry. It's all just we worry about Harbaugh and too much running and all of that.

He's a great quarterback with great weapons. Pure pastor, I think a lot of people would say like Joe Burrow. Some people think Joe Burrow is the best pure quarterback. Herbert is in the conversation as best throwers of the football in the NFL. Yes. So it's all the periphery, right? If you put, if you took Justin Herbert and you swapped him and Joe Burroughs situations, Justin Herbert would be a top draft pick. Yes, I agree. But we've just been like. It's been since 2021. That's when Justin Herbert was the last great for fantasy football. I mean, you know, in 2023, he only played 13 games. He was at 17.9 points per week. I was trying to go look up where that way. Points per week. Nice. It's right. Yeah, but I've never heard it before. Points per game. So, I mean, it's just that I think that's the issue is it's been so long since he has really.

giving you anything of value and then on the when a team takes a running back in the first round it they're saying what they want to be yeah okay um great question from uh twitter here how do you recover from a terrible in all caps draft andy why don't you answer um well i do it every year so you draft you draft terribly every year Well, I mean, did I dress a crap for breakfast? Did I draft terribly? Let me go. Answer that question. Did I draft terribly? Or did I have a terrible draft class? You had a terrible draft. I, okay. Like, I didn't have, I didn't mess up a pick in the second, third, fourth, fifth, six rounds. No, you couldn't. You didn't. So every year I do this. Every year I sell picks and I come back. Can't miss if you don't shoot, Wayne Gritzky. I come back. I just, look, you can make fun of it all you want.

but I didn't have picks to make. So my draft class sucks. And every single year, I'd come back and do it. Last year, I had a similarly horrible draft class. I played Al in the title game. What you have to do is recognize the fact that, you know, like Mike said at the top, the season can be broken down into chunks. What did I do last night? I tried to buy like the first few weeks of the season. You're buying some time. J.K. Dobbins is going to start. Nick Chubb's going to start, right? Debo Samuel's probably going to have his best weeks.

to start the year i'm gonna figure it out after that right i'm not i'm not i wasn't looking to and then i stacked a bunch of rookies of the back which is like okay so i got the old man at the front rookies at the back and guess what i got fab to spend i got picks from next year to trade that's how i'm gonna figure it out but i think this question is more related to tilt it's more related to hey i felt like the draft as it was going i made bad picks i didn't feel like i made the right picks i started it started to snowball and that happens

And then you're like, oh, crap, I'm screwed. No, you're not. No, you're not. Because every ranking that we have, shocker, it's going to be, not many of them are going to be right. That's our best opportunity. That's our best projection. Yeah, you just got to take your time. Zoom, like don't zoom out. Zoom in one week at a time and just be really aggressive on the waiver wire. And if you stick through the season, like so many managers. a month in, especially two months in, they start to check out a lot more. Sure. And so matchups, injuries happen. If they're not active on the waiver wire, I find that, you know, when you're getting to weeks five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, some of your matchups get easier if your opponents have kind of checked out a little bit. So just don't be the one that checks out and it will get easier as you go along. Absolutely. But yeah, Nick Chub, baby. All right.

It would be a story for the NFL this season. If Nick Chub could look anything like he used to look, it would be so awesome. The odds would feel low, but it would be everyone would celebrate. Like literally everyone. We all love Nick Chubb. What are the implications of Mixing if he doesn't play? If he doesn't play, Chubb or Pierce are going to be the bell count on a team that's projected to win the division. So you take your shot. I mean, that's all you can do. Yeah. All of the ambiguous backfield situations, that's what you do. Judkins. You need Nick Chub to have something because with that offensive line, you have to be able to break some tackles. Yep, yep, absolutely. Or Nico Collins is going to be the number one overall fantasy wide receiver. That is also a possibility. Jaden Higgins could awake. Yeah, he could. Maybe. Or C.J. Shack will be on his back most of the season. You'll find out. And, I mean, if you want to talk undrafted gems real quick,

Jaden Higgins is very exciting. It's the second round pick. Christian Kirk is a vet who has gotten it done. Who's a starter? Many times, and it is a starter, probably out there on two wide receiver sets. And I mean, you know, my diatribe of Nick Chub being back, it would be an awesome story. I just don't, I don't know that I believe it can happen. So they're going to have to throw. And Christian Kirk is going to be the, he'll be up in the pecking order before Jaden Higgins is allowed to. a chance for his breakout. Yeah, Stefan Diggs at the beginning of last year was a very valuable fantasy ass and he's playing the exact same role. Instagram question, Laudino, well, we'll get to it right after this break. You'll have to do the math. I'll put it that way. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right can get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on prize picks where it's good to be right.

Look, prize picks is the best way to win cash this football season, which players are going off, which ones are not. Make your picks in less than 60 seconds and turn your takes into cash all season long on prize picks. They also invented the flex play, which means you can still cash out even if your lineup isn't perfect. You can double your money, even if one of your picks doesn't hit. Prize picks is the best place to win cash while watching sports. Join millions of users and sign up today. Download the app today and use code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. It's good to be right. Foot Clan draft day is on the way. You got your rankings. You got those sleepers. You got you can't miss picks. But you know what? You need sometimes.

a backup because well even the best fantasy football team in the world doesn't go according to plan sometimes those starters they don't show up wouldn't it be great if you could have the same peace of mind everywhere else with progressive you get more than just a policy you get a playbook full of coverage options you can count on for your home and for your auto want to customize your protection no problem you can build your coverage just like your fantasy team making sure that you have the right players in every position and a backup when you need it most And when life throws an audible like a fumble in the driveway or a hailstorm at home, Progressive is there with 24-7 support. Don't get caught without a great backup. Visit progressive.com to quote today. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates, and third-party insurers. Not available in all states or situations. Coverage subject to policy terms, limits and conditions. All right, back at it into the mailbag. Laudino writes in, hey, ballers, how many leagues are you in this year? Oh, gosh.

I love the show. We have been asked this question every year. I've always been more proud to say, hey, we keep it, we keep it tight, right? Like we really got away from us. Yeah, it really did. I think I'm in nine. I think I'm in nine and that's, that would be the conservative answer. I am in eight and I don't want to be in that many. One's a basketball. I'm in 10. One's a, a lot of them are dynasties. One's a chop league. So I'm hoping to get chopped real early. But we keep it down to a handful of high priority leagues because we want to have the same level of dedication, commitment, passion with specific teams and players. So we're relating to you. It's the care. And I like people ask, oh, how do I know if I'm in too many leagues? Number one is when Tuesday shows up, you go, ugh.

If you make that sound because you know how many waivers you have to go take care of, you're in too many leagues. Or on Sunday, if you literally don't know who to root for because everyone I root for is rooting against myself at the exact same time, then you're probably in too many leagues as well. Yeah. No, I love that as the simplest answer. If you unwavered air like, oh my gosh. Yeah. Which, if you're in too many leagues. The ultimate dashboard, our tool for our in-season is... Very helpful. It really, really helps that situation. Well, one of the questions that we got, I put a Twitter post about, like, do you enjoy your ultimate foot claim membership and what are some tools that you enjoy and things like that? And it got a lot of great answers, good feedback, but way too many people saying, can you expand the team cap? So I think there are more like...

Oh, man. More people out there that... You degenerates. Maybe they get to waver wire with 25 teams and they go, oh yeah. Maybe. We'll find out. All right. Easy question here. Maybe. Maybe you already have it in your head. It comes from YMV on X. Who are you most excited or worried to see the first two weeks, Mike? Is that... Could it be one name? It's Kenneth Walker. For both? Yes. It's Kenneth Walker of... What does... Who you did not snag yesterday, and you thought you were going to do it. I thought I was slotted for him, and then the first round did not go the way that I mocked or the way that I thought it was going to go. A bit of a bummer, but, you know, these things happen. Because for Ken Walker, everything is, is he really healthy? Is the rest plan worked for him? And what does the actual timeshare look like? Because it could...

It could legit be 50-50. And even if it is 50-50, I'm still think that Ken Walker is going to be a great pick. But that's the question is how great? How great could it be if Ken Walker stays healthy with the new blocking scheme and everything? A couple of fun facts from Mike's draft last night. One, doesn't have Ken Walker. Two, does have Zach Charbonnet. I do. And three, had so many picks and drafted well. which is a real problem that's which is a real problem for our league we're back baby yeah he um he drafted very well the draft fell to him properly and he maneuvered and it's it's really unfortunate because um hey one man's good draft means other people drafted poorly too so yeah i think you probably had had all my picks all right uh let's go ahead and turn the page here

MSJ writes in, is Jaden Reed worth dropping for a receiver on the waiver wire, for example, Isaac to Slaw? No, I'd still, I love Tesla, I love the upside, but that is still a, that feels like a longer term type of a play. You're going to be stashing him and trying to see what happens. Jaden Reed, I'm terrified. I don't, the people who said Reed is off my board, I don't, that doesn't bother me because it's going to be. It will be every single week of Wednesday is going to show up. Jaden Reed is not practicing Thursday. Jaden Reed is resting today. And then you're like, oh gosh, please give me a limited practice on Friday and he'll do that and then try and go play. It'll be a week-to-week heart attack for you to know if you can actually rely on Jaden Reed. And it's like you're going to have to make all these contingent plans just in case. But then if Reed plays, you're going to play him.

So he's tough. He fell very, very far in our draft last night. I remember being on the clock and being like, do I want to draft him with this foot issue? And I did not. See? Well, because I think you just, my brain goes to this ceiling season is gone now. That's how it feels. Yeah. Because we've already dealt with Jane Reed being like weirdly hurt every week. And it was his foot at times. So this issue. I guess he just misplayed the recovery because if you were needing surgery on this, you would have done it a long time ago and been ready for the season. Yeah, perhaps. And just tried a... His ADP was already like very low. So, I mean, the fantasy community was kind of over the, like understanding what he is as a player, but we're over the, you know, oh, he explodes week one and three and then he just vanishes. Are you trapped with him in Dynasty? I don't think you're trapped.

Because I think he'll still have a good career, but this year might just be one that you get to throw away. Super. All right. This question's great. Jason, think about it. Who is a guy that you may have been on the fence about or weren't in love with, but now that you drafted him to your League of Record team, you are now behind him 100%. I know my. You know your? I know my answer, yeah. All right. Who's yours? It's Andy's fantasy MVP, D.K. Metcalf. Oh, man. That is so funny. He's going to be so great guys. You're a bunch of idiots for not drafting him. When you picked him. It's going to be so good. I felt a little bit of joy inside. When you took him, I was like, you know, he is listening. Maybe the targets, guys. Oh, he's all about it. Kyle Pitts. That's right. You took Kyle Pitts.

For me, it's DAC. Like, I'm fully invested. I got the DAC. But you didn't doubt him before. Well, I didn't really draft guys I didn't like. I mean, I would say. That's fair. Let me look at this roster. Pitman comes to mind. That was different. You took him head of downs. I did. Yeah. By rounds. I tried. I kept trying to trade back because I knew I didn't need to like, you know. You drafted. No one wants Pittman. Oh, I got one for you. Okay. I definitely have one for you. You drafted almost exclusively your guys. Right. Except. keon coleman oh okay that's a good one yeah always gonna be great you dude he's gonna be sensational year two leap i mean alpha true doll yeah you've always said it from what i remember yeah that's the only name on there that i mean everybody else on your entire team i feel like we're scataboo they were true jason picks yeah cedric tilman yeah now are you a pick short

No, I grabbed Marshawn Lloyd with the last pick, so I threw him on the IR. Oh, okay. He's going to clog that IR. He's going to think we have roster cloggers who just sit on your bench. Like, there's nothing I do with this. Marshaun Lloyd's is going to destroy you that you can't put your hurt players on the IR. We have two IRs. Oh, thank goodness. You have one all year. Yeah, one Lloyd slot and one one open slot. All right. Let's close here. Matt wants to know because people want it over here, Mike, but. for the fantasy hitman himself what is the what is the dip recipe yes i need to kick the weekend off with the mike fantasy hitman special dip i should have tweeted it out but uh so one serving size of the dip which it's probably good for a couple people so you might want to double it but the the portions are a half pound of i go with the sweet italian sausage some people like uh going with the spicy all you you brown that up real real easy

And then you get a crock pot and you throw in a block of Philly cream cheese. Don't skimp on the cream cheese. Don't go generic brand. Get the good stuff. And then one can of Rotel. And I don't, you can drain it if you want. I don't drain it. I just go one can in. Put the meat and the cream cheese in there. It's very easy to make. And it is very delicious. All right, that is going to do it for the Tuesday episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. It's a great time to click that follow button on Spotify, on Apple, wherever you're listening, that subscribe button on YouTube. The season about to kick off, and we'd love to be here with you all the way to the end. So please hang out with us, hang out with that champ over there, Inducers Ali Al Borland, who... Where's the trophy?

Gets a few final. It's still in the warm room out there. A few final moments. Go ahead and throw that picture back up, Al. Let's see it. I'm sure you've got it. Just, yeah, look at the champ. Boy, it was well done. Savor it. Savor it because it won't be there for long. All right. That'll do it for today's show. Get into the Megalobole. A couple draft slots left. Megalibol.com. We'd love to have you there with us. Over 20,000 in the Mega Bowl right now. We'll catch you tomorrow. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast.