Free Agent Predictions + Combine Reactions! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 3/5

Free agency is almost here, and we are going to get you prepared. We're going through all the top NFL free agents and making our predictions where we think they're going to go. You don't want to miss a minute. Make sure you subscribe and enjoy the show. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Tuesday, March 5th.

The fantasy football is back with you. Mike Wright, Jason Moore. I'm Andy Holloway. Hope you enjoyed a bonus episode of this show. We dropped a draft episode on Saturday morning. Sure did. Had a nice time. Jason was, he did a live best ball draft, and we commentated the draft itself and talked about the picks he made and the picks that were being made throughout the draft, and there were some surprises. And it was a good time. Mm-hmm. But, you know. Talked about how the, the, the, the, the push was not going to be changed and about how Jason Kelsey had not yet officially retired. Right. Until now, he did today. We'll see how well that tush gets pushed now. Yeah. No, that's actually a, we get to find out. That's a good point. He might have been the secret sauce in all of that.

But hopefully you enjoyed that show. Make sure you're subscribed over on YouTube. That way you get the notifications if we drop something secret like that. Go to YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballer. Subscribe. Click the bell. Make sure you are notified. And we do have a winner. Can I get like a... Whoa! I need like an announcement sound, right? Perfect. That's what we want. The trumpeters book. Yeah, we got that. That was almost in stereo. That was like the trumpeter combine. And then, working. And then was that Jared Goff? Yeah, that's the, that's the, the, the golf horn. Well, I thought we, do we, we probably have a horn without Jared Goff. I hit it. Yeah, that's the one I hit. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Congratulations to the winner of the listener league spot. Anybody that pre-ordered the UDK before March 1st.

actually up and up through the end of the day March 1st you were entered to win and Jordan K Jordan K congratulations you have won a listener league spot to come play with us and this is the first official I guess the second official member right has Jordan K been messaged no All right, well, let's message Jordan Kay. He will be by the time this show hits. Okay, that's all, that's all I meant was like, people, look, there's Jordans out there. Yeah. There's probably some Jordan Kay's out there. Yeah. And they're real excited. And one of them's a winner. Yeah. So we'll send that message to you, but thank you to everybody that participated. Hopefully you're enjoying the ultimate draft kit, the Utica Plus with the Dynasty Pass. We have a post-combine update coming very soon. We had the NFL Combine this weekend.

And that leads us into our quick question, which was like, what was the big takeaway for you about a specific player or a reaction you had to the NFL players that did participate in the combine? Sure. Yeah, I'll start us off because I think it is the headliner. It's not necessarily the most impactful, but it's always the most fun and the most watched of it is the 40. And when the all time. NFL record for the 40-yard dash is beat. That is the most fun story. But we're talking about Xavier Worthy. He ran a 4-2-1. We knew he was fast. He ran a 4-2-5, and people were saying, hey, hey, dude, you're good. Take the shoes off. Don't have a chance of having a worse one. He's like, no, I want the record. Went back out there, beat the record, ran a 4-2-1. But his teammate,

Adonai Mitchell, both the Texas wide receivers, was he 435? I mean, and he's a big boy. So those, the weight training program for Texas is, they're doing some good work. It was a very DK Metcalf comparable run. Am I remembering that right? Yep, you are. From a size perspective, that was one of the fastest runs. They're very similar in size. I think Metcab was 435 and Mitchell was 434 or something like that. So both Texas wide outs blazing. Really the entire wide receiver class, I believe this is the fastest average. You know, we've talked them up quite a while now about what a good wide receiver class this is. There is, you know, last year and for a couple of years it's been a bunch of 80-bitty baby boys. And we haven't really had the classic X.

six-foot to 6-2-200-pound receiver archetype, and there's a handful of them this year. Yeah, I mean, for me, it was Ladd-McConkie. He has been a darling, a favorite in terms of, you know, he's been pretty high on my rookie board even before the combine, but then he came out and ran a 4-3-4. Was that? I think it was a 4-3-4. He ran a, I thought he was point one faster than Garrett Wilson was. Let's see. I'll just double check. Double check that for me. It could be 435. I don't remember. But great combine from McConkey looked great in the gauntlet. 439. Oh, 439. Yeah, that's where I was saying. He was in the 4-3s. I was happy to see that. But size speed-wise, very similar to, you know, you can look up the metrics of what he did at the combine versus what Garrett Wilson did at the combine.

and the physical stature is identical. And you watch six foot 186. You watch the gauntlet drill. And it's just, you know, you want to see how guys catch. The gauntlet drill, I think, is probably far more important than the 40-yard dash because they're actually doing a little bit of football. And it's just like thoughtless, easy grab and release this ball as he's running full speed. He just looks so fluid as an athlete. I give Andy full credit on being first to the Ladd-McConkie party, but I am, I am a believer. Yeah, I welcomed you in the door a long time ago. Gary Wilson was a 4-38, McConkey was a 4-39. So it's neat to see, I think, if he goes to the right situation. That's worth saying, like before we get to Mike's takeaway. Yeah, of course. This is an exciting time to watch these players on display, all of the hype around the draft. But these...

These players don't have teams yet. And I just want to stress how significant the landing spots and draft capital are going to be and how significant our changes will be in terms of the rookie rankings. And in terms of where we think these players are going to contribute for fantasy, it's going to change so much based on, you know, we've been talking about the running back room. There's five to six running backs right now where legitimately at least four or five that could go. first running back overall. The destination is going to matter tremendously. Whether these guys are third round or later picks or do they, does somebody sneak into the second round? You know, those are going to make big differences and we'll be reacting and modifying so you can do the same. Mike, your takeaway? It was, for me, it selfishly is Trey Benson related running back that we've shared on this show that we like this guy and he was.

Kind of the, I had watched Corum and Jonathan Brooks, like, they're fine prospects. And I know there's, you know, out in mock drafts. Like Jonathan Brooks, it seemed, he was, unfortunately tore his ACL. So he's recovering from that from last season. But Jonathan Brooks is like this, a lot of people's number one running back. And people love Blake Quorum out of Michigan. And I watched them both. I'm like, you know. They're good players. I think they'll make an impact. And then Trey Benson's tape immediately to me was, this is, now this is a player I can get behind of falling in love with. The guy's speed is great. He looks like he's a good size running back as well and has a good production profile. And then he weighed in at 6 foot 216 and he ran a 4-3-9. Yeah, maybe. So, I mean, that is a, for that size, that is incredibly fast. So it was, it was exciting to see

a player you were already falling in love with. And it's kind of like Lab McConkey of their, their stock went up after the combine. We still got to see what happens with the draft, but they are now on the ascension. So it's, it's always fun to see that happen with these players. Well, speaking to Benson and Corum and all the running backs, we've got a free agency prediction show today, which really is a running back free agent prediction show in a lot of ways because I've got news I'm going to talk about in a minute. closing the door on another free agent-wide receiver in their opportunity to hit the market. But it'll be interesting whether the teams that were predicting to land these free agent running backs go with the rookie or they go with one of these available free agents. You know, we can talk about Blake Corum and Jim Harbaugh and whether that comes together and whether, you know, a team like the Ravens decides to go with the free agent running back.

Or they finally, you know, go back to the draft after losing J.K. Dobbins and going through retreads, like do they finally go in on a guy like whatever, Trey Benson or somebody? So that is coming up momentarily, but quickly some news for you. News and notes from around the league. Well, somebody got paid. Mike Evans and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally reached an agreement. Two years, $52 million, $35 million guaranteed locks Mike Evans for year 31, year 32 in Tampa. It's a lot of money. It should be encouraging to those of you that have Mike Evans in a dynasty league. You're going to get at least another, I think, highly productive year, you know, $35 million guaranteed in this deal. And then it'll probably have a decent year the following season. So.

quarterback not situated in Tampa right now, but Mike Evans is coming off one of his statistically best seasons ever. And I think Tampa might have lost some money not paying him last year. Yeah, I mean, he just needed to get rid of that Tom Brady guy so you could go out there and score some touchdowns, am I right? That is, it is funny because it's like, obviously there were meetings last year. And Mike Evans and the Buccaneers didn't come together. And Mike Evans is like, no, I'm going to just, I'm going to go play. And then they're like, you know you don't have Brady, right? And he's like, no, I'm going to go play. And then he's just that good. Is he so good that he cost them money on Baker too? Like did Mike Evans make Baker look great again? And then it's like, okay, now you got to pay him to. I don't think Mike Evans signs this deal with Tampa Bay without the assurances that Baker's back. I genuinely believe that. I think Baker will be back that is just.

an assumption. Mike Evans got the PR team out this weekend and was like, I'm not playing for anybody but an elite quarterback and then comes back to Tampa Bay 15 minutes later. It certainly would help Baker to come back. Imagine being Baker where you're like, I have, I have resurrected my career from the ashes. And the buck's like, well, coming back. We're not, we're not going to have Mike Evans, but you should come back here. No, thank you. You got Trey Palmer. And Trey Palmer had one of the more productive rookie seasons that's kind of under the radar for fantasy players. And, you know, pretty good situation there. Another piece of news, we were just talking about this tight end on the Saturday live draft. Darren Waller is, quote, still undecided on whether or not he will continue to play or will opt to retire. Hmm.

Well, I hope you play, Darren Waller, because I drafted you. 32 years old, I believe. Is that where we are? It's just good to know if you are doing drafts right now that he's TBD. Still under contract for three more years. He is not yet 32. He's 31.5. Have you transitioned to your own age now being in the point in the month? I haven't. because I'm not a superstar athlete. Oh, okay. Because I'm sitting at 39. Right. Point. Yeah, but you want to. 11. It's better for you to just be like 39. That's right. It's just a mystery. When, when are you 40? And you're like, well, it's actually real soon. And you'd be like, where are you at now? 41. Okay. Just making sure. Point zero. Yeah. Point zero because your birthday was yesterday. Yesterday. 29.9.9.

Brooksie, do we have any other news? Papa Josh, you got anything for us? There was, it's not necessarily the most fantasy-related news. I mean, it could be with the tush-bush, but Jason Kelsey of the Philadelphia Eagles did officially announce his retirement, a beloved character among the NFL. Watching what he's going to do now will be very fun because I think the job opportunities for Jason Kelsey are going to be. just flying in the door. Yeah. Yeah. This weekend was the first time I'd heard a rumor of him going to Kansas City to play with his brother. I don't think it's happening. And he's now retired. But that idea really did spark the imagination. But they've taken over the world already. Yeah. He's going to keep that legacy in Philadelphia. Okay. We'll take a quick break. We'll come back with our free agency predictions.

Should be a lot of fun watching where some big names land this off season. All right. Before we jump in, did I, it's 31.5, right? Like that is the age for Mike Evans. Okay. So translate that. 31 and a half. So then. That's six months. That's six month. Yeah. Okay. There's no. There's no. Point 11. Yeah. It's point. It's percentage. Correct. Just making sure. Now we can move on. Pre-agent frenzy. All right. By the way, apparently I was the champion of the free agent predictions last year. You did it. Which equated to, I did look this up, it equated to three correct free agent predictions. It's pretty hard to nail these. I think if we're wanting to go for just the highest score, we should just predict them to go back to their team. Yeah, yeah. But I'm going for glory. I'm really, really happy for running backs this year.

Because the universe is lined up very nicely. We're going to go through these positions. And there are a lot of running back free agents of note. And there are no wide receiver virtually, very few notable wide receiver free agents. But the draft class this year is chock full of nonstop high end, highly rated wide receiver prospects. And. not a ton of people excited about running backs. So it's like the first time in, as long as I can remember, that I feel like maybe running backs actually have a market in free agency from NFL teams. And they're not just going to go, I'm just going to draft a rookie and be cheap. Some of these guys might actually get paid this year. I can preview our mock draft that we're going through post-combite and nine of the 12 picks are wide receivers in the first round. So to your point.

Either of you guys want to talk briefly about some of the lingo and the language around the cap. Sure. I'll jump in just a couple of vocab words, if you're not familiar. Things like cap hit, which a player's cap hit is not necessarily how much they're being paid that year, but how much they will count against the salary cap. And that's more of a complicated thing of your bonus structure, how much you're paid per game. And so there's a formula to figure all that out. Dead money is when a team has moved on from a player or that it, but they had some guaranteed money that's left on the contract. So it's still, yeah, because of that formula I talked about with the cap hit of, you can't just give a player a gigantic signing bonus. And then be like, no, you don't get to.

count against the cap next year, just the way that all the deals are structured. And then some important dates of note. Today is the franchise tag deadline. So there could be some news that we unfortunately miss with that. Next Monday is the legal tampering, the worst named thing of all time. Its teams are permitted to enter contract negotiations with free agents. Whenever I hear that, it reminds me of the movie The Purge. It's like you just get like a certain amount of time to do something. There are no rules. They do something illegal for a, because tampering by definition is like a wrong. It's like a wrong thing to do. Yeah, just contract negotiations open. They're able to talk to players. Oftentimes they get announcements, but the pin is into the paper. Negotiating window. That's what it should be called. It's just a free agency negotiating window. Legal tampering. And then.

Wednesday the 13th, so next Wednesday, that is when the league year opens for 2024. Free agency begins. People will start signing contracts. All these dudes will be making tons of cash. We will be recording next Tuesday's episode that morning so that we have all the information possible from the negotiating window. Right. And so we'll jump in. We'll talk about some of the deals that have already been reached. We'll start hearing about them on Monday. And just another thing before we jump into our predictions, which are mostly running backs. The cap space situation right now, I just wanted to read the teams with the most cap space in the NFL. The commanders are number one, 96 million. The Patriots at 91 million, Titans at 80 million, bears at 79, Colts at 73, Texans at 70. Then the Lions with 54 million in cap space, that's kind of... It's impressive. Yeah, I mean, when you think about...

These are not playoff teams. Houston was. Detroit was. Cincinnati at 52 million, Cardinals of 51, and the Raiders at 47. So those are the only two playoff teams, right? The Colts? The Colts, I think they had like the- They missed out. Yeah, it was them versus the Texans for the final week for the playoffs. So, yeah, but three competitive teams last year with lots of space. We will. We'll go to the quarterback position. It may be for but a minute. But the two names now that will make predictions for Kirk Cousins, are any of us detouring from him returning to Minnesota? I went through the league to look at like who would go after, in my opinion, all these teams should be trying to sign Kurt. I think a lot of people are going to. But it just seems like the teams that are clear and obviously in need of a quarterback.

They're at the top of the draft and able to acquire one. So at that point, you go, okay, what teams are left? And I do think he returns to the Vikings. The Vikings don't want to lose him. They don't have another good option if he goes elsewhere. He has roots there now, likes the franchise, has great weapons. Jefferson, about to sign a $30 million per season type of deal. For me, if I was the Falcons, I would go so hard after Kirk Cousins. That's where that's like I, that's what I would do. But they keep talking about they want youth. They want someone young. They have just. Inferior. Right. It's like what is, how is younger better if the player's worse? Washington came up this weekend, which obviously Kirk Cousins was in Washington before.

But we all have Minnesota down as the destination. Is that the summary? Yeah, but it's going to be wild. And then Baker Mayfield, the resurgent season, gets Mike Evans back in Tampa. Jason and I both have Tampa as the destination. Mike, are you trying to be spicy here? Just a little bit. I'm just more wanted to bring up because I put down the Falcons for Baker Mayfield. The Mike Evans signing probably points to that Baker will be back. but just wanted to briefly talk about, so Caleb Williams, the presumed overall number one pick by the Chicago Bears or whoever has the number one pick, did not, he didn't do anything at the combine. And in that was he didn't do medical testing for anyone at the combine, and he will do that on an individual basis of teams as they can make their certain allotment of individual visits. And I thought that was interesting of, well, now,

at this point with free agency opening up next week. The Falcons were a, there was a pretty hot tweet that came out that said, it's basically done of Justin Fields traded to the Atlanta Falcons. Can, like, can the Bears really do that right now if you haven't done a full medical testing on Caleb Williams? Like, you can't trade away the guy who right now is your franchise QB for a player that, what if, Just what if? What if some crazy red flag popped up in Kayla's medicals? And you had already traded away your quarterback. So just trying to do all those puzzle pieces. That does make sense, Mike. I hadn't thought about that at all with the medical. And the pieces of that being, well, Atlanta then can't trade for him. But if you're going to go get someone like Baker, you just, you have to do it. You have to do it next week. So it was just more just to bring up the scenario of.

The stuff with Kirk Cousins and Baker is wild. And now I think it is kind of getting some ripple effect of teams don't know for sure that Caleb Williams is 100% good to go. One of the reasons the free agent predictions and the draft predictions are so difficult is because there is that cascading effect of getting one wrong. You get one person in one place wrong and it trickles down to all the others so often. So let's turn to the priority. predictions here, which is the running back position, because we have significant big names. Sequan, Jacobs, Henry, Echler, Pollard, Swift. Those are the six that we're going to predict here. But before- There's so many more, too. There really are. I mean, you have Dobbins coming off the ACL, who's a free agent, Antonio Gibson, finding a new home Singletary, who was effective. Zach Moss, who had a great start to the year. Yeah, there are some names out there. Alexander Madison's out there, guys.

Zeke? I mean, Madison hitting the waiver wire. Do you know what he's thinking when he sees this list? It's time to get paid. He's like, can I switch positions? The teams with the highest vacated opportunities going into the upcoming year at running back. The number one is Dallas. 76% of the running back carries available. The Giants at 66%. I mean, these are the same teams. It's the teams that have these free agents leaving. All these big names, you know, they're not under contract right now. Jacobs and the Raiders, the Titans, and then an interesting one is the Texans just because Singletary is a free agent. And I don't know if, I don't know if they're, they have a lot of cap space and they should be circling for a great running back. So I think that they may find one. And the Eagles. So the Eagles have nobody under contract pretty much.

I think Gainwell is there for one more year. Is he? I think so. Let me, I'll double check that. Yeah, one more for Gainwell, and then they did the Ty Davis Price or whatever. Yeah, they agree. So let's start with Sequin Barclay spent his entire career in New York. They're not franchise tagging him. He came back on their franchise tag last year. He was productive. The team struggled quarterback injuries, rotating quarterback situation, still ended up with three games missed. as the number 12 fantasy running back. You know, I don't know, you know, he's 3.9 to carry, six touchdowns, caught 41 passes. He was solid with occasional spectacular games, but is older. I mean, he's getting up there. He's probably going to get paid this offseason, so where's he going? I want him to leave so bad. I want to see him.

on a good offense. I want to see him with a good quarterback with an offense of line. Like, I want to see him be able to succeed because what he did last year was masterful, given what he had to do it behind. You're saying this sliding scale here. When you look at all the things opposing him in New York, he still was productive. Yes, exactly. And so I might just be trying to wish this into existence, but I think it would be a perfect fit for the Dallas Cowboys. to upgrade from Pollard upgrade, I think even from, you know, late career Zeke and allow a pass catcher who can be a goal line guy who can be a belcow back. I want him to go to Dallas, have a quarterback. Yeah. That would be so wonderful. It would be very exciting. If that happened, he would be an easy first round pick. Mike and I, we took the boring route. Well, I... Or are you pivoting? No, no, no.

I put in the Giants. Now, you put New York. Oh, I didn't, I didn't know. He's got the Jets. I don't know if he was just trying to hedge and get two teams just in case. Now I see how he won last year. Breeze Hall, get out of here. He's going to California. He's going to Los Angeles. Western United States. No, I'm taking the Giants. You and I both think he'll come to an agreement. I think this is very. very much like the Mike Evans situation, just that running back. Sequan is a team identity type of player. I don't think he really wants to leave, so I think they can figure something. Yep, I have them coming back. We have three teams predicted for this next player, all different. So let's turn to it one of the younger options on the free agent market. Second youngest of the names I mentioned. Josh Jacobs, 26.1 years old.