Ice & Fire Picks + Listener League Time! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/1

Foot Clan, if you are a champion, and there's a good chance you are because you're listening to this podcast like my esteemed colleagues here. Don't forget about fantasy champ. Thanks, Jay's. Oh my gosh, you're right. Shut up. Why am I doing this? Don't forget about fantasy champs.com. It is the best place to get a trophy. And right now they are back with the free ring code. So if you use the code free ring at checkout, you can add a trophy to your basket and one of the amazing $60 fantasy champion rings to your cart. Put in the code free ring, and you get that ring for free. You can show off to all your friends. Yeah, I'll show you. I've got one already. You guys, shut up. Just go to fancychamps.com. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Welcome to August. Yes. It hits different. It hits different. Yeah. It really, like.

Like a linebacker. I am so jacked up for this month of August. There are amazing things in store. Fantasy is back. Preseason will be here. Training camps ongoing. And August just, August just hits different. I look at the show dog. I'm like, we're here. It's time. Hall of Fame game. Well, third stringers going at it. Yeah. And that's, is that tonight? Yeah. Yeah. And for everyone out there. I just, I couldn't do it. That also, I couldn't do it. That also hits different. Like there's not a lot of hard hits. Well, I'm saying I could not, I could in its football time for the Hall of Fame game. I just couldn't do it. Yeah, I told you you could. I mean, I gave you permission, but you, you're the kind of, you're the judge. It's very vibe heavy. And the vibe isn't, now if Caleb Williams was playing tonight, then heck yes, we would have done it. Yes, yes. But not yet.

No. You've got to preserve. Very soon. Welcome in one and all. Five days a week. The fantasy footballers are with you. Five days a week. And if you are as a supporter of the show, you even get a sixth episode. If you like Dynasty, you get a seventh episode. If you like DFS embedding, you get an eighth episode. If you like comedy, you get a ninth episode. Man, we do a lot of shows. I'm proud of us. But five days a week. We're excited to be with you. The journey begins towards a fantasy championship. This show has always been about you, about your team, your league contacts, giving you actionable information, stat-based, stat-backed information to help you make judgment calls for your team heading into the year. And that's what we're all about. This is our 10th season of this show, which is wild. And so it has been a lot of fun.

I'm super thankful for the Foot Clan that have come along for the ride and that are back for another season. We love what we do. I had somebody out. I was talking on Twitter and we're making some improvements and some changes to our Foot Clan membership. And those are coming extraordinarily now. They're basically coming extraordinarily now. I thought I was bailing you out with the very soon and you're like, yeah, right now. But that wasn't the headline. The headline was I went out there and I like posted some teaser tweets about how we're making upgrades and improvements. And we've wanted to kind of consolidate the premium things that we provide into one account. So we're working through that. But somebody said, are you going to be giving up like doing shows anytime soon?

Not bloody likely. That was a question. And I was like, no. No, no. Of course not. Going into year 10, it's wild. It's crazy. But I mean, I genuinely, I'm so confident that this is actually going to be our best year ever. We have some new tools, some new resources, things that we have been working on for years. They're going to roll out. And, you know, hopefully that pays off in championships. That's, that's in the end what it's about. Having fun. And having fun means making fun of your friends and winning. Yeah, yeah, that is the fundamental truth. And we're excited for the year. Excited for today's episode. We have ice and fire on today's show, which means we have the greatest drop that Mike has ever put together. That's the way to kick off August. Also, Mike, how does it feel to know that your best work is just purely original?

They did really good work. Yeah. Sometimes other people in the world do things that are fantastic and you must pay an homage to them. So we have news to talk about. The Ultimate Draft Kit is available right now. Ultimate DraftKit.com. 2024 UDK. Jason. Yeah. What are you chuckling about it? I'm chuckling because he said Ultimate. Okay. I thought I heard it. And I was letting that slide. I was also trying to read something so I couldn't. Confirm. Let the record show I finally let one slide, but it still couldn't get through the ultimate. It didn't get through the smirk I saw out of the corner of my eye, but yeah. Yeah. You owe me about 600 of those. Right. So if you want the ultimate draft kit, which we're going to now have to get a new domain, ultimate draft kit.com. You're going to get five months of pronunciation mistakes until I get my tooth repaired fully.

That makes sense. I hope to dunk on you many, many, many times. Yeah, it's coming. The ultimate. Get in right now. What else is going on? Oh, Mike, we need like a, we need a trumpet. Al, can we trumpet something up here? Al. That was it. Yeah. That was it. That wasn't me. I mean, it's me, but it's a, I totally thought of it was you. That wasn't, yeah, all right. That one I knew wasn't you. But Mike, let's talk about something very exciting. August 1st, what are you got for us? Everyone, pull your car over, pay attention because this information is shared one time and one time only. Listener league submissions for the fantasy footballers. It's officially open. And what does that mean? The listener league, it's a 14 team league that the three of us play in. And you can.

You can win a spot into that league. Play with us throughout the season. Here's how you get in. Your submission, should you've been working on it or you're doing it right now, it will be sent to listener league at fantasy footballers.com. Listener league at fantasy footballers.com. And what do we want? We don't want your trophy pictures. I don't want, oh. You're too scared to play with me because I'm so good at fantasy football. That's not what this league is about. This league is about really fun people, engaged listeners, people that love the show, that want to be in the league with us. It's about a great league. And having a really good time along the way. So look, that might be a short video that you made something funny that you have made. Like my biggest.

I like the word personality. Personality. Yeah, exactly. Show us who you are. The biggest pieces of advice are the trophy case. It doesn't matter. And don't send in a wall of text. If it's just a wall of text, it's going to be difficult to make through the filter. It's TLDR. Yeah. Yeah. And if it is a wall of text, throw it into Chad GBT and say, turn this into 10 words. We gave you the email address. No, you cannot submit late. No, you can't send it to our support staff and overwhelm them with your listener league request. Listener league at fantasy footballers.com. That is it. Yep. That is the final time I will mention it. And we just want to feel the personality coming through. Whatever your entry is, as creative as you want to be, we're always, it's always a fun time of year to go through those entries. We do read and check them all. And it's an important league to us. You know, there's, there's, there's, we try to keep our leagues.

to a minimum. We sometimes we're in too many and we don't care about all of them. But we actually really care about the listener league. I mean, Brooks was found in the listener league. The biggest loser on the show was part of the listener league. This is, this becomes part of our year, part of our season, and we can't wait to have a handful of you with us. If you win it, you come back. That's true. Yeah. I mean, I've won it twice. I'm still here. Yeah. Jason's been in the listener league for quite some time. Brooks is concerned that the way that you presented meeting him in the listener league and then the biggest loser, it sounded like he was the biggest loser. Oh, no, no, no. I don't want anyone to think Brooks is that big of a loser. He did lose. Brian Ketran is. Oh, yeah, yeah. But Brian Ketran is coming. I mean, what a loser. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, yeah, Bears.

The Bears have signed DJ Morto a four-year $110 million extension, which he had two years left on his contract. That's how you get out ahead of it, man. It is the largest deal in Bears history. I think it's a brilliant deal. You know you need him to be a part of the future. You have, you know, a rookie under contract at quarterback. Go ahead and just sign this. Make sure this is a done deal going forward. absolutely a brilliant move and CD Lamb just sits there and goes, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, agent, hold up. Okay, now go back to him over and over and over. Still waiting on CD Lam's contract, which I think will come. Any minute. It seems like it's close. I mean, we record the show a day earlier. It could be done by the time we're talking. We could sound so stupid right now. Well, no, not anymore. You just, uh, yeah, we're covering our butts. Yeah, I know. That's why I did that.

But Brandon Ayuk, as of this recording, still does not have a new home or a contract. He's got high fives, though. Yeah, there was a video. I mean, you want to, this is news stuff. This is hype train. A video of Brandon Ayuk walking up to the coach and the general manager. Some, some DAP was shared between the three of them. And it's, we're, we're trying to analyze what's going on in this footage. Is this a congratulations? You got a deal. Is this a. Hey man, thank you so much for working through this. Enjoy your new location. Yeah, we don't know. We don't know. It could be so many things. The accounts out there that have hit on some rumors are saying there's a big trade coming. So we're standing by. But something big is about to happen. Big wide receivers that need some answers, all of them on Mike's dynasty team. Steelers, rookie wide receiver, Roman Wilson went down.

in practice, carted off. It was a major concern yesterday. Right now it's week to week and consider to be okay for the start of the season. So that's overall good news. It's fantastic, but you have to keep in mind that with a rookie when you miss this specific stretch of time, that means his career is going to get off to a slower start. He's going to be a less impact player. He's like pretty much to me if he's going to miss the next several weeks, he was a late round, like a last round target. He's not anymore. There's enough rookie wide receivers I could target that I'm not going to grab the injured guy. Deeper or dynasty leagues, you're looking at other options outside of Roman Wilson and that offense. If you believe they're going to be better with Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, you're looking at what, Van Jefferson is there and Calvin Austin is there. I would rather take a shot on Calvin Austin's been running ahead of Roman Wilson anyway. Yeah, Calvin Austin's got crazy speed, has dealt with injuries, but he makes a little bit more sense with like the moonball from.

Russell Wilson. Honestly, I think the big beneficiary here, the guy that I've been rising on more and more. I don't think it's who you're going to say. He thinks you're going to say Pickens. I think. I think the Muth. Yeah, baby. We are getting loose in 24. Which, if you're new to the show, that is Pat Friar Muth. Tied in for the Steelers. Friar Tooth. Hmm. That's you. Oh. Yeah, Pat Friar Muth. I really do think it's going to be a post-hype bounce back season for him. You know, not like he's going to be. one of these top three or four tight ends, but I think he'll be a top eight tight end. He's not drafted that way. Okay. Yeah, I can get, I can get in on that. Also, I apologize for my short-term ranking of Pat Fryermute as the number two tight end overall. That did happen momentarily this morning. Jason made a bit of a typo in his rankings. I wanted to give him 99 targets, but I gave him 99 receptions. Oh, that'd be a good year. Much better for fantasy. So all it.

Takes his 100 catches from him to bump him up? Yeah. Okay. Any other news breaking from Deucer's Alley over there? We do have a full... Hey, Matt's back. We call it a full alley. Off the potty. Proud of you. How you doing, Matt? You doing all right? Yeah, feeling good. Feeling good, all right. Got my fire out early. That's good. Well, what we know about you is if you're not feeling good, you will abandon the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why you hire cleaners too. All right. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. We will take a break and then it is time for some ice and fire. All right. Without further ado, we are going to jump into one of our favorite segments leading into the season. This is a, I'm going to, it's kind of like a, it's a little bit like a pre-my-guy opportunity for us. Like we get to. Sure.

to bring a name up that maybe we're not going to roll into my guys, but we really like. So let's jump in. Ice and fire. All right. We have each selected an ice and fire player for today's show. There is a lot of hype, right? The hype train has been active. And there are players that people have excitement for that maybe we are a little bit on the opposite side of that story. We're going to keep it a mystery. So I want one of you guys to introduce a name and then reveal whether they are an ice or fire player who would like to begin. All started off. We'll start it off with last year's wide receiver 10, who is going to an up-and-coming offense, is being drafted on Sleeper right now as the wide receiver 17 in the third round. So this is an important fantasy player.

a great awesome player for the last many, many years. I'm talking about Stefan Diggs, baby, a superstar. But y'all know where this is. You'll know where this is going. This is not my fire pick. Stefan Diggs this year, he's ice. Ice. His stat line last year was pretty good on the season. 160 targets, 107 receptions, 1100 yards, 8, touchdowns finishes the wider two for 10. But I think the bills. knew something. They were the ones with him in the building. They were the ones who went away from him and started winning ball games. And, you know, it's one of those things when you start to see a decline with a player, it hardly ever reverses course at this age. If there is a decline, I can't, when I say hardly ever, that's hedging something I can't ever remember. Someone that is losing a step post 30 years old and then it's like, oh, he's back, baby.

You've got yards per route run, average depth of target. His contested catch rate, right? That's not like a, well, what was, how was he utilized? Maybe his targets weren't is valuable. Just like when he was in the situation to catch a ball, was he coming down with it like he always has. And those were down. And we remember how bad the end of last season was. From week 10 on, he averaged seven and a half fantasy points a game. He had one finish inside the top 24. That's not a, it's not a high bar to crack. And, you know, now, track that bar. He is certainly not used to being the least talented wide receiver in the room. That's what he is now. At this day and age, Nico Collins and Tank Dell are better than him. They also have more experience with CJ Stroud. They're younger. They are more explosive. They are the better options in this depth chart. And if you look at Stefan Diggs, whilst having more wide receivers on the field, even over the last couple years while he's dominated,

He is not as good in three wide receiver sets. We're talking like last year, yards per route run with three wide receivers on the field, 1.66. Now, you might not know what that means. Let me tell you. It means bad. It means red. It means very, very not good. A very low number. Among 30 NFL wide receivers with 90 plus targets while having three wide receivers on the fields, here's the only ones with a lower yards per route run. Garrett Wilson, who had no quarterback. Tyler Lockett, Elijah Moore, and Tyler Boyd last year. So I do think we saw decline on the field. Originally, I chalked it all up to the changeover in offensive coordinator, and that now the freedom to go somewhere new, I was much more open to him having a great season. Now, I am not shutting the door that he can't be decent. But where you're drafting him in the third round, there is no way he is a league winner. There's none. That, like that range of outcomes to me, to Jason Moore,

does not exist. You know, if Stroud is awesome, the office clicks on all cylinders, he throws 35 touchdowns, that could happen. But at his age, an ADP to pay off, you have to exceed ADP. And as soon to be 31-year-old wide receiver changing teams in year 10, well, that is not usually the description of someone that smashes their ADP. In fact, if you look back in the last decade, here are the top 10 best. fantasy seasons for wide receivers changing teams at year 10. Okay, this is not all of them. This is the best. This is the success story of those. The top 10. Well, you have Brandon Marshall. Awesome season. We remember that long ago. Goes the Jets was like the dude. Yeah. He finishes the wide receiver three. Okay. Great. Then you've got other superstar names in there. Deshawn Jackson, J. Nelson, Michael Crabtree, Golden Tay, A.J. Green, Adam Thielen, Brandon Cooks.

just a bunch of great wide receivers. And here's their fantasy finishes. 45, 42, 55, 64, 43, 41, 62, 25 and 37. Those are the best? Those are the top 10 best. And 25? 25, that second best? That was Adam feeling last year. How you feel about that? Two comments. One, Michael Crabtree thrilled to be included with those other names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two, what if I told you that Diggs? caught 75 for over 1,000 and 7 touchdowns. I would say you're super disappointed on spending a third round pick on that, like actually really disappointed. So that was DeAndre Hopkins in Tennessee last year at wide receiver 22, played 17 games, 137 targets. You would not be unhappy about 137 targets, but obviously not prolific 2020 numbers from Hopkins. I kind of look at those in similar veins. Now, we're clearly not.

the consensus opinion on Diggs. No, I mean, his average draft position is at 309, and I know there's a name value aspect there. I guess I'm just curious, like, the implication of the bills saw something in the locker room and they didn't want it anymore, saw something on the field, I should say, is also saying Houston, did they make a mistake? But it was probably a gamble. It's not a monetary gamble to the degree that. They care if they make the mistake. Yeah, they're fine. They guarantee the rest of his contract and didn't extend him. So they're just saying, hey, let's bring this in, help this offense stay awesome while CJ Stroud goes into his second year. And I don't think they made a mistake because they don't need Stefan Diggs to be what he was two years ago. They need Stefan Diggs to come in, probably playing the slot a little bit more as he gets older, less explosive. He should be the slot player. You might think it's Tank Dahl because he's small. That's just not how this offense operates. Tankdale was 70%.

an outside receiver last year. You put Stefan Diggs in the slot. That's better for him. That's better for the Texans. It's a good deal. I think the Texans should be thrilled to have Stefan Diggs there. I don't think you as a fantasy manager in the third round will be thrilled to draft him there. That's why he's my eyes. All right, you or me, Mike. Go ahead. You want me to go? Yeah, go ahead. All right. I'm very excited about this player, so I'm going to hit this button. Oh, no tease. Well, I screwed the whole tease up by starting with I'm excited about this player. So I had to hit the button as fast as possible. It could have been a ruse. The tease is that I haven't said the name yet. This is a player that I think has passed the eye test for me from the moment he took the field. And it's Jaden Reed wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers. Okay. You did talk him up every time you saw him last year.

And there was a time when that was not a popular thing to do. And I believe I made the statement that's the best wide receiver that team has in a very small sample size of the rookie year. And I'll tell you, one of the reasons why I sat here and hesitated on making Jaden Reed a fire player just a little bit was the Jahan Dotson experience of seeing Jehan Dodson on the field as a rookie and really believing in the talent and then seeing the fact that. Things can just go wrong for you in your sophomore year, some your fault, some not your fault. Jaden Reed is in the midst of a group of wide receivers in Green Bay that has a lot of ambiguity in the fantasy community as to, because people, I've noticed something. They want to be fans of Christian Watson. I've noticed that. And they also want to be like,

the Dantavian Wix homies. Romeo Dobbs is the only one people don't want to like. Yeah, Dobbs is just because he's just like, he's in the way. He's the vanilla ice cream on the roster from a skill standpoint just because he does nothing amazingly but everything good. And for some reason, it's like, okay, Wix, who these target per route run and these numbers are amazing. And Watson, oh my gosh, remember those touchdowns and he's a burner. Well, Jaden Reed is in this other category where like, I still believe what I said back then. I think he is by far the best wide receiver on this team. I think he has displayed incredible skill from the jump, right? Not expected. Like this team didn't expect Jaden Reed to come in and maybe be their number one wide receiver. And you can get a value taking a shot on Watson or Wix or Dobbs. I don't think you should do that. I think you should spend.

on, spin up on Jaden Reed, who's the highest ADP of the wide receivers for a number of reasons. Historically, statistically, over the last five years, the wide receiver won an ADP for a team is the best fancy wide receiver on their team. Over 70% of the time, we've had this discussion in the past with 49 a wide outs or the deal and digs. Do you take the discount? There are pretty profound question marks around the other wide receivers in Green Bay. There is a health and. and we haven't seen Watson with Jordan Reed. Jordan Love. Jordan Love, goodness. We got there. Yeah, Jordan Reed, the tight end is also on this team. Real 86? No, but there are question marks. Wix, how much opportunity will they have? And then Dobbs, you know, he's in the mix. We got tight ends we like. We got running backs we like. Jaden Reed is the player that they're going to force feed the football all season long. I did a lot of.

Like I watched Kyle posted every target and opportunity for Jaden Reed for the entire year. So not just catches every target. He gets the ball out of the backfield, dealt with injuries at the end of the season. Jaden Reed, to me, the best comp that I found when you look at how he performed at the combine, his physical ability in size and the way he's involved in end rounds and short area targets, but is also a burner down the field because he is so fast. It was Golden Tate. Golden Tate, I think, is a perfect match for the kind of player that Jaden Reed is. And right now, Jaden Reed is being drafted as the wide receiver. I think you're not having this fire conversation with Jaden Reed saying he's a top 10 wide receiver. You're talking about a player that I think will be a perennial 10 to 20. I think that's going to be an every year type of thing for Jaden Reed. He also gets the ball on the ground at a higher frequency and will this year than Golden Tate ever did. So you take Golden Tate and that 13 to 15 to 18 type of range that Tate would always finish in.

and you mix in more Debo Samuel innovative work with the head coach. To me, he profiles like a Golden Tate. A little bit of Jordan Addison, I think, is in there in terms of the physical size and speed. But from an eyeball standpoint, this reminds me of when we saw Stefan Diggs coming out in Minnesota and took about three games to recognize this player has an innate ability to get open, to read a defense. to be available deep down the field when his quarterback is scrambling out of the pocket. They just had a connection last year. If you watched those targets and those rush attempts, he was their best wide receiver, the Packers, against zone defenses. Oh, wait, he was also their best against man defenses. So he was best in both. Target per outrun numbers that we talk about all the time, blew him out of the water on both of those.

The question marks are around utilization and how often you're on the field and we worry about three wide receiver sets and two wide receiver sets. I don't care that much. I don't. I don't care about that specific. They have the opportunity to get him the football in a lot of different ways. This is not just line them up and run them down the field. I have a lot of belief in the player, Jaden Reed. And so I think from the perspective of late sixth round draft pick, that is a 10 to 20 finish in my opinion, I'm just very, very excited about the future for him, and I think he's being devalued. He was the wider receiver 23 last year as a rookie with massive injury issues at the end of the year with 94 targets. And if you project him and Watson, when they played together, he still had more receptions and targets than Christian Watson did. So I'm a big Jane Reed fan, and I just want to get it out there.

Yeah, I mean, I do agree that he is a very talented wide receiver. And I think the Golden Tate comp is nice. I have a hard time drafting him because I don't see that same ceiling. Like you're saying, he's basically projects to be a wide receiver two, which is a good value in the sixth round. But I just want that. You know what I mean? I want to draft that like that one that makes me hot and bothered for the upside that can be like a top five guy. He was wide receiver nine over the last seven weeks of the year. And I will tell you this from watching the film on Jaden Reed throughout the year. He scored. He was at eight touchdowns last year. There were four on the table, four on top of those. And he also got into the end zone on the ground two times. So yeah, I think you will have some week to week ceiling. On the positive side, I will say this.