Fantasy Football - Footie Award Winners + Early Hot Takes for 2026! - Podcast for 1/13

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Tuesday, January 13th. Welcome into the fantasy footballers. Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, Mike Wright. It is the official footy awards episode. We'll be dishing out some awards. Pretty big time here today, fellas. Lots of footies will be in the mail after today's show. We have your votes. We had a week worth of voting. We've got the winners and we're going to reveal them on the show today. I had just an unbelievable amount of requests from celebrities. Sure. Like this is common. They were all trying to get in. Right. Like they're like, dude.

We were at the Golden Globes, yawn, or whatever. Is that the one that just happened? Yeah. Like, who cares? Yeah. Who cares? They were like, we want to be on the footies. And I said, unfortunately, we have very limited seating in the recording. Yeah, it's very similar to us. We had wanted to be on the Golden Globes. And they were like, seating is limited otherwise. They're like, you're no smartless guys. You're no Amy Poehler. Amy Poehler, first ever podcast winner. No, this is the more prestigious. We were nominated for that, right? The Golden Globe? Yeah. I didn't check. I stay focused on... That's what it was. I stayed focused on football. That's what it was. I didn't check either. This weekend I was busy. If I had been invited, I would have declined because there were some good games on. Yes, the playoffs. There were some very good games. What a great weekend of football until the night time. And then the Patriot game. Yeah, that game was terrible. But also, it wasn't just terrible. It was terrible because...

of how incredible every other game was. Yeah, it was wild. Honestly, we asked Al Borland not to be here because he's not, he's not in the studio today, because he would have just taken the Poopias Pants Award from the actual winner, but he's not here. As a Packers fan, I don't know if he ever comes back. He was unwell. He was genuinely unwell. I had to text him to see if he was okay. Here's the thing is we. don't remember what that's like. No idea. To care? Yeah, to care about our team. To care about an NFL team. Like, we've all been on well for fantasy purposes. Jason's pretty much every week. But like the last time, when's the last time you were stressed out for a Cardinal game? Oh, years. I don't. Well, they didn't, they didn't stress this out the year they got clobbered by Aaron Donald.

The one playoff appearance that Kyler made. It didn't stress this out then because it was over before it started. Yeah. Yeah, it's been all the way back to. Super Bowl? 2000. No, no, no, no, no. We had the Carolina conference championship game with Carson Palmer and. And that green bag. No one cares about the Cardinals. Yeah. But Packer fans, I mean, he was in a bar. So he's on vacation. He was taking his son and wife to Universal. But they drove out early enough to make sure they could be in a bar to watch this game. He was surrounded by Bears fans.

which started real well for him. So he had talked a big game. He had talked a lot all the way into halftime. So I don't think that that helped. 21 to 3, Packers lead. Yeah, it should have been more. Should have been more. But yeah, the games are crazy. We'll talk about it in the news and notes because we'll talk about some of the injuries as well, which will have fantasy implications on into next year. But we do have a quick question before we get to that. Dude, I totally forgot. About George Kittle? Yeah. Yeah. Well, forget for another minute or two, and then we'll remind you. Well, now I'm sad. There are a couple of, there are a couple of things I want to mention at the top. First of all, we do this every year. Almost forgot to mention it. The DFS pass, we make completely free for the NFL playoffs. So if you want to experience that, if you've, if you've never subscribed to the DFS pass, amazing work being done by our writers there, Kyle, the Borgogan, Matthew Betts.

DFSpass.com completely free for the playoffs. It's just a chance to sign up and use the tools and resources and optimizer and all of those things. DFSpass.com completely free. A reminder that championship swag can be found at shotballers.com. We're also going to have some fun new stuff up there very soon. We also, yeah, go ahead. I was going to say in fantasychamps.com if you want trophies, rings, championship belts, never too late to celebrate your success. Quick question of the day. Brooks, you wanted us to answer this one. If you had to make one hot take now for the next season, what would it be? Because it's never too soon for a hot take, right? People love them hot. This is like boiling hot, right? I'll hop in because mine is, it feels extra hot due to what just happened last night, which was do, do.

after completely embarrassing himself and the Chargers in a playoff collapse. Again, you Herbert people. I know, no Herbert people. My hot take is Justin Herbert. He wins MVP next year, throws for 4,500 and 40 plus touchdowns, has the best record. And I think that next year, and for fantasy purposes, Justin Herbert's going to be a monster next year. So this is, this is just your way of saying that. their off later and joal to be okay yes exactly there their offensive line is going to be good and hampton will be okay and yeah the the the weapons the team i i think that gero gero might be gone hard dog are on on the outs with each other i don't know that that's bad mike i don't know that historically we were not like the biggest fans of gero

Greg Roman. So TBD on whether Greg Roman retains his job, but there is no way that that offensive line stays as injured going into next year as it was this season. I think that what we saw from Herbert through the course of the year was him overcoming a lot to be pretty darn good for most of it. And next year, if he doesn't have to overcome so much, I think he'll be great. That team does feel like something always happens. Yeah. Towards the negative side. the finality of the playoffs it always hits really hard when you've got you know we hyperanalyze every moment of this long season and then they're just gone like i i think that herbert is is a very very good quarterback but dude it's been a long time oh yeah he has not thrown uh more than 26 touchdowns in a season since 2021 and we were asked for hot takes mike yeah i mean i i have just the i'm just pushing back against the the herbert people who

Just support him no matter what. It does feel like when you see greatness ever, you're always making excuses as to what's in the way of it again because there's the potential for it to come back. And that's tough. I mean, like, we'd all say Matthew Stafford's an amazing quarterback. Yes. But there's long, long stretches of his career where fantasy-wise it wasn't, like Stafford might win MVP. He also had a 40 touchdown year with Calvin Johnson. And then there was all the years in between then and now. He was still the same Matthew Stafford. Yeah. It's just weapons, timing, situation. He's at least getting over 4,000 passing yards. Okay. Which Herbert has not done in the past three years. All right. Look, it's a hot take. It's a hot take. It's not a cold take. Cold take would have been like Herbert's going to stink again. It's spicy. Here's the one I'm going to get into because it deals with the hometown team, which, look, the Cardinals are very good for fantasy this year on a lot of fronts. They're going to hire a new head coach.

The new head coach is going to have a press conference and talk about how important it is to make Marvin Harrison a superstar. And so my hot take is that he won't be, and that it will be Michael Wilson again. What we saw from Wilson over the back half of the year was awesome. I wouldn't say this is the hottest take to say that Wilson is going to outperform Harrison, but I'm going to tell you right now that the pressure, the pressure to buy into Marvin Harrison will be strong again. He will be the Kyle Pitts of the wide receiver position going into year three.

he was hurt. He should be great. So the draft capital. Just wait a couple of years on Marf. For one good game. Yes. For one really big game. Yeah, I just think that there's no way that like I'll probably fall victim to this. At some point in the off season, I'll be like this is it's going to finally work for Marvin Harrison. And what I'm saying right now is I think Michael Wilson proved what kind of receiver he really is. I like that you said he outperforms Marvin Harrison. So even if he's not great. He's got a chance to come. He just has to be the best wide receiver in Arizona. Yeah. Fantasy-wise. Exactly. You were not here for the footcast last week. Mike and I kind of got to talking about Michael Wilson a little bit deeper just because. What was the skinny? I was pouring a little bit of cold water on the outrageous, awesome Michael Wilson breakout only on the basis of basically from week 11 on when when.

the whole breakout happened, Jacobi Burset was on pace for 700 pass attempts. Like, that's not, it's not sustainable, not going to be what the offense is. And even if Michael Wilson were to retain his target market share, his percentage of, you know, everything, everything percentage wise stays the same. But you're like a team that throws 525 times. It's like nowhere near as relevant. So that was just my, it's probably a fair argument. All right. I don't like the fact that this man was still using a cane after recovering from his knee being torn up. But my belief, I mean, started a couple months ago. I think that Jackson Dart, the Jackson Dart Malik neighbor's stack will be the league winning stack of next year. This is full stop. This is wonderful news. I have both of those players. And Mike, I don't know if your premonitions ended after Jan 1?

Well, I don't, I mean, it was, I already had it. But I, this wasn't a January vision. I'd be thrilled if you were right about this, like you have been about everything else. The, well, I got, I got the Jacksonville game wrong. That's true. You both did. You both, you both, you both did. Yeah, we did. We did. I like this, the swag and confidence. Yeah, after. Should have seen my man in slack. Oh, I was, you were about to have a stroke. That game was so close. Listen, Foot Clan, it's off season. I'll just give you the skinny here.

On the show, I've been very vocal. This is Josh Allen has to do it this year. Yes. There's no choice. My whole argument about him beating Jacksonville was that at the end of that game, which it kind of played out that way. Now, if they had lost that game, not only would you two have been right, which is terrible. Just terrible. Like one of the things I live to not have true. Understandable. Which is a hard life to live. It is. It happens so often. It's been one of the worst parts of my life. But, but then like, then Allen's out and what I thought about Allen is over with. And I may have bought like some pretty good Josh Allen sports cards that I really need. You are invested. I'm invested in Allen because I believe I have strong conviction about the bills. Now they're going to have a tough task against Denver. But we'll get into all of that. So we've got news to break down and all the games before we get to the footie awards. Lots coming up. News and notes from around the league.

The weekends started off with the Rams. Oh man. The Rams barely squeaking by the Carolina Panthers, who their fans would like us to give them a tremendous amount of credit, which I will. If you can push the Rams to 31, 34, give up a crazy touchdown at the end. Both things can be true of the Panthers, in my opinion, didn't deserve to be in the playoffs because of what their record was in the regular season. They weren't a bad team. by any stretch. They had some truly elite performances on the defensive side of the football during the regular season. I mean, they beat this Rams team earlier. It was just when you're 8-9, you shouldn't have a playoff spot. You shouldn't have a home game for sure. But they took them to the brink. The Rams and the Jags game kind of did. It was the same thing. It was, you know, just got real tight. And then the best quarterback on the field won the game. And Bryce Young.

was unfortunately unable to, I mean, there was a whimper that final drive. It was a bummer. The fantasy implications of this game for me were the comments by Rico Dowdle, leaving, you know, leaving this performance. I didn't hear. He came out, I mean, he only had nine yards in this game. He was one of my prize picks was under, and they just didn't run the ball well at all. Right. A lot of it had to do with the Rams defense. But he said like basically the lack of opportunities, it's going to play a huge part in where he goes this off season. He says he wants to be somewhere where he gets the majority of the work. I hate to break it to you, Rico Townel. That's not going to happen.

It could happen. I think it will happen. It's not, have you seen the list of free agent, say nothing of. Okay. There's free, like the free agent running back market? Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying Rico is not in the top two or three. There's, there's Kinbone Walker. There's Breece Hall. There's Travis E. TN. Like if a team is going to go out there. For a bell cow. For a bell cow and say, hey, opportunity, we need a running back that we're going to give a ton of work to. They're not going to go out and get Rico. So that I just, I agree with Rico's.

hopes and desires. I'm happy that he feels that way. But there's a lot of quarterbacks out there that want to start where they just can't. I suppose he had the same ambitions leaving Dallas last year. Right. My pushback would be there he's not in the same tier. Couldn't he go and be the New York jet starting running back next year? Couldn't Rico do that? I'm looking at teams right now. I'm saying there's there's going to be teams that don't want to pay the Breeshall price that don't want to pay. Well, Brees Hall is the only one I think you're like, that guy's getting paid. Ken Walker should get a decent contract. He might just go back to Seattle over Walker. Yeah, that could happen. I think RICO ends up with a starting job, but he is, he's 28. So he's not like Brees Hall and Walker who are right about 25. What about Kansas City? Sure. Just go just be the new Kareem Hunt and just soak up a bunch of touchdowns. Tennessee, Kansas City, New York.

The Jets. It's funny about this statement. I feel like the Panthers, the Panthers are only going to be in the running for Rico if he goes out and no one's offering him stuff. Correct. Because the Panthers have all the money in Chuba. You can't. And John then Brooks should be back. Yeah. You can't give two guys a starter contract. No, no, no. That would be a waste of money. The Packers. And you got Giovante. As a free agent? Yeah, who showed better than Rico this year. Yeah. Yeah, the Packers 27, the Bears 31. Whole brother. One of the greatest games I've ever seen. That was wild. The one crazy stat. I mean, there's a million crazy stats on this game. But on the course of the season, the Bears ran zero offensive plays while in the lead. And they won two thirds of the games.

wild I just that seems impossible I know it's it that's what it's great possible take the lead on the final possession and don't touch it again yeah that's the only way for that to happen so McMannis the Jake oh man kickers uh Kickers be kicking this week. Tyler Loop was thrilled with McManus's performance. Yeah. And the, I mean, this is why we got to get kickers out of football. It's a, it was a really far kick for Cam Little, you know, and high stress. They're right at the end of the hurry up, go kick this field goal. They probably shouldn't have been allowed to kick in the first place. But it was a, what, a 50 plus. And if he drains that, it's a tight game. You do like expect every kick no matter what to go in in the playoffs. Yes.

Like you need to be, you need to be 100% as a kicker. The Bears, the fourth down play. Oh my goodness. By Caleb Williams was un, nobody can do that. Nobody can do that. His leg was hit as he's like jumping out of it. And then Rockets a ball 30 yards downfield on the button. It's, it was. And that play doesn't happen. And they don't, I mean, really, it's one of those. 27 to 16 at that point. That game is over if that isn't incomplete path. There's like. 12 plays where it's like if this one play didn't happen, they can't possibly win the game and all of them happened, which has been happening for the Bears all season long. Like it's the exact opposite of what you're used to from the Bears. They just keep winning these games from behind. Here's the top five teams in percentage of the game that they're trailing. The Giants. For offensive snaps. Yeah. So offensive snaps. Are they in the lead? Are they trailing? The Giants.

Or the only one team made the playoffs, and it was the Bears at 49%. Vikings, Buccaneers, dolphins, giants, or the other ones. And they just overcome. And now you go into this next game. Look, everyone's going to say the Rams are going to run away with this game. They're not. They're not going to. Well, they might for three quarters, but watch out. The Rams have to go to a 15-degree soldier field. California boy, Matthew Stafford, slash dome boy, Matthew Stafford. in the elements. This is going to be, I don't, I'm not saying that the bears are going to blow them away or anything. I just think it's going to be an amazing game again. Yeah, it should, it should be really fun. So far, the playoffs. Do we have a line yet for that game? I'll check. I bet we do. Kyle would probably chime in if you have it, Kyle. What do you think it is? What do I think it is? I think it is the Rams minus one and a half. I was going to have a one and a half. It is the Rams minus three and a half. Wow.

Keep doubting them. That's probably fuel for Chicago. I'm just, it's exciting. It's fun. Colston freaking Loveland. You want to talk. Whoa. Missed Loveland. They're only, only Tray McBride and do I want Brock Bowers with a rookie or do I want Caleb Williams with Colston Loveland next year if I had to choose. Mike, which would you choose to go into this season? That is. I know we're riding high. We can. We got the whiffs of excellence. I've got the vapors. I mean, I need a fainting couch. Jason, you made the comment this afternoon. It's perfectly appropriate. Stop worrying about all the other wide receivers. Just say who's the best pass catcher on the team. It's Coltson Loveland. Prior to this game, and I'm, I said this last week, which really made Jeremy unhappy.

But I was hoping the Bears won because I want to see one more game with this offense to just get clarity when Rome is healthy and DJ Moore is out there and Luther Burden breakout as happened in the rearview mirror. You just got that. Yeah. And it was like, oh, so it's Loveland. So now we get another sample this coming week against the Rams. It wasn't just all the targets in the yards. I mean, it matches. 15 targets. He, Loveland had the most. routes, like the most snaps out there. I mean, ahead of, ahead of Rome, ahead of bird. How'd pull come at, dude, Jay? That was, how many, how many catches did you need? Nobody throws more random names into their prize fix than you do from every once in while you. That was the one, that hurt me this week. Tommy Trimble, baby. They, uh, they were running a lot of three wide. Honestly. And then it was.

It was Mr. Loveland. Cole Comette was not out there. Colquette was out there towards the end of the game. He ran in motion and was wide open. Colquette is a good player. Yeah. But. Yeah. So is Michael. Mayor. Michael. And it's irrelevant. All right. We'll take a quick break. And then we'll come back and talk through the other matchups and get into the footies. All right. We're on the other side. We're talking, man, did I sweat? The Bills 27. Jacksonville 24. In this game, Gabe Davis suffered a season ending knee injury. Same knee, right? Same knee looked very bad. We also found out before the game, Josh Palmer's on IR. So for the bills, to keep going on, it's going to be Brandon Cooks getting involved. It's going to be Shavers getting involved, which. Brandon Cooks with the huge catch. Yeah. It's like what? Yeah. I mean, that play was crazy, too. That was the big time type of play. At the line of scrimmage, changing the play.

back foot throw before a Cook's breaks open and just chucks it. I would say the big time play was a quarterback sneak for 10 yards at a touchdown. What? That was unbelievable. What happened on that play? There was like, there wasn't even a defender who just was that turned around and watched it happen. Was that a like huddle thing of like if he gets the first down? Do you just let him roll all the way in? It for sure felt like that from 40 yards out. Dude, it really, really felt like that. I don't know if that was actually the call because... Well, look, they definitely... I think it was the only play for the Jags at that point. There's always... There was the great debate, the never-ending debate of do you take... You got to get the guy by getting the sword through yourself. It was the only move you had left. Oh, to be able to get the ball back. To be close enough to get to the neck. Uh-huh.

But then look, a minute left on the clock. Trevor Lawrence had an opportunity, first pass. I mean, that was, that one was not Trevor's fault. I thought a lot was Trevor's fault. I thought that pass was Trevor's fault. Did you? It hit him in the hands. You got to catch that ball. It was a little, it was a tight, tight window. And so there was just a high risk throw on your first pass attempt. Yeah. But I mean, whatever. Look, Jacksonville had an amazing season. It's over. Yeah. It's over just like that. You had Brian Thomas Jr. score here. You had Parker Washington. Parker Washington is apparently really, really, really good. The highest likelihood is all four of those guys are there next year, and we all have to be like, uh-oh. That's the high, I mean, Parker Washington was a six-round pick. He's on a rookie contract. Brian Thomas Jr. is on a rookie contract. Travis Hunter, obviously brand new rookie, rookie contract. And Jacob Myers just signed an extension. So it seems like all four of those guys are going to be.

It feels like they should be playing Travis Hunter at cornerback. Well, that is one thing that'll get brought up, but he was also breaking out a wide receiver and is a weapon. Like if you make a, you can make an authentic argument why each of those four is the best wide receiver fantasy wise next year at the end of the season. Yeah. I think you can. I agree, which is gross. That's terrible. Yeah. Well, it's just, you know. Draft Lawrence. Yeah. Buffalo. Yeah. They could use one wide receiver as good as those four. I'll never understand wasting elite quarterback years and not. I mean, they tried. They went out and they drafted Keon Coleman. Was that a first round or the second? Shout out, Matthew Golden for his touchdown. When Golden and Coleman are making plays in the playoffs, you're like, oh my gosh. Golden has never won a game that he scored a touchdown in. So that is. It's one of the hot stats in the weekend.

The 49ers found a way. George Kittle. Uh-oh. Oh, that's. If I had sad music to hit. Oh, it's confirmed. Yeah. Yeah. It was actually immediately confirmed by Shanhan after the game. It was before that mid-game. It was confirmed by the tequila bottle delivered to George Kittle. Yeah, I did see that. They were like thinking maybe it was for him. It. George Kittle out. 49ers. 23. He's 32 years old right now. So. Let's say he makes it back halfway through this season and plays in 2026. You're not going to have the same George Kittle right off of an Achilles injury. Yeah, and he's not going to be there at the beginning of the year. Right. That's what I mean. So he's basically deleted this year. And then the following year when he's 34, still with an Achilles injury, this really does feel like that's the end of George Kittle as a...

as a very important fantasy asset. It'll probably never happen again. Also means in San Francisco, we'll have to figure out some pass-catching weaponry in this offseason, more than they maybe thought they had to. No, Ayuk, who they thought was going to be under contract long time. Piercelaw has not been good enough or healthy enough to be the only player you rely on. I imagine there'll be a landing spot in some discussions for free agent wide receivers. Although Joanne Jennings. Jennings. Jennings. He's been the real deal. He's good. I think he was a huge. Did the 49ers win or did the Eagles lose? I think I feel like both deserve credit. Both deserve credit. The Eagles deserve credit for losing in spectacular fashion with an offense that is so doggone bad. There's no pass rush from the 49ers. And that didn't matter. It just didn't matter. It was complete ineptitude. Obviously, we saw the in-game.