Explain Yourself! + Rankings Debates, Metcalf Island - Fantasy Football Podcast for 5/30

On today's episode, some hot news that really needed to be talking about. There was a team that needs to explain themselves to the rest of us. But speaking of, explain yourself. That's what today's episode is all about, some players who are much higher or much lower in our individual rankings. And we get put on the microphone solo spotlight on us. And we got to explain ourselves. Make sure you subscribe to this channel. Leave us a comment on some players that needs them explaining and enjoy. Hey, this is DeAndre Hopkins, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Tuesday, May 30th, 2020, Fantasy Footballers. We're back. We're very staccato today. Brooks is back in the building. Hey, oh, which is good.

He's being pretty lazy for a few days, as the producers have been before. Oh, man. That's, it's a good bit. You want to know what, what's interesting is that the series finale of succession, a show that I know for a fact, no spoilers. Judge Diomati himself adores, came out, and I know he hadn't watched any. He was going to binge the last season. And I think it's just a little coincidentally missed some time here and managed to get through how many episodes of those 10 that you needed to watch? Somehow we got caught up just in time for the finale last night. You got caught up. Somehow I perfectly timed out a schedule. And the truth shall set you free. Unfortunately, that will impact the succession plans here at the company for you, Brooks. So I'm sorry to hear that. He doesn't need it. It's filthy rich. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

I don't watch, haven't watched. Not that I'm opposed to just I haven't watched it yet. So the final one happened? Yes. A lot of success. No spoilers. I'm two episodes away. Jason is behind. I'm just trying to figure out if people succeeded. Some success. Okay. Great. Yeah. Some success. Mild success. Mild success. Welcome into the show. I don't know what they're even succeeding at. No, you don't. Explain yourself on the show today, taking a look at some of our early rankings and areas where one of us kind of detours away from the other two and giving them an opportunity on today's show to explain themselves. Yeah, I think this is always a really valuable show because a lot of times the arguments for the people explaining.

their strong and more unique position, sway me. So I will see if you two can sway me today. Yeah. And then the big news, here we are on Tuesday. And the next show we have will be the day that the ultimate draft kit is launched. And so lots of work has been building to this point. And June 1st on Thursday. The Ultimate Draft Kit is here. You can learn more about that at Ultimate DraftKit.com. This also means that today's the last time I'm going to get to tell you to pick it up at the pre-order price. Yeah. This is literally the last time we could say, hey, save money. If you're listening right now and you don't have the ultimate draft kit yet, get it now. It launches like in a minute and you can get pre-order pricing right now. And if you're getting the UDK Plus, that is a...

Pretty big savings. Yeah, and we're really excited about what we got in store for you this year. All the sleepers breakouts, bust and value picks are in there. We're wrapping up the 100 plus player profile videos. All of our rankings, upside meters, risk meters. There is, there's a lot of content. And you're going to love it. We want to hear from you. So go on to Twitter. If you've picked it up, once you start checking it out on Thursday at the FF Ballers, let us know. You can follow Jason at Jason FFL. Mike at FFF Hitman. I'm at Andy Holloway. Let us know what you think. And it's not, you know, one of the big things about the UDK is that, you know, unlike those ancient magazines of old, this is a living, breathing, always changing, always updating products. So from now, which is, you know, we're sitting here May 30th all the way through kickoff. We're going to be making tweaks and updates and changes and reacting to the news. There's a news feed inside of it so you can keep up to date.

And we want you to win your league. Yeah, the statistics on Kyler Murray and Hollywood Brown have changed already because it was not printed and shipped. And so the quick question for today ties directly into the UDK. Brooks threw in here. Favorite feature or insight from the UDK, favorite upgrade. Is there something real quick that you can touch on that you think is? For me, especially impactful. Yeah, for me, I love the Red Zone report. Just being able to go in and look at the really high value opportunities and see where inefficiencies were. We've capitalized that on that in years past. So for instance, Zeke had 19 carries inside the five. And right now, Zeke is gone. There is a huge goal line opportunity that is available there. Or Joe Mixen, who had 16 carries.

inside the five, only scored five touchdowns on those. His opportunities should be able to bounce back. Or, you know, another one that stood out to me, Jalen Hertz and Miles Sanders combined for 32 carries inside the five yard. I mean, you know, that offense is really awesome. So you could take a look at that. You could take a look at the wide receivers, the quarterbacks, and see the truly really valuable fantasy opportunities. And you can go, oh, look, based on this, this should have happened, but it didn't. I'm going to bet on what should happen versus just what happened last year. Yeah, I'll throw out the newer feature, the upside meters that we added to the UDK because they coincide with like the risk ratings that we've had for years. And it allows you to quickly identify players that, you know, are in a position where, yes, maybe the risk is significant, but you also have a high upside later in your draft, players with opportunities.

that are more consistent but lower upside and lets you balance your team in kind of an efficient way. I like to have, you know, we kind of say those last three picks in the draft. You know, one of them, a lot of the times you're going to be in a situation where you're going to want to be able to be active on the waiver wire immediately in the season. So, you know, you finish your draft, you've got a roster, but you probably are going to have some guys that you're tempted to drop. Make sure your last couple of picks give you upside, something that you can see early in the season so you can make a decision on them quickly.

as opposed to just kind of a maybe low risk but low reward player that you're just going to drop anyways. So that's kind of the feature I'd be focusing on. And I'll chime in here for the best ball primer, which is it's in the UDK Plus, but those who are out there, like we have many months still. Football is approaching, but it is best ball season. And this thing is an absolute... beast that Borg and Betts put together every single year. It's got the team outlook, where to look for your stacks. You're talking about their personal highest exposures to players. Compare our ranks to the underdog ADP. So we see where you can extract value based on our projections and things like that. But it is, how many words is that this year? Kyle, how many words this year? It's like 15 to 20,000. I mean, it's an absolute monster. And if you play best ball, you should.

be utilizing this as one of your go-to tools. Yeah, and if you can't read, do that first and then learn to read. Learn to read. Oh, and then pick this up. Ultimate draft kit.com. Those are just some of the highlights. Let's talk NFL news. News and notes from around the league. Hit the music. The Cardinals have released wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. What pick did we get for them? Had to be a good one. I was going to look up the... They just let him go. Hold on. I'm going to look up the Devante Adams trade. Let's see. Where are we got? Got to get this. So, Devante Adams became a raider last year. I still can't find... Why is it so hard to find trade stuff from last year? The Cardinals. Yeah, the Cardinals...

Their offseason continued. I mean, they dumped DeAndre Hopkins, not even a post-June first cut. They just took it, what, 22 million? I mean, on the chin? For the team, that was honestly, if you're going to get rid of DeAndre Hopkins, that's how you should do it. Just 2023 with a quarterback coming off of an ACL injury and you're rebuilding for this year. Eat that salary cap, have nothing moving forward. It was shocking to me. And it was a 2022 first round pick and a 22 second round pick. Right. And then they gave him a gigantic extension for a player, the players who are basically the same age. I know that Hopkins has missed games, but it's like, how do you not get anything because of the contract? It's because the Raiders weren't available to trade with. They had already gotten you on Ray. Sure. Or, uh.

Devante Adams. But the market is hot and heavy already for DeAndre Hopkins, which, I mean, shocking. What we're hearing the most, it's the Chiefs, it's the Bills. It's going to be some great team, and they're going to get DeAndre Hopkins for just salary. I go on Twitter and I see people asking, like, he joins the Chiefs, he joins the Bills. What are the, what? What will Hopkins be in those situations? And then what will the fallout be? I mean, if he joins Kansas City, you know, the Cadarius Tony hype train can just get completely derailed, as it should. Just cancel the tickets. Just, yeah, I mean, board it up. And, and then in Buffalo, it's like, I'm not really going to move digs that far, but he's going to move. Yeah.

And it would absolutely 100% crush Gabe Davis, who is a very high volume. Like he's in like 90% of snaps. You know, he's in two wide receiver sets. Oh, it'd be so good for Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes, though. Yeah, that's really the big key. You know, if he goes to Buffalo, it's not so much great for Hopkins. But Josh Allen with two superstars? But I mean, you see a wide receiver two in either location or higher? Oh, for fantasy? He's definitely a top 24 wide receiver in either situation. I mean, people forget, again, you look at the Cardinals, you hear the music. He was great when he played football last year with Kyler Murray. And so rumors coming out, he didn't play when he was healthy last year as well. That was another thing that came out. I don't know if you saw that. I did not see that. Multiple games fully healthy, didn't take the feel. That seems not great. Yeah. And so there is, um,

You know, for there only being the Chiefs and Bill's interested right now? That's just the leading. Yeah, there's a lot of teams. I'm sure 31 of 32 teams are checking in on DeAndre Hopkins right now. Well, Mike, why don't you catch us up on this Jimmy Garoppolo news? So the Jimmy Garoppolo news, perhaps starting quarterback for the Las Vegas Raiders. It is now a perhaps because he had a foot surgery in March. And now everything is messed up. He's not participating in OTAs. There was a quote, hopefully he's ready for week one. And then it started to come out that the Raiders have reworked his contract. Essentially, they took his signing bonus. That is now into base salary, which means he does not get that money right now. And the TLDR is, if Jimmy Garoppolo is not healthy sooner than later, the Raiders can just

cut him and move on. Yeah, if you recall, uh, we, we briefly mentioned it on the podcast. Yeah, there was a pump fake. Like the announcement, the, the Twitter sphere went crazy. Grappolo to Raiders. Yeah, okay. That's interesting. But then the team kind of was silent about it. And then a week later, they came out. They like, yeah, we got Jimmy Garoppel and it was like, what, what happened in that time period that you didn't announce that Jimmy Garoppel was your starting quarterback? Well, this is what happened. He has a foot problem. And there is no guarantee that he is the starting quarterback for the Raiders this year. And in totally unrelated news, Tom Brady is now an owner of the Raiders. Minority order. He is, right, right, right. You know, but I'm just saying he is part of that organization. Also, Josh McDaniels is still the head coach.

You know, the Patriots long time. I can't. I'm just saying if I'm in a Superflex. You're going to fan those flames? If I'm in a Superflex Dynasty League. Those old flames? I'm looking on my waiver just to see if Thomas Brady has been dropped. And then Brian Hoyer, he does nothing better than backing up Brady. No, Brian Hoyer is on the roster and they have a rookie. I mean, if this goes south with Jimmy Garoppolo and they can cut him because it has to do with his foot. Are they calling on Trey Lance? Are you calling on? They have to do something. It can't be Brian. Devonty Adams will not hang around. It can't be Brian Hoyer. Hoyer is a fine backup quarterback, but you have... He's 37 now. You have to have a plan. Oh, Lord, is our slack as Carson Wentz. You need... Matt Ryan, baby! You need to have a real grown-up plan.

And a grown-up plan does not involve Carson Wentz coming and being the quarterback of your team. Oh, yes, Carson. Trey Lance, I mean, at this point, I don't even know. Like, what backup quarterback can they go trade just a bag of chips for that is worth a shot to be a starter? If it's Mount Ryan. Oh, it's your bet your little Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, bet goes sideways. It's going to be Carson. Falconsight and Kyle Pitts was not participating in OTAs last week, had surgery for his MCL in November last year. Matthew Betts says he should be 100% by training camp. So I believe him. Yep. And then ESPN had a report writing the Jaguars. Didn't want to see Travis E.TN taking 74% of the running back carries again. Tank Bigsby was a third round pick. We've talked about it on the show. I don't think I'd want my running back getting 74% either. I definitely don't blame them for that.

And so that could speak to more of a balancing there. I don't think that means ETN is going to necessarily struggle. He's been very efficient. But it's an important report. Yeah. The plan last year wasn't for him to take 74%. The plan went sideways when James Robinson stopped performing and then complained about it. And they shipped them off. Yeah. This is what the Jaguars with their actions have told us as well. a fine running back too with weekly running back one upside but you just like when you're making your decisions here if you're looking at ETN or someone who's you're like oh this is a talented running back who should see 70 plus percent of their team's attempts maybe you go that direction um yeah his his best ball ADP is well well ahead of where we have him ranked yeah he's he's a running back one right now he is the he's the running back 12

Being drafted off the board. So you've got to assume he's going to be very efficient or still have, you know, if not a 74% you're going, oh, he's got a 68%. Right. You know, it's got to be close to that to return on the value. Obviously, he's a super talented player. But I think Tank Biggsby is also a talented running back worthy of a day two pick. And so do the Jaguars. It'll be interesting to see where his role is on the team. Especially when it comes to like, is ETN out there on every third down? Pass protecting. I mean, rookie stepping in to do that are difficult. So is it, is Tank Biggsby just taking a drive here and there? I don't know. We'll find out soon enough. Good to see them in training camp. Any other news, Brooksie? That's all for now. Okay. Let's take a quick break. Come back with, uh, explain yourself. It does seem like the Raiders are like on the razor's edge of being a disaster.

Like in the maybe we commit for Caleb Williams type of disaster. Like there's not options out there that are like when Carson Wins's name is brought up in a conversation, you've already reached the point where you might want to hit the panic button. I think that Carson Wentz might be a better path to the number one pick than Brian Hoyer. Oh man. You and your Carson Wins hatred. I think both can get him there. It's only because he's bad at football. It's a strong point, Jason. What do you have? Do you have a counter to that? I have a counter that he wasn't always. That he is far better than Brian Hoyer at football right now. I don't know. Who would you rather have run your office? Colt McCoy or Carson wins? Carson wins. Colt McCoy. Which one has a job right now? Well, yeah, the better quarterback does. Is Carson wins just a bad time?

I think so. I think that's in a locker room, though. I mean, like that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, I think he's not the most beloved. Like does he turn the music way down? Do you know what I mean? Or it's just like polka. He switches it? Yeah, he's he like, I don't know if he's a polka guy. You think so? I don't know. I wouldn't doubt it. Smooth jazz kind of. I don't know. All right. We are, let's move on. I don't think any of us are explaining our Carson Winsprink today, thankfully. Quite well. Thank you. No. Clearly you are not. No rational person would do as you have done. Explain yourself. All right, we're going to take a look at six players that one of us in particular has ranked quite a bit differently than the other two. And we'll start with a player for Mike, which, by the way, I see Kyle sharing the Raiders win total right now, seven and a half. I think I put an underbed on the Raiders about six weeks ago.

So this is only adding to that. I don't think it's heading the right direction. I'm sorry, Raiders fans. All right, the first player we're going to look at. Mike has ranked at 15. I got him at 25, Jason at 29. We've actually talked about this guy a decent amount this offseason. All of us have him ranked ahead of his underdog best ball ADP of 31 at his position. And I think we all like him. But Mike has a much higher rank because, you know, your ranking is kind of where you think that they're going to end up. And this is right on the fringe of a wide receiver. And we are talking about San Francisco 49ers wide receiver, Brandon Ayyuk, who had a very good year last year. That team is always dealing with injuries. I think the question in a lot of people's minds are full strength 49ers. What is the role for Brandon Ayuk, Mike? It's time for you.

To explain yourself. Yes, I have Brandon Ayyuk. I have him ranked pretty high. I mean, compared to where he finished last year, I don't. He's actually very neutral because he finished as a wide receiver 15. From week six through 17, he was the wide receiver six. Look, he, it starts with Brandon Ayuk, number one, being just a good wide receiver. And think of the, uh, the, just the story of Brandon Ayyuk. It's, it's, Taking us a while to get here. First round pick. That's fantastic. The production profile wasn't what you would hope for for Brandon Ayyuk, but then he got the draft capital. It was a little surprising. Comes in, has a rookie campaign where you go, I can see it. I can absolutely see the path for Brandon Ayuk to become a good wide receiver. Then Kyle Shanahan, something happened behind the scenes that we did not completely see. I think we finally heard whispers. It was just was.

Iyuk wasn't taking practice as serious as the coaching staff wanted. But Brandon Iyuk got dog housed. Debo Samuel had a breakout campaign. But towards the end of the year, you're like, okay, maybe Brandon Ayuk has proven himself to this team. And then last year, you have a really big season for him. He is a true deep threat. He's a good route runner. We have this tweet here from Jacob Gibbs, and he broke down the big three for San Francisco. Debo, Kiddle, Brandon Ayyuk. What does it look like when they're all in the field for 300 dropbacks? And it was the target share between Debo and Iyuk was with three percentage points, so not a huge disparity. But what was a huge disparity? The air yarded share was plus 13% for Brandon Iyuk versus Debo. And that ended up putting the receiver yard is pretty similar between the two of them. But I just, to me, one receiver is moving. These receivers are moving in.

kind of different directions with what their careers are. I think that Brandon and I, you can take that step to become one of the better wide receivers in the NFL and the fact that if we're going to have Brock Purdy be the quarterback who the three of us were projecting it's going to be Brock Purdy. There was a little news blurb that he's going to start throwing in a week or two. So that was great news for Purdy. But if it's a pocket passer and it's not Trey Lance, We can have more confidence in these pass catchers, and that's how I see things shaking out. And Debo with his ups and downs, with his, no one's really, you know, injury prone, but I think Devo Samuel might be injury prone. His body just keeps betraying him at all levels of football. And there's Brandon Ayyuk just coming through, being an excellent player for this team and could easily turn in to their number one wide receiver. Yeah.

If he's not already. I get what you're saying. And he very well might be. I mean, he outscored Debo and points per game last season. So you can already say, oh, he should be there wide receiver one. The only issue I have because I think he's a talented guy. I mean, I've loved them, you know, for years as an actual player. The issue is, and why I think Andy and I have him ranked lower, it's hard when you are splitting targets three ways. very hard when it's four ways. And right now, you've got Debo, you've got Kiddle, you've got Ayyuk, and you have to include Christian McCaffrey, who could lead everybody in targets. And so that just makes it to where very difficult, like when I do my projections, I'm projecting health for everybody. Now that won't happen perfectly. So if you want to make the argument that, look, Debo's going to miss half the year, and I'm going to bet on that. And if he did, Ayuk would be much, much better.

But when I do my projections, everyone's playing. And if everybody's playing, there is just not enough passing volume to go around for me. Yeah, I get that. And it's one of the hardest offenses to really look at because, like, I don't think, I think he's the fourth most talented of that group. Oh. I mean, I think Debo's a more talented. Baud. No, I mean, Debo's a more talented athlete at a player. Kiddle, I think, is extremely talented and a gamebreaker at the position. McCaffrey, we already went on to sing those praises. So I haven't seen a football game where Brandon Ayuka feel like is. Takes over. Yeah, he's not, he's not like demanding the targets necessarily.

But, I mean, the proof is in the pudding. Like he's very productive. Like he, he's a super productive. You're going to get eight touchdowns. I think Debo scored twice through the air. I mean, he scored four times as many touchdowns as Debo through the air. So a couple multi-touchdown games for Ayuk. I mean, there were impressive games, no doubt. And he's going to have a lot of room to work because those other three guys are so much of a focus. Like when the defense is playing the 49ers, they are not getting into that room and going, man. How do we stop Brandon IUC today? Like that's not the beginning of their conversation. And so he gets room to work. He's got first round draft capital. But I think this offense is going to be, it's going to be an interesting season for them because Purdy's going to, when he gets back is freshly back from injury. Trey Lance lurking and a defense that's as good as anything in football. So.

Yeah, Mike, Mike with the confidence in Brandon Ayyuk, and I think it's fair. It's hard to argue when he's finished at that position. Despite the first half of 2021 being just a complete dumpster fire of absolute nothingness, we're going into year four. He's improved on yardage. And he didn't improve on touchdowns freshman to sophomore, but 5-5 to 8, 748 yards, 826 yards, up over 1,000 this past year. I mean, the ascension is clear to me of who's becoming the go-to guy for them. Shall we move on? Shall we? Well, Jason, it's your turn to explain yourself. You have decided in whatever Staten Island.

desk you were sitting at, that you would besmirch a sophomore running back that had an incredible rookie season, who when you watch play football, I was entertained. Mike, were you entertained? I was very entertained. We were both entertained. I thought he looked great. He looked fierce. He was fierce because he's Damien Pierce. Mike and I, we got him right inside our top 24. Mike at 24. I'm at 22. I consider ourselves reasonable people. You got him at 32, which is, that's down there. That's down there. So making sure you know. 32 teams. There's 32 teams. Yeah. Yeah. But you know that. I am currently aware. Okay. And so Jason. You may not be later. Without further ado. Explain yourself. Yeah. So apparently I hate Damien Pierce.