Fantasy Football - Week 1 Start/Sit + TNF Preview, Super Bowl Picks - Podcast for 9/3

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. It's close. It's almost football time. Wednesday, September 3rd, the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Jason Moore is here. Mike, the Fantasy Hitman. I'm Andy Holloway, and we are back. I was pretty upset last night that there was no football game going on. That's weird because it wasn't scheduled to be. No, but it's so close. It was a Tuesday. Right. You think just if something's close, it might as well be that day. Like Christmas is the 21st or something. All my drafts had completed. And so it was time now. It was like, okay. The league waits on you. Right. Like, okay, I've got teams. Let's watch them play. That does make sense. I guess you're not in the Megalobole.

draft going on right this moment. I am not. I did my Mega Bowl draft last night. Okay. Well, they're all done. I'll ping the league. We'll see if they can get things going for you. Yeah. Like move up the schedule. Just, you know, maybe play tonight. Just bump that up one night. Well, you're not going to have to wait much longer. I'm pretty excited about it. And we've got Super Bowl picks we're going to talk about today. I just had to do a little glance here. The first waiver wire of our League of Record ran and you went out and you got Xavier Legat.

Because that's what you wanted to do. I sure did. I guess it was all additions. And it's perfect timing because nobody dropped anybody. So how did they add people? Well, that's what our first segment of the show is going to be about today. Some players that you can stash on IR and open up a waiver wire spot for. So we'll get into that momentarily. I want to invite everybody to check out the website. All the week one content is available. All the free content, the weekly rankings, the start sit tool. tons of amazing articles from our incredible staff of writers that go up every single week and they they go to bat for you finding insights and analysis and data and stats and things that will help you win each and every week you can also take advantage of the foot clan tools and resources including the ultimate dashboard which is a weekly lineup optimization tool it also gives you spot starts and waiver pickups and things like that

We've got the expanded SartSit tool available to you, a bonus weekly episode of the show. Bonus. And, you know, we do a bonus mailbag episode for the Foot Clan. Bonus. You can learn all about that. It's not the show's less creepy than Mike is right now, I promise. Still a little creepy. It's still a little bit. You're the one who keeps saying bonus. Yeah, well. Bonus. Jointhefoot.com is where you go for that. And if you've purchased the UDK and you want to ultimate membership, we'll give you a dollar for dollar credit for the ultimate draft kit. Just make sure you're logged in. Go to the website, join the foot.com. You'll see the credit right there above the ultimate package. And then you check out and you're good to go with the ultimate dashboard. All right. Let's jump in. Backup options presented by progressive insurance. Oh, that's a really nice drop, Mike.

Sometimes it's spicy. A little bonus drop. Yeah. Bonus. All right. Today on the backup option segment, I wanted to focus on a handful of players that I want people to, you know, put them on the IR, open up a spot. Maybe they're already on waivers. And you can just go add them off of waivers, put them on the IR and pick up another player. But basically everybody that's... eligible for IR right now. I'm going to bring up the name. But then I want you guys to tell me also whether you think their return will impact the incumbent, the player that is kind of standing in for them right now or at least playing alongside them. We'll start with Tajay Spears running back for the Titans, a high ankle sprain on the pup. Tony Pollard jettisoned up draft boards. Tajay Spears, you can tuck him away. Obviously Tony Pollard, he's not a young running back.

You could get to the point where his efficiency is worse than Spears. Do you think the return of Tadge Spears will affect Tony Pollard? It'll definitely have an effect on Tony Pollard. The first month of the season, Pollard gets to be a complete workhorse, split, very little work and have an opportunity to be great for fantasy football. When Tadje comes back, you know, they talked all offseason. They wanted it to be a 50-50 split, but they said that last year as well. And then it was like, well, you can't really 50-50 split when one guy is clearly better than the other.

And you're trying to win games. And I expect that to happen, but they will split the work. So Tony Pollard gets like a month-long bump. And then Tajay Spears, when he comes back, I think he's a worthy guy to have hidden away. You never know a month from now what running back is going to be injured anyways. All right. I'll go back and forth here, Mike. So I'm going to ask you, there are two wide receivers for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that are going to be on IR. Jalen McMillan, the rookie from last year who had a great end of the season for fantasy.

He's on IR for quite some time. He could be a stash if you found him valuable. But also Chris Godwin. Anybody that drafted Chris Godwin, he's not on the IR. No. But he's going to be marked out every week that might be difficult to manage with your roster if they move from out to doubtful or probable for a period of time. But once he's ruled out in week one, you can put him on the IR, add somebody. When Godwin returns. When McMillan returns, what is your view of Egbuka? Because he's going to have such a huge opportunity to start the year. I would just throw Kate Aughton on that list as well. Another guy who can get some work done. Well, he might be missing this first week. Oh, that is correct. I thought he was bad. Well, they didn't put him on the IR, but it's not known whether he's going to play in week one or not. So it's possible this week one, you've got three pass catchers missing for the box. Gotcha. All right, Mike. Like the way I want.

zoomed out is Jalen McMillan I mean what was the last thing we heard like eight or nine weeks eight or nine weeks it's a neck injury those are you can't mess around with a neck injury the the nice thing though it's like if he is healthy he's actually back you know you don't lower body injuries where it takes a while to come back you would think if he's back he's back and he's ready to go But that's just such a long time. And I expect him to be buried. Chris Godwin is far more difficult because I do see the situation shaking out that he won't be marked out. I mean, this will be the, you'll have him in your IR. The week will flip over. And you're going to have to get those, you know, your waiver moves in. What is it? Real quick before.

before he gets switched back to doubtful or questionable, because they're not going to rule him out until, I don't know, probably Thursday or Friday every single week. So you're going to have a very tricky roster management situation of not being able to set a lineup of especially, it's really going to mess you up with like Thursday night players. So I guess that's just, you know, thinking through it, the tip is like if you're going to have Godwin, when you're putting your waiver wire moves in, you better set your lineup. Like, you better make sure that your Thursday night players are out of your flex because he's, once waivers run, he's going to be flipped to not out, and you're not going to be able to make a move. But then by the end of the week, you can move him into, oh, and add a spot for the weekend, one of those weekend flights. Yeah, you definitely will be able to do that, but it's like. But the question on an Ibuka, that's what I wanted the answer on. What do you think of at Buka, if he starts strong, are you willing to move him because you know it's going to become more clogged in the passing game? I wouldn't. The, if Abuka were a.

day two like a wide receiver three who's just you know really taking advantage of a of a lack of targets or you know with the superstar players out but the abuka was was drafted with the plan to be great as a wise man said drafted to be great so i'm not moving abuka i'm just the i'm more concerned actually for just godwin overall of like what what if mike evans and abook are cooking and it takes Godwin multiple weeks to get back in, then I think you're going to be holding on for Godman forever, and it just seems like a really troubling situation. All right, well, they did just pay him. That's the further complicating it is that they want him in the plans, but you're right. He was a slow starter back from injury last time. Jalen Coker, wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers. The Thielen trade opened up a spot for him, then a major quad injury, four to six weeks.

is the expectation. Coker is on a lot of, yeah, his major quad is hurting. Not the minor quad. Coker will be on IR. He's on waiver wire in our league of record. You could add him. You could throw him onto the IR spot and you could wait. Is it worth it? And then how do you look at, you know, Xavier Legat. Jason just picked him up in the hopes that maybe he gets more work, Tatavian Sanders, Hunter Rinfro, and then obviously Ted McMillan should start strong. Coker's a name you can throw on IR, but will it affect Leggett? I think so. I don't think it will affect Legate that much because I think they're going to operate in different areas of the field. Like Hunter Renfro, to me, is the guy that when Jalen Coker comes back, I think I think Adam Thielen leaving really opened things up for Coker. It was like, oh, wow. Okay, maybe you want Cogar more than Ligette. And then Coker had a really serious quad injury, apparently. Major, major, major quad injury.

This is major quad. I mean, obviously any time that someone comes in and can take targets, it could come at the expense of other players. But I think that just the where they're operating on the field, Legate's going to get his kind of contested catch, deep field stuff, red zone targets. And Coker is going to be more of the possession guy that will fight with Renfro for that job. See, there was very few players I was less impressed with than Xavier Leggett last year. He was, I think, a terrible, it was a terrible rookie season. production wise it was terrible catch percentage wise he dropped a ton of passes i i do wonder whether he'll be as much of a focal point in this offense as i think it's going to be a lot of gadgetry well he'll have to now i mean with without cocker and without adam feeling now he could still fail he could he could i mean he is necessary to this offense and then he could go out there and still stink and you know catch

58% of his passes and not move the needle for you. I don't, I didn't pick up Leggett because I'm like, man, he was so good. It's just, he's a year two wide receiver who was a first round draft pick who now has opportunity ahead of him. It's just a pathway. And it's the, you know, remember where Leggett came from of when we were talking about him as a prospect, if you weren't around for us talking about that, we had great caution for him because his production profile, like he was. just pure nothingness for what like four years for four for a whole college you know the old year five breakout in college which he was dominant that one year it was how did how was this guy not doing anything he was just so athletic but it was a major red flag that that it was it took that long for him to break out you know he's the older guy beating up on kids and then

Carolina took the risk with the first round pick. So I still question whether or not he's going to work. He played 70% of snaps last year at 84 targets, 49 catches for 497. And he'll get an opportunity to start the year to make a big impact. All right, some other names. Joe Mixon. Obviously Joe Mixon is an IR stash. If... You're playing for 2026? I mean, if... I know, I know. It's like, Mixing's been such a storyline. It's like, we just don't know. We don't know if he'll be, like they say they're going to try him out after four weeks, but he could be out the whole year. That's what the vibes feel like right now. Nick Chubb, Damien Pierce, those are the next minute up. They didn't add somebody. They haven't added somebody else. If you want to find a possible, positive angle for Mixon, it's that they haven't gone and signed another back.

and obviously he's not on year-ending IR or anything like that. So Mixon's an easy player to draft and stash late, but Nick Chubb, Damian Pierce, you just got to take a shot. No one has the inside track as to whether or not Pierce is going to be good or whether Chubb's going to be good. I think we all presume that the likeliest outcome is that neither one of these players are going to actually be a huge difference maker. I believe myself and Andy are probably on the... Chubb side first? Yeah, well, I'd start with Chub. Part of the reason is that if Chubb is back in any real capacity, it's very, very obviously good for fantasy. It's like he's going to be the goal line back. He's got a history and a pedigree of being successful. Like Damien Pierce, I feel, will always be in a committee with Chubb. I feel like if Chubb was really good, it wouldn't be the other direction. Yeah.

No, I agree. That's how I see it. So again, I don't expect Chub to be great at this stage of his career off the injuries he's had. But if one of them were to have a breakout, I would be surprised if it's Damien Pierce. Brandon Ayuk, who has been drafted in every draft I'm in, I think begrudgingly in some ways, but a superstar and a player that got a huge contract coming off the ACL, not really competition. in the wide receiver room. I mean, Ricky Pearsall is an unproven sophomore who should have a successful start to the year. Juan Jennings, yes, he's going to be a role player. He's dealing with a calf of injury and he wants a contract, so how long will he be there and happy? But what do you think of the 49ers? Brandon Ayuk, he's an easy stash on IR, but Pierceall, if he has a strong start, are you just sticking with him? Yeah, I think if Pierce Saul shows out early, you know, early on.

then he's just leveled up. And I could see Brandon Ayuk coming back and Pearsall still being the one over Ayuk. When Iyuk came back last year, he wasn't doing great things on the field. He got the big contract and got paid to do great things but didn't and then got injured. So he, I expect a slower start, but obviously everything we love with the 49ers schedule, the offense, the reason we like George Kettle and Joanne Jennings and all this is because there is huge opportunity here. So Iyuk. could certainly come back and make a difference, but I'm not bullish on him. One of the most, if not the most ignored IR stashes, Christian Watson, wide receiver for the Packers. We have talked at length about Jaden Reed's foot injury. He could get shut down at some point or just be ineffective, already limited snap counts. I think we can simultaneously respect Romeo Doms, but also acknowledge that he's probably a role player. Sure.

who will have maybe a big role in the beginning of the year. Matthew Golden, Unproven, a rookie, I think will be the one. But Christian Watson can be tucked away. He will be back from the ACL injury. Do you have any interest in him at all? That one's honestly just win. When is he back? Because he tore his ACL. I think I hear like four weeks. I would be surprised. Because he had the additional damage. It was the final week. Yeah, he had the ACL. plus additional damage. And those usually take a little bit more time. I'm seeing early November or mid-October. Okay, that makes more sense. So maybe that's more like six weeks. He, it's interesting to bring him up because it's, you know, like both him and Brandon Ayyuk are, you know, a destroyed knee and people were, we were spending the whole off season. Like, do not draft Brandon Ayuk in round seven or whatever his ADP is. It's just.

It's not a good investment of when he's actually going to come back. And meanwhile, Watson is, you know, not drafted. He, I feel like he's just going to clog your IR. Like if you have, if you have two spots, okay, maybe. But if you have one IR spot, I wouldn't be holding him. Also, if you have IR spots, this is the whole point of this segment. And it's really about strategy. You should have someone on it. You should, you're getting a free player. Like if, if one of these players is on waivers. You take your bottom guy on your team and drop them and pick them up and put them on IR and take another shot. And then Marshawn Lloyd, don't forget about him, even though it's easy to do so because he lives on the IR. He won't be able to play until week six because the Packers have a week five by. So four weeks on the pup, week five. The reality of the situation there in Green Bay is that if something happens to Josh Jacobs, it would be Lloyd that I would want.

He was making waves. He was making waves and the camp reports once he actually got, because he started injured again and then got back out to camp and then was wowing people and then wowed his body too much. So how do you rank stashing these players? Of everyone we talked about? Yeah. I would say Tajay Spears is the number one. Yeah. Maybe Jalen Koker. sticks out to me high up there. Iyuk. Where are you with Mixing? Mixing to me doesn't really count because Mixing was drafted in every draft at a place where it's like he's not on waivers. I'm not going to pick him up. You know, you could say Mixon is probably the most valuable player of all of these. I just don't consider him in the group with, you know, Tajay and Coker and Marshaun Lloyd and these guys are probably on waivers in, you know, a third of leagues right now. If and I look, I know there's people out there, that's impossible.

I there's going to be leagues out there where mixing will be dropped like just because home leagues crazy stuff happens especially if you don't have an i are yeah so do you pick them up if you don't have an ir no i would i would not and it feels dumb i don't i don't think i would do it i you know rashi rice is that guy like we didn't bring him up because you can't put him on an ir he's going to have six weeks of clogging a bench spot that's going to hurt like even this morning Like, I really wanted to pick up a couple waiver guys, and I just didn't want to drop the players that are on my roster right now. If you have a player not being productive every week, it's going to feel worse and worse with the waiver wire. So, yeah, I probably wouldn't on mixing. Jason would, but you can make the call. All right. That was Backup Option, sponsored by Progressive Insurance Quote Today at Progressive.com. We'll take a break. We'll hit the news. All right, let's talk about some news.

News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance. It wouldn't be week one without unofficial debt chart overreaction. So let's get into it. Let's bring you those depth charts and let's just watch you react. I want facial expressions for the YouTube audience. Okay. Bill Kroski. Oh no. Bill Kroski was listed as Washington's running back four. There's not even a guarantee they dress four. but certainly they could dress Bill and not dress McNichols. It was ordered. That's the funniest part of this. It was ordered in H. I'm just saying it was Echler, McNichols, veteran respect. Chris Rodriguez, Bill. So overreaction, underreaction, what do you think? Bill, RB4, do you care? I don't care that much. We, we see this every year where a lot of times rookies will start on their unofficial depth charts behind other people.

And then week one comes and it's like, well, that's, that was just literally like paper honor. And now with Bill specifically, with Bill specifically, we, we kind of have been saying he is likely behind some other people on the depth chart. So this one was like not even surprising. The everything about Bill is do you believe that the player is special? That's what it seems to come down to. It's like the people that love Bill love and are impressed with him. and think he's on a different level than the other running backs. If you don't believe that and you just look at draft capital or depth chart or any of the other, you know, the collegiate stuff, I think you're out. But if you believe in the talent, I get it. Like I understand why you'd be in that place. It's not like Chris Rodriguez hasn't had years to establish. McNichols years. And Echler is, he's a good running back, but he's not what he was a long time ago. So committee is at best what he is. The scariest part, I think, for Bill, if you're talking just week one,

is the wise guys out there were saying his line is about 24 rushing yards. And that is now gone. As in they are... They got betty under so much. They books pulled it. So they... And look, they don't know everything, but they... They just try to limit losses, too. Well, yeah, they try and limit losses. But I'm saying, like, they have, you know, back... doors they can go knock on and ask how things are going to go. Well, that'll be a fun month to watch. Trayvion Henderson listed as New England's RB3 behind Ramandre and Antonio. Of course I don't care. Antonio Gibson. What is this is so dumb. Well, of course you don't care because you love Antonio Gibson. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, man, a backfield with Gibson and Henderson. I know. There's so much to love. We need to get Ramondre traded for who? Like who would be another name that? Oh, to add a third Mike. To add a third Mike superstar.

Like Ken Bone? Kenone? No, no. This is Rico. Oh, it is Rico. Yeah. It's got Hendo at RB1, Gibson, RB2. Mike can answer to the joke himself. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you don't care about Trevion at RB3. What about the Bronco situation? J.K. Dobbins is listed as the starter. RJ Harvey, RB, RB2, I think at one point in the off season, correct me if I'm wrong. I think RJ Harvey was listed at like five. Uh-huh. And so to me, him moving up in an official capacity to RB2 is significant that. That's where the team obviously sees him, but he's not the one. His utilization in preseason was great, but obviously Dobbins was, I mean, it could be Dobbins being arrested, exactly, because he is the clear starter. Right now, I think week one, J.K. Dobbins is still going to be the lead ball toucher. Lead, whoa. Whoa. Yeah, what is? I think he's going to receive new catches.

targets and handoffs at a higher rate. I think you will touch them. I think the question was if you have both Dobbins and Harvey, who are you playing? That is the question. If you had them both, which I know you do in one league, Mike, you'll have to start both in that. Yeah, yeah. But if you had to choose one in week one, you go out there. Man, I, because the reporting was matchup against Tennessee in week one. Because the reporting was expect J.K. Dobbins to be the starter at least. for the beginning of the year. That's why I probably go. It's such a brutal call because if you spent draft capital on both these guys, you drafted Harvey where the fourth or the fifth round and then Dobbins and eight. It's funny too because let's say, let's say we knew the the opportunities, right? And we say J.K. Dobbins gets 15 opportunities and RJ Harvey gets 11. Who has more fantasy points? Because the explosive rookie. Yeah, if it was like that, then maybe I'd, you know, it's really close in week one. Yeah, really close.

Both are fine starters and it's a good match. I think Dobbins is less risky in week one, but maybe Harvey does have more explosive upside. Yeah. ETN and Bigsby listed as co-starters. Are they running out two running backs? Zero is the answer. No, Tank Biggsby, Travis ETN, co-starters. Who would you rather have to start in week one? I'm still on Team Tank. I'm still on ETN. I think he's going to get the past catching work over Tank, but probably. I think they both get past catching work. I mean, if Tank Bigsby got past catching work, he would be the better option because he is a more efficient runner between the tackles. He's a better pure running back. But I, you know, the passing work that Travis Eton has always had from Trevor Lawrence. I can't imagine that vanished. Over under half a reception for Tank Bigsby. See, that's a good line and that's the problem. I will take the over. But if you said one and a half, I was going to move it again.

Yeah, the hard part with ETN is that if he doesn't score, which he shouldn't, right, it should be Biggsby around the goal line. Should. If not Tooting, but probably Bigsby. Right. It's like ETN had 202 opportunities last year and did so little. Oh, yeah. So it's like, I just feels like even if you give him more total work. It's going to come down to touchdown. So I lean Bigsby. Caleb Johnson listed as the running back three behind Jaylen. Right where we want them, boys. Right behind Jalen Warren and Kenneth Gain. No one loves the third running back more than Arthur Smith. With also. Now we can get on the goal line. Where's our, where's our Mike Tomlin quote? Oh, yeah. That's, uh, that was pretty brutal. I don't have a verbatim in front of me, but they, oh, we can find that. Yeah, we can find. It is a worthy quote. It needs to be known and said. And what is shocking. So we did our listener league draft.

yesterday. I ended up with Caleb Johnson a player. You did? Yeah, I know it's shocking. No, but you want to know what will shock you? I do. My cue was not Caleb Johnson. My cue was Jalen Warren, who I was going to take, but he went ahead, so Caleb fell to me. But I mean, right now, Jalen Warren is the starter. I like Caleb Johnson. I still think he can make an impact as the season goes on, but Jalen Warren is the guy right now. Mike Tomlin on Jalen Warren, his progress. has been very evident and he's to be congratulated. Certainly he will be our featured runner. Certainly you'll see Caleb Johnson, Kenneth Gainwell, but at what time and to what degree will depend week to week? Yeah. It's Jalen Warren's team to start. Yep. But that doesn't mean that Caleb can't be relevant. No, throughout the season, but I'm just, thank goodness he's not the backup. You do buy into that. I buy in that Jalen Warren will be the featured running back for the first.