Rookie Review + 2nd Year Star Potential? - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/18

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Tuesday, February 18th, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway. It's the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Happy to be with you. All of you listening, all of you watching the show over on YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Jay with a yuhoo wave over there. Welcome to YouTube. A little bit frightening. We got a great show for you today. We're going to do some rookie review, and I'll be curious, gentlemen, which rookies you think will be elite sophomore options for fantasy football players. So we'll walk through the positions. We'll keep it brief, but I do want to know if you fell in love with one or two of these players in each position that.

Whether they performed in their rookie season or not, you think, you know, brighter days are ahead. Yeah. Joe Milton III. They did talk about him getting traded. Dude, he was awesome for one part of one game. Week 18. Yeah. Yeah. A reminder of the Ultimate Draft Kit available now, the pre-order that is, Ultimate DraftKit.com, where you can get instant access to the Dynasty Pass. And you can learn all about the UDK and the Dynasty Pass. at ultimate draft kit.com. We have a special giveaway, a chance to win a listener league spot. Come and play with us in 2025. It's also the lowest possible price you can get. So if you're going to get it eventually, get it now. Yeah. If you're listening to the show, you're probably playing fantasy football this year, which means you're going to want the ultimate draft kit, cheapest price, get in our listener league, have a chance at it. And all the dynasty stuff, you know, we're talking rookies today. The incoming rookies are...

outlined their team opportunities. A bunch of stuff is already up and available, even though the main thing launches on June 1st. And the community, you can always find it at join the foot.com. We'd love to have you hop in there and become a part of the foot clan. We have a quick question of the day. It's an Instagram question written in by SDP Dub. Don't know what that means. What is the most important thing when it comes to starting a dynasty league? So it is dynasty season. We have a dynasty podcast. Let's talk about dynasty leagues. Yeah, I mean, to me, if you're going to start a new dynasty league, the most important thing is the league mates, the members of the league. This is something that you hope is around for, you know, at least a decade. You know, you're going to go through cycles and have rivalries and you need active managers. When you have, it's not like a redraft league. A redraft league, you got your buddy Bill who really doesn't give two farts and whatever.

Next year, he's like, yeah, I'm not, I don't want to do it. Poor Bill. Bill needs to stop farting around. All the bills out there. So I would just say have a group of people who are dedicated and love fantasy football. That's just going to make your league better. If you're a member of joining the foot, you can go to Footclanleagues.com, find someone to fill in. And I would just say to that point, like, you know, all of the leagues were in, they're 12-man leagues. Every league that I play in is 12 at least. Our listener league is even larger. But I would be happier to play in an eight-team Dynasty League with committed, like a core group of eight that I know is going to be around for a long time and just make the rosters larger. It's easier to fix that. Yeah. And then if you want to add, you know, two more managers and turn it into a 10 team down the road, you can do fun expansion drafts. There's ways to get around that as opposed to just.

filling it being like, I've got to have 12 guys in this league or 12 people. So, you know, it just doesn't, it's not going to be as fun. Mike, do you have a, I mean, that dynasty tip? I mean, that's a good one. That is the most important thing. But if you, if you're talking specifically about your startup draft, it's, uh, screw them RBs. That's, that's my usual. Yeah, that really is, especially old running backs. Um, but it's, Don't overvalue youth in your dynasty draft. Like don't reach for guys who they shouldn't be going in the second or third round. You're like, well, they're so young. So I'm going to have them on my team forever. You know, you need to balance that. You do need to balance with some old guys. But generally speaking, like in the first round, early on, I'm not drafting really any.

running backs, but if you're going to get one, it has to be Bijon Gibbs, guys who are just young. I'm like, Sequin Barclay, Barkley is going to finish as a top five, top three running back next year, assuming he plays all the games, but for how long? I've got a more nuanced tip for Dynasty leagues in terms of making them more entertaining and fun. If you can get the history, documented for the league in whatever way possible, that's more fun as the Dynasty League carries on. I think those stats are great, you know, whatever it is, the most point scored in the season, the best record of all time. Obviously, you're going to know your champions, but there's a lot of different metrics, head-to-head matchups, rivalries. There are websites that will provide that for you. There's a lot of them out there. I think League Legacy is one of them, but there's several other ones. Those are best to get...

connected early when you start the league as opposed to trying to go back and figure out all of that information so if you enjoy that kind of that side of it to me dynasty is all about the longevity and the franchise history and building something special and so opportunities to break records to know records are coming up i mean that stuff's fun for me and make sure you're on a platform or in an environment where communication It's simple and easy. So you can be talking all year round wherever that is a Slack channel. Maybe it's on sleep or whatever the case may be. Talk that trash. I'm not going to hit the drop, but I do have one piece of news. We're pre-recording this show. We're at FSGA in Las Vegas, the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association conference. So we're recording the show a little bit early. So there may be other big news that has broken and we'll get to that on future episodes. The only thing that we haven't talked about on the show that did come out was.

A tandem bit of news about James Cook. One, first it came out. He's looking to receive $15 million a year on the next contract. That's the small news. And then the next day went on Instagram Live, penned his own comment about $15 million a year, and then he removed the team from his profile. We got him. Scrub a dub that profile. We got them. The bills know. that James Cook is not messing around. He means business. He got rid of, I mean, worked for Kyler, right? This is stupid. It's so stupid. Did you have, have we been checking Al Borland's profile to see if he's still listed as producer? Because I don't know if that's the negotiation tactic that, you know. I feel like if someone did that here, we'd just let him go. Right?

Like, you know, I'm looking for a new contract. I'm going to take all, you know, mentions of the fantasy footballers. Right. If that's what you're saying. No. Speed-wise. So for some context, obviously, contracts, they go up. But so Christian McCaffrey right now, he's, he's an average of, what is it, 19 mil a year. And the second highest average is Jonathan Taylor at 14. Is James Cook worth 15 million a year? Even with that. Even with the inflationary context? It's really difficult because the question of like, could James Cook be worth that? I think so. But the way that the Buffalo bills use their running backs, especially now when they're like, no, we use three guys. We use Ty Johnson. We use Ray Davis. And so to have that amount of money into a position that.

that things fall apart pretty fast. It's so. They can justify it because they could say, well, we just pay an average of $6 million per each running back. 15 million goes to Cook and then, you know, a million to each of the other guys. It's a weird offseason because you just saw the influence of a dynamic running back being added to an offense and the value of Sequin Barclay and Derek Henry and Josh Jacobs and doing Sequin's average salary is 12.5 million. So I think 15 seems like a stretch. Looks like Derek Henry is at 8 million. Well, you don't start low. Josh Jacobs is a 12 million. You don't start low when you start pulling it off of the IG. Maybe he did send them a note and said, I want 15 and didn't get a reply. Maybe they got a reply and it said.

go ahead and remove bills from your profile. Maybe this is not James Cook at all. He's like, I want 15 million. He's like, dude, just scrub. Just go ahead and scrub it. I mean, it's crazy because we just talked about James Cook again on the last episode and, you know, the 16 touchdowns. Like if there was ever a time to negotiate your contract. Oh, yeah. After you scored two touchdowns, two touchdowns. Then you went to 16. He's year, he's going into year four, right? He probably started asking for a million of touchdown. I mean, on the back of this off season where the big signings at running back made giant impacts for the rosters, took teams deep into the playoffs, won a Super Bowl. Yeah, you start to say, look, running backs matter again. And, you know, I'm the second best player on the bills. You got to pay me accordingly. I don't mind him doing that. If you're a running back, try to get your money. You're not worth. You're.

The running back market should not be giving $15 million to someone per year that's not a top three back in the league. And he's not a top three back. He is currently the number 48 on the average salary by running back. So this is, I'd like to be paid appropriately. And I do believe a little bit in the rewarding the season when you play it. like, you know, Brock Purdy, right? A bunch of years at no money. James Cook is going to be an unrestricted free agent in 2026. So this will be the final year of his deal. His base salary this year will be 5.1 in the final year of his deal. I believe his brother threatened to hold out about the same timeline and then gave in and played on the contract if memory serves.

Yeah, so we'll see what happens with James Cook. Apparently, that'll be a storyline we get to enjoy all offseason long. Talk some rookies. Rookie review. All right, we'll take a quick walk down memory lane, see what we got out of the rookies this year, position by position and who we think can take a step forward in 2025. We'll begin with a player. I know I feel like Jason is very... confident in the future capabilities of Caleb Williams? Is it confidence? Or you're just hopeful because of Ben? So I think it is more hope than confidence, but it's not, it's optimistic hope. Okay. In the sense that like there are times where you just didn't see enough from a player to believe, you know, rookie year Bryce Young, it was very difficult to see the path for him.

You know, he just didn't have any success. He didn't show the flashes. Now, he's gotten it together. I think now there's optimism in Carolina that Bryce Young's a thing. But last year with Caleb Williams, while he had some just abysmal games, his inability to, you know, get rid of the ball and stop taking sacks. But those are rookie mistakes. He also had really great moments, flashes of brilliance, showed kind of the special features he has, his arm strength and talent. And so you combine that with Ben Johnson coming in. And so I am optimistic that it's going to work out. Finished as the quarterback 14 was drafted in the ninth round in fantasy leagues. And, you know, not what we hope for or expected. You know, you said flashes of brilliance. There were plays. There were moments, stuff that other quarterbacks that we've looked at in the rookie seasons never gave us. That is for sure. I don't know if I saw the complete game. I would have loved to have seen one complete game where I felt like,

He was in control from the beginning of the first quarter through the fourth quarter. They won the game. And I said, hey, that's just something you need to, you know, start to repeat. Oh, I agree completely. I mean, he had a couple games. So he had, you know, from a fantasy standpoint, you had five top six fantasy finishes on the week. But even in some of those great games, the first half, it's like he had 33 yards. And then, you know, they were getting blown out. And he came back and had a great comeback. and showed those. I agree with you. There was no consistency, and I don't think I saw a complete game, just front to back open to close. Yeah, I'm going to trust in Ben Johnson with you, Jason, of like, I want good coaches and good offenses to put my players on the path to success. But man, Caleb looked brutal to me of just frantic, not seeing

They looked like he could be easily confused. He has great arm talent, but I'm concerned. The second rookie quarterback off the board in the 10th round who finished as the quarterback four on the year, Jaden Daniels, we have been. I'm less concerned. Yeah, I mean, this was awesome. I mean, it's the seventh most rushing attempts of all time as a rookie. Had an incredible season. Certainly seems like Washington is in safe hands. for the near term at a minimum. You know, you never know what injury or something like that could derail a career. But you couldn't ask for a better situation top to bottom than what Washington is in right now. New ownership, a coach that had success. You know, you outperformed your expectations. Your rookie was more mature beyond his years. And you have a foundation to build upon. When you talk about fantasy football, I think it's not it's not a debate that Jaden Daniels is.

five rungs ahead of every other rookie from this past year. The question is just, is he a perennial top five guy to you here on him? He is. His nature of just being so unflappable, he doesn't rattle. When things go bad, he just gets up and he's got the same calm, cool demeanor that you see from successful NFL quarterbacks just didn't seem to tilt. usually has an answer. The fact that he has the superpower Trump card with his legs and that he's willing to scramble and he's not afraid to use it. You know, it's like Kyler has that. Yeah. But Kyler's terrified to use it. He doesn't, you know, it's like that's a break glass in case of emergency. Whereas with Jaden Daniels, that's a, if you guys don't guard me right, I'm gone. And so for fantasy purposes, there's no fear.

You could argue he should be the number one quarterback drafted next year with, you know, an older Josh Allen and him coming into year two. But he'll be in that top. It'll probably be the third quarterback drafted. Definitely be in the top five. Washington has the third most cap available to them because it's like, I mean, he was, he did that with like Terry McLaren. Like Terry McLaurin is a great player, but Terry McLaurin's a little bit older and. Like, if you can get- You're going to talk older, Zach Hertz. Yeah, I mean, like the pieces on this team, imagining that this team being really aggressive and going out and getting a- Team Higgins. Yeah, if Higgins gets to market, but or just, I'm saying something, a first round wide receiver, a splash and free agency. They can make something happen here. And just a wild thing of Jane Daniels of like,

His stock went up in a game that he did not play. Watching the Super Bowl and how Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs struggled against the Philadelphia Eagles, comparing that to the game that just happened where Jade Daniels was just fine. You're like, that is really, really, really impressive season and very optimistic for the future. Third overall pick Drake May, eighth overall pick, Michael Pinnock Jr. 10th overall pick, J.J. McCarthy, who looks like will transition right into being the starter. I have my doubts as Sam Donald is coming back. I mean, what would you handicap it at right now in Minnesota? I have at about 10%. Man. I've got it more like 66 33. I think they're going to give him. To return? No, 66% that it's J.J. McCarthy. But I think there's a good chance. They're going to let Sam Donald test the open market if there's a team out there. Like let's say the Rams end up.

trading Stafford to the Jets. Like, you know, you've seen some rumors out there. And then they want to go after a Darnold and they'll probably pay more than Minnesota is willing to pay. But if Darnold doesn't find a good market, which he might not, a lot of these teams who need quarterbacks are going to be highly up in the draft. They're going to be drafting one. Well, let's do the experiment. I think it would be fun. AFC East, the only team that actually could use them will never bring him in because he used to play for them. The Jets, right? Because Drake May is secure. They might be interested. I don't know if Donald's interested. They just can't do it. They couldn't. I mean, could you imagine if the New York Jets signed him and he comes back and he sucks. Yeah, that you just can't do it. I mean, it would just be like bring a circus in, man. You've got now the NFL has to, you know, you know, do what soccer does and have the teams go down.

Oh, relegate them. Yeah. The Raiders are the only team in the AFC West. They're definitely a contender for Sam Darnel. Yeah. Especially with Pete Carroll there. No time to waste. There's, uh, the AFC north. The AFC north, you'd have the Steelers or the Browns. Those would be two teams that could use a quarterback. And then for the South, um, you know, you're really looking at the Titans. Um, probably nobody else. The Titans have such a high pick. I think if they're going after a quarterback, they should do it in the draft. NFC-wise, you'd be talking about the Giants. Yeah. Otherwise, no other team in the east. NFC West, probably it would be the Rams trading Stafford. That'd be it. NFC North, nobody. They're all set. Right. And then NFC South, Saints seem committed to Derek Carr. Panthers, no, they've already done the darn old experiment as well.

and the Falcons of Buccaneers have it figured out. So, yeah, I mean, let him test the water, see if the Raiders write him a big check and maybe he's got a chance to come back. But of those guys, May, Pennix, McCarthy, and I'll throw Bow Nixon now, pick 12, amazing rookie season. If you were kind of putting those guys in order from a dynasty perspective, just based on what you saw as a rookie, you know, limited work for Pennix, May. Nothing from McCarthy. I mean, I've got Bo Nix ahead of Caleb Williams in Dynasty Startup, right? Because I would much rather have him. I'm sure of the system that's in place. And it just feels safe and secure with Sean Payton and what we saw from rookie year Bo Nix with, again, not a ton of weapons. I do think that Marvin Mims, hopefully Troy Franklin, like they've got some good developmental prospects, but this wasn't, you know, some elite.

core of wide receivers that he was inheriting. He got more out of Cortland Sutton than we've seen in years. The fact that he uses his legs, runs the system well. Bo Nix to me is obviously very safe. And from fantasy, you know, for fantasy football, very safe because he runs. These other guys, Pennix and Drake May. Well, Jake, I mean, Drake May actually had, what, 10 fewer rushing yards? Then Bo Nix? Yeah, he ran well, but he didn't throw well. But he didn't have anybody to throw to. The Patriots is a full rebuild. So it would be just a do you feel like you saw enough composure and enough traits from Drake May that the future could look bright? Yeah, I liked what I saw from Drake May. They're slotted for like a lot of mock drafts have T-Mack.

going there as the number one wide receiver off the board. So it's like factoring that. The Patriots are going to do something. They're not just going to stand pat with the wide receivers that they have right now. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think Drake May might be the most slept on of this group in terms of, you know, at least with McCarthy, you know, you can paint the picture. You know, Addison and Jefferson. Kevin O'Connell. I'm bullish on McCarthy. I mean, McCarthy should be able to, like, you can see the easy case for him coming in and being successful. Michael Pinnix, we got to see enough of him. He's got weapons around him, great running game. You can see him being successful. Bo Nix. We saw have a good year. Drake May is sitting there in this, like I don't want to be so afraid of the Patriots offense and system that we ignore what might be coming because of like what you said. The draft capital is going to be there.

They made a move at head coach after one year. And I think Drink May, you know, he's a third pick in the draft. And he definitely showed a lot of skill. Mike Rable, I believe, is a very good head coach. But I think he's a very good NFL head coach. He's not the type of head coach. You're really, you know, Jones and foreign fantasy football. He's going to come in and make sure the defense plays better. You know, not just be a high flying office, especially with the personnel they have. He's going to, you know, match. how to win ball games with the personnel they have, and I don't know that they've got enough explosive power on offense. It was kind of like when Harbaugh went to the Chargers, we kind of, that took nothing away from Justin Herbert's talent, but you knew like, he's probably not going to do as much for fantasy. And I feel that same way here, not to take anything away from Drake May, the player or the talent, but I think Rabel coming in is not going to be great for fantasy. The wild thing for Drake May,

So his end of season stats, you know, just under 2,300 yards, 15 passing touchdowns. He appeared in 12 games. He pretty much played 10 full games. If you go look at the game log of like he didn't start at the beginning of the year, fills in a little bit at the end of week three, then doesn't start two more times. And then you had, and then week eight, 30% of snaps gets knocked out. doesn't play the last game. So in essentially 10 full games, you know, he puts up those numbers of 2315 and like Caleb Williams threw 20 touchdowns in an entire season. So it's like dirt, I would, I think it would be foolish to overlook Drake May moving forward. All right. We'll take a break and we'll come back and talk about the rookie running back performances. All right. Let's talk rookie review at the running back position.

This was a down year for rookie running backs. Fewest total touches and yards from scrimmage for rookie running backs over the last decade. It also happened to line up with a year where the aforementioned Henry and Sequin and Jacobs had monster years for teams. Such a weird year. Did not find value in the draft. I mean, one of the things in fantasy football that has been so consistent. I mean, it's literally been 12 years in a row. Longer than we've been doing this show and we've done it a decade, there are always two rookie running backs or more, sometimes many more, but at least two rookie running backs who finished in the top 24. And so this was the first year that that said goodbye. Yeah, yeah, 12-year run is over. But the top five running backs drafted, they couldn't get on the field. I mean, Jonathan Brooks, we know the story. Sad story. And we got a, not an unexpected, but just a now it's.

They're being talked about in media of Jonathan Brooks is likely to miss most of, if not all of 2025. It better be all. It better be all. Don't bring him back at the end of a lost season to redo this. When you re-tear your ACL and it took so long to even get him on the field. So something was up with what do you do with him in Dynasty? Let's say you lost your rookie year, right? And let's just say he doesn't play a snap this year. So he's out. Right. He comes into his third year after missing his first two. Is he ever going to be handed the reins to be like, okay, you're the guy, you're a star running back. If there's a way for you to box them up and put him in the attic for a couple of years for your fantasy team, I mean, you can't trade him for anything. So you're just, you're lost. Yeah, that's wild. You made the pick and you're stuck. I mean, but it wasn't only him. I mean, the first five picks drafted. Jonathan Brooks.

Got the injury. Trey Benson. James Connor was awesome. Got an extension. Goodbye. Yeah, I mean, Trey Benson's a good player. And if Connor gets hurt, which he does sometimes, Trey Benson will be. Trey Benson's a sensational backup, in my opinion. And look, when you're, I guess, just thinking of Dynasty of the way that I look at it is most, it's hard to have three good starting running backs in Dynasty. If you have two where you're like, Every week, except for by weeks, I know that these are my two starters. You're in an okay position. But then it's, you got to have just a stable of backups because the NFL season is brutal. And backups end up starting for you a lot. So this is not a, it's not the end of Trey Benson. He has value for fantasy. I agree. I mean, I think I. Just not as a starter yet. Connor, but to Jason Swiman, Connor is the leader. Connor got the contract.

Trey Benson will be stuck in a role that no one likes for fantasy unless there's an injury. And then Blake Corum, same boat right now. Kyron's only 24 years old. Kyron was awesome. If he gets an extension, goodbye. The only thing that could disrupt something in Los Angeles would be, you know, Cooper Cups going out the door. Does Stafford leave? Does that mean that your head coach? Does he just, does he want that next quarterback project? Like the Sam Darnold? Is that why he wants, they might want to make that move to reset the clock? They've got a young defense or, you know, could that change the trajectory? I mean, what's Kyran's contract situation? He's going into year four, so he's eligible and he's in the final year of his deal. Does he still follow the team on Instagram? I've seen some, I've seen some whispers of an extension coming for Kyron. That would be so great for Dynasty. We saw six carries for Marshaun Lloyd.