Fantasy Football - The TRUTH: WRs Part 2 + Big Game Bonanza - Podcast for 2/3

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Welcome into the fantasy footballers podcast, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway. What a day to be here with you talking fantasy ahead of the big game. The big game. You can't use the real, it's so big. Trademark name is just a big game. Has, does anyone have a trademark to like the biggest game or the bigger game? Does anyone have the big game trademark? Because then they'd be like, nah, uh, ah, oh. Look into all three. Yeah. Claimsies. That is the move. Everyone. The domain name the big game.com is for sale. For how much? No price has been disclosed. Oh, what about bigger?

game and biggest. We look into it. Yeah, I'm on it. We own a lot of unnecessary domains. Mike, you can get any of them that you want. I would consider all of them very useful. That's why we have them. Bro, we were so early on Christmas football.com. We have Tuesday night football.com. Yeah? I think we probably have Wednesday night football. There's a good chance. I'm on it. Like if we go through another pandemic, we've got all the days that they're going to be playing football on lock. That's right. That's right. Welcome back into the show, the truth. Bad news. We do not. We do not have Wednesday night football. Oh, we have Wednesday night? We have Saturday night football? Probably. How about Halloween football? I don't know, man. We're losing them all right now by talking about it. Our top men on this. These are supposed to be secrets. Oh, crap. Don't have business meetings live on air at the top of the show. Look, I'm excited. We do have the Super Bowl coming up.

And we've got the truth episodes, the final two episodes this week. Somebody nod at me. Yes. That's correct. Yes, the final two truth episodes. Sunday is not just the big game. Sunday is, the big game takes a back seat, really, too. Yeah. The ultimate draft kit pre-orders begin on Sunday at a discount. The 2026 ultimate draft kit. The team has been working like gangbusters. The new app. Huge refresh, looks better, runs better, more effective. The first part of the Dynasty Pass will also launch on Sunday. So that'll be available if you've got the UDK Plus or if you're an Ultimate Foot Clan member, you already have it. So that'll be Ultimate DraftCat.com on Sunday and the Dynasty Pass immediately available. We've been in our dynasty startup rankings talking through all of those. Oh, man. It's not easy.

No, it's not. And Andy, we had the same problem. Jason, you were not in the room. We got to the point of the tight ends and we're like, George Kittle. Yeah. Oh, man. What do you? I just kept clicking the down button. What do you possibly do? Because you have to call. You got to call your shot one way or the other. Either he's like a screaming value because he can return from an Achilles injury at post 30 and be a dominant tight end. Oh, no. Or he can't as the rest of the people who have torn their Achilles, like where they just go way down in fantasy value. It is so brutal. I don't think the people understand the amount of pain it brings us to do rankings. Yeah. This is hard work. We have to move guys like George Kittle to places we don't like them. In Dynasty, when you get older, you get it moved down, even though we respect you. He's under contract for four more years. Four more years. And then you clearly. Isaiah likely or George Kittle in a dynasty startup.

I would hold. I mean, oh, I knew you'd pause. Likely he's free agent. Yeah. So he like he might be a boat, but George, oh no, no. You don't have to check with the rankings. I mean, it's tough when you think like even worse, like a fellow older titan like Dalton Schultz. Like buried. Right. Like, Kittle's career could be. pretty much fantasy wise over. If it takes him, you know, three quarters of the year to get back and then he's not ever himself this year. Oh, yeah. If you're in a startup draft, in a start up draft, you would take Theo Johnson. Meowson Taylor. Oh, stop it. Oh, maybe. No, I don't know. But that's why I said stop it. Stop it first. Have some respect. This is the, that's the fun of dynasty and the challenge of dynasty rankings. You can see where are George Kittle?

spot lands on Sunday. With weeping and gnashing of teeth. He will be the only player listed as between rank 5 and 25. Yeah. Just somewhere in there. Those injuries are tough. They're tough. But that's all coming on Sunday. And we do offer a pre-order discount. If you are a member of the Foot Clan, you get a discount on top of that. And obviously, if you're an ultimate Foot Clan member, you just get access on Sunday. Nothing more to buy. We appreciate each and every one of you supporting the show. You can find us over on X at the FF Ballers, where we've always been. You can find Jason at Jason FFL, Mike at FFHitman. I'm at Andy Holloway. The community is at joinedthefoot.com, and you can watch the show every day. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers, subscribe, click the bell. And let's jump into the news. News and notes from around the league. All righty.

The Raiders, I'm going to share their news first because they made the news first. Clint Kubiak, after he completes his potential Super Bowl victory with the Seahawks, will become the next head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, the next head coach of Fernando Mendoza, Brock Bowers, and Ashton Genti. He's done a masterful job. Seattle will have gone through three offensive coordinators in three years, but it looks like Clint Kubiak's going to take over. This is why your head coach should be the offense. It's very tough to have something like Seattle next year. There will be massive questions about their offense because it's not strange to have a team dominate like they are. They lose their OC. Someone else comes in. They're like, ooh, they're not even close to as good. You know, it is weird because we're going to talk about another situation that's similar but different.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think now you're starting to see if you've got a great offensive head coach, you could still lose your OC. I mean, obviously the next piece of news is an OC for Sean McVeigh leaving. But I guess, Mike, you're saying your office doesn't take as big a hit when the main man in offenses at top. Yeah, that's the weird thing. So Michael Floor is going to be the new head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, the final hire of the head coaching positions that were open. He's unique in the sense that, well, one, Liam Cohn, Kevin O'Connell, and Matt LaFle, all were the offensive coordinator for Sean McVeigh. And he's really the one. You don't have a loss in Los Angeles because McVeigh's calling plays. Right. But these guys have all gone on to great success. Kevin O'Connell, obviously, in Minnesota. Liam Cohen, amazing year so far, or had the amazing year with Jacksonville and was great with Tampa Bay. And then Matt LaFleur and Green Bay. Now, Mike LaFleur, his brother.

the Lefleur Bros. Al Borland and his Packers and us, Arizona, pretty much the same story of franchises. Yeah. Pretty much identical. You got Jonathan Gannon now. We did a, we got like, we're just interwoven. We're like the same. You have more rings. Anyways, Mike LaFourne, new head coach of the Cardinals. Jason, you've done a deep dive here. You're kind of optimistic. I am optimistic. I think in the end. But you're not normally for Arizona. You're happy too. Bro, this is what we wanted from the beginning. Yeah, from the beginning. We had to hold it back because I didn't think it could happen. Well, everyone else got hired and he was still there and he's like, ah, okay, I'll take the job. Wait, you're going to give me five years? Because I'm not coming unless you give me five years. Okay, you give me five years, which they did. In the end, it won't matter. The Arizona Cardinals are broken from the top. It.

However, could matter. I do think that Mike LaFleur is a good, both, I mean, Kubiak and LaFleur, my tweet from the beginning of the coaching cycle, when Gannon was fired, my tweet that I keep going back to over and over and over was any LaFleur, any Kubiak, any Harbaugh. That's all I wanted. Give me any of those brothers. Harbaugh went to New York. Kubiak went to Las Vegas. And there was LaFleur left over. The baby LaFleur. But, you know, I really do like. When you have, this is not someone without play calling experience, right? Like Mike LaFleur was already an offensive coordinator for the Jets where he called the plays. Those offenses were bad, but those offices were Zach Wilson offenses. And whenever Zach Wilson missed games, their offenses were great. Connor Hughes tweeted, you shared it. Michael Flores Jets offenses when they did not have Zach Wilson were top five in most statistical categories as long as it wasn't Zach Wilson. Yeah, wasn't that like Mike White?

Yeah, I mean, it's not like they have a quarterback plan in Arizona. So maybe they roll Kyler Murray, maybe they trade them and draft someone or bring in the New York Jet Joe Flacco, who was there with Mike LaFleur. But yeah, TBD on the office, I do think that this is a very good hire. Yeah, I'm kind of excited for both. Like maybe we were a year early being excited for Las Vegas. And maybe we still would be a year early with Mendoza being drafted and all the, you know. challenges of being a rookie quarterback likely to start week one. But there's more optimism there with Genti, Bowers, and Mendoza as a core to build around. Yes. And you mentioned Arizona gave LaFleur five-year deal. It reminded me of when Detroit gave Dan Campbell a six-year deal, we all were blown away by it, but it's a commitment to developing a team and an offense over time. It's also the punishment for being a terrible franchise for a long time. Like Detroit was in the doldrums.

They're like, we'll give you a six-year deal. Just come. And so, yeah, I'm thrilled. Cardinals got to be paying like seven, eight coaches by now. Ravens hired Declan Doyle to be their offensive coordinator who will call plays. That's another OC leaving under a head coach that is the offensive mind. Ben Johnson loses his first piece. Yeah, I mean, but it's Ben Johnson. Right. Now Declan gets to go call plays for the Ravens. Could be interesting. Sean Mannion, the new offensive coordinator for the Eagles, but they also hired another one in Josh Grisard so that they have two. Wait, no, no, no. Grisard was hired as the passing age coordinator. But sure, the wink wink as he was, the OC for the Bucks. I just can't believe that we are doing this show where Sean Mannion is now a head coach. Because I remember Sean Mannion's rookie year in 2015 for the Los Angeles Charters. We talked about him on this show when they drafted golf.

The, like... You were calling for golf to be benched. Yes, for Sean Mannion. Dude, I mean, that was a running bit for a couple of years of just believing that Sean Mannion was one of the best quarterbacks in the league. And now the fact that he... He's got to get on the field. It's just too good. Him and Trask, right? You're a big Trask guy. Just wait till he's an O.C., man. But this is so interesting to me, and we will see. I don't think this was on many people's... like bingo card of like which OC is going to get which job. I didn't hear Sean Mannion's name anywhere. Well, a lot of coaches turn down offensive coordinator in Philadelphia as well. That's been troubled. By the way, you want to know another dynasty rankings challenge? Devante Smith and AJ Brown. Uh-huh. Yeah, AJ Brown is really tough. A.J. Brown is really tough. Yeah. Sean McVeigh, Les Need.

The Rams said, hey, you almost made it to the Super Bowl. Here's some more years and some more money. This is great, great news for Pooka Nakua. We've been talking about it on the Dynasty show of like when you rank these top guys, right? It's usually, it's Jamar Chase. It's JASN. It's Pooka Nakua. But it's like Puka always had the still has the giant red flag of Stafford. Stafford is old. You're going to lose Stafford within Puka's career, obviously. But if you lost Stafford and McVeigh at the exact same time, which I think a lot of people thought that might be the way it goes, just when you lose your quarterback, you smoke bomb as the head coach. Right. I'm going to take some time. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'll go do TV for a year. Find a team that's got a quarterback. I mean, it is the better approach. Like, for...

It's such a better approach. It's a great approach, but it was always funny with McVeigh because he's so young. Right. Like if you talk about all the historical things you can build up as a head coach, like it was just like the retirement conversation just kept happening for him, for Aaron Donald, for Matthew Stafford for years, and then now he signs an extension. So there you go. The Vikings fired their general manager because. Whoopsies. We did not. Yeah. We did not keep Sam Darnold. There was the big quarterback whoopsie. This one, it's still weird. Didn't he just get an extension last year? Yeah, he got an, because he had, what, a 14 win team with Sam Darnold and built a. Adolfo men saw? Yeah, I don't. This one's weird. Yeah. Maybe this is just it. And they were like, dude, how do you?

How did you screw up the Sam Darnold thing? Which I, that had open a team effort. The rumors. It takes a village to blow that. Well, so part of it wasn't necessarily a team effort. Some of the reporting that has come out after the firing has been basically that this was the GM's decision to move on from the veterans and to draft the rookie that LaFleur was more in the camp of keeping Darnold. But it wasn't just Darnold. LaFleur? O'Connell? O'Connell? That'll help. O'Connell was, there's a lot of LaFleur talk today, that he was more in favor of keeping Darnold. And then you had Daniel Jones there, too. And so you had other options on the roster. But even then, it's like, I actually think they would have been okay with Carson Wince. Like, you lost a lot of quarterbacks here. Do you know what's so funny? The parallels are talking fantasy, right? We're talking NFL news, and it's fun to.

You know, the hindsight is 2020, right? Sam Darnold arrives. They're in the Super Bowl. Two straight years dominating. You know, what was on their mind wasn't the 14 win season. It was the playoff collapse. Yes. Which was wrong of them to prioritize that, it seems. But what's funny is the parallels to, like we do this in Dynasty. We have a team that's performing or a team that's playing well. And then we get a little greedy. with, man, if I could just get a few years younger at quarterback or a few years younger at running back. I mean, sometimes that happens in Dynasty where you, we say this all the time. Don't just play for tomorrow. When you've got the bird in the hand that led you to a championship game, maybe run that back a little bit. Don't just cat. Oh, boy, that, that, CJ Stroud looks like the future. Let's pick him up in Dynasty and get rid of Mahomes. And then it doesn't work out the way you want. No, it's a good point. I mean, you, you yourself have.

had introspection on this. I do remember, though, I think it was on the footcast where you came to the conclusion that you sold too early. No. Until you went and looked at your lineup and were like, oh, no, I held on to the bitter end. But, um, but no, it'll be interesting because we trust O'Connell. Jefferson's entire future hinges on the right decisions being made. It's impossible for this team to move forward with JJ. and nothing the weird jay j but and nothing cannot exist the absolute weirdest part of this whole thing which we haven't even mentioned yet was the timing yes of firing him i mean we're it's it's february like this is draft season the the senior bowl has happened where he was where he was there running the viking organization so now they're saying like just stay there we're going to

They are going to start their GM search after the draft. Not great, man. That means the draft will be done without a formal general manager. And then right after the draft free agency opens, you're not going to probably have your GM, certainly not one that's got a game plan for this organization. It just seems like you are shooting the nail gun on your foot. Well, the divisions are really easy. Oh, soup's easy. But the, my absolute favorite part, because I don't. I, you know, personally, I don't know the ends and outs. I was surprised by it. I didn't see this coming. But the meme of the year. The meme of maybe all time of the JJ, you know, nine face with all the other quarterbacks superimposed into that image whenever they play poorly. But now coming back full circle, the season is over and it's just him.

talking about, you know, when you get your, when you get your GM fired. It's just the nine picture. Undoctored. Do you, do you know? So good. Do you remember the record? Give me the Vikings record. I want to say they won their last four games in a row. They were a couple. They were like a game and a half out of the playoffs or something. Nine, eight. I'm going to, nine and eight. Nine and eight five straight wins in the season. Five straight wins. Okay. So fire. They will bring in somebody, whether it's cousins, somebody else that can be a veteran.

that can because the rip cord you may have to pull it quick but man going through a full year of free agency and the draft without a captain yeah i i feel like you could be damaging your franchise for multiple years i mean obviously they have they have put someone in charge as you know they basically have an interim GM but uh yeah the timing the timing was seemingly short-sighted of it There's been a couple transactions in the past where I was such a head scratcher that turned out to be some of the best things ever. I'll never forget how dumb I thought the Sean McVeighire was hiring a 30-year-old kid. I was like, okay, maybe you know something I don't. Yeah, yeah, I mean. So this would be the second time. Dalton Kincaid's fifth year option likely to be picked up, according to Brandon Bean and Buffalo. Josh Allen confirmed that he underwent surgery to repair a broken bone in his foot.

Seems minor, like an 8 to 10 week timeline should be good for training camp. And they hired the former Broncos senior offensive assistant Pete Carmichael as offensive coordinator, but Joe Brady will still call plays. Did you guys see Joe Brady talking Keel Coleman? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Said it was the best thing for Keel. He's the coach. If I remember, right, then he started going Dion. He started going third person. Oh, did? Or did he say about Joe Brady? Yeah. Look, he's a Keon Coleman fan. which he's the only one. So there you go. Super ironic that at the press conference for the firing was talking about how they were a fan. GM is still employed and promoted. Oh man, what a world. And he hates you, Keon. Rahim Morris got passed over for the Cardinals job. The 49ers hired him as their defensive coordinator. This is what the 49ers do, man. They pick up the...

failing defensive head coaches that get fired, run them for like a year at DC, and they go get jobs again. Chase Brown in talks with the Bengals regarding a potential extension. Oh boy. This can't happen. Oh boy. Entering the final year of his rookie deal. This is. He hasn't made his money yet. No, he has, he has not. This is. great i mean it's a great sign for for dynasty managers out there for me i yeah i'm a little bit personal i got some investment on chase brown but saying of like the going back the the breakout was two years ago for chase brown and then it was there was a lot of offseason can he make it through the draft and not get replaced and then he did and then it's man where does chase brown belong for fancy football

you know, a little bit rocky start when you didn't have a quarterback, but then incredible towards the end. But along, I feel like along the journey of Chase Brown, especially when you're talking Dynasty, never has it been, what if Chase Brown's going to get an extension with the Bengals? It was always just, how long can we hold out and get all the fantasy juice from Chase Brown until they certainly eventually replace him? They may not be replacing him, and that would be detrimental to everyone in the League of Record. I like Chase Brown, the man. I want him to get an extension or a, Brooks loves it too. He's on Brooks's dynasty team. He's a great player. He's a great player. Kirk Cousins expected to be released by the Falcons. They're going to move forward with their own version of JJ. That means Kirk Cousins is a starting quarterback in the NFL in week one in 2026. Almost. What? If he's releasing on the open market, I think he'll go out and find a job.

Starting week one. It'll probably be a bridge quarterback somewhere. Okay, it could definitely happen. But it will be, he will be a... How about the Vikings? I don't think he'll sign for not that. I'll agree with that. He wants to start. He wants to start and he has always done a good job of getting his money. Yes, he has. Yeah, he's made a lot. All right, we'll take a break and we'll jump back into the truth. Let's do it. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. All right. On our last episode, we talked about the top 10 finishers at the wide receiver position, breaking down the truth. The very top end group, you know, they were very consistent in conjunction with where they finished. Some of the players at the bottom, not as much. Jameson Williams made the top 10 that tells you about where that consistency level got to in the top 10 finishers.

We talked about how wide receiver scoring was down on last week's episode. We compared 2025 with every other season since 2018. Wide receivers saw just 58% of total targets, which is the lowest number in that span. You know, the tight-in position, we've gone, I mean, let's go back to Leporta, Bowers, right? Then we had, why is... This year? That was... Yeah, this year. Yeah, the trifecta. Laporta, Bowers, but then this year we have Fanon, Loveland, Mr. And Warren. And Warren. So like the impact of these of the titan position broadly, but also these rookies coming in. And just significant. Some offensive philosophies of like the Rams very, the Rams were the legendary. They were the 11 personnel team that always had three wide receivers out there. Now, now they're always thrown out heavy packages. Yeah, it's 13.

at all times now the um the wild thing too is it's like we know from our running back truth episode this didn't you know the proportion didn't go to a bunch of running back targets we were actually we didn't have a lot of running backs catching a ton of passes so um yeah the numbers down a little bit for the wide receiver position um defense is overall defended deep passes very well which is not super fun for fantasy I mean, Dallas knew what the assignment was. That's why they were fun for fantasy. Yeah. But this was the fewest 20 plus yard, sorry, 20 plus air yard touchdowns over the last seven years. That's not fun. That's not fun. Yeah, those are the, that's the good stuff. Yeah. If only you could complete more than 50% of those throws, you would be in the Super Bowl. Only two teams did it. The Seahawks and the Patriots. Wow. They could make big plays. Yeah.

They knew how to do it. So we take a look beyond the season finish and we look at consistency and we're diving into our second group of wide receivers. A great game because you're going to hear me talk about the percentages of great games, good games and bust games. A great game's 20 plus points. Good games, 12 and a half or more. Bust games, fewer than seven and a half. And these are all half point PPR. Half PPR. Half point PPR. Thank you, Jason. What are we? NPR? What is? Yeah. Sultry, buttery. Um, like Cortland Sutton, wide receiver number 11. Cortland Sutton at 11. Does that, he doesn't feel that way. No one after wide receiver six feels like they were any good. And that was what you, you just had this nice, long, eloquent talk about how wide receiver yardage and everything's down. They all suck. Like, what, this is a, this is.

a very good wide receiver who is a wide receiver one on this season, and no one was happy with him all year. It was like, oh, he's not even the wide receiver one for his team. Don't say all year, because he, over the first seven weeks, I mean, you had two clunkers in there, but you had, you know, what, five usable weeks. Like, Cortland Sutton felt, I mean, I've had him. I drafted him for the league of record. It, Up through that point, you felt like, okay, I have a guy who I will be able to depend on. Maybe the, you know, super ceiling. It won't be there like it was last year. And then the middle of the year, it really fell apart. Jason was hitting that Troy Franklin button way too much. Yeah, baby. Yes. And we really was. And then we had. And then it was, hey, it's Pat Bryant. And hey, it's Marvin Mims. I mean, we were. And Bo Nix wasn't doing enough. That was part of it. Yeah.

Yeah, consistency ranked for Cortland Sutton in the second half was 22. And that's more what the season felt like. You're right. He was more consistent in the beginning of the year, but you were still waiting for breakout games, which you only got 12% of the time. Right. Great games, 47%, bust 29%. Look, Cortland Sutton does not always feel like an alpha wide receiver. Sometimes he does. Yeah. Seems like he's capable of it, but he also makes... Just a few more mistakes than I think some of the true premieres make. He is a very good wide receiver, who is a wide receiver won for his team. This offense, I would say, was the bigger disappointment. If this offense was faster pace, higher scoring, you know, and everything just percentage-wise moved up, Cortland Sutton would have been fine. But he's 30 years old right now.