Mid-Round Madness + Fraud Offenses - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/2

For years, we were lost. Without hope, without guidance, without them. Left only with despair and humiliating losses, three heroes arrived to save us from the darkness. The shadows retreated, the rain relented, and a decade of peace arrived. But evil never sleeps for long. This rises this summer. Prepare for the ultimate showdown. The stakes are higher. The water's rougher. The fires hotter. This isn't just a fight for survival. It's a fight for our fantasy teams. The 10th anniversary Megala show. Don't miss it. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway.

Jason Moore and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The fantasy footballers back with you. Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway. It's Friday. You're holding you back? No, I was actually typing to Owl. See if he could throw that Friday drop on my board. Do we still have that drop? Of course we do. Welcome in. A very extensive library. Nothing falls through the cracks. Yeah, we are back to five shows a week, which is why we're here on this fine Friday morning, August 2nd. Fantasy football is, well, it's here. We're reaching the preseason. And, you know, you hold your breath for the injury reports this time of year. You want everything to go well. And look.

I don't know how to tell you this, Jay, but I'm going to win another championship this year. Oh, that's awesome. I hope, I assume that's some home league you're in. It's actually, it's a league of record and it's not about you so much. It's just you'll be one of 11 other people to not win it. Interesting. So you'll have a bunch of people to kind of commiserate with. Well, that is what happens in every league. It is. Most people don't win, and one does. But, okay. There we go. I knew it was there somewhere. Al dug it out of the archives. Thank you, Al. Put it back in the box. Al's not going to be at the live show, right? We're not. Oh, he'll be there. The whole crew's coming. Everybody's going to be there. So that'll be fun. What else do we got going on today? We have a pretty entertaining quick question, I think, talking about fraudulent offenses and making our predictions on the offenses that people are counting on. They might.

They might go south. And then it's a mid-round madness episode. So we'll be mentioning a couple names, each of us, a couple names that we think are values in the middle rounds. And if you hit on one, like if you really hit on one of those middle-round players, they can make such a difference for your team. Absolutely. The Ultimate Draft Kit available right now at Ultimate DraftKit.com. If you want to go jump in, it is August. So don't be a fool and fall behind when you get ready for your draft. Ultimate draft kit.com for that. You can follow us on X at the FF Ballers. And we are updating our timeline with lots of articles and information and news and breaking news and videos and things like that over on X. I think that about coverage. You guys want to jump into the quick question? Yep. Yes, sir. Well, Danny Walsh. Good old Danny. Oh, Dan Walsh. Oh, we call him Dan Walsh. He goes by Danny on IG.

Mom calls him Daniel. Yeah, yeah, that's how to he was born. Who is your fraudulent offense of the year? So this is a, you know, it's kind of a scary prediction. It's a scary prediction. It's a spicy. Because it happens every year. Yeah, it does. There's teams that let you down. I mean, I remember the Cleveland Browns with OBJ and Jarvis Landry and Baker coming off his rookie season and all the hype going into the year and a joku and. They let people down. They sure did. And teams like the Patriots this year can't really let you down. You know, so when you're talking about a fraudulent offense, it's one that has to look good right now, has to have pieces that are important for fantasy that are maybe overdrafted. And it's not going to work out as well as maybe we hope. Yeah. Look, I can go first because you brought up the Cleveland Browns. That was a team led by Baker Mayfield and the team that I want to highlight.

They are led by Baker Mayfield. It is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I think that there is a true regression coming for this team. They've had some turnover. It feels at this moment like Dave Canales is a magic man, as we have seen him two years in a row, resurrect the careers for two separate quarterbacks and some offenses. He is now gone from Tampa Bay. It is... And it's not that I think that Tampa Bay is going to completely fall on its face. I just think that Baker really overproduced last year. He actually struggled immensely against man. In fact, he averaged 33 passing yards per game versus man. And now the league has a whole year of tape to kind of study the tendencies of what was going on down there. Where did Baker struggle? I think that will absolutely factor in.

the inefficiencies of Rashad White. They kept getting away with those things last year. I think there's just, there's too much against Baker. And this is not a, I'm not drafting Mike Evans or I'm not willing to take a chance on Chris Gobbin. I just think that they will. I don't think you're going to get Mike Evans that you saw last year where it was, what was he, 13, 13 receiving touchdowns up from 6 the year before. I think that Evans can still be a 8 to 10 range, but where he was the top five guy. and Baker was this like a streaming darling in certain situations. I think that that is going to be harder this year. Very logical, Mike, unfortunately, very logical, probably very true. That team is, I think they did more for fantasy than they did make their mark as a top tier offense. And so, you know, Evans, Evans was.

great in part because of how late you had to draft him too. Now you're going to have to pay up and bank on it. Jason, what's the offense you want to throw out there? Yeah, the offense that, you know, when we're looking at these for me and I'm trying to predict how could it go wrong, it's usually kind of like what Mike just did. It's looking at a quarterback that maybe isn't as great as touted. And so for me, that's the Jacksonville Jaguars. I'm still not convinced. that Trevor Lawrence is worth the money he just received. He is a fine NFL quarterback. He's not a bad NFL quarterback, but I don't believe he's a superstar and losing Calvin Ridley and replacing him with Brian Thomas, a rookie, Gabe Davis, you know, who is in his own right, not been, you know. He's very fit, very, very good at cardio and running routes. Super good at running routes. You know, this is a team that struggled down.

the stretch last year. If you remember, they started out. They were on pace for the number one seed and get that playoff by week. And then they completely collapsed down the stretch, lost, what was it, like six of their last seven games. I feel like their offense got a little bit figured out. Their run game became inefficient. And so if things start to go poorly, if they were figured out at the end of last year and it continues into this season, I don't know that. You know, I don't see this office taking a step forward. So at best, it's going to be neutral. And I can see a world where this offense just struggles. You know, Trevor Lawrence is a first read type of thrower. You know, only, only Tua had a faster time to throw in a higher first read target percentage rate. This is kind of like a scripted. Here's what you're going to do. And if the defense figures it out, like, you know, obviously it works for Tua pretty well. If Tyree kill were on my team, I would have a lot of first read targets. Yeah.

Where is he? Go to him. So I just see how it could go poorly if some of these wide receivers that they're banking on don't step up. Then I think it could be in store for a disappointed office. So you said Jacksonville. Fraud might be too strong a word for my pick for this quick question. Yours is sizzling. I think let down. Like a fresh plate of fajitas. I think letdown is the right word for it. It's Buffalo. Thank you, Mike. Very good sound effect. Look, a lot has been made of whether Stefan Diggs has lost it. But the conversation with Buffalo has nothing to do with what stage of Stefan Diggs career he is in. The conversation with Buffalo is, can you take Jefferson off of Minnesota and have the same production from Cousins? Can you take Amun Ra away from golf and have the same production? There's only one quarterback. I mean, can you take chase away from Burrow and expect the same kind of production on offense? No.

No, and what made Buffalo prolific was the fact they had an alpha in the offense. You talk about wide receivers with Jacksonville. Right now we're sitting here with Keon Coleman, Curtis Samuel, and Kalir Shakir. Those are not foundational pieces of a wide receiver room. Those are wide receiver two threes that, you know, Patrick Mahomes could figure out how to make sure it works. He's the one we've seen lose Tyree Kill and still figure it out. But he also, like we're expecting Dalton Kincaid to take a step up. Whereas Kelsey, when he lost Tyreek, Kelsey was already the goat. Right. And Buffalo, their identity changed over the back half of the year. Yes, they won some games, but yes, there were some flaws. And Joe Brady offenses get figured out over time. They went from third and turnover rate to 15th under Brady. The more pressure you put on Josh Allen, which is going to be a natural byproduct of taking away an alpha from this roster, there's not always a guaranteed great outcome.

You know, weeks 11 through 18 with Brady, they were 31st in pass rate. Teams adjust, and then they get adjusted to, and then you have to adjust again, right? Like, this is what's happened time and time again for New England when they had Brady and for Kansas City with Mahomes. The question will be, can Josh Allen adjust well enough under the pressure when they start locking down James Cook a little bit out of the backfield? Like, there's a big difference between a midseason transition that kind of works out. and prolific fantasy numbers. So I think the Buffalo offense as a whole might not have as many players to deliver for you. I've started hesitating a little bit with even how high I have Dalton Kincaid ranked because the team has come out and once again put their emotional backing behind Dawson Knox, and it just puts a little fear in you. There is not a Dawson Knox competing for Travis Kelsey and Sam Leporta and Mark Andrews and George Kittles.

targets or opportunities on the field. I just have some hesitation with Buffalo. It's why I went out and I put my money where my mouth was. I traded Josh Allen away in a dynasty league where he has been dominant. I could totally pay the price for that. I hope you do. It was the time to cash in and get a player like Kyler in her first round pick. And I just have question marks around Buffalo. And, you know, you get to the end of this year. You know, we don't know which one of these wide receivers is going to make the biggest mark. And not knowing it now means that, you know, Josh Allen's going to have to figure it out too. Yeah. Obviously with the change in their offensive philosophy at the end of the year, which is not usually good for fantasy and the loss of their clear cut wide receiver one for this team, there are definitely yellow flags to overcome. I, you know, I think most people and I'm with most people believe Josh Allen.

can figure it out and will figure it out. So that's really what it comes down to is how good is Josh Allen? That's it. And I think he's pretty darn here. Yeah, and I think it's okay to carve him out a little bit from the, because we know he can get the production, even if the team isn't a top five offense, Josh Allen can still be the number one quarterback. We know that to be true. But if the offense struggles a little bit, maybe you don't get as much ceiling, maybe you get a down game here or there, and maybe you can't predict who else to start in the offense.

Although I know James Cook should have every opportunity to really have a breakout campaign. He's still got to get it done. And their identity from the end of last year, it has to work going into this year and not be adjusted to. I am very excited to watch Buffalo of the, it's like, wow, we heap the praise. Oh, Patrick Mahomes figures it out. And yeah, they mean, football wise. Yes. Yeah, they figured it out. But fantasy wise, it. The second half of the year, they did not figure it out. Nor was Mahomes good for fantasy in that stretch. That's what I'm saying of like, yeah, the team, the Kansas City Chiefs, but we're not playing NFL football. We're playing fantasy football. So that's those doubts have started to just kind of creep into the back of my head of is like Josh Allen still my number one quarterback for redraft. But there's that instead of it being a.

full 100% conviction. Of course we're going to go with this. It's if there's really no number one, if no one makes the jump to be their go-to guy, which we're going to talk Donald Kincai here in a second. If no one makes that jump, does Josh Allen figure it out? We talked about him a little bit at length, Josh Allen, in this week's dynasty podcast of if a A pretty easy comp for Josh Allen's career is Cam Newton. Like they're both big, strong Superman type players. And this is when Cam Newton disappeared. Now, I don't think Josh Allen's going to disappear the way that Cam Newton has because of injuries. Cam Newton got way way more hurt than Josh Allen has been thus far in his career. So maybe that took the toll. But I just saw Josh Allen talking to Kay Adams about.

running the ball. And it was, you know, hinted out of maybe I need to do that a little bit less. He's still going to run, but it's just if he's thinking about that more and more and no one is taking the leap out there, is he the locked in number one guy? It's just a weird math equation to figure out when Josh Allen has had four straight years of 4,500, 4,400, 4,200, 4,300 yards passing. Yes, exactly. And even if you just take a big... 1,100 yard basket and throw it to Dalton Kincai. And then you say, well, where, where's the other 3,000 yards going? Where's the other 3,300 yards going? And then hilariously, not by much, he's throwing a ton of touchdowns, but they have gone down for a straight years. So it's just in the back of my head saying, hey, Khalil Shakir, does he profile as a one? Is Coleman going to do it as a rookie? You know, Curtis Samuel, we've seen enough Curtis Samuel to know that he will be helpful.

probably not fundamental. Yeah, I think that's fair. We might disagree on this, but here in a little while, we're going to talk about Dalton Ciccate, I think will emerge as the clear number one receiver for this team. They might need them for all 4,300 yards. So that's a good point. News and notes from Around the League, presented by USAA Insurance. All right, we're jumping into the news, and we do have the Ducers here over there in Ducers Alley, putting the... Putting the deuce inducer's alley over there, Falcon. But we got everybody in the building today. The Falcon dump. Did we enjoy the Hall of Fame game, everybody? Can I get some nods over there? What? What? What? What's a big? Oh, that's a big yon from Josh. Oh, Josh the act store. What is happening? That's pretty good. Pretty good. No, we had. Get your sag card? What is going on? We didn't get a football time yesterday for good reason. We couldn't. You're reserving it. Yeah.

But we are underway in the preseason, and we got some preseason news yesterday. Justin Herbert week to week with a plantar fascia injury. Uh-oh. I've been about year to year on that same injury. Doctors have recommended two weeks in a boot, followed by a graduated return to playing with the expectation he'll be ready for the start of the season. Does he get like a diploma when it comes time to play? Yeah, you like that? Busted. Yeah. I told that joke in my head. I don't know if I even graduated return. Yeah, no. I'm sorry. Even I held that one back. Jesus, so swish. The Ladd-McConkie Hyde train has been building steam, picking up steam. But Herbert missed time last year. Here's Herbert with another injury.

Is this just kind of like a pause and wait and see and hope and pray? Yeah, I mean, it's certainly not good news. It lowers, you know, it raises the risk rating of Justin Herbert and Ladd-McConkey and the whole offense. That being said, the expectation is he should be ready for the regular season. So it's better now than if it was three weeks from now, then it would be a real problem. I, you know, when I'm looking at my drafts, We're going to talk about Ladd here in a little bit. I'm still in on Ladd until if we hear that there's a setback or something happening that will cause actual on-the-field problems. I will, however, adjust Justin Herbert a little bit. To account for risk? Yeah, he's in a range right now late in drafts where sometimes I've snagged him in hopes that he has a monstrous season. But if he's dealing with a nagging...

plantar fascia injury I'm worried about his facacia facacia oh delicious that sounds so good one of the reasons we have olive oil on that yeah is that the remedy yeah I think you just rub some olive oil in it you'll be fine Justin get back out there not trying that but we have risk ratings in the UDK for a reason and I've adjusted mine a little bit just because you know Herbert like if I told you Herbert was going to miss two games he's off the board Right. There's other quarterbacks to make a decision on. And my hope for Herbert, look, he's an awesome player, but my hope with this Greg Roman Harbaugh offense is that they are going to unleash his wheels a little bit more. He is mobile. He is very able to put that facacia to use. Show you how delicious it is. But if that hamper's the running game for him, the mobility, it's a good point.

You know, makes me a little sad. Josh Jacobs didn't practice. He's dealt with a couple of off-season soft tissue issues. Fat Thor with the groin injury now and missed the first week of OTAs with a hamstring injury. Is he? Wait. Is the website updated? Groyneindex.com. I'm checking it right now. One of the more illustrious websites. The first. Okay. The first edition to groin index.com. In 2024? Yeah. McGroin. There will be more. That is the quote from Josh Jacobs. I do have a question. He's an arg. I got a question for our resident Packer fan over there because not only Josh Jacobs missed practice, but they announced some white alternative helmets for the Packers. Did you see those? No, I want to go look right now. I sent them to you, Al. I think they look good. So I wanted to get your official out of 10 rating for that alternate uniform. So have you found them?

Not yet. Okay. Well, keep looking. Guess I should have tagged you in those, but Mike, you saw them? I did. They're fire. I thought they looked. Did you like them? I did like them. I don't like the helmet. Those are clean. I feel like it looks. The helmet was the whole thing. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. I don't like it. So when they announced the helmets, you're like, it's the helmets. It makes their logo look like their Georgia, the college. Like, that's all I see. I'm going to go six and a half or seven. Out of ten? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, it's hard when you change an iconic uniform. Like the Packers are probably the number one most iconic uniform. Packers, Cowboys, Bears. What other teams am I forgetting? Steelers. There's a few that like when you change them a little bit, like for instance, if you make the Steelers into like a bumblebee or something, it's a little disruptive. I know you love the bumblebee. I do look. That was also a throwback. Yeah, I know. So it's an OG. Yeah. All right, Joe Mixin, also recovering from a minor quadricep injury. Deontiformin, we got news that he was released from the hospital after he went to the hospital with a neck injury. That would be Brown's running back, part of the committee mix over there in Cleveland. I don't think I have any other news. I think that's all I got. So catching you up. If Deonti Foreman wasn't there, if, you know, let's say this was long term or whatever, does that change your view on Ford? Because I know we've had some.

debate, Mike and I, you know, think Jerome Ford will be very involved to start the year, a good late round value pick. It doesn't change, like, I think, I agree with you on the pick. I think the pick is fine with Jerome Ford. I think it doesn't change my view of his ceiling. Like Jerome Ford had every opportunity, every game most of last year, and he's, he's okay. You know, that's my view. Sure. I mean, I, it's not like when Kareem Hunt wasn't there before they brought him back that Jerome Ford was. like top five, top 10 back or something. I just think he's got a cap. That's all. Yeah, well, he does. He's not an elite superstar athlete. By the way, you see Tariq Cohen? Shout out to. Yeah. That's not in the news, but the dinosaur hunter. The dinosaur hunter is retired. Yeah. And he tried to come back. He's only 29. But the major major. But he's 209. And that was the problem. Literally the problem. He says he was up at like 207, 208.

209 talking to LBs. He was playing at 188 when he was this, you know. Quote, I let myself get fat. Yeah. So that's a quote. Been there. It's been to the best of us, bro. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at us.com slash insurance. We'll take a break. Come back with some mid-round madness. Madness. All right. Value picks in the middle rounds. I've got two names I'm going to throw out. I want to get your guys's feedback. I want you to press me on these guys. And we'll do some ADP, this or that with these names because they're, you know, right now the word out of Dallas has got me. I was already pretty firmly on the Ezekiel Elliott side of the backfield rotation. And then now with talk of Royce Freeman being the number two, Enrico Dowdell battling it out with Malik.

Davis and, you know, all the other names seem firmly behind him. So Zeke is the first name. Zeke is a 10th round draft pick right now. And this is a top five offense. So Zeke is one name. The other one is an eighth round pick. Also had some camp buzz to kind of be the exclamation point on the end of last season when he was a league winner for my team and many others. And that would be the tight and 10 off the board right now in the eighth round, David Najoku. of the Cleveland Browns. Those two names, I think, are players that I will be targeting. We've got a League of Record team, or I do where it traded a lot of early picks away. So I'm looking for diamonds in the rough, right? There are situations like that out there where you're really needing to not take a big chance, but get some more guaranteed production. I think both of these guys are values at their ADP. I'll jump in here of...

I'm in on the Zeke pick as well. It is super nasty. This is a stinky, stinky pick. But this is. It doesn't feel good. When we're looking at running backs in the double digits, if you can attach that to a team that projects to be a really good offense, that should be an edge that you're looking for. And the Cowboys would project to be at least a top 10 offense. And to me, they're a top 10 offense if things go wrong. So I'm in on Zeke. The situation behind him is it's so murky of like we went literally one day the report was Royce Freeman who recently, like he's brand new to the team just a couple months ago. Royce Freeman sounds like he could be positioned to be the backup. The number two on this team while while Dowdle and Davis battle it out for the next. And then the very next day.

You had a Cowboys Beat reporter come out and say, it's not a question. Rico Dowdle, once the pads went on, Rico Dowdell is the best running back on the team right now. He also followed up with, I don't think that they turned him into the RB1. He's just giving his observation of the guy's talent, of the talent. 26 year old. Yeah, what I'm looking at right now, Dowdle is the best. So it is, it is a mess. Hopefully we get that, the backup situation figured out. But in the meantime, Zeke will be the number one guy. He is nothing remotely close to the elite fantasy football Zeke that we all loved and drafted years over years. However, with opportunity in front of him, he's shown he can still take that. Like last year from weeks 13 on, he was getting 21 opportunities a game. He was the RB9 in that stretch because volume is the king at the running back position. And that was the...

The ability was availability of I can handle this. And I think that Zee can still handle it. It's just how well will he actually produce with that at a 10th round draft price to me? It doesn't matter. Like he can easily pop up into being a top 24 running back. Yeah, I mean, if it is, it is. kind of gross, but he shouldn't be as low as he is in ADP, not what the offense he's attached to. And the opportunities he's going to get at the end of the year, when they got down into the red zone, the Cowboys threw the ball. They threw it and threw it and threw it when they got down near the end zone. And they did that at the end of the year because they failed at the beginning of the year. Tony Pollard was given so many opportunities.