Early Busts & Values, Three-Headed Arguments - Fantasy Football Podcast for 6/27

All right, today's show is awesome. We've got bust picks. We got value picks, one that is almost too embarrassing to utter on the show, and I'm going to talk about them later. So don't miss a minute of today's episode. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Oh. Well, that's not quite there yet. No, I'm fine, but I think I had some permanent damage or something. Yeah, I haven't even thought about your former illness. Yeah, it's been a couple weeks. Yeah, you don't seem sick at all until that. No, and I'm not. I'm not sick, but I think something got broken. I don't know. Guess we'll try again next week. Welcome into the fantasy footballers. You've gotten to training camp to, are you going to be a full go for training? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I mean, we can.

When does that start? I don't, a couple of weeks. Yeah, good, good insight. Well, why don't you tell us? Welcome in Thursday, June 27th, the fantasy footballers podcast. And Mike, right, Jason, more, Andy Holloway here with you. You can follow us over on X at the FF Ballers at Jason FFL at FF Hitman at Andy Holloway if you want to follow us over there. We'll watch the show on YouTube, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Did you get us a date, Mike? I did. Thank you. The Cardinals will start. I mean, it's different times. Cardinals are the 23rd. Let's see. This is alphabetical. So it looks like the earliest. The earliest team would be Houston on July 17th. That's fine. I'll be fine by then, apparently. Bills are the 16th.

Can we get a 15? No, no, that's rookie report date. Oh, you're using bad information. Okay, thank you. Well, but that is the start. Oh, get out of you. Is there an advantage to starting earlier? Do you be more tired? More injuries in the offseason? More prep time. That's what I dread in the off season is the, because this is all anticipation and excitement, but the first real injury, it's always a shock to the system. And it. will happen at least uh it always has historically speaking so we've got early busts and values on the show today so we'll be talking about some individual picks uh for you know players that we think could let you down jason smirking i do you know what i'm smirking about no your value pick oh so i can't wait man i can't wait his value pick and my bust pick i don't want to do this

I don't know what your bus pick is. So I'm excited to find out. I don't want to be the one who has to tell everybody what's going to happen. Oh, I did see it. But I have. Yeah, Mike's going to make you sad. Because you know what? I made myself sad. Oh, wow. Yeah. I don't think we have any NFL news to cover on today's show. I did want to mention with the ultimate draft kit available right now, we're doing a kind of a unique and special giveaway. We did this last year as well. It's an opportunity to. come and play in the very now famous Scotty Fish Bowl, which raises money for Fantasy Cares. But you've probably heard of the Scotty Fish Bowl before. We'll be playing in it. And we're going to, we've got five spots that Scott Fish has been kind enough to bestow upon us that we can give away to our listeners. And so we're going to give away five spots. We will choose them. These guys don't even know. We're going to choose them.

next Monday, by next Monday. And it's going to come from anybody that has an Ultimate Draft Kit. You can get that at Ultimate DraftKit.com. Five spots in the Scotty Fish Bowl to play with us and many others. It's a great opportunity to be a part of one of the biggest leagues out there. Yeah, it's a combination of casual players and industry people such as us. And Scott Fish is just, he's the best. Yeah. Tremendous human. Yeah. He's just so strong. You know? It's like, what a human. Like Robocop? I don't know. Yeah, that is not very human. He's half robot. All I did was think about like a superhuman and Robocop came to mind. That's where I'm at. Weird. That's interesting. You got a deep dive on that. Robocop's you think I need to talk to. Pinnacle humanity. Yeah. Robocop. I mean, it's like a super person who could do like everything.

Not Superman. It's Robocop. I was trying to think of an upgraded body. All right. You made it sound like, you know, he's a superb human. Like, and I figured he's got an upgraded body. Scott Fish went into a lab. They upgraded him. And now he fights police with no dexterity. All right. Well, if you want to play in that man's league, which we are playing in. Get your ultimate draft kit, which you're going to want anyways, because it is an incredible tool. And we're going to work with Fantasy Cares this year as well. It helps raise money for a variety of charities. The bulk of it goes to shopping trips around the country, purchasing toys for tots around Christmas time. So there you go. Anything else that we need to cover here at the top? Anything I'm forgetting, Mike? No, I think Robocop related. I like Robocop. I'm just surprised that that's what happened. Yeah, I would have gone like Bruce Wayne.

You know, he's not, but he's not all human. Literally, that makes no sense. What are you talking about? You put those two in a room. You see who comes out. Give me a break. I mean, why is Bruce Wayne your standard for- Full human? But he wants an upgraded human. Yeah, I mean. He's upgraded himself. No, he's thinking of a human that's like a superhuman. You're like Bruce Wayne. Yes, he's a superhero that's a full human. It's terrible. Yeah. Mike, who do you got? uh that's like at least wolverine or something yeah or like captain america yeah okay yeah captain america yeah yeah honestly shut off the podcast all right everybody out there just turn it off any news we're not doing anything for you no news we do have a quick question uh jimmy in st louis writes in if you could grab two stud running backs in the first rounds are you comfortable with debo as your wide receiver one right now his average job position is the

Late third, so that would be why the question's there. Not really. No? I'd be nervous. I am nervous. You know, you don't know exactly where he's going to be. This last year, he finished as a wide receiver one, finishes the wide receiver 12, was consistency of only a B, but we've seen over the last couple of years that it, you know, there are the tendencies of players to be able to disappear. You add Ricky Pearsall to this. As of right now, Brandon Ayuk is, you know, part of the team, and there's a lot of mouths to feed. This is the lowest passing volume offense in the NFL last season, at least. And so comfortable, like I like having Debo Samuel. This is not an anti-Debo-Samuel. I mean, Ricky Pearsall doesn't get me off of Debo Samuel. I'm simply talking about consistency. That's all I'm talking about. Debo Samuel's a man amongst boys. He's a great player.

But when I'm looking at my wide receiver 1 for fantasy, I want someone who I feel like is going to consistently go out there. And, you know, I want them to have 160 plus targets. And so I think of the third round, there are, there are other options I would prefer. You're saying for your wide receiver 1, you want that many targets? You're never getting close to that with Debo. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's exactly what I'm saying. But he finished RB wide receiver 2 with 120 targets. So that's in his range of outcomes. Sure. Yeah. I mean, he can have incredible explosive games. We'll have a ton of rushing attempts, rushing touchdowns, all that jazz. But I mean, if I'm looking at that and I'm saying, okay, you know, right next to him, let's just talk about who's going there. Yeah, that's what I was going to go look at to see if there's somebody you prefer as your wide receiver one instead of him. This four pack that's going right next to each other, Nico Collins, Mike Evans, Debo Samuel, and DJ Moore. Uh,

And who would you rather have, like put them in order of who did you want as your wide receiver won most, Mike? Nico. Okay. And then number two on that list? Debo. Nico, Debo, then Evans, then. Yes. Who was the last name? DJ Moore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd rather have Nico. I'd rather have Evans as well. Over Debo? Yeah. So is that because we're struggling with the order and the confidence? is that does that say something about his question it does are you are you that's the situation you will be in if you go running back running back therefore you will have to make that call and it doesn't sound like any of us are like no we're not thrilled mike might be with nico if if i'm coming out with two elite rbs and i get nico i'm happy with that build okay uh i think the san francisco wide receiver room right now is

pretty interesting going into the year and how we projected in iuk and the whole controversy i mean like we don't have news today to talk about but some of the news is just the rumor mill of brandon iuke right he's taking these negotiations personally obviously there's some public negotiation going on with i mean this is not the first time that we've had things leak in from brandon i huge social accounts has he deleted the 49ers from his socials yet I imagine he must have. Because that's the next step. I haven't seen it reported, but it's on the way. Boy, that's since quite the message, doesn't it? I mean, it's definitely going to get a contract if he does that. Yeah. What if Kyle the Borgogan stripped his profile of fantasy footballers? We'd let him go and replace him easily. Oh, okay. That's not a good negotiating tactic? No, it's not, Kyle. I know you're listening. Love you.

So, yeah, not a whole lot to talk about, like he said, not news, you know, any headline news. So Brandon Ayuk were paying attention to it. He's supposed to have met with the 49ers at his request. And we'll go from there. Confirmed that his Instagram has pictures of him in San Francisco gear. Okay. So he still got another card to play, right? He also only has 12 Instagram posts. Hmm. What about his Twitter? Is there enough? That one I'd have to go fine. Stay tuned. Yeah, the big news. All right. If you guys don't have anything else to chat about, let's jump right in. Bus. What do we mean when we're talking about a bust? Somebody that is not a guarantee to fail, of course, but maybe has some things working against them represents a higher risk situation for fantasy managers.

kind of a beware there is a path for disappointment here. Anything you want to add to that? Yeah, it could be for a bunch of different reasons. Maybe it's because of where they're going. Maybe it's because of, you know, it's not always that we think this player is terrible and should not be picked at any cost. It's a matter of, you know, you look at Tony Pollard last year. He might have been the biggest bust outside of injured players that there was. He wasn't bad or worthless. He was just like, you know, the seventh pick in the draft. And he was a terrible pick. It didn't return on what you expected because of what you invested. He was a bust even though he was still a relevant fantasy asset. I feel like I want to let one of you guys begin this segment on the show today because I had started on our last episode. So who wants to go first with one of their own bust picks? I'm going to let Jason go. Yeah, I'll hop in.

Because, honestly, earlier when I just was swiping through the show dog here to see what was going on, I thought this was your value pick. It is not. It is not. This is my bust selection. And I am fine with it. I believe it. I have not drafted him at where he is going. And that is one of the best wide receivers of this generation, Devante Adams, wide receiver for the Las Vegas Raiders. I believe is a bust pick in fantasy football this year. Let me explain. It's kind of a three-headed argument, right? You've got the age. The best kind. You have the age, you have the team, and you have the draft cost. The draft cost is a big, big part of this. This is not like Mike Evans last year where he was dropping down into the middle rounds because he was older and there was a little bit of name fatigue.

and then you have the option of him finishing as a top 15 wide receiver and being a phenomenal pick. This is a guy who right now is the wide receiver tin in Sleeper, an early second round pick. This is being drafted as an elite, definite hit, a dominant guy. You know, a long, long time ago when he was starting his career, we used to joke that he stunk because he was supposed to be good. He wasn't a joke. Well, that... That's true. Remember how many years I reminded you he had never hit a thousand? But even before that, he just, he was, he started really slow. Well, he was historically bad on a per route basis through two years. But then the last eight years, he's been awesome. He's averaged 151 targets, 98 receptions, 1,200 yards, and 11 touchdowns, including this last year where, you know, he was really, really good. 103 for 1144 and 8. And so right now, Devante Adams is 31.5.

years old. He will turn 32 on Christmas Eve. Please remember Christmas Football.com, one of the greatest websites that is out there. But if we look back at the last couple of years, whether it's situational or age or whatever, he has actually declined, right? You went from Aaron Rogers to Derek Carr, to Aden O'Connell and company, and his catch rate went from, you know, high 70s to 50s. Now, his yards per catch have gone from... you know, up in the 12 to 15s, last year was down at 11. His yards per route run for the first time in a long time was sub 2. His yards after catch, which has always been, you know, he's been great at that. He was down at 3.3 yards after catch. And they changed how they utilized him and stopped putting him in the slot that much last year. Now, he was hyper targeted. He had a ton of targets, but they were coming from Maiden O'Connell, who very well.

currently is being projected to have the upper hand, but it's him or Gardner Minchu, right? 63% of Devante Adams targets last year were catchable. That is like, okay, great. You need 175 targets to just be okay. Only Garrett Wilson had a lower catchable target rate, and the quarterback situation has not been improved or fixed here for the Raiders. If you look at this loop, Getsy offense coming in as the new offensive coordinator. It's music to Antonio Pierce's ears. They are, I mean, in 2022, 27th and neutral pass rate, he was. 32nd and neutral, or 27th at neutral pace, 32nd in neutral pass rate this last year, 31st and 30th. I mean, this is not. Slow and not passing a ton. Slow and not passing a ton.

But it's really, so you've got the team and the quarterback issue that I'm not in love with. You've got the age that I'm not in love with. And now let's look at the ADP, where you have to select him. Over the last decade, there have been 11 wide receivers, 31 years or older, that have been drafted in the first three rounds. Now, if you're being drafted in the first three rounds at that age, you're a star. You just dominated last year, right? The list is full of Hall of Famers of Roddy White, Andre Johnson. Brandon Marshall, Larry Fitzgerald, Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, like nonstop studs. Three, three of those 11, finished among the top 20 wide receivers. Only Jordy Nelson, who was the wide receiver won in 2016, and then the following year completely fell off a map, Julian Edelman, and of course, the last year is Devante Adams. However,

Last year's Devante Adams is the perfect example of Jordy Nelson had it and then it went away. And so I just feel like you've got a combination of a couple of things here. One, what is his ceiling? Devante Adams with Aden O'Connell and Gardner Minch who's not a top five. You can't, no way, no way, he can't have enough touchdowns to be a top five wide receiver in 2024. So you're drafting a guy who he very well might have another 175 targets. might be okay. And so, but you're drafting him at that ceiling right now. Like that, he's going to finish, you know, hope maybe he'll finish his wide receiver 12 and sneak out what he did last year, barely. I mean, you said what's the ceiling? My answer to that would be six to six to 12. Yeah, I mean, last year, 175 targets finished 12. Now they add Brock Bowers, another offensive weapon. They still have Jacoby Myers. So this is like,

I just feel like right now you're drafting him at his ceiling. But this isn't the case where, you know, some guys are drafting him at the ceiling, but the floor is not too far away. This could be the expiring asset. Remember when, when Julio Jones was unbelievable, just nonstop every year. He's old. He's never going to stop. And then all of a sudden he went from, I mean, look at this names. Just, just, I'll let you go. Julio Jones was one of these guys who was drafted super high, finished as the wide receiver 52 that year. Jordy Nelson, the year after that great year, finishes the wide receiver 46. Brandon Marshall finishes the wide receiver 47. Andre Johnson, the wide receiver 28. The floor is actually low. I will defend Julio because points per game that year, he was on pace to be a stud.

He just missed a bunch of games. He's old. He's old. Yeah, part of that being old. Can I weasel in and help your argument? I'll allow it. Last season, he finishes the wide receiver 11. From week 10 on, he had 191 target pace. So they even went up. But his consistency was a C. He had 47% of his games where he was above 10.5 fantasy points. That is a sub 50-50 shot. at 10 and a half points from Devante Adams, who was formerly the most guaranteed player to deliver on a week-to-week basis. To me, you can make the argument that last year's performance is not worthy of the pick. If you got an identical season, I don't know if you're happy. I mean, I think that that tells you something about the bus potential, which does exist due to age, quarterback, offense.

All of those. I mean, I think Devante Adams is loud enough to get 175 targets. But does the yards per, you know, catch go down again? Do the touchdown variables exist? I think so. And even if he gives you what he gave you last year, look, it was really cool in Championship Weekend. That was amazing. He had 21 targets. He had that. 13 receptions for 126 and 2, and he still caught eight touchdowns last year with that hodgepodge of quarterbacks, but he had a really rough stretch. I mean, I went on the ride. Like I picked him up, and he scored no touchdowns for like seven straight weeks in the middle of the year. He had a five-week stretch, which he was on pace for 60 and 598. So I'm thinking he was loud during the five weeks that it didn't work out. Yeah, the floor for this offense.

You know, you look at the playoffs. Well, he was great at the end, but in week 16, he stopped you from getting to the championship when he had one catch for four yards. He had four games that finished inside his fantasy finish. So he finished at wide receiver 11. He only had four games where he finished inside the top 11. So I think consistency is the strongest argument against Devante Adams. And then you add on all the things you just said. It makes it. Like if he was a third or fourth round pick, I'd be really cozy. Exactly. I am not saying Devante Adams has definitely lost it. I saw something on film that makes me think this is the beginning of the end. But what I know is that the end comes for everyone eventually. And he is being drafted at a ceiling. I don't want to die. A terrible, terrible pick for his current draft cost. How did you make this about you?

He said the incomes for everybody. It's about all of us. We all want to die, Mike. I mean, he just existential crisis. We'll take a break. We'll come back with Mike's pick. All right. We're back. We'll shift to Mike's bust selection here because it will pivot us off of the wide receiver spot because my bust pick is a wide receiver as well. So why don't we take a little break here and why don't you break everybody's hearts? So this reminds me of. This was years ago, to tie it into what Jason was talking about, the year that Julio Jones went to Tennessee, and I said, this brings me great pain to say that Julio Jones is going to be a bust pick for fantasy football this year. And look, that's tooting, this toot over here. But, like, that was the year where it just, it was, it was, it was gone. Collapse. It absolutely vanished for him. And so this is not that saying that it's going to vanish for this player because he's an up-and-comer.

But it's, it's C.J. Stroud, seemingly America's quarterback from the Houston Texans. And he's just, this is an ADP problem. And it is, to me, it's a massive ADP problem. Is that Coleridge Bernard Stroud, the fourth? Yeah, you got to talk to Kyle on this. Kyle, is that his real name? That's his name. Coleridge Bernard Stroud. Coleridge. That's this dude. I never heard that. That's a fancy name. That's regal. Yes. I don't even know where he got the J. I know where he got the C for Coleridge. Coleridge. He's just taking the sound. He's just a J. He's just taking the same. Coleridge. C.J. Yeah, that makes sense. Math checks out. Look. Go on, Mike. It's one of those Robert is Bob type of situations. Yeah, Coleridge is CJ. So here's the problem. It's completely about his ADP. Right now, going as a QB5 on the sleeper platform, that's the middle of the fourth round.

the QB6 for underdog and best ball drafts. And he is an up-and-coming quarterback. He's a great player. The future is so bright. He's turning into a superstar. But his archetype, he is a pocket passer. And to me... I'm not drafting a pocket passer in the first four rounds of a fantasy football draft. I need a player who has a ceiling that is not contingent on this guy having an out-of-control season, and he throws 35 plus passing touchdowns. We have, look, looking at what C.J. Stroud actually did, because the excitement is not matching that. Last year, he was a consistency score of C in our rating, so that means, you know,

46% of the time he hit our threshold that we want to see. Top five games. So ceiling games. Top five games for CJ Stroud last year. Two. Games with three or more passing touchdowns. If you're a pocket passer and I'm going to hit a ceiling, you better have a bunch of these. One. One against Tampa Bay, who everyone was throwing multiple touchdowns against Tampa Bay. His splits were if he was at home and against a bottom 16 defense. That's when he really came to play and gave us a bunch of fantasy football points. But he doesn't run. On average, guys who are giving us elite production at the quarterback position, on average, 28% of their fantasy production comes via rushing. C.J. Stroud was under 15% last year. So this is like my argument for Anthony Richardson is because I know that he's going to run a ton and I'm chasing the ceiling. But C.J. Stroud is he's not going to give that to us.

Remember when Baker Mayfield had a historic rookie season, breaks the passing touchdown record at that time, gets juiced up all the way to QB4, and then everything just falls apart? And then, like, the guys who are going after him, you know? I'm going to ask you guys what you think of this player's season. Okay, last year, was this, what is it a good season or a bad season? And you have... So Patrick Mahomes. Was that a bad season? For him? Yeah. Yeah, it was. And he was 0.5 points behind C.J. Stroud. Justin Herbert, within half a point of C.J. Stroud. Kyler Murray was right there. Russell Wilson. Guys, Russell Wilson was scoring one fewer fantasy point on average per game than C.J. Stroud. Brock Purdy outscored him. And yes, I understand.

The projection part, because you have to do that in fantasy football. You have to take your guess on who's going to elevate. Stefan Diggs is in town. It's year two. But you're taking a player who it's just like Joe Burrow. If the touchdowns come, then he's going to be great for fantasy football. And you are risking such a high pick on a player who, to me, Top three is it's not even in the range of outcomes for C.J. Stroud. Well, that would be him just turning into the next Patrick Mahomes. Yes. And or having one of those Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow years where you throw a bunch. He can't, that is in the range of outcomes. But to me, it's like here's what's tough for me to go against a guy that I really like. What were we going to say? I was going to say, Burrow and Stroud have an identical range of outcomes to me. Yes. They're 100%.

Who's going to have the better season? I'd probably lean Burrow, but Burroughs a couple rounds later. What's the ADP for a shroud? What quarterback? So, six on underdog quarterback five on Sleeper. Okay. So he is going just a couple picks behind Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. And where did he finish last year? Last year. I know he missed, did he miss a game? He missed some time. Let me get the, in points per game, he was the quarterback nine. So here's my worry, okay? And you tell me whether it's founded or not. And I think, I think I'm with you. I think we all agree on this. The Stroud is just being, people love him. And it sounds like at QB6 and 5, it's priced in, the jump. Yes. Because I'm looking at like all the top fantasy quarterbacks, literally all the ones that had breakout seasons, right? Like highest.