FootClan Titles + Owl Hoots, Week 18 Waivers & Motivation - Fantasy Football Podcast for 12/31

ahead. Jay, we're still on the train. We were on the train with the champ. That was a pretty good ride. Streaming quarterbacks. Bryce. I'm sure they covered our tickets. Bryce Young against Atlanta. I like him. Let's do it. Mike pointed out yesterday that recently Bryce Young has had much better numbers than CJ Stroud. Since the return from the benching, he has been a much better fantasy quarterback. How wild would it be? And I don't expect this to happen, but let's say you look back five years from now and Bryce Young is the clearly better pick than CJ Stroud. That'll be an

important lesson learned. It was a 0% chance last year. It's at least a 10% chance now. Yeah. Don't underestimate the return of Adam Thielen's and the factor that that was in Bryce Young's success over the back half of the year. Adam Thielen has been available, performing, constantly scoring, even with Leggett hurt and other players hurt. Thielen said he is planning to play into his 50s. So a couple more years? A couple more years. He's got two more seasons. You're going Flacco A. Rich? Yeah, I think the matchup against Jacksonville, you know, Joe Flacco, Anthony Richardson, whoever is going to be

there should have enough fantasy points to throw into your lineup. I mean, motivation matters to a big degree, but really it's just a matter of all these games are going to get played. So if you know who's going to be playing and in this game you will, you'll know whether Anthony Richardson is healthy or whether it's Joe Flacco, you're going to have enough points scored here. And I'm going with Russ against Cincinnati. The, you got to pay, you got to be locked into the news of what Mike Tomlin is saying is going to happen because we laid it out. They will know

if they need to win the game or not to try and get the division. But the matchup is there. It's the second highest total of the week right now. And it's, dude, Cincinnati, I mean, this is the team we want to play against. Uh, yep. Yep. There's your streamers this week, week 18. Uh, we'll take a break. We'll do some mailbag and we'll shut this thing down. You know, the only thing better than Mike being dragged in here is having to muster the energy for this. Mailbag. How did you not make Jeremy do it? He's the champ. I do what I

want. And it's not that. Oh, it was interesting. Oh, man. The britches are getting big. The britches. The britches were prepped. I mean, you can do whatever you want on your final day of work. Boom, shakalaka. Yeah, yeah. Al, that's at producer Borland for those that want to send their congratulations. I know. I think everyone in the world was rooting for you. And, you know, they have the saying, act like you've been there before. He hasn't. He doesn't know how to act. He doesn't know. Am I doing it right? Yeah. Unfortunately, you're doing a great job. Unfortunately, you're doing it really

well. Mailbag. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I got one more kid. Spontaneous congratulations. I knew this was coming. Hey, Al, this is Nathan, Andy's son and League of Record co-owner. I may have lost the championship to you, but to be honest, a better man won. You may not be my dad, but you're my hero. Yes. Why would he do that? Oh, man. He's the one that should have rejected the fame. Thank you so much, Nate. Oh, my gosh. He's my co-manager. You and your dad have been such gracious losers. Your co-manager that just lost the championship. Wow. I mean, is he still

the co-manager in 2025? That's an update we're going to need to get a hold of. The Holloway blood is thicker than water. I mean, that changed rapidly. Yeah. They sold you down the river. I thought this show was going to be about Mike's failures. What failures? All I see is a champ sparkling over on the alleyway. Yeah, I've already moved on. Unless I have a kid I don't know about, it should be over with. You've got to be thankful that at a certain age, our parents probably can't figure out how to record something and get that in it because that would have taken

it over the top. Oh, my God. You did not write that for him? I did not write it. Yes, you did. I promise you I did not. That's my wife. You raised them right. You really did. I'm not sure about that. Tim writes in from Instagram for our mailbag here because we're doing a mailbag in your league of record. Is there anything else you guys compete for than a trophy? Well, this is a good example. This is what you compete for so that you can do this. There is no money on the line in the league of record. People are always

shocked about that. It is actually very detrimental to your wallet. Oh, gosh. I spent thousands of dollars. He saved me thousands of dollars when I won the championship and had to hire a Marilyn Monroe and buy 20-foot banners. We're getting written up by the complex saying that we're not allowed to put banners up. Don't tell me what I can't do. I'm the champ, lady. Yeah, you win negative money. Yeah, but I had already looked into like marching bands. It's greatness. Yeah. If I could rent a few cheerleaders to cheer every pick. Yeah, I don't know the civilian capability of getting a flyover, but

I mean, yeah, Luke Air Force Base is close. Yeah, I mean, a fly over make it bring everyone outside. Everybody come out and check this out. Oh, man. No, we play for pride. We play for pride. OK, this question is that all day. All day besides trophies and other championship swag. How do you do you fellas have a tradition or ritual that you when you take home a fantasy title, we do. We we got in our office. We got shelves with the rings, the fantasy championship rings. I've got a banner that I hang up for draft day. Mike has one.

Jason has one. There are some years in specific spots where like I got a Mike Evans jersey because when you know he scored forty seven thousand points in week seventeen and single handedly won the championship. If there's a player like that, you might go out and get their jersey. Mike had a RG three. Oh, yeah. Like your mural. Really? Yeah. But there you go. Bobby MacArthur. Where do Brian Thomas and Brock Bowers go in next year's redraft leagues? To me, they are both Bowers will be one two turn player. He'll be right at the end of the first round. I think Thomas is right

there, too. I do. I think they're right next to each other. Some leagues people will reach at the end of the first. Otherwise, it'll be mid second at the latest. I'm not positive which of those two goes before each other. They're both. I think Bowers will go ahead of Brian Thomas. Next year, we enter a new phase in the fantasy tight end universe. It's called Bowers or McBride. That's the phase. That's the new era. It's not Anders and Kelsey. It's not Gronk and Kelsey. It's Bowers McBride. And somehow Kittle will continue to be disrespected and drop to be like the fifth tight

end. And I'm sure you're right. That will happen. CMC will come back and Iuke will come back and he will be all the reason. It might be a good reason. Like the I'm sure there's going to be plenty of discourse of well, like is Bowers going to Laporta? And it's to me, the answer is absolutely not of like Laporta. It was a really low scoring tight end tight end year last season. And it was not done on volume. It was done on touchdowns like where Laporta is coming through in the playoffs because he's because he's scoring a bunch of touchdowns where Brock

Bowers is like he is a new Travis Kelsey where he's the focal point of the Raiders office. Yeah, it's not just the touchdowns. It's the the ability to do other things. Yeah, like if you look at Laporta, it's like, well, OK, they don't need him. Like if Laporta, if Laporta had a season ending injury, not one point would be different in the Lions outcome. It's sad to say that. And that's not trying to say Laporta is not a good player. He's a very, very good player, but they just have a nut. They have another too many other options. Amon Rock could step up.

The running game is great. The other receivers. Now, all of a sudden, Tim Patrick becomes a thing. Brock Bowers has Alan Robinson. Yeah, he's catching passes. Brock Bowers has no competition. I mean, none. It's like Kobe Myers. They might have more after the draft, but even if they do it Bowers, they have a rookie quarterback, too. That'll be something that you'll have to factor in Bowers. They will have a new quarterback. Bowers has 1150 yards with a game left, and Laporta last year finished the season in 17 games with under 900 yards. You're telling me that there's no world where you

take McBride next year with Bowers? No, no. No, I am. Sure. The rookie quarterback over is McBride a first-round pick, then? He could be close. This wasn't an argument of McBride. He's not going to Laporta. I get that. Yeah, and it's funny. Laporta and Andrews were very similar this year, where the starts of the seasons and the ends were very different. I completely agree with the fact that he's not going to Laporta. He's a PPR guy, but I do wonder, because Bowers and McBride are together, the times that we saw Gronk and Kelsey go in the first round, as high as five or

six, was because they were kind of alone. They were alone. Yeah. And so I think that puts Bowers and McBride more in the mid-second round range. You might be right. I think that's what, well, because if I were going into the draft genuinely, I would just take the cheaper one. Sure. I mean, it's not like McBride and Bowers. What's the reception difference between them? I mean, 108 versus 100? Yeah. Or something like that? Despite the touchdowns not coming for McBride, you would think that there will be more touchdown opportunities with Kyler at quarterback than a rookie quarterback. McBride has 104 receptions.

Bowers is at 108. McBride, and also McBride is one game fewer. So McBride's at 15 games. If you take the midpoint of the season, McBride's pace is 143 receptions. Bowers' pace is 123. So both of them have even been stronger in the second half of the year, and McBride will score in the future if you want to look at that positive regression narrative. Yeah, we talk about touchdowns not being a sticky stat. We'll talk about it this off season, the fact that, oh, McBride doesn't have touchdowns. That means nothing for the future. Best example here is James Cook. You know, he's like, oh, well,

he doesn't, you know, he's a good back. He just doesn't ever get touchdowns. And now he's about to possibly break O.J. O.J. Simpson's record for most rushing touchdowns. And then, like, the beginning of Travis Kelsey's career, five, five, four. Then it went up and you had a run where he's hitting double digit touchdowns. Um, last one here. Jonathan wants to know, I'm thinking about my keepers. Jalen Hurts. Do I move on to Jaden Daniels? He has both on the roster. Wow. I had to ask this one. It's like a great question to set the table for an off season of shows where these

type of questions will be popping up. I don't. I would rather have Jaden Daniels going forward. I do not doubt at all that Jaden Daniels goes ahead of Jalen Hurts next year. I would rather keep Hurts simply because we have enough years, year after year after year, where we know that Jalen Hurts is going to be good. We know what his weapons are, his offensive line, the system. Like, if you go, well, how does it fail next year? Okay, if the tush push gets outlawed this off season, I would be willing to change it. But for the most part, we

know he's going to be great. There is the potential that next year things get figured out or things get worse in the sophomore season for Jaden Daniels. So it's just a safety thing because both players are awesome. I lean the Hurts side. I will lean Daniels by a hair. Fancy points per game this year, 25.1 to 23.4. There's always the opportunity for a rookie to get better. We do have a piece of news that actually is important for waivers. Brown's running back, Pierre Strong, is in the concussion protocol. Deontay Foreman slides up the waiver list. Deontay Foreman is, I mean,

he's in a really, really bad situation. But it's the running backs are right now a flow chart of injuries where this is why we know that Foreman is going to get the ball a lot. Can he do anything against the Ravens? I don't know. There you go. All right. Week 18 stuff, guys. Week 18 stuff. Not as tough as getting through this show. It's been great. We did it. Might you. I think you redeemed Mike's spirits. I'm cheered up. I'm good. I'm on to 2025. Do I have permission to close this out or do you have any relatives of mine

that you have summoned up? My parents aren't here to walk in. I did text your daddy. Oh, my gosh. We're all set, man. Probably thought you were spam. Probably blocked you. Goodbye, everybody. Congratulations, Al. New Year's tomorrow. No show. We'll be back Thursday. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Thank you.