Free Agency Winners & Losers + Jason’s Voice Mystery - Fantasy Football Podcast for 3/26

But old Derek Henry just turns into like Gus Edwards at the worst. But he's way better than Gus Edwards. I know. That's what I'm saying. Like you don't have an argument against it. Something catastrophic would have to happen for Derek Henry not to have the most goal line opportunities in the league. Baltimore is the highest win total or right behind San Francisco. San Francisco, Kansas City, and Baltimore, all 11 and a half. When does Henry do well? Winds or losses. You know, he's a front runner. Yeah, the idea of Derek Henry playing a full season and not scoring double-digit touchdowns feels impossible. Mike found out he signed with the Ravens Live on the show, and it changed his life. It felt good. And you have, you know, there are, we do have some other 30 old running backs who have had 10 or more touchdowns. We had the Cordero Patterson year. You had the Wild DeAngelo Williams year, and those were both guys on brand new teams.

And oh yeah, Mark Ingram on this team when he was 30 changed teams and then came in and gave us that huge touchdown outlier year. I think that and watching just watching Derek Henry last year, you knew it wasn't the same guy because this was like the lowest snaps he's seen since 2018 at only 53% of the snaps. Tadj Spears was working in. But. You would still have so many moments throughout the season, including, I believe, the last touchdown run as a Titan or second to last. I can't remember. But he makes an incredible cut. You're like, oh, yeah, no, Derek Henry still has juice left. So the amount of... He's 30 right now. Okay, so I'll play at 30. Yeah, he'll be 30 this year. And it's the amount of juice that Derek Henry has left combined with just such an incredible...

incredible situation of a team that's going to win, be grinding out games, be scoring so many rushing touchdowns at the age of 30 to give you any kind of life is, it's fabulous. I'm going to read you some additional potential winners. Tell me if you agree. Maybe tell me if it's just like you agree a lot or just a little or not at all. Will Lavis at quarterback? A lot. Yeah. The Titans are. They're wilding out with that bank account. They're just writing checks, which good for you as a team. I'm Titans fans. I'm happy for you, unless it doesn't work. Because if the flame out happens and you have now all these outstanding balances, it sets you back a while. Sell the team for $20 billion if that happens. Caleb Williams. A definite winner to me. Keenan Allen. Keenan and Swift are the big additions.

Mahomes? I don't think he's a big winner. I don't either. Markis Brown. He might suck. Yeah, he might suck. He is not a zone guy, and that's what Mahomes is going to face the most. So I don't know. And then you've got a year older Kelsey. I don't look at Mahomes. It's like, wow, this offseason, so good for Mahomes. So for Hollywood, third team, and this is his sixth year? Yeah, something's not working, man. Yeah. Tell that to Brandon Cooks. He did just fine. That's, he was the true journeyman. Yeah, he'd be, if Brandon Cooks went to the Chiefs, is it, do you feel the same? That might be the ultimate bar. I might feel better. Yeah, that's weird. That's even today's Brandon Cooks. Obviously, Gus Edwards is a winner, right. Joe Miction's a winner. Yes. James Connor is a winner. Yeah. Cardinals don't have anyone. Anyone? Who did they bring in from Seattle?

DJ Dallas. DJ backup. Yeah. Zamir White so far. Huge winner so far. If they don't grab a running back in the draft, then I mean, I see Alexander Madison is a clear backup. Yeah, probably. I, yeah. Andy loves Madison. No, no, no. He sees Zemir as the backup. Rashad White, so far so good. Quentin Johnston? I don't know if you're a winner, man. You have to be a winner in this situation. I mean, you. Your opportunity is a winner. This is this is a busy. Quinn Johnson situation is like he's he's one cashier at a busy grocery store and he had a couple other cashiers that like helps get the lines down. And now they're gone and he's got to take everything through his line. And it's very stressful. He's not trained for this. He's not ready. It does feel a lot like too much. This is not this isn't just an opportunity to show how good at checking people out you are. This is.

This is overwhelming. This is too much, man. Yeah. You don't want to be the focus. There's going to be people putting groceries back. Do you, if you drop, if you drop the ball when you've got other players to take the eyes off of you, the pressure. The pressure is going to be real. If week one, if week one comes out and he has a bad drop early in that game, his career is mentally just never going to overcome it. George Pickens. I think huge winner. Yeah. Two new quarterbacks that are. They've got to be better than what you had. They get rid of Deontay Johnson. But you don't feel that way. So I, I, I, I, everything you just said makes me feel that way. Arthur Smith makes me remember Drake London. Yeah. Better quarterbacks. Yeah. He just, he has. Someone can keep him in check now. When Arthur's over there, is like, you know what they won't expect. Our third string of tight. Wasn't Arthur Smith the.

The OC for Tennessee. No, I know, but wasn't he the offensive coordinator when A.J. Brown was doing stuff over there? Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, he was. So you never know. That's what I mean. But I'm saying. Yes, it was A.J. Brown. But I'm saying he's not, the buck doesn't stop with Arthur on the Steelers. He has Mike Tomlin to go over and be like, don't be dumb. Throw the ball to our good players. Curtis Samuel. Curtis Samuel. Like all, all, we talk about don't let your children be running backs. Look at Curtis Samuel and the amount of money that he has made compared to the impact that he has really had on football fields for years. I can't believe he got the check that he got. Good for you, Curtis. Did you ever get a chance to react to that? No, he hasn't. I'm doing it right now. No, that's what I mean. This is your first chance to comment on it. It was shocking stuff, the money that he's going to get to and go beyond a championship contending team.

And then you have these, like the best running backs in the league are like they can't get this money. And this is now his third contract. It was a better offseason for running backs. Yeah, it was a very good off season for running backs, but it still does not compare to the wide receiver market. But Curtis Samuel finds himself in a great position. He's a definite clear winner. He's reunited with Joe Brady. I don't know if we brought that up, but Joe Brady, you know, was with him in Carolina. And they paid a lot of money to bring them over. So I think they've got a plan for them. They're going to use them in a lot of ways. Would you consider this offseason to be good, bad, or neutral for Josh Allen, his quarterback? No Gabe Davis. Neutral. Adds Mack Hollins and Curtis Samuel, right? Yeah. I'll go neutral. Kyle Pitts? Winner. Dalton Schultz going back home? Yeah, winner to go back.

All right, we will take a quick break, come back with the losers of free agency. All right, let's jump into some fantasy losers when it comes to what you thought you were going to get, what you hoped to get, and what happened during free agency. To me, I mean, this one's an obvious one. But this is why it's a gamble. When you take a low draft capital shot, Dynasty, I know the hopes and dreams are out there, and they don't all end like Rashad White did last year. Tajay Spears. Former or I'll say like brief top of the depth chart for just a moment. After Henry left and before they signed Tony Pollard, but Tajay Spears, he was a third round pick. He was 81st overall in the draft last year. He's a good player. He's definitely a meaningful offensive weapon in an NFL offense and nothing against Tajay Spears.

But the way free agency went when they went out and they took that infinite checkbook and they cut a three-year deal for Tony Pollard with a bunch of money guaranteed, it automatically changes every positive outlook you had for Taj Spears. Now, can he be a complimentary back that makes a big play here and there? Of course. He probably will do that. But I don't expect his workload to increase just because Henry switches out for Pollard. I think it could go the opposite direction. potentially or at a minimum stay neutral. And so, you know, last year, what was he? 100 for 453? No one's getting excited about that in Dynasty. It was receptions, though. You had 52 catches, which that's fantastic. Pollard can do that better than Henry could. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So we were all rooting for the one year trial at starting running back. Did you just see his coach was being asked about how are you going to use?

you know, Pollard and Spears. And the case for Spears is just in the whole quote, it's him saying like, these are, you know, we have two really good players and I see them both as kind of interchangeable. So it at least it wasn't, hey, we gave Tony, like, we knew we had to get Tony Pollard on this team and for him to be a foundational piece. It was, it was equal praise to both backs. I think there's a world where this is like a, even has Spears out snaps Pollard in some games, but, you know, like a 55-45 split. I think it'll be close to 50-50, but that really hurts Tajay from the hopes of him being the guy. Do you realize last year Tony Pollard played, or I'm sorry, Tajay Spears played 53% of the snaps, and Derek Henry played 53% of the snaps. So it's going to be a similar situation here with Pollard.

with question marks on the offensive side, and then he's undersized. He has a full thickness cartilage loss in his knee, no ACL in his knee, and arthritis. So this is also not a, well, just wait a couple of years for Tony Pollard to go away and then he'll be fine. This seems like more of a, you get what you get. If Pollard goes down, you have a player, but that's the case for a lot of backups. So to me, just a brutal, I don't think any of us expected Pollard. I don't think any of us expected a big running back signing in Tennessee. No. Because if it would have been, it probably would have been Henry coming back, we thought. But they went with the younger Pollard and, you know, Will Levis. Who knows if that experiment works out this year. There you go. Yeah, they've given Will Levis. I mean, I said I think he's a big winner. They've given him every opportunity to succeed. I expect him to fail. But I'm hoping he succeeds. Banana Ramah is fun for the show.

My biggest loser is clearly from free agency. Yeah. This cycle's just been, I feel so bad for this incredible player. Justin Herbert, I'm so sorry, man. Well, I mean, but I'm not really sorry because you're going to win more games. Like, you can't feel too bad for him. He's going to win more football games. And that's what he wants to do. I can feel bad for us. Because I want you to score more fantasy points. Like we've had the advice of like swapping out the high scoring fantasy quarterback and getting the next up and comer. And I know people did it with Justin Herbert. And you're like, oh my gosh. Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Quentin Johnson, a first round pick? And now he's left with just with a grocery store cashier.

That's all he has left. See, the analogy works well because that's his future profession. Yeah. So you've got the Chargers here. 14% of their running back targets vacated 40% of their wide receiver targets, 11% of their targets from the tight end position. 65% of last year's targets are not on the roster. We have talked a lot about Greg Roman's run heavy offense. We've talked about it multiple times this off season. The problem is that it works for the NFL. His team's average 10.2 wins. And that's over a decade when they didn't play 17 for the majority of that. He is, you know, he only has one sub 500 team in a decade of this system working. He's going to have to be very efficient. That's not what Herbert has been historically. He's been a volume guy. Here's, I think, the best stat to just elicit.

you know, to illustrate the difference between what we've been used to and what we're about to experience with Justin Herbert. And don't hear what I'm not saying. I don't think Justin Herbert's going to be terrible. He's too good an NFL player. He's going to be on a good team. He'll score some, but he's not going to be like a top five quarterback the way he could be. In his career, he has averaged 26 completions per game. That's his baseline. That's his average. That's just what he normally does. In Greg Roman, 10 years, 162 games played. This is ridiculous. 16 times has his quarterback completed 26 passes. 16 times of 162 games. And that's what we have been used to with Justin Herbert. So it's going to be a change. He's going to have to be more efficient. He's going to have to run the ball more.

But when they get down near that goal line, it's going to be the Gus bus or the incoming rookie. They're going to be scoring the touchdowns. And so I do think Justin Herbert from a fantasy football perspective is a huge loser, this cycle of free agency. 8.5. That is the win total for the Chargers. Now, if it goes, quarterback, quarterback, quarterback, quarterback. And then you have the chance to draft Marvin Harrison Jr. To Justin Herbert? I know they won't. They'd rather be dead. I know they won't. Convert them to running back. Please trade back to the Arizona cartels. All right. I mean, look, we all know Herbert. It hurts. It hurts the way like his value right now in leagues has got to be the lowest that I'll ever be because it's probably being swung too far.

Yeah, in that direction. You could argue he could be a buy candidate right now. That's what I'm wondering, even though we can't see the future targets that he's going to throw to. Mike, it's time to hear from you on fantasy, free agency, loser. So I cannot disagree. I think that Herbert is, unfortunately, the biggest loser. But a player I want to talk about because the value of this player going into his second year. I feel like it was an absolute roller coaster ride over just like the past calendar year. And it's Jordan Addison of the Minnesota Vikings when he was selected in the first round 23rd overall to a team where he could go be the wide receiver two behind Justin Jefferson with Kirk Cousins throwing the ball. It was, I don't know that there could be a better fit for what is for him in his first year as he's starting his career.

is rookie year overall quite good, really, really heavy on the touchdowns. One of five rookie wide receivers with 10 or more receiving touchdowns since 2014. And that list is Jamar, Odell, Mike Evans, Calvin Ridley, and Jordan Addison. Like, that's a group of wide receivers I would like my name to be connected to. But now we have, we kind of talked about it all at the beginning of the show with being so excited for Drake London. Jordan Addison has a... Kirk Cousins and a quarterback problem. Right now, it is scheduled to be Samuel Darnold, who, in defense of Sam Darnold, I've heard his head coach believes he has his best football in front of him. Oh, for sure he does. You look behind him? He can't be behind him. That can't be. So, which that was newsworthy, I guess. But, and look, maybe Sam Darnel is Gino Smith.

And you get kind of, or what happened with Baker? Maybe there is a resurgence. Sam Narnal is still, I think, like 21 years old. He's still like out. How old is he actually? Outrageously young. The quarterback. He came in so young, remember? Yeah, he's 26. That's wild. Yeah. To be, so he will be turning 27 as he goes into year seven of his career. It just, it would be shocking, I think. Just to say it is it would be shocking if Sam Darnold actually works out for the Minnesota Vikings. Or it's the rookie. I mean, they've, you know, they've been, they've already made a big trade. All the smoke says that the Minnesota Vikings are going to try and move up and get a quarterback. But now you have a rookie quarterback you have, is it? And it's a rookie quarterback where it took a lot of draft capital to go up and get him. So you're taking on holes in the other parts of the teams to just.

like can that quarterback really be the guy rookie quarterback's rarely hit what's their win total right now on a dk what do we got six and a half six and a half six and a half yeah that sounds about right and so the and then that's a darnal desk number and it's one of those uh kind of the red flags here for for addison his targets per route run numbers they're not Great. And he scored a ton of touchdowns. Yeah. And he scored, which that's great to have that in your catalog. I'm trying to read Jason's face right now. And I wonder if it's, I have him in Dynasty face. No, I do have him in Dynasty because I think he's a great wider. It's just, it's the red flags. I, you know, I brought up the name, I think our last episode of like the fear of comping him to Jahan Dotson. Oh, right. Dotson had the huge touchdown success as a rookie. Right.

Very bad targets per outrun, but looked good. And then you have a lot of this where it's like some of those metrics behind the scenes are really bad for Addison, but he was propped up by the touchdowns. I still am a believer in the actual talent where I have a hard time of moving on. With Justin Jefferson, he averaged 5.5 targets a game, 47 receiving yards a game. So those all just, and is that right? It is right, but a lot of those starts were. I'm going to let you defend it. He's on your dynasty. Because Jefferson missed a lot of the games when Kirk Cousins was. You shouldn't have to talk that much. For the rookie wide receivers who had all those touchdowns, here is their actual routes. Jamar Chase had 579 routes, more touchdowns than Jordan Addison, who had 606 routes, 606. Odo Beckham, 474, Mike Evans, 510, Calvin Ridley, 465. All those guys hit or exceeded.

the amount of touchdowns that Jordan Addison scored as a rookie with far fewer routes. And I'm with Jason. I think he's a great player, but he's the number two, clearly the number two wide receiver on this team, unless a wild Minnesota trade of Justin Jefferson actually happens. But they have a huge quarterback problem that it's going to be really difficult to fix over the next couple of years. See, I thought Josh Jobs was going to fix all that last year, but it never happened. Potential other free agent losers, do you, same as before. Do you agree, disagree, strongly agree. Justin Fields? Oh, yeah. That's obviously a huge. He may never be a starter again. Yeah. He'll start this year. Not week one. When? Week four? Week four, nine, 11. Yeah. I mean, he'll probably start some games, but I don't know that he'll be a starter. Romandre Stevenson. I don't think he's a huge loser here.

I think he's a medium loser. His value came, first of all, Patriots are the lowest win total in football. Correct, tied with the Panthers. When you talk about scoring opportunities and stuff like that, it's concerning. Secondly, Ramandre is, his value came from being used in the passing game quite a bit. Yes. And that's where Antonio Gibson is going to. He should. I mean, he's a better, Antonio Gibson is a better receiver to me. I think Remandre might be just as good after the catch, but I think in terms of just speed and getting to where, getting to your spots, I personally think Gibson was signed to do what Gibson does. So to me, he's a medium loser. Yeah, I'll go medium. Okay. I'll fine with that. I'll use a word that's never been used with him before. Small. Small loser? Yeah. Small loser. Okay. Damien Pierce, huge. Who's that? Huge. He was a loser last year. Man.

That sucks. I just, it's not like I was in, I wasn't like in the Damian Pierce corner until I, until now he's all my teams, you know what I mean? And then it's like, he's your guy. And then it's like, oh, gross. Like that, that just died. The winds change. Sorry, Andy. Um, Adam Thielen. Hello? Did somebody say my name? Is his father time that caused him to be a loser in the, I mean, I don't think he's a loser. Oh, man. It's, Deont, it's, Deontay Johnson is there. Yes, Deontes who is young and very good. But Dave Canales is there. So I consider it a wash. Yeah. Thank you. It's the best. It's so, you hadn't really done it a lot. No, it's more. Yeah, because he tried to get on the, he's a young man with, with his deep.

masculine voice. It's amazing how dominant Adam Thielen was last year. For a couple of weeks. To start the year. Alan Lazard, goodbye. Never heard of him. See you later. Cole Comet. I could see him. I don't think he's a loser at all. He's certainly a loser. He goes from being target 100%. For fantasy. No, I disagree. Really? Totally disagree. You're, yeah. I mean, obviously disagree. You could be wrong. But the, the truth is, Cole Comet's value came from being, uh, you know, number two in the target order. Being third in the target order is a massive, like you look around the league at all the tight ends who are relevant for fantasy. When they are doing well, it's they're either the first or second target. That's it. And he doesn't have a chance to that anymore. I think that you have a little bit. I mean, look at, look at, so you hate Kyle Pitts now, like compared to what you would have because they added, you know.

Darnell Mooney? The guy who Colcomette was the number two over last year? Oh, okay. That's a fair point. That's a fair point. But you added Kirk Cousins, right? I mean, the offense is going to throw the ball more with Caleb Williams than they did with Justin Field. Yes. The offense is going to run better with Caleb Williams throwing the football, presumably, than Justin Fields could do. So I just think Colcombe's. I think Colquette's talent. his ability to get into the end zone is significant. I certainly think he's talented. He won me over last year as a, you know, a football talent. Those are man catches. Dude, some of those in zone box out jump up. I'm not saying it's a, I don't think he's a free agent winner. I'm not saying that. But if he had to be a winner or loser, if you had to. Which one would you pick? I don't, you don't. No, but I'm saying you have to. You got to. I made the rule. Small.

Loser. All right. There you go. But think about the Hawkinson, you considered him a bigger target above Addison? Yeah. Yes. Kittle? I have always had a hard time being in on Kittle, but also we don't know what team Brandon Ayuk's going to play for. It's not going to be the Niners. It will be the Niners this year. Okay. We'll see. I don't know. What voice is that? I don't know. Was that the voice he was using last week? It was not, yeah, that was the one that people were wondering about. This was the, we're at the end of the show voice and, uh, okay. So you, you think the, the Niners are going to trade him? Draft day trade. That's my prediction. Okay. For, wow. A draft. Okay. Okay. I predict. I predict he plays for them and then by the time training camp rolls around, they will give him an extension. Okay. Well, that will.

That will be some crow to eat. And that will... Big extension crow. Nice big plate fork and knife. I wonder where that really started. What is crow? Is it like... It's a bird. Well, I know what a crow is. When you eat crow, it's talking about the bird? That's my question. I imagined it was. What else would it be? That's what I was asking. Oh, let's look it up. Let's learn. What is the crow that you eat? I would assume you're familiar with it. That is not the, like, from years gone by. That won't be the first time you ate crow on Brandon Ayyuk, by the way. That's true. That is true. I was a year early on Brandon Ayyuk. Have you determined your, I can't figure it out. No, I think it might be crows. Of course it's gross.

Eating crow is an idiom. The crow is a curian eater that is presumably repulsive to eat in the same way that being proven wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow. So it is a crow. Yeah, it's hard to eat the crow. I always, I'm going to be honest. I'm going to be honest with you right now. I genuinely thought that eating crow was a politer way to say poop. Oh, really? Yeah, I thought eating crow meant like, you got to eat. You ever taking a huge crow? Yes, I have, Andy. Yes, I have. I play it too right after this show. On that note, good to have the gang back together again. Cheers everybody out there. Yes. And we'll catch you on another episode Thursday. Goodbye. 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.