Fantasy Football - Week 5 Studs & Duds + Cardinals Choke Job - Podcast for 10/6

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Oh, man. Andy's in a good, good place. Oh, man. It feels good to not be the one melting down. I hate the Cardinals so much.

I legitimately, I have been wrestling with this. And I haven't, we didn't talk about this before the show. I figured this is a good place to talk about. It's because you arrived in Arizona at three in the morning. That is true. I was in New York. I thought I was going to be all alone. And I have at least 120 minutes of Cardinals material. Yeah. We knew Mike wasn't going to be here today. So it's a two-man show. Lucky son of a gun. And I was flying in from New York. My plane kept getting delayed and delayed and then sitting on the tarmac for two hours.

Yeah, you texted with me for hours on the tarmac. Yeah. And so I'm like, okay. So I'm running off a little bit of sleep. But we're here. We're a two-man show. But we didn't get a chance to really talk about it yet. This is why we do it live. Yes. We're doing it live. But I feel like some people will hear this and be just really upset, triggered by this. But I think I'm at a point where I am legitimately saying I don't think I have to be a Cardinals fan. No, it's not. Look. I don't think – why do I have to say I am a fan of a terrible organization that I don't like the structure?

I don't like the ownership. I don't like anything they've ever done. I am a fan of them because I live within 150 miles of that. You know what I mean? It's like I don't deserve this. No one here deserves this. This was a public embarrassment of the franchise in a manner incomprehensible over and over. It wasn't one thing. It wasn't two things. It wasn't three things. It wasn't four things. It was – I mean, it started – All of the things. It was all of the things. It started with a snap into the face of Kyler Murray. That's where it all began.

The Cardinals are up 21-3, and they're on the 25. Snap it right into your face. All right? Summary of the career of Kyler Murray. Oh, but on that play – Who, by the way – On that play, when they snapped it to his face, that happens sometimes. You know, the center is – but the rest of the offensive line stands there straight up. I mean, like the right guard just – he's just standing like, oh, that sucked. And barely tried to push a guy out of the way while the other team gets the ball. It's like, ah, we're winning. This is easy.

That was three points minimum, probably seven. The Titans were packing up, ready to go home. Cardinals, that was the best – that was the highlight of the day for them. Because then you follow that up with – 21-6. We're in the lead. Fourth quarter. Omari DiMarcado takes it – 73. He takes it 70 – I think it was going to be a 76-yard touchdown. He took it to about the 60 of the 75 and just stops. He literally slowed down then. That's when he slowed down. He had a gap between him and the defender and decides, I'm going to run slower.

Which, I never saw Jerry Rice do that or Larry Fitzgerald do that or any professional athlete. I don't think anybody's confusing Amari DiMarcado with those guys, though. No, it's just like a – this is the moment of your life. A 76-yard run. You've spent your entire career for the opportunity to get the kind of work you had. And this was your play of your life. And everybody's seen it now. And literally, when he starts slowing down, I'm not worried about him being the dumbest person on earth. No, you're worried about the defender coming and knocking the ball out. I'm worried about the defender coming in and –

And he tries, and he didn't reach it. Barely. The defender almost reached the ball to knock it out. Goodbye, seven points. Didn't need to. Goodbye. Why are NFL players, paid professionally, dropping the ball when they run to the end zone? If it were up to me, you should run until you hit your head on the goalposts. Every time. With the ball in your hand. But don't worry. It's okay. You're still up 21-6 in the fourth quarter against the league's worst offense and the worst quarterback in the worst situation. They instantly run down the field and score seven points. Just two seconds later, they're down the field.

It's fine, though. They had missed the extra point. You're now down nine. We can't lose still. You can't lose that game. It's embarrassing, but we're not in a position where we could actually lose. And our defense, we're going to – Yeah. Thank you. There you go. Let's continue. This is the sound effects that were happening on the next play when we give up. Like, first of all, our offense does nothing. Our offense has no plans. You're up 100 points according to our offense. Let's just run it with Michael Carter three times. You're an idiot. Well, you drafted a guy top five at wide receiver.

You have the second highest pay tight end in the league and a great quarterback. So don't target him. Take your two backup running backs and hand the ball off right up the middle. Oh, they're not backups. They're backups to the backups. The backup got injured. But don't even stop there. Let's let him drive the field. But guess what? Let's make an – let's intercept the ball. Oh, but when we got it, how about we kick it around a little bit? How about we drop it and we just kick it into their end zone? Yeah, kick it around backwards into the end zone for an old man Tyler Lockett to recover

it over your 75 defenders. It's okay. We're still up, Andy. We're up two points. All you got to do – We're still up. Couple first downs. Couple first. Let's give the ball to the stupid backup running backs right up the middle. Over and over and over. It wasn't like the clock was the real problem here. Just get a first down. But you still only have to stop the worst team in the league. All you got to do is not give up like a 60-yard play. That's it. To a guy that was hurting who didn't do anything all season long. Yeah, just put one safety back there, man.

You'll be fine. But don't worry. Maybe you could let Tony Pollard score on his run. Oh, yeah. Tackle him at the two so they could kick a field goal and you have no timeouts. Man, brilliant. Brilliant. They coach as well as the ownership allows. The Cardinals do not – Fire them all. I wish we could fire them all. And, you know, people want to say, hey, I'm Ari DiMarcato. He played us all life. He's a player. You don't deserve a job anymore. You can't do that. No, you can – This is a merit-based business. Do the thing you're supposed to do or don't play football.

When you are a Mari DiMarcato, you have not – You know, this isn't Derrick Henry. This isn't like, okay, this is, you know, a guy that our team desperately needs. When you do something like that, it's like kickers. You lose your job. Yeah, kickers lose them all the time. You should lose your job. Yeah. It's like a kicker turning around and kicking it backwards, though. I mean, it's just unacceptable. The Cardinals are – I am so embarrassed. But can I – can I – Can I not be a Cardinals fan? I mean, you could do whatever you want to do.

I know what it feels like right now. The problem with that is that if, by some reincarnation of Kurt Warner, they are ever successful at doing anything, that will be the moment that you desperately wish you hadn't abandoned the team. That is the essence of sports. So I don't have any worries. Well, yeah, I mean, that's – The nice thing is if I were to abandon the Cardinals, I would go from having them be my team to abhorring them. I would root against everything they do and stand for. I'm getting texts from Bears fans this morning saying – Oh, they're –

They're sorry for us. The empathy. Their empathy – yeah. Yeah. It was the most embarrassing public spectacle. I'm always, like, proud of Browns fans. Like, Browns fans are amazing. See what I mean? Like, if they have success – The franchise has been bad forever, and they're still out there, and they're still going out in cold weather games, and they're still – I don't have that in me. I don't have, like – I don't care about this team. You've got a busy life, Jay. You're in New York. You're jet-setting. You don't got time for this crap. You don't got time to care emotionally about a turd franchise.

It's awful. And you know what else? People play to Mari DiMarcato. Oh, yeah. Eight-point fantasy swing right there. Touchdown into a fumble. Yeah. Well, more than that if you get a bonus for long touchdowns, too. That's true. Which you and I are playing each other in fantasy. We are. And just a little salt in the wound that Kyler Murray threw a 44-yard touchdown to Marvin Harrison. You're starting Kyler Murray against me, and you're starting Marvin Harrison against me. Correct. Except he didn't throw a 44-yard touchdown. No, he got dragged down at the one, and then Michael Carter ran it in.

Yeah. And that's it. That was a 16-point swing in our league, and I'm up by like 12 points tonight. You're up by 12. I've got Etienne and Travis Hunter. Yeah. I think I... 60-40. You... Much higher than that. No. Much higher than that. Not against the Chiefs run defense. We've seen... Yes. You need nothing. We've seen Etienne disappear. What do you need? 11 points? We've seen... No, I need 13 points. Don't patronize me. Well, okay. I won't patronize you, then. I will make fun of you for having Ja'Cory Krosky-Meritt on your bench and Rico Dowdle on your bench. Oh, baby.

You could have won so easy. Yeah. That is adding to the mood. Dowdle on the old bench. But don't worry. I started Woody Marks my start of the week. Dumb sport. I traded him to you so that you could play him against me. Dumb home team. Dumb sport. Dumb hobby. Yeah. Also our career. Two weeks in a row. Super fun. Y'all can walk away. Super fun. We can't walk away. We're supposed to be talking about the week. Yeah. We can get to it. We can get to some puns. There's good and bad. We only feel the bad. Was there good?

There was good. There was a lot of good. Well, don't tell that to Amari and Hampton owners, but we'll move on. We'll get into Monday Punday. It's a little bit ironic that Mike's not here because this is the victory lap of all victory laps. Maybe he's good. Rico Suave. Ooh. Rico Woudle. We got Amari DiMarcato. Oh, my gosh. You're a moron. Yeah, he is. We also have Emeka Bazooka. Oh, he's so good. He is my guy. Darnold Schwarzenegger. Javante Thrilliums. I think he's just legit. Another great time for Mike to brag. His start of the week. CJ Proud. Uh-huh. Darren Baller.

Oh, yeah. Looking great. Michael Starter. And Jonathan Taylor. Touchdowns against Andy, baby. Yeah, that sucked. All right. Could have had four, by the way. Amir Abdullah got one of them. Oh, that's stupid. We had the bads like Woody Farts. Woody Skidmarks. Skidmarks. Elec Iomanure. Jackson Short. There's a lot of poop going on here. Oh, man. And I deserve this one. Lamason Williams and Seamus and Williams. Well, for the poop, you got T.P. Hawkinson. And, oh, here. I started this guy. Jabroni Myers. Zach hurts my team. You started him. Yeah. And how about Travion Winderson? Yeah. When are you going to?

Well, never. Maybe Gibson. And, of course, the Arizona Fartinals. Yes, the Arizona Shartinals. Yeah. And maybe we get a chance to Arizona restartinals at some point. Restartinals being a fan of a different team. Yeah, I don't blame you. What if I go to, like, another bad team? Well, don't. Oh. Like, does that make it better? It makes it worse. Oh, okay. Now you're just, like, a distant fan of terrible. Like, don't choose the Browns or the Saints right now. What's the next geographically close? Would this be one of the Los Angeles teams? It used to be the Chargers, right? But now they moved, so.

Well, they're still. I would go to the Chargers. The Chargers would be my pick. Because they're losing enough offensive linemen now. They just upset the Eagles. Oh, yeah. They're close. I love Bo Nix. Yeah, go to the Broncos, maybe. So, maybe what you're actually rooting for here, if you want an easy path, is the Cardinals have moved before. They were Chicago. They were St. Louis. You just need to get them out. Try to get them out of town. I would love that. Because all Chargers fans. Can you trade teams? All Chargers fans were allowed contractually with. No, they were allowed to.

They were allowed to. Switch. Yeah. You left the city. You can now go to find a new team. I need the Cardinals to move. I know the people wanted to hear our reaction. I don't really feel any better afterwards. Last week, when I was melting down, it was cathartic, and I felt so much better after the show. After this show, the Cardinals still are the worst team to be fans of. And look, people will say Kyler Murray is part of the problem, and he probably is. He is such a small part of what happened yesterday. Like, you saw him after the game.

He said it was like the 101 of his losses of his career. Drew Petsing is the worst offensive coordinator, and he takes his cues from Jonathan Gannon. I think it has to start at the top, man. I know Petsing. What's the top? Gannon, you're saying? I was referring to Gannon. I mean, it goes to Bidwell. Put Gannon in a cannon, fire him into space. I like it. We've seen it all year long while we're playing bad teams. We've been up, and then we have taken our foot off of the accelerator. And no good teams do that. No one. No good.

The Lions don't do that. No. No, no, no. No one does that. It's so stupid. Except the Cardinals. We're like, ah, let's. We won three quarters. We're up 21 to 13. Let's not try to keep scoring. All right. Idiots. Yeah. All right. We've got news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by Progressive Insurance. Actually, I do feel a little bit better having talked to you about it for the first time. Okay. And to share the misery. Yeah. It was the most embarrassing loss. I'm so happy we lost. It is the most embarrassing loss we've ever had. At the very end, I was rooting for us to lose because we deserved to not walk out of there with a W.

You deserve to walk out with your head held low. Everybody but them knew what was going to happen if you punted the ball back up two. All right. Xavier Worthy now listed as questionable. He was a full practice all week. His ankle was a little swollen when he arrived in Jacksonville. He is technically questionable for tonight's game, and that is a bummer because you were and are and have been counting on him. He was my start of the week. If he doesn't go, obviously, you have pivot options tonight that are probably on your waiver wire. Juju. Taequann Thornton. Thornton would be.

Yeah. If Thornton is on the waiver. Mm-hmm. Brock Bowers took the week off. We reported that. Had Sunday Live. He might take more than a week off. The bone bruise, Matthew Betts was talking about, if you play through it, it can affect his long-term health. So they might give him a multi-week break. Whatever it takes to be Brock Bowers again. And by the way, I did get an update just now from Ian Rapcheet himself, Rappaport himself. Worthy is expected to play. Buck Yirving dealing. This was reported yesterday. I talked about it on Sunday Live as well. He's dealing with a shoulder injury.

So a lot of people, he was in a boot and on crutches. And yet it was reported yesterday that the shoulder injury was more severe and more of a reason why he's missing time. Yeah, I mean, they're expecting him to miss at least two weeks. So more Rashad White. Jordan Addison was binged in the first quarter of the game for missing a walkthrough during the week. Justin Jefferson talked about it after the game. Addison ended up with the game-winning touchdown. Kyler Murray actually left the game with a foot injury, came back in after the Demarcato play, which Brissette had handed the ball off on that one.

Because he had to. Because he had to come back in to hand it off to third and fourth string running backs to lose the game. Right. Because Brissette couldn't have done that. And then when asked for details on the injury, all he said is, we'll see. He's trying to cope with whether he wants to play for the Cardinals. I own so many Cardinals hats. You do? You're wearing one right now. Yeah, this is the one I picked out today. Oh, I see why. I just felt like it was saying. That must be like a Nickelodeon. Yeah, but to me it's like it's slimed.

The Cardinals got slimed this weekend. No, that's a good hat. Yeah, for a bad team. Burn it. Burn it all. Omari and Hampton. This was big news. Walking boot on the left ankle. He was, like I watched this game at the end. Kamani Vidal says soon ended up getting the carries after he went out. He was running on the sideline trying to do that warm-up stuff on the sideline. You know, hopefully that means it's not going to be a long time. But if it's a high ankle sprain, we know the story, right? You either miss nothing or generally three games.