Fantasy Football - Ice & Fire Picks + Undrafted Gems - Podcast for 8/5

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Tuesday, August 5th. Welcome in, one and all. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway, the Fantasy Footballers podcast.

Ice and fire on today's episode. One of our most heralded. Is it heralded? I don't know if it's heralded. Oh, it's the herald. They bring the trumpets out. They play the trumpets. They announce the show. Ice and fire today. We do have news to catch you up on some that has made Jason very happy this morning. Yeah. And we're doing, we're going to talk some undrafted gyms as well. So looking at some undrafted players we think have potential. which works, you know, towards dynasty leagues if they're guys sitting out on your waiver wire potentially, but also just players to pay attention to very early in the season after your drafts or, you know, sometimes after you have your redraft league and your draft happens and you're just a couple weeks before the season starts or a week before and you want to pivot a player out of that last spot on your roster. Yeah, or even your last draft pick. Like when you're in the draft and you're taking a swing at that last pick, sometimes the,

You know, you swing for the fences. You grab someone who's way, way, way lower in ADP, usually undrafted and just sneak them on, see what happens. We have the Value Scout tool now added to the Ultimate Draft Kit at Ultimate DraftKit.com. Just another feature that you can access as you get ready for your drafts. That is live on the mobile apps and on the web. You can learn more about everything involved with the UDK at Ultimate DraftKit.com. We got Mike back in the building. Hello. can uh well not not without a couple of uh what plane delays and things like oh yeah you are the least fortunate of the travelers in this studio i think you traditionally do not just get on planes well now when you get on them and you sit on the tarmac for hours and then you text us and yeah they they know when to tell you to show up right they just don't know how to take off at the time they said we're gonna do that did you get an explanation for your delays it was yeah weather

Oh, weather. It's weather. It's the middle of the United States was messing everything up. Okay. I blame them. Stupid middle. Yeah. What are you doing over there? Call him out right now. Slowing down my planes. Get it together. But he's back in the building. You can follow the show over on X at the FF Ballers. Make sure you go over to YouTube. Watch the show over there, including a special weekly mini series we have releasing every Saturday right now. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballer subscribe. Click the bell. When the season starts, we'll also be doing Sunday Live, which is a live show right before the game start on Sunday, get you prepped up. You know, we have our Friday episode, but things change. And everybody faces the tilt and the start-sit decisions. And Sunday Live is. And weather, especially if you're in that middle. In the middle weather. Yeah, lots of good stuff. Wrecking our planes and our football. Yeah. Well, weather does that. That's why we like building open stadiums. All right.

Let's get it started. Undrafted gems presented by Walmart. All right. We are about a month from kickoff. We're looking at some of those late round undrafted players. You want to keep an eye on them as training camp happens. Mike, you weren't on the show yesterday morning. I kind of talked about my philosophy on Caleb Williams and some of the training camp news of things that happened. And it was like my position was that players can get, they can go from good to better. or really good to just okay. But it's hard to buy into camp hype when it's bad to good. When it's a player, you're making a complete change. That's the more difficult thing to buy into any camp hype or information. And we kind of talked about Caleb, like the vibes are not good. Like as a whole, the vibes are not good in Chicago on Caleb's training camp performances and inconsistency, accuracy. Will Ben Johnson be able to fix him? And we were kind of talking about that.

Yeah, it's just to jump in, like a steady drum beat is what you are looking for for the training camp. Bad is always more valuable and should be paid attention to more. As in, we say that bad news. Yes. Yes. Any bad news is not. there's no puff around that generally it's like everyone's trying to hype their players yes everyone's trying to say how great they are what great shape they're in how everyone's looking good they're trying to build morale so when they're like dude this guy yeah yeah yeah this guy is uh he needs to step it up that means he sucks yeah and it's not that good is always like it's always a puff piece it's like that's what you want to hear you want to hear but but consistently growing uh over these couple weeks and we don't have a ton of time to

gather the data before our drafts so it's it's the small things that we have to buy into and read so let's each pick a name somebody that you think could end up more relevant than obviously they're being projected to be right now because of i mean they're not drafted so jason what's a name for yeah i would love to go first because ironically the the thing that has kind of pushed this player and that player is Woody Marks, a fourth round running back selection for the Houston Texans, up into where I am now interested, is what's going on around him. Specifically, the news out of camp about Nick Chubb, not really looking good. This has been reported by beatwriters saying... That's also news from my eyeballs of last year, pre-injury. He was coming back from a devastating injury, then got injured. He's older.

And now you'd hope, like, okay, he's two years away from the original devastating injury. He should be good to go. And you want to hear good reports out of camp. Unfortunately, B reporters have talked about how he doesn't look like he has that explosiveness, that strength. And then the head coach comes out and is like, look, he's been through a lot. It's like, that's not what you want to hear. It's in it. The Nick Chub stuff is sad. Like Nick Chubb was a fantasy football hero for so long. Your body can only do so much even with the most, you know, determined mind. Like Nick Chubb is a legend. But the report's out of camper that he doesn't have the burst to get into the second and third level of the defenses. So, you know, being a plotter, being a, you know, a fourth down guy, maybe that works for Houston. But the future is not Nick Chub there.

Yeah, and then you've got Damien Pierce currently injured. Joe Mixon currently injured, still dealing with his foot problem. So that leaves their... Howdy partner. Howdy partner, Woody Marks, who we found out. We found out that his name, Woody, is not his real name. Right. He goes by Woody because of how much he loves Toy Story and the Woody character. Hey, all right. Toy Story Super fan. Yeah. As a preschooler, love Toy Story. I mean, if these rules applied, my son would be named Buzz. Okay. But you didn't try to give him that nickname. No, no. He wanted to be Buzz Lightyear. Yeah. Woody Marks was very, very, very, very productive in the passing game in college. This is a player who, you know, usually like, oh my gosh, they had they had 40 catches. That guy can catch. And it's like, well, yeah, he had 47 catches last year. He had 261 receptions.

in college. It was a very good pass catching back, had over a thousand yards last year. I don't think he is the most tremendous, you know, like pre-NFL draft. He wasn't my favorite running back or one of the diamonds in the rough that I just loved. But the situation around him where opportunity, he's going to be needed on this team. You know, mix and playing a full season seems unlikely. And everyone else around him is not that good. I also just feel like because of The other players here, obviously Marx is a rookie and he is somebody you need to pay attention to. I would much rather take the shot on him than Chubb or Pierce. But it also means that like if mixing can get back healthy, like it really is his depth chart right now. Yeah, that's also true. The last thing to throw in here, like he was a day three running back. Generally don't love that, but there was at least a trade involved of the Texans giving away a 2026 third in the draft. So they traded a day two pick. Yeah. So it.

The data is different on those types of scenarios, but it's good to at least see it's not just we waited until the fourth to get our guy. It was the fourth came and he was still there and we had to go get him. This is my undrafted gym is for Mike. It's Zach Ertz. Yeah. No, I don't disagree. Tied in for the Washington commanders. who is either the last pick in drafts. He's old. He's definitely old. Go away, Zach. But, you know, even from the jump at camp, it's like the most targeted player, like the go-to receiver. And here we are with this Terry McLaren mystery. And Debo Samuel is also old. And here's Zach Ertz, who's just reliable. He's old reliable. He's late career Jason Whitten reliable. He can.

He can read a defense. He can find a spot to stand in, not to run in, to stand in. And he's going to catch it, turn and fall down with the best of them. And sometimes he falls into the painted area. And they call that a touchdown. And it works out for your fantasy team. So, you know, he led the entire NFL and horizontal breaking routes. I mean, this is. a player who's experienced, you know, and you see this with tight ends. Not a vertical player. No, but I mean, he really, it's not like Zachert's ever had a Jimmy Graham period of his career, really. Like he wasn't the super athlete. He was always the PPR hands guy that can read a defense. And you see this late in careers for tie in. He came into the league as old reliable. He kind of, he sort of did. I mean, and it was, you know, he's ninth.

in red zone target share amongst all past catchers. Terry McLaurin, I mean, God forbid he's not there. If he wasn't there, like, Zachertz has to have a role until he, until he gets hurt or moves on into the sunset. I mean, it is not elegant or exciting. It is the most opposite of a rookie in Woody Marks as you can get, but I think Zachertz is worth a mention. Who is older, Zach Ertz or Adam Thielen? Oh, that's Ertz. Oh, that's Ertz. It's Adam Thielen. Wait, it is? Yeah. I thought Ertz was 30, almost 35. He is. Wait, how old is stealing? Almost 32. What? I thought he was like 33. All right. Adam, Adam Thielen is, I'll say that. I don't think he's relevant at all. Oh, I think it's over. Okay. Because they got too many good players around him. All right. I'm going to look, this is a Washington love section, apparently. I've been bringing this guy's name up on all our mock drafts.

It's Austin Echler running back for the Washington Manders last year. Among running backs with 100 or more touches, he led them all in yards per touch. Over the first 11 weeks, he was averaging almost 11 points per game on just 10 opportunities. So the efficiency was there. The concussion pretty much derailed the season for him. You know, the snaps drop down. And if you... If you tuned into our YouTube and we have a new special up there that's going up on Saturdays, I highlighted Washington's backfield because this is a good backfield that we want to take shots on. Last year, they were number one in EPA per rush as a team fifth in total yards per game, and they have the seventh highest team applied total, and you want to take shots at that running back crew. This is not completely an anti-Bryon Robinson stance. This is just a, I think Austin Eckler still.

has juice, despite being over 30 years old for a running bag. So a couple Washington guys, Woody Marks, undrafted gyms for this week. Who knew Walmart could get you what you needed in as fast as an hour? Get free delivery on your first express delivery order with the Code Express. Valid for first express delivery order, $50 minimum, subject to availability restrictions apply. News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance. All right. we are digging into the news and this is this is big time jason you've been waiting with baited breath here i've been a long supporter of kairn williams and i believe i just said recently i think he will get his contract extension this year and he did three years 33 million dollar extension with 23 million guaranteed this is so good like

If you've got them in Dynasty, you have to be thrilled. But I also think in redraft, it really just confirms that this is their guy. You know, last year they go out and they draft quorum and everyone's scared. And then it was even more all Kyron than Korn. This year, it's like, oh, Jarquez, they drafted another guy. They're going to use. We have really, the people have really moved past Blake Corum. Oh, yeah. Lightning speed. Oh, yeah. Who? Like last year, a third round. running back who was going to take uh kairn's job per the blake quorum truthers and you're like well no now we got a guy drafted uh even later but he's the guy he's gonna take karen's job um weird yeah no one's taking karen's job unless karen gets injured karen is a very good player he fits this system perfectly he's a touchdown machine so i'm i'm just happy that this came through and i want to say good job on both sides here it's rare when i'm running back right

gets a big extension where it's like yeah that was a good that was a good idea from both sides karen wasn't going to get much more than this if he tested the free agent market next year and the rams didn't break the bank here this is not they're not paying kairn like he is saquan barkley uh good job good job rams yeah yeah it's uh it's nice to have him in the fold getting paid cemented as the bell cow We have Brown's quarterback updates, which is pretty much that every player on this team has been heard except for Joe Flacco. I mean, Kenny Pickett, Dylan Gabriel, Shadour Sanders, all have dealt with injuries. Protect him at all costs. Joe Flacco is listed as the starter on the dev chart. Everybody else is banged up. The Browns had to go sign Tyler Huntley, which you'd think they wouldn't need to do with four quarterbacks. But they did.

It really seems like Joe Flack is going to have a huge opportunity here. Sederate Tillman has been making waves in camp. Deontay Johnson has been making waves in camp. Give me that week one Bengals matchup. I mean, Jerry Judy obviously had the great close to the year. So look, I made some adjustments to my projections for quarterback distribution of work on the course of the year in the UDK. So. This is what we want. We want Joe Flacco at quarterback. We want it, especially if we're David Najoku fans. Yes, and I am. That is a huge, huge upgrade for him, the most of all, in my opinion. I agree. So very excited about that. We are going to talk more about this team later on in the show. But New Orleans, Nick Underhill, great reporter for New Orleans. Now it's, you know, Spencer Rattler is clearly out playing Tyler Shocking Camp. That's not bad. Hainer had snaps. I mean.

I kind of hesitate to get into more detail of my thoughts here because I want to talk about it later in the show. So that's just the headline right now. One, the major TLDR here, one of the not good quarterbacks is leading in camp. Which usually means one of the not good quarterbacks is actually flopping. That's probably what it is. Somebody has to be the best. The hope is that Shuck is better than we think. Or just Spencer Rattler. Just better than Spencer Rattler. The hope coming into the years is Shuck. And then if Spencer Rattler is clearly better than him, per reports. Yeah, you can shut this season right in the garbage can. Yeah, probably. The Vikings bracing for a roughly three-game suspension for Addison. That sounds right. You know, a lot of people have wondered, like, why have we not had these suspensions yet handed down for Addison for Rashi Rice?

The league normally takes a little bit more time with these, but gives them clarity before the season begins. Near the end of training camp. Yeah, near the end of training camp. Yep, you got it. All right. Other injury news, Chris Godwin, which that's big time news. According to the Bucks general manager, he's exactly where they wanted him to be, but that does not mean he will be available in week one. That's just what we wanted. I mean, it's what we wanted and hoped. We hoped he might not be ready for week one. Get out of here. I mean, good. I'm happy that they aren't concerned, but obviously. They're not counting them out, but they believe he could miss at least a couple games to start the season. That means I'm counting them out of my draft unless it's a really late IR stash situation. But I, you know, we brought it up. Like we talked about it a little bit yesterday, but I mean, I think Igbuka could, I think he could legitimately be the number one ride receiver on this team. I am all in.

from week one all the way through. Like, Mike Evans is in the twilight of his career, and he's great. He's a really good player, but he's not a volume player, right? He's not a- You need someone with juice. Yeah, I mean, Mike Evans is good for, you know, 65 to 70 catches and maybe he gets double-digit touchdowns. But this is fresh legs. This is a player that Jason absolutely adored coming out of college, refined route runner, all the praise at camp, and just... set up. I mean, Godwin is confusing because they gave him the money. But we've seen him recovery from injury, recover from injury. It wasn't good. We got a new play caller. It's just like Egbuka is sitting there as a super late round pick and people probably want me to stop talking about him so that he stays there. But I think he's going to be valuable. Isaac Garindo, going to miss a few weeks in practice because the 49ers need.

to pick three or four running back to the miss camp time and he's one of the ones they picked yeah this is this is important news i don't know that he's ready to start the season and obviously christian mcalfrey's backup has always been very valuable jordan mason was a you know one of the most important fantasy assets last year in his replacement we have another jordan up jordan james get get used to the name because it'll probably be said a lot if you're there a little earlier um he's the next guy up Out of Oregon, yeah, fifth round pick. Out of Oregon, pretty good player. He's not like a burner, but, you know, last year in Oregon, over 1,000 yards, 15 rushing touchdowns, which is one of those stats we look at for rookie running backs making the transition to the NFL for fantasy success. So, yeah, if CMC is made of, you know, peanut brittle, you got to be aware of who the backup is. He's not. He's made of titanium. Oh, Mike. Oh, Mike.

I hope you're right. I feel a lot more confident with my Bijon in destruction comments than your Christian McCaffrey hope. Yeah. No, no, Bijon's due. No, two-fifths of the time is great. That's a high percentage. Najee Harris, walking laps is part of his rehab. Not sure how that gets his eye back, but... I hope it's at least brisk. Yeah, like you can't sprint. Like genuine question. With a bad eye? With a bad eye, you can't... Maybe it hurts. Maybe depth perception? Maybe. I don't know. Have it be on a field. You don't have to be running like around corners. I am so bummed about this news. I feel like a little bit of a fantasy reaper here. Mason Taylor has suffered a high ankle sprain. Jets rookie tight end who is going to start from week one, who I love, who is I think a steal in drafts and now is going to miss some time with a high ankle sprain. It's brutal.

and a bummer. And so he's not, he's not the only rookie dealing with some injuries. Terrence Ferguson has an injury, which I think really hurts him with the Rams because Higby is there. It's not like, at least with Mason Taylor, I think when he's healthy, he'll be the starter right away because that's what he's going to be. And the depth chart behind him is not worth worrying about. But Higby, I mean, Yeah. Absolutely. Ferguson could have like a redshirt year if he needed it. Ferguson and Mason Taylor are really sad. This time of year when rookies miss time, it impacts their ability to start the year. Hot Cam Scataboo is another one who's currently big time. You know, he he was looking great. So that sucks. With Mason Taylor gone, they are expecting a 75% market share for Garrett Wilson. Three out of every four passes will have to go his way.

Yeah, I mean, then they'll throw it to Josh Reynolds for a second and be like, oh, that wasn't very fun. Honestly, this is, you know, terrible news, but Breece Hall might be the one that gets a little bump. You know, if you're missing the tight end, develop more of those little screen games. The, you know, there is a lot of negativity on just the fields floating out on the Twitter sphere right now, putting up his, you know, completion percentages and offense has been terrible. And that to me is, I mean, he's trying to throw to the other guys. And then when the game starts, you're going to say, screw that crap. I'm going to throw it to Garrett Wilson. It's not helping Justin Fields losing Mason Taylor. I'll tell you that. No, it's not. Devin Neal suffered a hamstring. We'll miss multiple weeks for the Saints. He's a rookie running back. So right now it's Alvin Camara and can I say his name. You can say his name. Oh, yeah. Of course. Kendrae Miller could. Who's a do-do-do-do-do-do. Kendrae Miller has just torn his hamstring. I like the player. He just.

His body is paper mache. This time last year, you were talking about their head coach quite a bit. Yeah. Who won that one? Yes. So who did not like Kendrae Miller. Yeah. Dennis Allen was not a fan of his players. All right. That was news and notes. Sponsored by Progressive Insurance. Quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and third party insurers. Not available in all states or situations coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. We'll take a break and then it's ice and fire time. Well, it only comes around once a year. It's one of my favorite shows. Buckle up. It's time. Ice and fire. All right. We each get to reveal a fire pick, a breakout candidate.

And an ice selection here on the show. Somebody we think winter is coming for in the upcoming year. I will, I'll go ahead and start. I wasn't necessarily going to, but we talked about it earlier a little bit. So let's just roll right into it. The player I'm going to talk about has been just a player of potential, great potential, great hope and optimism and fantasy football worlds, a player that was. wasn't uh maybe still is to some degree uh dynasty target right somebody that you want oh this was a a man on on the rocket ship to being a top 10 dynasty just there forever and so uh sometimes reality is difficult to accept for the fantasy football community in particular the player i'm talking about is wide receiver crystal lave who unfortunately ice is not somebody i believe in

in any regard. It makes me so sad. I'm here today to step upon with a forceful heavy boot, the final hopes you have for this player. We talked about the wide receiver situation. You know, I like to bring up the fact that good teams can become bad teams and bad teams can become good teams. The parody in the NFL, it's incredible. It's what makes the NFL exciting is you can have teams that come out of nowhere like the commanders and they're awesome. But there are some situations that are so obviously not going to work as well. And the New Orleans Saints offense is one of those situations to the detriment of Chris Oliva. This is year four for Chris Oliva. And, you know, you can look at him and you have to look at him in a very isolated way. You have to look at him on a...

per play basis or a per game basis because he's missed a tremendous amount of time with injury and concussions, which you can go ahead and put that like at the very top in the story of Chris Oliva is that at any moment, if he suffers a concussion this year, you are talking about an extended absence. That is that is 100% the headline. As someone who has had him for years, has him in dynasty and is always terrified. That is the elephant in the room. It's the nuclear. button option that most players don't have. Yeah, you don't want a player that if they suffer what is a fairly routine thing that happens in the NFL, you're going to miss maybe four or five, six games, maybe an extended period of time. Who's to say, based on their record, which right now they're I think projected to be the worst team in football, at what point of the season if that happens again, does he miss the rest of the season? Like there are, that is hanging over Crystal Lave. But.

The story around, hey, do you want to take that shot on him in the sixth round, which is where he's going right now, at least on Sleeper and an underdog? The story is also this offense in general. And the fact that you have Jake. I don't know, man. I've heard that Spencer Rattler's outplaying competition right now. Yeah. I mean, this is one of those like, don't look at it like the commanders that can suddenly become a great team. Look at it like what we thought about the Giants offense last year going into the season where you knew. you weren't going to get surprised by their production. And Chris, but Malik Neighbors was a top team. Malik Neighbors was very good. But unfortunately, the kind of player that Crystal Lave is, like who's the more explosive player? Chris Laveh or Rashid Shaheed on the other side. Like Shahid was a player that, okay, you get an explosive play and it's very valuable to you. Chris Lave has become this player who, you know, on a per route basis, is getting worse and worse in production.