NFL Coaching Changes & Fantasy Impact, It’s Birthday Time - Fantasy Football Podcast for 3/3

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no matter the shift. Call 1-800 Granger. Click Granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. It's birthday time. Whoa. You didn't know if you're going to do it, did you? I did it, but I did. Happy birthday, Mike. It's my birthday time.

I'm sure with the sheer number of people that listen to this great podcast, it is also someone else's birthday time. And I would like to wish them a happy birthday. Yes. Ooh. Every day's kind of birthday time for somebody, isn't it? What is it if you're in a room with like, oh yeah, just 20 people. Some stupid math trick. That's it's somebody's birthday? Yeah. That's what the hell the saying is. You probably need to figure the whole thing out.

Happy birthday, Mike. Thank you. May this year, Mike, my wish for you is that this year, whoever your quarterback is, they don't let you down on Monday night football. That's a nice thing to say. Right? Yeah. I mean, they can't be worse than last year. It can't keep happening, can it? We have a coaching changes episode. We've been talking about this one. We're going to walk through all the different changes. There's a lot.

Yeah, it's literally a quarter of the league has changed their coaches. And we, you know, we have the show every year. Every year it is valuable. And I think this one is, this one's a big deal. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of moving parts, leaders on these teams. And some of the hires, I think, are already starting to dictate personnel moves and changes that are being made with the rosters. When you get new coaches, loyalties are gone from previous coaching staffs. And some of that stuff comes through as well.

A couple of reminders here at the top of the show before we get into the quick question and some news and the coaching carousel. We're on YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. You can check out the YouTube channel and recently we posted a Wheel of Shame compilation. So we didn't know how this was going to go this year. It's a good time. The first ever year of the Wheel of Shame, including...

hashtag fish face. And the video is very fun to blitz through and see all the different results because I forgot how bad some of them are. Yeah, you see the level of the game progressively getting meaner. We're just figuring out where the lines were. Like, hold on, hold on. You did this to me? That's right. Well, you can't see now.

Twitter at the FF Ballers. If you want to follow us over there, Jason is at Jason FFL. Mike is at FF Hitman. You can follow me at Andy Holloway. And what else? The Ultimate Draft Kit, you got a week left. If you order it before March 10th, you'll get a chance to win a listener league spot. You also get about $15 in gift cards. You'll get it at the lowest possible price. If you're new to the show or you joined us sometime after draft season last year, the ultimate draft kit is a living, breathing,

jam-packed resource for draft day. All of our projections, our ranking starts, or not starts, sleepers breakouts, bus values, a ton of tools, including in the UDK Plus, there's the draft analyzer. Over 100 video breakdowns of players, profiles, you know, giving you more context to players. It's a valuable tool. It's really what we are about in this time of year. And so you're incentivized to pre-order it.

By getting it at the lowest possible price, you'll get a free digital copy of the book as well and a bunch of perks that are worth some money. So you can check that out at Ultimate DraftKit.com. News and notes from around the league. All right. Cliff Kingsbury, Steve Kime. They both agreed to a new contract. What? And what's it? Like one year, one year extension? Much rejoicing in Arizona. No, they're, what year is it? It's 2022? Yeah, they're under contract until 2027. Oh, my gosh.

Due to the law of extrapolation, gentlemen. Five wins, eight wins, 11 wins. Then it's 14, 17, 20, 23. I get it. Part of what it was annoying about of the success is that it's ramped up, but it doesn't feel like the team has had greater success each year because at the end of every year there is always.

A collapse. A monster collapse where the team, that team, the 11 win team, is that what the Cardinals were? Yes, yes. They were 7 and no. And they finished with 11 wins. Like, that's, we got four more. Well, look. That's, that's a brutal back half for a team that at that point, you're the Super Bowl favorites. And so, but I told, I get it. I get that Cliff Kingsbury came in.

and took this team, which was like a three-win team or something at the time, and got them into the playoffs with the help of Kyla Murray. General manager, Steve Kime, has lit first-round draft picks on fire almost every single year since he has been the general manager of the Arizona Cardinals. That one I do not understand unless we're going to take away that part of his job.

To his credit, he has done extremely well finding veterans to bring into the team, making cool trades like shipping off a gigantic running back contract for DeAndre Hopkins. But when it comes to the actual draft, the Cardinals have not made their team better when they should have with all of these top 10 picks that they've had. It was easy to select Kyler Murray when you have the first pick in the draft.

You had the first pick in the draft for a reason. Your roster wasn't very good. So clearly the owner of the Cardinals moved beyond his emotions quicker than either of you two gentlemen. And look, if they were six and six and they win their final five games, everybody's begging for this, for both of them. And the record's the same. So it is a lot of momentum. It's the bad playoff matchup. I'm not saying that I agree with the extension to this degree. Some people have speculated that

some of Kyler's words in his letter, alluding to stability of the franchise and having the same exact agent as Cliff Kingsbury, there could have been a connection there. The timing is obviously interesting with Kyler begging for an extension and then these fundamental other pieces getting one. I don't know if Kyler's going to get an extension. Steve Kine came out and said they will fifth year option him, obviously. So.

We'll see what happens. Amari Cooper. When they asked the Cowboys Executive Vice President Stephen Jones about Amari Cooper, he says it's too early for me to address that regarding the 2022 roster. He's owed a $20 million base salary. It becomes guaranteed in 17 days. Yeah, that is rough. The $20 million salary becomes a $6 million dead cap hit if they were to cut him.

Jerry doesn't mind spending money. And I don't think anybody thinks that their team gets better. Even if you've got, you know, you're excited for C.D. Lamb and maybe C.D. Lamb gets better for fantasy purposes. The Cowboys don't get better by cutting Amari Cooper. But I would be currently. If they did it. Yeah, I would too. The way that they run this team. I would, I would too. I don't think that it helps their roster. I think that Amari Cooper is a very good wide receiver for their team. They are currently, I think.

somewhere in the neighborhood of about $20 million over the cap. So they do have to make some moves. But just hearing the, like, I would imagine that the normal stance from the GM, like, oh, is this $100 million player who you love and has been a big part of the team? Is he going to be back? Oh, absolutely. It's like, no, don't talk to me about that. That was shocking to read. Dalton Schultz, Ced, Cedric Wilson, Michael Gallup, all free agents.

You know, you could bring Gallup back, I guess. I mean, whenever he's healthy. Right. I know. So, Dak Prescott underwent cleanup surgery on his left, non-throwing shoulder. Okay, do you know. Preemptive strike. He didn't need the surgery, but they did that in advance of future injury. You got to clean it. Yeah.

Yeah, the other shoulder was Jimmy Garoppolo, went under the knife to fix that shoulder injury. They're still saying it's likely he gets traded, but that'll complicate it, right? Nobody's really wanting to trade for a guy that is not able to play football at the moment. Fantasy managers, maybe cover your ears, but Broncos general manager, George Patton, spoke about Melvin Gordon, said he's had good discussions with him, would love to bring him back. Don't do it. Don't do it.

It makes complete sense for the Broncos. Yeah, I think it's a good move for the Broncos to do it. Melvin had a lot of juice left. It gives you a nice one-to punch with Giovante, but Melvin can be more fantasy relevant somewhere else by himself, and then Giovante can be a fantasy superstar by himself. I was happy when you read the full discussion and not just this quote. He did mention that he has full confidence of Giovante that he could.

have a full workload. So, you know, it's just a matter of will the money work for Melvin Gordon, but it was nice to hear him say. He said they made each other better, but he could handle whatever. He could handle whatever. He could do a full workload, and that's give it to him. DeMante Booker, Kyle Rudolph, both cut by the Giants, creating some cab space. It's looking more likely that the Giants are going to potentially just take a machete to this roster. I mean, Sequan Barkley, their GM said he's open to anything.

Yeah, they probably should be open to anything. Yeah, a lot of money committed to players that didn't deliver a lot in the field, to be honest. Josh McDaniels said Derek Carr will absolutely be the starting quarterback in week one. No more talks about the extension yet. And then Matt Ryan anticipated to return according to head coach Arthur Smith. Yeah, contract-wise, Matt Ryan, we kind of knew he was going to be playing this year for sure after his last restructure and then they'll look for the future, possibly in the draft this year, but it'll be Matt Ryan starting.

Okay. Do you guys want to get into the coaching changes? Boy, do I? Coaching Carousel. Well, you said it. Five new head coaches in 2027 in 2021. Nine new head coaches in 2022. These trends continue. Yes. Yes. 11 next year. Here is my reminder.

of a reminder, of a reminder, because we've said this before. Much like free agent players moving teams, and it's nice to paint a picture, there's a reason these teams changed coaches. And it wasn't just the coach, right? A lot of the times the coach takes the fall for a myriad of things, bad player performances, injuries, a lot of different things.

So when you look back at the seven head coaching changes that happened last year, I want to read them to you because there was a rose-colored glasses view for each of these that you could make, right, for fantasy. But it didn't work out for fantasy. That's the headline here. Arthur Smith in Atlanta, not good, really, for fantasy purposes. Dan Campbell in Detroit, you can call that neutral to bat for fantasy purposes. It was great for...

Testosterone levels, though. Correct. Urban Meyer. And Starbucks sales. Oh, yeah, yeah. Just for the local Detroit area. Just for the local Detroit. How much did he say? He was grabbing two 40 ounce. He was doing like big goals. With extra espresso shots in there. Urban Meyer in Jacksonville. It went really well. Brandon Staley in Los Angeles was the singular good story.

Because it meant good things. It's like Justin Herbert made a step forward, and Mike Williams had a great year. And Austin Eccler was a dominant fantasy force. So Brandon Staley, thank you for showing us that a new head coach can make a difference. Yeah, and like extra opportunities going forward on fourth down and not just giving up the ball. Robert Saleh in New York, not good for fantasy, not laying it all at his feet, just making the point. New head coach, not a great fantasy producing team. Nick Siriani in Philadelphia.