THE UNOFFICIALFOOTBALLERSFAN ARCHIVE↗Transcript links use the exact YouTube video’s clock. Machine transcripts can contain errors.
Jason says Arizona's sun changes on Tax Day. Rolling down his drive-through window at 7 a.m. exposes half his face to the 'heat of Satan,' creating a sunscreen plan, a possible McDonald's tan, and a burn like the IRS.
Mike says Emari Demercado owes him $72 in FAAB and that he sends a monthly invoice. The desk preserves its no-harassment rule but allows a formal invoice with no emotional commentary and a return address.
A request for roster depth sounds like a request for death. The desk recommends depth, calls the show a source of 'life and depth' fantasy analysis, and concludes that depth comes for everyone.
The desk says—strictly out of respect—that Derek Carr has no courage, calls him a coward, and argues that cowards check down. Carr is then imagined switching on a bathroom light, startling himself in the mirror, and thereby remaining useful to Alvin Kamara.
Derrick Henry's Baltimore job is reduced to doing the touchdown thing, making him the 'touchdown doer.' The veteran-heavy rankings then produce a mock law requiring every fantasy manager to select one old man at running back.
Josh Jacobs' poor prior season is labeled Fat Thor. The desk hopes Green Bay changes him into the more shredded 'Love and Thunder' body, while imagining that a failed stint ending in a benching would send him back as 'Fatterthor.'
Complete review of the published video, all fifteen five-second storyboard sheets, and targeted one-second frames shows only Mike, Jason, and Andy live at the main desk: Mike is left in a green T-shirt and gray-tan cap, Jason is center in a black shirt, black cap, and glasses, and Andy is right in a bright red T-shirt. A large black-green Fantasy Faceoff helmet sits in the foreground. The video opens on Jason, moves through the standard montage, and reaches the desk at about 00:29. The montage's brown-black bear at roughly 00:14-00:15 is generic footage, not Jay Griz; its WITH THE DUCERS card depicts and labels Brooks/Judge Giamatti, Jeremy/Owl Borland, and Kyle/The Borgogon as produced branding rather than live appearances. At 10:36 an unidentified off-camera person answers the desk's Deucers Alley question with 'No, sir,' but the video does not cut away or identify the speaker, so no crew appearance is inferred. The only specialty segment visual is a published RUNNING BACK RANKINGS bumper around 11:16-11:20 with arcade cabinets and produced Andy/Jason cutouts. The personality material otherwise plays entirely as ordinary desk conversation. Jason describes Arizona's Tax Day sun blasting his 7 a.m. drive-through window with the 'heat of Satan,' requiring sunscreen on half his face and threatening a McDonald's tan. Mike says Emari Demercado owes him $72 in FAAB and that he sends a monthly invoice; the desk turns that grudge into listener etiquette allowing formal, emotionless FAAB invoices while still forbidding tags, letters, and abuse. A pronunciation slip makes roster depth become death, then 'life and depth,' because depth comes for everyone. Derek Carr is respectfully declared a coward whose checkdowns help Alvin Kamara, complete with an imagined bathroom-mirror fright. Derrick Henry becomes the 'touchdown doer' before the desk says every fantasy manager will be legally required to select one old running back. Josh Jacobs' established Fat Thor label then evolves toward a hoped-for shredded 'Love and Thunder' body, with a bad benching threatening 'Fatterthor.' No invoice, mail, collections desk, death/depth graphic, bathroom, mirror, legal permit, player card, thunder-god costume, or player image appears during those riffs.
We're talking about what might be the most important position for fantasy football on today's episode, and we actually have a lot of wide receiver news as well. You don't want to miss a minute. Make sure you subscribe. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, Jason Moore, Jason Moore, Jason Moore, and Mark Wright, and Mike Wright, and Mike Wright, and Mike Wright, and
April 16th. Starting to get a little warm outside. Starting to get a little bit warm here. Well, we are in Arizona. And if you are unfamiliar, what happens on tax day is that the sun changes. The sun changes from one version of the sun that is acceptable to be around. And then it changes to one where when this morning at 7 a.m., I roll the window down in a drive-thru, shame on me. 7 a.m. drive-thru. Wow, Jay. It's get after it, brother. I mean, the show's topic just changed. I'm telling you, this, my window tent is doing great work because when that window came down, that.
Heat of Satan was on my face. And I couldn't believe. I was like, I need to sunscreen half my face now when I go to work. When you go to your morning. When I go to my morning drive-through, the left side of my face is toast. He's got, if he starts coming in and he's half tan, and we know it's like a McDonald's stand. But yeah, there you go. Yeah, burns like the IRS. You know what I mean? Yeah, there you go. Well said. Welcome in. We're counting down our early running back rankings today. Last week we did wide receivers and we got some wide receiver news today that we need to talk about as well. A reminder, head over to Ultimate DraftKit.com to pre-order this year's Ultimate Draft Kit. You can get the UDK Plus and that will give you access to the Dynasty Pass right away. The UDKs packed of sleepers, breakouts, bus values, all of our projections, the draft analyzer, and probably like...
20 things I didn't say. So we've got, we've got our crew working hard looking forward to it. And it's pre-order pricing right now at ultimate draft kit.com. Lots to talk about. So let's jump right into the news. News and notes from around the league. All right. The Eagles have extended Mr. Devante Smith, three year, $75 million contract, $51 million guaranteed. Woohoo. So always exciting if you. you know, have Devante Smith on a roster to know that his future is secure and can't be said for a couple of his fellow draftmates in C.D. Lamb and Justin Jefferson so far, but Devante Smith sets the standard. Three years 75, 51 guaranteed. The Eagles are, I mean, I just love how they run their organization top to bottom. They're usually pretty smart with all their decisions, but they get out ahead of the whole.
You know, if you're first to sign the new contract and you're like, oh, no, I've got to set the market. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. Because if you're telling me that you're signing this contract after C.D. Lamb and Justin Jefferson and even Brandon Iuke and all those type of players, this is really smart. Also, from a dynasty perspective, I love Devonti Smith. And he is as good a wide receiver as you can be. And so when you're locked... up for a long-term deal. Like, I have him in my top 10 in Dynasty rankings. I've got him ahead of Waddle. I just think he's a, like Waddle's more of an explosive athlete, but he's just not as good a wide receiver. DeVante Smith is as good as you can get at the position. So, yeah, Jefferson was the year before CD. I should clarify that, but both of those guys still need contracts. In fact, this morning, just a little while after the Devante Smith. It was, the agent had talked to Schefter.
And it was like, hey, if any wide receivers get an extension, you will publish this 30 seconds after. Which was that C.D. Lamb's not going to participate in voluntary workouts as he awaits his extension, which I believe Kyle said, Citi, you don't have to show up for nothing. You wait to get paid. You're worth it, buddy. And he is. And he should get paid. He will get paid. So Devante Smith circling back there. The thought experiment, you know, we've had the. rumblings that get, you know, shut down by A.J. Brown, but just run through the thought experiment of A.J. Brown wants out someday. Sure. Or departs or is unhappy. Like, Devante Smith, as the number one target for Jalen Hertz, is pretty attractive. I think he was suffering the most, and historically over the last two years suffered the most when...
when like all three were healthy. So Dallas Goddard's on the field, he dealt with injuries a couple of times in a row. But when he's on the field, some of the target share changes. You have seen him thrive the most when the consolidation goes down to him and one other target. So yeah, in the future, should something happen where AJ Brown is not an eagle, that's the fantasy finish. You're talking about the capability of, I believe, a top five wide receiver. T. Higgins says he expects to be playing for the Bengals in 2024. He was at a youth football camp. Some reporters were asking him. And so, you know, he's rumored to be a player on the block during the draft. There were also rumors about, like, the two big names during the draft that could get traded at wide receiver are Higgins and Iyuk. There were some unverified reports this week of like Iyuk formally demanding a trade. They said that wasn't the case. But.
I don't think any of us would be surprised if he did because he would like money as well. That's all he wants. If he says, I want a trade, he's just saying, I want a big bag of money. Yes. So whoever's going to give me the big bag of money, that's where I want to go. Is it you, San Francisco? Great. Everything, we're all good now. Yeah, I love it here. I love it here. The Browns, I was happy to see this. I was very happy to see this as well for the man. It is what I believed in my heart.
about the situation, but not without great fear knowing how impactful this player, his salary, the potential to lose him. But the Browns have restructured Nick Chubb's contract for 2024, reduced his salary cap hit down almost $10 million. It gives him the chance to earn most of it back based on performance, but it keeps him there. He did not make our, you know, Here's a spoiler. He did not make the top 20. Yeah. You can't put him in the top 20 as of right now, having no clue where he is with the injury. I mean, to be clear, we don't love that Nick Chubb is making less money because he is that guy. But the concern was the Browns, if I'm remembering it correctly, they could have just cut Nick Chubb and said, we can't guarantee you any money because of how much of an injury risk you are. But at least with this restructure, he'll be there.
He'll be able to rehab with their professional facilities. So hopefully he makes it back. Everyone loves Nick Chubb. Financially speaking, the harsh and good move would have been to just cut him. This is nice. And for fantasy purposes, it gives you a little bit more confidence in Chubb, obviously knowing that he's there. Part of the future plans. Yeah, prior to this restructure, he was someone that I had a lot of trouble. considering having on a team. Like, you know, you just don't know if he has any future left. And now I'm confident he does. Matthew Betts are injury expert also mentioned the fact that like when he's cleared, it's unlikely he'll be at 100% at any point in 2024. I wouldn't put too much past Nick Chubb. I've seen the workout videos for 10 years. But, um,
Big time injury. And he's come back from a devastating knee injury in his past. So that's, you know, a feather in the cap for his work ethic. But it was a long time ago. I was going to say we have seen like Jamal Charles had, you know, a really, really early career ACL that he hopped back from No Problemo and a late career ACL where it was like, it took a little bit more time and. you know, you can argue never really got back to the same Jamal Charles. I would expect that to be similar for a 28-year-old Nick Chubb. The Titans Office of Coordinator, Nick Holtz, came out and said the team sees Pollard and Spears is interchangeable. This is not the first time I've seen this language around them, 1A, 1B. They're both going to play a ton, get a ton of carries. So. Tasha is like, well, our contracts are not interchangeable. No.
No, but I mean. That guy's getting a lot more money than me. What do you mean we're the same player? I'd definitely be dropped in Pollard over Spears. Can we like pool, like share tips here? You know, just like, oh, we're doing the same back feel. Let's just put it together. I'll put my contract in. All of mine. You put all yours and we just 50-50. Interchangeable. Yeah, and then every other check goes to each guy. And then Rashi Rice update. There were arrest warrants issued for Rashi Rice. One count of aggravated assault. One count of collision involving serious bodily injury, six counts of collision involving injury, and he surrendered to police and posted a $40,000 bond. He was going very fast. He was going very fast. Is it Drew Davenport? Am I correctly quoting that? He came out attorney generally very trustworthy on his insights into the details of these cases. I believe his last assessment was an expectation of maybe one to two games.
whereas he was at the zero game mark before details came out, we do not know anything definitively. It's still a ways away. Am I representing that properly? You are. I believe Drew Davenport, a good follow on X, Drew Davenport, F, F. It doesn't believe that there will be jail time here. The suspension could come from the NFL. TBD, obviously, there's more information that can come out, but we'll keep you. briefed as well as we can. All right, unless the, uh, unless Deucer's Alley has any more news for us. Do is there anything back there we need to know about? No, sir. Okay. We'll jump into the running backs. Running bags. See? Wow. We jumped in. Efficient. Now we're into the running backs because of, uh, the guy said so. All right. Wide receivers last week, running backs this week. And very excited to talk about these guys.
There's some very interesting decisions to be made. And it's easy, I think, when you're talking about dynasty startup drafts, dynasty rosters, to, you know, draw a pretty clear line of, you know, the age situation at Running Back. Yeah. Everybody wants a young, Breece Hall, Bijon Robinson, aged superstar. However, there aren't a lot of them. There just aren't. And there is a lot of trust in, I guess you'd call elder statesmen or proven veterans such as, you know, James Connor, right? And Rahim Moster with 20 touchdowns last year. And so the trust we saw in David Montgomery in the beginning of the year over Jamir Gibbs. And so, you know, it is interesting in redraft, I think, when you look at that age situation. You know, I don't pay too close of attention to that.
in a redraft format. I don't know if you guys are any different. I mean, I pay attention because the age cliff, it happens. Like James Connor, James Connor is the first guy we're going to talk about here at number 20. He is tied for 20th. He has been a true anomaly of just throughout his entire life, his story from being a cancer survivor, making it into the NFL. being kind of thrust into a starting job that the team had not prepared for in the Pittsburgh Steelers with Leveon Bell deciding to hold out. And then James Connor was excellent. And it seemed like he just, it burned way too bright. James Connor's career was done. Arizona brought him in. We, we all lamented. Like, we're like, oh, come on. Really? We're giving James Connor that amount of money. And he's come to Arizona. And he's been, went on the field.
Fantastic. I have been proven as wrong as possible about James Connor. I feel like it's a testament to somebody just working so incredibly hard that he overcomes every obstacle. You would have thought worse situation in Arizona, which I think, you know, I guess not because 4.3 a carry in 2022, 5 a carry last year. He had his first 1,000-yard season. He and David Montgomery are tied at 20, so we're talking about them. We're talking about Connor now. We'll talk about Montgomery a little bit more in the conversation with Gibbs later. But James Connor is going to be one of the more interesting draft picks. You can see the story playing out where his best ball ADP is 20. Arizona will have Kyler Murray from week one, improvements to the offensive line.
And yet he's not going to, he's not going to rise. No. He's not going to rise in draft positioning because the fatigue and the story, it's just like are we entering the Frank Gore category for James Connor? We could be. His style of play says that I think he can actually age gracefully. He is bigger and stronger. He's one of those weird players where. He has so many runs of 15 yards and like no runs more than 20. You know, he's not breaking away down the field, but you just, you can't tackle him for a while. So he's really, really good. The question really becomes is he, it's weird and it feels almost silly to talk like this, but he was so much better when the Cardinals were terrible. And Kyler wasn't there after his injury, you know, in the first season.
So you just worry a little bit about, like, is he going to be the same to the offense that he was when they didn't have a quarterback? But we did see at the end of last year when Kyler came back, you know, some confidence building games in Conner's ability. If the Cardinals take that step forward, there's always, every single year, there's a team that goes from worst to first in the division. And you. You take a look at why it's usually a quarterback change, you know, whether it's you drafted CJ Stroud and all of a sudden you had a surprisingly good offense or maybe you have Kyler from the beginning. They're definitely a candidate to take a leap forward offensively, which, you know, is good for touchdown opportunities. And at this point, looking at the depth chart, the offseason move that the Cardinals made, they brought DJ Dallas in from the Seattle Seahawks. He's kind of, just like he does everything.
He is a backup. I'm not going to go horn for DJ Dallas. He's just a special teamer. Because, yeah, he could play special teams. He can fill in here and there. But he's not a, he's not a starting caliber running back. And then the rest of the depth chart, like Michael Carter. Yeah, that one gets a horn. Michael Carter gets a horn. And deservedly so. And then Amari Demarcato, who owes me $72 a fab. I'm still waiting on that. Do you send an invoice for that? I do. Every month I've sent it over and I've said, sir. The idea of a plan. You wanted to like collections yet? I ran out of a fab because I needed you and it didn't work out. The idea and we are like the biggest proponent. Don't tag. Yes. Don't tag players. Don't write them letters. Don't yell at them from the stands because they didn't get you what you wanted in fantasy.
but you may invoice them for Fab. Like you can send them just a formal, no emotional commentary, just a formal invoice for Fab with a return address. I accept that. No, the debt chart is not intimidating. The only thing, the only thing that intimidates me about James Connor that I think makes him an appropriate pick at RB20 versus 10 or something like that is he's going to miss football games. He has missed football games. Arizona, two games. in his first season for the year after, for last year. He's missed time. It's just what happens. He's got a violent running style, and he, you know, he handles a lot of work. Yeah, I mean, he's coming into his eighth season. He's never played a full season. So he will miss games. You have to have that protection, but he's not going to be one of your first draft picks. I mean, you're talking about a guy who's probably in the fifth round or so.
Yeah, and he was very, very good league winner last year. But the injury situation, Mike, puts you right on schedule to pay $72 for another Cardinal backup at some point during the year. Cardinals should be adding offensive talent. Hopefully Marvin Harrison, Tray McBride broke out over the back half of the year. So to Jason's point, the offense shifts a little bit more to the passing game. I just don't think Connor can get himself off the field. I mean, he's just too. reliable. So solid RB2. Like if I had them as an RB2 for my team, I would be thrilled. I agree. With depth, though. I want some depth. So are we? I'm pretty sure you said death. I heard death. I want some death. Okay. I would recommend depth over that. Yeah. That's stronger than what I, you know, depth. Depth. That's not a good, that's not an easy word. It's not super easy, but, you know, it's like a Donald duck. Important part of life. Depth.
Depth, yes. This shows all about life and depth, okay? This is a life and depth type of fantasy analysis. Depth comes for us all. Yes, it does. Yeah. All right. I guess we're going to take a quick break and come back. Take goodness. With number 18. Well, like I said, we're pressing pause on Montgomery. He's sitting at 20, but we'll talk about him in the context of Gibbs later. We have another tie at 18. This is our consensus early rankings. This is not us. Stating out every single player for every single team like we do for the UDK. This is the first early gut where we'd take them before the draft as we break it down. Aaron Jones is at 18. James Cook is at 18. To me, this is one on the way up, one on the way out personally. I have a ton of respect for what Aaron Jones has done in his career, but I am very hesitant.
what a 29 year old Aaron Jones is going to be able to produce fantasy-wise in a new home with a bad quarterback. I don't trust it. So for me, I'm the lowest by far. You guys actually have him at 15 and 17. You think maybe you get, you know, like when Connor switch teams, some resurgent years, I am much more reticent. I don't think he's done. Like I don't think Aaron Jones has lost anything. He comes out. last year was the running back one in the first week. And then if you remember, injured himself on like a huge breakaway run. It took a while to kind of get back to it. But then at the end of the season, when he was back on the field, he had a really nice stretch run for the Packers. It was top 24 each week of the last month. So when I when I view him as like he's coming over into essentially the Dalvin Cook role.
as a later stage. I like that you skipped Madison completely. That was like you went two years back. Well, you don't want that. Well, right. He's coming right into the role that Madison couldn't come close to filling. Correct. But I think Aaron Jones can. He's not going to go into the Madison role. He's going to go into the Dalvin Cook roll. And so if Aaron Jones still has it, you've got a really valuable role on what could be maybe not as good an offense. I mean, it won't be as good as a Kirk-led offense. So you've got some issues here but even still like the office is better for Buffalo obviously but the touchdown opportunities are way more in Aaron Jones favor than than James Cook James Cook just is not part of the touchdown like they they tell him you're not allowed to score touchdowns if we're inside the tent get out get off the field I I mean they like Ty Chandler too right so like the Dalvin Cook role was to be everything
This is going to be a subpar offense, at least in my head right now, with multiple backs. And Aaron Jones that missed six games last year. So I am hesitant, Mike. You're more in the middle. Running backs under Kevin O'Connell is not good. The rushing percentage, 30th, two consecutive years. The attempts, 28th, two consecutive years. And last year, they couldn't score any touchdowns on the ground. So for me, Aaron Jones was like a... I know it's crazy, but he's like an off-the-board guy for me. Really? He's 100% off the board because I think where you have to take him is not. RB 18 and best ball at least. It's not worth the risk to me. I mean, we just talked about a guy that's two picks later. I would take Connor over Jones every day. So just just different opinions there. Mike, did you have any thoughts on Jones before we talk about Cook? I'm more in line with Jason of the seeing him close out the season.
was nice. Now, I mean, three of those games that Jay cited, in three of them, he was 57% of the snaps are fewer. So, I mean, this was still the part-time Aaron Jones that he has always been utilized, or when he's really succeeded, he's been a timeshare back. And I do think that there will be a higher time share with Ty Chandler than the immediate signing of Aaron Jones would indicate. But I still think that he has juice and he will have some really explosive games. So I think that at RB18, it's not terrible. I think it really comes down to whether or not you believe he's post being good. I mean, you could argue about the offense, but, you know, two years ago, Dalvin Cook was the running back 10. The last year, Alexander Madison wasn't the dude.
So if Aaron Jones is kind of toast, if he's washed, he's old enough, you know, he's going to be, he's 29.3 years old as of today. So if you, that's where you've got to plant your flag. It's like I think he is completely on the way out. Like you said, Andy, one guy's on his way up, one guy's on the way out. But if you think he's still got it, he should be, I don't see why he wouldn't be valuable for fantasy. James Cook, 24.6 years old, RB 12 and best ball. Finished as the, finished as the RB 11 last year. Wow.
RB12. Extremely explosive. You know, he ran for 1,100 yards last season. 54 targets. You know, a lot of talk about digs leaving and, oh, Kincaid and Shakir, they're going to step right in. Guess what? James Cook is a big part of the offense. And if you take digs off the field, Cook factors in in a tremendous way. I don't feel like the volatility that we saw in the first half of last year is going to resurface with James Cook personally. I don't think the ride is as smooth or predictable because he's not prototypical. But I do believe that you won't leave many games. You're entering the Echler phase of James Cook's career. Well, that would be fantastic. Well, Echler was a touchdown machine. Yeah, it's hard where when I'm shocked at the running back 12, sure, maybe there's an explosion upcoming here for James Cook, but he has.
four rushing touchdowns. Not last year in his career. Granted, he had four receiving touchdowns. We love seeing that. But Echler finishes the RB6 with three rushing touchdowns. But what were his targets? In 2019. Yeah, he had 108 targets. Right. I don't. I just mean that you didn't, when you, when Echler began his journey, I'm not saying it's a match on every stat. I'm saying when he began his journey, people didn't pick him because you didn't see the normal path to. You know, this isn't a guy that gets 20 carries and looks like Sequin Barclay's stat line until he developed into that. Do you have the, I mean, do you have that kind of hesitation with James Cook saying, well, at 12, I have to take him, but I don't know if he's going to be a huge part of the game plan this week. If for him, in my opinion, for him to come through at the RB12 price, draft price, he has to see his targets go from last year was.
was 54, caught 44 of them. That is tremendous. Yeah, where does that need to get to? 10 yards of completion. He's got to get up until like the mid-70s, maybe the low 80s for him to have a chance, in my opinion. Because receiving touchdowns are, aside from Austin Eckler, when he went on that heater, it's still really hit or miss, really fluky for some of these receivers. They have spike years and then they just vanish in receiving touchdowns. It's wild. He was third in the NFL in yards from scrimmage. James Cook was number three. He is a tremendous player who just, he does not get used near the goal line. But we have, we have seen through research and things. I believe Kyle put out, the Borgannononi put out a great article. Kyle, if you want, was that your article about the vacated targets? Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah. So where Kyle did a huge study about.