Hot Takes + Superflex Strategy, Name Game - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/29

Okay. More persuadable? Maybe like I still don't agree. I feel like I'm more persuadable. Yeah, you're just the... I'll admit it two or three shows from now. Right, right, right. You won't be changed in the moment. No, God, no. I did see Alexander Madison get a slight bump in the rankings from Andrew Holloway. That's true. But I also... was making some arguments about Debo to you in the studio. And then I saw Debo. Yep. His stats went up a little bit. And you were, it was like whispering sweet nothing's into my ear. Yeah, I was too low. So, yeah, I think we tried to be better listeners than maybe we used to be. Yes. But we don't intentionally try to agree or disagree. We're trying to share strong convictions. Lay it all out there. We're going to disagree. And again, that's where you get handed the opportunity to make your own call. That's kind of the essence of the show from day one. Yeah, the show's.

purpose here is not to tell you what to do. It's to give you information and you decide what to do is the fourth person at the table. Yeah. And Kyle, you're making a good point here. I know you didn't weigh in on the microphone, but the idea of discussing percentage chances of things to happen. Like putting it into context, none of us can see the future. Obviously. If you listen to anything we said about Alan Robinson, we did not see the future. But laying out the odds of things happening, I think that's important too. It's like, I can see the pathway to this.

I think this is an 85% chance. You know, that type of, I think we all know how things can go wrong. I mean, we've been around it and been right and wrong so many times. Let's go to another voicemail question here. Hey, guys, long-time listener, first-time caller. I get a holdover one running back, and I'm stuck. I've got White from Tampa Bay and Pierce. Can't figure out which one is better. Let me know what you guys think. So. It's, that's a tough one because Rashad White or Damien Pierce. Yeah, I think, I think that is a tough one just because both players have pathways to, I think, surprising people, having a good year and then disappointing people. I was going to try to dig into my rankings here. I have, I have them three apart. I have Damian Pierce at 22, Rashad White at 25. My default answer there in the moment.

thankfully would have agreed with that. I leaned Damian Pierce because what you saw in the field from Rashad White was a product of the success he had was a product of a lot of passive volume opportunities. He wasn't good on the ground. I know the offensive lines should be better. But Damian Pierce was a constant, ever-present week-to-week. Wow, that's a good play. Wow, that's a good play. Wow, we broke that tackle. So I lean that direction. It's... Where are you, Mike? It's tough for me between these two names because it's Damien Pierce. I am confident in what I saw that Damien Pierce is a good player. I still don't think we know for sure on Rashad White if he's going to be a capable NFL player. But the ceiling for Rashad White, if it hits, if the Tampa Bay offense is just a little bit better than they're being given credit for right now.

Rashad White is going to be the guy and he's going to catch a bunch of passes. Let's say that the passing volume, it's going to come down. That will happen. But if it doesn't come down as far as gloom and doom numbers, Rashad White can still be like a 50 plus reception type of player. Damien Pierce will not be that. And Damien Pierce has Devin Singletary in Houston as well that he has to deal with. And I think that Singletary is an excellent player. So like both of these offenses should struggle. Damien Pierce is the more known commodity, but Rashad White has the higher ceiling. Like if you want to take the risk for a higher, like a bigger swing, higher ceiling, I'd go Rashad White. Safer is Damian Pierce? And I will lean definitely on the Damian Pierce side. I know I have spoken pretty anti-Dameon Pierce. It's more anti him being a superstar, future, you know, great.

stud top 12 running back. He was very good. Like when you watched football last year, Rashad White was not good. Damien Pierce was very good. So that's, they're both on bad offenses. They both could have competition. I'm going to take the guy I think is actually a good football player in Damien Pierce. YouTube question from Samuel White, 2027, says, how would you handle an offline live draft? when there is no consensus ADP being used. So I guess what Samuel's kind of referring to is if you're doing a live draft on a platform, the league mates in that league have the opportunity to see that platform's ADP at all times. And in an offline draft, you don't. I love that about offline drafts. Yeah, I hate the ADP being up there because it should be the...

player's responsibility to have a list or a cheat sheet, something that they've brought to the table that might be from a different source, their own, hopefully. And then you have surprises that are maybe more, you know, you can take more gambles because you're not afraid of somebody just drafting the next guy on the list. That's, if you're doing an offline draft, I'm going to assume that everyone here is a seasoned fantasy football player. So you're on your own. Like, deal with it like figure out where your favorite source or just you build your own rankings that type of a thing if this is a new fantasy football uh draft and these and these managers are new to the the game i'd provide something like i would just print out whatever like you can print out our rankings bring those or print those for yourself and then go to some other side and take their rankings and give them to everybody else yeah but it's just

It's offline. This is every player for themselves. This one's really important. Guys, YouTube question from Noodle 1855. Noodle. Oh, there's a question for me. I didn't notice that. Question for Andy. Can I be both Joe and Joseph? Good question. Or does that only work for Cam and Cameron? What do you think, Andy? I think you can be Joe and Joseph. I'm Andrew and Andy. Okay. All right. Now, see, one of the reasons why I can do that, just to be fair, my birth name. is Andrew. Okay. That's where the Cam Cameron thing really disconnects from reality. If your birth certificate said, Andy, you cannot be Andrew. Is that what you are claiming? I think that's where I was headed, but I'm afraid that I will lose that war here. Yeah, I think you will. Because that sounds ridiculous. That sounds absurd. Why can't we only shorten your name? Why can't you expand it? It's really a good point because it's not, it's not like.

A and D. Y is any part of the root. Like, at least with some longer names, like William, if you called him Will, it's all contained within the letters. Yeah, what is this Bill bull crap? When did that happen? Big Bill out there, he's getting his name into everything. Just like Bob. Robert? Your should be Rob. What is happening? Why do you get to be Bob? Yeah, you better be Bobber. And don't even get me started on Richard. Yeah. But, um, but listen. If the name Andy isn't contained in Andrew and it's still okay as a nickname, I guess Cam's nickname could be Cameron. Well, it is. It's long for Cam. Is that what people would say? Yeah. Please call me Cameron. It's long for Cam. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there you go. That's the answer. Handled it. Speaking of Cameron Acres, Instagram question from Tyrell, would you rather have him or James Connor? Hmm.

It's a really, really good and fair question. I see them as two players that I want a lot in fantasy football. I believe that they are both good. If I have to guess which offense is better, I think the Rams offense is going to be a more successful offense this year. So I lean Cameron. I do see a world where both of these are not as great as you'd hope. The offensive line in Los Angeles is a mess. James Connor, the passing game work. I'm going to cite on that side. I think they need him. I think they need him in the passing game with a bad offensive line. I think he's going to be more valuable there than Cam Acres will be. We already got some high T quotes from Coach Gannon out of Arizona inferring of... Shoo, shoe, shoe, shoe. Explosives. You know, getting really excited to run James Connor up the middle. And that was...

That was the Cliff Kingsbury special. When you're at the goal line, there is. Will there be defenders there? Yeah, but it doesn't matter. Like Cliff's play sheet for the goal line was, it looked like a techno bowl screen where it's just four options, but all four of them were run up the middle. And if Gannon is going to give that to us, then that's, that will be delightful. I lean, I lean Cam Acres slightly. All right, this question is. interestingly timed because one of the players moved in my rankings this morning is this gentleman right here. YouTube question from Forbes says, is Calvin Ridley worth his ADP? I am struggling so much with Calvin Ridley because I was on a show earlier in the off season because his ADP was already just outrageous. If you were playing anything on underdog best ball,

you were paying a fourth round or early fifth round pick for Calvin Ridley, a guy who hasn't been on a football field in essentially two years, is still somehow on his rookie contract and is like, now you're seeing him. He's already older for a wide receiver. And we really, really try to just enjoy the highlight videos from training camp and not let them be like, change your opinion on anything. But this one. There was a video of Zay Jones. Yes. If you didn't see it, there's a video of Zay Jones from Jacksonville running a route. It's clean. Good good work. Nice route. And then Calvin Ridley runs the exact same route, except Calvin Ridley looked like he's being fast forwarded through the route compared to Zay Jones. And it was.

Oh my gosh, he's so much faster and so much cleaner than Zay. And it's not the only play we've seen now. We've also seen him go up to make some vintage plays. The two-hand land on the back and still pull it in. That is an area where, yes, you don't want to overreact to a singular play. However, what was the first anti-Calvin-Ridley thing you said? This is a player we haven't seen on a football field for two years. So there is value to seeing him on a field. potentially looking like he hasn't lost the step. Right now, I am, I am now the highest on Calvin Ridley. Really? I have him at 16. Nice. I like that because you know, I believe that Trevor Lawrence is going to take a full step forward. Which I am becoming more confident with you on that. Yeah. I'm not.

I'm still not there fantasy-wise with Trevor Lawrence because I don't know how much he'll run and whether or not he will be. I could see him having an awesome fantasy season, but I do think for NFL purposes, he is going to be really, really great this year. And Calvin Ridley will be the one. So when I look at his ADP right now, wide receiver 19, that's about where I have him, middle of the fourth round. There are a couple guys right around him like Terry McLaren's going after him. I would rather have Terry McLaren. But most of the guys that are going after him like DJ Moore and Drake London, I lean on the Calvin Ridley side. So I think he's where he should be. I think he's worth his ADP based on my ranking. Yeah. If Calvin stays in the fourth and things don't get out of control, I think it's probably worth the upside that. Look, if he's still mostly Calvin Ridley.

from the Atlanta foul, because I'm not talking the year that everything went sour for him, and he was really struggling as a human, had to leap. If he's the guy who was the year before that, then holy crap, that was heading into the year where Calvinly bombed, he was a consensus top five wide receiver. So if that player is still there, then in the fourth round, take the gamble. Yeah, and there are other players I like on that team, and I think that muddies the water a little bit too. Like Christian Kirk is a very good receiver. Evan Ingram's going to get opportunities now that he signed this contract and what we saw at the end of last year, Travis E.TN, camp report, catching every ball thrown his way. So that muddies it a little bit, but when you look at it and you're saying, okay, it's a Marty Cooper around him in ADP, or Hopkins with the passing volume of Tennessee, or McLaren with the quarterback shuffle.

I want the guy that has ceiling. Trevor Lawrence could throw for 4,700 to 5,000 yards, like, easily. So I don't know. I think that there's an opportunity there, and we may look back and go, gosh, dang it. This guy is at six or seven at the end of the year, and he's going at 19, which would make him a steal. So I think it's more likely that Ridley could be at six or seven than Amari Cooper. Sure. I don't know if you guys agree with that. I do agree. This question comes in from Bill. Probably William, honestly. William Braskey. And yet there's no Billiam. You know? Yeah. Where's Billiam? That sounds ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous. Yeah, I would never name a kid. Maybe billions? Like billions? Like the money? Yeah. Oh, like billions of dollars? Yeah. That's pretty stupid. One billion dollars. Well, there you go.

He's Will for short, though. Twitter question from Bill. Hey, ballers. Up and coming podcaster here. What did you do to get started? How did you get popular? How did you get listeners early? Thank you. Look. Well, I think Jason would say we're great at what we do. Yeah, I mean, look, wouldn't you great? How did we start? We started. That sounds ridiculous, but that's... That's what we did. It was nothing more than that. We said, hey, this is something that we want to do. We think we can succeed at it. We think we could be good at it. Start. And that really is, it's as easy as that there's, like, make sure you're researching audio and recording and all this stuff. But there's, there's not going to be a ton that you have to learn just to do, just to record vocals. You can get good microphones now for a good price.

Only through us. We're the only ones selling them. But in, like, in terms of, like, how do you actually grow your show? Just you got to, you got to take the reps over and over and over and over. And then just hope that when the people start coming in, that you are ready for that opportunity. Yeah, it's a two-step process. Step one, start. Step two, just be great. Oh, boy. You know? And that's what that's what we did. That was our plan. That's it. We wrote that down. Yeah, that was the two-step plan. The other thing I'll say, and I've learned this from this job, which is now going into year nine and from a previous job when we had success doing video game stuff, I thought we were late to both. Because, you know, podcasting, it's grown in popularity over the last handful of years. That's been very, you know, helpful to this show growing.

when the industry itself is growing. I thought we were late to this game nine years ago. I thought we were late to our previous job. So that impulse to think you're late to the game, I think, is natural. And, you know, if you have something valuable to contribute, whether it's in this industry, true crime, you want to talk about something that you're interested in, which, again, you better be interested in it. Yeah. Because if you're not, you're not going to survive the part between you started and you're great. because it can be a there's a big long timeline there and you got to love it enough to survive that timeline so um whatever whatever you like my final piece of advice is liking what you're talking about but when you are recording have fun you you podcasting is entertainment so you if you're not entertaining people

then it's going to be difficult to retain listeners. Yeah, I agree. And the other thing I mentioned on another podcast the other day when it was asked was just it's about connection. Like I think why this show has succeeded is that we were ourselves and people connected to what we were talking about. So if you're pretending, you can't connect with somebody through, you know, not being authentic and being yourself. So I think connection is what makes podcasting especially unique. None of us feel. connected to the radio broadcasts that we're listening to in the car. Right. Because they repeat the same thing every 15 minutes. You feel connected to podcasters that you put on, you know, when you do the same routines every day. And I think that helps. But, I mean, Brooks probably has all the real secrets. Do you have anything to add, Brooks? You guys covered them all. Nice. Yeah, I thought he might say that. Find a great producer or two as well. That doesn't hurt.

Yeah, right after the stage two, like that was 2B. You know what I mean? Doesn't hurt. Doesn't help. Doesn't hurt. Doesn't help doesn't hurt. I tried, guys. Al, Judge, I tried. Thank you. Appreciate you. We love y'all. I did my best. I mean, we bought you a, help. Bought you a big neon sign and stuff. All right. That is going to do it for today's episode. Like I said at the top, so excited. August. It is here on Tuesday, and guess what? We're kicking it off with a big time mock draft episode. Ooh, baby. Do not miss it. Make sure you subscribe. Go to YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballer. Subscribe. Click the bell. Mock draft Tuesday. Talk to you then. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers.