Ride or Die + Super Bowl Picks, TNF Preview - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/7

Oh, baby, one more sleep till football, but you don't have to sleep at all for us to talk about real football. Week one, tomorrow night's big game that could be the Super Bowl this year. We are getting into start sick questions, and we're diving deep on that game. Make sure you like this video, subscribe, leave a comment, and enjoy the show. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah! Oh, welcome in. Wednesday, September 7th, the fantasy footballers. Mike Rite, Jason Moore. I'm Andy Holloway. Welcome in. One day away, one sleep away. I'd like to go to sleep. I'm so excited. Football tomorrow. We'll be doing the preview of that game right here on today's show. It's good, good work NFL schedule people, at least for this. They screw a lot of things up throughout the year, but.

Good work here. This is an incredible game. It's what the Super Bowl probably should have been last year, if not for overtime rule. Rules. I mean, we're still on that? Well, I'm, look. I hate the presumption that if the rule was different, they would have won. That's a terrible presumption. That is fair. That's absolutely fair. The Chiefs deserved what they. did, but the bills did not deserve, I mean, they did everything they could. Didn't the chief score in like 15 seconds? Yes. Okay. So that's on the, that's on the bills. The bills deserve to lose. And we love the bills, but yeah, if you let a team score to tie a championship game in 15 seconds, you deserve to lose. You guard Tyree Kill, Mike. You do it. Well, we'll see. Maybe I could. Probably not. Just as good as the bills did.

NFL news to talk about, like I said, the Thursday night preview, some mailbag. We've got Super Bowl picks on today's show. We have ride or die, a brand new segment. Oh, baby. Coming very soon here. And then tomorrow's show, Never Not Working is back. We've got all the matchup previews, well, part one. And we have starts of the week. The boom boom kicker returns. Oh, yeah. Oh, man, I can't wait. We've been working on it for. Who's we? Me, myself, and I. This is a collective. I usually refer to myself in the plural. I got it. Yeah, for sure. Your team of you. And then Friday, we got the rest of the matchups. We've got fantasy face off. Wheel of Shame. We'll talk about the first game in the season. I mean, oh, crap. We forgot. We have the Wheel of Shame. The Wheel of Shame is happening tomorrow. Yeah, based on the game. Oh, no.

I'm not confident. I'm less confident. Come on, Isaiah McKinsey. So look, it's going to be a jam-packed super fun week. When I think of the matchup that we have tomorrow night, my brain can't help but go to the fact that one of those two teams starts the year on one. I mean, like one of the best two teams in football is going to end up winless after week one and at the bottom of their division. That's fun. All right. A couple of reminders here at the top. Today is the very final day of draft times for the Megalobul. The last one, I believe, is 10 Eastern tonight. So depending on when you're listening to this, you might not be able to jump in. But if you're hearing this right when it comes out, go to megalobole.com. You can still get in in time to make it into one of these leagues. I have not drafted yet. So if you get in, you... What's your handle in there?

Jason FFL. So if you see Jason FFL, it is actually Jason. It is me. I thought you were going to say it's an easy win, but I hear what you're saying. Tomato, tomato. Um, Megalobold.com for that. My bold predictions article should be up later today, Kyle. It will be up. Once you fix some capitalization issues that you've got in there. Yeah, just for the people. I like, you fix my article. Well, I mean, he's the editor. He's the editor in chief. I just scribble it on a piece of paper. He transcribes. Ah. I do all my work on paper. Don't use Dragon? What is that? Talk to... That was the old, like the OG. Back when they were unleashing that up on the world. There was a time in which I thought talk to speech was revolutionary. Yeah. I legit thought... It seemed awesome. I thought in the software, if you had to buy it back then, it was like hundreds of dollars. Yep. So I never had it. And I thought...

Wow. Like computers are going to revolutionize the world with talk to speech. People are going to be writing novels this way. I don't think that happens. No. And now you see like the capitalization issues. You see the people out in the wild doing the text to speech. You're like, shake my head. I get only text to speech texts from my contractor that's working on our house. And it's everyone is a new surprise. It's like a brand new story. There's five words that are completely, I know what he's doing. But man, it's a good time. All right, here we go. Ride or Die, presented by Chevrolet. For those listening at home, we had a very nice graphic there for the brand new ride or die segment where Jason cruises off into the sunset with both Breece Hall and Michael Pittman. That's fine. Where would one see that graphic at? That would be the YouTube that is nearing 300,000 subscribers. Go subscribe!

We are so close. We need 300K before tomorrow. We are so close. Mike can taste it. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Thank you. All right. Week one, ride or die predictions on today's show. Brooks, why don't you read us our first prediction and we will decide whether we agree. All right. The first one for week one is D.K. Metcalf versus the Broncos. 55 or more receiving yards. All right, 55 plus receiving yards. He averaged 56.9 yards per game last year. DK Metcalf taking on Denver. What do you think? Right or die? This is a really, really good line. I think it's, he's going to be involved. He is the primary pass catcher in this offense this season, but obviously you've got a Gino Smith problem. That being said, that line,

I think he hits it. I think he comes out week one is an incredibly important part of this offense. And when I looked back to last year, this starts with Gino Smith. I know a lot of those were kind of touchdown dependent, but he had 58 yards, 96 yards. He had games where he was involved. And I think 55, they need him to get there. And I think week one, he does. So I'm riding. Let's ride. 55 yards. Yeah, man, that is such a good line. But I will ride. I will ride with DK Metcalf getting 55 yards in week one. That is going to be unanimous. I'm actually surprised that Denver Seattle game line. I've seen people run simulations on that game with the stat lines. I think it's going to be closer than people think. You spent the whole offseason saying negative things about Seattle. The whole offseason saying positive things about Denver. I just think that the game ends up closer. I think Metcalfe is important. Like Seattle only loses by like.

Three touchdowns? Like that close? Three points. Oh, man. Whoa. Yeah. I think it'll be a very close game. I think it will be a bloodbath. Yeah. That game's in Seattle, right? That is correct. Yeah, no, that game's going to be close. You heard it here now. Maybe I'll have to bring my, maybe when we do predictions, my almost subset of the week might be that game. Starting off with an L. That's, I mean, it's week one. We want to do that? I mean, you can say anything you want on a Wednesday afternoon. I mean. You can literally. I know, like you're saying the Seahawks are barely going to lose to the Broncos. I mean, isn't that, what's the game line? Four points? Six and a half. All right. Well, Baker Mayfield versus Cleveland. Our second prediction, Brooks, what do you have? Willie throw two or more passing touchdowns or not. Oh, man. Baker Mayfield against Cleveland. Now, they're favored in this game at home? Yes. Yes. Revenge game, though. Yeah, two or more I'm going to ride.

I'm going to ride with Baker Mayfield against Cleveland. I don't think their defense is going to travel well in this one. And so I will ride with Baker. I mean, this is obviously a very achievable line. Right now I've got them projected for like 1.5 passing touchdowns, which obviously means it's either one or two and two hits the line. But I find more success. going away from relying on Baker Mayfield. And, you know, Christian McCaffrey is there. Obviously, he could receive a touchdown, but I think Christian McCaffrey can rush touchdowns in just as easy. I'm going to, I'm going to. You're going die. I'm not going to, I'm not going to ride. I'm not going to ride. Oh, we riding. We ride in the revenge narrative. And it's because Christian McCaffrey is such, like has such a good chance to actually just catch a touchdown. I think that boosts Baker's odds here. They,

You're right. I mean, I know that the Panthers aren't going to, they don't care about the revenge for Baker. But I think they do care as in like, this is our quarterback. This is our guy. Let's go destroy the team that just did him dirty. All right. Our final one has to do with Clyde Edwards, a lair. By the way, Baker did hit that mark in 30 of 59 starts. So it's right there. Because he's good. Well, that's about half. So, I mean, I'm just saying it's 50%. Brooks, what's our final line? What's our final prediction? All right. C.E.H, going up against your Cardinals, will you have at least 17 opportunities? And we classify opportunities as rushes plus targets. Yeah. So, wait, okay, targets? Yeah, a target is an opportunity. It's not touches. Yeah, I mean, 17 opportunities. This is easily. He hit the mark in four of 10 games last year.

19 was his peak of any game last year. I'm going to die this one. This was the most difficult one for me. You know, you look at how they started the season last year. You say, oh, he hit that mark in four games. Well, three of the first four games, he hit that mark. You've got the targets that will probably go up for him. And. You know, now it's like, well, there's no Daryl Williams, and we don't really know what's behind him between who's coming up, Isaiah Pacheco, Jerich McKinnon, Ronald Jones. It's probably going to be mostly Clyde, but I find that when I ride with Clyde, I die, so I'm dying. Yeah, that is kind of been the case for him, but I think that the, I think the Chiefs will win this game.

So if we're talking just 14 carries here for Clyde plus three targets, I'm going to ride. All right, Mike, you are in on Clyde. That was ride or die, presented by Chevy Silverado. Learn more about Chevy Silverado at Chevy.com. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. All right, bills have signed tight in Dawson Knox to a four-year contract extension close friend of Josh Allen. And now, I don't know, maybe they can share a bank. So Adam Schaefter reporting this. I don't think Knox can get into Josh Allen's bank. He is a bank into himself. Yes. Yeah. For Knox. No, no, no. We got the Joe. Oh, Mike didn't. So never mind. No, no, I got that. But I just was thinking, you know, Josh Allen has actual crazy money.

The deal is expected to make him a top five highest paid tight end in the league. I said this before the show. We've spent an offseason propping up the hopes and dreams of starting with James and Crowder. Then that transition to Isaiah McKinsey. And we ended the year with Gabe Davis hype through the moon. We like James Cook. He might get some more targets. The words set about Doss and Oxus off season have been, you could, I mean, it's been nothing. It started off a little bit hotter. and then cooled. I missed the hot period. Was there a part? There was. Time where people were like, hey, Dawson Knox is going to step up? There was a time when the season had closed out. I remember being a little bit more hot and bothered, but the way that there's, the way that the offense has always functioned, it would take such a, it would take a pretty big change for the way that Josh Allen plays football and targets Dawson Knox. He is an important part of the Buffalo Bill's offense.

And he could become like a truly important piece of it. But he's he's more of like a high touchdown upside player on an offense with a lot of touchdowns to go around. There is at least a percentage chance. He's taking the Mark Andrews's path to greatness at the tight end position. There's a chance. He has the athleticism. Yes. And the downfield catching ability that, you know, certain tight ends don't have that in their repertoire. So he could do it. I'm not saying he will do it. He could, though. Yeah. And maybe it was DOJ Howard existence, you know, shadowing that situation. Part of it. All right. The Jets are starting Joe Flacco on Sunday against the Ravens. Another third revenge game narrative, right? Russ is playing his former team. Baker is former team. Joe Flacko starting against the Ravens makes me feel less confident.

starting the Ravens D than I would if Zach Wilson was making a surprise appearance. Okay. Because the Ravens D struggled a lot last year and on paper it looks amazing and I've taken them a lot of places. So I was kind of hoping Zach Wilson showed up. Yeah, the secondary for the Ravens got so injured going deep into last year that they went from being a great defense to a terrible defense one that you were targeting. Starting off this year, I still like the Ravens. I mean, yes, Joe Flacco might be better for the passing game than Zach Wilson right now, but he's not great. You know, I'm not, I'm not, uh, shying away from my Ravens because Joe Flacco is there. I will say it is a road game. I am slightly, uh, I am, I'm slightly higher now on someone like Elijah Moore because I, I mean, you saw Garrett Wilson talk about this when Joe Flacco came in and said, he throws a more wide receiver friendly ball, which is just to say he throws a better football. I'm a wide receiver. Like, I like to catch.

What's the game line there? Do we have a new one? It's minus seven. Minus on the road. Was that game waiting for the quarterback announcement? Probably not. All right, all right. Fair enough. Yeah, start your Ravens defense. Matt LaFlor says he's hopeful. Rookie wide receiver Christian Watson will play on Sunday for the Packers. He was noncommittal with wide receiver, also known as Mike's My Guy. Alan Lazard, who was sidelined last week for undisclosed reasons. So we do not have a... Too awesome. Can't be awesome if you're off the field, Mike. It was not disclosed so I can fill in the blink like a Madlibs. Well, Jason, would you like to fill in the blank differently? I think that...

The latest we heard is that they were expecting him to be able to go. I mean, he didn't practice Monday, but I think Lizard does play, but he's probably the wrong lizard there because this is week one. We know. And week one is Sammy Walkins time. So I think the lizard king shines and throws everybody off the Lizard scent. I like how the graphic changed from him in a jersey for the team he played for. into now just an ambiguous lizard jersey. We can't keep up. Because he's just moving around so much. We have to invest too much into the graphics team for that. ESPN's Jordan, uh, Rainen reporting Giants wide receiver Sterling Shepard coming off the Achilles. He plans to play week one against the Titans. Oh man. Look, if anything for this, uh, for this upcoming football season.

We get to put the Achilles injuries to the test because now we got the wide out. We got multiple running backs coming back with Robinson and Acres. And O.J. Howard. And O.J. Howard, I mean, that was a while back when his happened. Sure, but the timeline. For him to actually come back and do something. Yeah. So, like, that's an interesting storyline that can these players actually come back? I am still going to bet against them. Speaking of one that did come back from it but wasn't the same. Emmanuel Sanders announced his retirement. So he is no longer going to be playing football. He came back off of the Achilles injury that he suffered in Denver, I believe. Yeah. And he wasn't the same player after that time. And it's something that is a concern, was talking to a doctor out of the Baylor College of Orthopedics, Tucker Cushing, who just explained.

you will never get back to 100% strength on the side of where you suffer the Achilles injury. It's not something that, and it was interesting to me because you think of it as, okay, maybe another year goes by or another year goes by. And, you know, we had Deonti Foreman recover, and maybe he's 100% now. Or Cam Acres, he's going to be 100% next year, even if he's not 100% now. That's not the reality. from a medical perspective on Achilles' injuries. You will never have that level of strength back again. And that's why we've never seen somebody come back to, you know, these are elite athletes playing against elite athletes at the highest point in, you know, the entire country. Humanity. Yeah. So like a small, tiny difference in what you were takes you out of that category or has the potential to. You just think about how players age.

You know, it's like there's these age cliffs where a player was great one year and he loses 10% and he's just not even good the next season. It's not like he forgot how to play football. It's you need to be at the top of your game in the NFL. I know. I was watching practice footage of AJ Green after I recklessly tweeted he may. just plain be super involved in week one because we forget he's even there. Yes. And everybody's hurt. And everybody's gone. And here's AJ Green, the starting outside wide receiver in that game, the only one with familiarity with Kyler. Gross. But anyways, I watched practice footage of him. And in practice, I'm like, oh my gosh, that is a superstar athlete making these cuts. Legitimately. And it's like, you know that he's now slow at the NFL level and yet looks.

better than everybody else. Isaiah McKinsey listed as a full participant, Jason. So you... We're back, baby. You will get your captain. Yeah, it's not good enough for him to play. He needs to play well. Okay. Should be ready to go, though, for tomorrow night. Cliff Kingsbury said Zackertz will be day to day for week one. Yeah, I mean, he's in the already day to day for week one. I mean, we have not seen him out there practicing. Van Jefferson, not ready to go yet. It's going to be Cooper Cup Alan Robinson show on Thursday in football. If the platforms, we could just, you know, let's just wrap that up and mark him out. You know, the game is tomorrow. No, no reasons. Right. Sure. All right. I think that's it for news. Anything else going on? You got to put some Joe Flacco prop bets in there, Brooksie? You big on the Flacco train? Nah, I don't think so.

I was hoping to get an all-ya. Oh, yeah. I was hoping to get an all-you-out for that. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Quick break, and then we're back with the Thursday night preview. Well, gentlemen, we have spent every minute from the February time period after the Super Bowl until now, waiting for football to return, waiting for fantasy football to return, all of the... brutal upsets that are about to happen for both fantasy players and in the NFL. I cannot wait. It's time to preview the first game of the 2022 NFL season. Thursday night breakdown. I'm so excited. I am. I mean, I'm so excited. Not just to talk about this game, but this game, like I couldn't have picked a better matchup. This was a week ago my Super Bowl pick. And I think a lot of people's

Super Bowl pick. And we get to see a week one. Two great offenses, two great defenses. Let's go. Yeah, we could see it week one and we could see it the last week of the year. It's potentially in the cards. Buffalo at Los Angeles, taking on the Rams. Buffalo, two and a half point road favorites. Oh, the disrespect. That feels disrespectful. It does. It is disrespectful. They just won a Super Bowl. Yeah. And the total for this game, 51 and a half points, it's amazing. Now, Sean McVeigh has a great track record opening the season 5 and 0 in week one games, scoring almost 33 points a game in those games. McVeigh is only coached five years. Yeah, and home teams. That's crazy. In general, are 11, 4 and 4 against the spread in Thursday night football openers, 16 and 3.

Straight up. And here we are with Buffalo, two and a half point favorites on the road against Los Angeles. It's a trap. Yeah. Buffalo's defense only allowed 4.6 yards per play last year, the only NFL team under five. So obviously you're going to have to try to slow down the Cooper Cup, Matthew Stafford stack. We'll get to see Cam Acres and Daryl Henderson, the usage. And maybe more importantly, how Cam Acres actually looks. on the field, but it will be against a tough defense. So I can already hear the excuses flowing for any fantasy player if Kamaker struggles. It's wait until he gets a good matchup. But, you know, the storylines in this game, the players on fantasy teams that you'll be watching, I've got a pair. I've got the Devon Singletary Allen Robinson situation going in my league of record team. But let's start at the quarterback position. Josh Allen, Matthew Stafford. How are you viewing them for fantasy purposes this week?

Yeah, I mean, obviously, if you drafted Josh Allen, it doesn't matter who he's playing. He's in. He's the best quarterback for fantasy in the league. I think he has a phenomenal first outing. This is also interesting because you've seen Josh Allen and some of these bills a little bit in the preseason, whereas McVeigh doesn't play his guys. So we get kind of the first taste of the Rams. And Matthew Stafford, the big question. All offseason has been the elbow. How is the elbow? Is he going to be limited? And Sean McVeigh's been adamant. There will be no limitations. This was all part of the plan to basically allow him to just play the same way that he has been playing. We limited so he won't have limitations. Exactly right. I don't love the idea of starting Matthew Stafford in this first game. I think there are more quarterbacks that I prefer. He's outside of my top 12.

So, you know, that being said, you know, if this is one of those situations where you've got a very close call between a couple of players, it is really hard to not. I mean, if we're talking redrafts, home leagues, not necessarily, you know, some DFS money on the line thing, it's hard to not play someone in the... NFL kickoff. Yeah, because really, if we just, you know, we just got out of the draft. If you drafted Matthew Stafford to be your starting quarterback, the question really is, do you play him against Buffalo or do you drop him to pick up somebody like Derek Carr against the Chargers or Kirk Cousins against Green Bay or, you know, those are kind of the two names that jump out to me as possibilities, or do you just ride? I think you just ride. Kurt Cousins would be interesting.

against Green Bay. But I mean, if you drafted Stafford to be your guy, you hopefully knew week one that he was playing against the Buffalo bill. Which Buffalo gave up the fewest points of fantasy quarterbacks in all of last year. So it is a tough one. Josh Allen on the road last year, 295 passing 49 rushing average. Okay. Yeah, you're going to play him. Yep. We're going to also see a little bit more about the Buffalo backfield. Devin Singletary. I want to take you back in time because I think it got lost maybe with the draft pick of James Cook, but he ended the season absolutely on fire. 12, 16, 16, 23, 24 fantasy points to round out the year and seems like the guy in Buffalo. Yeah, that's the way that he has been used in the preseason. I think that the draft pick of James Cook and.

Along with the other stuff of they wanted Chase Edmonds, they didn't get him. They wanted Jady McKissick. They didn't get him. So they went and they got James Cook in the second round, which is a very high draft pick for a running back. And the fact that Zach Moss still made the roster. And then there was like this resurgence of Zach Moss coming out of the beat reporters for Buffalo saying, no, they're not going to get rid of him. He is in fact going to be part of their game plan. I think that's. Why you're so hesitant about Devin Singletary? He's a good running back, and if he is truly the guy, then he can put up monster numbers like he did at the end of the year because that was the situation. Here against the Rams, though, that's not the best opening game for him. I think what I was encouraged about by the finish of the years, that none of it really came in the passing game. So there wasn't, you know, they're looking to fill that role with J.D. McKissick. Now, you don't go sign J.D. McKissick to solve your running back room.

do it to solve third down. So, you know, like you said, the matchup, it's challenging. Let's put it heads up right here. You like Cam Acres in week one at home against the Buffalo defense or Devin Singletary week one against the Rams? Jason. That's an easy Singletary for me. I'm going to bet on the fire we saw at the end of last year and how he was utilized in the preseason. I want to take a wait and see approach. If I have Cam Acres, which I don't really have anywhere. I mean, it will be very telling against a good Buffalo run defense. If Cam Acres comes out and makes me eat crow and looks awesome week one, then you have a steal in the draft. I can't imagine he looks great against Buffalo and then gets worse. But heads up to me, I would rather play Devon Singletary. Okay. What about a Stefan Dex-Cupacupacup? We don't need to.