Mid-Round Madness + Camp Hype, Bear Toes - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/3

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With your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Tuesday, August 3, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway, the fantasy footballers. Back again. Jam-packed Tuesday episode. Oh, jam-packed. That's what I said. That was intense, man. Yeah, I'm a little scared. The people need to know that this thing is packed with jam.

You got jam. You got jam. Nice. I like how we ended up there. We have mid-round madness on the show today. We've each picked out a couple of mid-round players that we think will help your team provide a lot of upside. Shouldn't be going where they're going. Brooks, that's rounds five through eight. Is that what we decided on? Yes, sir. It's tough, man. The middle rounds, they're...

You're panning. You are paying for gold. You are sifting because there's a lot of mucky muck, a lot of silt. Yeah. But there's some nuggets in there. But is there a Stefan Diggs? Yeah. That's what came to mind right away was the sixth round, Stefan Diggs. We have NFL news to talk about. Watch Kenny Gallaudet grab his hamstring today in training camp. So that's a good time. And we have where there's smoke, there's fire. So we're going to be going into some of these camp hype.

news blurbs and letting you know whether we believe what's going on because there's been a lot of it. I just saw Mike will start. I mean, this isn't part of the segment, but I always have to get your commentary on Zach Ertz. And apparently he's having a great training camp. Yes. Yeah, we've heard from a beat reporter over there that Zachertz is having great training camp. The idea he has done is so silly.

I'm not sure how much Zach Hertz they watched from last year. I don't know if he unlocked some sort of superpower by, maybe he had a fountain of youth when he decided I'm going to look like I'm from the year 1998 with my bleached blonde hair. I'm going to, I'm going to go full slim shady. Maybe he unlocked some superpowers here. Look, when you pull up in your Miata.

With your blonde hair, you have a certain level of confidence that you're reborn in a way. Yeah, he got, maybe he got his swag back. I don't know. I hate to even bring it up, but like Devante Smith just got hurt. And they don't have other receivers. And he's established. And now the report of a great training camp is he being foolishly overlooked. No. Yeah, probably. Probably not. I mean, the reality is.

He's going to have targets. You know, he's going to be a part of this offense, much to Mike's chagrin. And Dallas Goddard chagrin. Right. That's the suckier part. But he was never a supreme athlete. He was a very solid receiver. And now. So that's even more of an argument that he'll be fine. If you're never a supreme athlete and you were always relying on targets. But whatever you started at, you still get.

older and worse from that starting point. Jason Witten at one point retired from being an athlete and was still in the NFL and still effective. That's my only point is like Jason Witten is the template of being checked down friendly, PBR friendly. And perhaps last year was an outlier. But it wasn't, no, he's got stats. No, no, no. I'm saying that like he had in.

incredible volume last year. I mean, he averaged six and a half targets a game, and he was useless for fantasy football. So he may exist simply to cause pain. Possibly. To those that hope for Dallas Goddard, to those that, you know, hope for any of the other wide receivers to have a large target share, and for Mike, specifically for Mike. And he saw how much pain he was causing the world, so he figured, when I look in the mirror, I need to feel pain myself. Oh, with the hair? Yeah, that was the decision. I'm in.

You're in? No, no. Andy's on the place on here. I'm in on anything different. Just give me something different. I guess we know your Halloween costume this year. Oh, no. I can probably do that. Put it on the list. I can do that. I got better start growing. Growing out a little bit. All right, Ultimate draft kit. Make sure you check out the draft kit. I sent out an email to everybody. You already purchased it reminding you. You have full access on the app as well as the web. So we just added the draft analyzer to the app.

So you can get your grade from us on your upcoming drafts, play around with it, put in different players. It's a very valuable tool to get you going. We updated 137 players yesterday in the Ultimate Draft Kit. So camp has started. Deb charts are shifting. It was kind of a formal audit of our rankings, like heading into camp season. Very excited about that. But that's at Ultimate DraftKit.com. We have a great...

article on the website, Matt DeSorbo's Fantasy Football MythBusters series. You can check that out at the Fantasy Footballers.com. Let's get this show on the road. Where there's smoke, there's fire. Presented by Trager Grills. Three storylines, and we'll decide if it's just smoke or there's some fire. Number one, Melvin Gordon, as the Broncos running back won. Last week, respected beat writer, Benjamin Albright.

talked about the fact that here's this quote. One thing that's being glossed over, I think, is that Melvin Gordon is clearly the RB one for this team so far at Cam. So this was something that in the very, very beginning of the offseason, I had great conviction of that Gordon was going to be a value, that Gordon was going to be valuable. But my conviction, I'll admit, softened tremendously through the course of the offseason.

often at the hands of beat riders. You said, Javanta Williams is like he's, it's inevitable, right? He is inevitable. Yeah, very much like Thanos. And to me, this is, this is both. And I'm, let me explain that. I don't think that it's just blowing smoke that Melvin Gordon opening up camp is the starting running back. I mean, we're, we're not even a full weekend to that point. They're going to let the veteran be the guy.

But I agree with the other beat reporters saying that Javante Williams, there is a plan for this player. They traded up in the second round. A very high second round draft pick. This is very similar to Jonathan Taylor. Last year, I mean, almost an identical situation where the team traded up in the second round. You know that there's a plan for this player. Now, the ADP of Jonathan Taylor, in my opinion, last year got out of control and was.

kind of bailed out by a... It was bailed out by the injury. By a Marlon Mac injury in week one. So luckily, Giovante Williams ADP is not getting up into that fourth round, at least not yet. But I still strongly believe that sooner than later, this will be 1A, 1B, and then Jivante Williams will be sliding into the 1A. Melvin Gordon is not young at all. He is...

he is not the future for this team. But he was very effective. Jason's smoke or fire? This is fire. I mean, I really believe this is fire. I made the case before this that, you know, this is a team. You say Javante is inevitable. Absolutely correct. Javante is inevitable. It's just a matter of what's the timeline here. Because next year, next year, this is Javante's team. And they're going to have a quarterback. And this is going to be a great franchise.

To root for great for fantasy. That's a bold statement to say they'll have a quarterback. Bold and it will be true. However, this year they have a very capable Melvin Gordon. You know, he ran for 4.6 last year. He was really good. He was really good. He was the center of their offense. Catch the ball. He can catch the ball. And he's on a contract year. Like run him into the ground. You don't need him at all.

for your future. You could protect Giovante. And keep in mind, like, Philip Lindsay is gone and Royce Freeman will probably, you know, that's almost 150 carries. So if Giovante comes in and has 150 carries as a rookie, Melvin Gordon could still have his 215 he had last year. So I really do believe that Melvin Gordon is the starter this year. We're going to talk about the rookie process and the transition. You're right, Mike, like as the season goes on.

They'll probably give more and more work to the rookie as he, you know, becomes more veteran. I really wonder what last season would have looked like for Jonathan Taylor had Marlon Mack not been bailed out. But you never know. Marlon Mac number, what, 20 on Madden's running back ratings? Higher rating than Jonathan Taylor. He's so good post-Killies. I have to go fire here. I still have Melvin Gordon ranked as a top 24 running back.

right at 24. So I'll go fire there. Mike is the lowest. He has Melvin Gordon down at 43. I know we're going to talk more about him later this week, so we'll leave it there. Terris. Second smokefire here. Terrace Marshall, the athletic is reporting that Terrace Marshall is a candidate to replace Curtis Samuel in the slot. Well, yeah, I think we knew that. Wait, what? I think we knew that. The guy they drafted has a chance to play football.

To replace the guy who's no longer on the team? Let me rephrase it for us. Okay. Will Terrace Marshall have a significant role and one that might indict the value of DJ Moore and Robbie Anderson in the offense? Smoke or Fire. Marshall's one of my favorite players coming into this draft and into the season. Shining in camp, we...

Had rookies make a big impact last year, whether it's T. Higgins, Justin Jefferson. What do you believe about Terrace Marshall? Is there fire here? Well, if you, it depends on what the fire is. This is a low.

It's a low heat. What, T. Higgins fire or Justin Jefferson fire? Definitely more T. Higgins, but I don't even think it's T. Higgins level. But that's actually a good comp because you had A.J. Green and you had Tyler Boyd there. So maybe T. Higgins is a good comp here. You're coming in replacing Curtis Samuel. I don't think he's going to rookie year be as good as Curtis Samuel. But I do think that where there is fire is that he is going to replace David Moore. Like they signed David Moore.

early in the offseason to replace Curtis Samuel, then they go into the draft Terrace Marshall, and they're like, oh, yeah, that dude's way better. And I think, I mean, because that's what the beat reporters are actually talking about, is that battle as to who is the wide receiver three. And it will be Terrace Marshall. I believe that. I've only ever viewed David Moore on the outside with the kind of deep threat he was with Russell Wilson. So I have lowered, like I think it's fire.

I think Terrace Marshall was brought in to be the next big thing in Carolina at the wide receiver position. Jason has the most confidence in Sam Darnold in general. But Robbie Anderson, this is going to be the last year he's in Carolina. And so I think Marshall will have a role. And I think, you know, talent rises to the top. And it's one of the reasons why I've softened a little bit on Robbie. So I'll go with the smoke leading to fire here. Mike, what do you think?