Fantasy Football - Wildcard Draft Picks + Breakout-or-Bust? - Podcast for 5/27

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in one and all. Andy Mike and Jason, the fantasy footballers, back with you. Tuesday, May 27th. It's a beautiful day. Hopefully everybody enjoyed the holiday. Not our guys. You can enjoy. Your work, Jason. That's true. And I do. We would love, yeah, we, we have the, it's the crunch. It's the ultimate draft kit crunch time. And so every year we do a delayed Memorial Day for makeup, for the staff a couple weeks after. Because we have the ultimate draft kit coming out at the end of this week. So we are extremely excited to bring the 2025 UDK your way.

five days away you can pre-order it ultimate draft get dot com i did have somebody reach out because we you know we've been doing the show a long time and the udk has been a key part of people's draft day plans for a long time and so you know and it's it's it's expanded over the years but i did have some people like literally write in and just say like you know it was funny because one person was like this is my first year getting the udk can you tell me what's in it That's he bought it already. He bought it already. That's a good man. But he wanted, he wanted us to describe some of the features just a little bit more because sometimes that gets lost when we just bring it up. So we used to talk about all the details because it was, you know, it was new. Now we just expect, well, everybody has it. Everybody should be using it. Or more that, you know, that they know what's in there. But we're in the, in the middle of one of the big features is we have 100 plus player profile videos.

So we break down the situations for 100 players on video, individual profile videos. So we're in the middle of recording those. We record those as close to release as possible. Obviously things change. That's the neat thing about the UDK is this is a living, breathing, always updated, always changing draft guide from June 1 all the way into your draft season. We're always in there making tweaks and adjustments. This is not like a magazine you buy off the shelf and then it's outdated in a week. That's one of the key features. That's why we designed it as we were used to getting those magazines and things like that before we had the show. We wanted something that's always up to date. So those videos are happening right now. That's one of the big features. There's custom cheat sheets inside of the UDK. So if you are like me and you like to have a piece of paper printed out, you can customize those. And you can customize it to your league. Whatever your set of you got some weird wild scoring or whatever. You can put that in. All of our rankings support custom scoring.

This year, especially, we've upgraded the importing functionality. So you can import from ESPN Public and Private Leagues, Yahoo Leagues, Sleeper Leagues, NFL.com leagues. And then you can put your, if you're not playing on those platforms, you can just add your scoring settings and it will customize the rankings for you. All of our stat projections. So every player, every stat. are in there are tier-based rankings, Jason? I mean, it's funny because the ultimate draft, the main thing is the tier-based rankings that we pour ourselves into and make sure that, you know, you've got the position separated tiers that are, you know, highly accurate rankings, historically proven. But then you have a bunch of the other stuff when you want to dive deeper and you want to see the strength of schedule to start the season. There's some research tools built in. All sorts of reasons. I mean. Consistency charts.

That's a big one. Red zone reports and, you know, ADPs across all platforms. One of the things that we've really improved, too, is just like there's a mobile app and there's a web version so you can use either one. And there's player marking. So you can go in there and mark players, you know, if you want to hide keepers for your league. I was going to say, Andy does it the old man way. That's right. He uses the cheat sheet creator, prints things out, and then physically uses... I assume some sort of writing utensil. It's usually a marker. It's normally, yeah, it's one that you got the strong smell. Yeah, and so that's how he does it. I use the app. I use the, you know, on a tablet. That's what I do. And that way you can mark who you want to, you know, make sure I don't forget that I want to draft this player and just like track your draft that way. So those are some of the core features. You can read about more of them at Ultimate draftKit.com. And if you get the UDK Plus, you also get the draft analyzer, which releases on July 1st.

So a month after release date. And that allows you to basically just bring in your team that you drafted anytime in the offseason. And we will grade it. We will analyze it. We will tell you where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, an action plan to improve your team. So we break it down. You get a grade from us. And then you'll find out which one of us three likes your team the most, which is my favorite, very stupid feature. Yes. Yes, we did add that in there. So that's just an overview of that tool. Our team has done a great job of upgrading the app this year, just functionality-wise. It's much more snappy. It's got more functions or features. And so we're super excited. That comes out on Sunday. So get it now. UltimateDraftKit.com. Here's your quick question for the day. And I...

I'm curious, Jason, what was discussed on the Dynasty show about this because I did not hear your discussion. But what do you believe the floor and ceiling for R.J. Harvey rookie running back for the Denver Broncos. Second round pick went, you know, the Broncos were a team that a lot of people projected to draft the running back. They did not necessarily think they'd wait until the 60th pick in the draft or go with R.J. Harvey. What's your answer to that question? What's the floor and ceiling for R.J. Harvey in this offense? The floor feels like it's got to be around a running back to like running back 24. You've got a really good offense or at least projected to be a quality team with, you know, up and coming Bo Nix and Sean Payton. And you've got a running back core that is so in need of R.J. Harvey or anyone who is talented.

You know, they've got a itty-bitty baby in McLaughlin. They've got Odrick Estime, who's just a, you know, first and second down banger. And Giovante Williams had so much opportunity last year. The way that they use the running backs in the passing game is incredible. Number one in Target Share. Yeah, and it's not surprising. This is like Sean Payton's way. We have, we have like 15 years of. all sorts of running backs. This isn't an Alvin Camara skewed thing. There are so many different running back cores he has had and he always has his quarterback target them a lot. And so RJ Harvey should get a lot of targets, a lot of carries. So I think that gives him a nice high floor. What is his ceiling? Yeah, that's the more interesting question to me is like, what could he actually finish at? I think in the range of outcomes is a top 10.

See, I agree with that. I think that the situation that I compare it most to was actually Cream Hunt in Kansas City. Because Cream Hunt was not a first round pick. He was third, right? I believe that's right, yeah. And yet, going into the drafts that year, you realized that he was going to be the guy in Kansas City. Who was it that got injured ahead of him? Yeah. Yeah, when he got hurt, you knew that. It was an Andy Reid offense, right? You got a Sean Peyton offense, you got an Andy Reid offense. You have a guy that they handpicked in a round that wasn't the first round. It seems like the Broncos had their eye on RJ Harvey. And so to me, they have a plan for him. So how high is that? I genuinely, this is not a projection that he will get there. But I think the range of outcomes is like six. I think it could be the RB6 in a perfect, perfect world. Staring down Giovante's 70 targets.

from last year like that is that's some juicy stuff now we you know he Javante was only 139 attempts and what Peyton has used multiple running backs like the but he still will use yeah yeah he absolutely will and so it's just that's where that's where the ceiling will shake out of how much of the actual time share is he going to be in charge of Because I do think that Estimate will be involved as well. And so. And Estimate could end up being the goal line back, which would be really hard on RJ Harvey. Yeah. So there's still a lot of variables out there bouncing around for RJ Harvey. But the overall situation is something that you want to invest in for fantasy football. Here's some data for you because we don't have a lot of day two running backs.

that get drafted in fantasy in the top five rounds of fantasy drafts. We've only had 11 of those in the last 15 years. And so it's rare when you get drafted later to end up in the top five in fantasy, top five rounds. Only four of those 11 finishes top 24 running backs. And only four of those 11 had more than 250 opportunities. So, you know, it's nice if you look at a player like Cream Hunt. to use him as a sample, but he has the sample gone right. That's a fascinating, a fascinating stat. Yeah, it's very, very low odds that you're going to get 250 plus opportunities or finish in the top 24, even if you've convinced the world to draft you in fantasy. Yeah, because it, round two is great for long term. Like, you know, dynasty. We talk about that. He got round two draft capital. This is sensational.

for immediate day one impact, it's not as common. So that'll be, I mean, he's, he's one of the more exciting players to watch this. I was really curious, seeing that, you know, most of them do not get 250 opportunities. I was like, what did I, what did I give him? I have him down for 243 opportunities. We all seem to have him ranked kind of near the floor right now. Yeah, I have him right now as my RB23. Okay. All right. Let's talk some news. News and notes from around the league. Well, I don't know if this is good news or bad news, but Giovante Williams told a Cowboys team reporter that he feels, quote, completely like himself, two years removed from a knee injury. Does that, is it tempt you to believe? This quote doesn't, but his ADP and the situation of the Cowboys is.

It will be very difficult for me to not have a couple teams with Giovante on there of just in case. I agree. The player saying he feels good means Jack's squat. Great. I mean, he's never going to be like, man, I feel slow. Did you ever believe? Have you ever heard a player say like, man, I feel like I just, I don't got it. I mean, maybe when they retire. This will come off like a Rico Duttle insult, but I want you to not take it that way. Jason, did you ever really feel that Rico Dowdle was special? No. Okay. The league didn't either because he had an opportunity this offseason to go someplace and he's the backup to Chuba Hubbard. Right. Rico Dowdo was very, he had success in this offense. Yeah, the second half of the year, once they gave him the work, it was very good. And the other thing Mike said, which is true, and I just moved Giovante up a little bit in my rankings, which.

It felt gross. It didn't feel like... Yeah, I get that great. Don't tell anybody about that. You know, the thing that is actionable is that right now in their OTAs, he's receiving the lion's share of the first team. And we expect him to be first in the rotation. But there is a world here where he's not just first in the rotation. He's just the best one that they have because they don't got a lot of, you know, good running backs there. And he is... the main running back, the primary ball carrier. So if that's the case for, you know, a good offense, I think everyone views the Dallas Cowboys with DAC and CD and George healthy. George. Yeah, I don't think you were. No, he was a foot cast thing. Yeah, this is, I don't understand. I'm, you only say George now. That's the gag. That's not a gag. It's how I can remember who he is. George, uh, aka,

George Pickens? Yeah, see? A.K.A. what? George is his only name that will be ever said by me. Okay. Just so you know. With the Cowboys, like last year, my, the, like, the, not confidence necessarily that the player was awesome, but the confidence that it would end up being Rico Dowdle was, like, it seemed clear looking at the depth chart. Looking at the depth chart of the Cowboys this year, though, it's not clear. Like, although I would have Javante a bit higher if I felt really confident, but you know, like, Miles Sanders is there. And I'm not, he's been a starter. He has experience. And then later around as disappointing as Javante Williams. Well, he's very rich. And then they drafted Jaden Blue. It's someone, it's very likely that someone emerges from here. And right now the bet is going to be Javante Williams. It's just need more.

Need more information at a camp how things are shaken out. All right, we have, there was some conversation around the Lions throwing the ball down field more. They have John Morton as their offensive coordinator with Ben Johnson leaving. The purpose behind that in part, Dan Campbell talked about it. It was to keep stability. It was to keep continuity with the things that they've been doing. I brought up Javon, not Javonte Williams. Jameson. Jameson Williams. On recent shows, I'm very, very excited about Jameson Williams this year. This would obviously be a good thing for him if they got the ball downfield more. Jared Gough had the third lowest percentage of attempts, 20 plus yards downfield, which is surprising because they were such a great offense. It's just a boo. And if you look at the Broncos last year where John Morton is coming from with a rookie.

Bonix actually aired it out downfield quite a bit. Significantly more than Jared Goff. And then as far as continuity, John Morton, right before, he went from the Lions to the Broncos and now is back with the Lions. And then the New Orleans football squad. They're trying to figure out who's going to play quarterback. Their win total is sitting at five and a half this year, and Spencer Rattler and Tyler Shuck supposedly going to battle for this opportunity. Painter hurt his oblique, I think it was, where he also. That is a big time bummer to be in a quarterback competition right now, and you can't throw for a while. Yeah, the news was basically that Spencer Rattler was looking really, really good. And when the news comes out that Spencer Rattler is looking really good. Yeah. Lower your win total. Lower your win total. Exactly right. Yeah, all right.

I don't think we have other news. Al, do you have anything back there? I'm looking over at Deucer's Alley. Everything's safe back there. Everything's all good back here. I got to immediately went to a nose wipe. I got a double check that like everybody's got their shirt on, like nothing's wrong back there. For now. It's a bunch of degenerates. Yeah. Well, we don't call it Deucer's Alley for nothing. We'll take a break and then we're going to bring some wildcar players. Is it news that we're still waiting for Aaron Rogers to make a decision? I mean, he's doing interviews and stuff like in front of a crowd. He's doing his dumb. And he's teasing. Yeah. I mean, he's the, he's the Steelers quarterback. Like he is the Steelers court. I don't know what agreement and I don't know why he won't just go sign right now, but everyone knows he's going to play for the Steelers. And what you're alluding to is he was asked like, oh, would you, would you ever play for the Chicago Bears?

And he's like, no. But I might play in Chicago this year. And it's like, well, is that where the Steelers? The Steelers have a game. He is. Do the Saints play in in Chicago this year? I don't believe so. He is a troll. He's a troll. And look, I would at that age, the last, if you're not on the team, you don't got to do any other workouts. You don't got to go to any of the events. He just troll. It's from the outside. There was a rumor that... It'd be pretty cool if I was the quarterback. The backup plan for the Steelers would be Kirk Cousins if Rogers didn't work out. Yes. That I can get behind. No. Yes. No. The Saints do play in Chicago, by the way. Oh, they do. Okay, so... Captain Troll. The Saints got thrown at as another possibility. You know what I can get behind? Retirement? Steelers. No, no, no. Mr. Tomlin. Do something. Do something about... Just somebody...

Do something about the quarterback situation at Pittsburgh. If you. Because it is a disaster. If you knew that Aaron Rogers was going to be your quarterback and it was just a posturing move to wait, you wouldn't need to do anything. Yeah. I'm talking about just overall. You're saying he's not the answer. I'm saying BS. Oh, I got you. Yeah, Aaron Roger on this team. Aaron Rogers goes to the Steelers. They're probably above 500. They probably sneak in and get a wild card spot. And then they lose in the first round again. Aaron Rogers is their path. to finally getting a good quarterback and finally finishing under 500. That is the future for the Steelers that they don't know they want is they want Aaron Rogers to come on board so that they can finally have a losing season and get a decent quarterback. Dude, they won with Kenny Pickett. Oh, I know. And they would win with Mason Rudolph. They'll win with Aaron Rogers. I'm telling you, he's a better quarterback than those two guys. He's a better for that team. Aaron Rogers. Aaron Rogers will.

take it over and find a way to light it on fire. Jason's cut. I just want, I want Pittsburgh to have a good quarterback. Go get Kirk cousins. I want them to have a good quarterback. Yeah, he said good. Man. You like Kirk? A lot more than Aaron, yeah. I think Aaron's a better quarterback today than Kirk is. Agreed to disagree. Do you watch football last year? I did. How did Kirk look? How did Aaron Rogers? Much better than Kirk. No. Mike? One of them got benched. despite being paid a bajillion dollars guaranteed one of them had a first round quarterback drafted behind them yeah okay well one of them talk about about least favorite debates of all time like these I don't want to talk about either of these guys let's talk about some wild cards

Fantasy wild cards, players with a huge range of outcomes in 2025. Players that they might cut your brakes. Players that we feel like were very difficult to rank when we were doing projections. It is a reason why, and we didn't mention it at the top, but it's a reason why we have upside and risk ratings alongside statistical projections. It's meant to symbolize that certain players have a wide range of outcomes. They have high upside. high risk, variables in play. On the show last year, and I didn't realize this until just now, or didn't remember it until just now, but we talked about Josh Jacobs and Jameson Williams and George Pickens on the show last year. All players that, look, Josh Jacobs ended up being a huge draft value. His upside was fulfilled. And Jameson Williams, too. He had a big season. George Pickens.

You saw the bat as well. Yeah, exactly. So we've each kind of picked one main wild card to bring up, and then we've got some honorable mention names as well. One of you guys want to kick it off? Sure. I will start here. It's a running back, and I think that he's a wild card. As of right now, my thoughts on my projections, they are, like, they're formulating, and my opinions of Aaron Jones are like, I don't. I don't know that I really want to draft him, but I have to at least recognize what happened last year where he was very quietly the running back 16 over 11 points a game. Like in terms of consistency too, it's a B for the way that we grade, almost 59% of his games. He was over 10.5 points. So he's he wasn't like giving you these huge.

sealing games over and over, but he was consistently being a really solid running back too. And then they give him more money when he's already old. It felt like a really strange thing. And then the bigger piece of this puzzle of making him a true wild card was the trade for Jordan Mason. They went and they saw a guy from San Francisco who started the year. averaging 95 rushing yards per game through the first seven weeks. Jordan Mason was great on the ground, but bringing him, and then they give Jordan Mason money. So it's like what, who is really? It's wild card written all over. Who is really in charge of here? Like who, because like between Aaron Jones at his age, which another insane thing.

This was the highest opportunities the last year that Aaron Jones has ever received. For real? Yes. In his career? In his career. He's been over 300 opportunities two times. And it was 317 last year. And by the way, his pace didn't change. They didn't say like, oh, you're a veteran, so we'll give you a bunch in the beginning. And look, the split is almost identical. 300 plus opportunities, first half, second half. And he, if you were watching the Minnesota Vikings, you're like, I get what, I get why they need him. The team is just much, much better with Aaron Jones. But the fact that they brought in Jordan Mason here, who will end up being just better on the ground this year? Jordan Mason or Aaron Jones? I don't know that I can answer that, but there exists a world where Aaron Jones still keeps 70% or so of the job, and he ends up being a solid running back too yet again. There are certain players that fantasy football players want to be done with. Yeah.

And I feel like, obviously for you, one of those names is Joe Mixing. Yes. I think you would love nothing more than to be done with Joe Mixing. I feel like Aaron Jones is in that same category where, like, people, like, they feel like the time is come and gone for Aaron Jones, but they ignore the numbers that you just brought up. Now, I would like mixing more than Jones because of the Jordan Mason factor that you brought up. But this is also an offense that, like, time and time again, we keep getting surprised with how good it is. Yeah, you should want the guy from Minnesota. What's the ADP for Aaron Jones right now? Do you have that up? Let's see. The sleeper looks about the back of the six. That's insane. That seems like if you're going, if you end up committing to a top tier quarterback or a top tier tight end and you end up with some wide receivers up front and you're telling me you could have Aaron Jones as your RB2. Right. Would any of us be like extremely hesitant about that?

I think I'm hesitant in the terms of. That's about where we have them, by the way. Like the receiving work, I feel very confident that that will go to Aaron Jones. You know, for whatever reason, it just they couldn't, they didn't even really try it last year when Jordan Mesa was the the true workhorse for the San Francisco. You know, I don't know why? They still didn't throw it to him. Jordan Mason, Jordan Howard? Yeah. Oh, Jordan's just. I think that's not a problem. It's not a good name for Kip Pass. It's stone hands. If your name is Jordan, it's stone hands. And so I think that'll go to him, but I just, I can't, it's hard to get a beat on what does this actual split look like? Or do we get hot hand every single week? Yeah, I mean, I just was in a draft where I was staring down a couple running backs and Aaron Jones was there and he was a little bit, I was a little bit lower in my ring. I took a look and I reminded myself what he,

what he did last year and I was like, oh my gosh, he is the running back one for a really good office. I mean, part of it depends on J.J. McCarthy. That's another huge wild card to Aaron Jones is like, will he succeed or will he not? I think all three of us universally believe he will succeed and that the Vikings will be a good offense this year. That's my belief. So I ended up drafting Aaron Jones a little bit higher than expected because. Yeah, I mean, he feels safe outside of injury. But the injury, the fact that he just had over 300 carries for only the second time. 300 opportunities for the second time in his career and he's older and he's dealt with injuries in the past and he's smaller. That's actually my fear. But he also didn't get hurt. Last year, yeah. Right, right, which is, I mean, that says something that he did hold up under the biggest workload of his career was his healthiest year. I would ask you this too, like drafting Aaron Jones, how does that feel?

It doesn't feel good. He's going to be in drafts around rookies. He's going to be around some rookies that you're going to be thinking about like, do I want to go try Caleb Johnson in Pittsburgh? Well, let's talk about the next wild card. Wow. Is that your name? That's my name, baby. That was an amazing segue. That was because you didn't even know it was happening. I didn't. I didn't know that. Yeah, my, my wild card is rookie running back. Caleb Johnson. Obviously, we've got the conundrum of Wildcardo who's the quarterback, but take that out, right? We all know it's Aaron Rogers. Regardless of that, the question for Caleb Johnson. Caleb Johnson was the sixth running back taken in this year's draft class. Usually that does not sound very good. Yeah, we just broke down all those RG Harvey numbers. Right. But he was a day two pick, which is really, which is very good because it's a very high quality running back.

class. And so Caleb Johnson was really a tear break, I think. Remember, the Steelers brought in nine running backs for their top 30 visits, which that's the most we have ever seen in the data that we have since 2015. And when they took Caleb Johnson, most of the running backs that they brought in were still available to be drafted as far as the ones that they brought in for top 30 visits. Caleb Johnson, I loved his film. He was already polarizing prior to the NFL draft. Yeah, I was not on that side. Right. And so you look at our rankings. I've got him right now ranked as running back 19. Andy, you've got him at running back 32. And I totally see that. Like when you watch his film, I love this film. Other people watch this film and go, I can't stand this film. He's a very patient, slow starting runner, but he's very explosive down the field. And, you know, you look at what they did with Jalen Warren this offseason. They gave him a higher than expected tender, signed him to bring him back. They talked prior to the NFL draft about,