Big Announcement + Target Predictions, Scone King! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 5/16

13 or whatever. Dalton, I think. Dalton bakes a mean scone. Oh, is that? He's the, he's bringing the scones in. Yeah, he's, he's pulling a Ted Lasso. And he's bringing a baked treats and say, hey, dude, I am ready. Of course he'd bring a scone. Any normal person would bring some donuts. I thought about donuts. And much easier to eat food. That's much more delicious. And is illiteration with your name. Stone is such a second or third string backup. thing to bring. Just walks in, I got some skulls. Oh, you guys talking over the depth chart, huh? Some scones. How is this? Woffed, waft. Scones are there for dry mouth. To receive dry mouth. To receive it. That's not to cure it. Not to cure it. No. I'm parched. Pass me a scone. All right. I'm going to blow your mind right now. I'm going to blow your mind.

We're sitting down this week, Sleepers Breakouts, Busting Values. And I, one of the names that I'm very, very, very, very, very, very sure I want on that list. Yes, I'm with you. No. And I'm going to put it in the value category, but you can, you know, that's where he belongs. Don't. Don't. Don't do this. Yes, I love it. I love it. Antonio. I'm not strong enough. Gibson. 100%. Ron Rivera coming out. We got the hype train going. Once again, every year, Mike is hit. I can't, guys, I can't do this again. Mike's got his head in his hand. Rivera said he wants to get more touches for Antonio Gibson. Why do I believe it now and not before? Because of Eric B. Enemy. Because I think the best player should be playing in Washington. Antonio Gibson is the best player. I've thought that for a while. You have? I don't remember you ever saying it on the show. No, you've said that for years.

He only averaged 13 touches a game in 2022. The versatility of Antonio Gibson, his pathway, and people listening, they're like, what are you talking about? Why would you say this? It's a great question, because I'd never have before. But the reason why is because the pathway to fantasy relevance for Antonio Gibson, it's like the board game where you get the shortcut, okay? Some running backs, you've got to go each spot on the board all the way to the end. Little shoots and ladders, action. Antonio Gibson, he goes up the ladders three or four times on his way to fantasy relevance because of his receiving capability in the offense. I've had Brian Robinson Jr. on my team. It is a slog, all right? It takes play after play after play. Please touchdown. Please touchdown. No touchdown. Okay. You're 18 for 59 and you didn't score. Antonio Gibson is so versatile. If that 13 touches goes up to

17? Instant fantasy gold at the value. Where's his best ball spot? RB 42. Oh, please. Yeah, he's been great. He's kind of our guy, Jason. Yeah, we've, we've, he's kind of been our champion. He's kind of, I would call him our champ. Our world will not stand for this. Yeah, I think that the football is going to remember our champion, Antonio Gibson, Andy and I's champion. But J.D. McKissick is also gone. And if you look, J.D. McKissick was extremely involved in the passing game. The first. Eight weeks last year before his unfortunate injury, he was on pace for 85 targets out of the running back room. And the running back room around Gibson is not pass catchers. So I do think with the enemy there, the vacated targets from McKissick and Gibson's skill set, I've got him receiving over 50 receptions in 2023. And that just makes him a value in general. He has increased his reception total and his yards per catch.

Each of his three years in the league. I think if we spend time on this, Jason, we can get Mike on board. I just think if we... I will say I have not statted the manders yet. Oh, boy. Uh-oh. So I will take this information. Running back to Antonio Gibson. I am told he's very Christian McCaffrey-like. Oh, boy. We're back. Yeah, I'm still... We'll still see where we had beyond May here. Any other news, Brixie? No, sir. All right. Quick break, back with the mailbag. I love it so much that you're on board with Gibson, too, Jason. Oh, yeah. I was curious at first which way you were going to go. Oh, that's fair. Yeah, because I know you haven't really been a, I mean, he's always been your champion, of course, but. Right. Secretly. Secretly, because you. Publicly, I've denounced him. Right. But he's always been my secret champion. The depth chart and the offensive coordinator make a lot of sense for Gibson to have.

a great utilization for fantasy relevance. I wonder how many people listening right now have gone to BallersLive.com and purchased tickets for the live show. I hope it's all of them. Because. Well, it can't be all of them. We only have a thousand seats, Mike. I just know this is a sign seating, right? It is. Yep. Pick your chair. So you got to hurry up. Ballers Live mailbag time. If Antonio Gibson can have. He's thinking about it already. A monster season. And then they bring him a contract. And he just goes, dub fingers. Oh, he turns it down. Yeah, and goes, no, I'm going to hit the market. And I will be treated like the champion that I truly am Ron. And then he won't get money because he's a running back. Stop it, Jason. You don't dub fingers a contract. If you're a running back, no, you don't. You do the two, four fingers and you say, yes, give me. Does anyone have a pen? Yeah. Yeah, you sign at sight unseen. If it says the word contract at running back.

You take it. Mailbag. Mailbag. Ooh, yeah. All right. If you have a question for the show, you can send it our way. The Fantasy Footballers.com. Visit the site. Click the submit a question button or dial the voicemail hotline. That number is 302464. TFFB. Leave us a voicemail question. First question today comes in from Philbo Baggins. Oh. It's a cousin. Is ZeroRB a more viable strategy than ever this year? What do you think? I think no. I think it will be a more common strategy this year. What really makes it stand out and work the best is when it is zinging when other people are zagging. Right now, I think the reason people are thinking this is a great year for zero RB is actually backwards from reality. They're thinking this because.

People are wide receiver crazy in the first few rounds. Running backs are being pushed to the third and fourth round where, you know, that's usually the start of the dead zone. And you're thinking, I don't want running backs there right now. It's like, oh, I actually really like the running backs that are there because so many wide receivers, at least in like underdog best ball drafts right now, are going much higher than the running backs. But what that does is that, you know, what made ZeroR be so great? is that you were getting at the end of the first round the best and the second. That's where historically you were grabbing what would be the Justin Jefferson and Cooper Cup combo because everyone went crazy on running backs. Right now, if you're going zero RB and you're at the end of the first round, which is I guess usually more where I play it. I know some people play it from anywhere. But now you're getting, you know, the wide receiver eight and nine to start your...

draft off and probably not that bad no well an underdog you're saying it oh an underdog yeah and we do need to be careful but i'm saying like in a redraft are you happy with in a redraft it could be tyreek and digs yeah i think that that's that's reasonable and or adams those guys yeah adams is usually around there and and digs can fall there this this year though feels like um i don't know if you guys remember i it was like our second or third year of the fantasy footballers and it was the running backs were drafted real real heavy and they like across the position they tanked and they were just very very poor which is what it was this past year and the exact same thing happened the pendulum went completely the other direction everyone said no running backs are a disaster they're all way too dangerous and all the wide receivers went early running backs came back and had a

a monster season and you had some real, real league winners at the position. So I wouldn't say it's more viable this year than ever because, like Jason said, the dead zone is of running backs that you don't want to reach for. That's going to be pushed down. So you're going to be in the third, maybe even the fourth round and have a very viable starting running back available to you. So it's all about the market. Like that's what you're playing. You're playing the ADP and... In zero running back, you're trying to collect a whole bunch of top 20 wide receivers. I'm not sure that you're going to be able to do that easily this year depending on your draft slot. I wonder then if that's the point where it's not two wide receivers. I wonder if that's the Kelsey Spice. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Kelsey and quarterbacks and stuff. I mean, the whole kind of point is that running backs get hurt. The running backs that you draft later, they appreciate in value because they.

they get touches later on in the year due to injuries in front of them. I wouldn't say it's not viable. I just don't think it's specifically more viable this year than other years. Yeah, but people that have been burned by running back injuries may turn to it, therefore making it more common, like you said. And if that's the case, then first rounds might look a little different. Yeah. All right, this question, it's about a team we talked about earlier. Powder E-77 is Darren Waller the top target for the Giants Passing game this year? Oh. So I think it's worth talking about them briefly. I have Darren Waller with 98 targets on the season. That would make him the target leader. I have him for 94 as the target leader. So we are in line there. I have him at 112. You know what's funny. That means that all three of our teams that we said we have a hard time kind of figuring out the wide receiver room is because all three teams had the target leader at tight end. Yes. Oh, Kelsey, Andrews, and Waller. Yeah.

Now, that makes a lot of sense. And it's the Giants, I don't know if you mentioned it earlier. You know, I've seen some projections from other people in the industry that some people think Sterling Shepard is going to be their top target at the wide receiver room despite coming back from two catastrophic injuries. I mean, the amount of opinions are swaying all. Paris Campbell had a billion targets last year. Wondale, what's his potential? Yeah. And then, of course, last year actually was Slayton and Hodgins. What a mess. For a team that doesn't really impress you. That Wondale tore his ACL during the breakout game. I think he was at like 10 for 100 already in that game and then got the injury, what could have been for the rest of the season. But Sterling Shepard, after an Achilles injury, coming back from that, I'm not betting completely against Shepard.

So, I mean, I think he will be involved. He is at a 9.0 on my risk meter. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But he is a, he is a great player and has all, he has the opportunity to be their number one wide receiver. As crazy as it is, 30 years old, catastrophic injury. Yeah, it's not a, it could be the number one. It's not a non-zero chance. All right, let's go to a voicemail. Hey, ball, there's Doc here from Atlanta. A little unsolicited love. I just joined a Foot Clan Dynasty League. I've never done Dynasty before. All strangers. And it's been awesome. So this is just me saying. I'm surprised. I don't know why, but I am. And it's a good surprise. And thank you guys. You're doing a service. So I salute and Kirk to you. That is awesome. That he gets reception in the middle of the woods like that. Is one of those crickets? I thought he was just.

chilling with his parakeets. His birds just chirping away. He's out on the porch. See, I thought you were going to jump in and say, oh, thanks for the voicemail. No, no, no. Thanks for the beautiful birds chirping. But also that is awesome. Footland Leagues. Yeah, the best way to get there is you can just become a part of our Discord community, which is Discord.g.g. slash fantasy footballers. We put all the Foot Clan League stuff up on the Discord. It's a super easy way to find. quality players. I mean, nothing ruins a league more than three or four players that aren't paying attention. It just completely snuffs out any of the joy in a league if you don't have active, energetic people that are engaged with their teams and wanting to play. And so we've heard that story many times about people finding lifelong friends in these communities and leagues that, you know,

It doesn't matter where you live, right? You just want to be a part of a community of people that love playing and bring that challenge to the game. And like, I'm all for beating grandma in the family league. Heck yeah. I mean, Jason definitely is. Take that grams. I mean, she's been mouthing off. Yeah. But yeah, check that out. There's also a link to the Discord on our website in the upper right, the fantasy footballers.com. If you want to click over there, appreciate it. That's cool. That's cool to hear. All right, Neil M. Cherry says he wants to know how long does it take for us to film every episode. Oh, well, look at the timestamp at the end of the show and that's how long it took. Yeah, a little longer for the producers. Well, I'm talking about the, but not the filming, not the post-production. The filming. The filming is just the capture. Yeah, I mean, I know everything on this show seems so like edited to perfection sometimes. Yes.

and you'd be surprised to know we don't edit anything because Brooks doesn't know how he's never figured out how to actually clip anything and so you just put it up right brooks yeah i'm so thankful you guys are so professional yeah otherwise you'd have to figure that out we can't even trim the beginning in the end it's just okay we're going to record in three two hit the button and then it's always it always times up perfect No, so for us, it's pretty easy. We sit down, we record, and then these guys get it going. Well, these guys minus, you know. Lazy bones. Of course. All right, here we go. Jay Lucas 1013. How confident are you in Cooper Cup this season coming off his injury? Is he still in the top tier of wide receivers? Well, good friend, Jay Lucas, he's sitting at number one on my rankings. Yeah, I'd put my confidence.

Very high. I think I have Jefferson number one, but it's, let me, let me just verify. I haven't asked you that. Oh, no, no, I'm wrong. Cooper Cup is number one. Really? Yeah. I love to hear it. Where is he for you, Jay? Cooper Cup is number two for me. Justin did come out on top. So, which is surprising because I am as bigger Cooper Cup believer as anyone. He is certainly one of the highest. If you want to know how confident are we in, you know, a 30-year-old, he's coming off of the injury. The team's not that great. Yada, yada, yada, yada, nonsense. If I look at my underdog exposure rate, he is near the top of the list. Because if I'm in the middle of the first round and some people are letting Cooper Cup slide, which I'll take Cooper Cup basically at three or four, depending on my mood.

and I've seen him drop to seven to me, and I will grab him anywhere in that range. So his, you know, you look at the depth chart for the Rams, and it's like I don't know how Cooper Cup doesn't receive 800,000 targets this year. And as far as the injury goes, this was an injury he could have came back from. much quicker. They didn't need him to come back at the end of last year. He's got the entire off-season. There is no doubt he'll be ready for the off-season programs. I would assume he is ready to go right now. And, you know, everything should be great for Cooper Cup going forward. Just a reminder, eight games played for Cooper Cup, eight full games, in which he averaged 11.5 targets, nine receptions, over 100 yards, and basically a full touchdown.

per game. Like, yeah, that's, that's what he was averaging. Matthew Stafford is healthy. He'll be returning the defense. I think it will be much worse. No Jalen or amsy. And, uh, you know, this is, this is lining up to be a huge opportunity for Stafford and Cup. I think, I think what Jason said about the wide receiver room is why I think Van Jefferson could have a decent season because somebody has to. Now, will I be the one taking the second receiver? In Los Angeles and putting it out there on this podcast? No, I won't. Too late. We'll let somebody else do that. He's no Terry McLaurin. No one is. No, he isn't. All right. It's time for this. You would have thought it'd stop after the draft, but nope. Never. All right. Reneville, 81, says is Bijon Robinson a first round pick and redraft? Yep. Right on the edge for me.

I mean, I've got him at running back seven in my ranking. So, you know, if you're mixing in a couple of the whiteouts, maybe Travis Kelsey. I think that means yes. He is a first round pick to me. And honestly, if you want to take him at the 102, I think that's... In redraft. Yeah. I think that's perfectly fine. I would still take Christian McCaffrey ahead of him. But if you want to take the gamble, like if you... If you want to have more fun? Because here's an issue in draft where you have a slot is like, well, I have the 102, but I want Bijon on my team, but I know I'm supposed to take these other guys. No, man, by the end of the year, Bijon Robinson could easily be the number one overall running back. So I think taking him at the 102 is very reasonable. I think I like that train of thought where you say which players could be number one overall and reducing.

you know, your selection to that group where I know I think Jason has Saquan quite a bit higher than I do. Could Saquan be number one overall? Sure. Yes, you could. I mean, McCaffrey, Echler, yeah. Do I think Jacobs? Yeah, I think he's in the mix. Bejan, yeah, Taylor. So it's just a reminder of you don't have to be locked into what the ADP is telling you. No matter where you draft, there's. Brinkings, and there's an ADP, and it's telling you this is who probably would go next. Don't worry about that. If you have the belief that Bijan is your guy, take Bijan. Age 21 rookie running backs with top 15 draft capital over the last decade, Sequin, Zeke, Gurley, CMC, they were all RB1s in the rookie season. Bejohn is going to be very good. Yes. Yeah, I don't know that he'll be a top three running back, but I would be genuinely...

shocked. Were you kind of... Yeah, I was getting choked. Tearing up a little bit. This is the Bijon Minutes. So, you know, this is kind of near and dear. I would be shocked if he's not a running back one at the end of the year. They're going to have him be the center of this offense that is very efficient at running the ball. They're going to pass to him a ton. The volume is there. The only thing, I mean, any running back can get injured. But his security is as high as anyone. and his ceiling is unknown and also as high as anyone. Yeah, the only question mark in my mind has nothing to do with Bijon. I think Arthur Smith is going to use him correctly. It literally is just, is this quarterback, are there going to be games that he like completely falls on his face and that disrupts his opportunity? Yes, but Bijon will carry him. Well, I'm just bringing it up because like Malik Willis had opportunities and Derek Henry suffered because of it when it wasn't Ryan Tannahill. Sure.

Desmond Ritter, can he at least competently execute an offense more often than not? That's the only question mark that I have for top three potential. Higher upside in Dynasty leagues from K. Belize 7. Is it Jerry, Judy, or Michael Pittman? Hmm. Hmm. I would go Jerry Judy there. That's where I'm at too. I would go Jerry Judy. He's a year younger when he was on the field last year. He had a really good target market share. I don't think Cortland Sutton is long for this team. And if you're talking about the highest upside, that means both quarterbacks are good. Russell Wilson gets it together and he's good. And Anthony Richardson turns and develops and is good. But Anthony Richardson is still going to be a mobile, you know, guy whereas...

We know that Russell Wilson has supported high-end wide receiver ones over the past. So I think ceiling-wise, you're looking at Judy, who's also had his fifth year contract picked up. So he's basically under contract for two more years. All right. That is going to do it for today's episode. But one more reminder, Jason, who is choked up. I don't know if you have it in you, but the Megalus show. Megalos show. Live in Los Angeles at the Palace Theater. Saturday, August 26th, the only live show of the year. Come, take part. You will not regret it. I promise. BallersLife.com. Go get your tickets. We hope to see you there. Another episode on Thursday. Thanks for joining us today. Goodbye, everybody. 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 FF Ballers.