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

We have a big announcement on today's show that you don't want to miss, and you're going to want to pause the video and take action in that moment. We also have tons of your questions talking about redraft, Keeper, Dynasty, everything you need to know for 2023. Like the video, subscribe, and enjoy. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in Tuesday.

May 16th, the fantasy footballers podcast back again. I want to wish a happy birthday to my mother. It's her birthday. Happy birthday. I would like to say happy belated mother's day to everyone's mother. Okay. And what do you got, Mike? I would like to say hello to my mom. I didn't think it had to be competitive just because my mom had a birthday. Well, well, you came to the wrong place. Uh, big show today. Thank you for joining us on the podcast. The Borgogan is here. Al Borland, not so much, but, uh, Jay Gris is stepping in. Taking a lazy day. Oh, man. Yeah, I, if you know him, you know how lazy. You know. Yeah. Um,

Guys, guys. This bit is for one person. This bit is for one man. Hundreds of thousands of people listening. And we're going to use this time to drive over Jeremy with the bus. And I would say valuable use of our time to be honest. I'm sure the judge is really enjoying it. How are you doing, Josh? Doing great. Good. Good. I didn't hear the judge defend him. I don't tell you that much. No, they're always at odds. We promised it. We got a great show today. We have some, you know, I know Jason made it through all of his rankings. Mike's made it through or very close to that. Very, very close. And so our, you know, the UDK is going to be here very, very soon. All of our player projections, sleepers breakouts, bust. We're figuring that stuff out right now. But I promise we would have a very, very, very big announcement. Oh, ho!

I'm going to let it, I just want to let it breathe, let Jason breathe here. Oh, Megalachio! Yes! We have a big live event. Your eyes got so big and scary. Coming your way. I was the shark. I was the Megalodon. We're doing a gigantic, never before done single Megalus show in Los Angeles. for a thousand people at an unbelievable venue, and we need y'all there. That sums it up. At the Palace Theater in Los Angeles, August 26th. It's our only live show of the year. That's a Saturday. We're doing a huge event. We want to see you there. Come watch the show live. There will be a lot of special things going on that day.

So you do not want to miss it. Many of you out there, you've been to a live event. Thank you for coming. Those are always so fun, the energy. I mean, look at the date. Saturday, August 26th, on the cusp of the new season. Great things in store for all of you. So please join us. How do you do it? It's very easy. You fly to Los Angeles. Ballers Live or drive or walk. Well, you need a ticket. Don't do all those things without a ticket. That's true. First step, secure your ticket. Ballerslive.com. Go there now. Secure your ticket. It will sell out. We have done a couple of shows in L.A. in the past, smaller venues. They have all asked us to do other nights because they sell out so quick in L.A. Go get the tickets. Ballerslive.com. We want to see you there.

A very special megalist show event brought to you by our friends at Underdog Fantasy. Yes. Who are sponsoring the event. And like I said, this is our only live show of the year. So you want to see us. Find your way to L.A. I know a lot of people have wanted. We've grown internationally. People have been like, when are you going to do a show in the UK? Look, this is an international airport. Destination. So we're basically doing a UK show. It's just in Los Angeles where you need to fly across the globe to come see us. And we've got some cool special things up our sleeves for that show. This will be a lot of fun. And dare I say, Al will be there. Al will probably make the trip. I don't know. He missed it last year in L.A. You remember that? Yeah, I did. Was he being lazy? Same exact laziness. Same exact reason.

I need a day off. I don't want to do the live show. But, I mean, in his voice, I could never do his voice. But now this is going to be so much fun. You heard Jason's excitement at the beginning. Be there. I've heard tale of things Jason is planning on doing when he runs out on stage. My chest tattoo should be healed. buy the time to rip that shirt off. You don't want to miss it. Now does the shark wrap around to your back? Yeah, he's eating my. Oh, it's like a shark bite. He's eating your what? He's eating my left breast. So you gotta want to see this. Do not miss this show. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, we aren't going to be able to put that on YouTube. That's some not safe for sort of work stuff. We'll definitely have to check the Not for Kids box on that one.

Ballerslive.com, go get your tickets. That's our big announcement. We will, we're going to have a really, really good time. Quick question of the day for today's show. Now that we have kind of gone through each and every team for our player projections for the upcoming rankings to be released on June 1st with the UDK, I thought this question was great. Which teams targets have been the hardest to figure out and divvy up amongst all the teams? And we each have a different answer. I don't know if that was because we just tried to find a different answer or these are actually the hardest. These are three great answers. When I saw your guys's teams, I was like, heck, yeah. I mean, your guys' teams are very different in the sense that I feel like you could have a different leader for each of us from those wide receiver course. For me, it was the Giants. And it was the Giants just because they're taking the throw spaghetti at the wall approach to their.

wide receiver core. You've got Wondale Robinson coming back from injury. Sterling Shepard coming back from injury. Those might be their two best wide receivers, but are they going to be healthy? They've got Jalen Hyatt, new exciting rookie, but he's a rookie. Isaiah Hodgins, they signed Paris Campbell. They've got Darius Slayton. It is a log jam. They did sign Jameson Crowder as well. I mean. You want to talk about the largest room of mediocre wide receivers in the league. Giants, you did it. Yeah, I think that's a great pick. And just knowing how much they use Saquan and the tight end and not knowing how they'll distribute any value at all to the wide receiver room. I mean, is there going to be any? For me, it was the Chiefs. Here's what I know about the Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes will pass for more than 5,000 yards this year.

Here's what I don't know about the chiefs is how that distribution is going to break down among MvS, Cadarius Tony, Skymore, Rishie Rice, Rysh, Justin Watson, and from the aforementioned giants who, you know, they just added Richie James, who had 57 receptions last year, not for Patrick Mahomes, but for Daniel Jones for over 500 yards. And Justin Ross is still lurking. And Justin Ross is still hanging around. And so, you know, I statted six receivers. Yeah, I, I think we had the same six. We did have the same six. But I'm curious, Mike, who you have as the target leader, if you've done the chiefs. I have in target leader. Yes, target. Yeah, the target leader is a maybe superstar who only has two career touchdowns. It's, it's, it's Cadarius, Tony, for me. That's, that's where I would take the shot.

I have MVS with more targets than Tony, and Jason has Tony. Correct. And in the heart part about, you know, you say breaking up the targets is that if Tony is the lead target projection, he's also always hurt. So even if you got it right, he could still get hurt and everything gets just, you know, messed up. And we saw last year Sky Moore, like awful. Awful rookie year. 22 receptions total. So you've got that hanging over the hype around Rice. And look, it should be a very interesting situation of probably ping ponging value. Yeah, being the target leader for Patrick Mahomes sounds so great on paper. But there is a very realistic world where the wide receiver target leader.

is not that great for fantasy. Was Juju the target leader last year? That's kind of how from memory I believe it went down. And he was okay, but he was nothing special for fantasy. And that could very well be the case. So when we say, I've got Cadarius Tony down leading them in targets, that still might be irrelevant with how many weapons he's going to throw to and the fact that Travis Kelsey is the alpha. And the second target leader was NBS last year. And that equated to just. 600 yards and two touchdowns? Yep. So it's a tough one. Mike, what do you have as one of the more difficult ones to figure out? So I'm in agreement with you guys on both of those. I just did the Giants about an hour before the show and I sat down and said, Jason, how did you possibly do this? Because it's a disaster. But hey, special shout out to the Baltimore Ravens for also having their own situation where.

I don't know what is going on because you have Odell Beckham off of his second ACL injury is he washed. Rashad Bateman looked okay for a couple games. And then a first round rookie pick and Zay Flowers. And I mean, like the Chiefs where the wide receivers won't be the number one target because that'll be Mark Andrews, but it's how does this wide receiver room shake up? And then just before the show came out, there was a tweet from Michael Fabiana who had. Let's see, Glenn Clark from a Baltimore radio station he had him on. And according to Glenn Clark, at least, he was saying, as of right now, Rashad Bateman is the number one wide receiver for the team. That's how he would draft them in fantasy football. But it's extremely difficult because I do believe one of those three guys will have like a top 30 type of value. And if it's Rashad Bateman, you'll have that value plus.

spike weeks on top of that. But I don't know which of the three, and I don't know, I don't know how that ADP is going to shake up. My confidence in there is, is not strong. Thankfully, it's only May, and we can get some more clarity. But as of right now, that is just, it is as foggy as can be. Yeah, that's another depth chart where I'm curious who the target leader is. You can make legitimate, mathematical, and historical arguments. for at least three different guys being the wide receiver target leader. Who did you guys stat as the leader? I actually, this is not how I usually roll with rookie wide receivers, but I have Zay Flowers leading in targets season one. I have Beckham with the most targets. And I have Bateman. There you go. Let me refresh your memory from last year that just, this makes it so much harder too. Do you know how many total tight-in targets there were for the Baltimore Ravens last year?

Between Andrews and likely? No, just the tight end position in total. I do, but that's not fair. 204. Yeah. So Andrews was only 113 of that. If you watch Isaiah likely, that's another weapon they have in the room that can, you know, he might be a better weapon than Beckham is, right? In totality. And so you have multiple tight ends. Last year. I know it's going to be different, but wide receivers were 225 in targets. Titans were 204. That is almost the same amount of targets between those two rooms. Yeah, with Greg Roman, the personnel, having likely, having no wide receivers healthy or available or talented, I, you know, I think it will shift dramatically this year with Todd Munkin coming in, drafting Zay Flowers, bringing in O'DL. I think they'll run a little bit more 11 personnel.

That's one of the things going through all of the rankings that was really interesting to me is like, you know, we do the things to remember show. And one of the things to remember for me was these changes don't always work out, whether it's head coach or offensive coordinator. Like percentage wise every year, philosophical changes, yes, they come in and they arrive. You hire somebody else. You want to fix the situation. But a lot of them don't work. And identifying which situations you think, look, they needed a fresh. You brought up like maybe the Chargers, right? Would be one that kind of seemed like obviously stale probably can't get worse. Like I think that might be a good way to go about it is like which offensive situations probably can't get worse that will get better as opposed to, you know, looking at something like Dallas where, look, statistically they were great. So like they have a lot of room to get worse. Whereas a team like the Chargers, they had a lot of like.

obvious issues, so maybe that's one that you can feel more secure about projecting improvement. Baltimore is one of those as well, potentially, where they were just so, but they were also hurt. So those are hard. Yeah, it would be very difficult to imagine Baltimore's offense being worse in 2023 than it was with the talent and injuries in 2022. Just take Lamar away. That would be a problem. That would do it. Hopefully we get a healthy season out of the very wealthy Lamar Jackson, well earned. News and notes from around the league. Apparently this is news from the footcast. Not just news. This was important. This is very important. Not megalisho important of announcement, but we do have a correction that we need to issue. Oh, boy. Someone in our Discord let us know. I pronounced the new tight end from Dallas. I called him Luke Schoonmaker, which apparently it is in fact.

Schoonmaker, which makes the Schoon Man reference even, Scoon Man. Look, you got to come together with your hands and save me. So it makes the joke even better. So I am very happy to report that we were wrong and it is better. It is now better. It is the Schoon man. Yeah, his name is spelled S-A-S-C-H. Yeah. It's spelled Shune. What did I see? It's a Dutch name. And so it's pronounced Schoon-M-M- So this is the top of our news. Brooks, this is the top. I did say, priorities. I did tell him, make sure this is the top of the news. Did you? Okay. Yeah, Brooks is nodding. All right, here we go. Jeremy Fowler reports there's not a clear cut avenue for Dalvin Cook to be traded at the moment. The Vikings over the weekend, they moved their illustrious defensive ends. Daria Smith, right? I mean. Yeah, they're.

We knew they were going to make some salary cap moves. That was one of the, when you listen to the beat reporters around Minnesota, they thought they'd salvage Smith and Cook might be out the door. They didn't. They moved Zadaria Smith to Cleveland. Right now, the team, all the signs, it looks like they're moving on from Dalvin Cook, but he hasn't been moved yet. And according to reports, they want to do right by him, they'd like to put him in a situation he wants to be in. Obviously, if they cut him. He can choose a situation. Yeah, that's, oh, we want to put him in the best situation for him. Well, then cut him. Let him go sign a deal because that's the best situation for Dalvin Cook. What they want to do is have something back because they want the best situation for them, which I don't blame them. That's their job. But you can't be like, we just want what's best for Dalvin. If you do, they do, but they also want that team to financially help out. They have what, till June 1st?

They do. If they were going to cut him, though, you can mark it post June 1st and cut him now so he can go visit teams and try to make a deal. So no conclusion to the Delvin Cook saga just yet. Here's some big news, in my opinion, especially when looking at the saints and projecting them for the season. There's a full expectation. Absolutely was the word head coach Dennis Allen used. on whether Foster Monroe will be ready for the start of OTAs. Foster Moreau. Great story. Just signed a deal, three-year deal. And when you look at what was being reported about his Hodgkin's lymphoma, they said it was like somehow that one of the least invasive cases that they had seen was the word that was put out there. So he expects to be playing.

And that, you know, he's a good, tight end. I mean, yes, he is. When you look at kind of a breakout season in store for Joanne Johnson and you take Foster Moreau. It hurts. You know, who had a 420 yards receiving last year. That's bigger production than what you had with Troutman there. So it does muddy that water a little bit, especially when you know that Taysam Hill is going to get snaps too. Also from the Saints Michael Thomas, quote, had hardware removed from his injured foot about a week ago. I don't know. Has it been three years of talking about Michael Thomas injuries and hardware and surgery? I am ready for fool me for rice or whatever. That's what for. Fool me quattro because I will, I will be ready to go back in. Oh, you're, I didn't, I didn't see a goal. So you are willing to make the mistake again. Yes. Over those first two games, 25% 23% target share.

5 for 57 and 2 touchdown 6 for 65 with a score like it is it's a it's going to be a high risk maneuver but you're not going to it's not going to be high risk ADP wise so he I imagine he's going to settle into a point where I'm willing to take the chance. And to be fair, this procedure to have the hardware removed is not a big procedure. It shouldn't be something that you are worried about. In fact, this could be an upgrade. A lot of players once they have the original procedure done, don't like playing with it and get it removed. Wide receiver 45. Another approach you could take is just nope. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's one of the more. That one I never worry about the hardware. Yeah, 100%. You can make that decision.

But it was just like, to me, those first two games were at least, oh, yeah, Michael Thomas can still play. Yeah, I mean, it's tough. It's tough to make the judgment call on whatever it was, 11 receptions in a couple games. We hadn't seen them. It's a pretty clear depth chart. I mean, I like Rashid Shahid. But he's a – Alave is going to be a star. It's Alavi and Thomas. The tight ends. But you won't have Camara to start the year, so you're going to have a lot of opportunity for Thomas. Really tough, though, to bet on a wide receiver.

who has played so few games in the last several years, and then hearing, oh, another little, oh, it's minor. It's just another minor surgery. The amount of times that we heard, oh, this ankle issue is not a big deal, and then he misses a whole season. It's disconcerting. If this was a 22-year-old having a minor procedure done, I'd be far more likely to be like, okay, he should, he should recover well, and I'm confident that this isn't an issue. I imagine I know your guys' answer, but I think there are, There are kind of some parallels here, at least over the last two seasons, for Michael Thomas and Cadarious Tony. Now, Cadarious Tony doesn't have Michael Thomas's history of four straight years being a wide receiver one. But, like, Tony will be, Tony will be drafted. Kyle, what's Cadarious Tony going right now in baseball? I'll look at it up real quick. Okay. So, like, people I think are going to be more excited for Cadarious Tony. And to me, like,

Well, that's fair. They're equally risky, but I know for sure that Michael Thomas can play out. So Tony is wide receiver 35, so 10 spots apart positionally right now in best ball. I think it's a very fair point. You've seen an offense be run entirely through Michael Thomas. You have never seen that with Cadarious Tony. And my biggest worry with Tony is that Andy Reid's smart. And I think a smart Andy Reid doesn't make Cadarious Tony the linchpin of your offense. You run a bunch of smart stuff with him the way you did. You know, you use McCole Hardman a certain way. You use Juju a certain way. I think that's what they'll do with Tony. And if Tony gets hurt, then they'll, you know, it's not undermining your whole offense. Thomas, Tony, both very risky. I don't know which one. I mean, if you're talking 10 picks later, I think I guess I'd be Thomas. That's just positionally, too. That doesn't, that's not just like 1080 piece box. And that's a tough one.

Yeah, I mean, I've currently got Cadarious Tony as my wide receiver 33 and Michael Thomas at 41. So I'm about where they are ADP. I'm going to take the younger player with Patrick Mahomes. They both have a path towards being good for fantasy and a lot of risk. Agreed. Speaking of risk. No one more risky than this guy, Javante Williams. Sean Payton spent some time talking about Javante Williams. It was like, you ever see that meme with that woman who's face is like smiling and then it goes oh the kombucha lady and then it goes yeah you go is that what she does she's trying some kombucha yeah and she's like no yeah no uh that was what i was doing when i read sean peyton talk about giovante williams saying uh various quotes including our current starter javanti is doing extremely well i would tell you that we expect him to be ready for the start of training camp that's the quote that's been shared the most

When the headlines, I think, that made their rounds on Twitter was, Javante's going to be ready for training camp. He's healthy. He's good to go. And that's not really what it was. Yeah. And then he goes on and says we're pretty tight-lipped relative to information going out. I've read a lot. And I think his rehab is going well. That's interesting to me. He's read a lot. He's probably not. This is not first-hand, I, the testimony. Read many books. And then he says, we're hopeful that he is someone that might not have to go on Pup. Hold on hopeful that he is someone that might not have to go on. This is J.K. It feels like J.K. Dobbins situation entirely where remember Dobbins was like, I'm there. I'm going to be there. Yeah. Oh, Dobbins bodyed. Was it Schifter or Rappapaport? Yeah. He's like, I'll be there week one. You don't know what you're talking about. So where do you draft? But he was not there week one. Where do you draft hopefully maybe? Because that's what my nickname for him will be. Hopefully maybe. One, first of all, great nickname.

Really like that because we love Giovante. He's super talented. I'm going to take the risk on Giovante pretty late. I don't, you know, this is a lot of coach speaking. Like you just said, he's read reports. He's hopeful for maybe blah, blah, blah. I'm going to follow like, I don't know, medical science and timelines of when he got injured, what his injury was and the expectation that he should not be. ready week one and if he is she should not be full strength so i will err on the side of caution right now he is still my leader in the backfield but he's outside the top 30 at running back so if he falls far in a draft i might scoop him up but i don't have many shares you are i say you are a basketball king right now how much givante have you drafted

Oh, man, I think I grabbed him in one league. So that is really low. Yeah, I've heard of the amount of leagues here. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't grab a lot of Giovante Williams for this season. Yeah, I have P. Ryan with more total carries on the year. So it's, he also came out and talked about Pryan, talked about how he's, you know, can be basically a true workhorse back, a carry load, which he might need to do. Yeah, he will. 4.1 of carry last year for Somaget, Pryne. Two more bits of news we've got to get into. One, the Panthers are not taking the route of going and saying Bryce Young's going to start week one, the way that, you know, the Cardinals did with Kyler when they brought him in. Instead, they are placating the red rifle. Andy Dalton will get first team reps at OTAs. Yeah, that's good. They say it's going to be wide open. Who needs all the first team reps? Come on. Like what is he transitioning from college to the NFL?

Who needs those? Tell me the truth, Jason. When you saw this news, did it lower your opinion of Frank Reich? Well, I tried not to think about how it affected my opinion of Frank Reich. It did make me roll my eyes into my soul. Right. And what did you see there? What I saw is Bryce Young starting week one. Okay. Because Bryce Young will start week one. Yes, he will. And because he's starting week one and the whole world knows he's starting week one, I feel like he should get. All the first team reps. Can I remind you, though, that was the way people talked about Justin Fields. And guess who started week one for Mr. Nagy? Yeah. Andy was Dalton. Oh, it's Dalton. It's him. Andy Dalton makes a great impression in OTAs and training. We'll say the Carolina Panthers traded up to number one overall and not grabbed. Yeah, not trading up to get fields at.