Fantasy Football - AFC South Breakdown + Pessimistic Hope - Podcast for 7/8

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Tuesday, July 8th, the fantasy footballers, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Welcome in, everybody. We're up to three shows a week. We'll have an episode for you. Today, Thursday, Saturday through the rest of the month. We'll be three shows a week. And then it's on to five a week in August. And then 30 a week in September. Oh, it's on the actual football. Yeah, we have Hall of Fame game at the very, very, very end of this month. And then, yeah, we'll be off to the races. And you're already starting to see.

speculation on certain depth charts that are probably scaring. Oh my goodness. Yes, we are. Scaring people. Talking about that Denver tweet. Yes, goodness gracious. We can talk about that. I believe that should be in the news. If it's not, we'll get to it. And we have an AFC South breakdown on the show today in the divisional breakdown episodes. We began last week. Hopefully everybody out there had a wonderful holiday weekend. Got to enjoy it. I know we can't get July 4th on a Friday every year. That's not how. But it was nice. But it would be nice. It was really nice to have that be on a Friday. I feel like that one and New Year's. We need to get those locked down to a day of the week. Do your best, Jeff. I've been trying. Those ones are pretty tough. The New Year's Day. New Year's Day. That's a tough one to get the hardest one of the year. And Halloween.

We got to get. Oh, thank you. We got to get Halloween on that one though is legit easy. That one that one should be like you can't move the first of January. Actually, you could actually move the first of January the easiest. Wait, you can move the first of January because you can't move the 31st. Because you could just make the rule that it starts on the day you want it to start. That the year starts. That the year just starts on the day you want. We observe. Okay, Halloween's the 31st. Fine. That's the date is. But we're going to observe it. The last Saturday of the month. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, good luck. No, I know. People, they'd rather have their children be just real tired and sugared up that night. Where the rule is, is whatever day it falls on, from that day all the way through to where a weekend hits, you get all that time off. Okay. So if it falls on a Monday, you're, goodbye. You got the week off. Al Borland would love that. Al would like that. Is he back? He is back in the building. We have not started a new one. Okay. Let me see. Wait, what do you look like again? Oh, yeah. I remember you. Oh, my gosh. We didn't do the last show with him? We did. Oh, yeah. It's still a good bit, though. You could still bodybag someone. Yeah, no, you did. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballer. Subscribe. Click the bell. Make sure you do that now. We got more shows coming out every week. We got live episodes. And we have Sunday Live. And you'll want to know when those are going on.

If you want to help the show out, an easy way to do that. If you're listening on a podcast app, click that follow button. Make sure that you are following the show. And you can leave us a five-star review if you are so inclined. That would be awesome. Breaking news. Who hit that button? I did. Halloween's on a Friday this year. Guys, we did it. I thought something really cool was about to be announced. That's pretty cool. So Halloween's on a Friday? Yeah. Okay. So that means that, uh, That means that 4th of July on a Friday, Halloween on a Friday, that'll always happen. Wait, is that true? I cannot confirm that at all. I don't know how that works. Yeah, because both of them fall after when leap year would be. I'm choosing to believe that. Yep. Who cares? It's true now. What day's Christmas this year? We'll talk about that later. You Google it. Andy did, did you mention the draft analyzer?

Not yet. Okay. Would you like to mention it? I would. Okay. First thing Josh, Papa Josh said is we're off for Halloween then, right? Yeah, sure, Josh. The ultimate draft kit, which is, like, that's the living, breathing draft prep. It's the only draft tool that you need to get ready for this off season. If you bought the UDK Plus, the draft analyzer is now live, where you can go in, you can just simply click a few buttons and import your teams if they're on sleeper. NFL.com, ESPN, and Yahoo. Look at your team, analyze it, break things down, maybe, you know, strength, weaknesses. Who likes your team the most? Hopefully it's me.

because that means your team's pretty good. But it's just a, you know, it's fun. It's a good time. It just means they drafted Christian McCaffrey. That's all that means. That's so true. Who got him in Scotty Fishbowl, Jason? We did. Yeah, you're right. And who did you have to ask permission to draft? You had to come to me yelling from the other room, can I draft Christian McCaffrey? And I said, yeah, because you want to win. Yeah. That's the, that's the proposition with McCaffrey is, is if it works, it works really, really well. Yeah. It's just what percentage you attribute to if. We'll see. But yeah, I would get into the UDK right now because we update it constantly all throughout the offseason and you'll get more mileage out of it the sooner you get in there at Ultimate DraftKit.com. Today's quick question. You can go to the website. You can click the submit a question button if you want to send one in. Today's quick question comes from Erica in Florida. Howdy Ballers? How should your draft strategy pivot or change when your lineup has...

Two flex spots. So they're in a league with two running back, two wide receiver and two flex. How does that change your mindset? Well, it doesn't change much because every league I'm in has it. But I think what it changes from- Is that weird flex? I guess it kind of comes across. I play with double flex, no big deal. All my leagues. The difference to me is two things primarily. One is the late round quarterback, the late round tight end. become more valuable as you need more depth to fill in starting roster positions at running back wide receiver potentially tight in, but not really. And then the other thing is assuming that you're a half PPR or a full PPR. Yeah, that's the big deal. Wide receivers will become more valuable than running backs. When you go deeper, when you get to like, you know, wide receiver 36, running back 36, and then you go past those, which when you're in a 12 person league and you've got the double flex, you will, that's where the wide receivers are.

pretty much always going to outscore the running backs in that range. So I'm filling my roster with a little bit, a little deeper at wide receiver. Yeah. That's the biggest changes. I mean, you've got to know your scoring format, but you want those flex positions more often than not filled wide receivers. And if you're in a standard, then change. So don't be it, change your scoring format. Yeah, change your scoring format. This is dumb. Easy enough. Let's jump into some news. News and notes from around the league. Well, ever since the day we got the news that the Denver Broncos had signed J.K. Dobbins, who had a surprising and very good year last year for Los Angeles, and they didn't bring them back. Ever since then, we've talked about how that's going to impact RJ Harvey, who is a prolific, highly drafted running back on a team that desperately needs a versatile running back.

how it impacts the rest of the Broncos offense. And just to add more fuel to the speculative fire, Cody Rourke from Locked in on Broncos, locked on Broncos, said J.K. Dobbins will likely be the starter. RJ Harvey, seeing extensive work and Jaliel McLaughlin being the most trusted guy from Sean Payton. This is... Thoughts? It's... Look, I'm my... I don't have boots on the ground up there in Denver, but it is... so wild to me. I'm not saying it's wrong, but like, this dude was available. I'm talking about J.K. Dobbins. He's on the street. Anybody can sign him. The team that just had him and saw what he can or cannot do, they didn't want him back. And now you're like, oh, and then all the talk about RJ Harvey of how excited Sean Payton was. And I'm like, this is our guy. We're going after him. And then to be like, the guy who was off the street, he's the starter. It is.

It's not computing. Look, RJ Harvey was drafted higher than people expected him to be. It seemed to be the selection by Sean Payton. But the level of what you have to do as a rookie, I think for Sean Peyton and for a Denver offense and a team that is expected to compete, it'd be one thing if the Broncos were a bottom third team in the NFL to expect a rookie to get everything to me. But when you are supposed to be competing and you have a veteran presence in JK Dobbins, who is, I don't remember his exact age. 26 and a half years old. Whatever you tell me is going to be way younger than you think out there. So you have a player that played a vital role on a very good charge of team last year, comes in and is not a rookie, as a veteran, knows the ins and outs of the NFL, knows past protection, knows those aspects. It's always going to be very difficult, I think, to project.

a team handing all of the reins off, especially a guy like Sean Peyton, who I think he does like Joliel McLaugh. And you watch the games last year. He was probably the best of what they had. He's not great, but he fits a role. And I don't like having to say three names when we talk about it. I don't like having to have that discussion because, you know, you have to ask what's the upside for RJ Harvey? That's everything. Is the RJ Harvey was? the hand-selected golden child to be our new, the new face of the Sean Peyton running back room. And I don't know if that's true. This is creating a very difficult situation. When we mentioned J.K. Dobbins on this show, the signing and talked at all about it affecting R.J. Harvey. I saw a tremendous amount of feedback saying you're giving way too much attention to J.K. Dobbins. But.

This time of year, it's smoke, it's fire, it's conversation. Now, out of Denver, out of Mile High sports, having the same conversation. So, you know, what is the value of RJ Harvey in a committee? What is the value of J.K. Dobbins in a committee? It should still be really strong. Dobbins will be free in drafts. I think both of these guys will be valuable. and they will both be in a committee. I do not think that Jaliel McLaughlin or Odrick Estimate will really factor in that much. I agree with that. McLaughlin, you could say all the praises. I mean, Sean Payton praises and praises and praises guys every single year. He just talked up Audrey Estimate this all season. Yeah, absolutely. That does not. That means jack squat. I mean, you know. McLaughlin caught 31 and 24 passes, and he was over, he was 5.4 a carry and 4.4 in his two years. So to me, that's some role.

Well, my point is last year he was so irrelevant. I mean, 140 total opportunities. And that was with, that was with. He's irrelevant for fantasy. I thought you were saying in the committee impacting other players, if you get, if you take 100 plus opportunities on the ground, you're going to impact the other guys. My point is he could only get that many opportunities last year with no competition there for him. Now with Dobbins and RJ Harvey. I think those two guys will run clearly ahead, and McLaughlin will have much less opportunity this coming season than he had last year. That's the way that I view this back. We know it's going to be a committee. Sean Payton has always preferred a committee approach, but there's also been a lot of fantasy value in his committees. In that case, we've talked about the Chargers and we've talked about, you know, their committee situation. Now Harvey is at least...

possibly in that type of a situation where Judkins on a Cleveland team that doesn't project to win a lot of games seems to be everything. How do you look at Hampton versus Harvey? Hampton versus Harvey. I mean, Amaran Hampton's just a better player. There's a reason he was the first round draft pick. He has more competition, but he is the... He is just an elite prospect, in my opinion, and in the opinion of the Chargers since they spent their first round pick on it. Yeah, I mean, and Henderson in New England will have Ramandre to deal with. So there will be a lot of sifting through depth charts, and sometimes it takes weeks. Sometimes it takes a bit of time. You normally have huge contributions from rookies and fantasy, but that doesn't mean it's from week one. Right. J.K. Dobbins, if this is, we'll see if this continues to be the...

the rhetoric out of Denver. Like, let's let training camp open and, and see there. But, I mean, J.K. Dobbins, Andy, you said free. You know, it's like, yeah, does he, can he even possibly climb into a position in ADP where it is costing you anything? And you're having tremendous upside. If they come out and say he's the starter, it's going to ruin it. But, uh, Yeah, right now he's very interesting. We just need to get into training camp and stay water and change opinions and projections as they come. We had news of Terry McLaurin, which is, you know, continuing the same refrain, not happy with where things are with an extension for Terry McLaren. Makes sense that he would want to cash in on a prolific year, best year, double digit touchdown year.

Also makes sense that Washington might not want to pay him like Jamar Chase. Oh, yeah, you can't pay McLaurin like Jamar Chase. We expect them to get a deal done. He's not going to pull a Trey Hendrickson and sit out games and lose money if they don't get a deal. So I don't worry about this. Now, if he misses camp, you know, there's maybe you have a little bit of the fears of the hammy. You know, people that hold out and come in later as wide receivers. Sometimes that pops up. Is McLaren 29? I believe so. He is almost 30. That's the number closest to 30. I'm just saying, you know, 29.8. So, like, he will be, he'll be 30 pretty soon. Any minute now. But that's tough to give a long contract to a player in that situation. So maybe you see them settle for a more one-two-year deal or move money around. We were talking about it in the context of Cortland Sutton in Denver as well, who wants a contract.

Maybe those will be very similar. But I think that's the major news to talk about, and we'll keep talking about it as we get into camp and where things end up. We'll take a break, and we will jump into the AFC South. All right, it is time to jump into another divisional breakdown. Let's get divisional. All right, a reminder. This is a general overview of the teams in these divisions, how things went last year, how things are projected this year. What does Vegas have in store for the win totals of these teams? Offseason changes, players, rookies, coaches, what we believe individually about their upside and potential. And the AFC South is a weird division. Because to me, it is like there's no conversations today, I believe that will happen that will not be.

very two-sided, very balanced. I mean, there's no teams that I think don't have pretty big question marks in this division, even ones that, you know, last year the winner was 10 and 7. Houston won the division, but it was not the same ride as the year before. They were 10 and 7, and an interesting note of no one in the division finished with a positive point differential. That's right. They had a zero. Yeah, Houston won the division. They were just neutral, and then everybody else was negative. I like I pay attention to those things because like when you're talking about spotting a team that can actually make a run in the in the playoffs like there was a year I think the Titans made that and there was they were getting a whole bunch of fanfares like dude they are they have like a negative point differential what are you talking about and then they got shellacked the rest of this division is still set up for Houston to take number one but this is it's these are some weird teams yeah if you had

If you had bet on Houston last year, their win total was nine and a half, so they beat it. But it felt like their season was like a failure despite winning the division. In a lot of ways, they dealt with major injuries. CJ Stroud regressed in part due to tremendous, tremendous pressure. Five of their wins was the division. Yeah, well, and that makes sense. I mean, Tennessee had a negative 149 point differential, which is the worst in their entire history. since they moved and became the Titans in 99. So no one, like you said, no one with a positive point differential. And, you know, Houston was 18th in points per game, 16th in yards per game, 235 quarterback pressures of C.J. Stroud, which was the most in the NFL. And so, you know, I don't know where you guys fall on the excuse making for Stroud, you know, gauge.

I fall on the mostly I make excuses for C.J. Stroud. So you're going offensive line, Bobby Slowick. Yes, and then combined with Nico Collins getting hurt and digs out for the year and Tank Dell disappearing and the world's slowest player playing tight in for you. Yeah, I give him. There's two conversations around Stroud. Well, he is too. He is the slowest person. He's just living his life, man. Every time we watched a game, if Schultz caught the ball, I just, I would just turn to Andy and watch him complain about how the guy is so slow. It's cool. He can catch it. I mean, not everyone could do that, but. You know who you don't call slow? Zach Ertz, because he just falls down.

He catches the ball and falls down. You have no idea how slow Zacherts beats Schultz in a 40. Oh, man. That's where I'm going. I doubt it. But, but, you know, C.J. Stroud as a fantasy option was a complete failure last year because he was driven up very high in an average draft position by a rookie season where people were just, you know, enchanted. It was awesome. It went from a place where they were completely. underdogs, no one expected anything from them and they run it all the way to the playoffs to a team that was expected to have a really good year and they went the opposite direction because that's what happens in the NFL. Well, and they started, I believe they started five and one. So off to a hot start, which means the reason we're kind of viewing them a little bit more pessimistically is because the second half of last year, the majority of last year, they were really a 500 team.

And whenever they had any kind of real tests, they pretty much failed them. Yeah, and now C.J. Stroud has dropped, what, six rounds in ADP after what happened last year? Zero great games last year. That'll do it. Yeah, yeah, you did not have any fantasy value from him, essentially. Stefan Diggs is gone. Robert Woods is gone. They added Christian Kirk. They added Kyle the Borgogan's favorite player of all time, Justin Watson. If you don't know who that is, that's all right. You don't need to. They added Nick Chubb as depth at running back and Irv Smith Jr. at tight end, who is faster than Dalton Schultz, even when he's hurt, which is impressive. But what are your expectations for them this year? They were a good defense, and they'll continue to be a good defense. And so you wonder about game planning and what the upside is for fantasy football when you have a team that was number six in total yards given up. And, you know, they are replacing the offensive coordinator, which is encouraging.

because sloick was awful yeah he uh he called i mean it was it was widely documented how much he was calling a run play on second and long which is about as bad uh decision as you they'll never see it coming dude you're gonna get four yards and that failed a lot i i lean with you andy that i find myself accepting the excuses more for stroud um is a bad quarterback. I think he's going to continue developing and be a very, very good quarterback going forward. So that's where you have to, if that ends up being true, then we'll look back at last season and those excuses will be right. If that is true, that means that some of the best value to be had in fantasy football is on this team with the two rookies that they brought in because the opportunity there for someone to.

really stepped forward as the wide receiver too. Talking Jaden Higgins and Jalen Knoll. Yes, Jaden Higgins and Jalen Knoll, the second round and third round pick respectively of this year's draft. Those guys are not being drafted high enough, I think currently with their average draft position. And Stroud has had, I mean, Tank Dell was a fantasy superstar, his rookie year with Stroud. And that was while Nico Collins was great. Stefan Diggs looked really good. and was good for fantasy before he went down to injury. So you've got Nico as the one. And then you don't know exactly what's going on as the number two, but the opportunity is 100% there for someone to step up and be very important for fantasy. And there is not really a highly drafted wide receiver two on this team. So I love Jaden Higgins. And spoiler alert, he's a sleeper in our UDK. I completely agree with you. Christian Kirk is a Band-Aid type of player at this juncture of his career who can go out there and give you.

a number of snaps and contribute, but not with the ceiling that you'd hope for. And Higgins is a player that I think is, you know, he's a second round pick. He's explosive. He's large. I'm a big fan of Higgins. I think that's where the value is. I agree. I think he is worth taking a shot on the fact that they're, you know, the end of season rank for their offensive line, according to pro football focus. They had him at 29. Now, going into this year, Friends of the Show, you know, Sharp Football, their current projections for that Houston offensive line is dead last. Oh, they got rid of, I mean, it was. Yeah, they traded away Leonard Me Tonsol because they didn't, you know, like they're trying to fix things. They didn't want to pay him more money and all those things. But that is, I love Nico Collins. I think that he is, he is an elite guy. If things could break the right way where Nico finishes as the wide receiver won.

at the end of the season. I think he's that good and the connection with Stroud. And there's chances to take here. But the offensive line is very, very scary for me for secondary options. That leads us into a good discussion around what I think one of the biggest questions about this team is, is Joe Mixen. And does he have what it takes to volume his way back into a top 12 running back in spite of the fact the offensive line projects to be? A work in progress is the most generous way to put it. I mean, he was the fourth most in red zone touches last year, despite missing three games. That was awesome. He was one of the best running backs the first 11 weeks of the season, but you have offensive line issues. So, Jay, how do you weigh in? Yeah, I mean, they had offensive line issues last year. I do agree it's worse this year than it was last year, but through the first 11 weeks last year, Joe Mixum was the running back one. He's not being drafted in a spot where...

Okay, if he takes a step back, you're not really like holding the bag. He's in the back of the fourth right now at Running Mac 17. Yeah, I mean, when we've done our live drafts, we're usually seeing him go off in the fifth round. And at that point, I feel like he is a value. I don't worry too much about Nick Chubb, who's turning 30 this year coming off of an injury. And I do think Nick Chub helps keep Joe Mixon from rising because there are people that are very worried about. That's the, it's. Do you have any belief that Nick Chubb can return to any sort of form? I mean, he's now multiple years from the devastating injury. What was the one? He broke something in his foot? What? You're second in the second injury? Yeah, I think it was a broken foot, I believe. Foot or ankle. So it's just, does Nick Chubb have anything in the tank to challenge Joe Mixon? Because, yeah, last year he was, Joe Mixon looked great, those first. Broken foot, week 15. The first few weeks.

but he also didn't have anybody to challenge him. And, like, Jay, if you're like, I don't think Nick Chubb can challenge him. I think that makes a huge difference. I don't think he can challenge him, but at least Nick Chubb could be somebody that they make the, like goal line. Yeah, they can make a decision to hand him the ball around the goal line, which would be a problem. That would bother me. I also would feel worse about, I know that their ranking is worse than last year, but I'd feel way worse about this team's offensive line if they ran the same guys out there.

as they did last year. Running different players out when you were already pretty much dead last in the league, at least has the possibility that you have improvement. One of them is like a great tackle. Yeah, I know. Yeah, you have hope of change, but it should be, it should be pessimistic hope. They don't have a lot of talent there. Pessimistic hope. Never heard that before. That's probably because it's the complete opposite of what hope is. Dalton-Sholts is slow. They're scheduled to start the year for the way on three or four. They start on the road against the Rams, then Tampa, then at Jacksonville and then Tennessee. That's a little tough to start the year. Well, not the Jacksonville, Tennessee part. That's where they thrive in division. Well, yeah, on the road against Jacksonville, though, yeah. Maybe, maybe, I don't know. I'm assuming we'd probably pick the Rams in Tampa to win those first two. Yeah. Yeah.