Fantasy Football - Trending or Ending + Changing Offenses - Podcast for 3/19

Hey, Foot Clan, do you hear the big news about Jalen Waddle being traded for like a one and a three and a four swap? And you're going to hear so much more about it on Tuesday. On Tuesday, because we just pre-recorded this episode right before the Jalen Wattle News broke. So it won't be on today, but we will cover everything, including the clear, obvious way. This is good for Troy Franklin on Tuesday. Stay tuned. to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. The fantasy footballers podcast. Jason Moore, Mike Wright. I'm Andy Holloway. We're back again, excited to have you with us as we get you ready for the 2026 fantasy football season.

which should be far away. I mean, I think I plugged in an approximate draft date for our League of Record draft a couple days ago. It's like 176 days away now. So right around the corner. But I mean, there's just too many steps along the way. We're going to have an NFL draft here soon. We still have more free agent signings. The draft will be here very soon. Is there one specific player situation team in the draft that you're just like? I got to know what happens. For me, it's Jonah Coleman because he is, he's a player that I like. And if the NFL likes, then I'm in. But I could see the NFL being like, you're, you know, you're going to drop to the fourth round. Maybe. If the NFL doesn't like Jonah Coleman, does that mean it doesn't like you? Uh, I don't think they know me. Okay. I think I'm going to, I'm safe either way. I think I'm safe. But, um, yeah, that's just one of those players where if he's a second round pick.

Awesome. If he's a fourth round pick, awful. I like Adam Randall. Okay. The converted wide receiver into running back who is. Just your type. Yeah. I mean, he's 6.3, like 2.30 and a super athlete. And the fact that you're playing running back now, but you have trained as a wide receiver, that's always, always interesting. You and him matched on fantasy football tennis. Oh, yeah. Yep. I mean, it's very Antonio Gibson. It's very David Johnson. The second one was a good example. I mean, Antonio Gibson for all the. Dude, I literally, because I tweet. He hates this so much. I do. Because I got it again. I tweeted about Adam Randall and people are like, oh, is this going to be another Antonio Gibson? And I'm like, two top 12 fantasy seasons. His rookie year, he was the running back 12. His sophomore year is the running back 10. You're like, oh no. What a horrifically bad career. But.

to be fair to them, then he disappeared forever. Most guys don't up here. So wait a minute, wait a minute. It's more like the summary. Like if you were to find an Antonio Gibson card in a collection and pull it out, your first thought is, man, that guy, and then it's the following sentence. And I think 99.99% of people would look at Antonio Gibson and say, oh man, that guy had a lot of potential. That's the outcome. Because I think when he was having some success as a rookie and a sophomore, We still wanted more. So it wasn't like we were like, yes, this is the, I'm just not to count, not to say he didn't have success in those years. It's funny. Yeah. Remember he fumbled like five times? Yeah, he had. Wally had the good year. He had a huge fumbling problem. Wide receivers don't train on holding on to the ball quite as much. A third round. I can always make Mike upset with that though. Well, because it's a third round running back. Your expectation should be zero.

seasons as a top 12 running back. That should be what you would expect. So if Adam Randall's a third round running back, which is what David Johnson was, which is what Gibson was. Does that mean that this is going to work out again? And you just have to hope he's never the running back 10 because that was like the demise of both of those guys. I mean, honestly, because if you're talking rookie picks, that's the season, if Adam Randall goes in the third round, he'll be. You know, he'll be in the second round of rookie picks. And if your second round running back gives you two RB1 seasons, like that's a smash pick. I think with this year's running back. If for some reason he is in the third round, meaning he's a day two pick. Yeah. I don't think he will be. I don't either, but if he does, I'll bet he sneaks into the back of the first for a rookie draft. Yeah, maybe because of the class is so bad, maybe. It'll be interesting. But there's going to be so many wide receivers. Like first and second round wide receivers should.

Philip, the majority of your first round of rookie drafts. We'll know soon. Well, we got a lot to get into today. I'm going to jump into our quick question momentarily. I want to remind you about the ultimate draft kit. It's where you find our tier-based rankings, our premium stat projections, 100-plus player profile videos, custom cheat sheet creator, sleepers breakouts, bust values, custom scoring support, our Value Scout tool, and a ton of other things, including some new projects we're working on. This is the time to pick it up. because you can get access to the Dynasty Pass with all the content available right now, and you get it at the lowest possible price. It launches in full on June 1st. And so that is the most trusted way to win at your draft. We're with you all off season as we get you ready for the fantasy football year. Let's jump right in. Trending or ending. Trending or ending, Jordan Love will finish as the quarterback 15 or worse.

It is now a two-year trend for Jordan Love. He had the spectacular debut as the starter for Green Bay in 2023. Quarterback five on the year, the last two years, quarterback 15, quarterback 17. He missed two games in each of the last two years. He has lost Romeo Dobbs in the offseason, trending or ending? Not just missing two games, this wasn't like if Jordan Love played all 17, it would be great. I mean, he was about three points per game fewer. than the breakout campaign. Yeah, both of the last two years. So it's like you're at the point now of was that the outlier? That's the question. I mean, that really is. Was that year where he was the quarterback five and through 32 touchdowns? Was that his outlier year? Or the last two years with Josh Jacobs being in town scoring so many rushing touchdowns? I mean, when we watch Jordan Love, he looks.

like a really good quarterback. I think he's great. Personally, he's a great quarterback. Personally, I felt like that year when he threw 32 touchdowns was not the norm, like his norm, which is good. I'm not, like I think this is trending. He will be outside the top 15 at quarterback, in my opinion. That doesn't mean he's bad. He's not a below average quarterback. It's just he's not really an elite quarter. I look back the last couple years of just what is like the average you know, NFL team, like I looked at the team level so that injuries aren't skewing it. How many passing touchdowns is the average team? Like take out the leaders and take out the crappy teams. What do they throw? And it's usually about mid-20s, right? 24, 25 touchdowns. And you look back and we're like, what a piece of garbage quarterback. And Aikman never hit that number, right? Yeah. Some of the other greats. Imagine 25 passing touchdowns. What a bum. Yeah. And so you look and it's like, okay, well,

He threw 23 last year, 25 the year before. That's not bad. That's good, but that's not ever going to be. If you're throwing 23, 25 touchdowns, you're not a top five quarterback unless you are rushing for 10 touchdowns. I think one of the things that makes it complicated about, and I think trending, by the way. I'm on the trending side as well. I think. Which this is, I don't like the trending or ending. I know. I don't either. The trending is the negative here? That's right. Like ending would be like, oh, it's good. It feels that way. But we're saying that the bad trend is continuing. Correct. I think the challenge here is that you've lost Romeo Dobbs. Whatever you think about Romeo Dobbs. He's a solid, maybe above average wide receiver that is now at the door. Tucker Kraft is coming back from a major injury. I'm looking at pass attempts before Josh Jacobs arrived. 34 a game.

for Jordan Love. In the big season? In the big season. 28 a game, because he threw the ball 579 times in 2023. You didn't have a weapon in the running game that was really a goal line weapon. And so you look at, okay, how do you throw seven fewer touchdowns on average? Well, Josh Jacobs is the answer to that question. But yeah, Tucker Kraft coming back from injury, you know, Matthew Golden's going to have his chance to make a mark, and I'll probably have some big plays. I think more of the same for Green Bay. They can be a very successful team if you throw us 25 touchdowns. Yeah, their defense is really good, and that sucks. I think it's always hard when there's a guy that you think if the situation allowed it could be better. Like, I think that's the way it feels with Jordan Love is like if you decided to let him throw the ball 579 times, he would be a perennial top 5, 6, 7 quarterback. That's just not the dynamic there in Green Bay right now.

Yeah, you don't have, if they had added A.J. Brown, maybe we can have a conversation. Jordan Love strikes me as a guy that before the career is over, you'll have one or two more seasons where he's, like, he goes Baker Mayfield of two years ago, where it's just everything's on, you know, the luck is there. The touchdown variance luck is there. He's just, he's hitting on the big throws. But I think that he, yeah, he's more of this like a high end QB2. Yeah, so are you in the same camp where you think he'll be outside that group? Yeah, I think so. Not a sneaky late round quarterback to draft? No, I'd rather take a shot on like Malik Willis. It's so wild because you look at, I mean, I know he's the MVP now, 46 touchdowns. It's just like Matthew Stafford threw 20 last year. He threw 24 the year before. Right. Like played 15, 16 games, 20 and 24. Sometimes you have a special season. Maybe that was the first season for Jordan Love.

But streamer. Yeah, he's a streaming quarterback candidate. One that I would play in a good matchup or if, you know, if Josh Jacobs was hurt. Yeah, I was going to say if Josh Jacobs goes down, Jordan Love can do it. I just don't need him to go out there and throw the ball 35 times. Underdog ADP is QB17. That feels right. So there you go. We're going to jump right into the main event. Coaching Carousel. Well, on Tuesday we went through all the head coaching changes and the corresponding offensive coordinator changes on a number of teams. There were 10 teams that changed head coaches. Today we're going to take a further dive into teams that have changed just the offensive coordinator position. And there is a coaching changes section in the ultimate draft kit that we dive into. We talked about Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Pittsburgh, Tennessee on Tuesday. If you want to...

Here are fantasy implications of those moves. A couple quick facts about offensive coordinators. Kyle's always setting some of this stuff aside for us and the turnover in the NFL. Only five of the current 32 offensive coordinators have been in that role with their team for two plus years. I mean, if you're really good as an OC, like really good, you get a head coaching opportunity. Or you're bad and you get fired. Right. Yeah, so. Yeah, you don't stick around and just be kind of okay. Yeah, like you don't have really long tenured OCs very often. So it looks like the five that have been around, West Phillips with Kevin O'Connell, but O'Connell's like, he's not a, O'Connell's really the engine there, right? Yeah, yeah. This is Mike's point that he brings up all the time, which is if you have a defensive head coach and your offense is great, you're losing your offensive coordinator. If you want to keep your offensive coordinator,

then have them go to an offensive head coach not named Sean McVeigh. Well, and I was going to say we'll talk about the McVeigh situation because he's always got turnover at OC, but he's calling plays and so involved. He's kind of, he's now taking like a multi-pronged approach to offensive assistance. Yeah, the Rams are, it's just like, everyone wants the springboard. McVeigh just wants to. McVey wants every coach in the league to just be under his coaching tree. Him versus Shanahan. They're just trying to spread their seed. That's all they're doing. They want lots of coach babies out there. Yeah. Yeah, that's what they're doing. That's the old phrase. That is how we would put it. That's how they're doing it. Jason would. Johnny Appleseed. Throwing them everywhere. Okay. Yeah. Yep.

So there are 11 new offensive coordinators we're going to highlight today. Eight of the 11 will be play callers for their team. And we'll just jump in. We'll do an alphabetical order here. Starting with the Bears, they know, I mean, we know Ben Johnson calls the plays there. Declan Doyle, 30 years old, right? Moving on. Press Taylor, now the offensive coordinator for the Bears. Younger brother of Cincinnati head coach, Zach Taylor. Okay, I guess I can kind of see that. Because of the names? Yeah, yeah, that's it. The names. They're very similar. No, I was looking at a picture of them, but it looks like they could be brothers. It looks like they could be brothers. It looks like they could be brothers. But this is one where you don't really feel instability. Nope. In fact, the Chicago offensive situation is just going to be really, really interesting because like,

Jason, I don't think you were a part of this conversation. It might have been the footcast. Someone brought up like, why are you so in on Luther Burden? Why isn't Adunzei a sleeper? We kind of talked through it. I think Adunzei is a huge sleeper. Like, he's definitely a player that I'm paying attention to. The first 13 weeks of the season, he had a 22% target share on that team last year. Colson Loveland had been banged up, not a part of the offense as much. Same with Luther Burden. Weeks 14 through 18, it completely changed. Adunze was hurt. He missed time. Colson Loveland.

grabbed a stranglehold, Luther Bird and started to establish, and then in the playoffs, it was all lovelin, right? 28% target share for him, Adunzay down to 13%. But the departure of DJ Moore in general, like I think the Bears are just one of the highlight teams for the entire off season. Oh, yeah. That you can be excited about what they started to form if Caleb Williams can start to throw the ball more accurately. You got what? You have five skill position players that you will want to draft? I think Loveland is the one that I'm going after. But then it's like, even though I prefer burden over Romo Dunzee. There's going to be drafts where Roma Dunzee lines up where this is a value. I want to take a shot at the Chicago offense. Then DeAndre Swift, Kyle Monongue guy, do do to do. Like all of these players are going to be drafted. And this is what happens when you give us just something glorious like Ben Johnson getting an offense. Yeah, hopefully. But I will say this.

Caleb Williams doesn't break the record for passing yardage for the Chicago Bears. You're going to be disappointed. Oh, of course. It's just a... Well, you won't be happy with all of them. That's, well, that's what I mean. Either one person breaks up, but what I worry is that if he throws... You want tickets into the, into that show, though. Yeah, I'm just saying the show might not be as big as we think. If he throws for 3,900 passing yards, okay, like... everyone's going to have a stretch of games that are good. So that's my only worry with the Bears. You've got to have them throw for 4,300. Well, I mean, what was it? Jordan Love, the last two years was the 3,300. That was the crazy number there. You talk about the offensive pieces in Green Bay as well. But I get what you're saying. I think that this is one of the situations. They lost a star center. I'm not going to, we can't forget about that. Their offensive line was so good last year. Third, according to PFF.

They've got to fix the center position. That's a bummer. But Ben Johnson is the offensive mastermind here. It's not going to be Press Taylor. You know, Declan Doyle benefited from being under Ben Johnson and getting a job, another job. But Press Taylor is just stepping into kind of literally assist, not call plays, right? Yeah. All right, let me take a quick break for us, and then we'll come back and talk about the other 10. The Denver Broncos. Okay. I... This one's weird. I love talking about the Denver Broncos because I... Because you hate Sean Payton to be simultaneously a good coach and just plain annoying. Just kind of... I love how you rant on him. Just like a dude that's got to be talked about a lot, that's got to be angry all the time. I mean, you even saw it when he got rid of his offensive coordinator. It was like... I can't remember the exact quote, Kyle. Maybe you can find it.

It was something to the extent of like, he's like, yeah, Sean was just in one of his moods. That's what I feel all the time. I mean, that was the quote. He was like, he's in one of his moods. He was going to, you know, he was going to be mad no matter what. It's funny because I can completely see your perspective. And I don't think you're wrong. And yet I don't despise Sean Peyton. I like him. I like his personality if he was my head coach of the, you know, my team, if I had a team. Right. Yes. You know, I would, I would like that he is that head coach and I would enjoy, I do enjoy his press conferences. I like watching him talk. I like how he explains stuff. Also, it is clear as day that Sean Payton wants you to think very highly of Sean Payton. I mean to a very unhealthy degree. That's very clear and obvious. Yeah. He has the Bounty Gate stuff trailing him to. He likes his.

own brand of he's a fart sniff he smells his own farting yeah and he's like hey which is a little bit it's a funny transition into the conversation about the hire because davis webb is now the offensive coordinator joe lombardi the quote was uh Sean Peyton was in one of those moods where he felt like some changes needed to be made so I've been around him long enough to kind of read the tea leaves Davis Webb's taking over but then the funny part is it's like Sean Peyton didn't put his foot down and say well I'm calling plays anyway He basically said, you know, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't feel like it would help our team. I'll still be involved. But he said he's going to hand over a play calling to Davis Webb. And to be honest with you, the offense is what was inconsistent and struggled last year. Now, I can't blame Sean Payton for Cortland Sutton's drops. I can't blame him for the random errant passes by Bo Nix or the fact that Bo Nix was like so hot and cold. I will always remember the Raider game where they just look so incompetent.

whatever, 1310 or 107 on Thursday night football. And we were like, what is this? But I find myself slightly more encouraged by a change happening. I do too. Davis Webb got head coaching opportunities, like interviews around the league. And then they, and then Peyton retained him. He's, you know, people believe that Davis Webb is an extremely talented offensive mind. So to give away play calling duties when you are Sean Payton. It bodes well for me to believe in Davis Webb. And if you didn't listen to our True Series episodes, Bo Nix, just for example, the last two years is two years starting. 38% bus games, 35% bust games. 13% great games. I think our threshold is what, 25 or above for quarterbacks? Some are around there. And only 12% this year. So consistency has been a problem. He's been outside the top 10 in consistency, despite finishing in the top 10 in terms of total fantasy points. And maybe you could see, you know,

It seems clear from their comments and what they're doing. They would like to strengthen the running back room. They brought back Jillio McLaughlin, just to be a thorn in the side of everybody else. We'll see what the draft holds. But I find myself slightly more encouraged that a change is happening. I can agree. Mike, talk to me about your favorite offensive coordinator of all time. The Detroit Lions, they have brought in, they finished 9 and 8. They did not make the playoffs. They were fourth in points per game. Offense was pretty good. Numbers wise. Defense struggled. Injuries, 22nd in points per game. John Morton is out. He had lost play calling duties to Dan Campbell partway through the year. And the blobfish has arrived. Drew Petzing, the new offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions. It feels so much worse. It does. To call him the blobfish. When he's not a cardinal? When he's not hurting us and our fandom. Now it just feels like kind of cruel. Kind of a cruel insult. Right. But once you're named is like.

John, your birth certificate. Right. Just. Mr. Bob, maybe Mr. Bobfish. Oh, that's a nicer. To show respect. That's Mr. Blobfish to you. How did they watch Arizona? And they're like, mm-hmm. I actually understand this. I think it's going to be totally fine. I do. I think it's going to work out really well. And this is as someone who's- But as in, you think that Drew coming in makes things better. because you over more i can say you know what not than ben johnson is like i think that the lions with without an oce it's just dan campbell i think they will have great success on offense i do too um i think if they didn't have drew petzing they wouldn't be bad drew petting coming in he's got some good concepts in the running game his run scheme it worked in arizona james connor was great they've got

Gibbs and they've got a better offensive line there than what the Cardinals had. When they had a quarterback that could stand in the pocket and Jacoby Brissette was allowed to throw the ball. Yeah, they were a good offense. They were a good offense. Kyler did not fit the petting scheme at all and petting couldn't seemingly adapt to Kyler. But, you know, that's the tiny, cowardly mobile quarterback, which is the exact opposite of Jared Goff. immobile, pretty brave. He'll stand in there and take a hit. It's a tough division. It's going to be a dog fight in that division, but I kind of lean on Jason's side. I think for what Detroit wants to do on offense, he's going to fit in quite well. Do you see any shakeups happening? By the way, their schedule is going to be delicious this year because they face a fourth place schedule despite going nine and eight because of that division. So they get to play against the Giants, the Titans, and the Cardinals.

Oh, the return of the blobfish. That'll be fun. Like, do you see anything being shaken up of Ammon Ra, Williams, or Jameson Williams, and Gibbs? Or just kind of status quo? I do think Dan Campbell's still going to have a pretty heavy influence on the type of offense they run. But Jason, I never got your response. Neither of us did to the incredibly big signing of Isaiah Pacheco. Look, they're going to use him. enough behind a good office of line to have fantasy relevance. They will deploy Gibbs so much more than they did last year. I think it is, it makes Pacheco relevant because he's on the Lions. I think Pacheco is the test for Drew. That like, if Drew keeps putting Pacheco out, that's when Dan will, he'll take all the play calling from him. Should Gibbs be, with the signing, I know we were waiting on a backup slash committee back.

Is Gibbs number one for you right now? No, it could have flipped before Alger left, you know, because it was like, oh, it was Bijon. And then once David Montgomery got out of town, it's like, okay, maybe Gibbs should be the number one. But then Alger got out of town. It's like, all right, I'm back. Okay. So is the number two? Yeah, I think right now it would probably go Bijon Gibbs, one, two. The Kansas City Chiefs have brought an old friend back to stand next to the guy who actually calls the place. Andy Reed. He's a friendly guy. When you're friends with Andy Reed, you're in. You are in. Nothing, if not loyal. Right. Eric B. Enemy is the new offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs. He is back. He played a huge role in their championships of years gone by, but Matt Nagy's departing. I don't think we gave Matt Nagy a lot of the credit, right? It's in Andy Reed offense. Oh, I...

give him none. I mean, from the time that Eric Beanimy left, it did not go well. There was the Washington commander's stint. There was a UCLA stint. Then he got back into the NFL with the Bears as a running backs coach. But like there was head coaching talk about BNAMI back in 2020. Oh, yeah, yeah. There was. But I mean, like, and then he almost flamed out of the league. He was, Bienomi was the O.C from 2018 to 2022. I will read you. The fantasy finishes. What was the first year? 2018. Okay. Also known as Patrick Mahomes' first year. QB1 8441. And the QB8 that year was at 20 and a half points per game. And then the next three years, it has been 17.5, 17.6. He did. Mahomes was at 20.3, if you remember, because the dude was running so much. So he was, you know, getting that cheat code for fantasy football.

But it's like all the good Mahomes years were not naggy. Yeah, that's true. That is a fact. Also a fact three of those four years, the wide receiver one, the wide receiver two, and the wide receiver six were Tyreek Hill. Yeah. So it's like it's one of those. In Kelsey's Peak. Yeah. And a running game for some of it. Kansas City had four offensive plays of 20 plus yards that resulted in a touchdown last year. That was the fewest in the NFL. That's not what you think of. That's not. acceptable. How do we not get mad at Reed? Is Reid just immune from like people being, like we just blame the personnel? I don't think I blame just the personnel. I think it's the trend of how you deploy a defense against this team that was beating you over the top over and over and over. They go to, you know, the shell defense, the two high safeties. Then they take what the defense gives them. And it's worked for most of the last years. Now, this past year,

injuries got in the way. They didn't get in the playoffs. Then they did the right thing and shut things down towards the end of the year. They've got the best draft capital coming into this season that they've had pretty much in the Mahomes era. So I think it's going to get a little bit fixed, but the offensive skill positions are still a big question mark. Kelsey's older. They don't have a successful downfield threat. Even after re-signing Thornton, huh? Yeah, I mean... That's it. Thornton is MVS. They don't have a Tyree. I'm saying I'm sarcasm. Mahomes is the injury. We have to overcome all of that. But I'm more hopeful now that we're good for the running game. We're done with the budget magician. I think it's good for the running game. I think that's the one area where BN and me has had consistent presence, both on Kansas City and elsewhere. So to me, if they can establish it, which is the first agenda that they had. Oh, it will be established. Then that seems kind of interesting to me.