Fantasy Football - QB & RB Rookie Preview + Draft Capital Concerns - Podcast for 4/1

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. It's Saturday, April 1st. We got them. We got them. It's not Saturday. Yeah. That was a goof. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Are you kidding me? Because it's April 1st. Yeah. Oh, man. They were confused. That was our big joke. Wow. You thought it was. Oh, man. A bunch of people just left work early. What am I doing here? Oh, boy. Gotcha. Gotcha, everybody. It's April. And that means it's draft month. Yeah. Which means this week we are doing our rookie.

preview for the quarterback and running back position today. And then you got Brooks. Wait. Brooks probably thought he wrote Saturday in the dog. Oh, got you, Brooks. Yeah, that joke was for one person. Gotcha, Brooks. Then we're doing wide receiver tight end on Thursday. So rookie previews, our chance to kind of give you an overview of the key players on offense at the key positions before the draft. And, you know, if you've been listening to the Dynasty podcast and. Borgon Betts and these two gentlemen here, you've gotten the opportunity to have some deep dives on those positions. So this is more of an overview for players maybe not playing Dynasty or just coming around to who's relevant for the NFL draft. We'll have a chance to weigh in. And I don't know.

your two opinions on quite a few of these players. I know on some. Sounds like someone doesn't listen to the Dynasty show. That is the implication there. Because they're available. Yeah. Well, you know. You shared them all. If you want a deeper dive, then that, because this episode, you know, we're going to, we're going to cover. Just the true crime podcast. I just got to keep listening to true crime. So you're saying we should, Mike, we should start a true crime podcast. Then I would listen. All right. Yeah. Um. But yeah, this will be our overview opportunity to share our opinions on these guys, quarterback running back today. And the draft will be here before you know it. So it's going to be fun. It's going to be exciting. And it's in Green Bay this year, which is pretty fun. What else do we have going on? If we have extra time, we'll jump into the mailbag. We got the UDK available for preorder at ultimate draft kit.com and gets you instant access to the Dynasty Pass. Lots of great content in there.

Three releases of the Dynasty Pass pre-combine. That one's done. Post-combine. Done. Yep. Third release will be post-draft. That's the, I guess the second biggest one. The first release is really, really fun because it's like this huge, uh, unrevealing of information. Like our, you know, our initial rookie ranks are there. Our dynasty startup rankings are in there. And now the draft is going to change a bunch of stuff. But it's like all three are very, very fun. Yeah, the draft changes quite a bit. I mean, there are always players that are not necessarily on everybody's big boards that have higher draft capital. You have to change your opinion pretty quickly on certain players. And opportunities, right? Part of the Dynasty Pass is the team opportunity pages. You know, there are teams looking to fill certain spots. That's how we perceive their depth charts, but there are teams that surprise you and draft players and complicate a backfield or a wide receiver room.

And I might not listen to the Dynasty Pod, but I am on it. That's true this week. You will be... Tomorrow. Yeah, Mike and I are going to be in Chicago for the podcast Evolutions. We're the closing keynote, which should be fun. And so, Andy, you are going to share some draft tips. We're also with you out of town hosting our first in-studio rave. Oh, really? Just me and the employees. Wait a minute. Oh, man. Doing a big. The deusers. I want a rave. What do you think? I'm seeing nodding over there. Big fans of the... Yeah. Rave music. Look at that. Look at those rave moves. Wow. I don't think I want to be at that rave anymore. After seeing Josh, his head bribble. It's the rave hosted by Earth, Wind, and Fire. All right. Well, we'll jump in. Quick question of the day. It's, uh,

It's something that gets asked almost every year for Dynasty League, Dynasty Rookie Drafts, and with us talking rookies, we might as well cover it. When starting a Dynasty League, do you have a rookie draft separate from the startup draft or are they combined into one, Mike? So there's two answers for this. If you are brand new to Dynasty, then I would suggest have your startup draft where you know all the vets and you feel like you could properly value those players because you're going to have information. You know, it is a jump. Things are different in Dynasty. You have to factor in more than just this season, of course, and then do your rookie draft. But more because when you're first getting into it, you have no true way to value, like, how do I value rookies? Other than I'm just going to go look at someone's rankings who does Dynasty, and they can tell me how they feel. I'm like, no, let yourself do the vets, then do the rookies. If this is your...

You know, like if you're in multiple Dynasty leagues, okay, put the rookies in there and then just have one gigantic draft. And then the biggest thing is if you've never done Dynasty and you're fired up right now, I love it and I totally get it. I would wait until the NFL draft happens. I know it seems like forever if you're wanting to draft right now. But if you do your dynasty startup draft, these guys are on your team maybe forever. Like that is the, like that is a potential. I had, I just, in our dynasty league that's been going for a decade or so, I just traded a player who, like Mike Evans, Andy, a couple years ago, I think he's on your team now, but he was on my team for eight years. Yeah. And so those are things that can happen. But the NFL real draft can destroy your dynasty startup draft, you know, just after you have that draft going. So I advise against that.

if you've never played one of the nice things if you do split it because a lot of people when they do the startups they'll put the rookies into it you just you know you draft them wherever you want you're in the fourth round you're deciding between a rookie or a vet and that's fine that works one of the things that i like though about splitting them if you are doing a new dynasty league is it kind of levels the playing field you're doing a snake draft right and so there's random orders And so the people who get the better picks, you know, end up with Jamar Chase at the top of the draft, kind of have an advantage disproportionately because it's a dynasty league. So what you can do is your rookie draft is going to be the exact opposite draft order of the startup draft. Yeah. So if you ended up getting the first pick in the dynasty startup veteran draft, then you've got the last pick in the first round of the rookie draft. And it kind of levels the playing field. So whoever gets the Jamar Chase.

You know, the person who got the 12th pick gets gentie. Right. So. Yeah. And then the only way that you can, you can kind of even that out is having them separate in that case. So all right. We'll move into some news. News and notes from around the league. What are you got? Really? What? NFL networks. Oh. My Garofalo reports Aaron Rogers and DK MacKF had a throwing session over the weekend. It's it's the Rogers. Saga is not over. Can I take a drug that wipes my brain of any Rogers information at this point? You can. And is it a drug he supplies? It's going to take out a lot more than just Rogers. I know. I know it matters if he's the starting quarterback for Pittsburgh. I just, I just am tired of the drag it out. Just.

Just make a decision. This is a guy who's at Blockbuster until well after they closed. Can't pick a movie. The employees want to go home. Yeah, he's the guy that shows up one minute before kitchens shut down. Oh, yeah. Like, hey, fire it up. I'll take the steak. Aaron Rogers is really truly following the footsteps of Brett Farm because this was. This was a far of specialty forever where every offseason he's retiring. And then he comes out and then the whole offseason is about him. He's going to end up being a stealer. The fact that he's throwing with D.K. Metcalfe, new stealer. This is just going to happen. Where's George? Where's George Pickens? Dynasty managers won't know. Where's George? Doghouse. It'll be interesting. I mean, the nice thing is the Steelers have a very good defense. They have.

young elite weapons. They just traded for a veteran wide receiver. And then you add Aaron Rogers. What could go wrong? It's almost like this exact thing happened last year where the Jets great defense with Garrett Wilson and Brees Hall and then, oh, they trade for Devante Adams and they sucked. So I'm sure this time it'll totally work out. Look, criticism and praise are proportional to performance in sports. Aaron Rogers had decades of praise. now we're at the point where he is handpicking everything on the menu and failing with that. That's what happened in New York. And then you missed an entire year. So you had all the expectations. You had all the perfect hand selected. I want my guys. You failed with those players. So it's hard. I'm going to go in expecting you to fail now. Because you're a year older, new franchise, new offensive coordinator.

New players. It's tough because I believe in Tomlin as a very, very good coach to get the most out of his players. I mean, I understand the frustration as Steelers fans because he's really hurting your franchise, keeping you good enough to always be near the playoffs or in the playoffs, but you just don't have the roster to win in the playoffs. And so you're in perpetual purgatory. But that'll be interesting. The Aaron Rogers versus Tomlin, not a Steeler yet. We expect him to be it. at some point. Since Big Ben retired, just so you can remember, we had Mitchell Trubisky for five games. We had Kenny Pickett. We had more Kenny Pickett. We had Mason Rudolph for three games. We had Trubisky with two more games. In 2023, we had Fields and we had Russell Wilson. And none of those were prolific statistical performances that helped a lot of fantasy players. Roger certainly, you're hoping that there's some magical resurgence.

Yeah, this does feel like what the Colts went through post Andrew Luck where, and you know, to be fair, they are still going through it where they just don't know who their quarterback is. Yeah. AI is pretty incredible. Within about 10 seconds of me making the comment about Aaron Rogers, I'm staring at a picture of Rogers in a blockbuster that Matt sent over. Okay. Blockbusters aren't even around anymore. Did you even know that? I think you did. The last one closed, I think. I bet they thought they did, though, that they were still around because April 1st. Got them. Oh, got them. They were all, they were driving down the street. This is interesting news. I actually, I'm a little worried about this. If you were a dynasty manager, I would be worried. I am a dynasty manager of James Cook. Bill's general manager, Brandon Bean, told reporters he does not see.

them getting anything done anytime soon with James Cook on an extension. This is how I would posture myself if I had too high of a demand from a running back. Well, they tried to work out an extension. He came out and said that they were trying to get an extension with him and that they were. they couldn't get it done so they moved on and they went and they extended other players that's a really bad sign for a player entering the final year of his rookie contract he's 25 and a half he had a great season scored a bunch of touchdown should be cashing in but he also came out if you remember in the media himself instead of behind closed doors and said how what did he want it was like it was a 12 million he wanted some big number he wants to get paid James cook is in a really tough situation great young player

obviously to it ties the bill's rushing touchdown record but he doesn't get to play full like they don't use him as a three down back he probably declares he wanted 15 million a year back in February when he pulled them off of his socials yeah you're not getting 15 Mr. Cook but like they he probably wants to be used like a three down running back I think he could but the team has never used him that way they're not going to use him that way so they're not going to pay him like he is that. So he's, while he wants that money, and there's, like, there's teams out there that will give James Cook money to come down and be their superstar running back, but the bills don't want to use them that way because why? What they're doing is, is working. Yeah, I know they haven't won a Super Bowl, but their offense and their rushing attack is always fantastic. And generally, you'd imagine that James Cook's best situation would be to stay here and sign a deal and be part of the system. To win, sure.

Yeah. So Kyle just pulled this up last year. 43% of his fantasy points came from touchdowns. That is scary. I mean, to be fair, scored a lot of fantasy points. But, yeah, that's something to watch. Adam Shepter came out and said that any trade talks for Brandon Ayuk would be off if he remained on the roster pass today. There was also a comment this morning, or actually yesterday morning, from their general manager, John Lynch, saying he's going to be on the team this year. So. You know, we're recording this a day early. Could be looking real stupid if there's a trade that happens between right now and tomorrow, but. Yeah, I mean, the last I heard on his recovery was that it's coming along well and they expect to have him mid-season. So. Yeah, his, which his ADP right now is. That's borderline undrafted. Oh, I won't. Yeah, his ADP is ridiculous because people are still drafting Brandon Ayuk like he's going to start the season. You know who's ADP is.

Equally ridiculous, Joanne Jennings. Joanne Jennings is going to be a steal in the drafts, at least for the first half of the season. If it becomes formal that Ayyuk is out for X amount of time, he is one of those players that you only take with a last, you know, a last round or a late round and you have to throw him on your IR if you have it. And he's not draftable. No, if you don't have an IR. Remember, it wasn't a simple ACL tear for Brandon Ayuk. This was a need disaster. that multi-ligaments and I think to say that he's going to be back halfway through the season is like that's optimistic. And then that doesn't even include a ramp-up period that we always see players with the injuries go through. Well, don't forget when he was playing last year, he averaged seven fantasy points. Yeah, it was due to before the injuries. I was like, what are you hoping you get that again? We also had some head coach quotes from the annual owners meeting, including Colt.

Colts head coach Shane Stuyken saying Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson will split starting reps beginning in OTAs and the most consistent quarterback will be the regular season starter. Uh-oh. I... What if they're consistently bad? If consistency is the only thing that matters, you'd be like, he does this every day, he throws it to the other team every day. This is... I made the comment this morning. It was interesting because I was kind of joking. I was like, how does a team pick the most consistent, inconsistent player to start? be inconsistent and then get replaced by the other inconsistent starter because we imagine there'll be a change at some point because they're not good quarterbacks. The reality is most people replied to that comment with like Daniel Jones is the only choice you have. Like that's the sentiment that I'm seeing is you need to start Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones is a player that had success without the peripherals at times, right? You didn't have an offensive line, didn't have a lot of weapons and still had some success sometimes.

where they looked at it, the inverse where, like, Richardson was set up for success, couldn't succeed. I liked the Daniel Jones signing when it first happened because I thought he was a good backup, and every team needs a backup, especially one with an Anthony Richardson who's been injured his entire short career already. And now you've got the mobile Daniel Jones. You can run the same system. Since they have made that, what they have done is just destroy the future of their franchise. This is terrible to say that these are competing for starters. I agree. The fact that there is no human being on planet Earth that needs first team reps more than Anthony Richardson. And you're coming out and saying, you know what? Right off the bat, we're going to take half of them away. What are you doing? Like, you know, you know you're not a great team with Daniel Jones. You know that. You know that Daniel Jones is not taking you to the promised land. So you're just, you know, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face because you're saying that the best case scenario.

now is less likely, which is you have a franchise quarterback, a star going forward. Yeah, it's hard to argue with that because I do think, I think Daniel Jones will probably end up more consistent. Yeah. Which means he'll be the starter and then they will switch. Congrats. And Richardson will have less reps leading into the switch. So he will probably have less chance of success. Yeah. We also got a report from the general manager of the Lions. Holm saying that James and Williams, whether they're going to pick up his fifth year option, he said it's heading that way. We're most likely going to be doing that. He's a tremendous player for us. Still scratching the surface. Okay. Breece Hall, news. I'm out. Jets head coach Aaron Glenn on Breece Hall and the New York Jets running backs. Are you leaving this studio? He just doesn't want to hear this conversation. I can't hear you. He unplugged his headphones so he cannot hear this. You let me know when you're done talking. I think mentally he's in a good place, but I would say that we have three running backs on the team.

that we're going to utilize as much as possible. Jason, you can plug back in for your commentary? Yeah. Look, there are people, they've seen your very emotional reactions to Brise Hall and have said, what did I miss? What did I miss about Brise Hall? Why don't we like Brise Hall? Why can't, you know, this is a player that has had flashes. Yeah, oh, I mean, he's had more than flashes a couple years ago. He's the running back four. He's obviously very, very talented in the open field. He had a down year last year was not. very efficient or effective. And sometimes it looked like he was not the best back on his own team. Now the team is coming out saying that they want to get the other guys more involved. Honestly, if I was the head coach, I would do that. I would get Braylin Allen the ball a little bit more and split them and try to have these guys specialize where they are each best. But it's not good for the fantasy success of Brees Hall going forward. The only thing that is good for the fantasy success of Brees Hall going forward is I was looking up the 2026.

free agents when we were talking about James Cook because, let's say he doesn't get an extension, he's going to be one of the free agents. There's really not a lot of competition next year. You got like Derek Henry, who knows if he's going to play, if he's going to resign or whatever. But, you know, that won't be a headliner now. That won't be a headliner. And then you have the one year contracts this year from like Najee and Jalen Warren. Not exciting. So it's really James Cook and Brees Hall. Right. And so if Brees Hall does end up. going in a platoon this year and he's okay, not great for fantasy. He is the bell of the ball for the 2026 free agents and could end up getting a massive contract for him another team that wants to make him a three down back. And I just think he's like too alluring of a name regardless of his performance for him to be a value in drafts at all. Like I don't think it's possible for Brise Hall no matter any news like this, no matter how much we talk about it, I don't think it's possible that I will draft him because I don't because it's too alluring. It's too exciting.

Every time I see his name in ADP and the guys he's going ahead of, I have a really hard time. You know, Chase Brown and Kyron Williams. And it's like, those guys were awesome. Why are you taking Breece Hall because he was good a couple years ago? Got to hate the fact that I assume they're talking about Isaiah Davis. Because if they came out like, hey, Breece, Braylon Allen, we're going to have our own Thunder Lightning. That's not bad. That's fine. When you're saying we got three and you're, I mean, like basically Buffalo Bills situation where they had three guys in the rotation. Justin Fields is your quarterback now. Three darts is too bad. All right. We'll take a break. We'll come back with our 2025 rookie preview for the quarterback and running back position. All right. Let's get into it. Hi, rookie. Welcome to the NFL.

Well, like we said at the top, this is an overview, what we liked in our scouting process of looking at these players, some fantasy thoughts, some quick thoughts on them. The Dynasty podcast goes more in-depth. The Fantasy Footballer's Dynasty Pod, if you want to go check that out. Very in-depth analysis of all those prospects and some insights from Borg and Betts as well. The Dynasty Pass, if you are a hardcore dynasty player, if you're just getting into it, either way. Check that out at Ultimate DraftKit.com. We have production profiles. We have the rookie mock drafts, risers and fallers. We keep track of everything going on with the rookies and bring that to you so you can make more informed decisions for your draft. But let's begin with the quarterback position. We've got some teams that need quarterbacks. Most of them always need quarterbacks. But Tennessee with the first pick needs a quarterback. Cleveland. Second pick needs a quarterback.

The Giants and Jets both drafted in the top 10. Both need a future quarterback. New Orleans probably planning for the post car era. I've heard about them being very interested in interviewing some of these guys, Pittsburgh at 21 because they always draft around 21 looking for a quarterback. But let's begin with our consensus number one prospect at the quarterback position, Cam Ward out of Miami. Mike, your first impressions of Cam Ward looking at him on tape, evasive in the pocket. He didn't have a ton of rushing yardage, but I thought on film he was very capable of running when he needed to. What did you think of Cam Ward and why is he sitting at the top of your board? So I'll start off with a zoomed out look at this quarterback class. I think it is.

rear it's difficult like we don't feel uh like i don't feel like and just checking out what the the industry is saying about this quarterback class you don't feel as locked in now that doesn't mean and when you have a guy who's locked in generational Trevor Lawrence it doesn't always work uh so some of these lower tiered quarterbacks we're talking about they might actually be the ones to go with but cam ward I mean the truth is first and foremost He sits at number one for me because he is projected to be the number one NFL player. NFL draft capital matters so, so much. It matters more than my opinions that I type up in my mother's basements. But Cam Ward's a good player. I think that he is very capable. I like the journey of, you know, he transferred school a couple of times, ends up in Miami. And there's kind of like a steady progression of the career, getting better.

Good accuracy last year, 67% he completed that 67% of his passes while averaging 9.5 yards per attempt. So it's like those those are good numbers. And he's playing with guys who are not like this isn't the borough of college where Burrough is playing with multiple first round wide receivers. Like Cam, Cam's not surrounded by that. So like he is. more of the engine to making things happen for me. It's tough, obviously. You know, Richardson was the number four overall pick last year. To me, a big part of, you know, making projections on these players has to be, are they going to be long-term starters in the NFL in your opinion? Are you going to have a 2022 where it's Kenny Pickett and Desmond Ritter and Malik Willis or a 2013 with Gino Smith and E.J. Manuel? You've always got to be on the lookout of, look, if there's a certain amount of players coming out, they have to,

Somebody has to be the first quarterback drafted. Somebody has to be the second one drafted. Teams are desperate for, you know, we'll talk about Shadour Sanders, his dance in terms of teams, opinions of him. But, you know, to me, solid. He had some plays that were very Caleb Williams evade the pocket-esque to me in Miami. You mentioned the fact he wasn't throwing to the best wide receiver in college football, you know, like Shadour Sanders with Travis Hunter. Sure. Good arm strength. You know, Jason, what were your takeaways from Cam Ward? I went in really skeptical just from this whole draft class being down. And I had watched Elijah Arroyo his tight end before scouting Cam Ward. And there were a couple of plays in there that I remember thinking, oh, I did not like that from the quarterback. So I'm curious how I'm going to feel going through Cam Ward. Once I scouted him, I was like, yeah, this is an NFL player. He looked to me like if I was a fan,

of a franchise the only quarterback that i really believe is an NFL quarterback who's going to last and that's not to say he's going to be a fantasy sensation since he's not he has the ability to be mobile his scrambling in the pocket i was so impressed with it was you know he didn't uh take he may run more in the NFL than he did in I think he might he might be even more valuable for fantasy in in that sense um but his pocket awareness His ability to evade the pressure and keep his eyes downfield and make plays was great. His arm strength was good. His accuracy was good and it wasn't all screens. I was pretty impressed with him. I don't see him as like this generational superstar talent, but I do think if I would love for him to be the, you know, if I had to hope in one of these rookies for my franchise.

I think Cam Ward is. Yes, I'm absolutely taking Cam Ward. If you were Jacksonville and you could choose to restart with Cam Ward or keep Trevor Lawrence on that contract, what would you do? Oh, if you're talking, I get the rookie contract versus the handcuffs that are on me right now with Trevor Lawrence. I would switch to Cam Ward in a heartbeat. Okay. Yeah, just to give you a lay of the land, 2024, 39 touchdown, seven interceptions, a 172 pass a rating. Four touchdowns on the ground, 200 yards on the ground. 6-2-223 has got the... Play's much bigger than Chador. Which, to clarification, if you're not aware, the way that NCAA or whatever, college, they score rushing for a quarterback, if you take a sack, that yardage is removed from your rushing total, which you will notice... Do you like that? No, I hate it. I think I like it. I think I'm... I just...