The TRUTH: Top 10 Fantasy TEs + House of False Hope - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/8

What's up, Foot Clan? We've got the Super Bowl on Sunday. We'll be talking about some news on today's show, and then we'll dig into the tight-in truth, breaking down the reality of a very interesting year at the tight-in position. Do not miss a minute. Click this subscribe button and stay tuned. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in the Fantasy Footballers podcast Thursday.

Days away from the big game. They call it the big game. They do. Which now that hearing you say it, it's a little unlike the NFL because it's the big game. But that implies there are, there's a bigger and a biggest. You're saying bigger than big? Yeah. I thought you were going to say it implies the other ones are small. Well, I'm saying if I'm the NFL, it's the biggest game. None shall be bigger. No, that's the... This is just a big game. Yeah, it's big. They do put the in there, though. The, yeah, like, it's the big game. Well, mine is the biggest game. The biggest game is the Pro Bowl. We all know that. Oh, yeah. Uh, welcome in the happen. Yeah, I did. All the... It's just a whisper in the wind. I saw Justin Tucker. Oh, I did say winning a tic-tac toe. Who's watching this stuff?

I mean, it's cool to see the highlights of it later. I saw C.J. Stroud throw a dime to Jamar Chase in a flag football game. I saw Jalen Hertz hit no targets at all in the quarterback challenge. Zero. Whenever you talk about it, it's all stuff. Oh, I would watch that. I just, you don't know. I don't ever remember the brain. When you're the, the huge playoff weekend is done. Your brain kind of just shuts down until the big game. It's not something you carve out of your, like if it's on and it's in front of you, you know, if I'm eating at a restaurant and that's on the TV, I would love to watch it. I'd be like, oh, this is awesome. But I'm not going out of my way to be like, whoa, whoa. Appointment television stuff. There's tick-to-kicking going on. Brooks put it pretty well here. Brooks, you said it's like what, SNL? Yep, you watch the highlights after. Yeah, I think that's fairly true. That's sad. That makes me sad.

Once upon a time SNL was, you know, oh, it's Saturday night. Now it's like, yeah. Well, we're old. That's true. I can't even tell you who's on the show anymore. Oh, don't say that. This is Jason Moore. I'm Andy Holloway. You're Mike Wright. That I am. The. Those are the three on the show. Three days until Super Bowl Sunday, the UDK pre-sail begins on Sunday. And you can get the UDK Plus, the Dynasty Pass, all of the content available immediately because, uh, winning fantasy football championships, it doesn't, it doesn't stop. Never. Got to put in the work. Can't stop, won't stop. And nobody wants to stop. We want to keep playing. In fact, when I was walking in here this morning, I was glancing, as I'm often doing towards Deucer's Alley. And Papa Josh is over there. You've got Judge Giamatti, the Rapscallion this morning. But I heard Papa Josh, he was talking to Kyle.

And he was talking all about his picks in the upcoming draft and how greatest situation he's in. Oh, rookie picks? No. Was it rookie picks? Yeah. I got the 102 and the 103, man. Oh, yeah. And huge. You got Quentin Johnston. So you're set out for the, you could, you could turn. Look, right now, I promise you could, you could get a third. A third rounder for Cooge. I will offer my third straight up for Quentin Johnston. Do you accept? I'm not sure I would offer mine, but. Well, right. That's really tempting. You got to get out. So, yeah, yeah, everybody's still ready to rumble. I mean, we've got the Super Bowl. We'll have free agency, the combine, all of the draft buzz. It's going to be a good time. Today we have more truth.

Is this the final show? Oh, yeah. He doesn't even say other things anymore. Yeah. Did he say that? That was just a button, right? You don't have an incentive-laden contract, Brooks, where you have to, like, you only get paid on days you say it. He is building a brand. He really is. Oh, yeah.com. Go over there. How many Ws? I think that's a four burger. Do you have to, like, register all of them? Oh, yeah, you'd have to register all those domains. Jason's not wearing a hat today. Haircut day. Oh, you got to pay respect to the barber, respect to barber, make their job easier. I had to do that the other day. Yeah. Yeah. And it is funny, though, that after the haircut, I will just be putting a hat back on. Wait, so you will? You're not going to get, you're not going to show it off for a little bit? Maybe a day.

We'll see. Isn't it then disrespectful to the barber? Ooh. It depends on if they do good or not. There's not much you can do, Mike. I got. Are you on a per-hair basis paying the highest rate possible for a haircut? Oh, absolutely. Right? That's how you should. Still go into a nice, you know, a higher-end barber. Why get it cut if you're only going to wear a hat? I'm telling you one of these days I'm just shaving my head. You should just shave. You should- Do it, you coward. You don't need to shave the whole head. Just shave it like above the hat line. You know what I mean? Oh, like the monk? Yeah, like, no, that's a, is that a friar? The friar cut because we wouldn't know. We would never see how long you could go with us not knowing you shaved your head. No. Okay. This has been fun. Quick question of the day. Do you believe Drake London will be a value pick in the 2024 fantasy football?

draft season. He was a fifth round pick last year, the wide receiver 23 off the board. He finished as the wide receiver 39 a year after finishing at 35. I mean, similar numbers. 69 reception, 72 the year before. Same catch rate. Similar yardage around 900. Touchdowns, abysmal at two. Targets were the same, snap percentage the same. He's 22 years old. To say he's a value. would be to say that he will be undervalued by the majority of people. Looks like his early best ball ADP is wide receiver 27. So. Which that's the degenerates. Shout out to the Dgens out they're already doing bestball. I think my opinion is that Drake London will be a top 24 wide receiver next year. Okay. We like that. But like 23, 24. So value off of that 27 draft spot.

Barely. Well, that's fine. The thing for Drake London is he's still, we're going into year three. I think we've, I've seen enough to know this is a player who in the right circumstance could be incredible. I think that he is an excellent wide receiver. He has dealt with a bad quarterback play for his two years. He's dealt with a coach who. It was extremely frustrating and not using his best players as the focal point of the offense more often than not. But what I loved, you know, Rahim Morris, the new coach of the Atlanta Falcons, and you always got to be careful with these types of things. But still for that press conference to say, well, you know, what excites you about the potential of the Falcons offense? He goes, uh, Drake London? Yeah. You're like.

For a head coach to just... Yeah, he'd bejean as well. Thank you. Yes. But for him to just come out right and say it of... I've seen this player and it feels like in him just saying Drake London, he said, I've watched Drake London, he's been criminally underutilized, and I'm going to figure out how to unleash him. Yeah, I mean, those weren't... Yeah, those were the... Those were the assumed words. But, you know, the way that I view... Drake London, he's obviously flashed. You watch the film and you go, oh, he's a good one. You haven't watched him and been like, man, he makes a lot of mistakes. He should have got that ball. He should have broke that tackle. His opportunities weren't great and his quarterbacks aren't great. Right now under contract are Taylor Heineke and Desmond Ritter. They're both under contract in 2024. I don't know that they're going to go out and find someone else. And if the quarterback doesn't change, I do not believe that.

Drake London is going to have a great year. So will he be of value? Probably not. That being said, when you're 22 years old and you're that talented, if you're talking about drafting him as the wide receiver 27, it's not a bad, it's not a bad chance to just take a young explosive athlete that still has a path towards breaking out. He is in the category of some of the few players that could have a breakout season. Like a big breakout season. Yes. You know the Heisman house commercials you've seen those? Yeah. You know, because apparently all the Heisman winners, they all live together in a big house. Yeah. There is another house. I don't know if you knew this. Oh, let me hear. It's not as nice of a house. It's where Terry McLaurin lives. It's where DJ Moore used to live for a many years. It's like a two bedroom. It's, yeah, it's a, it's beat up. There's mold. And I do worry that Drake London may move in because that this is,

We're talking the exact same way that we talked about Terry McClorian. 100%, which is, I don't like his quarterback. We know the talent is there. He always makes big plays. And then you just, you're just like playing. It's like the record is on repeat, right? Yeah. And so we're not close enough to where you would ever say Drake London can't break out. But I think Jason's right. I mean, what are your odds? Your odds are rookie quarterback or existing quarterback? Which the GM has said, essentially, it's not Ritter. Okay, so Taylor Heineke, rookie, or they go hard after, you know, some other option. Yeah, and you're going to say Russell Wilson, and that's not great. That's not great. There's been rumors of Justin Fields, who obviously did support DJ more enough this last year. I don't know that that's great. Obviously, if they were to go get a Kirk Cousins, I'd be all over Drake London. I'd be thrilled.

He would not be a value. No. Because his ADP would skyrocket. It's not the house of hope, Brooks. It's the house of false hope. That's the house. There it is. And DJ Moore, I mean, he packed his bags, right? Is he out front the house now? Is waiting to be picked up? Yeah, he's waiting on the Uber. Do you move out? No, he's waiting on the Uber, but he is no longer inside that little apartment. That's what I think. So Terry McLaren gets the master suite of that home. Come on. Um, yeah, but Drake London is a legit. He, all he needs is targets. Like you gave Drake London 150 targets. I still think they need to be good targets. Well, but, but just. 50 ridder targets. Just extrapolating what he did this year. At least you'd be sitting there at 85, 90 receptions, 1,200 yards. Yeah. The touchdowns are not coming without a better quarterback and a better system. Yeah. Last year we had a game of nine for one 25 against Washington and 10 for 172 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Not every wide receiver in the NFL can do that. That means he had like 600 or 500 yards in the other 16 games. Yes. Painful. But that's, that's, you know, it's hard to find a quarterback. That's what I'm learning. All right, let's talk some news. News and notes from around the league. And he's covering his face and chuckling. I don't know what. You know, Kyle has a way to disrupt the show sometimes. Is this the? photographs of Greg Roman. This can't be the same person. There's no way this is the same person. Kyle. Wow. How dare you? This man has lived four lives? I'm sorry. This is terrible for the podcast, but our show doc, so the charges. I admire this. The Chargers officially hired Greg Roman as their offensive coordinator. We just talked on the last show about the fact that.

You know, we liked the idea of maybe Sequin Landing in Los Angeles, and we knew Greg Roman was probably coming on board. We didn't know at the time that it was going to be officially the offensive coordinator position. But Kyle has pasted pictures of his time in San Francisco, Buffalo, Baltimore, and then, you know, he spent a year off. This man has gone through. That third picture cannot be real. He has reinvented his look many times. And he got there. Like, he's progressed. through some bad times to get to a final visual that's like, okay, all right, this is fine for you. Haven't we all? I can't help but notice that the very first picture, his hairline is somewhat similar to Jason's today and the next three hats in all three pictures. Yeah. Is this Jason's future? Oh, yeah. Well, I'm not looking forward to picture three. We got to tweet this out. I guess I hope I'm past picture three. I hope picture three was like two years ago. You already had picture three is over.

Yeah, good. But you got to get the great. We got to tweet this lineage out. I'm shocked. The third one is a different person. That's, that's an actor. That's somebody else. The Chargers hired Greg Roman. The Chargers are going to run the crap out of the football. Greg Roman has been an offensive coordinator for the better part of a decade. I mean, this is, this is not someone we are unfamiliar with. And it's not just, well, this team and this personnel, you know, he was the Niners, the Bills and the Ravens, all three doing the exact same thing, which is being basically top three in rushing attempts usually and bottom three in passing attempts usually. That's literally how extreme it is almost every single year of his career for all those different teams. They want to run the ball. Now, my biggest concern with Harbaugh, Greg Roman, is.

Obviously, Harbaugh is coming off a tremendous run national title. What if it doesn't work? Because I think it is going to be the philosophy. I think it's going to be what he wants to do at the NFL level. I do have a bit of a concern that it just doesn't work the way he wants it to work. I think it will work. Well, he's going to need a running back. And the updated news that we got is the Giants are not expected to use the franchise tag for a second straight season on Saquan. Seems like Barclay's heading for a free agency. I personally also would not be shocked if they signed him to a deal, the Giants. They have to do something. Correct. If you're trying to be, if your goal that you have set on day one is we will be dead last in passing attempts, you better go out and get yourself a running back. Yeah, Josh Kelly, not going to do. No. Not going to do the trick there. And Austin Eckler's probably not.

coming back. So they have a salary cap issue. That's the biggest thing is that, you know, we can hypothesize about a big signing of Sequin, but there's no money. So they'd have to do something. Yeah. I mean, the NFL always blow, they've blown my mind enough to where it's like, oh, this team doesn't have money. You can figure it out. You sign things, cut things, move things around. It shows up. 44 million over the cap. It shows up eventually, though. Like, look at the saints. Right. It does get the creditors do show up eventually. But like five years ago, I remember the saints being like, we're here. And then it's like they keep going. So I don't know, the salary cap keeps increasing. I will say this. And this is important for all dynasty players. Like we had a dynasty show yesterday come out talking about this upcoming rookie draft class. There's a couple guys that I think are pretty talented.

Overall, it's a very weak draft class. This is not, I don't think NFL teams are looking to this year's draft class and saying. You're saying in totality? In totality. In totality, this is, I believe, to be a weaker. Not just the running back position. No, no, no, no, no, just the running back position. Oh, you didn't specify that. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just, well, I was talking about the running back episode we did on the dynasty show that came out yesterday. Make sure you're listening to the dynasty pot. But the running backs are a weak draft class. And there's a lot of free agents. My point is for Sequin, his market is better because there isn't like a couple of real blue chip prospects. You've got Derek Henry, Josh Jacobs, Sequin Barclay, Tony Pollard, Austin Echler, Devin Singletary, DeAndre Swift. Those are the free agent running backs available in contrast. There aren't really running backs rejected to go in the top two rounds. Exactly.

So, yeah, it's a good point. It'll be very interesting to see what they end up with to see if Justin Herbert runs more. I think he will. If he doesn't, I mean, it's a leap to say that he's going to, that's going to become a huge part of his game, in my opinion. Especially with the injuries he's dealt with. So could it happen? Yes. He is not Josh Allen. I know his physical stature is Josh Allen, but his instincts to run the football are not the same as Josh Allen. His physicality. Yeah, the history. The dog. Does he have the dog in him? Is he willing to risk his physical well-being on a regular basis? Right. I don't think he's ever going to be someone running for 600 yards by any means. But I do think every game will have one or two designed runs to utilize his athleticism because of the scheme. And that'll up him to maybe a 350, 400 yard.

rushing player. I mean, he's had 300 rushing yards before. Mike Williams is a $32 million cap hit, which is the number to an all the NFL wide receiver. But hold on. Who's number one? Keenan Allen. Yeah, it is. So Keenan Allen, a $34 million cap hit, which I don't, seeing it now is like, that could be actually, I mean, that's some leverage for Keenan Allen. to come into this team and say, hey, we've got a, we have a salary cap problem. Why don't you, uh, why don't you give me a little extension here? Why don't we spread this money out? Give me some more guarantee. Yeah, they may get some, uh, some upfronts there. All right. Uh, Brooks, you threw in Super Bowl score predictions since this is our last show before the Super Bowl. Right now, San Francisco minus two has been the line. I think it's kind of stayed there. Am I wrong? Uh, it.

I'm pretty sure the Casey plus two has been. But it has been the 49ers favored, yes. I can't, I'm going to go contrarian. For everybody I know on the planet is picking Kansas City. I do not think they win the football game. Well, not the betters. No, I know. But yes, yes, the betters. I mean. No, the betters are picking. Wait, did you say everyone's picking San Francisco? I understand what the line is. But I'm saying everybody that I know is picking is taking Kansas City plus two. So you're going contrarian. The money is on Kansas City. Kyle's confirming that KC Money Line is the most popular bet right now. I am taking San Francisco to win the ball game. Okay. I can't escape it. I just think they get it done this time. Okay. So that's my pick. You want to score? Yeah, I want to score. 2724. Okay. Jay, what do you got? I've got 2417 Chiefs. Okay.

I'm going 2713, Kansas City. Yeah. All right. There you go. See, I told you. I told you. Everyone in the world at this desk. I'm taking a big win. Yeah. All right. Quick break. Come back with the truth. All right. Kyle, we have you on the microphone today, right? Correct. You and Betts. I haven't heard your predictions for the game. What are they? We'll be giving them on the DFS and betting podcast. Oh, come. Yeah, you'll be giving them for the second time. He's taking the Niners. You're taking the Niners? Yes. What's Betsy doing? I think Betsy's taking the Niners, too. We've got to fade the public. See? See, my people. My people are with me. Okay. Okay. There it is. All right. Into the truth we go. You want answers. I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. But more importantly.

heads or tails i think heads this year man he is contrarian you've you've heard what never fails yeah i mean by the way that implies you're the public you two i think you two are the public that's fine because kyle's fading you yeah now kyle always fades the public yes in all things yes right he is a contrary yes he likes to zag um i guess jason is the voice of public opinion so that makes perfect sense yeah Go chiefs. That's how your voice used to be back in about five or six years ago. All right. The truth of the tight-in position in 2023. I think this is one of the more fascinating episodes for the truth. We had the most tight-in receptions in NFL history this past year. Almost 2,700. And we kind of felt it. We did. In fact, I don't know if it got put into our show dock, but I saw.

the top 10 performances at the tight-in position this year in fantasy points. So, you know, big-time fantasy production on a week-to-week basis. Eight different tight-ins comprise the top 10 performances, which was Kelsey, Ingram, Kittle, Leporta, Hawkinson, Komet, Najoku, and Andrews. So the most receptions ever, 23% of all completions went to the tight-in position. You had a rookie emerge who is now going as the number one best ball tied in next year in Sam Leporta. Not a lot of people picked that. Some people would have said, you know, they had their excitement about Dalton Kincaid before the season, not Leporta. And you had, you know, kind of a late career breakouts of Najoku and Ingrams continued. But you did not have touchdowns. And it was the fewest receiving touchdowns.

to the tied-in position since 2011. So, and it was by a lot. So Sam LaPorte had 10 of them. No one else had more than six. Crazy. And so we had tons of receptions, PPR value. Players you could count on like, like I think Ingram is kind of the best example of the season of the whole season at tied-in position. We're like, he was targeted like crazy. Especially in the second half. But the touchdowns, you know, there weren't, there weren't a lot of them. Yeah, so, I mean, it's funny because if you just look at static accumulation over the, like the first three quarters of the season, Evan Ingram had so many targets, so many receptions, and it hadn't really been that good for fantasy. Like, you know, it's like, it's almost like how can you do that? Touchdowns have always been the way that the tight in position becomes relevant on a week-to-week basis. You're always looking for who's going to get the touchdown. And they just didn't come this year. I think that's an outlier.

especially with the targets being up, you know, if targets are more consistent than touchdowns year to year. So I like the fact that there's some new blood in the NFL at the tight end position to say, okay, maybe for fantasy purposes next year, we have more than just like a 1A and 1B and then garbage. Overall, the targets for the tight end position were up. But in the red zone, where the action is at for scoring, they were actually down where... 2020, 2021, about 30% of red zone targets went to the tight end position and that went down all the way to under 25% this year. Yeah, it's wild. And to Jason's point, like, I want to take a late tight end. That's what I want to do. I don't want to be in the position where we finally have been in the past couple of years where we're like, well, if you don't get A or B, you don't have one.

So I'd rather have a handful. I mean, I think it's interesting. There are names next year, like Kincaid, like Injoku, that are going to be, you know, I don't think Najoku is going to get moved way up draft boards because of the finish. Not way up. So that'll be a player people can take a flyer on. If it continues, it's great. Ingram was a late pick this year. Still provided value week to week. You've got. Tray McBride. Yeah, Tray McBride is number three in best ball ADP right now. Which is. That's wild. It's like, let's calm that down. That's fun. We love it. I believe Mike when he revealed this to us because yesterday he had his guess. He said, who's number one? We go, ah, Leporta. And he's like, yep. It's number two, Kelsey, yep. And then we went through like 10 names. It was like. Yeah, three. You know, Andrews and Kincaid and Kittle. No, it was. No, it was Trey McBride. And then Mike said, quote, that's a problem.

But, I mean, there are other tight ends, too, that we're not going to discuss because they had injuries and stuff, but like Darren Waller. Like, he's still going to be playing football next year. Sure. There's going to be some names. We're looking at the truth. The metrics we're using for consistency include great games. That is 15 or more points at the position. Good games, eight or more. Bus games fewer than five and a half. We don't count missed games towards consistency. But Sam Laporta finished the year as the number one tied in with the consistency rank of three. First half, consistency of three, second half, four. 59% good games, including starting his career at 12, 8, and 1 for the first three weeks, which I think blew everybody away. I believe I traded Sam Laporta in week four, before week four, in our league of record, in a deal to acquire Travis Kelsey.

And it was under the premise of, hey, let's cash in on what I viewed was unsustainable production from a rookie side end. Did you regret it? You know, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think production between Kelsey and LaPorta, it was, you know, it was similar for quite a while. Laporta finished the season so strong. I won the championship anyway, so I didn't care, things like that. Yeah. But I think my regret would have been much stronger had I not won. But 35% great games, only 18% bust, great against good and bad defenses, really good at home. 14.89 fantasy points at home, eight on the road. Makes sense to correlate to, you know, we talked about Jared Goff, how good he was at home, how good he was against the bottom half defenses. So it makes sense that.