Fantasy Football - Explain Yourself! + Rankings Debates - Podcast for 6/3

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome. You went for it. Good for you. And not only did. I thought it was totally fine. Hold on. Let me do it again. Ah. Well, if you thought it was fine. Yeah, then you weren't listening. Yeah, I was going to leave it. I was proud of you because it was so bad at the beginning. Here's that you pushed through. Here's the problem. I will explain this. Before the show began, you were in the bathroom. Yes. And once upon a time we started the show with you in the bathroom. I remember that. And so Al Borland has the genius idea. He goes, just do a welcome in while he's in the bathroom. We'll scare him again. And I do it. Oh, and it worked. And it sounded fine. So I went in with less hesitation. No fear. No fear.

And I should have had so much fear. You only have one per day. You wasted it on a bit. Yeah. Oh, you're right. You wasted it on a bit. But here we are. And I know that's not going to get redone. So Tuesday, June 3rd, the fantasy footballers podcast, Andy Holloway, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, back with you. It's exciting. It's going to be a fun day. We've got some explain yourself, rankings, debates. on the show today because the UDK is live. All of our rankings are live. The Ultimate Draft Kit. And so there are three players today that we have kind of a big difference in our rankings, you know, one individually, much different than the other two. So we'll go through some explain yourself. We've got a lot of NFL news to catch you up on. Good quick question and some mailbag if we have time. But yes, the UDK. It is alive. Ultimate draft kit.com.

Toilet season got an upgrade. Yes. Uh, that's one of our bigger marketing, you know, phrases. Like when, when you're my age, you know, I'll get on the app store. I'm like, I got to find a game for the bathroom. Yeah. And I'm like, no, none of the news is this doesn't work for me anymore. I need the games. Yeah. Yeah. I have the mobile games. It's like, I. You're not into that. I just, I can't. No candy crush while you're crushing it on the toilet. No, no, my own personal candy crush. Candy crush that toilet. Like, no, I don't know why. I can't get into any of them. Is this disappoint you? It does. You're just not like a fun guy anymore. Well, I, look, how dare you? Hold on. I think I know what people do in your situation. Okay. Sudoku.

I think that's what they move on. I think they move on to some Sudoku. The old person game. I can 100% get down on some Sudoku. That's a good game. There you go. It's a good game. We're there. We're there. Because jigsaw puzzles is rapidly approaching. Yeah, it is. Oh no. And birdwatching. Oh, well, that's already here because that's awesome. You're already into bird watching. Okay. Good. We'll be collecting plants soon. taking care of gardens. I don't know what else old people do, but we're going to figure it out. Quick question of the day from Brandon writing in on X. Have you ever made a draft pick and then immediately regretted it? Last year in a live super flex draft, I took a second quarterback and immediately regretted it as I left AJ Brown out there on the board. Yep. So first of all, have you ever done that? Second of all, like how do you avoid panic and tilt when you feel instant regret during the draft? I think we've, we've all,

i'm sure i have yeah i don't have like a memory of oh my gosh i i left this player and i took that player i think what has happened before and and maybe this is more in mock drafts or in you know drafts that i'm not specifically prepared for this draft is when you grab the same team yeah yeah yeah you know what i remember doing that now with uh alfred morris back when he was having his run with washington and i was probably like terry Just having players, because in fantasy, they're so isolated on our cheat sheets and stuff. Sometimes it's individual breakdowns that you're not putting the pieces together on the teams in the moment because of tilt. Yeah. No, it happens. And right after the, you're reminding me now, Jay, after I took two people from Washington, I went, oh, this, this can't be good. Yeah, I mean, how you avoid that, it's really just preparation. Like.

the more you're prepared beforehand you're listening to this show you're you know if you got the udk when you go into your draft prepared it's it's very rare that you're going to make a pick and immediately regret it i would say the times that it happens and we've said this before but like you always have to have when you're one pick away you have to have two players yeah you can't just have one if you had three three picks away and now you're down to two now you're down to one before you're on the clock figure out who that second player is that you want because

when you've only got one guy left you want and that guy goes right before you it's your brain goes toast your brain's just gone don't let one bad pick become four bad picks right right like if you if you go into a draft with a plan you might make a mistake you might take a pick and and then you see somebody else on the board or or you realize like like mike was saying you drafted two guys on the same team like don't let that compound itself into missing on four or five picks in a row because you go on with the plan you mess one up go back to the plane

You know, draft the rest of the pieces of a good team. Figure it out from there. You set the foundation of your team at the draft, but you're not, you know, nobody's taking that drafted team and going all the way without tons of great moves throughout the way, free agency, waiver, wires, all of the above. That's why our show doesn't stop in like the end of August. Yeah, you don't win your championship at the draft. You only set a foundation. It's a season long game. Dude, Alfred Morris appeared in nine seasons. See, we were busy talking to him. And this dude was deep diving, Alfred Morris. I had moved on, man. You'd move back. Sure. Alfred Morris is most famous to me for driving the same beater car even when he got a paycheck. Oh, it was awesome. The beginning of his career, you know, three straight thousand yards. It was rookie season. Thank you, RG3. 16-130 and 13 touchdowns on the ground is an undrafted or six-th round.

Oh, I'm saying he was around six. I'm undrafted in fantasy. Oh, right, right, right. Like no one, we weren't drafting Alford Morris. It was right before that season happened. All of a sudden, whispers started to come out. That's true. And then he was. And he was a sixth round pick in the NFL draft. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's. In nine years. Oh, man, good for you, Alford Morris. Pretty legendary season. Thank you for that, Mike. You're welcome. All right. Let's talk some news. News and notes from around the league. Oh, welcome to the news. That was much better. Yeah, yeah, I got some regrets. Ricky Pearceau, hamstring injury, likely won't return to practice until training camp. So is Kyle Shanahan, you know, offseason injuries right now. Yeah, I mean, there was a corollary report just about Joanne Jennings being targeted all over the field. Yeah, well, he's all that's left. Yeah, well, Johnny Smith conveys he wants a new contract with Miami. He is due.

4.8 million and his agent and his bank account would like to cash in on a career year. Miami's been seeking a trade partner instead of agreeing to the request for a new contract. Not a great sign. Steelers have expressed interest. Mr. Arthur Smith has an addiction. To Johnny Smith. To Johnny Smith. So we'll see where he ends up. It's tough. We just did player profile videos for Johnny Smith and the UDK. And right now we're moving forward projecting him on Miami because. Because he's on Miami. Because he's on Miami. Somebody asked why we didn't have an Amari Cooper player profile. It's because he's on nobody's team. Oh, man. Ain't nobody won Mari Cooper right now. Yeah, Jonu is going to be quite an important piece. Because I think that Johnu Smith, as a dolphin, is actually a really important fantasy tight end relative to the position. He's not, you know, in that upper tier. But then if he leaves, I mean, he was the amount of targets and receptions he had, especially once Tua came back.

That is probably really good news for the Tyreek truthers and the Jalen Wattel truthers if John Hu is not on the roster. So we're on John who watch now. Yeah, maybe some foreshadowing for a segment later today talking some dolphins. But we also have some Kyle Pitts news. Many teams reaching out to the Falcons about the availability of Kyle Pitts. Says Kyle Pitts is agent probably. Nope, Jordan Schultz of Fox News. But Kyle Pitts is not practicing right now. He's not at OTAs. dealing with an injury wink wink oh my goodness the best thing for kyle pitts would be a change of scenery which might not be the best it might not be a good thing at all but i to me that's the best because if somebody goes out and and tries to acquire him there's two things that are going to be true one they have a plan for him two they have a plan for his contract like you're going into your final year if both of those things you know he's still very young right oh yeah i mean it's him or r j harvey

I think they're months apart. Yeah, so you're talking about a reclamation of potential that another team might, that we would talk ourselves into believing. I don't know, man. I think we need to hold the line here. Yeah. He just seems so disinterested on the field. Yeah, but you've sent me two trade, two or three trade offers for Kyle Pitts in our dynasty league because there's part of you that's like trying to buy the, buy the lowest you could buy. Absolutely. Because there's some. small part of you that believes. Because he's 24 years old. Yeah. You know, he's 24 years old. You know, he had a thousand yard rookie season. He showed flashes. But, but, but then, you know, when I went to make those trade offers from you, Andy, I started with a second round pick. And then I looked at Kyle Pitts again. Did you send it? No. I had it. I was like, that's what I'm going to, I'm going to offer a second. And it was, it was more than just. You should see what I would do. But I'm just saying like, if you send it.

Yeah. And then I'm like, whoa. He didn't run an experiment. I forgot that he's played four full seasons. I feel like that's an auto except from Andy. Oh, for sure it would be. I'm not offering a second. Let me, let me tell you, maybe this will entice you today. It will not come. Year one, one touchdown. Year two, two touchdowns. Year three, three touchdowns. Year four touchdown. Oh my gosh. Year five. Five touchdowns. Whoa. So in about six years, we're going to be talking top tier tight in. Yeah. So we don't know. I mean, Kyle Pitts right now, not practicing, not traded. And not under contract after this season. CJ Stroud dealing with a minor shoulder muscle issue. No concerns from their offensive coordinator about him not throwing. And then Joe Mixen, lower body injury, did not participate in Friday's OTAs. It was reported that he had a minor workout injury. Nothing serious is the quote. I believe he was in a walking boot.

It should have been a running boot. Ah, yes. My minor injuries that I put on a walking boot. Hmm. Well, they said he'll be ready for training camp. We'll follow along. All right. It is one of the concerns of any of the aging running backs. Suspicious. So we had a report for all of the madness going around Stefan Diggs. One of the, you know, radio pundits talked about the fact that cutting him is on the table. He just signed a three-year $69 million contract. And then he showed up at OTAs and we're in a world. Well, he was there and then he was gone. Yeah. And then this, then the video came out, the boat video. And now he's back. Here's the confusion around Diggs. There were a lot of, there are like people in the know in New England talking about wishful thinking is him being back on the field by week four of the NFL season. Now prior to that report, this show, the three of us.

identified Diggs as a value for the UDK. He would have been in our UDK value. He was. We removed him before the release of the ultimate draft. Wrote the blurb up and everything, looked at him based on where he's being drafted. Drake May's potential, the contract as a value. Then this news report comes out and it says, oh, you know, he might not be available to week four. We're not going to recommend a player that you shouldn't draft. Yeah, it must be really behind in his recovery. Not even behind. He's just. you know the timeline for him if he's not ahead of the timeline then jason he is in fact behind and then the video comes out and he he's he's without a brace today and he's running around with kisham butei and he looks totally spry and fine and it's june 2nd we're not we don't have football until september and this guy looks very very healthy i'm not a doctor i was i was saying this i was saying this before the show that i don't understand like i still think that he might

go on the pub and miss the first four weeks, like the beat reporters are saying, because that's being reported. But I don't get how that's humanly possible. He's running full routes. No brace. He looks fine. I know that's, you know, that's a far cry from necessarily being in NFL shape. But it's like, but we're, but the season doesn't start tomorrow or next week or next month. You've got months from now before like I watch that video and I don't know how he is not ready for week one. Unfortunately, one of the ways he's not ready for week one is if he wasn't on the team and there's some consequences. It's a boat related. Boat related suspensions. I think it's less about the boat there, Mike. This is not the first boat related conversation in the off season. Yeah, Zeeke in a boat. Stay away from the giants. Look, there's, you would. Very dangerous. That things happen on a boat. You remember Tom Brady getting off the boat?

Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That was a weekend in Bernie's. That dude was after celebrating his Super Bowl. Yeah, he had celebrated. He had really celebrated. He got after it. Boats are, yeah, where it's at. Joe Flacco right now being reported by the Athletic Sack Jackson is the favorite to win the job. What? It's going all over the place. Hold on. So it's a full. This is news to me. Well, this is full circle. The offseason began and I was. completely convinced that Jill Flacco would be the star. As was I. I held off for so long on my projected stats. Then they draft Dylan Gabriel and Chador Sanders. And trade for Kenny Pickett. And they traded for Kenny Pickett. And now the way it's being discussed... The trade for Kenny Pickett for... For sure. Yeah. The way it's being discussed is there's two battles right now. There's the battle for the starter job. Flacko and Pickett. And there's a battle for the top rookie. Now, if Flacko doesn't win, the starter's job, I don't know if he's in Cleveland.

That's how I'm looking at this. Right. He'll probably ask for a release. They're not going to keep four quarterbacks on this roster. So to me, it's like if Flacco, and I think both rookies are staying. Yeah. So it seems like one of those two picket or Flacco would be gone. It's still up in the air. Now Flacco, if he won the job, I'm already on the side of like, I'm a little bit more pro Judy, a little bit more excited about Najoku. I assume Flacco being in that starter's always changes my entire outlook of the Cleveland Browns. Is it because he's a professional quarterback? It's because he is and it's because even though like the the days, you know, the couple of year ago run that Joe Flacco had on the Browns. I don't, I think we're probably that's gone, but Joe Flacco could throw for 4,000 yards. Can Kenny Pickett throw for 4,000 yards? I doubt it. Can Kenny pick it across a couple of seasons? Yeah. Can he pick like.

What's Kenny Pickett's high for touchdown? Doesn't he kind of doesn't even one of the lowest? Let's guess. Let's guess. I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess 17. I think you're too high. 15 is I'll go with. You guys guess I'm pulling it up. I'm going to say 18. That does feel high. You guys are so off. Was it like nine? Andy, you need to take 10 off of your guess. Five? seven touchdowns. That's his career high. As a rookie in 12 starts, seven touchdowns. He followed it up and 11 starts was six. Lowest touchdown rate of all time through 25 starts. That's what I'm saying. This has been a problem for me when I'm trying to evaluate the Cleveland Browns is. This is why you can't pick it. You can't. If you're the, if you're the Browns, you can't pick him as the as one of these options. Oh my gosh. Unless you want. Did we say the part of the first pick? So the report that came out from the athletic that was mentioning.

They think Joe Flack is the favorite. It did say it's not going to be one of the rookies. As a starter, for sure. That's what I mean. There's two battles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The best of the rookie backups. Just making sure that was communicated. And then there's the starting job. And we all know that all these guys are going to play because this is going to be a terrible year. Yeah, we will see all. We'll see all three that are on the roster. That's how I feel. Yeah. This is huge news. Probably should have led with this. The Lions All Pro Center, Frank Ragnow, announced his retirement.

He was only 29 years old, four-time pro bowler was the number one blocking center in the game last year. I think he's a top three, or now was a top three center in the NFL. He missed very few games since they drafted him in 2018. He's an enormous part of, you look at the strength of this offense. The lions are a great offense, the literal number one scoring offense last year, and the strength. It's not Jared Goff. It's not Amin Ra. It's not even Jamir Gibbs. It's their offensive line. The offensive line is what makes everything else work. It's what lets David Montgomery and Jamal Williams score 15 touchdowns a season. This is a brutal loss. Now, they did spend a second round draft pick on a rookie guard who right now in camp has been playing the snaps at center. I mean, we saw last year, we saw the Eagles lose.

an all-world, you know, Hall of Fame center. And they were fine. They had, they had a plan in place. That being said, I feel like they, they knew that, you know, Kelsey every year was like, are we going to have Kelsey back? They kind of had a plan in place. I'm not sure that the lions. had enough time to know exactly what they think they had an inkling at least because they took him in the second round well he but he wasn't a center he was a guard at georgia yeah yeah he's a three-year starter there but they did bring him in because he's versatile and he could play center and they brought him in a rookie campus the center so i think that's when the inkling began we thought this was contract related 29 year old all pro a team that's on the rise um did you guys read the his little message i read i read it seemed like it was helpful

It was 100% and it was just, it felt it felt kind of sad. For him to be at the age he's at and he's like, I thought I had more football, but I don't. I'm hurting. My body is, you're like, oh man. Your body's not forgiving. Wait till you're 40, man. Yeah. I got bad news for you. Jason hasn't played sinner in years. Oh, I used to be a sinner. Um, so there you go. I mean, that's, it's significant. It will be a change. They do have. You know, still foundational pieces around him. For sure. You know, Ratledge stepping in. But, you know, there's just a lot that a top-tier center does. Well, and you mentioned Philly. They went out and won a Super Bowl when they lost Jason Kelsey. I'm not going to overreact to this. I think the lions are going to be a good offense. But I do look at the specific piece, the center being gone and how that affects Jared Goff. Jared Goff is not one of those guys that likes to, you know, make things on his own.

You know, he's an in-system, awesome player when everything is working right. Yeah. And so like Jameson Williams, he's a guy I know, Andy, you're pretty bullish on. Yep. That's the one player that I think almost gets hurt the most, probably David Montgomery, followed by James and Williams because you want the plays to develop, that downfield passing. They've talked about with Morton coming in that they want to push the ball down the field more. Well, you got to protect Jared Gough. So it's just a little worry on the back, you know, the hair stands up a little. Yeah, it'll be interesting if it affects the running game more. And if that leads to golf having to throw the ball more, and I don't know, right now it's just fresh. Brand new news, but a big loss, no doubt. We'll take a break. We'll jump into some rankings. Explain yourself. Quite well, thank you. No, clearly you are not. No rational person would do as you have done. Explain yourself. I think I'm rational, Mike. Sometimes.

I thought I was a rational person. No, we all think that. We all think we're rational when we're putting in our projections. And then the captain of this show, Andrew Holloway, decided he's going to put Baker Mayfield at quarterback six. We're talking about Baker Mayfield. I'm sorry. Laser. No, no, for this argument, I can't call him that. Right. When I call a guy his cool nickname, it does not help me. Yeah, he's trying to set up the negative. I'm trying to get back in the kitchen. You're a baker. So a player who had never surpassed 28 passing touchdowns, jumps all the way to 41, jumps 500 passing yards, even though he played every game two years ago for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And Andy's like, oh, pocket passing Baker Mayfield. God, I got him ranked real high, so you explain yourself. This one's so fun to me. It's a good discussion. Like, Baker, by the way, I didn't place him at six, to be clear.

The way we do rankings here at the fantasy footballers. The stats chose me. The stats are the stats. And in fact, you know, when you look at kind of how the three of us project Baker, we're not too far off. No. I do have him at six. He ended up at six. I think that the discussion that I want to have is one that I feel like one player is being omitted from. We have a repeated refrain on the show about the pocket passer, touchdown variability. But there's one quarterback. not baker there's one other quarterback that seems to get a pass on this and it's true in drafts and so to me baker is discount burrow and that's the situation that's the discussion i want to have because burrow is a fourth round draft pick right now which means that if you're sitting in the fourth round and you're saying i've got to have joe burrow right i've got to have that guy

instead of somebody like Baker in the sixth round, that means I'm not getting George Kittle in the fourth round, right? I'm not getting Joe Mixing in the fourth round. I'm not getting Roshy Rice. I'm not getting Alvin Camara. This is who I'm going to pass on to get Joe Burrow, who, to me, I just don't understand really functionally how all the arguments that you would make against Baker Mayfield, most of them apply to Joe Burrow, except for the fact. that Baker runs for more yards, which is a bit of an equalizer for the variability in the touchdown numbers. Now, I didn't go out and project Baker for 41 touchdowns. I projected him for 30, but he ran for 378 yards last year. If you look at the last two years in the NFL, Baker Mayfield is number one in the league in passing touchdowns over the last two years. He's the number one most effective passing quarterback. And one of the things that really

rubs me the wrong way is any argument around Baker Mayfield that is historically based on previous seasons with different organizations in the past and touchdown rates in the past those are misleading in my opinion and a huge mistake for fantasy players I disagree I that's why I'm explaining myself I think that's just really fundamentally not valuable to our analysis of Baker Mayfield because This was not, this was a guy almost ran out of the league. That was part of, you know, the Cleveland organization that was dysfunctional. He struggled there, had his one game in Los Angeles. Goodness, they got him out in Watson in, right? In Cleveland? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, but those, those years are so incomparable on so many levels. I mean, from the touchdown percentage to just his consistency, his completion percentage in Cleveland, he had years of 59%, 60%. You know,

He's better than Burrow. He was at 71%. Burroughs at 70% last year. Oh, what else? Oh, yeah, he's in A and consistency. So his last rolling 17, you can throw the injuries in for Burrow. His rolling 17, 64% of the time he's in our, you know, our metric for consistency at the quarterback position. Burroughs at 52%. So you got to give, you got to give Baker his due, his credit. And the fact that 40 plus touchdowns is now in the arsenal is now in the range of outcomes for him, like, We've talked about Jamar Chase. That's probably Jamar Chase's peak season. Like you just went out and you just set the, a triple crown for Jamar Chase is not every season. Right. And you took Baker Mayfield and you gave him another rookie weapon. He's got two elite pass catching running backs. You've got four elite pass catching wide receivers and you've got an elite pass catching tight end and you have the same foundation to the offense. Like from a repeat ability standpoint, this is why I was on team Baker last year.

Because last year was a call for regression for Team Baker. And you want to know what the basis of that was? His historical touchdown percentage and everything he's ever done on these other teams. He wasn't the same player. He wasn't the same player at all. So I think the floor is 30 touchdowns on this roster. It's a great team. Jason's constantly talking about Bucky Irving breaking down and not being able to be like you can't build the offense around Bucky Irving exclusively. It's a Baker offense. Mike Evans is a, I mean, an elite wide receiver still. Chris Godwin, you brought him up last week.