Fantasy Football - Bounce Back Players + Jason's Cleavage??? - Podcast for 6/23

Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in.

Josh is back from his adventures with spider rooms. Josh basically went on a vacation where he tried to check. I'm going to give the super fast TLDR of the whole situation. They rented a place by some water, a lake, whatever it is. It was filled with spiders. They tried to change to another room, not the lake. Right. Well, the lake. It seems like the lake might be as well. Went to another room filled with spiders, another room filled with spiders. They left. Then they took a train ride someplace and the train broke down. And he said it was the best vacation ever.

He is nothing if not an optimist. So welcome back. It's good to be back. Yeah. I mean, I will say the spider cabins didn't. I would think that's down on your list, Jason. It's down on my list, but stupid people at the lunch table, not myself, but others, were like, why didn't you get photos and videos of this? Yeah. Because there was no proof, really. Why would you do that? Because you come back with... Look what you survived. Oh, my gosh. ...tales of how many spiders were in a room. Disgusting. Like when Mike goes up to Alaska next week, he's going to take pictures of the grizzly

bears chasing them down. Well, that's fine. Grizzlies are awesome. I'm going to live stream that. Plus, nobody who holds a camera during those ever dies. That's right. The cameraman always lives. Always survives. Welcome into the show. We have bounce back players on the show today. Some NFL news. Maybe we'll talk about it. A little bit of hype stuff. And then we got a quick question. Some mailbag if we have time. Should be a fun show. We're almost into July, guys. You know what July means. Training camp. And three shows a week, Mike. Yeah. Because of the training camp. Yeah. That's what he calls our training camp.

It's our training camp. Our training camp is when we go to three days a week preparing for August every day. Yeah. For those that are unfamiliar or forget the schedule, we are twice a week right now. And we'll be three shows a week, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday in July. And then our season starts a month before the players. Because we go to five days a week every single day. We'll have a new episode for you. August really is the most fun time of year. August is also when you'll be doing your drafting with the UDK. If you haven't picked it up, ultimatedraftkit.com.

We just did some more updates over the weekend. And today we have a brand new feature coming out very soon that we're working on. Just a – I mean, it's not. It's not a small feature. I will say that. No, it's not. It's a big, big feature. So huge. But I don't want to say anything else yet. But soon enough. And if you didn't hear it last week, there are a few tickets remaining at ballerslive.com for our live show, the Fantasy Footballers Live, the Megalist Show, presented by SiriusXM and sponsored by GMC and PetSmart. Friday, August 28th at the historic Van Buren, an amazing venue in Phoenix, Arizona.

Come and visit us. I want to see the Foot Clan out there. And it should be fun. Because they say August in Arizona is – I mean, that's going to be some good weather. You guys are going to love it. They do have air conditioning in the building. It's great. If they don't, we won't be there. Jason will not be there. Yeah, there's no chance. You've brought fans on the road before. That is the funny thing about Arizona. It's like there's not a place that exists here that does not have air conditioning. People around the country are like, oh, it's hot.

It's like, oh, turn on the AC. Sometimes they don't have it. They actually couldn't exist here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We're better in cold weather than you are. Because we're used to bundling up for the air conditioning. Twitter at the FFBallers if you want to follow us there. The quick question of the day comes from Jeff in Chicago. Hey, Ballers. This year we have changed our starting rosters to be two wide receiver, two running back, and now two flex positions. With a double flex, is it recommended to draft more wide receivers or running backs? What would be some good strategies going into this year's draft with this roster change?

I think this is actually a really important question. It's something that every couple years I look up the data on to remind myself the differences. First of all, it actually does make a very large difference whether you're in standard half PPR or full PPR. Most of the leagues we play in, everything, you know, if you're going to be playing, you know, in the megaloball league, it's all half PPR. We feel like that's the fair. And part of the reason why we like that format the most is what this data shows, which is basically, look, if you're starting two running backs, two wide receivers, you can already take the top 24 running backs and wide receivers out.

So your flex is really going to be amongst the running backs and wide receivers in the NFL that range from, you know, the running back 26 to 48 and the wide receiver 26 to 48. If you're in half PPR, the first couple of those flex players on average, obviously this takes everything out, right? It's not a specific player. It's not matchup details, home road, but just on average, what does the running back 30 versus the wide receiver 30 or 40 versus 40? What do they score? And predominantly wide receivers crush, right? Like you're talking about if you're in a full PPR league, pretty much from wide receiver 25 through 48 versus running back 25 through 48,

you're talking about two fantasy points per game on average more at the wide receiver position than, and it is universal across the board. Every single, you know, if you go to the wide receiver 36 versus the running back 36, the running back 20, I mean all of them, they're all outscored by the wide receivers on average in full PPR. You want to load up and play in your double flex wide receivers over running backs. Obviously there's nuance there, depth of running back matters, all of that. But as far as scoring points, wide receivers in your double flex will outscore running backs, especially in a full PPR, but even in a half PPR.

And you just need to think about it in terms of on any given week, you know, you have three wide receivers out on the field all the time and you've got a running back out there. So you're going to have 96 players taking snaps on a regular basis versus 32 running backs, even if they're doing rotations, whatever the case may be. I will say the other strategic thought process you need to have is, and you can approach it however you want to, but depth is going to matter more. The free agent, like the waivers every week are going to have 12 fewer, you know, players on it than you would have had before the league change.

And so depth is going to matter quite a bit. Maybe you're, depending on how you look at it, maybe you're not swinging for the fences completely, you know, for a player that is either going to be a hit or not startable. Maybe you are taking some of those more boring players from here to there. At least that's how I would think about it, making sure I have some starts in that spot. But I think altogether, we would all agree it's a good change. Yeah. I think two flexes is fun. Oh, for sure. You want competition and you want some players that can fail.

It brings a lot more strategy. And yeah, I mean, if you just think about how the makeup of the NFL is, when I was looking at these and I'm like, okay, so who is, you know, the running back, 48 on average per game scoring versus the wide receiver. And it was like, okay, so one of these players was Woody Marks and their equivalent player at wide receiver was Justin Jefferson. So it's like, oh, who obviously had a down year, but it is, it is not the same. All right. I debated whether we get into news or not. We have bounce back players coming up, but let's just talk about it.

News and notes from around the league. This one's a special edition. The hype train has arrived in Indianapolis this week. We had a sports illustrated article talking about what the Colts will expect from their wide receiver core. We know Michael Pittman's no longer a part of that. By the way, there was also a huge article talking about how much they're going to expect from Tyler Warren. And so let's just work him into the hype train as well. But Tyler Warren, sophomore season, tight end. Alec Pierce paid to be the number one on this team. The article by Andrew Moore came out and said he's expected to release close to receive

close to double the number of targets. Let's calm down, Andrew Moore. Than a season ago. And then that article also mentioned that they're lining Josh Downs up out wide and in the slot. The removal of Michael Pittman. And by the way, Ashton Doolin will be most likely the wide receiver three there. You do have to have somebody on the outside. And so if Josh Downs has the ability to go out there, he had only run what? Eight routes. Eight routes in 2023. Eight routes in 2024. And 17 last year when there were two or fewer wide receivers on the field.

So basically he was not on the field unless he was playing the slot. Yeah, he is a three wide receiver formation player only in his career. And this is what actually excites me the most about Josh Downs. He's been good. Like his sophomore season, he scored ten and a half fantasy points a game. And that was while he wasn't playing in two wide receiver sets. If he actually works his way into two wide receiver sets, right now he is doing that. Obviously Alec Pierce is not on the field because he's recovering from his injury. But if week one comes and he's out there in two wide receiver sets, I am so excited for him.

Because I think he's a talented player. He reminds me of like a Zay Flowers, right? Well, it's a good comp with the size. That's my biggest concern with him playing outside. He's 5'9". Yeah, I mean this isn't a guy I think that's going to just break fantasy and be a top five fantasy wide receiver. But I view him the way that I view Zay Flowers where if he can really be one of those two smaller guy who on a team that really needs a target hog. They just lost 111 targets from Michael Pittman. That's going to be pretty impactful. Yeah, I am obviously a big Alec Pierce fan.

I think Tyler Warren, we all believe, could take a huge step forward. They talked about him working in and out of the breaks. I don't think all of these guys are going to dominate for fantasy. One good piece of news that's come out from all of this and the training camp is that Daniel Jones appears to be fully healthy. I mean, he's not at 100% right now. He says he's fully expecting to be ready week one. He is playing the seven-on-sevens that's going on right now. He is there. He is the one throwing the ball. So this is great news, I think, for the offense because what we saw happen last year when

Daniel Jones went down is they did not have a replacement. That offense collapsed. I was watching some film and it was hard to remember. I was like, oh, yeah, they were like I'm listening to the broadcast and this was like week nine or something and they were the number one seed in the NFL. They were the best team in the NFL. And once he went down, they did not win games. There are also rumors about them maybe needing to add a veteran wide receiver like Keenan Allen, who had played with Shane Steichen when he was the Chargers offensive coordinator. Honestly, when you think about it being Alec Pierce has never been a one.

Josh Downs has never not been in the slot. And then Ashton Doolin's your third. It does feel like a really a need to add maybe a veteran receiver. This is why I'm in love with Tyler Warren. What you did this is I don't want Keenan Allen to go there because I think Tyler Warren is just set for like 140 targets at the tight end position. And if Keenan comes, he's going to soak. He's, you know, Keenan gets Keenan gets the targets. Yeah. And just for context, people, the this proclamation, if Alec Pierce gets anywhere close to double his targets, he will be the greatest pick in this year's fantasy football draft.

If you're up in the hundred and sixties of targets with his ability. So it's he will not be there. No, but it's like, what's the real number? It's exciting to see not be lower. No, that's the thing that's wild is where he's being drafted. And again, I will go back to it over and over and over again. And thank you. Maybe thank you for being hurt this summer, this summer, Alec, because I think the team has done nothing to say that they don't have confidence. He'll be healthy. He should be back in training camp. But being injured is just going to continue to depress his ADP.

I don't think it's going to go up. And in my opinion, he will be a number one wide receiver for this team. They, in that same article, they talked about the fact he's going to be running routes at every depth, asked to do more and more. He talked about how he knows he's going to get the ball more. It's a bet. It's a fantasy bet you can make on a guy that makes big plays on the regular. And I like the touchdown upside of that position. So Dan Campbell said that Sam Laporta could be cleared for the start of training camp next

month. Jason won't draft him, even if he's played in three training camps. Do you have any concerns, Jay, about Jamison Williams? Like whether or not he takes a hit with Laporta? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. The lines are very clear of looking at the box scores. Now, there's the variable of Dan Campbell taking over play calling duty. So you do have that in there. But it's like Jamison Williams took off like a rocket ship when Sam Laporta got hurt. Yeah. The questions as to whether or not that was because Laporta's targets were gone and now they needed Jamison Williams more or whether it was the coaching change or whether it was

just chaos. You know, I think the truth is in between. I mean, we saw him be pretty good the year prior with Laporta on the field. The whole issue here is a great offense and Amon Ra is going to get his. He's the number one target for sure. Jameer Gibbs is going to get his. So then I do feel like that next read in the offense will just be split and shared between those two guys. Yeah, I agree with you. And as somebody who loves Jamison Williams, he is perennially set up to be the Zay Flowers fantasy finisher of the year is the award I'm going to call it, which is you can finish

at 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and not be predictably helpful for your team because there's going to be games that Jamison has two long touchdowns and then games where he disappears. And that's that's the scary part. I think his fantasy finish will be better than his consistency, but we'll see. He was the wide receiver nine last year there. OK, so he already did that. Yeah, he did. Exactly. Let's are insane. You have 35 games with Laporta where he averages 48 yards a game. And then the nine games with no Laporta, 85 yards per game. Like that's that's not just a small uptick in your production.

That's wild. Yeah. And a lot of those a lot of those were last year, right? Yeah. I mean, out of that is nine. How many of those games were last last season? And that's where you were talking about the hard part of predicting because there was a play caller change and he started getting the ball more. But Laporta was out. It's a tough one. I don't know if you were looking that up. I was just kind of. He missed the last seven games. So seven of the nine in his entire career without Laporta were the last seven. And that includes a zero.

I mean, wasn't he on pace? For Jameson Williams. Wasn't he on pace for like 1,400 yards in that span? Probably. I mean, it was it was awesome. Yeah. After the bye week. And again, this is why I think Jared Goff is just weird. He's just a weird pick for fantasy. Like I the stats ended up with him much higher than ADP for me or than consensus. Sure. And you love Amon Ra and Laporta and Jameson and Gibbs and the play caller and the team and the fact they're favored in 14 of their first 15 games. So how do you not like Goff?

Yeah. And that's the hard part. Like that's a free pass at the end of the draft. Another, you know, line in these this analytical train. Jared Goff, if you don't remember to start last year, Jared Goff was very mediocre for fantasy after, you know, in 2024, he was the QB six with 19 points a game. So he was under a new play caller. He was interesting. And then you're like, hey, let's draft Goff. Maybe it's looking good. And he was very mediocre. The bye week happens. They switch. And then there's a lot of top 10 finishes there for Jared. After the bye week, he was on pace for 5,000 passing yards.

So that's encouraging. Which because we had a bump in the road. Which offensive scheme shows up? Well, not the one of the fired guy. I don't think it'll be that one. That's good news. They were also dealing with a very injured defense where they had to get into a little bit more shootouts at the end of last year as well. I do like that Dan Campbell is one of the few head coaches in the league that is willing to stomp on his opponent's throat. Yes. Why don't more coaches do this? Yeah. Don't take it easy. Don't take the foot off the gas.