AFC South Breakdown + Follow the Money - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/11

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to fantasy football losers, a dimension where championships flow freely and celebrations are commonplace. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, science and superstition, analytics, and film. The easiest road to this place is the ultimate draft kit. Imagine stealing a breakout player while your opponent falls for another siren of catastrophe. Your preparation from over 100 player profile videos will be the difference between the pit of man's fears and the summit of knowledge. This is the dimension of foot clan titles. Commit this website to memory and dominate your draft. Ultimate draft kit.com. The Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome, man.

Man, I had this, the weirdest dream, guys. You did? Yeah. Tell us about it. I mean, it's not really weird for everybody else, but for the three of us, I had this dream that we were doing shows and I was on the other chair. No. I was where Andy was. That would be weird, man. It was a nightmare. Were you tripping out? Everything was mirrored. Like an alternate universe? Yeah. Like the Twilight Zone. I'm so glad that it didn't actually happen. No, I have no clue what you're talking about, but it sounds harrowing. Welcome into the fantasy footballers. Mike Wright is here in the proper chair, Jason Moore. We know he don't do no profile. I don't do profile. We're not playing musical chairs here. I am locked and loaded front and setting. So you're saying when faced with like if you get a tooth knocked out. Oh, you're going to have to see it. You're just going to show it off. Or you hold the microphone right in front of your face? Yeah, I'll just toggle right here. Or alternatively, go on vacation. Yeah. I'm not, you know, we'll see.

Back in our normal, regularly scheduled seats today, we have another divisional breakdown episode going through the AFC South today. The young guys. Yeah. The AFC South is the youngest division I can remember. Well, the quarterbacks in particular are, I mean, the bets on them are, I mean, it's the future for each of these teams. So we'll talk through that fantasy football context. I don't think we have a whole lot of news. I mean, Leonard Fournett is he's in the best shape of his life. What? What is he wanting to do with that great shape? He is intending to sign with the team. I'll tell you this. He should have done this like three years ago. Gotten in the best shape of his life? Like, wouldn't it be more valuable when you're at the right playing age to be in the best shape then?

Oh, yeah, the dump truck. The dump truck, listen. That means that his dump truck has got to be. Oh, just buoyant and firm. I am not participating in the riffing. You don't want to talk about Fornes bum bum? Yeah, he intends to sign with a team before the season. He will not sign with a team before the season. Yeah, he will. He will sign with the Raiders. You think so? Yeah, he'll sign with the Raiders and ruin all the Zemir White. Talk. I don't know, man. Have you seen Zemir White's biceps? Yeah, he's in the best shape of his life. That's not even a good shape, man. That looked like he was about to pop. I think Fortnite will go somewhere and make it annoying. Yeah. I think there's a few guys that will make you confused. I mean, how much he? I know he was technically on the bills, but I mean, how much did he? He didn't play hardly at all. Yeah. So he played. Uh,

18% of the snaps in week 16 and 21% of the snaps in week 8. Because he was in the worst shape of his life back then. Oh, man. Now, I mean, the off season, look, here's some breaking news for you. All the NFL players, they got biceps and quads and muscles, you know? Yeah. They all got them. So it must be something more than that to succeed in the NFL level. Youth. He does not have that. He's not in the best age of his life. No, he's not in the best. That's exactly what I'm saying. He's not in the best age of his life. He's got an unbelievable human body that is no longer the best of the best. And he's irrelevant. Did you see David Johnson work out for the last three years before he retired? The videos and how good of shape David Johnson was in? Yeah, not good enough. It did not matter. So maybe he won't.

Maybe he won't sign with the Raiders. Maybe the Raiders will leave Zemir alone. But a couple things here at the top before we jump into everything else, the Ultimate Draft Kit. It's available right now at Ultimate DraftKit.com. And the UDK Plus, you can jump in there right away, get access to everything that we got. I saw some more updates go through for you yesterday, Jason, on your rankings. Yep, today we went through a lot of dynasty rankings as well, updated that. And, yeah, I mean, we're always in there. So ultimatedrafticate.com, if you want to jump in, it's also available on the app on iOS and Android. We're going to be live in Los Angeles. Saturday, August 24th at the Palace Theater. It's going to be our 10th anniversary Megalus show. So if you want to come see us. We have a lot of surprises in store. At least that's what.

I'm assuming from our producers. The producers, yes. Can't wait to see what they're doing. Jason will be throwing slash shooting things into the crowd. Yeah, shooting only. Ballerslive.com if you want to grab tickets to that event. And the community, as always, the incredible, spectacular foot clan is over at join the foot.com. Papa Josh is with us today in Ducer's Alley. Now, Papa Josh. What was going on on the Discord yesterday? There was a live rookie draft and a bunch of people participating. So what we're doing. I know, right? So he just got down with the pipe. Yeah. Clear the throat before you turn on the microphone. That surprised me. So the moderators are doing a Foot Clan for Foot Clan type of events where they were actually reviewing people's drafts and teams for Dynasty.

and helping them kind of figure out where to go, where their weak spots are, stuff like that. So kind of like a live draft analyzer from UDK. Good stuff. Yeah, I had hundreds of people in there. It's great. Awesome. Any other headlines here before we get into the quick question? You guys have anything you want to mention? Here is the quick question for today. How does your draft strategy change for different leagues sizes? We do get that question a lot. Like if you're in an eight team league, 10 team league, 12, larger leagues. How do you think about your draft strategy because people want to make sure they're doing the right thing? Yeah, if you're just talking about size of the league, I tend to focus more on the onesies in a smaller league. If you're in an eight-team league, everyone's team is going to be awesome. Not everyone's team is going to have Josh Allen, you know, to really be a difference maker when everyone has a good quarterback. Not everyone's going to have, you know, Sam Leporta.

or whoever you think this year's number one tight end is. So I'll usually focus a little bit earlier on those. Whereas on the flip side, if I'm in a 16 team league and you've got multiple, you know, you're starting two running backs, two wide receivers and a flex, those get dirty. Those are where the nasty boys are. So I'm going to focus on the running backs of wide receivers for days. Yeah, because if you're in a 16-team league, you're facing Josh Allen once, Jalen Hertz once, and a bunch of other quarterbacks for 14 other weeks, right? So that is not as much of an advantage to have the high-end piece there. Yeah, and when you take the high-end piece in those leagues, you end up losing so much important depth at the deeper positions where it's not really cost-effective to...

to waste a running back or wide receiver slot on a quarterback or tight end. Any other thoughts, Mike? Nope. You're in the same boat? Yeah, I'm in the same boat 100%. All right, let's jump in. Let's get divisional. All right, like I said, we're doing the AFC South today. And we look at, on these divisional shows, we look at offseason personnel changes, coaching staffs, which come with scheme changes for the offense. the rookie classes of these teams, how the offenses could function, which players we think will take a step forward, whether we like the pricing of players right now in fantasy drafts, and then ultimately we'll weigh in on the win-loss totals because, you know, that's kind of a big deal, right? Like, especially in this division, and what we talked about on the last show with Derek Henry, we know what Derek Henry's production was like when a team was winning games. There are players that are obviously going to have a lot of correlation to winning.

and the running games and the success. So, you know, in this, in this division, Tennessee finished out last last year. And they will again, but the, you know, it's like week 18, you had three of these teams that were going, you know, going at it to try to see who's, who's winning the division, who's making the playoffs. I mean, it was, it was really compelling football between those three. I'm, I'm interested to see how you guys rank them, the Texans, Jaguars, and Colts. You can make an easy and obvious argument, I think, for all three of those teams. And you could make an underdog argument for Tennessee, in my opinion. Oh, yeah, you could do anything you want. Yeah. No, that's true. You could, you could be like, I think another team is going to, from another division is going to win the AFC South. You know, you could, we'll let you. You can do whatever you want. You guys do not have open minds.

I did. It's almost like you think that the division plays out the exact same way every year. No, it's more of just Kyle the Borgononi tweeted out a, he tweeted out like all the Will Levis plays. Yeah. And it's a long watch. And it, look, I guess nothing's impossible. But it seems like a really wide leap to get from where he was last year to. a winning football team. They also don't have a good defense. It's not just Will Levis. I'm not saying that they can't take a step up from where they are last year that Will Levis can't be good. But to win the division would be really surprising to me. This would not be like every year there's a division where the last place team goes to first. Right. Right. I mean, that was this division last year. The Houston Texans went from worst first. That's such a good point. Yeah. I'm saying this ain't one. Well, let's not put the cult before the horse here. We'll go through all the teams. We'll break it down.

And then maybe we'll have a different perspective. Maybe. I can't wait to see where you rank the Titans. Last year. Yeah. That first word was correct. Houston was 10 and 7. Jacksonville and Indianapolis were both 9 and 8. Tennessee was 6 and 11. Three teams were in contention going into the final week. It was a fun end of the year. The Colts, if you remember, they had that devastating play where they targeted Tyler Goodson on fourth down. They had one yard to go. He dropped the ball. I mean, sort of. It would have been an incredible catch. Oh, man, I don't agree with that. It would have just been a catch. Yeah. I'll have to watch it again. That would have been a good catch. But my memory of it was it was not a, it was not a great pass. If you play football for a living, it was one I thought you should have made. But that meant they lost to the.

Colts. I'm watching it right now. The pass was a little bit behind him. He had to completely turn around, man. It was fourth down. You have to do whatever to catch that ball. It was a bad throw and a bad attempt at catching the football. But the point was Jonathan Taylor was off the field and you lose with your decision sometimes. So, you know, it was garden Minchu. It was an interesting year with the Richardson injury. Jason mentioned it at the top. It's super young. The division. Because the quarterbacks, C.J. Stroud, 22 years old. Trevor Lawrence, 24 years old. Anthony Richardson, 22 years old. The oldest, Will Levis, at 25. I saw this in preparation. I just didn't believe it. I could not believe that Will Levis is older than Trevor Lawrence, who's going into year four. Yeah, it's wild. And Houston was the biggest surprise of all. One of the bigger surprises in all of football. They had a projected win total of six and a half.

which, by the way, that's where Tennessee is this year. That's where Houston was last year. They won 10 games. CJ Stroud took over. They're projected for nine and a half wins. They do have a tougher schedule. They have some tough matchups on the road against Kansas City, on the road against Dallas. They play Baltimore this year. 11th in pace of play, 12th and points per game. Oddly enough, with a rookie, they were number one in the league in terms of... Turnovers per drive. And what I mean by that is the least amount. Like they didn't turn the ball over. They took care of it. It, you know, it was something that you don't normally see with a young quarterback at the helm, but they did that. Really good against the running game on the defensive side of the football. Tenth and points per game given up. You saw the impact of D'Amico Ryan's right away on this offense. And then they know their window is now. So they went out and they spent money this offseason on the defensive side of the football.

On the offensive side, they took some chances. Daniel Hunter coming over from Minnesota, Danico Autry, a couple of edge rushers. And Stefan Diggs and Joe Mixing. Yeah. They went out and got four proven veteran Pro Bowl players to add to both sides of the ball. It'll be really, really interesting. So, you know, there's a lot of excitement around this team. For fantasy purposes, C.J. Stroud's going in the fourth round as the QB5. Mike mentioned him on the bust episode, not because he doesn't like him, but because the cost, I mean, you're baking in a lot of things for C.J. Stroud, so you're saying be cautious. Yeah, it's simply a, C.J. Stroud is a pocket passer. And for pocket passers to return on being a fourth round pick that being drafted as a top five quarterback, they have to have.

Just truly outrageous years, you know, 3,500 plus passing yards. You're talking at least over 30 passing touchdowns, really more in the mid-30s for them to return the value. So, I mean, Stroud could be one of those guys that makes it happen. It's just the, it's taking probability of C.J. Stroud, Joe Burrow, if Jordan Love continues on the path he was on last year, like those guys, to me, they're all. in a pretty similar archetype and bucket of a player of, I think they're all good players, and they could all hit those marks, but to waste the fourth, sorry, not waste, to spend your fourth rounder as your bet into that pool is not how I play. Yeah, I think all three of us are unanimously there. Like, there's no way I would spend a fourth rounder on C.J. Stroud, even though I love him, he's one of the most fun players to watch. I think he's great. He's got a great.

you know, team around him. But, I mean, you're talking about rounds and rounds later. You can get Kyler Murray and Dak Prescott. I mean, Brock Purdy way outperformed him last year. And you don't, that's not a sexy name. But it's like, that's double digit rounds. Well, and they're both pocket passers and the weapons are very good in San Francisco. And the price is expensive for Stroud in fantasy right now. They bring a Joe Mixing. They let go of Devon Singletary. Mixing somehow, some way, finished at RB 5. I mean, he's the only running back in fantasy to finish top 12 in each of the last three years. He was good last year. He actually was. And this was, you know, he was performing very similar to James Connor where when the quarterback went down and defenses are really, you know, focused on you. And you've got backup quarterbacks, you know, that are handing you the ball. Still have success. He still had success. They won games. He carried that team a lot. He wouldn't have that stat if he wasn't.

like healthy and reliable too. So you look at it from that perspective, like there are other guys that would have done that if they stayed healthy, but Mixon did stay healthy. They brought him in, you know, Damien Pierce's time in the sun seems to have come and gone, but he'll be the compliment, the depth piece. Yeah, I mean, I think that the value on Joe Mixon is incredibly good. I mean, this is a team that traded for him. They didn't give up a ton in the trade because he was going to get cut. But then they... When they had him, they signed him to a long-term deal. He's on a great offense. And, you know, he's going in a place in drafts where, depending on the platform you're on, I see him on underdog in the sixth round. The trouble for him is what the trouble was for Damien Pierce to start the year. The offensive line looked just horrific, run blocking to start the year. Like Stroud made a lot out of nothing. They lost the most games due to injury on the offensive line. They come in ranked 22nd on PFFs.

2024 rankings. They're very expensive. They're the most money invested in an offensive line, but the injuries really hurt them last year. That would be something you hope they can have some time to kind of become a unit this year, protect Stroud, and give Mix and opportunities. Yeah, when Singletary took over the role down the stretch of the second half of the year, he was a top 10 running back. And so the opportunity for this run game, the scoring opportunities for a team that you expect to do great between the 20s. Um, you know, I, I like mixing as value. Well, it just real quick was funny because I saw the tweet from, uh, Jacob Gibbs today. They just tweeted out, Devin Singletary has recorded a higher PFF Russian grade than Joe Mixin in every single one of his five seasons. So it's just, look, and, uh, watching, watching this hard knocks that's on right now where it's because it's just behind the scene stuff. Yeah, I'm like, for the giant. Yeah, for the giants.

And this is just taking one team and spreading it across, you know, 31 others. But it's like, no, these guys can become just as infatuated with name value. Like the name of the general managers of these teams. They're just as susceptible as we are. And like Joe Mixon has been correlated to like, oh, that's a great player. He's part of the Bengals, made a Super Bowl run. And Devon Singletary is just like, yeah, he's this guy who's bounced around from a few teams. So it's just, he's not nearly as interesting. So I found that tweet to be very like, yeah, it kind of makes sense of how I feel about Joe Mixing the runner. And the biggest question is targets, where Joe Mixon has been like, I mean, he's really, he's been a boss in terms of he just, he brings you strong PPR value, 52 receptions last year, 60 the year before that, decently efficient on the catches as well. But at least last year.

You know, the Texans, they were not a team that checked it down to the running back. I'm showing a 15% target share to the running back position as a whole, which was, for us, that'd be 30th. I don't think that'll change. When you add, you know, you bring back Dalton Schultz on a contract, you add Stefan Diggs, you get an injure tank delback, you extend Nico Collins. Like, there's just not a lot to go around there. And that's my, that's my largest issue with Joe Mixing. You have to spend a higher pick on Stroud right now than Mixing in fantasy drafts.

That's wild. But it's for Mixen to come through, the receptions still have to be there. And where I think he can be okay, but for me, I'm not in agreement of. I think Joe Mixon is too rich for my blood right now. Mixon's, Mixon's receptions will come down. That is a valid and fair point. But Singletary, when he had that role last year, he was on pace for 40 receptions. So that's still, it's not like you're going down to 25 receptions. They're still going to check it down sometimes. Man, why check it down when you have three wide receivers who are always open? And just like the, it seemed like Stroud's philosophy. Like while he doesn't take off and run, he's like, oh, if I extend this play, one of my two guys is going to be open wide, open just down the field. Well, and now it's three. Collins, Diggs, Tankdale, each had really interesting storylines for last year. Nico Collins' breakout campaign.

got paid. Warren Sharp mentioned he caught 100% of his catchable targets 15 plus yards down the field. He was the only quarterback or wide receiver to do that. Tank Dell had a window where he was the wide receiver three last year, 20 points a game from weeks 9 through 12. And then Diggs had the incredible beginning of the season, terrible end of the season. I've seen the quotes and the discussions of just like Josh Allen froze him out. Like it was a it was like a decision. by this team to stop integrating Stefan Diggs so extensively into the offense. I don't know if that's because they knew the team was going to move on. I don't know if it was a personal conflict. Or if they thought they were better not focusing on one guy because they did win a lot of games when they made that offensive coordinator change. I mean, it wasn't like they lost because of that strategy. You're correct. And the other thing is Diggs has been problematic in locker rooms for two different teams.

You know what you tolerate? You tolerate that when the player is better than everyone else in the league. But if you've lost the step and you still want the ball every second, those players bounce around. That just happens. The end of careers for superstar wide receivers, they go to a bunch of different teams because they've lost a little bit, but they still think that they're the same exact dude. And that's what I think happened with digs. I think it was both. It was team strategy. It was, and it was, you've lost a little bit. And so now that factors into how we're ranking these guys. And I don't want digs. I don't want to spin the price on digs. I'd rather have the upside of the lowest ranked guy in Tank Dell, who I believe has such a great rapport with C.J. Stroud. I have no problem spinning up on Nico Collins anymore. Yeah, nice. Welcome to the party. Yeah, Nico and both and Tankdale, I'm happy to pay the price for both of them. I'm...

I am wary of Stefan Diggs. We have looking at his numbers when there are three or more wide receivers, commonly three on the field. And it's just simple math. There's three wide receivers. Now we have an extra wide receiver target for the quarterback to find on the field or a play to be designed for. And two of the last three years, Stefan Diggs yards per route run when it's three or more wide receivers. Like it's... it's bad. It's not just worse than the two wide receivers. It goes to a bad man. Yeah, it goes to a number where you're not pleased with that, which I mean the story is, okay, when there's only two wide receivers, he can earn targets more. And, you know, at the, when this trade initially happened, my gut reaction was, man, I don't, will Tank Dell kind of be the third guy, the odd man out where the Texans ran?

They ran a lot of two wide receiver sets. You have to imagine that changes. When you make a move for Stefan Diggs and you have these other two guys, you adjust your offense. But like is Stefan Diggs, does he end up? Honestly, does he honestly? Is he the slot guy? And the other two are the outside players. It seems strange to be like Tank Dell, the tiny thin guy is the outside player, but he dominates on the outside. Why would you put Stefan Diggs out there? Like, let the veteran play in the middle. I just watched every single target from Tankdell. I posted that on my Twitter. And he's so good. He's so good. He's just always, you can't guard him. You cannot guard him. He's too fast and shifty in a, in a short area. Remember how mad you were when I traded for him last year? Oh, I was very mad. But then he got hurt, but then I won the title anyway. I do remember that. Do you remember that story? Yeah, I do. I remember that story. Here's an exciting beginning of the year.

Goes to Indianapolis, plays against Anthony Richardson, at home against Chicago and plays against Caleb Williams. Those are the first two weeks for C.J. Stroud next. Fun. Then he goes to Minnesota. Could be, you know, probably darn him. And then Jacksonville, in division. So nice start to the year for Houston. Always tough when you're a team that has expectations. It comes with a totally different attitude. Comes with a totally different defensive mindset for the teams you're playing against. I do feel like Houston is right on the edge of that. I love you. but it could be a trap season type of situation. That's how I feel. They're built to win. It's just expectations are different. Well, and sometimes when the defense gets significantly better, the offense does less. They're going to run more throw less because they need to. All right. We've got to take a break. Come back, talk about the enigmatic Jacksonville Jaguars. All right. I never know how to feel about this team from year to year. You're always hoping for the best and getting the worst. Yeah, it's just.

Yeah, it's a Jekyll and Hyde thing. Jacksonville was nine and eight last year. They projected wind total before the season was nine and a half. Well, it's eight and a half. What were they after week 12, Andy? You don't see you there? Eight and three. They finished nine and eight. Eight and three to nine and eight. That's one and five in the last six. And then their big collapses. What happened in the last week? They got all they had was, or the second last week of the year, they had a layup matchup. And they got hammered. Let me pull this up real quick. Because I remember they were the shoe in to make the playoffs. And they were in contention for the buy. They were like, it was like at one point. And then yeah, the playoffs were pretty much a guarantee. It was Tennessee. That's what it was. It was the final week of the year. They lost to the 6 and 11 at the time 5 and 11 Tennessee Titans. And it shocked everybody.

And it's just... And then they were like, let's give this guy all the money. The Jacksonville Jaguars are a microcosm of Trevor Lawrence, who is... Sometimes he shows up, sometimes he doesn't. He was dealing with a ton of injuries. Legitimate, that's fair. Real injuries towards the end of the season where you thought he was going to miss significant amount of time. He didn't. I don't know how much we can excuse that or not, but that is the excuse given. It's like they were doing great. And then Trevor Lawrence had a lot of injuries and they failed down the road. Can, do you think it's a legitimate excuse? No. I don't either. No, not really. And it's because of the historical evidence of Trevor Lawrence long term. It's the fact that they committed a ton of turnovers. There were 27th and turnovers per drive. So they were one of the worst teams in the league turning the ball over. The way the end of the year was disappointing.