Fantasy Football - Fantasy Time Machine + Rashee Rice Suspended! - Podcast for 8/27

Great Scott! If my calculations are correct, you are listening to this before your fantasy football drafts have taken place. I've been to the future, and those that followed the advice from the fantasy footballer's ultimate draft kit had a spectacular season and with certain many victories. It's almost as if Biff had given each of them a copy of Grey's Sports Almanac. I'd highly recommend heading over to www.W.W. Ultimate draft kit.com without any further delay. The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers Wednesday, August 27th. Mike the Fantasy hitman, Jason Moore.

I'm Andy Holloway. Great Scott. We have... This is all correct. We've got a fantasy time machine. Fantasy time machine. Speaking of a time machine, I had an awful experience last night. Okay. Last night. With a time machine. With a time machine. It's Tuesday night and I realize... Oh, I like story time. We are two days away from hearing. It's football time. I was like, football's in two the day after tomorrow. And then I, and then I quickly was like, wait, wait a minute. I'm a week early. Yeah, we're week zero. I know. There's literally no football. It's, it's opposite of football time. It's, it's football break. That's not fun. Well, I wish we could put you in a time machine and bring you forward a week and you could have football, but you have to wait. Yeah, then you'd miss the draft. That's true. Yeah.

You guys would draft for me, though? No. You would wake up and have no players. It is worse than the waking or the dream. I'm at high school. I didn't prepare for the test. I got no clothes on. Yeah. Like, no. How about you? Your dream is you show up Thursday. You didn't draft. You have no players. I got to build a team off the wire. Oh, man. That's way worse. That's a nightmare. Oh, my goodness. So yeah, our League of Record draft coming up. Did I mention on the show that I unloaded Joe Mixing? Yeah. I think we talked about it. I'm feeling really good about that right now. I'm feeling really good. We got more rumblings this morning that the general manager, I think, coming out and just saying like, people were not trusting the vibes. Just basically we'll see if he's back this season. I mean, some people saying that like, let's see if I can find the exact quote because I want to give credit for it. But John McLean was talking about, I don't think many will be surprised if Joe Mixing does not play at all this season.

So much mystery about the injury rehab situation timetable, never seen anything like it. I mean, it's getting to the point where, you know, I guess if you want to spend the final pick in your draft to put him on IR and then sign somebody, that makes sense. But I don't know. You know, reevaluated in four weeks. You got to remember, this guy has not been on a field. Yeah. This is not, it's not like he was on the field and training camp and then he had a setback and got off the, like he could not run at all. And the feet, I'm hearing.

Big things about feet and running backs this year, and I think you need them. Yeah, it's really sucky situation. See, Isaiah Pacheco. We talked about this. Did you see him fly into the wall, by the way? Yeah, yeah, yes. In preseason. Yeah. That guy practices hard. Yeah, the general manager, Nick Casario, once we get through four weeks, we'll evaluate it at that time, asked if he anticipates him playing. We'll see. We'll take it one day at a time. So there you go. Did we get an official? Is this breaking news? Yeah, it is. Breaking news. Right now. I didn't hit it because we are not into the news section. No, we do what we want, Mike. Okay. All right. We got there. It's from Pelliserro. Rashi Rice is accepting and will serve a six game suspension to start the 2025 regular season. Why did I chuckle? I chuckled because moments ago. Oh, it's so good. Mike, the fantasy hitman in our. Yeah.

We started up in office chopped league. So it's a guillotine-style league where the lowest score of the week gets chopped. And Mike was like, I'm going to just, I'm on a big brain this thing. Yeah. I'm going to pick up some Rashi rice. Well, because you get the first four weeks before his trial. In the moment, it was an elite play of I don't care. Switch. And I will get four weeks. of rice production and i'll be able to figure it out yeah well um so six games look this is this is out you got chopped i've got to get chapsuied we we finally have an answer it's been a long wake up yeah yeah we got we got an answer six weeks rashi rice off the field i mean initial immediate in the moment reactions

How does that change your perspective on somebody like Travis Kelsey to start the year? On Xavier Worthy, who has looked outstanding. They have talked a lot. I mean, you know, who I also just bypassed. Talk is. Like five minutes ago. But they've been talking about downfield passing. It's perfect for Xavier Worthy. I do believe, I mean, I've made this very clear that Travis Kelsey and Rushie Rice, they are fighting over those same area of the field first read targets. Like where the play pre-snap, they go, okay, I see the coverage. They're going to get open and just give him the little slant. And Kelsey's going to get off to a much, much stronger start this year. He becomes someone that I think would be a much better pick, Mike in a chopped league. Yeah, yeah. No, he would. Overall, overall, overall, I think is tilting over here. Yeah, yeah. Passed on Xavierworthy drafted Rashi Rice. Boom, suspended. Yeah. Whoops the doozles.

Overall, I think that for fantasy players, this is better. It's not the shadow monster way just to come and take rice off of your roster. It's if you draft him, you know what, now if you draft him, you know what you're getting into, which is these first six games. What does that put him in the draft in your mind? If you're missing six weeks, you know what it is. You don't get to put him on IR. You lose a bench spot. It's a bench deletion that you're drafting. I'm still good with him in like the sixth or the seventh because I think he will be so good. Jason had a reaction to that. I would not be taking him in the sixth or so personally. And I believe that he has the true impact potential. Six weeks is a long time to miss. Let me go. Let me go make sure. Let me go look at names. So when does playoff start? 14. 14, 15, 16, 17.

So week 15. Okay. So you would get minus a bye week in there. You'd get Rashi Rice from weeks seven to 14. Correct. So six weeks? Right. But you obviously if you start 0 and 6 is going to be tough sledding. I don't think you're going to start. You're not going to start 0 and 6. But my point is if you're taking him as one of your primary starting spots and then clogging a bench spot additionally. It's going to be tough sledding. I'd probably be more eighth and ninth round. Yeah, that's exactly. Maybe later than that. I'm looking right now, sixth, sixth no, because you got George is, George and Jameson are in the, and Travis Hunter. Where's worthy going right now? Fifth? Let me double check. Yeah, I believe he's got to be the pickover. He's at the back of the fifth. People need to understand, Rashi Rice is great. I'm not, I'm not saying he's not a great player.

But the little sample size of excitement was three games last year, and it was really one big game. Sure. But that was just last year. I mean, you saw it the year before, too. Like the end of the season, Rice was really showing up. Let me finish the thought here. Xavier Worthy was a brand new rookie who came on in a huge way over the back half of the season. Hollywood Brown was not healthy or active on this roster either. Sure. I'm just saying like. Let's not solidify him into the Hall of Fame of producers. Let me put that to the test then. And I'm going to go down and say, would you take this wide receiver over Rushi Rice and then we'll know where we land roundwise? All right, Mike, you and I. Here we go. Would you rather have Chris Olavi or Rushi Rice? I'll take Olave. That's already really close to me. I would take Olave as well. Because we're talking seventh round. That would be in the seventh. Yeah.

There's a world where I take Rice over Olave. What about Calvin Ridley? I'll take Ridley. Same. When we're at this point. Okay, let's go deeper. Let's go deeper and see. Would you rather have Debo Samuel? No, for sure not. Andy? Yes. Yeah, I would as well. So you and I are locked step right now. Mike looking at Rice with more league winning potential in mind. Ricky Pearsall. Oh, Pearsall. Pure, okay, I like... Ironically, he is later than all those other guys that I named Matthew Golden, rookie. I'll take Rashid. Golden. I think I'm still on the golden side there. Buka, he'll be higher than this in your drafts, but I'd definitely go to Buka. Name somebody where I can choose right. What about Khalil Shakir? I think it's Shakir. See, that's where I would go, right? Because I don't think Shakir's a difference maker for your roster. I'm fine missing out on a Khalil Shakir. So for me, it's...

It looks like for Mike, it's seventh round. For me, it's ninth round. For you, it's even later. Ninth or 10th, yeah. All right. We'll have all these updates into the Ultimate Draft Kit immediately after the show. Tier-based rankings, premium stat projections, 100-plus player profiles, including some updates. We're going to add a Tyler Warren video. Custom cheat sheets, sleepers breakouts, bust values, and all of the new features this year, like the Value Scout, custom player marking. If you're drafting this weekend, you need the UDK. I've been getting a lot of the screenshots of the teams that people have been drafting with the UDK lately from friends and family. It's working out. So you want to check that out, Ultimate DraftKit.com. And one of your final invitations to the Meglabel as well, which is our 20,000 plus person league. It's very, all the details are at megalobol.com, but it's going to be very, very fun this year. Draft times are coming up soon.

All right, I'm going to detour us into a quick question, and then we'll head back to some other news. But I've been wanting to ask this question because we talk about staying water, about reacting to what's in front of you, not just your preconceived notions and ideas about players and situations. Sometimes you do need to have a quick trigger, right? You've got to adjust. Maybe that's Giovante Williams, for example, in Dallas, where it's like, The Jaden Blues banged up and Miles Sanders is nothing. And you just have to accept, here's a starter, whatever. What player right now that everybody else is really down on? So you're talking about a consensus, negative opinion about a player, has the best chance in your mind to just completely flip the script. Just be the opposite of what everybody expects. I think I've been more and more realizing that Jalen Waddle.

is a good pick. He's fallen down from a disappointing year last year, wide receiver 46. Oh, he sucked. No, he didn't. He really, I mean, it's shocking, but he really didn't suck. Last year, he comes out week one, he's five for 109 with Tua, and then Tua gets injured. And then when Tua gets back, he's got like five games together with him before Waddle gets injured. And in those five games, he's on pace for 1,300 yards. It was like, he didn't suck. It just, Tua got injured. The injuries were a catastrophe for the dolphins and for Waddle, but he's a good player. And honestly, another year older, another, you know, Tyree Kill, maybe he's back to his old self. Probably not. Maybe he's even worse. And I think at the end of this year, it will be clear that Jalen Waddle is the number one wide receiver for Tua. And if you look, even dynasty-wise, I just talked about this on the Dynasty Show. Contract-wise, like they can get out of Tyreek at the end of this year.

Even if the whole regime changes, coaches, you know, if the dolphins collapse and it's all new, Waddle is under contract, big boy contract for many years. So I think he's the wide receiver one going forward. I have said that monologue into the mirror. Yeah, you're not allowed. So many times, you know, Jalen Waddle was the my guy. I'm like, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't as bad. There is, from what I understand, when Ken Walker miss his time for Seattle, first person he calls to see if they're available to hang out. Jaylen Waddle. They are the mirror of each other. None of us on the planet doubt the extra special ability of either player. Availability has not been an ability either of them have had. But when they're on the field, they're elite. I mean, Waddle mixes his unavailability with also limping off the field regularly. Waddle plays in the games. He just leaves each game 12 times. How many games did he play in? Because he played him 15. He only missed two games. No, he didn't. Liar. Exactly.

He put the edge one, put the jersey on. 15, 14, 17, and 16. And I believe the 16 was a full season. What are the snap counts? Don't worry about whether he was on the field. No, that's a good pick. Miami needs a plan. Just like they need the rest plan. Right. Oh, a plan. Yeah, like Ken Walker. Because that's working for Ken Bone. They've never had a plan until this year, Jason. We'll find out. I'm going to say Breece Hall. I think Bruce Hall is the answer to the question. And you can. You can subvert a lot of negativity. You can work around a lot of opportunity issues, team issues, by just catching the ball a bunch. Like you just catch the ball a ton of times on a bad team, even if they are bad. And it works out. I mean, that is Breeze Hall's secret weapon. That's where Bruce Hall has been relevant with bad quarterbacks for his entire career when he's had them. So when I look at an easy way to flip the script,

You know, it's not like people weren't talking about Braille and Allen last year. They were. They were excited about him. Brainlin Allen came out, had a couple splash games, then kind of faded away. So if you want to say, look, everybody in the world, which I know, nobody wants to drop Brees Hall. He drops in every draft until somebody finally goes, oh, I guess I got to do it. But there's a world where Brees Hall just catches a bunch of passes. We joke about the fact Garrett Wilson will have a million targets and there's no one around him, right? So, you know, what happens when you have abandoned targets at wide receiver?

A lot of the times I go to the running back position. Historically, that's been the case. So, you know, he's one of a very few select running backs that have average five plus targets and 13 plus rush attempts per game. It might be gross. You know, you might hold your nose when you make the pick, but I can see that flipping to the point where somebody's like, oh, gosh, shoot, why do we do that? Yeah, just need them to drop a little bit. I'm going to go with a late ninth round pick. Jaden Reed of the Green Bay Packers, who is good. He is a good player, produces when he's on the field, generally speaking, but the team decides to keep him off of the field when they go into two wide receiver sets. And it's just, you know, Matthew Golden, very exciting first round rookie pick, but.

Do we make anything of the meetings that Jane Reed had with the brass of like, hey, I'm still the number one wide receiver for this team? And just, you know, I like Jordan Love and the passing attack to rebound from what it was last year. And there's a chance that Jane Reed in the ninth were all just, we're all, we're all so upset by how it started compared to how it finished. Like nuclear beginning here, where two of the first four weeks, he was over 23 points. I'm just saying, you know, maybe I'll leave a little space for him being to, or for him to be truly the number one guy and actually get more snaps. It makes sense. I mean, I do love that offense. Like you said, bouncing back. Josh Jacobs is the muscle, but they're going to get the passing game going. All right. Let's circle back into some news. News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance.

In case you skipped ahead to this news segment, we did talk about the entire Rashi Rice suspension at the top of the show. If you want to listen to the analysis there. Here we go. We got it. Adam Thieland. We tried hard. We worked hard. Purple. The background was purple, Mike. I'm going home. Adam Thielen traded to the Vikings from the Panthers. We did it. The Panthers also cut Hunter Infra. So their situation. I think Jalen Coker. Please, please, please pay attention to Jaylen Coker. It was interesting that they cut Renfro yesterday only to do the Adam Field and trade today. I wonder if they... We're slimming down. Well, I mean, it's possible they do the whole waiver process and then they bring Renfro back. But yes, as of right now, Jalen Coker for deep leagues is someone to pay attention to. I think he is a better player than Xavier Legat. He could be. And I think he... Would you draft him over Liget?

I would absolutely draft Coke. Because that just happened in one of my leagues. I would also draft him over like Cedric Tillman, like people like Cedric Tillman this year with a couple other wide receiver situations there. I think Jalen Coker is very interesting. If you like, if you like Bryce Young, I mean, and it's also like wheels up for Tederoa and McMillan. Not that we weren't already all in, but you take a target hog like Adam Phelan off a roster. It sounds funny to say, but Adam Thielen was. Probably my biggest worry in the receiving core for- You said it all off-season. For Tetaroic McMillan, they had a really good sink between Adam Thielen and Bryce Young. You saw it in the second half of last year, and it's one of those things where it's just like, I don't want that to be the first read. I want it to be Tet. So this is great news for Tet. All right, Tim Patrick jettisoned away from the Lions for a sixth round pick. He heads to Jacksonville. What does that mean? That means that Isaac.

The mic is... Oh, okay. Oh, Tesla! Isaac Tesla. We got a new... That is electrified. I'm gonna be honest. That's on part with the train, the original train. Oh, did that start? The volume levels? It was a little bit loud. Let me check it again. Whoa, that's so loud. It's way too... I love it. Brooks said I thought my computer was freaking out. Don't you touch a thing. That is, yeah, if you're in the car, you thought like an EMP just hit or something. Isaac Tesla is ready to rumble for the lions. And the big thing there, too, is if an injury were to happen, Amon Ra has been banged up before. Jameson Williams has been suspended before. If something happens and there's one more, that's what I think it is to me. One shoe drops, right? Leporta or Gibbs or Amman Ra or Jameson. One of those guys goes down, Tuslaw is not just kind of relevant. He might be really good. Right. Both of these pieces of news, like,

My confidence in J.J.M. I still scared of that sound effect, man. What this one? The, uh, it's in my brain. It's in my brain. Uh, I talked about J.J. McCarthy. I made a bro, a bold proclamation about him yesterday. The Adam Thielen News just makes me a little bit more confident and secure of that crazy thing happening. And this is, this is great news for Jared Goff. Tim Patrick, AKA Fireball Jones. I think he's a. Like he's back to being like he's a fine wide receiver three. Solid, yeah. Tesla is like upside. Yep. Yeah, no. And can really, you know, win at the goal line, deep passes, competitive catches. You love it. Spencer Rattler was named the week one starter. Go ahead. Go ahead, Al. Just hit me with another sound effect on our funky DJ radio DJ morning. I got a snake.

Spencer Rattler is the week one starter. Tyler Shuck. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, really? You can't. I mean, if you played that many years of college and you come in and can't beat Spencer Rattler. Really? They are playing for that number one pick. Maybe I'll change my Tristle Lave choice with Rashi Rice. I don't know. Devon A. Chan, we'll be ready for week one against the Colts. Took a shot on him in a late second round yesterday. uh just betting that he'd be back i kind of felt like you know you brought it up on the on the show earlier that there was overreaction reports going on that he might miss the first three weeks but it was literally just one person's really opinion it wasn't an insider with specific knowledge and so that was overblown a little bit and i just give massive credit to that guy because i assume he's drafting a chan everywhere you know what i mean i got to start i got to start this method little market manipulation yes yeah

All right, the Chargers. There's no regulation here. The Wild West. Yeah, the SEC ain't coming out for you. Najee Harris, activated from the reserve non-football injury list. The team waived Kamani Vidal Sassoon. Oh, yeah. I noted Vidal Sassoon and Audric Estimate Latter both cut this weekend. They got shaved. Okay. All right. Estimate. Did you guys see the little blurb on Estimate of the practice squad? No, they're saying he's not expected. He will not be expected to be back to Denver. Like if this isn't the cut, it's he, I'm not saying he's a special player, but he could go wreck a couple situations. Like he could go to Dallas. As terms of like a goal line. Like he could go to Dallas. He could go to Chicago and make things a little messy. I believe. So I don't think estimate, you always liked Estimate more than I did. I didn't love his, his college film. But I will say that.

some of the reports from never basically he was like pouting you know like his is workload his opportunity he was just kind of a bad attitude about it right more than just he's so untalented that we won't even bring him back to the practice squad and so yeah maybe he does find another spot and vultures some goal lines as they likely avoided opening the season on i r that doesn't mean he'll play week one but it means he doesn't have to miss four like godwin yeah exactly darnel mooney also avoided the starting the season on IR. That's like likely. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, we're going to have more of those, aren't we? Chris Godwin avoided being on. Oh, just like Mooney. Hey, this is news right here. Kate Otten's going to miss time with a leg injury after we had the discussion about him. They are hurting. Yeah. You know, Godwin, Otten, McMillan, not going to be available to this team. I don't know how you feel about.

Baker to start this season, but it gives me some hesitation. I think he needs another piece back because I think the team can succeed running the football. And I think there's going to be a heavy dose of Bucky Irving, maybe even in the passing game. I loved what I saw in the preseason from Bucky in the passing game in training camp. That's the magic way that Bucky becomes a top five running back. Like that's the path is he becomes a pass catcher. Do you have any interest in Tess Johnson? I mean, at this point, Tess Johnson's looked pretty good as, you know. He will have a role to start the season, no question. You know what I did not. I did not know this until like a week or so ago, which apparently Tess Johnson says a lot of people are unaware of this in his. Did you know he is Bo Nix's brother? Yes, I did actually. He is Bo Nix's brother. They adopted him. Their family adopted Tess Johnson. I think when he was 14 or.

or so, and so they grew up together. I did not know that. His younger adopted brother. Fun fact. Yeah. All right. Kristen Watson is on the reserve PUP list, as was Marshawn Lloyd. Goodness gracious. Because he lives there. He has a whole setup. The couch, the chair. Brandon Ayyuk, also on the pup, and MVS was released by the Seahawks. Red Alert, Tori Horton. has won the wide receiver three job and only has the aged Cooper Cup to compete with. So MVS is gone, which was kind of a big deal. Tori Horton, been a nasty boy in the Dynasty show, but also mentioned here. And NBS ends up signing with the depleted 49ers who literally have nobody but Pearsall and Skymore right now. So MBS joins the 49ers. So CMC George Kittle probably going to be pretty good.

to start the year. Hopefully they don't. This is like really exciting for both of their opportunities and really scary for both of their workloads because they will be inundated with targets. I made the joke on X the other day that people don't know, but they want, they want Christian McCaffrey to be the RB5. That's what you really want. That's what you want because that means he's not overworked and injured. If you have, if he'd go out and he's got 30 plus touches in week one, You may be singing in the streets, Mike, but I know in the back of your head, you know what that's going to mean. Nah, we want the running back one. We want them overworked and uninjured. It can happen. It's very low odds on any play. Any play. I would say it's about 40% odds. That's what I would put it at. Yeah. Two of the last five years. No. Two of the last five years has been good. Yeah. Oh, okay. I thought you were saying to get hurt because that would be 60%. No, I'm a glass half full kind of guy.

I'm curious. I wonder if Brian Robinson sees more time. I'd be blown away at this age with that history that Christian McCaffrey is getting the workload that he used to get. But we'll find out very soon. But not this week, Jason. That was News & Note, sponsored by Progressive Insurance. Quote today at Progressive.com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and third-party insurers. Not available in all states or situations coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. We're taking a break and we're jumping in the time machine. All right, it's time. Gotta come back with me. Where? Back to the future. All right, welcome in one and all. We're entering the time machine. We're looking to travel forward in time and talk about who we think will be this year's version of a player we saw on the field last year. So we are starting with journeying to find the 2025 Terry McLaurin. Obviously, Terry McLaren was a revelation. He was a...