Level Up Players + Super Bowl Picks, Kelce Reaction - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/6

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah, Travis! Ah, yes. Pain. All I know is pain. Welcome into this podcast. It's not even week one. Pain. Why do I play this stupid game? Yeah. Heal up, Travis. He'll up. Take a break. Take your time, brother. Take your time. Make sure you just, you don't want to rush things. Your knees is a little hurt. Just take, let's say one game off. Too long season. Just take them. So many people are mad at you right now. I know what our job is. But I hate fantasy football. I mean, I'm so excited for the start of the season. And I just happened to be.

The manager in our main league of record with a keeper. I didn't draft him in the first. Everybody out there trolling me. He was a keeper. Travis Kelsey. Maybe you've heard of him. I have. He's awesome. He plays Thursday. Zeus, does he? So what Jason's little giddy, stupid. attitude is, is the fact that he realized this morning that we play each other week one. Who do we? And so instead of like sympathizing with the millions of Kelsey managers out there, he has chosen to sympathize with once again himself. Yes. And his hopes of beating me. And I also have been in the dynasty league. And so I can't even get one week of just looking forward to game one. I've got to be back in the mire.

To be fair. Back in the injury bog of sadness. I have them in the listener league. So it's, you know, but if I had to pick one league, it's the league of record, obviously. And so, you know, we just try to look for the bright side of things. We will talk about the Kelsey injury in the news. It's not that bad. If you're just hearing about it, it's not that bad. It's just a little bit bad. He says to himself in the mirror. No, it's not that bad. His, okay, we'll talk about it now. The ligaments, all of the knee parts are intact. That's great. His brother came out and said he thinks he's going to play Thursday. His brother who had this same injury. Yeah, from kicking a piece of firewood. That was a great interview. I will say that while he, his brother plays the exact same position, right? Right. No, knows what the rigors of what happens to your body playing tight end. That being said, running routes and such.

He did, Jason Kelsey did say that his knee did not swell up when it happened. You got the bone bruise, the ligaments were intact, but he didn't have swelling. And he did mention that Kelsey does have swelling right now. So they're trying to get the swelling down. We'll know today. Yeah, well, I think we'll know later today. I don't. I think we'll know at game time. Like he'll be a game time. Well, we'll know more. Yeah. I think we'll know more because he's supposed to test it out today. And so I think that'll get reported. But the Kelsey, look, it's just a, let me transition this into purpose.

Meaning something other than just vitriolic hate and sadness for this stupid game. Here's your warning. Here's a red alert. Here's what's about to happen for 17 weeks. We all go into the season. We have our drafts and we draft healthy players. And then we are dealt hands that we didn't expect. And we've got to play them. Fantasy football is part of it is the draft. But then a huge part of it is how do you react in the season? Because things happen. Players don't work out. Players get hurt. Players break out of nowhere. How do you react? And that's what the season's all about. In other news, Jason got us an HOA violation. Yeah, whoopsie doozles. Here at the studio, get an email last night. Your 15-foot championship flag pointing people to the studio was against HOA.

Terms. I'll pay the fine. I'll pay the fine and be happy to do it again next year when I'm champ again for my 20 foot flag. So I do apologize to the HOA for Jason's championship. Sorry for having fun HOA. I know, but that's what HOA is for. Yeah. Fun killers? Fun killers. The site rankings for week one, the start sit tool. all up on the website right now the fantasy footballers.com all the articles for the in season starting to hit all the in season stuff is available to you you can go check that out and then of course this is your your formal invitation to the footclan come support the show and receive a ton of in season tools resources uh

Your starts hit tool gets better. You get to join all of the Discord channels with over 30,000 Foot Clan members. You get the streamfinder, which I use all the time, the flex rankings, if you're really wanting to compare cross positionally, all of our strength of schedule, red zone reports, everything that we use ourselves, it's all in there. And that's join thefoot.com. And then you get an extra episode of the show every single week. And if you get in there quick, assuming you hear this episode before I believe. 4 p.m. Pacific today. Yeah. You will have a chance to join the Megalobol. So if you haven't been in there, that's also a perk of supporting the show at Join the Foot. This is our in season. It's a place to be. You two are doing your Mega Bowl draft in 45 minutes. Yeah, it is great. We got to get the show on the road. Is that not what we're doing? Is it not on the road yet? No, it doesn't feel like it's on the road yet. We also have a new segment. Let's kick it off.

Welcome to Hungry for More, presented by Uber Eats. It's a pretty good job on that drop, Mike. We are hungry. Yeah. Yeah. And Jason is hungry from seeing the video for the donuts. Yeah, those donuts in that little intro looked pretty. Pretty good. You don't want to turn around, though, here in the studio and see the backlog. Oh, brother. We've got a monitor. I see that delicious food. I am hungry for more. So this segment in the season is going to be taking a look at players that had kind of outlier breakout performances on that week. And then talking about whether we believe they will continue to ascend. Right now, the season hasn't started. So we are looking at players that finished strongly. Some players that have the ability to level up tier wise.

Maybe you've seen flashes. Maybe you've had some nibbles, Jason. Are you hungry for more? I'm hungry for more. Who's your guy? My guy is someone that we saw just absolute brilliance from after two-thirds of the season of irrelevance from. Sure. That is Christian Watson from week 10 on. A 22.3% target share, 2.58 yards per route run, eight total touchdowns, which obviously that is unsustainable. But he, well, first of all, just as an athlete, he is better than you. And when I say you, I mean other NFL defensive players. Like he is the supreme of the supreme athletes. He's one of those like, you know, when Debo Samuel is out there with the ball in his hands, sorry defenders, he's.

He's a better. He's better than you. He's a better athlete than you. And this is what Christian Watson is. He is a big. Oh, yeah. Yeah, among rookies, rookie wide receivers with 50 plus targets since 2014. He ranks 7th in yards per route run. The list there is, you know, Odell Beckham, AJ Brown, Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, Chris Olavi. O'Lavi? Whoa. How dare you? Chris Olavi and Tyree Kill. Oh, dear, Chris Olavi, eh? Good, good player. It's an impressive list of bona fide superstar wide receivers. I do believe that his opportunity is going to be very good with right now Romeo Dobbs still kind of dealing with his own injury and even if Dobbs is there and he was the preseason hero. Christian Watson is their best wide receiver.

They have a lot of vacated targets, and they need a new identity on offense. I think Christian Watson has the chance to really, truly break out in a special way. And week one, it's off to a good start. We're actually going to talk about him a little bit more tomorrow. Okay. I believe Al Borland picked up Christian Watson in the draft. Is that accurate? He did. He did. The Packer fan? I think it's a great big. Coincidence. Yeah. I'll jump in. Go ahead. I'll jump in because I also have a Packer. And a player who has been talked about very little over the offseason because the expectations were very high last year and they were not even close to met for A.J. Dillon backup running back of the Green Bay Packers. But I just wanted to highlight kind of the end of season what happened. The split between A.J. Dylan and Aaron Jones was actually...

It was very, very close. This was not Aaron Jones taking over. From weeks 12 through 18, Dylan at 11 and a half attempts per week, Jones at 11.7, basically dead even. Dylan at 2.8 targets, Jones at 3.8. That's not a surprise that Aaron Jones had more, but almost three targets a week. That's interesting. And then over that time period, A.J. Dillon six rushing touchdowns to Aaron Jones having... None. A.J. Dillon actually had 229 opportunities this past year, only finished as running back 25. So that's where things were disappointing. He's entering the contract year. There's the, what is, as Jason said, what is the identity of the team? Sure, it could be all this, Jordan Love is fantastic. I mean, the new era begins because Green Bay just hits on quarterbacks. That's what they seem to do.

Or maybe they turned to AJ Dillon a little bit more. There was the whispers and the bushes. Yeah, the Jonathan Taylor. That they were one of the, they placed their hat in the ring saying, we'll trade for Johnny Taylor. Not successfully. But if you're trading for Jonathan Taylor, I mean, you're going to run the ball a whole bunch. Maybe they're going to run it a little bit more. And perhaps AJ Dillon is the guy who carries the ball more than Aaron Jones, who's now getting a little bit older. So I think that he is. He's interesting because he's going so late in the draft, especially compared to last year. And he still has that situation that if Aaron Jones falls off or if Aaron Jones misses time, A.J. Dillon gets a whole bunch of opportunities on a weekly basis. Can he capitalize? Is he good enough? I don't think we know just yet because we've seen him be very hot and very cold. But I think that he is a name worth monitoring. Thank you.

He was not worthy of that drop much less. No, no. The end of the season was really great, though. Yeah, that's always tough when you've been disappointed. You spend draft capital on a guy and it happens later. For me, the hungry for more candidate this week is Damien Pierce, running back for the Houston Texans. I made a controversial selection in our League of Record draft. You did. It was surprising. I don't know that it was controversial, but I was shocked because you took this player. over Joe Mixon, who you have been a proponent of. Yeah, and, you know, my main reason for that is our three-keeper league of record. The main reason was based on my draft picks and the players on my roster, to me, I needed to take a shot on a player ready to level up, not a player on the backside of his running back career with a bunch of opportunity, which Mixon, I think Mixing is going to go out and give you a RB 10, 11, 12 season.

And that will be fine. But I wanted to take the 23-year-old running back that is entering the prime of his career that maybe has more opportunity for sealing to give you the surprise Josh Jacobs-esque type of season. I tried to identify that. And Damien Pierce, to me, he's hungry for more. He had a season last year where the preseason, the hype was there. We all saw it, right? He was happy. I mean, this is a... He went from like a... double-digit rounder due to his draft capital, which was he was a day three pick, if I'm not mistaken. Correct. He was round four. And then just over the off season, he went from like, I mean, it was, it was just like Antonio Gibson, where it was, this guy's going in round 13. And then by real draft time, you know, mid-August, he was up into round five, round four. And the truth is this was not a good football team, but.

He had a very good season for a rookie, considering the situation he was put in. What surprised me was some of his reception numbers, despite losing 52 targets and 37 receptions to Rex Burkhead, who is now gone. He had a 43 reception pace from week four on. He ended the year with 30 receptions because he missed four games at the end of the year. So if he could upgrade that number, if he ends up at 45 to 50 receptions, That would be huge. That would be a level up possibility. He had a seven run, seven game in a row run before he got hurt where he was on pace for 1,700 rushing yards. That's the kind of thing that I'm looking for in that potential level up. And here is a really interesting stat, and it's nearly foolproof. Over the last decade, we have seen 20 different second year running backs that got 275 touches.

Okay. Mm-hmm. All 20 finished in the top 18 and 17 of the 18 or sorry, 17 of the 20 were RB ones. So, you know, only four of those were on teams that made the playoffs. So it didn't matter if you were on a winning team. He had, he was on pace for 338 opportunities last year. So you don't have to get 338. 275 is the bar for that number. and 17 of those 20 guys in year two, because that's the year for running backs, right? It's your prime opportunity for heavy workload. Athleticism is at its peak. And that's that. Only four teams made the playoffs. So it's an opportunity here, I think, to get higher upside than maybe people believed. I think he is being.

You know, the Texans as an organization and as a roster and as an offense and with the quarterback, I think that that drives him down draft boards. But I think he has the possibility to level up. So I made that choice in the draft. I mean, I took him over not just Joe Mixon, but took him over Najee Harris and made that decision. So I think he is a candidate for an upgraded season. And I think there's some other guys. Pacheco, Giovante Williams, if he's healthy, is going to be a draft day value. So some interesting names to mention. And this segment will continue, like I said, with players that have big performances and kind of whether we see them continuing through the season. We'll comment on those throughout the year. That was hungry for more presented by Uber Eats. Jason. We need some Uber Eats right now. I am a big fan of Uber Eats. With Uber Eats get anything delivered, not running backs, unfortunately, but baby backs? Oh, yeah. Flapjacks? You got it.

You can order now right now. You can order now right now in the app. Product availability may vary by region. See the app for details. All right. Let's talk. Let's talk some news. Let's talk some more news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Did you hear about this Travis Kelsey guy? Let's just put a ball on the conversation slash cry fest from earlier. Hyper extended his knee in practice. His status is in doubt. The ACL and ligaments are intact. Matthew Betts, our injury expert, his comments, the bone bruise leads to pain, swelling, and stiffness, usually multi-week injuries depending on severity. Week two is not a guarantee, but the nice thing is he would have a tremendous amount of time before week two. You saw this last year with George Kittle. I believe he missed two weeks. Was that last year? No, maybe it was a couple years ago. Missed two weeks. As soon as he came back.

dominated. This is not going to be a long-term injury. That's why it is good news. Yeah. And Cadarius Tony, Chiefs Wide Receiver Limited, but expected to play on Thursday. So we think we'll see Cadarious Tony out there for the kickoff week. You realize that Travis Kelsey on a per game basis is going to vacate 52 targets 700 yards and two touchdown. Per game. So there will be a lot of it's one of those things like we could take a shot there. We're going to be building DFS lineups this week. And would you say that? Sky's the limit, Jason. I sure wouldn't, but you guys would. Yeah, Sky Moore, there's an opportunity there. Isaiah Pacheco is off the injury report. He's going to play. Jerich McKinnon could take some of those targets. We do have a Thursday night breakdown coming up. Well, look. I know. I know I'm telling the people. They want to hear it all whenever I want to say it. But yes, we'll talk about the Thursday night game. I guess then I will save the.

the line movements until that preview. Commander's wide receiver, Sarah McLaren, progressing towards recovery day to day. They're still hopeful he can play against Arizona. It's good news. The last time he got on the field and really tested it, it went well. So I think it's trending towards him playing as of this moment. Week 1 injury ports will come out today and we'll know more. Mark Andrews is supposed to practice today. We'll have, like Jason said, more news. Yeah, we are on Mark Andrews' watch now. Yeah, but you don't want your superstar tight end to miss a game, Mike? I'd prefer not. Oh, yeah. That's because that would suck, huh? Pick up Isaiah likely. If you have Mark Andrews or Travis Kelsey, pick up Isaiah likely in case he is the starter. Yeah. All right. All right. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Thursday night breakdown. The Lions, the Chiefs. It's Thursday night. The.

Draft King Sportsbook line has the Chiefs minus four and a half now. Oh, what? The over under is 52 and a half. It used to be six and a half and almost 55. Almost. You can't. Actually, I actually think it was 55. It says 54 and a half in here, but I think in some books it was 55. But the line has moved. It's moved. By two points. By a Kelsey. So. This should be fun. I mean, it's hard not to just pick the chiefs at home in this game, which I'm doing. Yeah, me too. Coward. But I do think that there's a possibility that we see. I mean, the fourth highest odds in the NFC. Yes, this blew my mind. To win the conference. Is the Detroit Lions.

The fourth highest. Basically, you've got three great teams in the NFC, right? You've got the Niners, the Eagles, and the Cowboys. Those teams, I think most people look at them and say they are Super Bowl contending teams. And then you go, okay, fourth place in the NFC. It's, it's, oh, man, there is a gap, but it is according to Dragon Sportsbook. The Lions are the fourth highest odds to get out of the NFC to the championship. And that's, that's. That's really, really cool. But for this game specifically, when Andy Reid has time, when he is coming off a bye week or an offseason, things go well. Patrick Mahomes, right now in five season openers, he's 5-0, 73% completion rate, 18 touchdowns, zero interceptions. Here's their points scored since 2017, courtesy of Matthew Betts's tweet. 42, 38, 40, 34, 33, 44.

Now, just twisting the knife on that freaking Kelsey being not out there. But it is crazy because no Kelsey and obviously still no Tyree Kill. This is a, this is going to be a real test to see, okay, can you do it without all of these superstar weapons? Yeah. Is Mahomes that good? Yeah. The answer is yes. So where does it go then? Like if Travis Kelsey is not out there and you're- Everywhere. I think McKinnon, like I said, I think McKinnon's going to have a week one that makes people say, oh, that wasn't a last round pick. I think Isaiah Pacheco will have his opportunities. Cadarius, Tony, Skymore. Justin Watson will probably have a huge game. That's probably where it will be.

Because people will play Justin Ross in the hopes and the dreams. Richie James has his fan club. Well, they'll play NBS or Rashi Rice. Yeah, they'll play all, but it'll be Justin Watson. Noah Gray. Noah Gray would get the start if Travis Kelsey wasn't out there. But I'm not afraid of Patrick Mahomes without Kelsey. I think they'll figure it out. Yeah. And then the Lions. I mean, this is a game where, look, Chris Jones is not going to start on the defensive line for the chiefs. He is not reported. So he's still holding out? Yeah, he's holding out. And the team is kind of, the team made transactions to kind of bolster their defensive line. And they're just, they're in a stalemate right now. There's not been discussions or updates. He said he's willing to sit out through week eight. So that's according to him. He was his own source there. So when you look at the offensive weapons, you're going to get to see Jemir Gibbs for the first time.

It's exciting. Kansas City's allowed the fourth most running back receptions last year. He's going to have a ton of them. So exciting. Kyle just threw this stat in. Over the past five seasons, this is via ESPN with Chris Jones on the field first in NFL quarterback pressure percentage. Without Chris Jones on the field, 28th in NFL quarterback pressure percentage. This is a really good offensive line that the lions have without Chris Jones. They should be able to stand in the pocket. have Jared Goff be the statue he wants to be and deliver the ball a lot to Amon Ross St. Brown, a lot. Yeah, and I'm going to tell you right now, if you want the Josh or the Justin Watson for the lions in this game is going to be Josh Reynolds. Josh Reynolds, they could have cut this guy and saved a bunch of money. They didn't do it. They lose Jameson Williams for the year. They signed Marvin Jones. And then.

This is what we're doing now, right? Yeah, but how fun was that? I mean, he's two years older. I think that Thielen. No, they're the same age. Oh, they're the same age. Yeah, okay. If you turn 33, that was just super fun. Wait, wait, Marvin Jones and Thielen are the same age? What is that, why is that reaction there? It's because Thelan's older or Marvin's younger? You thought. No, it's Marvin's younger than I thought. Yeah, I thought Marvin Jones was a good two years older than Adam Thielen. But you forget how old Adam Thielen is now. That's why I always do it because it's really fun. But yeah, anyway, Josh Reynolds will be involved. You'll get to see Sam Leporta and Jemir Gibbs two rookies in this game. David Montgomery, he didn't take a snap in the preseason. Am I right? I don't think he was on the field. Kyle, are you there? I don't recall. I don't think he took a snap in the preseason.

so there's a lot of people there's a handful of these running backs that didn't get a chance to get on the field and i think it's reflected in drafts like david montgomery seemed like the kind of the resistant or not that's not the right word the uh eventually he had to go people were just Well, I guess I have to take him now. It wasn't excitement. But he's going to have a huge role in this office. Yeah, it's a dumb to be like, oh, well, I guess I have to take. Yeah, zero snaps. David Montgomery is going to get a lot of goal line opportunities with this offense. When they get inside the five with that offensive line, I think they'll help assist him into the end zone. He will be more touchdown dependent. But, you know, some of the beatwriters are talking about how.

These guys are being used somewhat similarly. I think David Montgomery might surprise with his involvement in the passing game. When they talk about what David Montgomery can do that Jamal Williams couldn't, that's the first thing that they talk about is just an upgrade in the passing game. And right now, with the wide receiver core and the suspension to Jameson Williams, I do think that these running backs will be very involved in this specific game tomorrow night. The Lions have lost both season openers. but they lost with 33 and 35 points the last two years. And it's going to happen again. I think we're going to see a really good first game. It would have been better with Kelsey. But we're going to see a really good game. I mean, this is a 52.5 point over under. That's still a great number despite the change in the line. And I'm excited about it. I think, you know, our listeners, they're submitting start sick questions on the website. Were you going to add something there, Jay? I've got more to talk about, but no, you, I mean,

Well, I'm just going to throw a couple of the questions, the most popular ones about this game. David Montgomery playing them on Thursday night against the chiefs without Chris Jones or Cleo Herbert against Green Bay's defense this week. Ooh. I think that's a pretty close one. That is, that is very, very close. I lean David Montgomery in general. But then when you factor in. that this is opening kickoff if it's close if i've got a guy where i'm like man i really genuinely don't know who to start i can make good arguments for either i'm not not playing the guy playing on opening day i want i want my players in there i'm i'm going to be watching this game i want that excitement so um