Free Agency Winners & Losers, QB Calamity, Big Dreams - Fantasy Football Podcast for 3/28

On today's episode, we are talking about free agent winners, free agent losers, and the big announcement that you've all been waiting for. It happens today. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this channel. Leave us a few comments and enjoy. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. That's right. Extra long for the people. Welcome in to the fantasy footballers podcast. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Going to be a great show today. Thank you for listening in. Appreciate that. Yes, we do. Free agency winners and losers on the show today. Some NFL news to talk about that I'm excited to discuss. A big announcement. Last week, I mean, we gave you an announcement that there would be an announcement. Yes. Which, you know.

As time has passed, that is now, it's time for the actual announcement. You let me know. Follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers, where we will be sharing more information about said announcement. That is, well, I think it's time. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've been waiting for the announcement, Wednesday, April 5th, the very first episode of. The fantasy footballers dynasty podcast, the people have demanded it. They've demanded more dynasty content. We said, nay, not yet. And then they kept demanding it. And we said, fine. We will spin up a whole other podcast where we just talk about dynasty.

It's launching April 5th. Like I said, right now there is already a trailer. You can go subscribe, be ready for it. Get a little tasty taste to get that intro. Jason talks about the podcast. I mean, that's the takeaway here. Go subscribe right now. You can find it. The fantasy footballer's Dynasty Show. Just go find it wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe now. The first episode is going to drop next week. I feel like I have been this balloon swelling and I don't mean physically. I don't mean only physically. Metaphorically. Metaphorically of like just needing to get more. Metaphysically. You're just full of dynasty gas. Just needing to get out all this dynasty stuff. And so now we're going to, that's all going to gas is coming out on that show. You're going to love it. So the, the show will be a weekly dynasty episode starting Wednesday, April 5th. You can go subscribe right now.

It will release next Wednesday, and then it will run through, essentially. It will run through July. Yes. And then normally, starting next year, it will be more like a February through July. So you know, offseason, Dynasty, talk rookies, talk startup drafts, talk all of our strategies, things that we have done, what we have learned over the last, you know, whatever, six, seven years of playing Dynasty. The format is growing. It's extremely fun. And people can be. a little intimidated to get into it. And the fantasy footballers were not while we play Dynasty and we talk about it on this show. That's not the meat and potatoes of this podcast. And we wanted to dive deeper. So now we will. A lot of people want to, yeah, like you said, dig a little deeper. Now the format of the show will be hosted by the Borgogan himself. Matthew Betts will be on the show and a baller. So it's Borg Betts and a baller. That's right.

Although in week one, I believe it is two ballers. It is. And a board. So tune in. The cast of characters will shift around a little bit. But the dynasty, I mean, now we got them off our back. I mean, that's the real key. And like you said, we spun up a brand new podcast for all of you. And you know how inflation is. Material costs, very expensive these days. Yes. All of the steel and wood and megabytes. Yeah, everything is, you know, stuck at the docks to get this show ready. But we did it. Yeah, we got it out of customs and it's coming your way. Tune in for the Charbonnet hour Wednesday, April. Yeah, my man. That's true. So very excited about that. The announcement has been made. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league.

We are going to talk about this next piece of news for a moment now and then probably more later. But Lamar Jackson has requested a trade from the Baltimore Ravens. What's the source? Lamar Jackson. Ah, that's a good one. He says, quote, in regards to my future plans, as of March 2nd, I requested a trade from the Ravens organization for which the Ravens have not been interested in meeting my value. Any and everyone that has met me or been around me, no, I love the game of football and my dream is to help a team. win a Super Bowl. No, they just said help a team. No, it's his next tweet. It's a threaded, it's a threaded tweet that goes on a little bit more in depth. But it's funny that this is breaking right now. His dream is also to get 200 plus million guaranteed. Right. And help the team. He's got big dreams, Mike. He's got big dreams. It is, it's funny because when this came out, really, you know, yesterday it was like starting to circulate that he's requested a trade. You go, well,

You know, what is the difference between the franchise tag he's on where teams can go and offer? Because let's say none of this came to fruition, this whole franchise tag, and someone was just going to trade for Lamar Jackson, regardless of contract situation, it would be at least two firsts, right? To trade for an in-their prime NFL MVP would be two-first. So the franchise tag that he's on is almost like an open trade market except. When a team goes through that process, they are at the whim of the Ravens being able to just go, yeah, okay, thanks for doing all that work. We'll sign on the dotted line and you don't get anything. You wasted your time. You wasted your money. You had it wrapped up during free agency doing the contract negotiations for us. Now you negotiate a trade and it's guaranteed. You're going to get them. Baltimore would be saying, yes, we accept. The whole situation is a mess.

for Baltimore. And like I said, we're going to talk about it more later. The NFL sent out a memo informing all the teams that are a person by the name of Ken Francis, who is not an agent. Now that Ken Francis situation, from what I understand, this is a member of Lamar Jackson's group. And so this is the NFL basically saying, look, this is not a certified agent. Which he does not have the right to like negotiate on behalf of Lamar Jackson. And Lamar said this did not happen. He also tweeted that. Why are you guys talking about this? The whole Lamar Jackson situation is insanity. You could go get an MVP for two first round picks and a maximum guaranteed contract. And yet, at least through the rumor mill, we have heard nothing, which is shocking. And you have, you know, Jim Harbaugh is saying we want him back. We love him.

when he's ready to get back on the train, we're going to go. I know that a lot has been happening. This is March 2nd he requested the trade. So behind the scenes, you've had negotiations, discussions. Now it's coming out and you're using public pressure to attempt to gain some leverage. I don't think it's an impossibility by any stretch that they just come to terms and he's a raven. Sure. You know, you have these situations where they look bad, they look bad, they look bad, and then Aaron Rogers signs a two-year deal. Like last off season, it wasn't exactly a delight for the Aaron Rogers situation. So I don't know what's going to take place. It seems like the Ravens are botching this thing from, I mean, is that your? I don't know. I feel like Lamar is botching this. And not that the Ravens aren't. Both parties aren't doing great here. And I think it really does come down to the fact that he doesn't have an agent. It's not the usual practices that are going, even like over the last.

two seasons when negotiations were trying to be done on the normal timeline that his caliber of NFL quarterbacks, you know, are getting restructured contracts. Kyler Murray draft that after him got, you know, a restructured contract. And then as soon as the season hit, Lamar was like, no, I'm focused on football, which is smart if you're your own agent, but it's just not smart to be your own agent at the quarterback position. So I put a lot of the blame, not like, I don't blame him as far as I completely understand where Lamar's coming from, but the blame of the situation to be so mismanaged is because I believe he doesn't have proper representation. And you just don't know what is true and what's false on the reports. You don't know. Lamar says he's not asking for all guaranteed money. I mean, multiple times he's come out and said that's not true. But then everything behind the scenes, all the reports say, oh, that's what he wants and that's the pitfall of it.

If he doesn't want all this money in terms of guarantees, then I'm just shocked they don't have a deal yet. And we don't know what is that real Baltimore offer? Because the one that Lamar's put out there was 130. Like it was guaranteed up to 130 and then there's probably some injury guarantees on top of it compared to the Deshaun 200 plus guaranteed contract. Like so is the difference? of what they're offering and what Lamar wants. Is it really like $70 million? Because that's how negotiates is just like we're done here. We can't even have a conversation because we're so far apart. All right. Moving on ESPN's Adam Schefter reports the free agent. Ezekiel Elliott has quote narrowed his options down to the Eagles. Okay. The Jets. Mm-hmm. And the Bengals. Which brings us to. It's the Bejohn Minute. Yeah.

Oh, no, I didn't know this was coming. I didn't either. That's fun. That is, let's hear that again. It's the Bijon Minute. Yeah. It's the Bejan Minute, Jason. How are you interpreting this wonderful Ezekiel Elliott narrowing his options to the Eagles, Jets, and Bengals news? Yeah. In the context of the much more important Bejohn Robinson. Right. For sure. When I saw this, you know, the options narrowed to those teams, my first thought was. Did one of them stand out to you? Well, my first thought was, are these teams interested in Zeke? You know what I mean? Right. Okay, Zeke says, I want to play for one of these guys. That's great. Do they want you? And I don't know. Let's say they do. Let's say that those three teams are interested. They have talked to Zeke, and he said it's between those three teams. Obviously, if he goes to the Jets, that's not Bijon, that's Brees, baby. And I would be a little bit sad.

A little, a little. I would be, well, I believe Brees would win out. And yeah, I do. I think that he would, Zechio Elliott is not getting some massive gargantuan contract. I don't believe that. I think that he's going to go to a team, get paid, you know, a few million dollars, three, four million dollars. Sure, but you look at Tony Pollard last year. Tony Pollard was, what, the running back like? seven or something. Yeah, he was fantastic. But I mean, if Zeke goes to the Jets, I mean, you can take away, what, six, six or so rushing touchdowns for Breesall that will go to Zeke. You also. You also have the return of Nathaniel Hackett, who decided that an even time share of Giovante Williams and Melvin Gordon was the appropriate course of action for that team. Nathaniel Hackett is the.

is the biggest concern for me for priest hall in general with or without zeke i i don't trust him at all then uh obviously the uh the bejean minute would include the eagles as a prime destination that would be i mean that would be not off the board but unlikely to invest uh a first round pick trade up which they probably need to do after signing Zeke and after, you know, Kenneth Gainwell and company. So would you imagine that would take them out of the Bejohn running? They would not double down and go after Zeke and Bejohn for the Eagles. Right now, the betting odds have the Eagles, the highest odd. And it's not a, it's not a minus odd. So it's still a little bit of a long shot. But the.

the highest odds of their first draft pick is to select Bijon Robinson, which seems crazy. They'll be wild. I just can't imagine the Eagles organization spending, whether that be picked in. Pick number 10. Yeah, they're not going to do that. The Eagles are too smart for that. I love Bijon. That's not the right play. And then as far as the Bengals, the Bengals are one of my two favorite destinations for Bijan. This would be really good news for Ezekiel Elliott, I believe. If they were to sign Zeke and let Joe Mix it go for. financial means. P. Ryan has gone. A good offense. This would take Zeke and, I mean, he should be a first round pick at the end of the first round or, and he won't probably be drafted there because he's been older and falling in drafts. I believe he'll be a really good value if he ends up with the Bengals. All right. There you go. A couple other pieces of news. The Cardinals, it's being reported. They have granted DeAndre Hopkins permission to speak to other teams about a trade.

I guess I, we knew that they were shopping him. Maybe this is next steps, having those discussions with teams, maybe in particular about contract adjustments. John Lynch of the 49ers made it clear that Brock Purdy, Trey Lance, and Sam Darnold will all compete for the 49ers quarterback job. What? Okay, look. But that party is the leader in the clubhouse. Yeah, which. That makes complete sense when you have a player come out of kind of nowhere and be an incredible quarterback for your team and winning. And there's a very strong chance that they end up in the Super Bowl had Brock Purdy not been unable to throw a football in a playoff game. But the problem here with this sentence is the fact that John Lynch.

did, in fact, include Sam Darnold into this. Like, that was a, that was his quote. To me, that is, that is bad. Yeah. For Trey Lance. 100% because you don't include. I think it's bad for everybody. But, but listen, listen, there is, there is something here. First of all, he also said later that, uh, Brock Purdy has earned the right to be the star. Yes. And he has. But you don't. Here's what that sentence to me is. And tell me if I'm reading into it too much. Purdy might not be ready. And saying Tray Lance is the starter is not appropriate in terms of motivating Tray Lance, getting him to take a step forward. This is your number two pick. You could have just been saying, Purdy's going to be the starter. Tray Lance has got it until he's healthy or any mixture of that. I feel like putting Sam Darnold in there is.

another one of those weird scratchy head moments for the 49ers and Trey Lanes. Maybe I'm wrong. Is it like the, you know, like when a shooter to get a basketball reference, like when a shooter, you know, they're struggling and they're just like get to the, get to the free throw line because the free throws are easy. Get back in your rhythm. Is that the Sam Darnel is like the free throw attempt for Trey Lance? Just get back into your rhythm. Yeah, just beat out the competition. We're going to give you Sam Darnel. We're going to make it as easy as possible. Just beat Sam Darnold. And if, in fact, you can't beat out Sam Darnold, then we're going to just release you. We're going to eat the dead cap. All you got to do. Honestly, if you start Sam Darnold over Trey Lans, you should release Trey Lans. Yes. That is 100% what, that should be in every contract for every quarterback. If Sam Donald takes a snap over you, you are granted your release.

Because the embarrassment would be worse than you collecting money behind him. It will be a ceremony after the first nap of the game. Oh, like a whole thing. No, it will be, they will bring you to the center of the 50 and we will all wave goodbye. Okay. Take your helmet off. Yeah. Bring the card out. The patch of the team logos ripped off. And then they wave goodbye. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, this is, caution and has had a healthy quarterback one of six years. in San Francisco. Did you realize that? One of six years. Was that the Super Bowl year? Yeah, he went to the Super Bowl with it. Here's what is insane. We are we are talking about Mr. Relevant seventh round final pick of the draft injured who is the presumed starter if he can get back healthy slash a Trey Lance who might or might not be able to beat a Sam Darnold. We're talking about this and yet draft Kings came out with their team over unders.

highest in the NFC. We're talking about a three-way quarterback calamity. Yeah, the number one team. And they have the highest win total at 11 and a half wins. That is, that is absolutely insane for a league where quarterback matters so much. That's what we've been saying all along. Quarterback is just, it doesn't matter. It is, that is crazy. But Tray Lance, if he doesn't start, if Purdy's hurting, he doesn't start. You have to train. And Zach Wilson might as well be like synonyms for one another in terms of how the team has to approach it. Because the jets are saying all the right things about Zach Wilson because you've got no choice. But to say the right things about him because he's on your team. And that's the same way it's going to feel with Lance if he doesn't. There's a big difference. And the difference is other NFL teams have seen enough of Zach Wilson. Yeah.

Other NFL teams haven't seen Trey Lansing, so it's like, oh, maybe you want to trade for him. Yeah, maybe. I think people would do that with Zach Wilson, too, to be honest with you. Really? Absolutely. Someone would give him a change. Someone gave Sam Darnold. The Cardinals traded for Darnel down in Carolina. Cardinals traded Josh Rosen for a second round draft pick. Suckers. Okay. There's always the hope when you're drafted that high. And this conversation is being kind of filtered through a negative. lens for Trey Lanes. There is still a world where Trey Lans is very good. Oh, he could be fine. We have no idea. We have no idea. He played in a monsoon and then he broke his ankle. That's what we saw of Trey Lanes. And he could be bad and great for fantasy. That is also another middle ground. Broncos, two bits of news I want to share about them. One, Sean Payton said they're not trading Jerry Judy and Cortland Sutton.

So that'll be true until us not. Now, hold on, quote, we're not trading those two players. When talking about Jerry Judy and Cortland Sutton. Right. They're not trading those two. So what, Hamler and? No, he's saying one of them could be traded. I'm just saying if the quote is specifically, we're not trading those two players. If they do trade, Cortland Sutton, I was not a liar. I said we're not trading those two. And then they signed Jarrett Steadom to a very lucrative backup contract. And then when asked about Russell Wilson's knee scope, said, quote, that's something we're probably not going to talk about, probably ever. Okay. What is happening in the world? Did you enjoy that? I had not heard that, but that's a great quote. I'm going to use that when you come for a race. Look, we're probably never, ever going to talk about that probably ever. I think you have used that. Uh-huh. Yeah.

But Jared Sidham is a, he's a high-end backup to me with the amount of money they paid him. So it's just worth noting that like, for some reason, Jared Sidham is like best friends with all the coaches, I feel like. Yeah. They all love him. He did have a very nice end of the season last year. Sure. Mm-hmm. Boy. All right. We got more news. Yeah. DJ Chark, one year deal, $5 million. With the Panthers. Thank you. That means he is the number one wide receiver for the Panthers. Uh, no, it isn't. Yep, no, it does. It is. No. Yep. You won't acknowledge Adam Thieland's presence, despite being paid much more money than DJ Chark. Yeah. No, my point is, I believe DJ Chark is going to be a better wide receiver than Adam Thielan. You want to bet on it? Yes, I do. All right. Water bet. Fantasy points? Yeah, of course. Per game. Per game. Because I imagine both are going to miss time. Okay, fine. Yeah.

I think it's great. I can see DJ Shark having one game of the year and being really good. Yeah. It's a good signing for the Panthers. Agreed. It's a weird. Yeah, it is. It is a good signing. They'll probably, what's going to happen is this team is going to spend a draft pick on a wide receiver. You'll end up with a wide receiver room of like Thielen. Can they? What picks do they have now? Zay Flowers and DJ Chark and I think they're going to add somebody. Yeah. I think that's what you do with. You have a brand new rookie quarterback coming in with the number one pick. I think you add. I suppose they still have pick 39. Oh, perfect. Kyle, is that right? I'll look it up. Okay. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. But, you know, new quarterback. Giant signed Jameson Crowder. We already talked about that. I believe we mentioned. I don't know if we did. Jameson Crowder on a one-year deal. And then the- But I don't, what are the Giants doing with like?

You have Crowder, you have Wondale. They signed Paris Campbell. They brought Sterling Shepard back. Yeah, it's a shotgun approach. To the slot-wide receiver position. They want to take all these little, you know, BBs, and then they're just hoping it sprays across the NFL field, and someone could get open and catch the ball. So weird. And then Foster Moreau, who I had hoped would be signing with the Cincinnati Bengals to reunite with his collegiate quarterback. Joe Burrow, he announced he has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He will be stepping away from football. The only comments I saw on this were from him directly and just saying he's going to work to get healthy and get back on the field. So we obviously wish him the very best. It was good fortune, he said, for his free agency period because he was doing physicals with these teams. And that's how he discovered the cancer. I believe the saints found it. And so it's good to find it. And he's going to come back strong.

All right, do we have any other news, Brooksie? Not yet. Okay. Well, let me know if anything breaks. And let's take a quick break of our own and come back with some winners and losers. I believe when we first were, you know, proposed the idea of a dynasty podcast. You're talking about the fantasy footballers dynasty podcast launching on. Wednesday, April 5th. Available to subscribe right now. Currently, yeah. I think our, I looked up the quote when we were first asked to do that. And we said, quote, that's something we're probably not going to talk about, probably ever. So. Yeah, well, the small probability. It worked out. All right. Let's move on. We're going to win. I did not remember that drop. I liked it. Winners and losers for a free agency thus far. We've each selected a winner.

Oh, I see Andy's got a big winner. And a loser, and we're going to talk about those right now. Mike, why don't you go first? All right. My biggest winner of the free agency period, it's Tony Pollard to me because, number one, Andy stole the answer I would have gone with. But that's all right. So I can talk about Tony Pollard running back for the Dallas Cowboys. Got the franchise tag. And then they've had to make some decisions for all of the – look, the salary cap in the NFL is very difficult because oftentimes it seems like it's not real at all. We have these void years where they spread out contracts. But then you get situations like this, especially – I feel like it happens to Dallas a lot. Like you had the DeMarcus Ware situation. You had Amari Cooper just last year.

And this year it turned into Ezekiel Elliott, who, like, he is not young Zeke, but he is still a good football player and can still help a team, but not for, well, not for the contract that he was on for the Dallas Cowboys. And like Tony Pollard, the numbers, I mean, last year he was absolutely sensational. You know, third most 15-yard runs, the six-most touchdowns, second-in-yards per reception, per a tweet from our friend Jared Smola. He looked up in 11 games of Tony Pollard, where we've seen him with 50 plus percent in the snaps. He's averaged over 19 PPR points per game, which on a season, the last two years, that would be the running back for. Tony Pollard is extremely talented. We'll see what Coach McCarthy, like, we'll see if he completely dismantles and defangs this offense, moving it to just a run, run, run situation. But Tony Pollard.

Looks locked and loaded. He looks so fantastic right now to be just a true stud fantasy running back. Hopefully he can get a long-term contract, but this is a fantasy football show. And in just one year in Dallas, he's going to be great. It's an interesting situation for Tony Pollard, because to me, the only thing they could potentially stand in his way from a headlining season would be injury. Because. We had not seen Tony Pollard with more than 15 attempts at the NFL level until week 10 last year. Like he had never had that kind of opportunity before. When he got it, RB7, RB1, RB2. He's great. You know, and if they're going to run the football a lot, look, Ronald Jones, probably not standing in the way from production. Of anyone ever. But also, probably not that.

different on the football field than maybe what Zeke was producing at that stage of his career. Tony Pollard will have plenty of opportunities in this offense. There is the variable of not having Kellynne Moore, right? Because you're going to have a different offense regardless of how it breaks down, pass and run. And just setting up like Tony Pollard. is Tony Pollard's not a Zeke style of runner. He's shifty. He's fast. He's agile. You need to get him out in space. Can coach McCarthy draw those plays up the way that Kellam Moore was drawing him up? All right. I'm going to let Jason go next. Sure. Save the best for last because I too would have chosen your free agent winner. But to me personally,