Fantasy Football - Shocking Stats + Fantasy Valentines - Podcast for 2/12

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The fantasy footballers podcast, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway, Thursday, February 12th. We welcome you into the show. Happy to have you with us. We're going to talk some fantasy football today. Oh, that's good. And talk a little bit of... A little Valentine's crushes. I don't know. Something thematic with the holiday. Very timely. Is Ken Walker still the Super Bowl MVP? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Probably for a while. Probably about a year. Yeah. I didn't think of it that way. Are you a reigning Super Bowl MVP? I think you are. I guess you are technically. That's good for us, Jason. That won't be brought up again.

This will be the last time we hear about it. Honestly, I doubt we hear that as much as the reigning champion that he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm guessing that comes out more than the Ken Walker, which is way worse. How, I guess I'm curious, you know, we all have varying degrees of interest in fantasy football in our extended families. And I know, you know, my wife is, she's not into fantasy football. She's not into the NFL. She's happy to oblige Al Borland when he calls her up and says, do you want to? hop on the show and congratulate him for his title last year, not the champion anymore, of course. But like, how much does your wife understand how good the year was for you in football? Is what I want to know. I've, I mean, I tried to express it. I don't, I don't think I was dancing through the house, pantsless. Well, I mean, and my, my video out in the street with the fireworks, like she filmed it. She was filming and the whole.

The kids were in on the act and everything. But I don't think she realizes how good. I've said, I was like, when, you know, like after the McCaffrey did everything, I was like, this was the best year of my professional life in terms of, you know, giving advice and me taking my own advice. But so I don't know if she really knows, but. I just curious. I was just curious how much. She just cared that I'd. didn't lose in the championship. That's what I was going to say. That's all for her sake. They notice when losses happen. Yeah. But do they know the depths of your victories? The fireworks let her know that I won. It's pretty good, pretty good reason. The ultimate draft kit pre-order available now. Lowest possible price. Some amazing pre-order bonuses, including a chance to win a listener to league spot to play with us in 2026. All available at ultimate draft kit.com. If you.

Get the UDK Plus or the ultimate subscription. You will get instant access to the Dynasty Pass and all of our dynasty startup rankings and content that we have up there right now, including our initial pre-draft rookie rankings. The draft is not that far away. Nope. But not that close either. You know, we got a little bit, we got a little bit of time to breathe. The combine is less than two weeks. Okay. Well, yeah, you're right. Combine and then the- That's insane. I know. The NFL doesn't let you take a break. The- the running back free agent period where like i'd be like george pickens will get franchised so i mean we'll have i like that it's just the running back free agent well that's what i mean i like what are you going to call shaheed period of the year alec pierces i think he's a very interesting player and he could end up somewhere about david njoku and kyle pitts yeah okay okay i could well i care about kyle pitts actually yeah i feel like maybe ninojoku's

closing. He could go somewhere and be fascinating. Yeah, yeah. Fascinating is fine. I can deal with fascinating. But yeah, Alec Pierce, Rashid Shah, no matter who signs him, there's no point that we're going to be blown away with the significance of that signing. Not likely. It will be fascinating. But it's not the Gamebreaker superstar signings that were, like it's ETN and Breeze Hall and Ken Walker that are super interesting. Ken Walker, I think it was the... parade this morning where John Schneider was talking about he tried to make a joke about him negotiating it didn't land premise good execution of joke very bored yeah the solo cup had to do yeah I was gonna say I don't think he was in his sharpest mind state what a tradition we have were like after someone wins a Super Bowl or a championship see them we get them publicly intoxicated over the course of the parade route until you speak at the end speak at the beginning yes that's

You really need to, it needs to be a... Remember Brady throwing this, throwing this trophy on the boat? Yeah. Being shuffled by multiple people. Yeah. Falling over. It's like, let me put my hand up there, Tom, so you can walk. That's funny, right? Yeah, that was, uh, it's fun. You're right. They should talk at the beginning and then do like a big circle parade and at the end, they just scream and shout and wave and go. Get into their... ubers you get taken it or some very funny sam darnald t-shirts if you did not see those i saw it on k adams show it's still it was a hey it's a delightful t-shirt it really lets it sends their message it is an incredible story that sam darnold has written seriously because josh allen lamar jackson haven't reached the super bowl sam darned donald goes from seeing ghosts to getting

kicked out of a place where he won 14 games not brought back we have a quick question of the day how many you know you're the video you're watching in the back of deuce's eye we can hear the sound right can you not figure out they can you not figure out how to stop the video there's a video where what are you clowns doing is that your phone Your phone? Do you understand the heart rate situation back there now? Oh man. They were... Andy said triggered Siri to start playing something on my phone. I heard it say something about Kendrick Lamar's playing on Spotify. The first thing I heard, I thought it was Matt talking. And he's just... I did too. And I assumed that was bathroom break related. That's never happened before. Remember when you tell us to mute ourselves? Yeah, let me check that real quick. I mean, like, he's a Super Bowl winner.

And how many, and I don't know if this is a Kyle question, if we can even get the answer right now. But like he won 14 games back to back. Yeah. Like that in itself is an accomplishment. Yeah. And Colin Coward, I think was trying to be, you know, Colin Coward and have the big question of like, what? Other quarterback would you even start a franchise with right now? Over Sam Darnold. Because of Sam Darnold's two seasons of- Stop it. But it was a point. The only point that landed with that conversation was what you just said. You look at the last 30 games Sam Darnold has started. Yeah. And you have to just, I don't know, give him his flowers. Yes, you do. It's been amazing. Now I just want to find an image of Sam Darnel in a backwards hat. Yeah, I mean.

Go for it. Because coward will lose his mind. Oh, man, it's only forward hats, guys. He's a coward guy. He's that kind of a leader. Watch this. Watch this. Leader. Yeah. Not a leader. Whoa. You're not the host here. Leader. Leader. Hooligan. Can't do it. Can't move backwards. Quick question of the day. Do you have an early fantasy football crush for 2026? Like I said. will play into the Valentine's Day. Is there somebody that right out of the gate here? Maybe you didn't get to see him on the field a bunch last year. Maybe you did and you just liked the opportunity, but is there an early fantasy football crush for 2026 that you want to talk about on February 12th? Yeah, I'm going to, we just talked about David Ojoku. He is not my fantasy crush, but he was in the way of my fantasy crush. Harold Fanon Jr., rookie sensation who is really, really overlooked for what he did.

Because right now in most consensus boards, he's the third most important rookie. He's the third most desirable rookie in Dynasty leagues. And I'll bet in drafts next year, he gets drafted. You mean at the position? Out of, yes, out of the tight ends because you had, man, he really moved up the rankings. No, because you had Colson Loveland, you had Tyler Warren, who are the higher drafted, you know, first round draft capital in the NFL draft supposed to be awesome. And Harold Fanon. The Titan 5 on the season in his rookie year outscored both of them was dealing with Shador Sanders and Dylan Gabriel and David Najoku in the way. And he just got it done. Similar how he did in college where it's like, I don't know. The competition is this. He runs duck foot and it's just, he just gets it done. And now I feel like this is a team that's really going to be built towards him, around him.

Hopefully they bring in some better quarterback competition, but even if they can't. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that they can. Well, I mean, they can in the sense, I know you don't want to hear it, but Deshawn Watson is going to be part of this team. He is going to be battling for the coaching or, you know, for the quarterback position. And he's just got to battle Shador Sanders. So it should get better than rookie Shador Sanders either way. My point is, I think he is. Did you watch Deshaun Watson play? Oh, yeah. I mean, but I watched Shador Sanders play, too. I take rookie Shudor Sanders. And they, I mean, they did talk about drafting a quarterback highly. I mean, that's been in the news around Cleveland to do that again. I mean, you're going to end up. Like I, no disrespect to Fanon. He's awesome as a talent, but I'm much more confident in the stability of those other two guys. Yeah. So right now, Harold Fanon is tied in five and best ball. Yeah. So he is being respected by.

The drafters, in my opinion, according to Jason, he's still being disrespected as, because he's behind. Who's disrespecting him? So right now it's McBride Bowers. I haven't seen that. I felt like it's... Loveland, Warren, and then Fanon is... Everybody else has a crush on him, too. What I'm saying is specific to the three rookies from last year. Generally speaking, Loveland and Tyler Warren are seen as more valuable and higher fantasy assets than Fanon. I don't know that that's actually true. All right, my... Fantasy football early crushes for 2026. Malik Neighbors, who we did not get to see enough of last year, but with the new regime, Jackson Dart year two, some stability for him. I'm excited about Malik Neighbors. We lost a handful of players last year. It does not make fantasy football better when Malik Neighbors is off the field. He's an exciting, explosive player. And then Armani and Hampton, who I feel like this season kind of feels like it never really started for Hampton. It was just like.

You know, you began the year. Naji Harris was going to get the opportunities. He gets knocked out. Hampton starts to get going. He gets knocked out. They come back. Their offensive line is beat up. I just feel like we never really got a prolonged exposure to what he's capable of doing for the team. And so I'm very excited about that with Mike McDaniels. It was actually that way for. Did I do it again? Yeah, you did it again. This is 100% your fault. I know. I had no problem with this for my whole life. To my credit. I am proud that I have made you say Mike McDaniels. It's really, outside of Asheny, who obviously his situation is going to change quite a bit, I think Kubiak coming in could improve that, but the entire rookie running back draft class from 2025, which was one of the better ones to come out in recent memory, chock full of talent, and almost all of them showed that talent.

But almost always just for a little. You saw a blip of it. Like Hampton didn't get his. Judkins got hurt. You had Henderson have his incredible middle of the season. And then Scataboo. Yes. Oh, that's still too soon. Still too soon. No, you're right. That is a good point. So it's like I'm, I'm actually really hopeful for the 2025 rookie running backs next year. Well, that makes sense. By the way, we are talking about Gentie on today's show. We're doing shocking stats. We're also talking about, not Fan, Warren and Loveland. The Chase Brown continues to be on my list of he's going as in best ball where there's wide receivers are definitely propped up, but he's at the back of the second round and he's behind like Derek Henry or Chase Brown. I think it will be a tough decision. And then same team's chargers like.

Quentin Johnston and Trey Harris to me are going to be really interesting in drafts because neither of them will likely end up being drafted extremely high. They will be value-wide receivers. And like, I mean, the two seasons that Q has put together are like solid seasons. Now, it didn't go forever because of the offensive line problems. And then it's will Trey Harris, who showed up in flashes. Will he be a full-time starter now after being a second round pick last year? Like, does Keenan Allen leave the team? And what does McDaniel do? Like, who is, who does McDaniel see as the true field stretcher? Like, Q has been that guy, but maybe he looks at Trey Harris and says, no. It's actually McDan. We can just call him Mike McDee. I mean, that might make it easier for you. But one of those guys will be the field stretcher. So I think that'll be a fun.

offseason things we're trying to get information on it. All right. Let's talk a little news. News and notes from around the league. You like Mike McDeeze? That's dangerous. Tight in David Najuku. Scheduled to be a free agent announced he will not return to the team. He made a big post about goodbye Cleveland. Should you or see it? Hey, Cleveland in Cleveland. Remember when they could have traded David Najuku at the trade deadline and got something? Hot commodity. They, they, And you had the, you had his replacement ready? They were making a big playoff push. Man, goodness gracious, this team. Shadoor Sanders will get, quote, runway to be the number one quarterback for the summer and early fall. That was also the article that talked about them drafting a quarterback. What about late fall? We'll give him some runway like, pretty early. It's weird. Specifically early fall? Do you guys, you guys absolutely hate him?

I he his play was nothing to do with him as a guy his play was not always bad it was he had bad games and he had bad stretches but he also had very good stretches at times he does have a lot of talent he has a lot of physical tools but I just I don't hit when he when things go bad for him you don't think he can develop though I mean you've you've seen bad rookie years this was a player that was at one point a top five pick Right. I'm not saying he will reach that and he certainly probably won't reach it in Cleveland. I understand all of that. I'm just saying that players look bad early in their career and they're definitely going to look bad in Cleveland earlier in their career. I just, you know, it's not like this dude practiced as to be a starter for the first half of the year. But it was, I just wonder if there should be a little bit more optimism around the potential that he's their future versus Watson or a rookie.

He just like his advanced analytics. I'm talking about pro bowler, should do his advanced analytics are are catastrophically bad. And me, all my, you know, I'm like, I, fantasies in my bio. I don't know what I'm talking about. But everything bad that I saw should do or do it when I was scouting him, he fell right back into all those really bad habits, always backing up, never getting into the pocket, creating. It's all I'm saying. When his mistake, when he makes a mistake, it's a bad mistake. And it's just like it's a drive killer. So do they have the people in place to fix it? It's not impossible because of the physical tools, but it will take a lot of work to get him where he needs to be. ESPN Ryan McFadden reporting comically to me. Alec Pierce, Rashid Shaheed are on the radar for the Raiders. Both of those players seem like the most Raiders signings ever to me. I mean, Alec Pierce, Rashid Shaheed.

Both of those players to me are not complete wide receivers. They're both extremely fast, deep threats. I'm not sure if I'm a football team which player I'd rather have between those two, if I'm honest with you. I think... Yeah, it's tough because Shaheed can do special teams. That's it. It's like Shahid, I think, brings probably more total to your team with less production that you see on a stat sheet probably, or certainly in a fantasy football stat sheet, but maybe as the more valuable player. But this is where we're at. I mean, if these guys go, one of them goes to the Raiders, and we're talking about, let's say Pierce goes to the Raiders. I don't think we're, like, none of us are excited about this situation. You've got, you've got other players there already. Bowers is going to be the primary target. You've got a rookie quarterback. So betting against wide receivers for rookie quarterbacks is a very winning strategy. It doesn't always work. Sometimes they actually.

do come through, but the bet has been really strong. So year one, I would not be interested, but Mendoza, Mendoza looks like he could be a real quarterback. Did you know that this last season was Alec Pierce's career high in receptions? Do you remember the number? Oh, I mean, it was, is he in the 40s? He is in the 40s. He made the 40s. That is, that is, that is, he had a thousand yards. That's literally the most problematic. What's a thousand divided by 20? He had a thousand yards and 47 receptions. He is very, oh, it's just the most fewest receptions for a thousand yards season since 1990. I mean, it's the most problematic possible signing for a rookie quarterback ever. It reminds me of like the early seasons of Deshaun Jackson, whereas the volume wasn't there, but it was always big plays. Yeah, which he can do. It's just harder to do. We looked at that rookie quarterback study a while back. I think, ha, Kyle just popped it up.

Deshawn Jackson, 47 for 1,056. That was the all-time highest with under 50 receptions. Wow. Yeah. So it reminds me exactly of Deshaun Jackson. Because it was almost an identical season. Same receptions, almost the same yards. Both those guys would scare the tarnation out of me for Dynasty and for, like, I don't know. Pierce could end up somewhere much better, obviously. You could. This was interesting, Zach Robinson, the new Buccaneers offensive coordinator because they collect a new one every year. But this one, you know, we respect what Zach Robinson brings to the table. He says he sees Bucky Irving in a very similar light to be John Robinson with what he can do in the passing game. Zachary. I mean. That's a kind comment. Yeah. Zach. I mean, look, it's good to hear your OC relate you to a superstar simply from a workload perspective. You want him on the field.

You want him catching passes. This is a good comment. It's mostly irrelevant. He's not Bijon. I don't think anybody's out there saying. Buckey and Bijon are, you know, interchangeable. It's still good, though. You don't want, you could have someone come in and say, you know, I think he's so talented. He's going to be, you know, I'm going to work him in as part of a great talented core of running backs. Remember Aaron Glenn when he got to the Jets and was talking about how. great their running back room was because he's talking up the backups and you know it wasn't just Brees being the special player and it's like I would much rather hear this. Tell me how special you know he's on he's on pace for 51 receptions last year. Rashad White is a free agent. Rashad White did the David Adjoku thing and basically posted did he that I'm out yeah that I'm out like that's the most encouraging thing to me is that if you're

comparing him to a guy that catches a ton of passes out of the backfield. And we looked at the truth of the running back position earlier this offseason. And it was a really down year for running back receptions. That's the only, I don't think he's Bijon, but it's encouraging to me that you're talking about Bucky Irving to be your past catching specialist. That's super encouraging. Bucky's, he's in this nebulous area of, like, people aren't quite sure what to do. With him. His points per game were almost the exact same as last year, but he only scored one touchdown. And he scored eight last year. He seems like a steal. He could be. In best ball, an ADP right now running back 14 is Breece Hall. Then it's Ken Bone Walker. Then it's Buckey. Wow. So two guys that don't have teams. Right. Yeah, it's, I think I think Bucky is sneakily. I mean, with one touchdown. I know he missed time, but one touchdown on the ground.

There's some positive regression. Giants are hiring Brian Callahan to be their quarterback coach. Some disagreements internally on whether this is good or bad news. Internally here, not with their team. Yeah. Mike, I know you are not a fan of Brian Callahan and what he did at his Titans tenure. I was looking directly at the Titans and Cam Ward seemingly got much better. Overnight. Overnight when Brian Callahan was fired. And that feels bad when you're supposed to be an offensive guru type of a coach. When the team improves, not over a course of a few games, it was like, we started watching Cambod, like, oh, maybe it's not just a disaster here. The nice thing, though, is that maybe Callahan is not greatly equipped to be the play designer and play caller and have too much fall on his shoulders, but he's being hired as a quarterback's coach.

You know, he's not the offensive coordinator or the head coach or the play caller. Pretty good offensive coordinator for five years with Joe Burrow in Cincinnati. Yeah. So I think it's pretty good. Some of these guys can't aren't quote to be a head coach. The pressure was on. The screws were, he knew he was potentially on the way out. I don't know. Rookie quarterbacks get better over time, Mike? I mean, yes. It just seemed overnight. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he was a bet. He did not do the job in Tennessee. But I'm not too freaked out about this. I'd be happier if you told me Cliff Kingsbury had signed that contract there. Yeah, I think it's also a combination of it starts with Matt and Aggie. We're like, ugh. And then Callahan, you're like, oh, ah. You got double. Yeah, double groans going on for the Giants offensive hires. All right, we'll take a break. We'll jump into some shocking stats from 2025, some fun conversations.

Before we move into shocking stats, I did want to check back. Is there any videos you guys want to watch back there? You can just prop your phone up on the table. We could do like a YouTube video segment. Oh, dude. Favorite video from Jeremy's phone. You know what I'm so jealous of for other content creators? What's that? The reaction videos. Yeah, we never get to react to other. You're like, hey, you know this video that went viral or someone really put in a lot of work? How about a video of me watching that video? Yeah. Yeah. What? What were you watching back? Sign me up. You even know? The Kendrick Lamar half-time show, apparently. Fine. I'll watch Lamar. Yeah, we'll let you know what we think of. And you can watch us watching Lamar. Oh, a double. Yeah. When do we get into the, the watcher of the watcher? That's what are you saying? Well, no, Mike's taking at one more level. Yeah. I'm saying, Jason watches a video.

of me watching. Yeah. Kendrick Lamar. I actually... And is he reacting to your reaction? Yes. Oh, yeah, yes. I want to watch... He cannot react to the original video. Correct. Correct. It's a review of the review. I want to watch an audience watching your reaction video. And I'll react to the crowd. They're ooing. This is good content. Oh, no, they're booing. Let's jump in. How'd you do that? I'm not even mad. That's amazing. All right, we're going to bounce around a little bit. The team here has pulled out a handful of... Number four will shock you. Shocking. I'm starting with number four. No, you can't start with a number that I need. That's the one. That's what I want to talk about first. That's fine because I met number seven. Yeah. We'll shake you to your bones. We'll call this Dak the loser. I don't care for that. Doesn't sound very nice. I actually want to have a...

a conversation about DAC beyond even this shocking stat. But here is the stat. Dak Prescott had the widest fantasy points per game gap between wins and losses of any top quarterback ever. So when he won, when they won the Cowboys, he was 24 points a game, and that is pure elite fantasy production. When they lost, it was 12.7 points a game. So we know how much a blessing the Dallas defense was to our existence. The other side conversation about Dak is I saw a first, is it 10 years now for Dak? Can you check that for me? I think he's right around the 10 year mark as a quarterback. He's played 10. So 2016 was his first year, so this will be his 10th season. If you go look side by side at the statistics, it'll be his 11th season. What year is it?

Yeah, this will, he has, you have to count the six. He has finished. Oh, okay. You got to count zero. I got you. I got you. If you look at the first 10 years of Drew Brees and the first 10 years of Dak Prescott and you put their numbers next to each other. Drew Brees, renowned, well thought of. Hall of Famer now. Hall of Famer. And you look at what Dak has done in his first 10 years and the numbers are shockingly comparable. Oh, man. Not to mention... Careful saying these things out loud. Not to mention, I believe that, I believe Breeze through significantly more interceptions than DAC has. So we don't look at those two players at all in the same way. It seems like whenever DAC succeeds, we try to hitch his victory wagon to some other cause. It's not DAC, right? It's, well, he's got CD or he's got, you know, for a while it was... What, Des?

Well, yeah, yeah, Des, but the running, Ezekiel Elliott. Oh, yeah. Or the offensive line, right? Remember how long the offensive line was why they succeeded. I guess it was just a way of saying, from a production standpoint, DAC has been regularly great, rarely praised. And here we have another season where these disparities are wild. Like, you could start DAC this year in fantasy, and it would be not worth it at all. There were nine games in which you were like, whoops. And then there were seven games in which he was an absolute difference maker. When he has played 16 games, he's finished in the top 12 and often finishing much higher than... How many times has he played 16 games? I'm just not a gotcha. I'm just curious. Seven. Yeah, so seven times he's completed the season and three times he's been out because of injury. Yeah, I mean, it's just I think we're going to always have this conversation with...