Fantasy Football - Free Agency Winners & Losers + Waddle Trade Reaction - Podcast for 3/24

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. We're back Tuesday, March 24th, the Fantasy Footballers podcast, Andy Mike and Jason. We got a great show for you today. We got some catching up to do. Got a big time trade in the NFL happen. just after we had recorded our last episode. So, you know, now we get to give some dedicated time. You know, sometimes it's fun when the breaking news happens immediately. You get your off-the-cuff thoughts, but then now you get a few days to think about what happened with Jalen Waddle and the Broncos. So we'll talk about that momentarily. Welcome you all into the show. Hello. We had a little bit of time off with the family. Our producers didn't, though. No. Well, one of them did. That's true.

That's true. But the other ones, they were here. Our real hardworking producers. We made them work while we were away, and they did some cool stuff around here. Yeah, we had, you know, the off. We don't have an offseason, right? I mean, we are recording year-round, fantasy football talk all the time, trying to get you ready to go, but we do dip down to fewer shows per week, and the off-season is a great chance for us to make some upgrades to... Things around here, personnel, oh, not personnel, sorry. The studio and things like that. And we were out for a few days, so they went to work. And they made some changes. I don't know. Obviously, you can't tell if you're listening on the podcast. But if you're watching. What, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. That's right. We just installed some wood beams. Got some wood beams on the wall. We just put some wood beams on the wall.

So we can party baby. Oh yeah. You got to go check it. Oh, it was a trick. They were. It wasn't real. So yeah, we, uh, you got to go check it out on YouTube. We've got some new features. Oh, new things to play with. Yeah, that is really cool. Yeah, we got it. We now have gone from the concepts. The producers came up with the concept. Yeah. And I had. Andy was like there is. 0% chance that it will work. I said, I had my doubts. I had my doubts. Oh, yeah, many, many doubts. But hey. But they did it. It worked. And now we have to figure out how to use it. Credit to me, really. I let them do it. Oh, yes. You know what I mean? You were outvoted. Thankfully, you only had one third out of three. So.

I was told to let them do it. And then it turned out amazing. So you guys watching on YouTube now and for forevermore, we'll see a lot of the cool features with the set upgrades and changes that we've made. And if you're listening, it's going to sound the same. I'm sorry. We still sound the same, which is awesome. Yeah, I was going to say congratulations. We've got the news to jump into. Let's do it right now. News and notes from around the league. All right. Look at the right there. Oh my gosh, the wall changed. It's amazing. Jalen Waddle is no longer a member of the Miami Dolphins along with what Darren Waller and Tyreek Hill and almost everybody else. Excuse me? Yeah, yeah. The dolphins traded Jalen Waddle and a fourth round pick to the Denver Broncos. Dolphins received.

A first round pick number 30 overall. A lot of talk about them taking a wide receiver right there. It's a good wide receiver class. Third round pick, fourth round pick. There was apparently a lot of discussion between the two teams around the shade deadline. Didn't get a deal done. Probably would have helped the Broncos. They did make a nice run in the playoffs. Jalen Waddle, the big story here. I think we had just talked about him and our expectations for Jalen Waddle in Miami with Malik Willis right before the news broke. So let me get your reaction. This is, to me, it's, it's very opposite of the DJ Moore trade where in the DJ more trade, it was just for fantasy purposes, it was good for everyone. Like, it didn't hurt the quarterback losing the wide receiver. It helped the wide receiver changing teams. Helped all the other pieces that you want to see succeed in Chicago. This is like, I feel like I don't like this at all. It's not an upgrade for Jalen Waddle.

Maybe he gets a quarterback upgrade. Maybe you could say Bo Nix is better, but he was basically the primary target with no competition. Now he's joining Cortland Sutton, obviously the great Troy Franklin and other pieces. This has got to be good for Troy. It's clearly good for Troy. So it hurts there. I mean, obviously, Bo Nix, that's great for him to get another target. I think he's like the only player whose arrow goes up here. I. I can see that perspective. It definitely helps Bo Nix. You didn't have, you know, Troy Franklin, yes. He made a play here and there. They got a play from Lil Jordan Humphrey last year. They get a play from, you know, Sutton had a lot of mistakes, right? He was the touchdown guy two years ago. Last year, kind of let fantasy players down. Waddle is by far their best player in the wide receiver room to me. Like Sutton is solid. But I think Sutton also, like it's just better for that team to have.

Watt will be able to make those explosive plays. And you want those for your quarterback because you need, you know, Bonnix needs explosives in the, in the offense. And they paid up for him. I mean, this is not really, they are saying he is our wide receiver one. I mean, they definitely are. But I mean, Sean Peyton has, he's gotten us a few times. Now, how Joker is Jalen Watt? Oh, man. You can't be a joke. According to him, you cannot be a joker at a wide receiver. That's a running back or a tight end. My bad. My bad. Yes. The great Sean Payton. But I saw he, I don't know that we're going to get anyone who are going to be happy with in terms of being a wide receiver for fantasy. I think long term, I would, we'll see if Cortland Sutton's on this team next year. I agree with that actually. I think that there could be a chance. I think it might be waddling.

Bryant's as the main two guys. Yeah, you are a Pat Bryant fan. That hurts him too. Oh, yeah, for sure. For this year. Yes, it does. I mean, and that assumption is also that it does, if Pat Bryant is good enough, then I think Cortland Sutton will be gone. If he's not, then they'll probably keep him. And Malik Willis for fantasy. Dude, he was, he was someone that was. Did they tell him? I know. Because it's like, by all accounts, it was, Malik Willis can go to the Dolphins or he can go to the Arizona Cardinals. The Arizona Cardinals have playmakers. The dolphins now have picks, so they'll replenish with somebody, but you're like, hey, maybe we could get someone who's as good as Jalen Waddle type of thing. It might be a boat, but he's not, he is not put into a position of success. Here's where I'll say. Kyle is, Terrace Marshall's on the Dolphins. Lockjaw. Lockjaw.

I mean, who's the one there? Malik Washington? Nobody. It's whoever they draft. Tolbert? Who did they just sign? Yeah, they got Tolbert too, but. They will draft somebody, and this situation will repeat what it did before, which is Waddle got drafted to a situation. People didn't necessarily love on a bad team with a bad quarterback play. And Waddle became a superstar immediately. If you look at it from that perspective, like Miami hasn't, they now have an open one spot. They do. So when you talk about any of these guys in the first round being picked, I mean, fill in the blank. I don't care who you want to put it in there, Carnell Tate, or you put in Concepcion later in the first round. What's their first pick? Or Dinsel Boston, whoever they end up landing. To me, it's a huge opportunity. They're at 11. I mean, that is prime. If Mackay Lemon goes to Miami, all of a sudden, you're like, okay, he's just the one from day one. And in that regard, it's exciting. It feels like at the 11, they've got to, they've got to take one of those three wide receivers. And that will be, that would, that would.

potentially completely change the pre-draft order of those three wide receivers. Like if we've got Tyson first and Lemon goes there. I mean, you got this, you got to get through the Browns, right? Like we don't, sorry Browns. This is fantasy football. I don't want one of the big three going to the Cleveland Browns and just wasting away, Garrett Wilsoning away his career for the. for that team, never really giving us fantasy football value. So it's like, you know, hypothetically, Tate goes to Cleveland Browns, Mikey Lemon goes to the dolphins. It's, like, you better think that Tate is just that dominant that it won't matter because the situations will be upside down. Where do you think this puts Waddle in the, in the fantasy universe right now? Because.

I don't think there's going to be any debate that the Denver offense is a better offense than what Miami was going to bring to the table. The issue with Waddle historically inconsistency and injury was going to get that opportunity. But, you know, they're going to run the ball a lot in Denver as well. Yeah, they certainly want to run the ball. They've got a great defense. So this isn't a team that, you know, is going to be requiring putting up 30 points and passing as much as you'd like it. I'm guessing he'll finish somewhere around wide receiver 25, like on the wide receiver 2-3 bubble to me. I would probably, if you had asked me, I'd probably be around 1819. Mike, where are you? I'm closer to Jason. I just don't know that the touchdowns will be there. Okay. Well, we got news this morning. The Seahawks signed Jackson, Smith, and Jigba to a four-year, $168 million extension. We probably don't have like a really...

cool money. Do we have a money drop yet? Do we? I mean, that's still pretty cool. All right. We're working on it. Yeah, I mean. It's going to be some growing pains. Well, this is an extension. He still has his fifth year. I think it averages to 32 when you consider the six years he's under contract. It's huge. I mean, it's a massive deal. This is part of what you're going to see the Seahawks have to do. This isn't the only player they're going to have to pay on this team. They have a young defense with some stars. They're paying their wide receivers.

Yeah. You got JASN, you had the Rashid Shahid deal that already went through. True. And guys, we were worried that Jake Bobo was going to be stolen by the Jacksonville Jaguars. And the Seattle Seahawks said, nay, we will match the offer. We're not losing Bobo. No, no. That's where all our money's going to go go. What else is going on? Hollywood Brown, one year deal with the Eagles. Eagles had mostly been letting players go this offseason. Okay. I thought I have that AJ Brown replacement ready. It's the Jahan Dotson filling. Yeah, it is right now. I mean, I will say it becomes far more relevant should A.J. Brown be traded than this, then this is something to pay attention to. I've got him in a couple of Dynasty League. So it was like, hey, oh, okay. All right. Maybe. His career is so over. They also acquired Andy Dalton.

And then immediately came out. This was so weird. They trade for Andy Dalton and then want it known by all. Don't worry. He's not the backup quarterback. Okay. He's going to. Press release. Yeah. Like, you know, quarterback three. Okay. Like what was the? Yeah. Tanner McKee is locked in at QB2. We just had to trade for Andy Dalton. I mean, a seventh round pick, but. So the Panthers are rolling with weird. with Bryce and Kenny Pickett. Yeah, man. It felt like a strange move by the Panthers. Maybe this was a, we got to get, we cannot have any more talk of Andy Dalton versus Bryce Young. I don't know. It seems weird. A bunch of one year deals. Are these all, these are all in the mediocre signing category? Mm-hmm.

I don't know where that drop is if Al can find it. A.J. Dillon, one year with Carolina. Damien Pierce, one year with Philadelphia. Ty Chandler, one year with New Orleans. Greg Dorch, one year with his former offensive coordinator, the blobfish. In Detroit. Greg Dorch took Detroit. Mediocre signing of the wig. I think that officially went to Greg Dorch. Yeah. Yeah, it's the last name. Yeah, for sure. Also, some players retired that we really thought were retired a long time ago. But formally, T.Y. Hilton just retired? That is absurd. That is absolutely absurd that you put out this big statement like he's walking away. You missed your window, man. There's got to be a statute of limitations. Yeah, you're not allowed. You're not allowed to retire that late. And it stinks because it's like we would have celebrated T.Y. Hilton was a great player. Hilton gave us.

He played in 2022. He gave us tons of fantasy football production. So what is the statute of limitations in our opinion for? Oh, for a retirement? Two years. Two years of not being on the field. Yeah. Okay. So you didn't play unless you're, unless you're totally hurt that entire time. Yeah. Right. So if you have two years where like a team didn't want you. He was on Dallas? Wait. Hold on. Kyle. Two years since. His final year, he was on the Dallas roster. I have no memory of this. I find that hard to believe. There you go. There's also the news of Travis Kelsey. Travis Kelsey signed a, it was reported like a four-year contract, but really their void years. It's a one year, $12 million deal with $3 million in incentives. Yeah. And so, you know, they stretched out the signing bonuses so that there's like a small cap hit in 2027. If he.

Next year, he'll decide if he's going to play or not and then redo the contract again. But he is officially playing this season. T.Y. Hilton caught seven passes. For Dallas? Six of them were first downs. I get why he didn't want to retire. That's a crazy conversion rate. He's been pitching teams with that number for years. All right. Well, I think that's going to do it for news. We'll take a break. And we're going to jump into our official free agency winners and losers. All right, we've had a chance. We've watched teams make their moves. A lot of trades this year. A lot of moves in free agency, big money, the biggest cap for the NFL that we've ever seen. Time to talk winners and losers. We're going to win! Okay. Free agency winners and losers. These are our biggest. Yes. Yeah, because there's a lot of...

of guys that we won't necessarily talk about, but the people that we think got kicked in the junk the most, you know, or is the kicking. Yeah, or did the kicking. Yeah, it's got to be bad to get kicked in the junk, but not enough to be on the segment. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Maybe you're a worse loser than our biggest losers today. Yeah. I just think getting kicked at all is tough. Jason, why don't you kick it off? We're going to start with that. That was like the guy who year after year sent in the video.

getting hard. Are we going to talk about that? Yeah, I'm doing it. It's been mentioned before. He got hard kicked in the nuts. I don't think people out there know what we're talking about to apply to make it on the, you know, to join our listener. Inspired by like a Johnny Knoxville situation. And, uh, and then he didn't get in. It was, it was close. It was admirable. It was he was in consideration. Great work hard kick. Um, but didn't make it on. So that's, uh, that's tough. All right, Jason, your biggest winner in free agency, who'd you go with? I went with the littlest man for the biggest winner. Kyler Murray. Kyler Murray is a huge winner. It was funny, Andy mentioned to me this morning when he saw this, you guys are in the card world. But apparently Kyler Murray's card value, his trading card value, it is the number one highest moving card value across all sports.

He's doing better than some of these Pokemon cards. I will say it's because it was that low. Fair, fair. It's really true. Like his market was nowhere. Yes. And then he gets picked up and it's jettisoned upward. And from a fantasy football perspective, Kyler is important. You can you can hate watching him. You could complain about everything that he does. But on a per game basis, he scores a lot of fantasy points. This last year. was a very down year. Obviously, you've got Trey McBride. You talk about some of the weapons, but, you know, is Marvin Harrison truly a stud? I don't know. Oh, Michael Wilson is. Is Justin Jefferson a stud? Yes. Yeah. He's probably the best wide receiver in the National Football League. You've got a great system here, a great coach, Kevin O'Connell, and I think the best weapons he's ever had. I don't think he's ever had a receiving core like this. Back in the day when he had DeAndre Hopkins,

in Hopkins' prime. Yeah, I mean, I think Hopkins and Kirk was pretty good. Yeah, definitely pretty good. Maybe as good as this. I don't know that it was, but it certainly, you know, it certainly wasn't like categorically better than this. And keep in mind, Kyler Murray, when he had that, was the quarterback two in fantasy football. Like the number two quarterback, he was, you know, scoring 23.7 fantasy points. per game. And I think that you can see a resurgence for fantasy this year while he's playing for a contract. He's on a one year deal. So he's going to, he's going to score a ton of fantasy points, be a top 10, like I guarantee he's a top 10 fantasy quarterback. Okay, I'm not in that camp. I'm going to ask, are you going to fall into the Kyler Murray Pungy Pit? Yeah.

Yeah, I'm just going to go right in. He's a very, very different. We've said this. We've watched the tape in Arizona. He's a very, very different player than he was during his heyday for fantasy. None of that is to make him not a winner in fan. I mean, this is as much of a winner as he could possibly be. Agreed. And it's the same for the Vikings. And I'll be shocked if JJ McCarthy is even on this team. That's about where I'm at. Like I feel like if they end up making the decision that they're going to move forward, they sign Carson wins. Like there's a chance they just trade him. It's a great win for Kyler.

I don't think he's the same quarterback he used to be. I don't know that I have the confidence in Kevin O'Connell that I think people want to give. I think it would be fair to look at Kevin O'Connell and say, okay, well, he's the quarterback whisperer, right? Mm-hmm. Except for he didn't do it right with, like it didn't work with JJ, right? Correct. And then they also gave up on Donald, right? Oh, and they also gave up on Daniel Jones, right? I mean, these are all decisions that this team made. So, like, to me, you're like, sort of. I mean, you can, you, you, you, you don't know how much of that is O'Connell or the GM who was. The firing of the GM says that he is taking the most of the responsibility for that. And, and the Daniel Jones was the offers were competitive. Like, I think they were pretty much the same. He just.

saw the path of an easier start in Indianapolis. Then let's change the argument to organizationally they've made quarterback mistakes. Sure. So that's at least out there in the world. I do think that the potential for Kyler is tremendous. But I am concerned about the offensive line and our expectations in fantasy. His past, especially this last year, the frustration with him in fantasy circles, I believe he will be underdrafted. Right now he's being drafted at quarterback 18. He'll certainly not be that low. But I think he might be close to that. You know, he might be a true late round quarterback. And if he is still a late round quarterback as a mobile guy with the receiving weapons he has, I will be in in fantasy. We have not had a top 10 season from him. Or I guess that super year was 2020. Man, it's been a while. Yeah. Yeah, he's going to have everything in front of him. And it's great for, you know, if you want to throw Jefferson in as a free agency winner.

I think that would be appropriate. For sure. I think Addison, free agency winner. This team is prime to make a run. I don't know what the numbers are going to be like for fantasy. Maybe I'll get more hyped as time goes on as he gets further and further away from Arizona. But regardless, I think that there's a decent chance that you're talking about comeback player of the year, that you're talking about a team that's in the playoffs and could make a deep run. And all of those things will be super nice knife twists for the Cardinal fans out here. We'll see how they're, they better fix that offensive line. That is, that's what we saw from Kyler in Arizona. Because if the offensive line is bad, Kyler Murray's, the dog has left the kennel. Yeah, nice. Yeah, he does not have, he goes down quick. He does not step up into the pocket.

No, he'll try to run and slide. He ever since he got hurt. I think he is a very talented player, a very talented quarterback. He is incredibly athletically gifted. So. He is a talented. He is such a coward. I mean. Yeah. This is your winner. Yeah. He is a coward. He plays like a coward. I was trying to say it the nicest way I could. Are you a coward? Are you a coward though if you are that? legitimately isn't not just a if you're that small you could call him isn't it just being intelligent yes absolutely because of squish I think he I think he is not unwise to play like a coward I'm not saying I'm going out there and take those hits I will I would be a coward not yeah if I'm out there make no mistake I am a coward right like Kyler Murray right there you go

I'm going to, I'll go next, Mike. Winner. I think you're exercising some. We're all exercising our demons. The opportunity is amazing. And for goodness sakes, let's, let's get Jefferson back into a weekly car. When we do our conversation about studs and duds, can we talk about Jefferson the stud every once in a while, please? That'll be fun. So don't be a coward, Kyler. Two sophomore tight ends. Those are my biggest winners for free agency. It's not always the guy who changes teams. Nope. It is the beneficiaries on both of these teams, the emerging young talents. Tyler Warren, Colston Loveland, those are my biggest winners for fantasy football purposes. Michael Pittman, a product of the free agent period, the signing of Alec Pierce meant that Michael Pittman was going to get shipped out of town to Pittsburgh.

And then Colson Loveland with the departure of DJ Moore, the emergence over the late part of the year. I like Adunzei. I like Luther Burton. In fact, I went back and watched the Luther Burdon tape again. Oh, yeah. And it really, like, I was ready to go like right back into the like, Adunzee will be the cheaper, better option. And I watched that tape. And I was like, nope. And I loved burden coming out of college. Man, he might be the one. But, yeah, it's, it's, I thought about putting Colson Loveland down. for the biggest winner on this and i had just done the exact same thing you did i just watched all that luther burden tape and i was like i think he might he might he's he's like i don't he just was really good he moves different you forget because the season is long and he had such short stints of success but when you go and you watch all the success together and you go oh man he looks

so good. Yeah, and Loveland was dominant for this team over the late part of the year. It's funny because Michael Pittman vacated 21% of the targets in Indianapolis, which you're like, that's a lot. And Tyler Warren is very good, and Daniel Jones will be back. But then you look at Chicago, and DJ Moore was 17%, but Alameda Zakias was another 12% of that offense. So that's 29% vacated in Chicago. So that does mean good things for... You can sub in Luther Burden's name and Roma Dunzey's name for Colson Loveland. All three of those guys are winners in Chicago. DJ Moore was an unnecessary expense. That's what he was. They literally had to come up with different ways to use him that were just not even that beneficial to the team. It's a good move for both of those guys to have some of their competition leave town. Colson Loveland playoff target share was 28% with DJ Moore.

It was 23% weeks 14 through 18. Right now an underdog, like Tray McBride's the expensive tight end at 18 overall. Loveland and Warren are 46 and 69. That makes Tyler Warren to me stand out at least in terms of like people are already expecting and baking in the Loveland league. They are. The Warren is not being accounted for. Well, and the Warren is crazy because to me you say, okay. Is Colson Loveland the number one target on the team, the number one target? On the Bears? On the Bears? Probably. That's how I'd feel to. You would say probably? I would say probably. I would say probably. I don't think it is probable when you've got, you know, we were just talking about Luther Burton and how good he looked and you've got Roma Dune's Day. But on the other side, when you say, like, to me, Tyler Warren will be the leading target.