Fantasy Football - Draft Value Picks + Trade Talk - Podcast for 8/21

All right, it's almost that time of year. The time when I set the foundation for supreme and total dominance at my fantasy football draft. How can I be so confident? Because I use the ultimate draft kit from the fantasy footballers. Man, it updates all off-season, so I never worry about using old busted information. Consistency charts, auction values, full projections, Oh, baby, this thing's got it all. You want to keep it 100 for your draft. Head to Ultimate DraftKit.com and get your copy today. The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in.

Thursday, August 21st, the fantasy footballers podcast, Andy Mike and Jason, back with you. Another episode talking values today. NFL news breaking every micro second, it seems. Yeah, it's been fun. Yeah, you've been just, it's nice to know when you open up the, you know, Twitter. Mm-hmm. It's always something. There's a video to watch. There's a headline. There's a puff piece about a player. There's an injury. Yeah, that part's not fun. That part's not as. But when trade depends on who you got on dynasty. Oh, yeah. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm joking. When you open it up the Twitter machine, you see a trade that like benefited one of the rookies. You're like, oh, okay, okay. You would be referring to what happened yesterday with Devon. Sky Moore.

oh yes i i kid you got him the second i saw that sky more was involved in a trade i literally was like breaking news sky more's in the NFL i had no idea that this man was still on a roster i mean we have spent the entire off season he didn't know he was on a roster we talk about jalen royals right you can go down the depth chart on the chief's wide receivers never did sky more like it feels like a key card that was meant to be blocked at the door but it keeps working and he just keeps going and trying not to get caught in the facilities you're talking about

Last year, three targets. Three, not three receptions. No. How many receptions? Oh, zero. Okay. That's why we forgot he plays football. So sky is the limit is, it's three. That's the sky. Okay. He did score a touchdown. He did score a touchdown in the Super Bowl against the team that traded for him. Is that? He was, he might have. I know he scored in a Super Bowl before. There's the 49er boy. We'll talk about. Did he? All of the. It was me, Cole Hardman. Okay. It was McCle Hardman. I thought Skymore did too. I thought they both did. I bet you Skymore scored in a Super Bowl might not have been about against the 49ers, yeah. So, yeah, that's a sweet. I can't keep track of all those Skymore touchdowns. Yeah, it's hard to keep track. But we welcome you in. We're happy to have you here. We're heading into the biggest draft weekend of the entire off season coming up. This Saturday, Sunday is.

The majority or at least a lot of the drafts are happening this weekend and then the weekend after as well into Labor Day. But make sure you're prepared. The Ultimate Draft Kit available right now, Ultimate DraftKit.com. We made the announcement earlier this week. I want to remind you the Megalobul. A lot of you had been asking. Is it going to come back this year? Of course it's coming back. In fact, over what's the number now? We're over 8,000 signed up. ready to join a league. The leagues will be drafting here in a couple weeks right before the kickoff of the NFL season. And so, yeah, you can go to megalobole.com, join your league, pick which time slot you want, play with other Footland members, and the winner will get not only a UDK for life, but even better than that incredible reward. They will be in next year's listener league with us.

Yeah, so megalobole.com for there. All Footclan supporters get a free entry into the Megalobole. It's going to be super fun this year and we're looking forward to it. What else is going on? I did just find out that the first NFL touchdown of Skymore's career was in the Super Bowl. Against Philadelphia. Against the Eagles. All right. Now, was that also the last one in his career or does he, has he had any? Going with the three targets, zero receptions. Yeah. I think that's a strong possibility. You can go to YouTube, watch the show, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers 2 in his career. Yeah, there was a... Hey, that's two more than us, guys. That's true. That's true. Yeah, I have zero, actually, yeah. You can follow us on Axe at the FF Ballers. Make sure you follow us on your podcasting app, Spotify, Apple. Leave us a review. A lot of you jumped in there, left a review for Al Borland. It left them in tears, really, gratitude, right?

Absolutely. I appreciate you. You were bawling. But thank you for those reviews. You're welcome. Wait. What? I thought you were thanking me. All right, quick question. What did I just agree to? I was looking up Skymore touchdowns because I'm only seeing one. One was in the Super Bowl. One was in the regular season. Ah, gotcha. Yeah. Yep. That's it. All right, quick question of the day comes in on X, D Money 24 writing in. What are your thoughts on making trades after your draft before week one begins? Sounds fun to me. I mean, anytime you're making a trade, you hope it's a good move for you. I don't think there's... It is the funniest trade to make because a lot of the time it is, you know...

you're making a bet with no new information from the draft, right? It's like everybody got drafted in specific spots and different teams. I've done it before. We've done it before. We've done it on draft day. Like post draft, you're like, ah, shoot. I really wish I had gone. You know, sometimes there's that perfect match. The vibes of deteriorate. Right after a draft where it's like, oh, you know, I gambled on my tight end and lost. And then I wish I got this guy. And the other guy's like, oh, I wish I did the opposite. And you're like, yeah. You want to swap ski those? I've done that before. But I think nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with it. What is wrong? And you see players do. And we get the question asked, is it a good strategy. And it is. Tax fraud. It is not a good idea. Not a good idea. To participate in tax fraud. Yeah. Ask Mr. Snipes. You can go to jail. But I would not draft to trade.

The players that are like, oh, I'm going to get. Don't do that. I'm going to draft both of the big tight ends and trade one of them. Or I'm going to get, you know, people did this in the past with defenses. I remember being in a league where it's like, I'm going to hoard all the defenses and trade them. And then the draft is over and you're like, nobody's interested. Right. Nobody's going to the waiver wire. Enjoy your team with five defenses. Yeah. So no, nothing wrong with it. I guess there'd be the advantage of like if if you have somebody on free agency that you also want and you think you can two for one consolidate your roster with the trade and then add a free agent player that's a way to do it. So just don't draft to trade. News and notes from around the league presented by progressive insurance.

Adam Schefter reporting the Bucks are expected to activate Chris Godwin off the PUP list and have him on the 53-man roster. This is exactly what they're doing with Tristan Worf's, their left tackle. It's weird. So he is not expected to play until October per Schefter. So basically they don't want him to miss four. If you put someone on the pup, then they've got to miss the minimum of four games. So. I think they're thinking maybe he'll miss two. And then there's rules about like practicing as well. So this keeps them available to practice. Yeah. We had two trades. You mentioned one of them. Skymore went to the 49ers from the chiefs, the 6-7 pick swap for Skymore. Too much. The 49ers have no wide receipts. I mean, that shows you how bad the 49ers receiving room is. You know, yesterday I think we had Ricky Pearsall as a sleeper's because there's no one.

to throw the ball to there. We had news in the receiver room for the 49ers yesterday. Jacob Cowing re-agravated a hamstring injury. Oh, that's not good. DeMarcus Robinson officially getting suspended three games. Shanhan came out and said, we're expecting three, but they're going to appeal it, so it could get cut down from three. It is why I mentioned Robinson will be relevant at some point, I think. Russell Gage, apparently on that team as well. He's going to miss seven to ten, is that days? with a sprained MCL? Yeah. Okay. So they got Skymore. Yeah, you know, we've seen it. And we had a big move, the Broncos. They got a fourth and a seventh. Which, what? That's a lot. Now, it, uh, it was for Devon Veil, who was a rookie, uh, big slot wide receiver that played for them last year. He played well. He seems like a good player. But this is a real. Andy. Yes.

Do you know how old Devon Bailey last year's rookie? I do actually. Oh, you do? Mike, do you? I know that he is much older. Much old. He's not a 21 year old. No, he, there's something like. So how old do you think he is? I believe he is going to be 30 before the end of his rookie contract. So I will put him at 27. 27.7 years old. That is wild. Now, what did my guy? Guys, he's in his prime. What did my guy George receive for a trade? George Pickens? Yeah. Oh, I don't remember. I think it was a third. So a fourth and a seventh for a 27-year-old valet. Or George Pickens, who's 24 years old. You don't pay valet that kind of money. But he goes to the Saints. Saints need help, a wide receiver beyond Oliva. And, you know, Velae is going to provide that some help over there. But this is also a huge endorsement, I think, of Pat Bryant in particular. And then obviously there's two possibilities here.

of it like well from a from a I'm talking about the Broncos yeah I mean obviously Troy Franklin is going to have a role no but it's it's either this because this is opening up the slot yeah so this is either Pat Bryant or Evan Engram's about to get a bazillion targets yeah no I I don't think it's Troy Franklin Franklin's a what you Franklin will have like they have more confidence in Franklin to go play on the outside and catch some deep deep passes but from a week to week standpoint it puts pat brian on the map as wide receiver too it does like to me that's the possible the player that they they went out they aggressively pursued him in the draft you mean the new michael thomas right oh yeah as those are not my words guys the number one thing we do in fantasy two is we rebuild great teams with the coach when they move around we just rebuild their good teams

Is that it reminds me? We know you can't rebuild what, Darren Sproles and Reggie Bush and those players with Giovante Williams and Tyler Badegh. So does it, do you move Evan Ingram up at all? I bumped them up a little bit. It makes sense that you would move him up a little because the confidence level I think was maybe not there that he could put up the big PPR numbers, but taking a... target away? Yeah, I think PPR numbers are where I have more confidence. I think he'll be involved. My lack of confidence in Evan Ingram is more what he's going to do with the targets, whether they're going to be efficient, whether he's going to score touchdowns, etc. But I, you know, you look at this team. He's the choker. Yeah, I mean, he already has his wings. I'm joking. According to Sean Peyton. And the reports recently have been that he is very, very involved in the passing game.

this move of valet is the same area of the field that Evan Ingram is going to work. So, yeah, I mean, Pat Bryant, massive endorsement and Evan Ingram more targets to come his way. So what else do we have? We got Jordan Addison. The Vikings need wide receivers. Yeah, the Vikings are in need of wide receivers because Addison and Ty Felton arm injuries in Wednesday's practice. Not supposed to be severe, but Addison's out for three weeks. Yeah, well, we'll see. Jalen Wright exited practice today with an apparent injury, Dolphins running back. They were already the leader in terms of the rumor mail for Brian Robinson with Devon A. Chan injured, with Madison out for the season, with Jalen Wright, you know, now hurt. It looks like they're going to be a landing spot for some running back at some point.

Because otherwise you're going, I mean, otherwise Ollie Gordon is your starter in week one potentially. Yeah, A. Chan might not be available week one. So that's something you need to pay attention to in your drafts. For sure. Like Ollie Gordon becomes a pretty high priority late target. Should they not go get Robinson, of course. He manned almost all of the dolphins running back reps in practice today after the injury. A. Chan's not out there. So Ollie Gordon looking sneaky as the season gets ready to begin. That was News and Notes, sponsored by Progressive Insurance, quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and third-party insurers, not available in all states or situations. Coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. We'll take a quick break. And we'll come back with some values for the 2025 fantasy football season. Foot Clan draft day is on the way. You got your rankings. You got those sleepers. You got you can't miss picks. But you know what? You need sometimes.

a backup because well even the best fantasy football team in the world doesn't go according to plan sometimes those starters they don't show up wouldn't it be great if you could have the same peace of mind everywhere else with progressive you get more than just a policy you get a playbook full of coverage options you can count on for your home and for your auto want to customize your protection no problem you can build your coverage just like your fantasy team making sure that you have the right players in every position and a backup when you need it most And when life throws an audible like a fumble in the driveway or a hailstorm at home, Progressive is there with 24-7 support. Don't get caught without a great backup. Visit progressive.com to quote today. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates, and third-party insurers. Not available in all states or situations, coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. Values.

All right, gentlemen, it is time for some individual value picks. Good draft A values is what we're looking at, players that, you know, we're not necessarily saying you go reach for them, but guys that will drop to places that we don't think they belong. This is kind of, you know, one of the big features we added to the UDK this year was the value scout tool where we take our projections and rankings for players and we compare them to a platform's average draft position. So. You can go into the UDK, you can open the tool, and you'll see where we believe a player's true value is in a draft versus where they're going, and then you can use that information to kind of adjust your strategy and drafts on your platform. Today we picked out some individual value picks, my name that I'm going to bring up. This is a player that I briefly talked about, I think a couple days ago, maybe in passing, that I thought was being undervalued.

But it's time to talk about him. Wow. It is Debo. Going right to the drop is bold. It is Debo Samuel, wide receiver one for the Washington commanders. That is currently true. I think it might be true all the times. All the times. Even if the player comes back, even if Terry McLaren comes back, Debo Samuel, there was a little bit of the offseason goofball fantasy analysis. And if we associate being slow in the offseason with fantasy success, so far it is a very good hit rate because last year's off season was Keenan Ellen. Oh, Fat Keenan. Looks like he can't run. That was fun. That was really fun. And then he had a great season in Chicago. Debo, obviously. Fat Debo. Fat Debo. He was real slow on the field last year, though. Well, let's talk about that. All right. That's what we're talking about. Debo, Samuel, I think we would all agree isn't the same Debo necessarily that.

We saw years ago, always dealt with some injuries, had prolific, what, number two overall fantasy finished in San Francisco one season. He's 29 years old. They traded a fifth round pick for him. Again, there's another example. You traded a fifth for Debo. You traded a four and seven for Velae. Okay. Yeah. But the biggest question that we have is, does he still have it? Now, if you, I mean, just yesterday, I think all the beat riders in Washington were pulled to say who was the most impressive player in camp for the Washington commanders? No, no. What? It wasn't Bill. It wasn't Bill Kroski? It wasn't Bill Kroski. Bill Kroski can unscramble, scramble to eggs. I should have known that if I brought up a commander player, I was in deep trouble trying to get through. I'm just shocked that the Washington Beat reporters are not also in on. No, the most impressive player in training camp was Debo Siaming. That is the number one player named and.

Debo, we saw him briefly. We saw the jet sweep. We saw classic Debo in the preseason game on Monday. He looked very fast once again. But this is about scheme, right? If you get past the, hey, is Debo, maybe he's not the same Debo. But the question is, is Debo done? And I don't think Debo is done from what we've seen on the practice field in training camp or in the preseason. And if he's not done, then you literally dropped Debo Samuel into the best possible offense. for Debo Samuel. There is no better situation than Debo with Cliff Kingsbury. Behind the line of scrimmage targets is what... You're talking about the route push? It's what Cliff does. 20% of Jaden Daniels targets were behind the line of scrimmage. Fifth, highest in the NFL. Kingsbury's wide receivers rank, here's their ranks on screen targets over the last three years. First, second, third. That's what they do.

And Debo averages two plus fantasy points per target on the screen passes. This is a match made in heaven. And we don't even have Terry McLaren in camp. And we already know Terry McLaren's regressing in touchdowns anyways. He was not a volume. He's not 120 catch guy. And so then you ask, well, Debo, what's the, does he still have it when it comes to yards after the catch? Because that's the, you know, this was a player that led the NFL in yards after the catch for four. of the previous five years before 2024. Guess what he was last year? Second. Second in the NFL in yards after the catch. Debo Samuel. Mims was the only one ahead of him, believe it or not. Marvin Mims of the aforementioned Denver Broncos. So, you know, Debo last year tied Garrett Wilson, most evaded tackles at the wide receiver position. Nobody wants to draft it. He feels like the Cooper Cup pick. He feels like old busted. But we love Washington. We love Jane Daniels. We love what the offense did.

Who in the world is going to catch passes for this team? Are you, is it Zach Ertz, Mike? You want to go with Zach Ertz? Oh, he'll catch passes. He will not have yards after catch, though. I just think that, and this is obviously value is correlated to draft cost. Right now, Debo Samuel is way down the board. 38 at wide receiver, late seventh round pick. He is literally next to Cooper Cup. So he's next to Jacoby Myers. He's next to Diggs. Like, if you're old, you get drafted at 30. 8, 39, and 40, apparently. That's where the retirement festivities are happening. So, look, the upside is tremendous because you have so much confidence in the team. Like, Debo could be their one. Debo could be their one. I think the real question is, is he washed? Like, that's the issue. The reason that he's, you know, dropped is because what we saw on the field last year looked bad and, you know, efficiency-wise was not that great. And so as an older wide receiver,

question is just as does he not have it anymore? Because if that's the case, then it'll be a wasted pick. But I don't think there's a world where it's just an average pick. Like if Debo still has it. And honestly, I know it's one play and I don't want to overdo it. You know, I just talked about you don't want to, one of the tips was don't overreact to preseason hype. But that's usually more about the young. That would be more about Bill than it would be about Debo. Debo was just, I saw. physicality, that cut, you know, he basically got a jet sweep, looked fast, had a great cut that was classic Debo, went down the field, you know, was hard to tackle, and it was like, oh, that was, that was what Debo always looked like when he dominated. So if he hasn't lost it and he's on this offense, then yeah, it's a great pick. I just have a hard time, like if you play out how a game, a game plan goes for a commander's offense, I have a hard time.

seeing them not put the ball in his hands a ton because of what Kingsbury does. And then you're like, well, did those metrics support that he was still good after the catch? Last year they did. And so to be the most impressive player in camp as well, I think he is being undervalued because we're done with him and we want to take shots on other players. But, you know, Roma Dunez is going a few picks ahead of him. I would understand that one. But, you know, when you're talking about is Jacobi Myers upside? What Debo's is in Washington? Probably not. Where it's difficult for me, the eighth round is, that's fantastic. The speaking of scheme, that's where it's where I don't know exactly what to do with Debo because he, I mean, he was the bell of the ball, you know, for years with San Francisco. And last year, they really needed Debo Samuel with Brandon I. Youk suffering the season-ending injury.

After the buy week, so you're talking eight games where he's playing a full allotment of snaps. You're talking an average of 79% of the snaps. So he's playing that game. In that time, in those eight games, he was averaging three catches for 33 yards per game. And he's like Kyle Shanahan was done with him. So that's what scares me off of Debo. But again, we do try to relay. Like if risk is built into ADP, then you aren't you aren't risking anything in the eighth round like I'm not nearly as bullish as Andy is I'd like I would probably say I'm more out like I'm considered myself more out on Debo but in the eighth if he does still have something I like even if Terry comes back I don't love that Terry McLorn is going to be missing the essentially the entire training camp and off season I know he's a pros pro and he knows the office everything but you

You can't just walk onto a football field in week one and say, I'm ready to play. So he is, I think he's interesting, despite me, despite what I watched last year was a player who was not a part of the San Francisco offense. Yeah, and I don't think he's ever played a full season. Maybe, were they playing 16 in 2021? If so, that was his only full season in six years in the NFL. So that's always a risk. Debo takes a lot of punishment on the field. but I do think that maybe he's being undervalued, especially in light of the McLaren situation. So other value picks, I don't know which one of you guys want to take a shot first. I'll hop in here. My value pick is D.K. Metcalfe for 2025. This is a player who, it makes no sense to me that he is being drafted where he's being drafted in the fifth round as the 22nd wide receiver off the board. I know why, and it's because of the end of last year.

The end of last year, D.K. McCaff, he disappeared. He was pretty irrelevant. But we don't remember the cause. Do you guys remember the cause of what happened to D.K. Metcalfe last year? Eating too much candy. Maybe. He does love himself some Skittles. However, that wasn't it. He hurt his knee in the middle of the season. Missed Week 8, missed week 9 came back and wasn't very good. He had, I believe it was a MCL sprain. I'll look that up. If you look at the splits between when he missed a chunk in the middle of the season and came back kind of injured and the beginning, you forget that he started the year on pace for 150 targets, 1,400 receiving yards, seven touchdowns. Like he was really good. He was, you know, what he's been his whole career, which is basically a top 15 wide receiver. Then he gets traded, becomes the guy for Aaron Rogers.

They ship out George. They give him a four-year 132 million dollar contract. Like, there's no question from any human on the planet who leads this team in targets. None. There's not even a possible debate. There's not even another player that could accidentally come to the same target share. And if you look at what Aaron Rogers has done with his wide receiver ones, doesn't matter whether it was Jordy Nelson or Randall Cobb or Devante Adams or... Devante Adams or Devante Adams, you know, over and over. He hyper targets them. Last year, this version of Aaron Rogers had Garrett Wilson as a top 10 fantasy wide receiver. At the same time that he had Devante Adams as a top 15 wide receiver. The target market shares for wide receivers, we just did, if you haven't seen the Just the Tips episode of the fantasy football, there's a little mini series we're doing. I talked about wide receiver metrics that matter.

And targets are the primary most prescriptive, you know, stat that eludes to success. And the target market share for a player, if they're about 30%, if they hit that number, they are almost a virtual lock to be a top 12 wide receiver. And you look at like, okay, Aaron Rogers, number one wide receiver, you've got years of 31%, 32%, 34%, 31%, 31%, 29%, 28%, And there's no one else to throw the ball here, too. Pat Friermouth and Roman Wilson. I cannot tell you how much I love D.K. McHavs this year. I am in 100% agreement. I think he is probably the best pick in fantasy or close to it. There are players in the NFL that, like, I never think, like, you talked about like, why are you out on D.K. Metcalfe. I don't even think, like, he's not a player that I look at the box score.