Footballers AMA + Fantasy Burns, Coach Speak - Fantasy Football Podcast for 6/20

Back with another episode today, but today we are answering your questions about, well, anything. It's an Ask Us Anything special edition episode. Make sure you subscribe and enjoy. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. It's a normal day. You've been sick for like a month, Andy. Uh-huh. That's what I wanted to hear. Welcome in one and all Thursday, June 20th. Brand new episode of the fantasy footballers. We are recording this a little bit early. This is part of our one week off. But not for you. We don't take any time off. You know, we're here every Tuesday, Thursday. You're saying not for them because we're here. Yeah, we're here. You've got an episode today. It should be a fun show. We're right.

at the precipice of a new season. I am being inundated with wonderful coach speak at every turn, every possible inflection and tone of voice from every head coach and offensive coordinator. It's a brutal time. Either confirming all that I believe already or something to be ignored. Right. 100%. And what's cool about... I don't like that. What's cool about coach speaking? I can't hear you. Most of the time when you hear something that is the exact opposite of what you believe, like they're literally saying something negative about a player you're very confident in. You can actually hear those words as positive. You can hear the comment and be like, I think what they're really meaning here is that they're totally into this guy. It's unbelievable. It's all a big smokescreen. They're making sure that teams don't realize week one.

This dude's getting 30%. I see what you're doing, coach. Good, good work, coach. I am in a very funny situation with some coach speaking, some hype and some conversation because here's how my offseason is gone. I have tempered expectations on Kyron Williams. I was the voice of temperance. Is that because you recently heard that Blake Quorum is really standing out? No, no, no, no, no. You see you ruined the entire story. Oh, I'm so sorry. You just submarine the entire. The reveal at the end of my team. Oh, I'm sorry. I was the tempered voice months ago before I traded for him because I believe in Blake Corum. Who was my number one running back on my rankings? Blake Corum. Yeah. My number one rookie was Blake Corum. So I had been tempered about Kyron. And then I listened to Blab Blab over here and you talk talk. Blab Blab. Blab. That's my name? Your Blab Blabby's talk talk. And both of you were just Kyron, Kyron, Kyron. Yeah. And then I went out and I traded for Kyron.

And then I wanted, at that point, I wanted everything I ever said about Blake Corum to be just unconscionably incorrect. And then this week, as Mike just said, it's all positive about Blake Corum. So. That doesn't concern me at all. Excellent. Blab, blab and talk talk. Just saying, like, it does, I really think that Blake is, will give Kyron some time off. No, I know. But. What it does for me, though, is we've already talked about it over the off season. But I think it's just, it's really reemphasizing it for me is no matter what. Like if I have Kyron, we don't usually draft insurance running backs on this show. Like I don't, I don't recommend that because very frequently it's just a wasted roster spot sitting there killing you when you're trying to make ads on waiver day. And you're like, well, I can't drop this player because.

It's an insurance policy. Then when the insurance policy actually gets enacted and the player in front of them gets hurt, you're not always 100% sure that that's the real insurance guy. But like Blake, to me, if I have Kyron, I'm leaving that draft with Blake Corum. And if I don't have Kyron, one of my last picks, I'm going to try and leave that draft with Blake Corum. We do know that if Kyron goes down to injury, which he did last year, the opportunity will be huge. And the year prior. And the year prior, and the offensive line has been upgraded in Los Angeles. All the things you guys blab, blab and talk talked about convinced me to go get Kyron. Kyron will be fantastic for fantasy when he's on the field. I agree with Mike, though. Blake Quorum is a good fit for the system. It's a great insurance policy to have there. Do you guys remember Darrell Henderson?

off the street because no one wanted this guy on their team. Darn L. Anderson. Week seven, the Rams said we got an issue and they said, hey, come be our starting running back. And then three of four weeks scored over 10 fantasy points and was a top 24 guy in three of those four weeks. It's a good point. You can watch the show right now. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballer. Subscribe. Click the bell. The Ultimate DraftKit available at Ultimate DraftKit.com. Go get in on that. The UDK Plus will have the draft analyzer releasing on July 1st. Just made some tweaks to my rankings this morning, and then I imported those into the UDK. And, you know, we have little updates on the app and on the web that shows where players moved around. And I observed that you guys had made some changes, and so a whole bunch of changes went in there. We're staying water. That's a principle here. We want to adjust, you know, certainly from...

February, March, April assumptions about teams, free agency, draft, camp, OTAs, holdouts, contracts, extensions. So many things factor into the way that you view the season. And that's one of the reasons why the draft kit is a digital, always updated tool for you heading into August. We grew up in the era of, you know, going to this. Walgreens and buying magazines. It was fun. I love. I bought them all. I love the good magazine. But they don't update them. They print it and they print it about now time of year. Actually probably already before now time of year. And then well, hope someone doesn't get injured. Yeah. So there you go. Ultimate draft kit.com if you want to get in on that. All right. We have a quick question today. We do. Great. Here it is.

Dominic says who is the player that hurt you most or who has hurt you the most in fantasy football? For me, I can't, I can't get past. It's funny every time. It's fun. Well, for you, it's hurtful every time for me. I don't like I have negative viewpoints towards Jalen Waddle. He's not bad. He's, he's a very good player. but he's not Seedy freaking Lamb, who I had on my roster. I've told this story a couple of times. It's great. It's great story. I was offered Jalen Waddle for C.D. Lamb, like two years ago. This was two years ago where it was, you know, Waddle was seemingly better at the time. And I denied that trade. I said, no, CEDY is going to be a stud. Waddle's good, but no, I love CED. And then you two guys mocked me into making the trade.

And then I made the train and now I don't have CD 11. It hurts me every single day. I think you do wake up every day and think about it. All I hear is blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm a coward and I don't have conviction. Yeah. And I let two bullies talk me into doing something stupid. The reason. Blab, lab, lab. I don't have conviction. The reason you hear that is because then. the player who had CD Lamb traded him to you. Yeah. So you have CD Lamb, which makes it hurt all the worst. So I have hurt you. Is that the answer? We are the two that have hurt you the most in fantasy football? Yes, the answer is Andy and Mike. Mike, do you have an answer to this question? That's top of mind, even from years past, like players that you, you just desperately wanted to be great. So, I mean, last year for sure, it's easily Alexander Madison. I thought he would do much better with his opportunity, but it was atrocious.

And one, it's like, it's a low key one because the player, like, whatever. So it's, it was the Kareem Hunt, who I took in our rookie draft late in the first. And then that turns into a smashing success. And like Kareem Hunt is on this fast track to being an elite running back, like a top five running back for years and years and years. And then. He goes and, like, I am heavily invested in the player. I love Cream Hunt so much. Got it right. The guy's crushing on the football field. And then he does his bull crap off the field stuff. And the chief say, no, we're definitely, we're out of this. And they, you know, they, was he traded to Cleveland or cut? I can't remember. No, no, no. He was fully cut. And then he came back and got a second chance. Yeah. And, but.

like just where he was going in my belief in that player and then like to have the video come out of the stuff that he did it was like i that one they all feel bad when those types of news pieces come out but that one was just like a shot personal it shot to my soul of like dude you were my guy and i'm out here on a microphone talking your greatness and this is what you do to me. I mean, obviously someone had a way worse to me, but we all filtered personal through our little work, a little work. A lot. Our own personal experiences and it was just like, dude, this, this sucks so much. So I was so angry at that moment. Any consideration for Antonio Gibson in your, in your players that have hurt you?

Or do you just feel like... Gibson was a top 12 running back two years in a row. I don't know why we talk such crap about Gibson. He was a major, major hit. Gibson was a win for you. And now he is gone away. Yeah. So now... But you still do talk about him sometimes. Like he's not going on away, but he has gone away. Well, well, we'll see. Yeah. The well was TBD. Yeah. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. I'll tell you what. The remote... Is it worse if a player... Is it worse if a player... was someone you believed in, didn't deliver for a little while, you gave up and then they were good? Or is it worse if you believed in them? They did good for a little while and then you kept believing and they let you down. That one. Carry on Johnson. That one is the worst that when you believe and you are sure and they just don't get it done. You know, it's like, and you saw flashes. He was like, oh, he is good. He's going to be great. And then he hurt his knee and then he hurt his knee again. Oh, yeah.

But it's better when you, you know, Devante Adams and, you know, it just looks like, you know, you've got someone that stinks and then they become great. Then it's great. All is forgiven. That's still a win. I still believe Devante Adams stinks. You remember? Yeah. I was trying to look back in the annals of history. One player that it was really hard to deal with the career going the way that it went was actually Percy Harvin to me. Yeah. Because it was always like you were right on the cusp and the edge. Yeah. He was, I mean, on the field, Percy Harvin. For those who were around in that time, that dude was electric and could do everything. Like he was, he was Debo Samuel before Debo Samuel.

And Cordarral Patterson, too, was one that, like, if you had been, we obviously know that if they just made him a running back in the beginning, he would have been amazing. Amazing. It's really a shame for his career. I mean, he had a great career anyways. He was so important as a special team. He's one of the best returners of all time. Yeah, but that sentence wasn't what he wrote in his journal growing up. Right. Sure. Like, you're absolutely correct. He was one of the best returners. But he was actually the best returner because he was one of the best athletes that didn't get used right.

You know, it just bugs me. Like we saw him as a running back in his 30s and he was good. If he had five years of doing that at the pro level because somebody had the foresight to do it. But I mean, you drafted him to be a wide receiver. He's telling you he wants to be a wide receiver. Yeah. At a certain point, you have to be like, why aren't you a better wide receiver? You know what I want to see? I want to see a team take someone like Aaron Donald in his prime. Just be like, you're a running back now. Just go get four yards every play guaranteed four or five. Just throw these guys off of you. I mean, it's like super old, but then the fridge used to get a couple of carries here and there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, isn't there, are there any players that you drafted high in rookie drafts that fall into this category? Hurt you the most in fantasy? Somebody that you, you know, you saved up that pick and you were excited to grab them in a rookie draft and, whoops. I mean, Clyde.

Yeah, Clyde for money. Yeah, that's a brutal one. Because of the draft capital, you were like stuck starting it for a long time. Oh, he's still on my roster guys. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. He's still there. Yeah. Good for you, Clyde. Who was the guy you've, oh, Dylan. You finally let go of AJ Dylan. I think my, I think as far as early picks, my only whiff has been Trey Sermon, which was, whoops. You don't even go up to bat. No, yeah, that's just like it's suspended. But that's not fair. Like the 49ers did that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We have a special episode today. We'll take a quick break. We're going to come back and do some fantasy footballers AMA. Ask Me Anything. And we'll mix some fantasy questions in as well, but we're going to have a good time. Enjoy vacation week here and answer anything you have for us. Back in a minute.

So why does Antonio Gibson feel the way he feels? I don't know. He feels great to me. Antonio Gibson feels the way he feels because last season, last season there was. And the one before. I think, but last season was where Brian Robinson seemed like he was going to take a back seat and Antonio Gibson, or maybe this was two years ago. Yeah, it was two years ago. He went from 258 carries to 149 for no reason that we could comprehend. Right. And so it's like there were a lot of people still in on him. He was young who's coming off of back-to-back top 12 seasons. And he faltered. You know, when you when you have a bust year, it carries that with you until you're a superstar again and he never will be. So you just feel it. Yeah, the last two years have been the struggle. But it's in part because they don't let him play football.

Oh, yeah. He does, I mean, he does often give that ball to the other team. That was a big problem. Three fumbles last year, two the year before, six in 2021. Yeah. Yeah. You want to know why the, you want to know why the fumble numbers went down to like three and two. You're right. Because they stopped giving him the ball and half the work half the fumbles. You're like, oh, you know how we can stop him from fumbling? Put him on the sideline. The last couple of years, when he would fumble, it was like, oh my goodness, you kidding me again? And they were in so many, like, catastrophic. Yeah, I mean, career trajectory-wise is what I think I'm meaning to refer to there. It's like he's come and gone from his trajectory. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But two elite years from a running back is a hit. Okay. Sure. Mailbag.

Mailbag. All right, like I said, it's an AMA episode, so we asked for questions of any shape and size. We'll start here with, we got a voicemail? We do. Hey, guys, Chad from St. Claude, Minnesota. Congrats on 10 years. My question is, if you could go back in time during the early days of the pod, what would you do differently? Also, I can see the future. And Troy Franklin. will be a top 24 wide receiver next season. That's great news. You're putting St. Cloud on the map there. Interesting. So he worked in some fantasy analysis. Yes. Oh, good. Thank you. What would you do differently? This is going to be our 10th season as yet to begin. So we're about to go into year 10. No more upstairs bedroom. Right. Where it began. I think we're about Studio 3.0 at this point.

Yeah. 3.5. I don't know. I've been asked this question so many times, and it feels like maybe the hardest question to answer for me. It feels generic, but it's the like, exactly where you are right now is because of everything that happened in the past. But really for the run of the business, I don't think there's been any catastrophic, like, oh, whoops the doozles. Um, we did have a time period where, but this was, we had to do it. And we look back now fondly, but when you were in it, it was very, very tough. One of the first things we ever offered as a premium product, Chase Jason's laughing. Oh, yeah. Is, oh yeah. Like, the show was much smaller at that time, but it was an ultimate draft review. So it wasn't a super idea. It was, it was not a.

like an online portal like the ultimate draft kit is right now. It was a personalized. We did everything by hand. It was a manual draft analyzer. Yes. Send us your team. It was a manual draft analyzer. And it was fortunately for us, it was successful. Because then it helped keep the business going to get to the point where we are now. But while it was successful, we were still in the midst of like trying to get other work to make sure that we can make this business happen. And it turned into. working from like eight in the morning until two at night for like many, many weeks for all three of us. So it was just, it was. To get these things back to you, to get these things back to you days from now. Like, like, you know, it would take a week to get. And it got to the point where it was basically they'd send their team in and we would review their strengths, weaknesses. But it was a, it took so much time. There's no AI to help us. And.

what we got to a point where when a don't do that when a new one came in when you know a six for a business you're like yay someone just bought another one it was awful it's like no we raised the price a bunch we kept trying to stop people for buying it yeah it was um that's a good answer but it was also that was that was the roughest stretch of getting no grindiest it possibly could have been and we needed yeah needed it yep But we could have come up with something better. Yeah, that's the thing like, could you change? Maybe we figure out how to build a non-manual product soon. Yeah, yeah. That was motivating. All right, YouTube question coming in from Victor. He says, can Jason eat hot dogs when the show starts and then do the mailbag drop towards the end of the show? Is this in reference to your voice becoming? What was the hot dog? It just made him sleepy. I thought that we said something about.

Why was his voice getting deeper? I thought it was a hot dog related. As I've been putting on the weight, my voice has gotten more sultry. So maybe if I do eat several hot dogs to start the show, the mailbag drop can be so low. But the truth is, if I eat several hot dogs right before the show, I'm going to throw up. Maybe that's what they want. Yeah, that is mail bar. I had a small hot dog bowl today. What is a hot dog bowl? Somehow hot dogs have been the theme of this week. And we had a fan send us, I think 25 hot talks in the mail, which are gone. No, they're not gone. But we do have 25 hot dogs in the fridge. So you could, 25 is enough to get you to the mailbag drop. Yeah, I can do it. All right. Here is a two-part question about our segment drops. The Cisco kid 91 says, who plays all the guitar riffs for the show?

Mike, that'd be me. The fantasy hitman Wright, he creates every ounce of the music that you hear on this show. And always has since the beginning. That was one of the things that he brought to the table. That's right. Right out of the gate. It was like, I can do this. I can make a theme song. And that was his voice back then. Yeah. Hey, guys. It's gotten better. And then who does the voice drops for each segment in the intro? That is obviously me. yeah it's a little more difficult but it's definitely definitely jason yeah it's it's it's always been me and we actually have a video we made showing how mike alters my voice into that there was i didn't show that i couldn't show the secret sauce right because then it would give it up of that it's definitely you're doing definitely me doing it but yeah so mike does the music i do the voice and uh and he pushes the button and the voice has gotten easier

The more hot dogs you've eaten. Yeah, I have to do less and less. Less voice pitch shifting. There you go. Truth for the fans. IG question from Ryan. This one says, what did you study in college? What was your favorite subject in school? Real AMA right here. Yeah. Yeah. I just told the story to my son because I don't think he knew this. I started as a journalism major. Okay. because I was in I was like newspaper sports editor journalism type of that was what I wanted to do because I said to myself newspapers are the wave of the future but I mean in a way that's still it has crossover to your current job yeah being a sports journalist I think that's pretty yeah it's on the same track just yeah and I went I went to the University of Arizona for theater acting and directing which

has its own little path towards what we do now as well. Yeah. And I started and stopped many schools, but I did graduate with a degree in video game design. So I also have no crossover. But it actually does have some because I learned how to, like I learned about code. I didn't become a master programmer by any means in that, but I got exposed to it and I loved coding. Like my brain. enjoys it. I feel like your brain either loves the structure of programming or it hates it. I really loved it, which now I use in Google Sheets and things like that. Did you ever do any school related to your musical career? Because you had a very robust, you have robust experience in being in bands. No college education. Gotcha. I mean, was that ever something that you even thought? Oh, yeah. No, I need.

was going to go to a music school. And that was one of the schools that I started to stop. That one really stopped before it started. Like I was out there. I'm going to do this. And then it did not work out. Did you start? No. Oh, okay. No. No. All right. We do have a fantasy question here coming in about Ramandre. Nicholas says, what's your opinion on Remandre Stevenson? I believe he's an RB1 this season of Healthy. David says, why is Ramandre dead in everyone's rankings? We've actually had this discussion in here recently because Ramandre kind of has started out as a bus candidate in our UDK. But then I had spent some time over the last couple of weeks looking at him more closely because I was looking at maybe acquiring him in our Dynasty League. And I've come around to believing that Ramandre is going to have a very good year.

in this offense. So I have a different opinion now than I did at the beginning of the season. I think it's hard when you have teams that whenever you have a team that was the worst last year, generally speaking in the NFL especially, that team is not the worst the next year. They don't, the Patriots don't profile to be, you know, they profile to be the fourth best team in their division because they have a tough division. But they have a brand new head coach, offensive coordinator, quarterback. and I believe they're building this offense around Ramandre Stevenson. I think he's going to be a fundamental piece of it. I think he had no hope last year. So I have a different opinion. And obviously, you know, he's on the precipice of maybe getting a contract. Gerard Mayo has come out and really endorsed him as their number one running back. So that's the side I'm on. I do. RB1 is tough if you're not a winning team. Yeah, because there's normally one or two that make it.

out of losing ball clubs. Yeah, usually for running backs to have success, you need the touchdowns to come. And that's the tough part with the Patriots is with a rookie quarterback and really just the talent on offense being very mid. I don't expect a lot of touchdown opportunities. I can easily see Ramadre Stevenson having a great season. He was on his way last year to actually a decent season. If you look at the, you know, he missed the back end of the year and he started. uh kind of slow but he was actually not too bad the issue it always on this show comes back to Antonio Gibson it's like right Gibson is still probably better today than Ezekiel Elliott is today and so he's coming in to replace with a new system and last year you had remandre who was really the past catching guy like he was on pace for you know over 70 targets and so now with Gibson coming in

There's just a question to me when I'm statting these guys out, like, are they really going to utilize Ramandre with, you know, obviously a new system? They brought in Antonio Gibson, whose specialty, you know, really is, he's a very good pass catcher. Are they going to give him that opportunity? Because if he loses on the pass catching front and he doesn't project to have a lot of touchdowns, I worry. Yeah, it's, if Romandre gets an extension, I mean, that will, to me, speak a lot of. their faith in him moving forward, and of course need to see what the numbers are. But it's that right now the Patriots have the best odds to be the worst team. That doesn't mean that they will end up at that, but that's what sharp people in sports are projecting. And we know that over the last six years, teams that have had the worst record, their fantasy points from the running back position, 29th, 29th, 25th, 31st, 31st, 30th.