Fantasy Football - QB & RB Rookie Preview + Height Fight! - Podcast for 3/31

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Tuesday, March 31st, Jason Moore, Mike Wright. I'm Andy Holloway. Welcome in one and all. The fantasy footballers back with you. Fresh episode. So fresh. Fresh. That's it, Mike. Fresh episode. We're talking rookies today, man. That is pretty fresh. Yeah. It's as fresh as you can. I mean, we have not really dug into these players on the main podcast yet. I mean, we're talking fresh. As fresh as it gets. The NFL draft is, well, it's almost April. And the draft is in April. And then these players will have new homes. And then there will be a lot of anticipation and expectation for them. And you as a fantasy player in a redraft league.

in a Dynasty League, you need familiarity with these names and the expectations and what we believe and what, you know, these two guys have done a lot of episodes of the Dynasty podcast. So you've talked through most of these names leading up to the Combine through the Combine weekend. We have our, we had our second release of the Dynasty Pass, so post-combine release of the Dynasty Pass. And now it's time to finally dig in ahead of the draft and talk today, quarterbacks and running backs. And then we'll get into wide receivers and tight ends on Thursday. Man, we really could say quarterback. We could. Yeah, I mean, good. Yeah, we could. Of any year, you could say quarterback and running backs. Where's Christian ponder when you need him? It's kind of, it's people are still going to get drafted. It's quarterbacks. You know what I mean? It's just like a quick. Yeah. On the, on the ruralization. So is that like betraying some initial thoughts on Ty Simpson and anybody else?

I think it's more highlighting them. It's weird. Sometimes it does feel like the NFL does this. They fill the gap that needs to be filled with a player no matter what. Well, there's needs. I mean, teams need quarterbacks. And so he's the, if you're the second best quarterback in this draft class, you're going to get that buzz. You're going to get that first round hype and yada. Yeah, what if he's the second best? So what if he's, what if it's a boat? Yeah, the number two pick. So we'll talk through quarterback today. There was a lot of hullabaloo last week on the Twitter sphere of a particular personality with a large network and large following who was. Strong opinions. Alleging that Ty Simpson is better than Fernando Mendoza. And he texts many people who only two of them responded negatively. I don't know how much you want to get into that.

We'll leave it at there. Yeah, yeah, I won't get into it. But let's just say that this time of year, maybe this is a lesson for a newer fantasy player, not a season fantasy player, or maybe even a seasoned one. There are a lot of different motivations for news to come out right now all the way to the draft. There's a lot of different motivations, right? You have players, their agents, and their people. What are they going to talk about baseball? Get out of here. So you've got their agendas, right? Individual player agendas. You've got agent agendas. You've got teams who have picks in certain spots that different information getting out benefits them on who falls where and what's going to happen. Every year, we are shocked in the draft when certain players are drafted at certain spots. That's because we have to literally sift through all the smoke and all the madness. Was it Wondale?

When he was drafted, that was a, nobody expected him to go where he went. But, I mean, it's just the giant. That one comes to mine. Yeah, it's just the giant. No, I think you're thinking of Cadarius Tony. No, no, no. You're thinking of Daniel Jones. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Might be the giant. Yeah, I think it's kind of isolated. To the giant. But yeah, there's just a lot of misinformation or misdirection right now. Yeah, intentional misinformation. Yeah. So. And then there are the reporters. who do have connections and say they are finding out some real stuff. There's also information that is real like top 30 visits. You can, you can take a look at, okay, these teams are constantly bringing in wide receivers or running backs. So there is so much information, but some of it is a straight lie on purpose. And so, yeah, you've got to take everything with a grain of salt. Got to find the liars. Mm-hmm.

Get rid of the liars. Well, I mean, it's all of them. But if you're, we'll give you the example because it's the Giants. The Giants have a running back room that you could go into the season with assuming health for Camp Scataboo, Camp Scataboo, but all reports are good so far. If the Giants go into the season with Scat, Tracy, and Singletary, that's a, that's a perfectly fine running back room. I would say that's an above average top half running back room in the league. Now, no one on that roster, as much as we love Scatabu, he's not as good as Jeremiah Love. So we aren't saying that it's not an upgrade for the room to take Jeremiah Love at 5, but it does the Giants more good for every team behind them to be, uh-oh, the Giants might take Jeremiah Love at 5. Correct. We have to be prepared for that situation. So if Love makes it pass the Titans at 4, we better have a package ready.

To go up to trade up and go get chairman of my love because they might take him. You can't eliminate. I don't know. Can't eliminate options. That's the number one thing for teams. You cannot take players off your board unless you want to lower your leverage. That's their perception. Yes. Sometimes it's probably a little bit ludicrous. Like sometimes you've had the years where somebody has a franchise quarterback already and they're like, you know. And then they take like pinnicks. A couple of headlines here before. Oh, man. What a moment. Before we get into it. The community, you can find it, join the foot.com. It's where you can become a foot clan supporter, bonus weekly episodes all year long, including right now when we're down to two regular shows a week, get a bonus episode. Learn more about that at join the foot.com. If you're an ultimate footclan supporter, you also get access to the ultimate draft kit, which means you have access to the Dynasty Pass right now. And the post-combine release, we'll have a post-draft release of the Dynasty Pass.

as well. Quick question of the day. It's a good one from that guy, 66199. How come in the off season you guys reference best ball ADP, which is average draft position? That's a good and a very fair question. And the answer is honestly because those are going on right now. They are happening. Best ball drafts, best ball games. And those games are being played. with entry fees. They are being played for money. So this isn't just, you know, someone's, oh, I got some time to kill. I'm going to go do a mock draft of, see what I can, what team I can build. People are spending actual money to compete in a fantasy football tournament. So that's like the most reliable data of, this is, this is how the, this is how the market is set right now for the value of these particular players. Once we get into.

No, the summer months when more and more and more people are filtering back into fantasy football and they're doing their mock drafts, then we switch it over because we want to see what people in redraft are doing. But at this time, it is our best example because there is money behind it. It doesn't, we do always remind people that wide receivers go way earlier in best ball because that's how that. tournament functions from a roster construction perspective it's but it's still the order of when you're looking at wide receiver 17 versus 22 it's it's the earliest example we have and really it there isn't even other ADP data like right other ADP data for normal platforms for just free you know sleep or ESP and Yahoo it's it's just garbage data right I'm not mock drafting and

No. My job is fantasy football. No, you just can't right now before the draft. But there are players, they go out there and they draft and they play basketball. We've all played basketball. And it is a fun format. It is important to recognize that it's not the same as a redraft league. Right. The way that you win in basketball is different. The propensity towards maybe more explosive players, maybe changes the gauge a little bit. So I look at it as more of a sentiment check. on a player. That's fair. Then I do like the specifics of like that's where they're going to end up. But but yeah, once we get into the summer, we'll have actual mock draft data and we'll be able to reference that. But that's why you hear us talk about it because it's good to have information on what's happening right now. Yeah. Anything else there? No. Talk some news. News and notes from around the league.

The cartoon characters at the New York Jets continue to give us a good episode every week. The Jets head coach Aaron Glenn says, quote, there is no doubt about it. Gino Smith is the Jets starting quarterback. If I were him, I would have said there is a lot of doubt about this, but Gino Smith is my quarterback. It is just. What if he does it again? What if he gets, if he were to achieve the number one overall pick? Legend. Does that guarantee that the next year someone that's looking to get like, I know the way. We've got to sign Gino. I mean, your odds are very good. Gino's, I can't believe teams keep believing in me. So Gino as the starting quarterback. Yeah, because a year ago, I'll say this, a year ago, we would have heard this news. It would have been an amazing full circle moment for the Jets. Yeah. Gino was coming off a pretty competent, good year. We were surprised they couldn't come to an agreement with him in Seattle.

Obviously, Seattle made an amazing choice. The Raiders, it didn't work out whatsoever. But a year ago, we would have been like, wow, you know what? Gary Wilson's got a quarterback. Yeah, I mean, two years ago, Gino Smith threw for 4,300 yards looked pretty good, 70% completion percentage. Changing teams wasn't the only reason that it got worse for him. He looked really. bad. I mean, his interceptions were... Worst quarterback I saw last year, other than Max Bros. Across the board, just terrible. And Jake Browning. I was going to throw out Justin Fields. And Justin Fields. Okay, so... Bottom five quarterback Andy saw last year. But it's just having said all these things, we can say the phrase, Gare Wilson may have the best quarterback of his career going into this year. It could have been much worse for the Jets. Jason.

If the Jets were starting Ty Simpson next year, I'd feel worse than Gino Smith. I don't have the list of... Yeah, you don't have the... It's like Zach Wilson, Mike White. Mike White, okay, there we go, so not the best. Mike White, he had Mike White never got to be a real starter. Flacco for a minute was the best he's had. Sure. That was the best run. But at that time, Flacco was... I'm not optimistic about anything with the Jets. I'm not, I just am not. The Steelers. Uh... We get to watch this situation transpire. Art Rooney said he expects Aaron Rogers to decide whether he wants to resign with Pittsburgh before the 2026 NFL draft. Cool. I would... I would hope. Yeah, I mean, you would hope that they know what's going on. Right now, do you think Aaron Rogers will be the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2026? Yes. I do as well. There was a time in the offseason. I would have probably said maybe not, but right now it feels that way.

They don't have a lot of good options. So he's there. Aaron Rogers was so annoyed early in his career with the late game shenanigans of Brett Fav. Oh, is he going to retire? Is he going to walk away? Oh, at the last minute, he's going to sign and hold his franchise hostage. And it's like, That's just what he learned. That's what dad did. You know, it's like this is. I learned it from you, dad. This isn't Aaron Rogers's fault. I learned it from you. This is, you know, the scars of upbringing just coming back full circle. Look what I can do now. Yeah. Man, you got to break the cycle. 49ers general manager John Lynch says he's, quote, hopeful, tight end. George Kittle with the Achilles injury will play in week one. Okay. Wow. Hopeful. It feels like a wishful thing to say.

I would agree with this specific injury, his age. And I saw some amazing workout videos. He's doing great stuff on the upper body. But the Achilles is quite the... That's a tough recovery. Quite the injury to come back from. And I am very skeptical for week one. Man, if it looks like he's going to play in week one... Dude, you need to prepare your analysis as if all the buzz is going to be... He's going to make it. George Kittle's going to be ready, week one. See, Jason's caught between a rock and a hard place because he's a big kiddle fan. Yes. But he's a big fan of not drafting injured players. Yes. And he's sitting there going, like, do I break up? I know. Do I break up my rules? No, I think I will be out on George Kittle. He's also older. Yeah, he's older. And even if George Kittle ends up getting healthy at some point this season, I do think drafting him, I mean, if he's in the 10th round.

Okay, sure. I'll take two tight ends and just see if he can come out and surprise. But if he ends up being a, you know, fifth, sixth, seventh rounder, he won't go there. Yeah, no way. Mike Evans has an impact in the red zone. Sure. In a way that they haven't had a receiver in that department since probably IUC two years ago. That would factor into my thoughts too. Cameron Wolf saying the Falcons think Michael Pennix will be healthy at some point in training camp. That's good. There you go. At some point in 2026. Dalton Kincaid's fifth year option has been picked up by the bills. Makes sense. And Kalimor says the team and Chris Olave have had discussions about an extension. He's in the final year of his rookie contract. Boy, why does Olave feels simultaneously like he's in the final year of his rookie contract and also that he's a 16-year veteran? It did.

It feels like he, I mean, he certainly had the concussions of a 16 year old veteran. He came in playing like a veteran. He was like just the perfect veteran wide receiver. And then the amount of injuries he's had, you feel like he's been close to retirement multiple years in a row. So you feel like he's older than he is. But you put his numbers up against Garrett Wilson and they're better. All right, that is going to do it for news today. We want to jump into that rookie rundown. Let's take a quick break and we'll hop right in. All right, it's time. Hey, rookie. Welcome to the NFL. Okay, we're jumping in the 2026 rookie class quarterbacks and running backs on today's show. If you can't get enough, we have lots of resources out there. The Dynasty Pass, it's where so much time, effort,

All of our rankings. You can go check that out at Ultimate DraftKit.com. We have the Dynasty podcast. All of these prospects have had very in-depth overview over there on that show. But we want to give all the redraft players, all the players just coming back to fantasy, a general overview about the names you need to pay attention to. Now, you alluded to it. It might just be quarterback. Fernando Mendoza is going to be the first pick in this draft. Now. The Raiders are not the only team that needs a quarterback. The Jets, yes, Gino Smith is the answer now, I guess, but not the future. The Browns, Deshawn Watson, probably not the future. The Cardinals desperately need a quarterback for the future. The Steelers, we just talked about what they're figuring out with Aaron Rogers, and many other teams would love to pick up a talented quarterback. Now, are there talented quarterbacks available? You know, Mendoza's going to the Raiders. That's going to be a foregone conclusion. Mendoza had a very strong year.

Takes Indiana and wins the national championship. Unbelievable. 72% of his passes, 3,500 yards, 41 touchdowns. You know, not a nothing burger on the ground. We got 276 yards in seven rushing touchdowns. But that is definitely not his superpower. You know, if we're going to get there for Mendoza, it's going to be. it'll be on the strength of being a pocket passer, and can he have enough weapons around him? With the Raiders, I don't think they are, they're not there yet. Like Mendoza would be, it would be a very surprising top 12 quarterback. Oh, for fantasy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that would be, I think if he can do a good job learning the game, starting early.

His strengths in college processing defenses. They've said... He's not an overwhelming athlete. Right. He's a good... He was really good in the clutch, which, you know, throughout the entire season. But I think it's... In the clutch? What clutch has he ever even done? What big games? What big games? Yeah. It's the biggest game of the year. He... The Raiders have said they want to start someone else over Mendoza for a while. Well, they're not saying Mendoza because they... Don't give it up. Don't say who the first pick's going to be. So that is built into it of do the Raiders want to play someone else? What did I? What did I? What did I say? Andy and I were real synced up in our mug drink up at the same time. It was just a little weird. So Mendoza, he's interesting because he's the guy. He's the number one quarterback. You know, for redraft, I don't think people should be expecting much.

And then Dynasty, it comes down to like, you know, Superflex leagues is, do you have to take Mendoza 101 because of the value of the quarterback when a prospect like Jeremiah Love will be there? I am on the side of, you know, I'm probably going to take Jeremiah Love over Mendoza, even as Superflex. But he, I don't know, this is this weird. He's the best that we have right now. Cook Kubiak is. coming in to deal with a team that was dead last in yards per game and points for game last. The fact that it's Coobes is a very strong checkmark for some development of Mendoza. Mendoza appears to be a really solid NFL prototypical quarterback. He could be very good for the Raiders and not really great for fantasy. He's not a super mobile.

player that's going to go out there and rush for 500 to 800 yards that breaks fantasy. And just because a player is drafted with the first overall pick in the NFL draft at quarterback, that does not guarantee success. We don't know about Cam Ward, but you look back at who, you know, Bryce Young was that the best, you know, Baker Mayfield flamed out from, you know, his first team. You've got James Winston, like as many, far more. mid picks at the 101 than the Andrew Lux and, you know, Cam Newton's and the successes, at least 50-50 if you look back at the like the last 20 years. Well, even if you take the Trevor Lawrence path, that's a long wait to fantasy relevance. He was, Mendoza over the last two seasons has been perfect in the red zone 39 touchdowns, no interceptions. We do love that. It's amazing. It's just the Raiders team. That's Rogers Brady stuff.

And the Raiders can change this in the draft, certainly. But it's like the team, the depth chart as it stands right now. Brock Bowers, elite, stud. Right now, the slotted starting wide receivers are the new edition of Jalen Naylor, Trey Tucker, and Jack Besh. No, it would fall in line. If there's a big wide receiver name that goes there, it would certainly make things look a lot better. But maybe that's a year away, too. Right. Ty Simpson is the other name that will profile today. Really, I mean, he's got one year. He's got at Alabama. 15 starts. That is an A for loyalty. Right. He didn't, in the NIL era where you're not getting to start, you transfer. I mean, he's been playing behind other NFL drafted quarterbacks and he. Bryce Young, Jalen Milrow. Yeah, exactly. And so he waited his turn.

which is not usually the smart thing to do in today's modern NFL. But my goodness, it is very difficult to imagine putting the future of a franchise in the NFL based on 15 starts. We've seen that one tweet though. We've seen this happen. What's the tweet? About him being the best. Oh, uh, you know, tweets got a lot of authority. Mitchell Tribisky didn't have a ton of starts. Anthony Richardson didn't have a ton of starts. I don't think ties going in the top five, though. People will start spreading the stories of, well, the Cardinals take him at three. I don't think that happens. I think he is a... Second round? No, I think he'll go in the first, but it's going to be like dart where maybe the Steelers where they're picking, they do slot at a point in the draft where it might be worth it, but I don't know if they want to... Can he pick it too? Can he pick it in 2.0?

Or the Cardinals trading back into the first if they actually believe in Ty Simpson. That wouldn't be a shocking thing for me. But 15 starts is... Joe Burrow didn't have a lot of starts? He had... Very much the exception and not the way. Yeah, yeah. And he just... Ty Simpson is not Burrow as a prospect. For fantasy football specifically, last year... what, 93 rushing yards? Now, in college is different, like you can lose yards for sacks and things like that. But that's the rushing game will not, you will not get the superpower of the extra points. Let me put it this way. If there was a team out of those five, we know Mendoza is going to go to the Raiders, so out of the four, Jets, Cardinals, Browns, and Steelers, it seems like the Cardinals and Steelers would be at the top of the list of teams that you'd want to have the opportunity if you were Ty Simpson from a weapon standpoint. Yeah.

I mean, Pittsburgh, Pittman, Metcalf. That's good enough. Cardinals with Marv, Tray McBride, Michael Wilson. Those seem like better cores than the other two teams. So far, the only known top 30 visits for Ty Simpson are the Cleveland Browns. The two that I didn't want. And the New York Jets. Okay. Well, we hope not. Actually, maybe we hope so. Because if there's a player, you're not very excited about. Um, which I, both of these quarterbacks, I think are, they, they show enough skill to be successful at the NFL level, but from a fantasy football perspective, you know, we, we talk about Mendoza's not this prolific runner on the ground, but he's significantly better than Ty Simpson. So Ty Simpson to me is, is, um, not that important for fantasy. He will be a streaming option at best in his career.

even if he's good. If he's good and has a good NFL career, there's plenty of guys like that. You know, Derek Carr had a very long NFL career. He was a streaming option that, you know, this is not a guy you're going to go out and win a fantasy football championship with. I think the only, you know, you've got little bitty baby Diego Pavia, who was a, is probably going to be a day three pick, so he'll be irrelevant. And second in Heisman voting. Yeah, second in Heisman voting. Prolific on the ground, 800 rushing yards. Good through the air. I think Nussmeyer is probably the most slept-on prospect because this was a 4,000-yard passer who I think the expectations were very high this year and then he got hurt and played through the injury and missed some games. Probably the next on the list of who's going to get drafted in terms of more, you know, he's worked out, I think, for the Jets. I think he's worked out for the Rams, the Colts. So that would be the other name worth mentioning.

These are all flyers in the dark that'll probably emerge never. And it's just not an exciting quarterback. Yeah. Yeah. And tail and green was, he broke the combine, right? Am I thinking of the right guy? Yes, yes, yeah. They fixed it, though. Well, yeah, you have to put it back together. Oh, man. It just takes all the king's horses and all the king's men. Out of Arkansas, tail and green. What are you grown in about? Yeah, the, the, the grandpa joke over here. Oh, you're one to speak. Look, I didn't hit my boo button. I just felt it in my soul. You should feel more of them in your soul. Let's talk running backs. Let's turn the page. All right. We have teams that are running back. No, no. No, there are. There are a handful of people we like, but, but it feels similar to the quarterback where it's like this is extremely top heavy. There is a dude.

And this is a weaker running back class, especially coming off of last year where we had some high-end talent. I mean, I feel like it's quarterback. Quarterback is like maybe some impact and then no impact is how it feels. Running back is like big impact, probably a lot of impact behind him, even though it's top heavy, which we're talking about Jeremiah Love, who's going to go very, very high in this draft. Let's start. Let's back off of that for a second and just talk about teams that. have desperate needs at the running back position that we've identified that we know about, and how we feel about landing spots right now. Because, you know, at the top of the draft, the Titans, they stick out as a team that, like, could definitely take Jeremiah Love, could be the next team to, you know, rework the backfield. Tony Pollard, it's a temporary plan there. You talked about the Giants at five. They want to be in the conversation, but they're, that's one that's going to get messy, right? Like, if you don't necessarily want a running back to go there,

not named Jeremiah Love because they're lost in a sea of committee backfield situations. And they don't have a third round pick either. So if you spend... Oh my gosh. You can't do it. You can't do it. We're declaring it. Yes, that's not happening. You're not going to New York. The Titans will be drafting Jeremiah Love. That's what you believe? I do. I think the predominant leader in the clubhouse for a lot of people right now is Washington at 7. For Jeremiah Love, Washington... desperately needs a fix at the position. We worked through a lot of different names last year. Some of them are gone now. I mean, he's still there, but Ackler's gone, who played for them, and then Chris Rodriguez, who getting a lot of opportunity is gone. The Bengals would throw a wrench in the Chase Brown situation. I feel like they would be forced to take love if he dropped there. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Because that would be a draw. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If he gets to 10.