Fantasy Football - Most Surprising Teams + RB Underdogs - Podcast for 6/10

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Oh, yeah. We are so back. We are back. Tuesday, June 10th, welcome in. One and all, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway, the fantasy footballers. Tuesday episode, got news to catch you up on. We got mailbag today. We'll answer some questions. We'll talk surprising fantasy football teams or teams that we're predicting to be surprising for the upcoming season. So that should be fun. We've...

been getting a smattering of he's reporting he's not reporting news around minicamp he's reporting he's not playing he's not participating but he's there which uh if you look at deuce's alley right now we have a non-reporting um i don't know if it's contractual but alborland not reporting to mini camp right now so we're in negotiations he is holding out for a very long time um now he's on a boat which most of the news with NFL players and boats is not good so i hope oh i hope he's making good boat decisions actually he made a really bad one did he yeah you already know about this i do he uh he forgot to pack his CPAP charger no yeah he's 10 days on a boat that phrase alone is like outing this man on multiple levels you're doing right you're doing right he's CPAP so he might not come back he there's a 50 50 chance he dies what

Wait. Oh wait. So he's on a boat. There's no way to get one. Right. Can you get a little Amazon drone to the boat? Thanks. Yeah. I mean, he's going to Alaska. So he's still somewhere where I'm sharing from a bear. He forgot a CPAP charger. Yeah. He said he might throw a fat man off the boat so he can steal his. Oh, okay. Oh. Is there an alternative like a mouth-to-mouth CPAP emergency situation? I like in a bellows and just doing a manual. Manual bellows? That's how they used to seepap. By the way, they didn't have these machines. We weren't nearly as fat a long time ago. Wow. Don't listen, Al. Don't listen today. Enjoy the boat. I got a CPAP. Enjoy. I'm a bit of a CPAP expert myself. Been around the CPAP block. Oh, Jeremy's chiming in. Jeremy, go back to vacation. How in the world?

Oh, okay. Yeah, he's go back to vacation, buddy. All right. I don't even know how he knows we're recording right now. Uh, the 2025 UDK. It's out. It's available. Ultimate draft kit.com. Make sure you get the app on iOS and Android. You can keep the ultimate draft kit in your pocket. You can check on all of the updates, see the ranking, see the videos. I think we figured out and announced on the footcast. It's over 400 minutes of additional video player profile. analysis that's part of the UDK and always updating those as they need to be updated. You can find us on X at the FF Ballers. If you want to join the community on Discord, it's ballers discord.com. I don't know if Papa Josh has a number for us, but I think it's in the 58, 60,000 area. Is that fair? 58.6. Oh, good. I do keep 20. 42.

You can watch the show YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. A quick question of the day comes in from Instagram. The question is, what team do you think will surprise the most this season? I saw this question in there. My first reaction was, okay, do they want us to say what team we think is going to compete? I figured no. I figured this is fantasy. So from a fantasy perspective, what team do you think is going to surprise the most in 2025? I'll kick us off. I'm very curious about the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jacksonville Jaguars were a very, very, very bad team last year. Obviously the injury to Trevor Lawrence didn't help, lost their coaching staff. They were 26th in points per game. Travis Etienne was a disaster. There was really no value, even though Take Bigsby was a better running back. He wasn't good for fantasy.

Yeah, he showed up just enough to guarantee ETN was irrelevant. And Evan Ingram destroyed people, including the Jaguars. I mean, this is a guy who, I know you guys are in on Evan Ingram this year, but he was 7.8 yards per catch. I mean, that's just, that's a bad passing play for an offense is, and they did it a lot. So coming in this year, obviously they had one bright spot last year. Brian Thomas Jr. came on the scene and was incredible rookie breakout, a star immediately in the NFL. Then they trade this year up for Travis Hunter. So I think I look at the weapons. They're saying the ETN's looking better right now in camp. Addition by subtraction with Gabe Davis leaving? Absolutely. I mean, Gabe Davis, Christian Kirk, Evan Ingram. It's out with the old. And hopefully in with the new hotness in Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter.

Trevor Lawrence back. I amy Brown. Yeah, Diami Brown is out there. So this is a team that I think might surprise. They have the sixth easiest strength of schedule as far as when you're looking at, you know, projected lines going forward, not just based on last year. They added Bayshall Tootin in the draft. A lot of people's, you know, fantasy, thank you, fantasy darling sleeper. Not ours, though, right? Not mine personally. Not mine. Yeah. I don't necessarily. No, he's a guy of a, we want him to be aware and be paying attention to camp because it's not impossible. You can tell when he walks in a room. Yeah. And you got, you know, you got Mr. Duval in town, which. Yeah, Leo Cohen did a lot of, he did a lot of work last year for Baker in that offense. He's a goober, but maybe he, maybe he can figure it out for the offense. I went with the Raiders. The Raiders are 27th in yards per game, 29th in points per game.

altogether irrelevant last year. You didn't have a quarterback that mattered throughout the season. You certainly didn't have a running back that mattered other than what, like a single Sincere McCormick event that happened later in the year. Madison was getting touchdowns on the Reds for a little bit. Madison, Zemir White, Amir Abdullah, sincere McCormick, some ensemble. Zemir was one of the biggest draft bus. If you targeted him anywhere in the draft, he did nothing. You got a new head coach. Pete Carroll, you got a new offensive coordinator and Chip Kelly, you got a new quarterback in Geno Smith. You got a new running back core in Genti and Moster. You've got a new wide receiver, Jack Bash coming in, second round pick. To me, it looks like... And Brock Bowers. Yeah, I mean, he doesn't barely need to be mentioned. You're going to have potentially a top three tight in, maybe a top three running back in Genti, probably...

You know, I think either Jacobi Meyer surprises to the positive side. I think it's in our values because you have a competent offense and a quarterback, or you have a rookie that makes a big mark in Jack Bash. I don't think that you're going to have no production from the wide receiver room with what you have in play action now, with what you have in Brock Bowers now from the way you move a defense around. So I think Jacobi Myers or Jack Bash become relevant this year. I think Gino is very streamable. and maybe looks better than that at some point in the season. And there's just a lot of excitement and optimism. They basically just redid the entire meaningful parts of the team. Brock Bauer stayed around. But, you know, I think the Raiders are a team we're going to be talking about instead of bemoaning. Yeah, that makes sense. They were, they were worthless last year. Yeah. Mike, do you have a squad? The quick one off the time I head is the 49ers of we. And look, yeah, Kittle and.

Well, Kiddle's being underdrafted, as he always is. McCaffrey is, you know, the wild card. But Brock Purdy's good. Brock Party can supply us with... Rock, Brock Party? Yeah. We gotta slow down on the chickens. But, like, I think Purdy can give us at least two pass catchers, like Kiddle plus games of Jennings, or does Pierceell take the next step in his second year? But they are the ADPs of... The 49 or wide receivers are in a place where they are very appealing to me. And I think that they can, like, I expect them to outproduce the ADP. It's not a guy. I'm going to take the chance. We'll see what happens. No, I expect one of those guys between Jennings and Pearsall to be a weekly flex play at the worst. Yeah, six and 11 season last year after three winning seasons in a row. But I think most people expect them to be.

competitive this year. Yeah, they have a very easy schedule as well. I think the easiest. Yeah. I think they're number one. They're set up for success. If you look at the odds to win the division, odds to get out of the NFC and go to the Super Bowl, they're still high up there despite losing so much talent on both sides of the ball this off season. Imagine a world where you could like donate some draft picks for a better schedule. Hmm. And play that gamble. I got to trade your third rounder for. slightly like to get a better schedule in the NFL but you get to play the browns for a third right all right let's talk some news news and notes from around the league well it happened officially the Steelers agreed to terms with quarterback hall of famer Aaron Rogers one year deal he is the Steelers quarterback it is what we expected to happen he waited long enough to miss some stuff and

He'll be the guy. He's got a deal that includes 10 million guaranteed worth up to 19.5. He's 41 years old. And he's just been on fire, you know? Yeah. His career is about to resurge back to superstardom. I maybe you're talking about his completion percentage declining four straight years. He means going 71 to 69 to 65 to 63% last year. Or his yards per attempt declining. Going from 8.2 to 7.7 to 6.8 to 6.7 to 6.7% to 6.7% to 6.4 last year. I saw some, uh, I don't know if you guys knew this. Jason's not super bullish on the. Yeah. Acquisition of.

Aaron Rogers, I expect it to work fine for Pittsburgh. I certainly think it's good for D.K. MacKaff. Like, you know, for the, for the past catchers, this is, this is an upgrade. But I do think from a, from a team standpoint, you know, this has always been Mike Tomlin's team. This is the, the, the Steelers and their identity. Aaron Rogers is not, this is in Aaron Rogers's mind. This is Aaron Rogers's team, period now. I don't, I think Aaron Rogers is a good teammate. Oh, I'm not saying he's a bad teamie. I'm just saying he's going to, he's going to decide what happens. I think Big Ben's a big personality. I think A, B, is a big personality. I think Pala is a big personality. I think they've had a lot of those guys, and that's what Tomlin does best. I don't know if I agree with the great for pass catcher situation, believe it or not, just in the sense that, yes, it's better than what they had, but I don't think Metcalf is a great fit for Aaron Rogers. Metcalf is not Devante Adams or anything close to it. He is.

imprecise. He is not an incredible route runner. He does not, you know, do everything that Devante Adams does well. And then you look up and it's like, who else do you have around him? Like that's, I guarantee this team signed somebody that matters. Amari Cooper, Keenan Allen, somebody like that is going to end up on the Steelers. And then we're all going to be sitting here and you're regrettably have to talk about more possibly relevant players that we think Aaron will prop up. And unfortunately, all those numbers. I assume it'll be Alan Lazard. They'll trade. Yeah, yeah, clearly. He's said he may not want to do that. Despite the completion percentage yards per attempt in Sacrate that you just mentioned, he, Devante Adams was incredible with him. And Garrett Wilson was incredible with him. Yeah, you had, if Garrett Wilson and Devante Adams, you know, could fuse into one statistical player from last year, you would have been really, really happy with the fantasy output.

Nick Chubb signs a one-year deal $2.5 million, so not a lot of money to go be a backup in good old Houston. So he was a member of the Texans. Could be worth up to $5 million with incentives. He's 29.4 years old. We all love Nick Chubb. Is that an amazing career? Does he have anything left? So he had the knee injury two years ago. We forget about the foot. Yeah, he broke his foot. Last year. He was trying to make the comeback. It looked like a man who was not back yet, but then he broke his foot. So he would even further back it. Does Nick Chub have anything left? I think there's a good spot. Just to, yes, I agree with, I think this is a great shot that the Texans have, have taken here of what it would, it's real cheap. What if Nick Chubb does have something left? And if he doesn't, they're not.

They're not in a situation where they're putting their hopes on Nick Chubb. They've got Joe Mixon. Yeah. Mixen multiple times last year dealt with injury. He had high ankle sprains a couple of times. They did need somebody to come in. Weren't they running out Cam Acres? Yes. I mean, was that what it was? I think they picked Cam Acres late in the season. Well, no, Acres then went to Minnesota. I think he started on Houston and then went to... Yeah, I mean, they've needed some depth there, so it does make sense in that way. They're rolling out a Gumba Waleigh. Mm-hmm. CJ Stroud resumed throwing at minicamp. I didn't see this on my dynasty bingo car years ago, but Rashad Bateman signs a three-year, $36 million contract extension. Get that money. 20 million guaranteed. Last year, 456 yards, which is a 16.8 clip.

nine touchdowns and cashed in on those nine touchdowns. You take that season, those numbers, and you throw three touchdowns up on the board, meaningless season. You don't get this contract. Meaningless season. You catch 45 passes, but you score nine times. Generational wealth. Good job, agent. I have Bateman is, I think he's a little interesting. He's always been a little underrated in the sense that when he's on the field, he's been, like he's an okay player. He just had missed so much time. 12 games as a rookie, six games the next year. I mean, okay. You got DeAndre Hopkins there's A. Flowers there. For fantasy, I don't think that there's enough here to be excited about for Bateman. He's got to get the touch. If this was best ball and you're just going to get the big play opportunity, that's fine. But in season long leagues, I can't. Mooney or Bateman? I think I'd rather have Mooney. Okay. That's about the right category. That's pretty close. Yeah.

Anthony Richardson aggravated his right shoulder injury will not be participating in mini camp dealing with inflammation in the shoulder. They believe he'll be ready for training camp. I mean, that is the same shoulder, the same injury he was dealing with. So this is really bad news coming into, you know. Competition. Yeah, coming off the off season and now you're injured. That's just, it's a bad look. Feels a little Trey Lancy. Oh, don't say that. I mean, this is, I think this is devastating. devastating for Richardson. I would expect Daniel Jones at this point to be, I mean, I think we probably had him as a starter, but we imagine there'll be a change at some point during the year, but it's going to set Richardson back yet again. He needed to develop. That was the thing. Exactly. Last off season when he was everybody's darling pick, it was like, if you look at the numbers, Jane Daniels has all this collegiate experience, five years. And then you had Anthony Richardson with basically a year. So developmental time, fix mechanics.

Fix the things that plagued you when you were inaccurate. Now it's all gone. You don't get to do that. So, yeah, I guess in that respect is definitely setting you back. And Michael Pittman, also not at minicamp, but it doesn't sound like a serious injury. Ammon Rae St. Brown told reporters this past week he underwent a cleanup in his knee. How did we not know this? Like how did we? Which, though, the Amin Rahma? The Amin Ra. Yeah, I mean, it happens every year. Why a cleanup? It happens every year. I mean, people didn't know you had a CPAP until a minute ago. That's true.

Now the world knows. I think they could have assumed. Look, Amin Ra- Are you hoping to retire? Is there a way that you could retire that CPAT? Yeah, yeah, that's the hope. You get healthy, you no longer need help breathing. Put that thing, put the banner up. Is there like a setting? Like fat and then less fat? Yeah, you put in your weight and then it just, you know. Less air? Blows lighter. But Amin Rao is a dog. He's going to play through whatever injury. He's not going to complain about it. And then. i don't get apparently he guessing he was on a hotel he told reporters it just came up and he's like yeah yeah that's how awesome i am i was playing her i wonder if we need cleanups and we just don't get in my oh i got my right knee is you need a clean up bro every if i go into any sort of squatted position to stand up that thing goes wow i i need i need someone else's left shoulder oh yeah mine's

Mine's bad. You need a swap, though, you're saying. Right. You want a full swap. I don't want to clean up. I just want a healthy man's shoulder. If there's a two for one, Mike, my left knee, you're right. Maybe we can get a doctor to do that. What else is going on? Minicamp holdouts. I talked about it earlier. Terry McLaren not attending minicamp. He is frustrated with a lack of progress on a long-term deal. He is trying to Bateman here. He's trying to take his 13 touchdowns. And get that cash, which he should. I believe he is also in the final year of his deal. This is the last check for McClure. The last, yeah, the last big boy. Yeah, and he is. He's in the final year of his current contract. Johnny Smith, not at Mandatory Manicamp. Him and Jalen Ramsey taking it off. Ramsey wants a trade, and Johnny Smith wants to be paid. Yeah, there you go. Well done. Yeah, I saw you weren't going to hit the mark, so I had to step in.

I didn't. James Cook, despite a bunch of negativity coming out, in fact, there was a report of him basically distancing himself from everything related to the... Related to Buffaloes on his house. Yeah, he basically disconnected himself from the organization, put his house up for sale. He said, quote, I don't think we'll be seeing him a Buffalo anytime soon. He showed up at minicamp. Well, because he knows that the contract is not coming. And should he skip minicamp, he's going to get fined. Like, Terry can bet on the new contract covering his losses. And James Cook cannot bet on that right now. Anything else? Josh Oliver, three-year big money extension tied in for the Vikings. Whenever these deals happen, people sometimes are like, wait, what?

Yeah. But the tight-in can be so valuable to a team without a fantasy player uttering their name. There's boring players in football who don't get his fantasy points, and they need money too. 19 million in total guarantees now. Good for you. But draft DJ Hawkinson. All right, we will take a break and we'll jump into some mailbag. All right, we're going to answer some of your questions. You ready, Mike? Yep. Mailbag. Very nice, very nice. If you have a question, you can go to the website, the fancy footballers.com, click the submit a question button, or you can dial the voicemail hotline. 302464 TFFB. Is this a good voicemail in here, Papa Josh? It is. All right, let's do that. Hey, ballers, doc here from Atlanta. Who's your must draft RB outside of the top 20 right now? Thanks. Okay. So RB, not going to the top 20. Sound like a doctor, too, if you want to do the cleanup thing.

He said he was a doc, so. Well, then I'm not going to give my answer until he rolls through the student. Smart, Mike, smart. You can't pay out until the doctor has paid out. I mean, it's kind of, right now it's all the rookies, but I doubt they stay. I mean, I'll throw a non-rookie out of DeAndre Swift. I mean, to me, I think DeAndre Swift has a huge opportunity. I don't like saying it out loud. No one likes saying it out loud. My name is Jason Moore, and I like. DeAndre Swift this year. I would say if you're talking about the later guys that aren't the rookies, because certainly it's all the rookies right now. I want them all. I'm drafting them all. Like Caleb Johnson. I love Caleb Johnson. But I would throw Brian Robinson, Jr. out there. He's way, he's being drafted way later than what his opportunity is. I don't, you know, his talent, he's okay. He's average. I will, there's, Isaac Garinda.

Sure. I want to say the name out loud. I think that he is still just insurance, though. Are you saying drafted? Like you think you'll have enough of a role? I'm saying if you, we've spent time drafting Elijah Mitchell in the past with Christian McCaffrey there. This is a thought exercise, right? Like maybe we need to take that approach with Isaac Garindo where he's kind of a high value insurance back that may have some week to week availability. Like Elijah Mitchell would get play. sometimes and have a good fourth quarter and things like that you're either going to have more of a committee where grendo is relevant or less of a committee where grendo is going to be relevant due to injury yeah those are the two outcomes to me that's that's what it is to me i think that i think mcalfrey's going to come right back into his full workload grendo is very athletic we saw the juice last year of it okay and they let jordan mason go

And Mitchell go. Yes. And they didn't draft anyone of note. So yeah, Garando is a high value insurance running back, but I think that's all. When's the last time? I would love to know this. And Kyle, you can effort it. We can come back to it later in the mailback. I want to know the last time that we didn't have a relevant fantasy backup for the 49ers during the year. Because are we on five, six years straight? No. I would say it was the year of mattering that in some way. Jeffrey was the dominant number one running back two years ago. I mean, I'll just, let me vet it real quick. But two years, San Francisco, 22, he was the RB2. The following year he was the RB1. And we didn't have anybody those years. No, but you draft them. That was 22 and 23. Correct. And we didn't have any Elijah Mitchell relevance in those two years? No.

Okay. The, uh, the name all throughout is. Well, it feels like you always do. By the way, he was, uh, yes, it feels like it. Yeah, Mitchell was the RB 25 and 2021. Yeah. Okay. The, it's Jordan Mason for the Minnesota Vikings. I know, like, their situation is strange because Aaron Jones just got paid and had, you know, the most opportunities of his career. But they traded for and then paid Jordan Mason, like to me, making it more of, an ambiguous situation where you like to take shots on this, especially a very high-powered offense like the Minnesota Vikings, should be. Jordan Mason, Aaron Jones is at a draft point where it's fine. He's not really in that fourth round dead zone where you're bypassing high-level wide receivers. But I think that there is a strong chance that Jordan Mason is in a full-time share, or Jordan Mason is

ends up being the lead runner and Aaron Jones is brought in as the as the third down guy. Jordan Mason is a much better or at least was a much better zone runner this past year and he is he is in the double digit rounds and I think that Jordan Mason should be looked at as a if you're a zero RB type of a build Jordan Mason should be a priority. It would not be shocking if they just get equal work if they just split it down the middle and one of them's being drafted way later. Yep. All right, this Instagram question comes from Fat Boy Aaron. So another. Hey, CPAPRO. I knew that was coming. Do I actually have to worry about Kyron Williams still not having a contract with the Rams? Jason and I have been every once in a while in the middle of the office, Jason will be like, so yeah, did Kyron sign anything today? Just the ETA on that Kairn contract. I would say no.

It's not relevant to you? Do you don't worry about it? I do not worry about it. See, I think they love Jekwez Hunter. And I think they have Blake quorum and I think that they don't want to make a Todd Gurley mistake and overpay. Now, I think they'll probably sign it. That's why I think it's taking so long. They're, they're working through all the, I get the, you know, all the behind the scenes stuff. And they're like, oh, man, we love Hunter. McVeigh loves his guys. I mean, it's a fourth round pick, so it's not like fully irrelevant. Right. I mean, the fact that they took Blake Corum in the third last year and we were, we had concerns. Okay, are they signaling us that they don't want to use Kyron as a true workhorse with a day two running back? That, that part didn't come through. So I'm not, I'm not going to write off Hunter and say it's an impossibility, but I don't care about the contract right now because when will you?

Probably never. This is the final year, right? For dynasty, for dynasty, I care about that. But in redraft leagues, I think if they come in and he's on a contract year, they're going to just run him into the ground. Dead last in running backs, among running backs and yards per outrun to back years. They have some room in the passing game, I think, but he's been so dominant in the red zone. Which Hunter, maybe Hunter steps into that role, but the goal line and all those things. Seeing the success that Kyran has had the last two years, I don't see them moving away. All right, Instagram question. Kyron Williams or Bucky Irving, Gigi writing in. Kyrin or Bucky. So I'll follow up on the Kairn question. If it were me on the clock, I'd take Bucky. The issue that I have, so if you're saying Bucky or Kairn straight up and they cost the same. Yes.