Fantasy Football - NFL Draft Recap: NFC Winners & Losers, Pick Surprises - Podcast for 5/1

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Did you just clear your throat? It's football time? Yeah, I don't think you did it in the mic, but I heard it. Okay, I was like, I thought I muted my butt. Did I not, did I not mute? So you're saying the way, When the intro song got to the part where it's supposed to be, it's football time. Yeah. He's silently with his mute. No, not silently because I heard it. So he hit his mute button and then went. Yeah. Yes. Did he really? Okay. So I guess now that we're here in post, Jeremy, maybe unmute my mic so that people can hear it. It caught me off guard. You could just tell he was following along with the song. Yeah. I've never thought of.

clearing my throat in rhythm. I mean, I think I am with millions of people out there who when that moment happens, you're saying it's football time in your head every time. Yeah, yeah. I thought you were going to say millions of people clearing their throat right during that time. Why would you think that's what I was going to say? Because you're Jason. Okay. You never know what you're going to say. Welcome in Thursday, May 1st, record release day. We are, uh, Mike was out of town celebrating his daughter's birthday the last couple days. We're recording the NFC winners and losers from the draft this morning. We went through the AFC on Tuesday. So it'll be exciting to kind of walk through the divisions. The players impacted. The players were excited about all of our takeaways from the draft now that the dust has settled. And we have even bigger winners.

than those young men drafted into the bigger than a lifetime dream. Exactly. The draft week prize winners for the fantasy footballers, the listener league spot. Congratulations to Mark Roberts. Yeah. Mark Roberts, congrats. Welcome in, Mark. Also, Tim Olson got a Jamar Chase signed mini helmet. That's pretty good. Linus, oh man, why am I taking this over you, Andy? You took it upon yourself. I don't know, what's his name? His name is Linus Krulikas. And what did he win? Baker Mayfield, Laser Mayfield signed jersey. Congrats. And hopefully everyone out there is enjoying the post draft update to the dynasty pass. Yeah, rookie drafts are happening. Are they? I didn't know about those. What are they? It's where you get new potentially really good young players for your team. Andy has a history of you don't understand the joke of never having a draft pick because as soon as like right now. We got about two.

two rounds into this recent draft because I see it happening on my phone. That's about all I'm paying attention to. And then I go, I should look and see in case I do have a third. I don't. Yeah. You usually around this time of year is when you get draft picks three years from now. Oh my gosh. I do. And now you have something to trade again, Andy. Now you can. Oh my gosh. No, that's how I'm going to win at this year. For what? 2028. Goodness. Oh boy. That sounds like a long time from now. Anyone want a first out there?

I got a first very soon. Wait, is the draft over? The rookie draft end? Yeah, it is. Oh, so do I have, do I have a tradable first then for real? I believe you should. Shopping. I'm shopping it. So congrats to the winners. It's there. I see it. I see it in the system. Oh, my gosh. It's time to dig in. Time to dig in. One other thing we wanted to mention is there. It's like his allowance. Right. Yes. My yearly? My yearly allowance. Yeah, no, I, uh, now you get to go buy a veteran, get to go buy an old man. I was going to say, I'm not going to make it without him feeling on this roster. He's too young for you. I've also got Ramondre Stevenson guys. Whoops, Zeduzels. If you're excited about that. I am not. The thunder to the lightning, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to need to find a running back. But one other thing we wanted to mention at the top because, uh,

The good people at Fantasychamps.com. Let us know their draft board presales underway. So there's 20% off their fantasy draft boards. Free two-day shipping. When you pre-order them, that's if you're an in-person drafter. And you got one of the big boards with the names on the wall. And you need to pick one up. Just go to Fantasychamps.com. There is a footballer's themed draft board. Man, we let that happen. We did. You can only, like there's a part of the draft board where our logo is, and only good players can go on it. I hope that if they buy the fantasy footballers version, among the player names, there's the three of us. Oh, we're draftables? And someone can just put us up on that board. We are. We're good locker room, guys.

That's right. It's like back in the day when you throw Tebow on the bench. Oh, yeah. I did that. I noticed people do this. I noticed on our Al Borland and I were in the championship game and I went to look at who my keepers were going to be. And I look at my bench and Tim Tebow sitting on my bench. You wanted that locker room presence. Because I think I got, you know, that Thursday I got down by a lot of points. I had a bad Thursday. I thought Tebow could bring me back. Didn't happen. Didn't happen. Some people were asking who your franchise player was, by the way, because we revealed all of our league. It was Christian McCaffrey. It's Christian McCaffrey. It's probably best you don't have CMC and T. Higgins on that roster together. I just have a lot of Christian McCaffrey. Yeah. I'm in. I'm in. Let's talk some news before we jump into the NFC recap. News and notes from around the league. Well, get paid. We got a money drop, don't we? Yeah.

Is this a good deal for the 49ers? George Kittle, four-year, $76 million extension, $40 million guaranteed. Is this, it was this a good, he's almost 32. Yeah, it's. I was curious your reaction. I think they were in a really hard spot of like George Kittle is still the man. He still has it as of right now. And he, it was his time. Like he needed to get paid and. They will probably be overpaying for a couple years there. And I saw someone saying on Twitter, because this came in that it is a little bit higher than Trey McBride, who just set the highest tight-end contract. I saw someone talk about, well, the last year is kind of inflated right now, so that that's what boosts his average to be just higher than Trey McBride. It's like, oh, man, that's some pettiness, and I love it.

Well, I mean, it feels a little bit like a thank you at the same time. You know, you just are expecting. I mean, we all have him in pretty, you know, a pretty good place right now for fantasy players. They're going to need him desperately. Yeah. There's a chance especially. I would say, I feel like George Kittle first half is like first half of this year is really attractive. Pearsall still needs to get his footing. No Brandon Ayuk or. a barely recovered brand and iuk it could be all year kiddle should dominate i mean honestly i i have a tough time with my dynasty rankings and and i think that most people would be like what that's not hard and when i when i look at tyler warren and loveland and you compare them to george kiddle right yeah okay so you have the prospect of having could be a boat right exactly you could have a young

stud tight end. I mean, what would, what is it worth, you know, obviously Brock Bowers this last year's worth everything? I'd take him, you know, five overall in a startup. But for every Brock Bowers, there's a Kyle Pitts. There's a Dalton Kincaid. I mean, usually, even give him a, give him a good forecast. Give him a bride path. If you say Colson Loveland is, is going to take the Tray McBride path. You're still going to have to wait a while. Yeah, you would have to wait a while. At least two years. It would still be well worth it to take a McBride path over an older kiddle. But you couldn't have played McBride for two years. But if it's, yeah, I mean, you know, I look back at the ADP of rookie tight-ins drafted and, yeah, Sam Leporta, it's like, oh, that's another great one. Sam Leporta went behind Luke Musgrave and Michael Mayer and Dalton Kincaid. He wasn't supposed to be the...

the number one. It could be Harold fan in this year. So it's, it's tough when it's like the next two years. Did you have Kittle ahead of both of them in your dynasty startup? Right now I've got them behind both. Kittle behind both. I have a sandwich, a rookie sandwich with George Kittle. See, yeah, I mean, and I get it. I have a hard time deciding if I'm in Kittle Warren. Which player I would actually be a Kittle. Is Kittle in the middle? Yeah. It's a Kittle sandwich then. Yeah. What are you naming your sandwiches after your bread? No. I mean, you never had a sourdough sandwich.

No, I have not. Not really. Okay, okay. You have a ham sandwich. Is that what a big Mac is, though? Yeah, the Mac is the middle. Okay. This is, well, this shows two hours already. I think in a startup draft, I would take the rookies over Kittle and build my roster that way. But when you're in a dynasty league, there's, there's a world where I would take a Loveland and I would trade him for George Kittle because. I can win now and I'd rather have the next two years of dominance. I think that's the prescription right there. Oh, man, that's hard. The Falcons did pick up the Drake London fifth year option. What? Well, I mean. Finding that out. Well, you knew that they were. The only reason they hadn't picked it up yet is because they're trying to get a long-term contract. He's not going anywhere, but this is officially he'll be there next year. And there is building interest rumor mill here. The Cowboys bringing back Amari Cooper. Oh, man. Make that splash, Jerry. We have.

Now's the time. It wasn't, like, you can't correct a mistake like this. Like it was such a mistake. We all knew it in the moment. It's like, let Amari Cooper in his prime leave to pay Zeke once he's aging out at the running back position. It's like, what are you doing? He sees the error of his ways. Now it's like, oh, we can fix this. We'll just bring a Mari Cooper back. So wait, no, it's Cooper wash now? Good. Bring him back. Yeah. Pay the man. And then we did get, uh, I can't find the drop. But we got a couple mediocre signings. Deontay Johnson, a one-year contract with the Browns. Robert Woods. There it is. Mediocre signing of the wig. So, I mean, that's where we're out with Deontay Johnson. The Browns, dude, this is, this is, I understand it because you can look at the production for a couple years ago. But the fact that since last off season, he has been on four teams.

in that time and you're trying to like you're in the you're in a culture rebuild right now of of the Cleveland Browns like this is not a a Super Bowl bound team I don't think they're that far off I mean they got a this is their Elijah Moore replacement but I'm saying the bills like why well I bring this guy in and we're I think more and more especially like I'll say I'm being influenced by looking at basketball but It's like the locker room guy narrative, I always thought was kind of funny. I'm so in on it now. I am so in on it of you can have guys come into your locker room who can be great players. But they're a poison. They're a poison to the rest of your guys. Like guys are like uncomfortable around it. It changes how you feel. And the same way of a guy, maybe he doesn't produce for your team. But he does because he comes in and he's just this rah-rah guy who pumps up your teammates. Everyone loves being around him. You set a.

a tone for your team. And I think bringing Deonte into the Browns right now is head scratching. Yeah, I mean, maybe. Yeah, a glue guy. Certainly the fact that every team that has brought him on has kicked him right out the door says that there appears to be a problem. However, he has been an important part of good teams before. And he's now paired up. All the all the quarterback questions for the Browns, I think Kenny Pickett's the starter. I think Kenny Pickett will be the starter on day one and will play the vast majority of the year. And this was, this is a, you know, Deontay Johnson is, you know, who he has played with successfully. So I think there's a pretty good signing, to be honest. I don't think it's relevant for fantasy.

I mean, I would say it could be relevant for fantasy. I'd rather have Tillman. I'd rather have Najoku. And that's fine. But I'd rather. I think the point is if Deontay is a full-time starter for this team. He'll be what Elijah Moore was? I know. I think that it really hurts the outcome of Jerry Judy personally. Well, I'm talking ceiling for Jerry Judy. I think Johnson at this point puts the M in mediocre. Sure. I don't know. It's a one-year deal. They lost Elijah Moore to the bills on a one-year deal. Robert Woods went to the Steelers on a one-year $2 million contract. He is immortal. Robert Woods feels like you should have retired, like... I can't believe he's still forever again. Getting paid. All right, let's jump in. Hi, rookie. Welcome to the NFL. Let's start in the NFC South draft, recap, winners and losers. Let's look at Carolina, Tetaroa, McMillan.

Pick eight overall in the draft and set up to, you know, kind of just be the guy in Carolina at this point. I watched a lot of Xavier Leggett. I think he's a talented player. I don't think he's an alpha. They tried to tell you this offseason. That's how they view him. Then they went and spent the eighth pick on Teteroa McMillan in the first round. They spent a fourth round pick on Travis Etienne's brother. Trevor E.T.N. out of Georgia. Smaller change of pace back that is going to compliment Chuba Hubbard. And, you know, when you look at this team, it's good for Bryce Young to get a, you know, a formidable, you know, contested catch type of player that's going to make life easier on him. I thought the draft pick was fantastic. You're rolling out. I mean, Thielen's still there, right? Yep. So like with Thielen.

Ligette and then McMillan. Like, this is a good wide receiver room. And if you look back, we talked about this on the dynasty show that came out yesterday. We did a first. Forget about cocker. We did a two round rookie mock draft and the hit rate, Al. The hit rate of top 10 drafted wide receivers is very, very, very high. Kyle kind of did this study showing especially if. If a wide receiver was projected to go there, not the guys that were crazy overdrafted that were a shock to go in the top 10, but the guys who were projected to go in the top 10, they pretty much always hit. And so this is a player who had a lot of drafts where he was going in the top 10, went in the top 10. So I think you can be confident it's going to work out for him. Yeah, and I think for fantasy it's going to work out. Like I think Tederoa McMillan will be important.

You know, I don't know what his ceiling is with Bryce Young, but it's not like we haven't seen Adam Thiel and have long stretches of success there. He's a year older somehow. He's still a year older. And so it means good things for the Panthers offense. It also means like the ETN draft pick. I think we all still viewed Chuba the same as we did before the draft. Yeah. So which is a running back two. Yeah, I think a quality running back too. I see him as like the running back 15. Yeah, that's about where I see him too. The Saints at 5 and 12 last year, they passed on Shadour a few times. This was at the first point of the draft where once the pick came through, the hands went up to the face. And I was like, oh, no. He said, oh, Shucks. Yeah. So they took Tyler Shuck in the second round of Pick 40.

We're back to this. Yeah, it's time to play with names, baby. So he's workshopping. Don't forget. He's a quarterback and he's going to shuck it. Yeah. Down the field. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I know what was making the rounds with Tyler suck. It was the play. And. Because that particular clip is so egregiously bad. So there's one clip from the kind of workouts in the combine that was bad. There was one good play from Zach Wilson that completely drove him in drafts. I actually think Chuck is going to start for the Norland Saints. That's what I believe. I think he's going to be the starter maybe day one. He could be. We have confirmation now from Derek Carr that his shoulder is a problem, but we don't know what exactly the problem is. If he's going to have surgery, if he's going to be able to play week one or not play at all this year. So it's really Carr's team.

if he can play and if he's not healthy, which is seemingly very possible, then Chuck, I agree, would be the starter. But what's funny is you talked about that one play being so bad, making the rounds. It wasn't even a play. It was a rep at the combine. But I thought it was a different clip. of a play. Oh. That was, do you guys haven't seen that where he throws the ball? Oh, yes. Yeah. He goes full Will Levitts. In the middle of a game. Yeah. Backwards. That was the craziest play I've ever seen. I watched it a hundred times to figure out, was it an accident? And it wasn't. He is older than Trevor Lawrence. He is older than 38% of NFL quarterbacks. He will likely be the last player. Um,

Oh, it's not likely. This is for sure. He will be the final player drafted who was born before 2000. He played three years at Oregon, three years at Texas Tech in a year at Louisville. He was teammates with Juan Johnson, who was a wide receiver at the time. Right. So he's now on his second contract. He backed up Justin Herbert in college. Juan Johnson is entering year six. Yeah, like it's wild. But this was the big offensive move for the Saints. You could argue they needed more than this. You know, Chris Olave. Their confidence level on Chris Oliva seemed to be on display by not taking any wide receivers in the draft at all. They took a sixth round running back in Devin Neal, who we thought might be a day two pick. He wasn't. Yeah, Devin Neal is probably my biggest faller from the draft. He was a player I really liked the film on. And so.

You've got an older Alvin Camara and an unknown Kendra Miller will he ever be able to play football and be part of this roster. The Saints ask themselves every day. And Clyde is on the roster too. Yeah, that doesn't matter. But I'm saying who is the backup for Alvin Camara? To be fair, Clyde has a lot more production than Kendra Miller does. Yeah. That's true. I would, if I had to call my shot right now, I would say Clyde is the backup over Kendra Miller. But Devin Neal being in it. And Devin Neal is a very competent running back. He just went much lower than we thought. You know, Camara, he got the contract, and then they didn't go out and spend a high draft capital pick on a running back. Olave, Shaheed, Brandon Cooks brought in this offseason. That's your wide receiver room. I mean, that's the way it is. They could add somebody. They could be a Mari Cooper or whatever, Keenan Allen. Right now, honestly, if I had to summarize my view of the Saints, I think they're a bad football team, a really bad football team.

They don't have a quarterback. They have an aging star at running back. They have, look, their defense is going to perform. But you're putting a lot of faith in Kellanmore to get something out of who? Tyler Shuck? Spencer Rattler? I think this is, and obviously I was the anti-Saints person, you know, the last couple of years. I feel like this is. There are enough talented people on the roster where they could be decent. It's just a question of quarterback. I do not think they have enough people. If their quarterback is good, they can be a 500 plus team. Their win totals five and a half. They won five last year. If Olave misses time, sorry, when Olave misses time, you're running out, you're running out Rashid Shahid and Brandon Cook says your starting wide receivers.

This team was atrocious to watch play football last year without Derek Carr on the field. Yes, yes. I mean, obviously, if Shuck can't play and Carr is injured, no team is going to win games without a quarterback. The divisions, I mean, Tampa, they're great. Atlanta, I think we expect good things. They're on the rise, yeah. So, you know, Carolina will see. Let's talk about Atlanta. Well, we're done. They gave up. a 2026th first rounder to go up and get an edge for this year. I mean, fantasy winners, Kyle Pitts, maybe. Final year of his rookie deal. They didn't go take another one, but they didn't have the draft capital to even do it. They didn't trade Kirk Cousins. No, and he may be stuck there now. I don't know. They're going to have to figure out that money. Yeah, I think the Falcons are just.

kind of waiting and hoping that another quarterback goes down and preseason and that, you know, someone's hungry for Kirk Cousins. But, yeah, there's not much here for the Falcons. I mean, the nice thing is the important pieces that we care about for fantasy are all super secure. No one is coming in to take work away from Bijan or Drake London. Thank you. Pinnix. Or Mooney. Be better. Be good. Yeah. That's all the, it just comes down to like their offseason is Michael Pennix. you know, progression. Yeah, I mean, Drake Lennon is going to go high in fantasy drafts. I think we should not ignore Darnel Mooney. I agree. He's going to be, he's at that stage of his career and with the name and the expectations and the performances where I think he's just going to be an eternal value until he's out of the league or somebody takes over his spot. Yeah, 100%. There's going to be so many rounds in fantasy football where people are taking the player that could develop into, they're going to be drafting potential.

You know, you're going to get just a wide receiver two for your team on a weekly starting basis in Mooney, who doesn't have the potential to be a top 10 wide receiver, but it's just his floor is very high. All right, let's take a break and we'll finish out the NFC South. All right, Tampa Bay. Well, they surprised us a little bit. They did. A lot of bit. Yeah, a lot of bit. They selected Emeka Ibuka in the first round. Pick 19. And Jason, you've, you've sung his praises. This was one of the five first round wide receivers on Ohio State a few years ago. What was it? Olaveh, Garrett Wilson. Marv, JSN and Nabucca. All played together on the same team. Five first round, not just, I mean, that's, that is an insane stat.

But yeah, he's Ohio Statewide receivers, LSU wide receivers. Just draft them. Trust. They're doing well. Trust that they are good. But it does throw a wrench into our projections for Tampa Bay because I think we all agree that he's a very solid wide receiver that can contribute from day one. I think we would believe that he's a better all around wide receiver than Jalen McMillan. Oh, for sure. And. Chris Godwin coming off the injury with the new contract, Mike Evans, a year older. It does. It's really, really good for this guy. Like Laser Mayfield himself has targets all over the place. Four talented wideouts, a really good tight end in KDot, and he showed that he could step into an important role when wide receivers went down last year. And then Bucky Irving and Rashad White, who are passing game weapons. That's seven.

weapons for Baker Mayfield. It makes him resilient to injury. Really? Like last year, Baker started out on fire. Do you remember this? And then he lost players to injury at wide receiver. And there was a little rough patch. He just makes him feel safer and more resilient. And this team is just running it back with more talent. So, you know, no more Liam Cohen, obviously. But Igbuka, what do you expect from him now and later? Because it's hard to expect a lot in year one, but he is going to contribute. Yeah, you know, if Godwin starts the season on the pup, then Ibuka has a great opportunity to come in here and thrive. I mean, you saw Jalen McMillan have great success in a good scheme with a good quarterback, you know, playing football in Baker Mayfield. So I actually, I think I'm higher on Abuka this season for redraft and dynasty purposes as in not just, he's not just to me.

Like when J.S.N. was drafted and he's firmly behind D.K. Metcalfe and Tyler Lockett, or when Oduenze was drafted, and it felt like he is firmly behind both Keenan Allen and D.J. Moore, Ibuka is not as good as either of those two other players, but the opportunity he's coming in because of Godwin's injury, Mike Evans' age, I think he's going to be more relevant than O'Dunzee and J.S.N.'s rookie season, but not, he does not have the ceiling as a player. of those other two guys. But you're, you know, you're talking about probably 700, 800 yards for that player, which has to impact your view of, you know, if you're high on him, Evans, Godwin, how are you adjusting your perspective on how they contribute to fantasy teams? You know, I don't think I'm going to adjust too much there. I believe that this is an offense that has enough to go around. I don't think Ibuka.