Fantasy Wildcards + Cook Holdout, Rebuild Tips - Fantasy Football Podcast

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to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Tuesday, June 9th, the fantasy footballers, back with you. Mike Wright is here. Yes. I am here, Andy Holloway. That's me. That's me. And then...

It may not look. Oh, there he is. Jason Moore is present as well in spirit, not in body, in voice, not in body. Virtual body is probably best for me anyways. So this is great news. Yeah, I told Jake Gris get out of my life. Got a stuffy nose, being cautious, staying home, and yet still here for the Foot Clan. Yeah, and we're thankful for that. It's going to be a great show. We're talking fantasy wild cards today.

Some mailbag. We got some big news to talk about as well. But yeah, it's a new day. I mean, if you get a sniffle and a sneeze, you stay at home. Just get out of my life, Jay. Yeah. But we have a great show. We also have Judge Giamatti's at home. So we've got Al Borland running the ones and twos. The ones and twos back there. But we are here a little bit later than a normal episode.

But we gave the staff the day off yesterday as kind of a makeup for Memorial Day. We were pushing the UDK. And obviously the UDK was released on the first. And so we gave them the day off, and here we are. With lots to talk about. Oh, yeah. Yes. And if you're watching on YouTube, which is YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers, you'll see Mike is wearing a Vikings cap.

Yes, I am a Vikings fan of the Cardinals are my number one team, but I still have a burning love for Minnesota Vikings as my number two team. And, I mean, we're actually kind of serendipitous that we are recording today's show a little bit later than normal, because in the off season, very often we pre-record the day earlier, would we have even had this news, had the show come out at the regular time? Probably not. Probably not. So you're welcome. Yes.

Yeah, so we'll get into that. Let's start with a quick question, though. By the way, you can follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers. A reminder, we have a giveaway right now. Footclan giveaway.com assigned Devante Adams jersey over there. Lots of you are entering. We'll give that away at the end of this month. But here's the quick question. It comes from Instagram. He says, what advice? This is from C. Harper 711. I would have called them Charper. A charper. I don't know, though.

It's possible it's Carper as well. It could be, Harper? What advice would you have for someone who is in a rebuild in a dynasty league? Jason, let's turn to you first. What advice would you give to somebody who's going through a rebuild in their dynasty league? Yeah, so if you're in a rebuild and your team's not good enough to compete, there's several things you're going to need to do. And, you know, one is you're going to trade the older veterans.

for the highest draft picks you can, right? If you're not going to win in the next year or two, a list of guys would be like Adam Thielen, Robert Woods, T.Y. Hilton, Keenan Allen, these guys are all, you know, 28, 29, 30 years old, where three years from now, when you're ready to rock, you're, you know, they're not going to help you anymore. So those are the types of pieces you rebuild, and I would say a pro tip is wait to trade them.

Wait until you know which teams just need that guy to push themselves over the top towards a championship and they're willing to give up their great picks to, you know, you end up getting a one instead of a two for some of these guys because they're willing to, you know, push through. And I would also say, this is fortuitous with the news of today, you might be a good team to buy low on guys who are suspended or holding out.

So if, you know, if all of a sudden a couple weeks from now, it's reported Dalvin Cook's totally ready to miss the whole season if he doesn't have a contract, maybe that Dalvin Cook owner is willing to sell him lower than you could usually buy a young piece like that. So if you can buy low, and then the great news is you hope he sits out because you're, I mean, tank responsibly, right? You want, you want that, you want that great pick next year, which means put a,

put a lineup up but oh no my starter's holding out and i would say yeah yeah i would say too you know just a piggyback on that you people in a rebuild sometimes feel like they are destined to defeat for multiple years which might be the case with the way that your league lays itself out but if you're trading those pieces that you're talking about jason you can piece victories together in a dynasty league

with the most aged and most decrepit and one year left type of players. So if you're sitting in Adam Thielen out and you're getting a draft pick, but you can have a Jameson Crowder tossed in or somebody that is Julian Edelman, who we'll talk about later on the show, that people just look for, those guys are dead in a dynasty. You can piece victories together with old guys that no one cares about during, you know, because there's a certain category of dynasty.

player that is kind of a hands-off player, right? Where people don't want to touch them anymore. The AJ Greens, maybe. Maybe it's the one-year rentals of Mark Ingram or somebody like that. So you don't have to resign yourself to defeat. At least I don't. I think you can compete in a rebuild. I think there are different kinds of rebuild, right? There is the complete blow-it-up rebuild where you are, your team is not good enough. Like Mike's dynasty team last year. Sure. I mean, he was in the championship a couple years earlier. His team was good, but then, you know,

people aged out and injuries happen. And, you know, so then sometimes you need to blow it up. And if you're blowing it up, you don't piece together those victories. I think for the most part, the three of us usually try to rebuild on the fly, like as we are still winning. And that would be a good tip for that type of a rebuild to always still have a chance at getting in the playoffs and sneak in that championship. And I would say go after backup running backs.

because generally you can get them cheaper. I mean, you're not going to be able to go and get Alexander Madison very, very cheap right now. But had you gone and tried to trade for him last year, it would have been a lot different of a situation. And just these, like P. Ryan, the Michael P. Ryan for the New York Jets. Right now he's Levy on Bell's backup. Right now, he has.

basically no fantasy value because you would project that Levy on Bell is going to get almost every single snap for that team. But is Levin Bell on that team in two years? P. Ryan, does he have the shot to become a starter? Those are the types of players that you can get on the cheap. On the cheap compared to paying for starters. If you know you can't win, then get this team that will.

get better over time as they mature into starting positions. Yeah, and, you know, early in the off season, Mike, you brought up several names of guys who are coming into that year where the holdout could happen. Right. And you could target their backups. Like you just said, you can't get Alexander Madison now. You can't. But you could get Latavius Murray and Gio Bernard and other guys where Mixon and Camer have not.

said they're holding out yet. You know, you can, you can trade for some of those guys or even a year out. Look at the, the next year's draft class. Jason, would you like to blow your dynasty team up? Oh, man, I think as the back-to-back champ, champ, champ, champ, I will not be blowing that thing up. I'm going to Jordan right now. He's darn right. Dern right. I need that trilogy. I would walk away and start playing fantasy baseball. That's what I would do. That's my goal. That's the solution right now.

All right, let's get into the news. News and notes from around the league. All right, the big news. Dalvin Cook will not participate in any team activities until he receives what he called a reasonable new contract. This is from ESPN's Adam Schefter and other sources. He is out without a reasonable contract extension. He is not showing up for camp or beyond. So.

One of the most difficult off-season situations to be in as a fantasy owner. We've been here before. We've been here with Lev. We've been here with Zeke in a slightly different fashion. But where you don't know the future, obviously, the team seems exceptionally yoked to Dalvin Cook in its offensive strategy and what it wants to do. He's been as productive as any running back in football.

And he's sitting here at the, he's got like a $1.3 million contract for his final year. His quarterback's making $30 million a year, and he's taking a stand. Yeah, and I do not blame him at all. So this is certainly, I'm always on the team of, player, go get the bag. Go get it when you can. But for us as breaking it down for fantasy purposes, we have to be, we kind of have to put on our business cap. Okay, let's think realistically.

Dalvin Cook has not a ton of leverage. I mean, the leverage he has is saying, look what I've done for your team on the field. Look how much better the team is when I am starting running back. But if he sits out with the way that the new collective bargaining agreement works, one, he needs to report sooner. Like holdouts, it's a much different situation than it was in the past.

If he, in fact, chooses to hold out, he would become a restricted free agent, which means that he's not in a position like Levion Bell was, where if he sits out a year, he just gets to walk and go wherever he wants. So he doesn't have that type of contractual leverage. He's in more of a what Melvin Gordon type of situation was in. And we've been down this road where gambling on Levs return.

was devastating for fantasy owners. Gambling on Zeke's return paid off in spades if you bought him in that interim period of doubt. But then Melvin Gordon, you know, it took weeks into the season. So, you know, the question for us, you know, you got the ultimate draft kit, our rankings, our projections, our thought process around risk. Where do you guys adjust cook today? How do you view him today? Because he was in that upper tier of starters at the running back position. So if you're drafting in a...

in a best ball league. If you're drafting in a dynasty league, are you afraid? Oh, yeah. Go ahead, Jay. Yeah, I would be very afraid. I mean, when you're in that tier of player, where Dalvin Cook has been going, all the players around him are also great. I'm taking the other great players who don't have, you know, Dalvin Cook before this holdout was already a very risky, you know, very high reward, but a very risky player with his shoulder injuries.

So now he is the riskiest player in fantasy football this year. The shoulder combined with the holdout combined with the draft cost says he is, he's too risky for me to have on a team right now, unless he's like, sure, if he drops to the third or fourth round, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Then I'm not choosing between, you know, him and Alvin Camara. You know, I'm choosing between him and some, you know.

replaceable options. Are you drafting Kenyon Drake ahead of Dalvin Cook today? Because that's right at that line where, you know, I think the ADP of Kenyon Drake might be. If I was on the clock right now and I could only pick those two players, I would take Kenyon Drake. I think Cook gets a deal done. Yeah, I lean on the side that I'm, I have lowered him in the projections a bit because we just have a history, right,