THE UNOFFICIALFOOTBALLERSFAN ARCHIVE↗Transcript links use the exact YouTube video’s clock. Machine transcripts can contain errors.
A hypothetical about Anthony Richardson's healed finger creating a stronger spiral shifts to Andy: the hosts declare his pinky exceptionally strong, and Andy says people have discussed it before abruptly moving on.
The hosts revive their remedy for Malik Nabers' chronic toe problem—tie it to a door and slam it like a loose tooth—then invent a Toe Fairy who leaves $100 because a normal tooth earns only about five dollars.
After taking credit for the NFL allowing players to bring their own smelling salts, the hosts imagine an underpaid seventh-round rookie funding himself by selling salts from inside a trench coat and asking who needs to wake up.
The twelve-team mock draws directly from Footballers staff. Julia and Matthew Betz appear immediately, producer Borland drafts Barkley, the Falcon follows zero RB, Papa Josh takes Mahomes, Kyle protests a stolen target in Slack, and the close credits the Deucers with managing both drafting and production.
The draft recap explicitly says Mike selects Kenneth Walker at 4.03, after which the established Ken Bone Walker name returns as Mike predicts greatness.
The last selection of the staff mock belongs to Kyle, who takes Kyle Pitts and prompts the immediate refrain 'Kyle went Kyle.' The hosts then hope few listeners remain for their own reluctant prediction that Pitts will be productive.
The episode introduces Mike as the Fantasy Hitman and quickly returns to the show's improvised medicine. After the earlier proposal to tie Malik Nabers' troublesome toe to a door and slam it, an Anthony Richardson finger injury inspires the possibility of a super-strong healed pinky; Andy's pinky is declared exceptionally strong and he says people have discussed it before. The hosts later revisit Nabers potentially losing a toe and invent a Toe Fairy economy in which a toe under the pillow earns a hundred-dollar bill rather than a tooth's five dollars. They also celebrate the NFL allowing players to bring their own smelling salts by imagining a seventh-round rookie selling them from a trench coat. The main event is a twelve-person staff mock draft. Julia and Matthew Betz appear among the first selections, producer Borland takes Saquon Barkley, the Falcon pursues zero RB, Papa Josh drafts Patrick Mahomes, Kyle protests Mike's Tetairoa McMillan pick in Slack, and the Deucers manage both drafting and production. Mike explicitly drafts Kenneth Walker and immediately calls him Ken Bone Walker. The closing crew payoff arrives when Kyle uses the draft's final selection on Kyle Pitts—'Kyle went Kyle'—while the hosts hope nobody is still listening to their reluctant prediction that Pitts will finally be productive.
The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers Friday, August 8th. Thrilled to be with you. Mike, the Fantasy Hitman, is here. Jason Moore. Hello. And I'm Andy Holloway.
Excited for a mock draft episode today. We'll catch you up on the latest news and notes in the fantasy football world. We've got some preseason football to. Huge takeaways. Briefly discuss. I mean, we had some games last night. So that's fun. That's exciting. And we had some starters playing. For those of you enthusiastically hoping for kind of a repeat situation in Cincinnati. for the offense to have to carry everything. I think you will be comforted by what took place last night. An entire starting defense getting pummeled by an entire backup situation in Philadelphia. We love to see that. Faye Hendrickson, did your leverage go up? I don't know if it actually does. I mean, do they care? They gave up 24 points to a backup quarterback that looked like Joe Montana for two quarters. Does the ownership actually care that?
is unknown, but along with the defense being what we hope for fantasy, Jamar Chase remains good. Just so good at football. Yeah. Just so good. He's pretty athletic. Yeah, he really is. We were talking, was it yesterday about the odds of repeating and we hadn't had one since Antonio Brown like. As the number one wide receiver. Like it really. It feels set up for success. It really could happen this year. But injuries always, you know, they get involved and things like that. But I thought Jalen Milro, that was one of the takeaways for me. Like I thought he looked really good for Seattle. Fast, really fast. Yeah, every time he ran, he was so much faster than all the defenders. And the way he threw the football, too, like there is some, you talked about Bazooka Joe. I mean, there is some steam on those throws. He kind of Cam Newton-esque in that sense where he.
You know, Cam Newton just laser beams all over the field when he broke into the league. So, you know, Sam Donald, obviously, the starter there, but it seems like, you know, it's nice to see these rookies get opportunities on the field. Milro is fascinating for Dynasty. You know, in the draft season we talked about that of like, he, yes, he was a, for a quarterback, there's no draft capital there. There is a starter who has the bag in front of him. But if looking around the 32 situations, that's one where it could. it could disintegrate real fast underneath Sam Darnold and all of a sudden Milro starting. And if Milro was starting, he becomes... It's Milro's place. At that point, at that point, it's Milrose place. Okay, I like... It would be. I like Joe Milton III. I think he's a legitimate, like if he had a starting opportunity, I think he'd be okay. But he's not going to outplay DAC for a starting role. If Donald goes, you know, two and four to start the season and is struggling, you could absolutely see a...
you know, a replacement happen. I do think. I don't think they would happen that quick. No, no. Maybe not this year. Maybe not a few games in, but certainly I, if he is playing bad football, I mean, if Darnel comes out and just looks like trash and he's the problem for the Seahawks, I do think that a switch could be made. If they've got a backup that is looking good, yeah. Russell Wilson was the pick 75, pick 75 overall for Seattle, right? And Mill Road 92. Oh, yeah, the Matt Flynn era. Oh, yeah, they signed him to a big chunk of money. Different regime. No, but the similarities there. But, yeah, one preseason game does not a career make. Who else? Tyler Warren, to me, was a big story in the sense that he played every snap with the starters. He had a ton of your first rate targets. Obviously.
You didn't have the primary. Downs didn't play. Pittman didn't play. But it was really nice to see. Richardson didn't really play. Oh, man. Goodness gracious. Yeah, Richardson took a defender to the face or to the Fingy. Both. Yeah, both. He got the Fingy took the brunt of the damage. But, yeah, I mean, this is. He got. took a will levis like hit i don't know how you get blindsided on the non-blind side but he did you know what's funny is i saw someone just this morning posted that that play reminded them of rookie andrew luck and there was almost an identical play was there where andrew luck i mean the the guy is coming it's like not your blind side it's yeah it's it's just turn your head a little forward and the the massive human pummeling down on you um and it was
It really was like identical. He took a shalacking right to the front of your body. I'm not a quarterback. I've never played quarterback, so I can't pretend. But I would imagine a snap is somewhat like turning left in your car. Before he turn left, you always do a quick double check. You're like, that's, you know, the oncoming traffic. That's what I'm most concerned about. But you're still not going to pull out without checking. Yeah, I'm going to take a little peek. At the other side, just real quick. I think that is a lot easier to do the further you are in your career. I mean, a lot of what happens when you simplify things for a quarterback with accuracy issues is you cut the field in half. And it felt like he did not know a right side of the field existed on that play. And he ended up with the dislocated finger.
We got to see a lot of Taj Brooks. Will he need surgery on that? No. No, no, no. He'll be back in practice this week. Yeah, they said it'll be fast. The, you know, saw Taj Brooks play for Cincinnati. Got a lot of snaps. Not any big plays, but really physical runner. I thought he looked okay. Were you concerned? Torrey Horton in Seattle as well. Oh, yeah. That was pretty exciting. He looked good. He could very well be the starting outside wide receiver from day one. We've talked a lot about how. J.S.N. and Cooper Cup have both been primarily slot receivers. Someone's going to have to move to the outside, but you're probably not going to have both of them on the outside, which means there is a role for Horton who has been good through training camp. You look for those consistent messages where it's like this guy has been doing good and then he looks good in preseason. So he certainly fits the bill. Any concern of P. Ryan? Piron came and he took the third down work from the starter. Yeah, yeah, a little bit.
Um, yeah, I mean, that's just, that's part of the game. Like, that doesn't scare me off of Chase Brown at all. No, no, me neither. Me neither. I think he's, uh, P. Ryan is P. Ryan. Yeah. You know? That's one of his weaknesses. The only concern I have, because we, we've talked about, I think we just talked about a little bit more on the dynasty podcast. If you listen to that episode. But third down utilization for running backs is so overblown. Correct. It actually doesn't. It's first and second down. Even the passing work is first and second down primarily if you look at the data. However, what does play in is the two minute drill. Yes. So that's where I want to see like, I pray P. Ryan is not the two minute drill guy. Don't do that. Cincinnati do not do that. That would be. Do you want a bad two minute drill? That's your way.
That's your way to do it. Right, exactly, yeah. So, yeah, no, it's a worthy warning there. Reminder the... The last thing, Keaton Mitchell. Looked healthy. He's healthy. I mean, he's still, you know... It would take an injury to Derek Henry to be relevant, but should that happen, he has the juice that we saw two years ago. Yeah, the Ravens running back, by the way. All right, some quick preseason takeaways. We've got the Ultimate Draft Kit available at Ultimate DraftKit.com. Go check that out. The new value scout tool is a part of that. If you are new to the show and you don't know what the UDK is about, it's all of our player projections, we update it all offseason. It's a living, breathing resource for your drafts. We've got the Sleepers Breakouts, Bus, Values, 100 plus player profile videos that get updated as well. And you can check that out. The rankings include risk and upside meters. And they're all tiered. Yep, all tiered rankings. And a ton of other resources. Very proud of the way the apps have turned out this year.
A lot of upgrades over there. So if you've, you know, if you've gotten the UDK before, you haven't tried it in a while, definitely check that out. Android iOS on the web, Ultimate DraftKit.com. All right. Let's go ahead and jump right into some more news. News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance. Well, just to finish the thought on Anthony Richardson, it was dislocated right throwing pinky finger. Is there a chance? This could be a rookie of the year situation here and all of a sudden he's accurate. It's like... Because of the pinky. Yeah, like the pinky was the problem. And now that it's been dislocated, he's just on the money. No, I would say that's more in the line of pulling a toe. Pulling a toe. Which is what you guys brought up for Malik neighbors. Like pulling a toe off. Yeah, what your solution from Malik neighbors was to tie his toe to a door and slam the door. Well, because it's been a long term problem. This is a short term problem.
Thank you, Mike. We bring solutions to the table. Pretty obvious. The thing, like, if Richardson, if like, he's going to, by the way, X-rays are clean, he'll be back in practice. Just to walk through it real quick, Jay, like, if his pinky came back super strong and you're throwing, I think you're not going to spiral anymore. I think you're going to throw, the pinky will snap, and then you're just going to get end-over-end throws. You're saying it snaps every throw? I'm saying if his pinky came. No, I think you get super spiral. Oh, do you? I think you get super spiral. Remember, you've never played quarterback. You think it's like driving a car? Remember that? Yeah. Yeah, you get super spiral. Do you have a super strong pinky? Andy's pinky is so strong. My pinky is, I stand corrected. People have talked about my pinky before. Next. Okay, moving on. Let's talk about. Oh, we go right to this bummer. Oh.
Rashon Slater, this is devastating news for the charges on like a number of fronts. So Rashon Slater just signed a four-year, over $100 million, highest paid offensive linemen in the history of the NFL deal. Good for you, man. This is why. And he tore his Patelor tendon. I believe the number percentage-wise, it's like 70% of players that Tara Patelor tendon do not return to form ever. So you just sign the... It's much worse than an ACL. Oh, much worse. So Rashon Slater is out for the year. This is a Chargers offensive line that looked like it would be one of the best in the league. It is still, I think, pretty good. But Joe Alt, the rookie, he's going to have to come over and play left tackle where Rashon Slater was playing. And you're going to move some pieces around.
and it's going to throw that influx and injuries suck. I mean, it's... Yeah, it's really sad. I was just talking up the Chargers offense, how they looked like someone that's going to be extraordinarily hard to stop. Obviously, the easiest way to stop an offense is pass rush and, you know, get through an offensive line. I don't think this is devastating for the offense in the sense that they don't go to like a bottom offensive line where now they're not going to be able to protect or run the ball. It's just it takes a little bit of the edge away from the upside case. Ladd-McConkie still not practicing. It's an undisclosed injury. He has not practiced since the 28th. The 28th of July. Keep it safe. Yeah. Did you see the first rep run by Keenan Allen in practice, by the way? I did not. No. Please tell me it was awesome. Brother. Please tell me it was awesome. No, no, no, no. It's not about the rep. It's about the fact that when he did an outbreaking route and caught the pass, the next thing he had to do on the field was leap.
over a water cooler. that was in the middle of the field. You're sitting there going, there's a veteran wide receiver. He runs a rep. He cuts out left. He catches the ball. And when he turns his head, there is a humongous Gatorade cooler in the middle of the field that he has to leap over. And we're like, get the, get it off the field. You're just sitting in the middle of the field. That's next level. He could have annihilated that thing. Someone put that out immediately just to prove how good he was. Yeah, Trey Harris put that down there. Well, he can still jump. So, yeah. Yeah, McConkey had his upper leg wrapped. So it's some soft tissue issue.
Yeah, he hasn't practiced since the 28th. Jaden Blue, who was making waves in Cowboys Camp, rookie running back, left practice. There was some concern. He ended up getting tests and it ended up being a bone bruise in his heel. That's very good news. Yeah, they thought it was a bad ankle injury and this should be okay. Jake Ferguson also left practice, back contusion recently extended Jake Ferguson. Do we have to worry about other recently extended players here? Yeah, if you signed a recent contract, yeah, maybe that's something to be worried about. Tyree Cairn, stay safe. Yeah, Tyree Cale dealing with an oblique injury. That was the, we knew it was an undisclosed injury. He had missed time. He's not in pads today. Mike McDaniel finally said it was an oblique. It's not been a good offseason for Tyreek Hill. No. So for, you know, if vibes, which, you know, we like.
We do shows five days a week. Vibes come into the equation. I run my life on vibes. Yeah. Not good vibes. I mean, he's not, he doesn't have the trust of his locker room right now. And he had a really bad year. And he said he was going to be out. So you do wonder about a player like that at this stage of his career. Are they mentally? going to be fully engaged for the season. I mean, he'll turn 32 this year. So that is, you know, you're getting to the age where if your athleticism takes a step back, a lot of excuses were made last year for the wrist issue. You know, it's like, oh, he, he had a wrist injury. Now, he played 17 games, but he had an injury. Maybe that was why the statistics were down. So you don't love seeing, well, he's got an oblique injury this year.
No, it's not good. He's been sort of slipping down my rankings for the last couple of weeks. Just because when I stare it down in a draft, there's a gamble aspect to Tyreek Hill that is not there with some of the other players in the vicinity of where he's going. I mean, are you are you Tyree Kill or T. Higgins, Jay? Oh, T. Higgins, easy. That's an easy. I love T. Higgins. Are you Tyree Kill or Terry McLaurin? I'd take Tyreek. Marvin Harrison. I would go Harrison. You go 32-year-old versus the 23-year-old. Tyreek Hill feels like he's going to be the best or just a terrible pick. It won't be in the middle. It's going to be, dude, who took Tyreek? Who was willing to do it? Yeah. You win. That's where if he's going in a place where there are other wide receivers, I believe will have good seasons, like T. Higgins, Garrett Wilson, Marvin Harrison.
I'll take those other guys. If there's other question, you know, question mark guys, like I see McLaurin with Debo in town and with the touchdown regression coming. McLaren should be a good wide receiver, but I don't necessarily think he has a great season ahead. He feels safer than Tyreek. Safer, but I don't think he's got the same practice. Jordan James, another 49ers running back, also hurt. Going to miss a couple of weeks. Undergoing surgery to repair a broken finger, Garindo's already out with the shoulder injury. and I believe Amir Abdullah's next man up. That's right. The Abdullah Express is... I mean, there's Patrick Taylor. Patrick Taylor's still there. I do think... I mean, they signed Abdullah. He's probably next man up. Christian McCaffrey stands alone right now to have all the workload against... You don't... I'm telling you you don't want that. I do want that. No, you don't. No, you don't. Yes, I do. Don't tell me what I want. You don't want that much work for Christian McCaffrey. I didn't say it's good for him. I still want it. Okay, there's a lot of things in life that aren't good for you that I'm like...
I want that. I want that slice of pie. Yeah. Yeah, I want him to have a massive workload. Is that good for him? No, but is it good for my fantasy team? If you eat five pies, what happens? I get fat. Yeah, you might throw some of that up. You got a, you got to pace yourself if you want, if you want to eat pie for an entire season, you can't eat all the pie in the first two weeks. Four pies. He's just real happy. Yeah, for a minute. It's that fifth one. That's really the problem. It's the fifth pie. All right. Brown's running back Quinn Sean Judkins.
Waved his right to a speedy trial. It could push the case into 2026. There's speculation, and my goodness. Put the lawyer hat back on. Yeah, I mean, and I've shout out to those that have reached out that are in the legal field that have wanted to provide insights and things like that. We also have some resources that we lean on. I'm going to give you the TLDR of the situation. We don't know exactly how it's going to play out. And this could be the precursor to a settlement that leads to then a. suspension that leads to us signing and eventually the return of Quintan Juggins. That's where I think it's headed. But that doesn't mean that you draft him and it certainly doesn't mean he's playing anytime soon. So he is not under contract when he, if they put him under contract anytime soon, he's going on the commissioners list and he will get, he's going to get six games. Like he will start his career with a six game suspension. Correct. Minimum. Minimum.
By the way, I'm going to take credit for this one, guys. The smelling salt situation has been resolved. Nice. The NFL will not provide them, but you're allowed to go buy them yourself if you're an NFL player, which is, you know, there's a lot of players that I guess lean on these things way more than probably they should. I saw George Kittle talking online about he commented on the. official post that like oh you can bring your own he's like he's a happy boy yeah i saw one of the NFL players posted he bought like a thousand dollars with smelling salt yesterday i'm gonna say if i'm like a seventh round rookie you know on that just not a very large NFL lucrative deal i have a black market available smelling salts are you're you're dealing yeah oh i got a trench coat and i'm like who needs to wake up he does live on vibes so yeah all right that was news and notes
for today sponsored by progressive insurance quote today at progressive dot com progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and third party insurers not available in all states or situations coverage subject to policy terms limits and conditions all right we got a mock draft to get to we'll take a break and jump right in all right we are going to jump into a 12 team half ppr mock draft we got the footballer staff waiting ready for action let's do it The fantasy footballers mock draft. All right, the people have been asking for another mock draft. And here we are. Randomized draft order, 12 team, half PPR, one quarterback, two running back, two wide receiver. One tight end, one flex, four bench spots. Oh, look at that. I got the first pick in the draft. Mike's at 10, Jason at 12. Feels like a little bit of a redo of something. I feel like we were around these spots about.
three, four months ago. And I see what it feels like today. I really enjoyed being at the back of the draft a couple months ago. There were so many players at that three, four turn that I liked. And honestly, in most drafts, I think there are a lot of people that I target at the three, four turn. I feel like y'all, y'all Sharp's going to take them all. Okay. Well, we've got the whole crew available. The draft is started. I have drafted Jamar Chase at number one overall in this half PPR draft. It is comfortable, cozy, wonderful, Jamar Chase for life. Bejohn goes next to Julia. And then Matthew. Matthew Betts going Jemir Gibbs. Look. I mean, he's a Homer. There is nothing. He's a Philly Homer. Wow. And he's over Berkeley. He is deciding to go Gibbs over Berkeley. Yeah. I feel like we really haven't talked enough about Gibbs and whether he belongs in that top upper echelon, like.
Maybe throw us Aquan out and, you know, you can have your discussions about that being a special year. Does he repeat it? Can he get that much volume and repeat it without getting hurt, blah, blah, blah. But Bijon Gibbs, like that conversation. Like we like, we like, we like, we, we, we, we like, we, we, we, we like, we, we, we, we, we, we know what he brings to the table. We, I think, if you ask me what, running back I would want in my backfield, for an NFL team, I would choose Jamir Gibbs. Now, I like, I would. Really? Over Bejohn as a general manager. Yes, I would. Wow. I think they're both. I mean, it's, it's like, split in hairs, but that's what I would do.
That being said, like we have so much more confidence in Detroit's offensive weapons and pieces. We've got question marks around pinnics, but Bijon goes ahead of him in every draft. Is that volume? It's Montgomery hanging out? Yeah, it's pure volume. I don't have Gibbs in that tier personally. Gibbs is my number five running back. Gibbs, if he was alone, would be incredible. But the loss of their center, the loss of their offensive coordinator, and the fact that if you look last year. Like, we're drafting him as if he's alone. We're drafting him, you know, as right now the second running back off the board. If David Montgomery does what he's done for every year they've been together, you're not going to be happy. Like the splits with and without Montgomery last year, Gibbs was very, very good. But he wasn't a top tier, like top three running back league winner until Montgomery went down. And then his stats at the end of the season look.
outrageously better. Yeah, I mean, they're a better team with Gibbs on the field. I think some people might speculate that Montgomery could enter the Alger level of work for Detroit, the way that he, you know, Alger plays behind Bejohn. Now, another thing that came out recently, two things. I'm curious your thoughts. One, it was mentioned, you know, the new Lions running back coach is the running back coach that was with Jamir Gibbs at Georgia Tech. Yeah. The other thing was just, There has been some talk about maybe the transition to Morton from Ben Johnson hasn't gone as smoothly as people had hoped. We have been concerned about it. But Gibbs goes at the 103 here. Jefferson off the board at 104. So he went ahead of Berkeley. Barkley goes at 105 to producer Borland, McCaffrey at 106. Yeah, Brian. And then Lamb, Brian Thomas Jr. Amon-Ross, St. Brown.
Mike went with Nico Collins at 110. I love that pick. Yeah, he is, he's in my top five of the wide receiver position. Like at 10, that was the hope of Christian McCaffrey will fall to that spot for me, but I know the league and there is another McCaffrey staying in here with us. I guess I didn't realize Gibbs was a point and a half better than Bijon points per game last year. Well, that's what Jason is talking about at the end of the year. juiced things up by a lot. I think he was like almost 10 points per game better in the games without Montgomery. That's cool that he can do that though. Oh, absolutely. Montgomery goes down. You will have wished you took Gibbs or if Montgomery's role is, is what looks like you can't. Like that's, I think it's just good to talk about because, you know, it literally never plays out the way these ADP first rounds ever go. So Jason, you are on the clock. I'm on the clock here at the turn.
And I could go two wide receivers. There's two excellent wide receivers, Pooka Nakua, Malik neighbors. I could also go two running backs, Derek Henry and Devon Achen. I like all four of those guys. Since to me, they are all worthy picks. I like to give myself flexibility later. Take one running back, one wide receiver. I'll take my running back four, who I have one spot ahead of Gibbs and Derek Henry, and I will take my wide receiver five, Malik neighbors. Usually, we just talked about this on the wide receiver episode. I have puka ahead of Malik neighbors, but right now with the concerns with Stafford, if I'm looking at those two players, I'm going to go with the Malik neighbors side, even though he might have to have a toe removed. I started seeing some AI photos of Malik neighbors and his toe tied to a door and all of the tooth loss stuff. It was very entertaining. What we didn't get into was.
The toe fairy. Oh, yeah. You put a toe on you, a tooth is getting, you like, five bucks, most. And put a toe under there? You get a Benjamin. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, Jason pulled the trigger. Henry and Neighbors, it's a great start. You give yourself a lot of versatility on the draft selections on the way down, not go in one position. I don't know if I mentioned after Nico, it was Genti, then Henry Neighbors. Pooka Nukuo goes at the 202. I was very curious in this draft when. The trigger gets pulled on Puka Nakua and the question marks around, or the bad vibes around Stafford. Mike goes with A-chan. And which Kyle made that decision for me. For me, being on the clock, but Nico is my first pick. I would have been willing to take Puka as my wide receiver two, just right here on the turn. Puka went, so then that's an easy to Vaughan A-chan for me. All right, A.J. Brown, wide receiver, wide receiver stack here for the Falcon, Amanra, and A.J. Brown.