LIVE Mock Draft Episode + It Gets Weird - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/19

Oh, Foot Clan, we have the episode you've been waiting for. The Deucers join the three of us on a live mock draft. Things get competitive. They get exciting. You don't want to miss a minute of it. And we've also got the UDK for Life giveaway coming up. Ultimate draft kit.com. Don't miss our live stream later today. Leave a comment. Like the video. Enjoy. I've seen many terrible things during my watch. but none more horrifying than a wasted second round draft pick. That's why I always use my fantasy footballer's Ultimate Draft Kit to guide me through the cold. Though my friends and family league keeps getting smaller and smaller, my fantasy team's just getting stronger and stronger. Join me at www.ultimatedraftkick.com and prepare yourself to fight the good fight. Winter is coming.

But so is my hashtag foot clan title. I guess I do know something after all. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in Friday, August 19th. Mike the Fantasy Hitman Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway, the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. So excited to be with you once again, a mock draft episode on today's show. And don't, nope, stop, stop yelling. Stop screaming. We've got the deusers. Oh. On the mock draft today. I don't, I didn't want the crowd, you know, the pitchforks and all that. I see. I thought you were speaking to me and Jason and we had said nothing at that point. No, no. I won't ask you to stop yelling until later. Yes. All right.

But the deucers are in the building. We've got Kyle, the judge, the owl. And our show. I know. I know. When I take a step back, I go, wow, that shows dumb. Sure. And one of the things that I think we're consistent on is that you can always take that step back and conclude that. Right, right, right, right. We want to make sure that, you know, at any time during your listening experience, you could say, Yeah, this is pretty dumb what I'm doing. Right, right. And I think you could say that now. You could say that 20 minutes from now. Hopefully, you know, 20 years from now. And I think, I mean, in reality, fantasy football is a little bit like that too. Oh, yeah. You should be watching the game, rooting for what's happening on your phone and go, this is pretty dumb what I'm doing right now. Yeah. And the truth is, is all the dumb people, they don't know they're dumb, right? Because we're all dumb together. Yeah. So it's not dumb.

We're so smart. We're smart. This show is great. This is a really smart show. Very sophisticated. Also to pre-answer the questions, the deucer cam is still coming. Yeah. We had to wait on lighting forever. And so it's a supply chain. Yeah. It was stuck in the Suez Canal. Yep. Was it? Yeah. It's just a real timely reference. Yeah, Suez Canal jokes. Again, another mainstay. I've been catching up on the news, fellas. I'm months behind. Was the Suez where that big boat was stuck? Okay. Yeah, that was a long time ago. I don't want to miss anything, though. Is the Berlin Walldown? Did that happen? Gorbachev took care of that. Got it. Got it. Gorby. We have a big announcement today. Jason, take it away. So here's a deal. You've heard us talk about it all week, but today is the day we are giving away the ultimate draft kit for life.

on a live stream tonight at 6 p.m. Eastern, wherever you want to watch YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, Facebook. We are going to be live 6 p.m. Eastern to answer your fantasy football questions, chat, have fun, get ready for the season. And at the end of that live stream, we are giving away a UDK for life. You will have it forever. And we have decided you can bequeath that down generations. The lawyers approved. There is one rule to that, though. It has to be a handwritten, handwritten bequeath document. For sure. If it doesn't have a wax seal, it's not legit. It's got to go into the will, into a trust. Otherwise, we're taking that back. Yeah. And into like maybe a chest, too, that they open up and find at the end. Sure. Must be buried. Must be buried. You've got to find it with a map. Otherwise, it doesn't count. There's a map. Holy moly. Friday's Friday mode. But.

How do you get into that contest? You get the ultimate draft kit anytime before that. We will be randomly pulling someone at 630 Eastern so long as you get your ultimate draft kit before then, you are entered in a chance. And if you got it in the past, you're good. Everyone who's ever had one, you are entered for that. It's a great time on that show. And obviously, you need the ultimate draft kit anyways to dominate your drafts that are going to be happening this or next or one of these weekends. A lot of drafts this weekend. I've been talking to some friends and they're already on flights and they're getting ready for this weekend's draft. And very excited about that. Also giving away a Debo Samuel signed jersey and a Stefan Diggs helmet. It'll be a good time on the live stream. Ultimate draft kit.com. What else is going on? Are we talking news now? Yeah. All right. Let's do it. News and notes from around the league. All right. Let's start here. Jacksonville.

Jaguar is running back. James Robinson is expected to be ready for week one. Head coach Doug Peterson says, I don't think you just go full steam ahead, but you gradually increase his reps. Don't want to stress his body, but he needs enough work where he's possibly ready to go for Washington. And what is crazy here is I remember saying this months ago when the timeline seemed awful that the local people there that cover this team. still always consider James Robinson the starter, that it's his job, and Travis E.T.N. is more of the passing down back, and that's been the steady drumbeat. This still doesn't make sense to me because of the specific injury and the timeline. It is so difficult to come back from, but we keep hearing it that James Robinson is expected to not only be ready, but be the starter. So is this...

scaring you off of Travis ETN at the current ADP. I have had him lower than that because of my confidence that Robinson will come back. I think the pathway to running back success on a Jacksonville offense with question marks is having it all. That's what gave James Robinson and Leonard Fournett value in years past. You know, I watched Travis ETN in the preseason. He's not a big guy. You know, there are. question marks. He had one kind of nice run up the middle where he got free for about eight or nine yards. Outside of that, it's like seven carries for almost nothing. I think this team needs compliments. And yes. So I guess the answer, that's a long way of saying, yeah, it's a little scary to not know how much you're going to get, especially four or five, six weeks into the year. I mean, maybe week one and week two, it's all ETN. But what does that even represent when we haven't seen him? I would agree with you that.

The value we've had out of the Jacksonville running back has been primarily because it's a one-man show. And it doesn't look to be a one-man show. That being said, if I was going to pick one of these two backs, it's clearly Travis ETN. He is the far more explosive athlete. Pass catcher. He is healthy and is a great pass catcher with a quarterback who, you know, Trevor Lawrence checked it down a lot as a rookie. So I think he's going to get a lot of use. If he's in the fourth round, I'm still fine with Travis ETN. Also, Todd Bowles yesterday said he does not have a definitive date for Tom Brady rejoining the team but isn't concerned about it. This became a news point, you know, the sleeper alert, things of that nature because of, you know, a very fair, reasonable fear that the man who retired on this offseason may retire again. Yeah, it is a very bizarre situation, especially considering the fact that it's not a.

You would think that this would be like a massive national news story of, look, Tom Brady is just not even at camp. He's been gone for, you know, 10 days and they don't know when he's coming back. You know, football is happening soon. Bowles is like, yeah, I'm not sure. I'm preparing for the game. It's like, yeah, it would be nice. Have your quarterback. Obviously, he comes back. He's fine. He's Tom Brady. He's. you know, 4,500 years old and has played football for the entirety of it. So since birth, yes. He's as old as the trees. Yeah, we're not worried about like, oh, he needs his reps. I think the only thing here is just there is, there feels like a greater than zero percent chance that he doesn't come back. And I know that sounds like outrageous. No one would ever.

just retire right before a season. But I remember, I'm old enough to remember when we did a live show in Phoenix. And right before the show, right before we come out on stage, Andrew Luck has retired. So just, you know, maybe if you're having a draft this weekend and you're deciding between Tom Brady and someone else is the exact same tier, maybe not draft the guy that could be retired. I think he's coming back. We all think he's coming back. It's just, it is now, the story has dragged on to the point now where it's weird. I also want to highlight something that may affect Brady regardless, but losing Ryan Jensen in the center position, a player that came back only because Brady came back, then was injured.

Not having either guard from your Super Bowl run, having the interior of your line beat up. No gronk, his buddy. Right. There's some things there. Is he trying to get gronk back? Is that what he's doing? Oh, he's on gronk's couch, isn't he? They're off playing. Oh my gosh. They're just like beer pong or something right now. Just crushing some bruise, playing some bags. And he's trying to get him back. But I mean, this wasn't off season where he may have tried to, through his agent, navigate his way to Miami with Sean Payton. And, you know, the agent kind of fell on the sword there so that Brady and was fine. But there's just some, and no Bruce Ariens. Like there's a lot of peripheral things. And the Buccaneers company line has been, oh, this is all planned. If it's all planned, they would have told us. If it's all planned, we would have known Brady's missing 15 days. Yeah. But it's kind of like, mm. It's getting weird. Now it's more like Todd Bowles might not know what's happening. And he's just saying, I'm not worried about it because what else are you going to say?

Yeah. What's the alternative? Guys, I'm super worried. Hey, press, listen up. I am freaking out. I'm losing sleep at night. I'm freaking out, man. Are you writing this down? And if he leaves, poor Todd Bowles. I know. Who got a second shot at a head coaching job. No, we can't even. We can't do that. We won't do that. Hey, I do want to mention this, especially for deeper leagues, Dynasty leagues. In Pittsburgh, it appears that undrafted rookie Jalen Warren has supplanted Benny Snell as the number two running back. He's been super impressive. Six for 34 in the first preseason game, but just around camp, four for 30 through the air, that's a big deal because if you can give some snaps.

to somebody other than Najee Harris, the team seems to want to try to do that a little bit. I have, I picked him up in our dynasty league just to have the insurance policy. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've seen in the past Tomlin when his primary bell cow running back goes down, he usually just brings one guy up and says, okay, it's you today. And so. Got tired of doing that with Benny Snail. Right, because he was like, why are you so slow? Benny Snail? That joke has been there for years. As long as Brady has been playing football. Since the Berlin Wall? Yeah. Oh, man. Two Berlin Wall jokes. You bet you. Can we get a third in? Well, figure it out. All right. Any other news that we need to cover here? I'm seeing head shaking. No, the Ducers will be drafting with us today. Let's get to it. The fantasy footballers mock draft. All right. You asked for it.

And you shall receive. We're doing a 12-team half-PPR mock draft, one quarterback, two running back, two wide receiver, one tight-in, one flex four bench, live here on today's show. And Mike is drafting from the number one spot. I've got the number three pick. The Ducers ended up with the number five pick. And Jason's sitting at 11. I don't mind 11 as much as the middle of the draft. I really hate when I'm at 7-8. Yeah, yeah, I do too. So, Mike, you get to kick this off. I think Kyle the Borgogan will be the deucer representative on the show today. And, you know, I can't help but admit, I think the people are rooting for the deucers here. That's fine. So just don't screw up. Kyle is all I'm saying. This is an easy win for you as long as you make all the right decisions. You understand? I feel great. We've got a great team back here. Oh, yeah. The whole Brooks is in.

All right, Mike, you have the first pick. Is this a... The 101 to me is locked is between Jonathan Taylor and Christian McCaffrey. I do not mind, you know, you can go either way. But in my heart, I do believe that if Christian McCaffrey is to stay healthy, he will be better than a fully healthy Jonathan Taylor. So it takes some courage. I'm not... Just completely dismissing that, but I'm going to take Christian McCaffrey with the one spot. The most difficult thing with that decision is that, well, one, people have really strong convictions about it. But the other one, difficult part is that we project these players for their full season. And I think you're right. I think if he's healthy, he has the better full season. But that doesn't mean I would take McCaffrey over Jonathan Taylor very often because of a true, real fear of injury that's reasonable with multiple years and the age.

Taylor is much safer. And I don't know if the gap is big enough to where I have the courage to take McCaffrey. But you do. All right. I'm on the clock. Jonathan Taylor obviously went number two. And I'm going to go with a player that I have been building some confidence about. It is not one of the wide receivers. It is Derek Henry running back for the Tennessee Titans. Okay, dokey. I've spent a decent amount of time. digging into this injury of late and feel very confident that we're getting vintage Derek Henry this year. Oh, it's vintage. So it's a little bit older. I see. Like more of an antique. Look, Derek Henry, if we were coming into this season and last year had continued would be the 101. So the real discussion here is not the ability, the output, the production, the 2,000-yard season he was coming off of. The real issue is just...

Injury fear. It's just as much of an injury fear for Christian McCaffrey, but we're not sitting here taking Derek Henry 101 every once in a while. It's weird. It just feels like too easy to throw away his production and worry about injury. I'm taking him at the 103 in every draft. It is funny that you go back and you look on a per game basis. All the arguments are made that Christian McCaffrey is better than Jonathan Taylor. Neither one of them. We're at the level that Derek Henry was at. I would add, though, that there is a slight addition of the change of the offense. You know, losing A.J. Brown, will there be, you know, a more difficult time running just from that standpoint? But he's, he looks completely healthy. The injury risk appears to be. In variable we trust, man. Yeah, I agree. I agree. All right. Justin Jefferson went off the board at 104. The Ducers on the clock at 105. Kyle, the first ever mistake.

on this show is about to be made. Full stop. We debated between Cup and Echler and we went with Echler. You went with Austin Echler. Look at that. Okay. I was going to say if anybody needs a little extra time on a draft pick, I do have some interlude music that we could use. Just let me know. Is that from our dev team? That is from our dev team. Oh, man. You never get to participate in the show in any way. Well, I will say this. I might need a little bit of pause. Do you need a minute? Yeah, give me it just a second. Let's go. So stupid. So, yeah, obviously you have had some time to think. Austin Echler off the board to the deucers, Nijie Harris, Cooper Cup, Joe Mixing. So Cooper Cup at 7.

Joe Mixin at 108, Delvin Cook, DeAndre Swift at 110. Jason, you're on the clock. You will have two quick picks. I think this mock draft actually looks a lot like home leagues, where even though some of the mocks we've been doing lately, and if you're an underdog, you've got a very wide receiver heavy first round, usually when you get back to your home leagues, like everyone wants those running backs. And that's what's happened here. You see guys like DeAndre Swift often in the second being drafted, but that pushes. Jamar Chase to me at the 111, a guy I would not have expected to be there. So I didn't actually need that time. I just needed that mad jam. Well, last time you tried to draft Jamar Chase in the first round, but it was a mayhem mock draft. Oh. And you were, it was, it was changed and you ended up with Kelsey. So this is kind of redemption for you. Yeah, it is. And we had just had a question on the footcast the other day of do we ever go ZRB? And, you know, last year there was a time.

It's very difficult, I think, in most home leagues for our strategy. I don't really love that that much, but we brought up one situation. We're like, well, look, if it falls right, if it falls right and you could start with Jamar Chase and Stefan Diggs, then that's, I, you know, you're in. I'm in. You're willing. Those two guys both have a chance, each one of them, to be the number one wide receiver. The only problem is they can't both do it this year. Impossible. So I'm hoping. Big a tie. Okay. I guess not impossible. Way to take down that wall. Sorry. Mr. Gorbachev. All right. Oh, we got it in. All right. So I'm starting with the Friday show, man. Two wide receivers. Jamar Chase and Stefan Diggs. All right. After Chase went Adams and Kelsey, by the way, for those listening. If you're watching on YouTube, the draft board is up, you can follow along. Jamar Chase, Stefan Diggs for Jason. He is in that boat where he has.

Look, I'm excited to see what running backs come your way later in the draft because how exciting is it to run Jamar Chase and Stefan Diggs out there. Yeah, extremely. Alvin Camara, Saquan Barkley, Nick Chubb. By the way, Nick Chubb, don't know if you know this, tied for fourth right now on the best odds to be offensive player of the year. Wow. So kind of interesting. That feels like a bad bet. Derek Henry is up. above there. Aaron Jones, C.D. Lamb, and the Ducers back on the clock. Any disappointment in the players that went just ahead of you? We were all in on Aaron Jones. That's our guy. I expect that from Al over there. Oh, yeah. Right now we're debating between Javante Williams and Tyreek Hill. So any thoughts, guys? Yeah, I mean, just don't pick the right one. Yeah. I definitely have thoughts. I'll tell you after your pick.

We really don't want Jason to have any good running backs at all. So we're thinking about that. Just sabotaging Jason? Just starting your draft by destroy. I don't know if we recommend the ruin someone else plan, but we'll say this. There is no chance that anyone you would draft here would get back to me. I'm still like 16 picks away. All right. So Ackler in the first. What's your second round pick here? We're going to go with Javante Williams. We think that he's going to be a difference maker. Yeah. The right call. I like it. Yeah. And I think you're going to see more of that.

excitement percolating into the second round now. I mean, Giovante is one of a handful of players that have a draft cost that could equal league winner if you're right about them. Josh Allen goes next and I'm back on the clock. Derek Henry in the first round. At running back, you know, there are some names there. Leonard Fournett, who I just have had a hard time drafting, even though I shouldn't. But maybe I should now if Brady's not around. If Brady's not around, Leonard Fornett is going to be so much worse. Yeah, that's fair. Also, Zeke, who I have no problem with. I am going to be going the wide receiver route here, though. I'm going to go with a player that was the number two overall wide receiver last season. I'm going to take Debo Samuel. I don't think he was going to make it back around to me.

No, he was definitely not. I was, so you took Debo, team two took Tyree Kill. I was hoping that Debo and Mike Evans will make it here to the, to the turn. Double double, yeah. And, well, I mean, I guess. Do you get any hesitation with Evanston? I was just now that I'm, we've been talking about Brady. I think he's going to be back. So like in my projections, I have, I have Mike Evans. very high in my rankings. The Chris Godwin situation is still, when will he be fully back? And the writers out of camp right now are saying, oh, everything is looking so great with Godwin. And then they amend that or, you know, they append it and say, but he's not going to be there for week one. Right. Those two things are both true. He is doing great in his recovery. He is practicing with the team and he will not be there week one. That's your conviction.

I'm fully convicted of that, yeah. All right, Mike, so you've got to make a couple decisions here. So I'm going to take Mike Evans, and then the question becomes, do I take one of these other running backs that I like, which they're admittedly higher risk, you know, Zeke, James Connor. They both carry risk to me, but the upside to them is both the top 10 running back. And then the wide receiver, of course, I would be looking at would be Michael Pittman, who I'm at the turn. 0.0% chance on Michael Pittman. Comes back to me. So is this a just take your guy? Yeah, because you have to. There's no way to get him later. And I'm going to do that. Oh. Interesting. If you didn't, we're changing the graphic again. We built this city. So I was, I was hoping you wouldn't take Zeke. That was my hopes and dreams there. If you had, I would have been targeting Mark Andrews with my next pick. Okay.

But Mark Andrews went one pick before me. So Zeke is on the board. I'll let you know what I do in just a minute. All right. My third pick, Derek Henry, Debo Samuel, the first two selections, Mike's team right now, McCaffrey, Evans, and Pittman with that last selection. I have to admit, as one of the non, like. I've not even really been a visitor to Pity City, right? Like I've heard about it. You guys gave me pamphlets for years. Yeah, you just take the bypass. Yeah, I mean, I just have a shortcut to other places. But even I have seen the billboards at this point. I mean, I. The grass is looking pretty green in that city, huh? The popularity of Pity City is being spread around. So my travel agent tried to suggest it. Okay. I was like, I don't know. Look, all are welcome.

Except for Jason. How dare you? So, you know, at this point in the draft, the idea of having two of a handful of workhorse running backs, I've talked about what I like later in the draft. And I know we're mock drafting together, so I might not get some of these wide receivers I love, but I'm still going to go Ezekio Elliott here in the third round. Keenan Allen off the board next. So Team 4 has no running backs yet. Neither does Jason. But the deucers back on the clock, Echler and Giovante with the first two picks. Yeah, we double it up running backs, kind of like how Jeremy and I double pickled Jason and Mike yesterday. Oh, very fair, very fair. Oh, my goodness. You pack your things right now. The first mid-show firing, you get. Very impressive.

Oh, my God. Boom, Shakalaka! Now, I'll give you the applause because it was very good. You noticed that the proportion of when Al has an influence on the show to when he boomed Shakalakas us, it's nearly 80, 90%. So that's a pickleball slain. I want you to know something, Kyle. You are dead to me. I mean, you're dead. debt to me. And for the non-pickleball players out there, a pickle is when you beat somebody 11 to 0. And a double pickle would be doing that twice in a row. Oh, man. These guys are out of control. Who allowed them on the microphones? We did. Yeah. Yeah, that was a mistake. So, uh, it looks like AJ Brown's your pick. Yeah, we wanted Keenan Allen, but we went upside with AJ Brown. Really? You wanted you were going to go Keenan and Austin Eckler. We talked about it. Okay. Okay. All right. Leonard Fournet off the board next. James Connor.

Kyle Pitts, Mahomes and Herbert. So we've had Alan Mahomes and Herbert off the board of the quarterback position. Jason, you know, talk to us about the thought process here with Jamar Chase, Defund Diggs. Are you sitting here thinking purely running back? Are you looking at embracing a full zero RB? What are you thinking? Yeah, I mean, I, when I pick, when I pick Jamar Chase and Stefan Diggs. You want to have a plan. And my plan originally was to hope for when I've taken wide receiver, wide receiver at this turn, I personally like having the three, four turn of the young stud athletic profiles of Breece Hall and Travis ETN. So if I could get them at the next turn, that would be great. Now I started to get my hopes up when, you know, like four net started dropping. But also, I'm not going to just.