Fantasy Football - Players to Forgive + Eat Your Fantasy Veggies! - Podcast for 5/6

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Tuesday, May 6th, the fantasy footballers, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway back with you. What a day. What a day to talk fantasy football. The front part of May. Yeah, I mean, this is this is the the grind season for us. I don't know how your guys' process is going, but been in them sheets. You have been in them sheets, statin out, researching, reading and writing and typing and all sorts of. You are a freak in the sheets. Yeah, that's what they say. The Google sheets. Yes. I hope we mean. Well, at least. At least. No, no, welcome to the show.

We are in the midst of it. Obviously, he's also good at Excel. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And countless other spreadsheets. There's got to be more, right? Probably numbers. He's good at numbers. Oh, no, no, no, no. No. Has anyone ever fired up numbers? I've had to open stuff in numbers on accident. Yeah, you open it on accident. So that you can copy and paste out to Google Sheets. Has anyone ever opened up numbers? Like, Oh, I'm about to just absolutely crush this data with numbers. Nah, nah. I think half of it is the name of the app. You know what I mean? Right. It's just numbers. Yeah. I also use letters, but I feel like I can't. Not in that app. Stupid. So yeah, it's the beginning of May. We're in the process of projecting 500 plus offensive players for the UDK. Each of us goes through and.

gets all of our player projections together for the launch of the UDK on June 1st. And so we're in the midst of that because we also need to record 100 plus player profile videos this month, which means we need to know exactly what we think about every single one of these players. And with the draft now over, we have a lay of the land. And most often Mike and I complete this task and Jason is behind. Oh, yeah. Weeks. Weeks behind. And... Not this year. This year Jason is out ahead. He is, which just, it just adds to the lore of Jason becoming a new human being after the age of 40. Yeah, I still am not confident. I will finish first. Probably not. I've got a lead, but I, my process is a tortoise hair thing. Yeah, it's a tortoise hair. So before, before your 40s, you were a larger man who hated sweet potatoes in reading, sitting in the morning. Yeah. And also doing his work on time.

Now that one I take on. No, no, I'm just kidding. But you all, you were very thorough and therefore took longer due to your fastidiousness. Yes. I, uh, I go deep. But now you're out ahead of it. So I took a cabin trip where all I did for 24 hours straight was bleed my eyes. Uh, that's a phrase, um, on Google sheets. Okay. Okay. So we're, we're on our way. UltimateDraftKit.com if you want to check that out. It'll be here before you know it. Our quick question of the day before we jump into some of your questions on today's episode, if you're still listening to us, is this. Who is a player you are willing to forgive in 2025? Did you lose your spot? A little bit. Yeah. And I just felt like I needed a filler word in between there. Who is a player you're willing to forgive as we head into the new season? So forgiveness.

It doesn't come easy in fantasy football. No. We have the burns when a player has cost you when you've invested your offseason building your perfect roster and a player doesn't deliver on their promise or maybe it's injuries that have happened more and more, whatever the case may be. Forgiveness can be hard. Well, and oftentimes you shouldn't forgive because it's the second burn that you're like, you know, I should have known better. So yours is Breeze Hall then. No, that is the clear layup answer that is not true. I have not forgiven him. I would love to forgive him, but that comes earned. That comes, he will earn my forgiveness. It will not be given with grace. He has to perform. Yeah, I don't. He has to go out there and dominate and I will lovingly forgive him, but until that happens, no. Things that make sense in fantasy football, but if applied to other areas of life, would be quite destructive. Yes, correct.

The player who has proven nothing, in fact, you could argue, has proven that I shouldn't forgive him, to me is Christian McCaffrey. Christian McCaffrey was an injury. We've seen injured seasons from him in the past. He's 29 years old, which is old dur for a running back, but that is not an age cliff for the elites. The elites don't just stop performing at 29 years old. He is healthy right now. By all reports, he's healthy right now, not dealing with any issues. He was pretty much healthy at the end of last season. And if he's on the field, like, you know he's going to dominate in fantasy. This is just a question of injury. So I have to ask myself, do I believe that he has either aged out or is guaranteed to be injured? And I don't. I don't think that's a guarantee at all. He takes incredible care of his body.

He's going to be used in the Shanahan system the way he always is, which is as a complete belcow. So I'm going to draft him unafraid, and I'll take it on the chin if I'm wrong, but I forgive his injuries. Three of the last five years lost to injury for Christian McCaffrey. How are the other two? Very good. Very good. It's also encouraging to hear you say such positive things about a 29-year-old running back because that must mean that you love 28-year-old running back, Joe Mixon. Well, he did say the elites. He didn't just say olds. Look, it's, we all know what Christian McCaffrey can do in a healthy season. I think some things that are in question this year are, you know, will the team at 29 use them in the exact same fashion? Will they be that good of an offense? These are things that we don't know exactly. No Dibeau. No IUke for a while. They just locked up Kittle, who they apparently were rumored to have been offered a second round pick for. Yeah, heard that.

So look, most of the time I think you can trust that San Francisco gets it figured out. We joke about Tomlin always being above 500. The 49ers are always a good bet to, you know, perform no matter what the odds are. Yeah, they lost a lot of players in free agency, and their win total is still 10 and a half, which is pretty important for running backs. Over the last four years, top five fantasy running backs are on teams that average 10 wins. I don't think you have to forgive Christian McCaffrey, though. You can't. But I'm saying I don't think every fantasy player needs to do that. No, I don't either. Do you think they need to? No. If you felt the burns and you think, look, this is an old running back who's been dealing with injuries. I'm not going to buy in again. You're going to feel so good if he gets injured, not, you know, in a happy for his injury way, but just like a who dodged the landmine sort of way. But I mean, this isn't a player where people are going to be lukewarm on.

We're going to know at the end of the season, whether he was an awesome pick or a terrible pick. I don't see a world where he comes out and is just like, we got it. You know, we drafted him as the running back 10 and he turns out he was the running back 10. Like that's not going to happen. Is that where he's going right now? Around there. Usually I can look that up. He's got to be going above running back 10. Maybe 8. I'll check it out. Yeah. Let me know because that's actually the point I was going to make about McCaffrey was.

Can he meet expectations? He's the running back eight right now, according to Sleeper. Yeah, and RB5 on Underdog because you're seeing, you know, you're factoring in the upside of Christian McCaffrey. The last time we saw Christian McCaffrey was in that game against Buffalo where it finally looked like, oh, Christian McCaffrey is healthy. He, so his final stat line in that game is 25% of the snaps. He was seven for 53. The injury happened for those who... didn't have Chris McCabry on the team. The injury happened while he got a like a shoestring swipe of his foot as he was breaking free for a gigantic touchdown run and just happened to come down on the knee. So he, I'm with Jason that it is, it is going to feel like a really, it's going to feel like a big weight on you as, as you're looking at selecting him. But I think that you should. Yeah, I mean,

There's no doubt that his risk rating in the ultimate draft. Yeah, it's going to be very high. It is a risky, risky pick. But no risk it, no biscuit. I will forgive Marvin Harrison Jr. for what was an underwhelming rookie season at wide receiver. Underwhelming compared to expectations, being drafted in the NFL draft as high as he was, being drafted in fantasy draft as high as he was, whether that was rational of fantasy players or not. It is what happened. And therefore, he is in a position where a lot of people, I don't think, want to mess with that. We also need to be honest. Like, I have Kyler Murray in a Dynasty League. I'm happier to have Baker Mayfield in a dynasty league. There wasn't a world two years ago that I could have comprehended saying that sentence. Right. But I feel more. You had been locked in a room. Yeah. I feel more confident and my expectations of my expectations being met in Baker Mayfield than Kyler.

Because laser may feel. It was a little late. But the, but Kyler. They said Baker somewhere in there. It just hit the button. You know, maybe I'm wrong in this, but it's just Kyler's, you know, the fact he can have a great game, he can disappear. It does reflect on our opinions of Marvin Harrison. To put it all in perspective, and Jason, you've said this before, but. I'm willing to forgive. It's a rookie season. He's one of only six rookie wideouts in the last decade to put up 8, 80, and 8. So his company in that group, A.J. Brown, Michael Thomas, Jamar Chase, Jordan Addison, and Brian Thomas. So in the history of rookie wide receivers, he still put up good numbers. It wasn't Malik neighbors, and it wasn't what we expected for fantasy. This was a situation where we did two. The math was too simple.

And it betrayed fantasy players. And what I mean by that is we took away the weapons for Kyler in the offseason. We added the first round draft pick. And we just piled on all the expectations and targets and expected everything to go to Marvin Harrison with no problems. And instead he would, the truth is in that offense, he was a decoy half the time. He really truly took the top off the defense. They didn't throw him underneath stuff. It opened up the middle of the field for Trey McBride to have a breakout campaign. But it was very evident the whole season long. He was not fundamental for Marvin Harrison to have a good game for the Cardinals to succeed. Yeah, and his target market share should go up. You know, he was only at 21% this rookie season. If you look at other rookies that are like that, AJ Brown was 19.5. CD Lamb was 19%. This is a normal rookie season. We're just disappointed based on expectations. He was not a bad wide receiver. He didn't come out and bust.

he was disappointing, but sometimes the process of, I mean, I would say most oftentimes the process of wide receivers is to take a big leap forward in their second year. Now, what's changed is in recent history, we have a handful of rookies that come on and dominate in year one, and so we're like, ah, he sucks, he's a bum, but he should get better. It was a expectation issue for sure. I mean, if you had been able to draft him last year and he had been a flex player, that you can bounce in and out of your lineup. People drafted him to lock him in as maybe their wide receiver one. He was drafted as wide receiver eight. He was being drafted as a one. He was going to be your one on your team and he was not that. So, I mean, what did he finish that? Wide receiver 28 and half PPR, which is, that's not that bad. It's not. I mean, obviously crushing defeat for where you draft. It was super inconsistent too. He was very, this was interesting. He was very, very similar to actually D.K. Mackap's rookie season.

Very similar production. Metcalf was 58 for 907, and Harrison was 62 for 885 and 8. Now, the 8 was, the 8's a great number. It is. I mean, Malik neighbors couldn't hit that. Eight, if that's predictive of what his future is as being this double-digit threat, a wide receiver, which I think it is, especially in this offense, then that's going to lead to very good things because the volume should become more consistent and the underneath routes and the more forced targets. We need to see more of that for Arizona. The confidence that the team showed that they have in Marvin Harrison Jr. by literally not drafting offense. It was like they took a look at their defense said, hey, our offense is young. We've got a good core. We're going to get better. We don't need to draft offense. It's funny because I feel like that was a mandate on Kyler. You're saying like. I feel like that was a way of saying like, Kyler, here you go. You got another year with this group.

We'll rebuild the offense if we have to after that. And that part scares me about Marvin. But I think we all should forgive a rookie wide receiver that disappointed a little bit. He'll be drafted more appropriately this year with upside. Yeah. I think that's fine. I'm going to talk about George Pickens. This one's interesting. Pittsburgh Steeler. And this is because the like these. Let me say forgive and forget. I was moving towards forget with George Pickens. I forgot. That's where he is. Like, okay, Christian McCaffrey, we said he's an underdog, whatever, whatever. He's a top 10 running back. I don't remember where he was. Marv is going as a top 20. You're talking about a draft pick? Yeah, yeah, ADP-wise. Yeah, it's RB8. Yeah, so eight. Marv right now on sleepers, wide receiver 19. George Pickens in best ball right now is going as the wide receiver 43. And so this, me saying, I'm going to forgive George Pickens as not. I'm looking at.

You know, hey, the ceiling is still there. It feels like things are much different now. The scenario is not great with who is the quarterback. Is it Mason Rudolph? Is it Aaron Rogers? We still don't know. And D.K. Metcalf is there with a brand new bag of money. But the point being, like, we've seen stretches of George Pickens come out here, especially if you're talking about a baseball league, a guy who can, you know, on a given week, just randomly explode and have a huge stat output. He's 24. He's in the final year of his deal. Last year, we had weeks four through 11 where he was almost 12 fantasy points a game. Wide receiver 15 in that span. So to see, like, I feel like this is an overcorrection of sending him down to wide receiver 43 is like, you're saying it's close to impossible that he's going to do anything great for you. And there are wide receivers being drafted right ahead of him where you are, I mean, you're,

hopeful and you're projecting an upward trajectory for some guys, but to leave Pickens there, I think is a bit of a mistake. Have you statted Pittsburgh out, Jason? I have not yet. Mike, have you sated them? No, I got seven teams right now. I do not expect my ranking to be much higher than 43 for George Pickens. Now, I don't mind. taking a shot on a 24-year-old talented wide receiver. I think that's the biggest points. And that's fine. 59 for 900 and 3 last year pre-DK. He will definitely be the wide receiver 2 for this team. What they have done in trading for DK and giving him that monstrous contract, they view DK as the one they needed. Now, George Pickens, you know, if he were...

replacing T. Higgins over in Cincinnati. He would dominate. He could be a great wide receiver two for a team. The issue is the quarterback play. I feel like I would agree that this is too low if it's Rogers, but I think it will rise if it's Rogers. Let me ask you, because I'm just looking at the ADP. Are people operating under the assumption that it's not Rogers? Well, only because he's not officially set it, but I think most people think it's going to be Rogers. Yeah. I mean, that's how I'm not going to. I can't stat it to be Rogers right now because he's not there. I mean, he was rumored to be traded too. Well, there was an update on that. If he missed that one, Andy, just a little, you know, rumors from the bushes and things of there was some. He said he's happy to be there. Yeah, essentially like he's the one saying, no, I pulled back on any of those things. I want to be in Pittsburgh. So, I mean, he's at least.

publicly, it looks like he wants to be there. Let me ask you the wide receivers going right in front and behind and see who you would rather have. George Pickens or Jameson Williams? I'd go James and Williams there. George Pickens or Jordan Addison. Oh, that... I'll probably take Addison. That's really close. I thought you were going to say darnel Mooney. Those are the players that are right ahead of Pickens, right behind Pickens. Jerry Judy? Would you rather have Jerry Judy or Pickens? I think Pickens. So I feel like he's going to, when draft season comes around, I think he'll be right around here. And if Aaron Rogers is there, it might be too low. Is he going into year four? Yeah, yeah, he's in contract year. And a super small sample.

Because we'd have four games of George Pickens with Mason Rudolph. And, I mean, look at the Titans last year. When Mason Rudolph came in, that's when you were pumped to play Calvin Ridley. Not that I don't think Mason Rudolph's a good quarterback for a real-life NFL team, but he at least gives us some of that. I don't care. I'm going to just chuck the ball up stuff that we want from quarterbacks in those four games that Pickens has played with Rudolph. And this is, I'm not, I don't have the. surrounding cast in those games, but in those four, Pickens was over 90 yards a game. Oh, he was great in those games. So he didn't have D.K. Metcalf yet. And so that's, that's my issue is if it's Mason Rudolph and George Pickens isn't the one is like, ah, I don't want sloppy seconds from Mason Rudolph. Yeah, but you could, you could have a really strong consolidation of targets if we get targets. It seems like a good time to take a break. We'll come back with the news. All right. Let's get into the news.

News and notes from Around the League. Well, Matthew Stafford finalized the new deal with the Rams. He'll earn $44 million in 2025. And if he is on the roster at the start of free agency the following year, he locks up another $40 million. So they are clearly happy with Stafford. You know, McVeigh came out and said that he thinks he can play forever, but he's hopeful he's got a couple more years. He's 37. He's the oldest. starting quarterback in football. The Brown's restructured Jerome Ford's contract. He will make less money. He will secure a roster spot and Nick Chubbs' days as a Cleveland Brown are officially over. It seemed like this, the chance of Ford leaving was Chubbs' chance to maybe be on the roster. Yeah, it definitely was. And the salary potential gets cut in half, but it did move to a fully guaranteed 1.75. I'm expecting it to be Judkins and Ford.

the runners and then uh this the writing was on the wall in the draft for this news but the houston chronicle uh reporting that tank dale will more than likely miss the entire 2025 season and be placed on the physically unable to perform list they man grabbed christian kirk in the off season they drafted a couple of rookie wide receivers and tank dale's tankdell's future is a NFL player is really in question. It is. And it's sad because he's very talented, close friends with C.J. Stroud. Did you see his leg tattoo? Tankdale? Have either of you guys? No. Oh my goodness. Well, like a new one or it's already his his leg is a piece of art. It's kind of like Dak Prescott where you've just got this insane tattoo. No, what is it?

What makes it? It's just... You got to look at it. It's nothing to do with the injury? It's no. Oh, okay. It's a horror movie. It's incredible. Like this looks, that's Michael Myers. I just saw it yesterday. And I don't know how many times we're going to be able to talk about tanked out. Well, how to have the surgically repaired knee look in the tattoo? That's the... Yeah, they look okay. They worked the stitches into the tattoo. Zayflowers did not have knee surgeries, feeling great in his off-season work. There was some concern that he may need to have surgery after missing two games last year. Yeah, well, you missed the playoffs because he got hurt right at the very end of the season. And the Chargers applied the unrestricted free agent tag to J.K. Dobbins, which I believe was the same tag placed on Elijah Moore, which just guarantees them compensation if he signed someplace before training camp. Yeah, I think that's all it is, is they're trying to build up their compensatory picks. But that's it. I think that's all we have.

by way of news, unless you guys have anything else? That's all I got. Aaron Rogers make a decision yet? No? No? No, not till minutes before camp. Maybe after. Here we go. Mailbag. If you have a question for the show, you can go to the website, the Fantasy Footballers.com, click the submit a question button, or you can dial our voicemail hotline. The number there, 302464 TFFB. We're actually going to kick it off with a voicemail question. Hey, ballers. This is Tom from New Jersey. How do you determine someone to be a keeper? In our league, we keep two every year, but we lose the draft spot one before where they were drafted. So if someone was drafted round six, we lose round five this year. Thanks, ballers. So it's more of a question about establishing the value that you're going to give up to keep that player on your team. Our league of record, our restrictions are more positionally based of...

We have a player that you get to keep no matter what, and then you select three players to randomly get two of them on your team, but their positions cannot match the locked-in keeper. I'm good with this. I like the rewarding people for drafting, get one-round discount of either where you took them, or you can go off of ADP and say, you know, I get... If ADP is in the fifth round, this guy costs me a sixth round. The biggest thing when you're- This one round higher than where you drafted him. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So yeah, this one- This version is not a reward. I don't know. Totally, but- If you got Bucky Irving. Yeah, then you're still getting a heavy reward. In the 12th round, you get to keep them for an 11. Yeah. And usually in leagues like this, they will, that rule keeps you from having a player forever, because then the next year it'll be worth more and then worth more. The biggest thing is if.

You're talking about players off of the waiver wire because I like these systems because reward a draft. Reward people for taking chances in the draft and calling your shot and getting it right. For guys off the waiver wire, I'm either on the team of you can't keep them or they cost their ADP. I completely agree. It's not like your last round. You're like, oh, I got them off the waiver in week one. And it was. Like a lot of people with Bucky. Oh, I got them off the waiver. Now I get to keep him for a 14th round. Absolutely not. I mean, those situations certainly stack if you're having multiple keepers too. Like if it's a league with one keeper or something like that, then the advantage is not as pronounced. And it can be exciting and fun to have a situation like that. But if you're keeping multiple keepers and you get them at, you know, and there are multiple free agents that hit that then you're really stacking the deck in your favor.

maybe you do a round behind ADP as a reward for that. You know, Bucky is going to go, what, in the second or third round this year? Something like that, yeah. So maybe you get it around behind that. Maybe you get them at ADP, like you said, as an option. Yeah, a slight discount from ADP, I think is the right way. There's a lot of ways to do keepers that are fun, but I think this is a good time because I, keeper leagues, in my opinion. are the best, the best format. It's better than redraft, it's better than dynasty. It takes what you love from both of them, the draft season, and that's still exciting. Whereas in a dynasty league, it's not. It's a very small rookie draft window every year. You don't have that big draft ever again. Which, I mean, our dynasty league just did it and it's over. Yeah. And we're done until the season starts. But in the season, you know, the waiver wires, the action that you don't have in dynasty. In the off season.

you can still trade picks. So if, and this is the time of year right now, if you're listening and you don't play in a Keeper League, maybe talk to your league or find some guys and gals to start a new Keeper League and try it out if you haven't played it. It is so fun. I have never felt like our draft day experience wasn't as fun as a pure redraft. Yeah, right. It's actually, in a lot of ways, it's strategically more engaging. because you have some keepers. The league has keepers. When you think about how they're going to draft, it's even more strategic. And there's so many trades that happen prior to the draft. Like when we come into the draft, the draft board is wild. Maybe someone has traded some of their keepers for, you know, a first round pick, a second round pick, something like that early on.

So that's something you can't do. I mean, sometimes in a regular redraft, it's like, I'll trade you these two picks for that one. Yeah, it doesn't make as much sense, though. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't fly. It's not as much action. All right, Instagram question from Betty Marshall. Does Jonathan Taylor still have potential for Bejohn Gibbs and Sequin value? I think on a redraft level, yes. We, if you didn't experience Jonathan Taylor's end of the season, he looked just like the running back that was the running back one to start. I mean, those last five games, he was, I mean, it's a five game stretch. It's, you know, not what you would bank on. But that was a 2,500 rushing yard pace, 20 rushing touchdown pace. That was, he was just dominating. He played.