Preseason Power-Up + Position Battles, Rankings Risers - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/10

Foot Clan, it is that time of year to get into the Ultimate Draft Kit and make sure you are prepared for your draft. Everything you need, we have prepared for you. Tiered rankings, player profile videos, our breakouts, our busts, our sleepers, and we're always updating it. So make sure you get it right now before it's too late at Ultimate DraftKit.com. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Is it football time? It's a question. No, I heard the question, Mark. I also heard you laugh at your own joke in the middle of it. Look, when you tell a good joke, it's okay to laugh at it. Yeah, I agree. It's just that was... Oh, you didn't think it was a good joke. Ah, I see. No, it was okay. I heard the question mark.

That's good because the inflection of my voice went down. Yeah, it's just the laughter. The laughter damaged the question, vibe a little bit. But is it football time? I don't know. Houston, New England. Let's find out. Minnesota, Seattle. It's preseason football time. Do we get anyone good tonight? I wonder if we're going to see. Okay. All right. All right. That's good. Back up quarterback for the Houston. J.S.N. We should get some JSN snaps tonight. Yeah. And hopefully some Charbonnet as well. Okay. All right. I'm in. It is. Yeah. It's football time. You're in. That's exciting. You're in on NFL football. Yeah. Oh, that's good, Mike. That's going to help the show a lot. Welcome in one and all. Andy Mac and Jason, the fantasy footballers with you. Deucers in the building. Al Borland. Dressed in black. Keep deusing. Weird, right?

Yeah, strange. I mean, I, black beard, black hat, black shirt. Cadillette. Yeah, not bad. And Judge DiMotti here as well. Time bomb joke. Yeah. Raps galleon in the building over there in Ducers Alley. Also black hat. What is happening here? Finally, you know, he's the only one dressing professionally with a polo on today. Oh, I'm missing my work outfit. What am I doing? Yeah, embarrassing. It is Thursday, August 10th. We are going to talk preseason dreaming today. Talk about some of the stuff we're watching, hoping for. You brought up Charbonnet. The rookies are so fun to watch in the preseason. You get to, you know, put your eyes on these players at the NFL level and what they can do. And, you know, you just hope you don't get Kerry on Johnson in the preseason. Am I right? Am I right? No comment. You mean, like.

Like big breakaway runs. I say, yeah, drastically move up the ADP. Yeah. Yeah, this is that time when you are watching the players that you like and you hope. It's the most selfish hope of all time. I want him to look good, but not too good. Right. Just good enough to confirm my priors, but not good enough that other people know what I know. Or if you're really confident in them and you're like, I know this player's going to be good. You want them to just be so quiet in preseason. You're like, no, no, don't even play. Just sit him. Yes, absolutely. The Amir Abdullah, the one cut heard round the world. Actually, that's the one I was remembering. Yeah. Carry on looked good too, but it was the Mir Abdullah run that moved two rounds of ADP. The truth is, if you're in a dynasty league, you can just fully root for them to succeed, though. True. Right? You don't have to worry about the draft capital.

What are we got going on? The ultimate draft kit available right now. Updated every day. Sometimes I give Jason a gift and yesterday I gave him a gift. I moved Devon A chain up a little bit. You gave the Foot Clan a gift and you gave yourself a gift. Really, I gave you a gift. You should see how close Rahim Mustard and A chain are now in production. Proud of you. Does that mean I need to move him down so we can balance things out? I didn't. I didn't take it to the limit, Mike. Okay. I didn't take it to the limit. You don't want the newcomer to steal the show? No. And so UltimateDraftKit.com updated every day. The community, for those of you just joining us, it's at join the foot.com, become a member of the foot clan. You get a bonus weekly episode of the show. Some upgrades coming over there soon as well. And we are going to have an in-season app this year.

Yeah, baby. I can't promise you exactly when, but as soon as possible, we will be getting you an in-season app very early into the year. Yeah, I had mentioned to the Foot Clan that it will be ready for week one. And then I was told that I shouldn't say that we can't hit that timeline. And to that, I say, watch me. Watch me. It'll be there. It'll be there week one. Okay, great. I'm sending this to the dev team. That's right. Clip this up and sit it to the dev team. Yeah. Wow. Impressive. Poor guys. At the F.F ballers over on X. Here's a quick question. Who has risen in your rankings the most during training camp?

I'll hop in because it was a training camp I expected to not see the player. It's just Giovante Williams coming into this season. He was pretty much for all intents of purposes off my board. Just, you know, the injury, the timeline, the normal medical recovery is just a player I wanted to avoid at all costs. and the fact that he was never put on the pup, that he went into training camp, that he's been a full participant, that he was in full padded drills, tackles, going to play in the preseason. I mean, either a guy is or isn't healthy. Right. So my opinion on him has changed the most. I still want to see it in the preseason, see how he looks if he looks like himself. But there are examples. This injury was just, is more severe than an ACL.

If it was just an ACL, it would be like, okay, you know, it was more like Brees Hall had a less severe injury and his draft capital hasn't been affected as much. But there are certain human beings that for whatever reason, Adrian Peterson or young Jamal Charles or Todd Gurley, like when they get that bad injury at a certain age, they just, they're fine. They recover quick. And if that's what's happened, I want to be aware of it. Giovante is a good answer because, I mean, he was potentially. undraftable. Yeah. If you thought he was going to miss some time combined with the P. Rhine acquisition, the injury. I do think there is still the chance, and you said it, you want to see him in the preseason. I still worry about a trap there in the sense that, you know, P. Ryan gets involved and he's not 100%, and we don't know what this offense looks like. But inevitably, he's got to go way up people's boards. For me, it was DJ Moore. There's a few answers. Mike has one that is also an answer for me.

DJ Moore, when you look at the numbers, the passing numbers from Justin Fields last year, combined with the historical situation for DJ Moore where he just lives in this just 18 to 25 fantasy range with no upside. Like I do think there's a legitimate chance that this is just a special connection this season. And then Justin Fields takes that step forward. If you read. everything coming out of camp and the type of offense they're putting together and the number of screen, or not screen, slant plays that they're connecting on. Like the get the ball in DJ Moore's hands type of offense. Like if the targets are there for DJ Moore, I think he could be one of those surprise picks. That's simply not going to go that high up average draft position boards because there's a history. And history just kind of holds players back. And you could look at it down the line as a great value.

Yeah, with the actions of the Chicago Bears trading down from, they had the first overall pick. They could have taken anybody they wanted in the NFL draft, and including a quarterback, they chose to trade down. They add an offensive lineman, but part of the trade down was you add DJ Moore. You don't trade down in the NFL draft from the number one to get a number one wide receiver and then. be status quo with your passing attack. Like your numbers, they go up. You only trade a second to get a big wide receiver who's now hurt, Chase Claypool, to stay status quo. So I'm, I'm in agreement that like the numbers just, they should go up, but it's a very scary situation. The player who's risen the most for me during training camp, it is Zayflower's rookie wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens. Now we did get a slight update, Rashad Bateman, who.

was kind of the de facto number one wide receiver for them heading into the off season. He's off the pup. So he's finally back. He'll be able to get himself into football shape. He's doing what he does best, which is ride the bike on the sideline and kind of look like you're going to try to play football at some point. He at least has enough time here to be ready for week one. And Rashad Bateman, he is a difference maker. We don't know if he can be a true number one yet. Zay Flowers was drafted in the first round to.

make sure that this wide receiver core was a trio and ready to go. And Zay Flowers, combined with all my thoughts on what I'm projecting that Todd Monkin will do for the Ravens offense. I'm very excited. All right. Let's get into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Yeah, I was about to ask you if you're ready for this one, Jay, but you are. Frank Reich said Thursday, Miles Sanders suffered a little bit of a tweak of his groins. A little bit tweak. At practice on Wednesday, unlikely to suit up for the preseason game. You don't like to see it? No, you don't like to see right when preseason hits. A player who's, I feel like his biggest knock against him has been his ability to stay on the field is hurt. I don't like it, especially for a player that I'm that I've been very into. I've drafted a lot of. I've spoken highly of the expected role. I think Miles Sanders, if healthy, has a phenomenal season.

But these preseason timeline injuries, when you're within a month to the season, really sucks to have a soft tissue issue like that. If you would like to see his comments on the injury, we do have them up on groin index.com. Kareem Hunt left Indianapolis. I saw it too. So some thread on Reddit. Reddit popped up. And it was someone was, I think they were happy to find out that it's not just a bit. on the show. I mean, it is. But this is a real website. It's a real website. That is like automated, automatically updated. We send our, look, we have a beat reporter. The fantasy footballers have a reporter for each and every team to make sure that we go get that quote. And then they just, as soon as a groin injury hits. Technically, if you look at their credentials, they, they aren't part of the fantasy footballers. They are part of groin index.com. Oh, okay. They are there.

representing their foot in the bill for this really important. Currently six players. Miles Sanders, Eddie Pinheiro, Trey Kwan Smith, Kenneth Walker, Rashid Shahid, and Reggie Gilliam are groined out right now. Kenneth Walker. I don't know if I want to be groined out, man. We got to get Walker off this list. Yeah, I mean, it's killing me. It's generally a celebration when you can get yourself off of groin index.com. Yep. All right. Karim Hunt left Indianapolis without a deal. What is happening? Offer was made by the Colts unable to reach an agreement. Karim, what are you doing? It's very easy and obvious to know what Cream Hunt is doing. He thinks he's worth more than he is. He thinks, and he's probably correct, that he gets one contract left. Like he gets one more check. This is it. He's just got to leverage. He's got to leverage these teams against each other and just.

Hope he's playing the game right. He's playing chicken. But it's all about money here. It is. And it's just crazy because it's like great visit with the Saints. As soon as he put his foot on the field, they said, hey, we'll pay you more. And he gets to Indianapolis. It's like, it was $2 more. I mean, it's clearly like we don't know. And I was going to say, is it possible that Kareem went there, had the meeting. And they told him like, Jonathan Taylor is not getting traded. We're bringing you here to be a depth piece. That's, I mean. I'm sure Kareem asked that question. I'm sure Kareem asked the question, how much will you pay me in dollars? Yeah, this is money. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that's impossible. I'm just saying it's a little bit of a bridge too far for me to speculate on that. Anthony Richardson will start Saturday's preseason contest in Buffalo. Good, good. Listed as co-starter with Gardner, Benchu. Sam, how? I really hope that they both take the first snap.

Together. Yes. They line up a wishbone, but it's two quarterbacks. Two quarterbacks. And you don't know who's going to get the ball. That's what Trask and Mayfield are doing. Sam Howell will start on Friday against the Browns. There you go. It's been a minute. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. All right. Preseason power up. All right. I've never really gone into a segment with All right. Before. Well, now we have. How did it feel? Wait, not great. As a fantasy manager, we're talking about what we're looking for in this preseason, specific position battles that we are paying attention to, things that we're excited about. You know, we've got three preseason weeks to pay attention to, three main preseason weeks. I was accused of being, I don't know, like a party pooper.

With some of my negative sentiment around what's happening in the preseason, the fact that we just don't have the same expectations we have had in previous years. When we had four preseason weeks, it was very traditional for the third week to be starters, maybe first second, even third quarter. Yeah, usually three quarters. And then you don't see them in week four. Now it is a mixed bag. And predominantly you don't see starters that much in the preseason. Maybe you get a quarter. out of them at some point. That might be preseason week two or week three. Well, and a lot of times in addition to that, it's not just the starters, but it's the, or not just the offense, but it's the defense too. So, you know, if you're not able to catch every preseason game, which nobody is able to watch every single preseason game easily, you don't know when you look at that box score, okay, these guys, the first string that played, they did well. Were they playing against the ones in the beginning of that game?

Because the other team might just decide, eh, we're not playing any starter. So it's always, it's hard to have as reliable of takeaways. I pay attention to think, it is the first time you see them in full pads. This is not Combine season. You're not, you know, running in a straight line. So game speed, you know, I can remember Dalvin Cook from years back, bad combine, you know, the preseason speed. You're like, oh, I get it now. There's going to be players like that this preseason. at every position where you're like, it's a play here, it's a play there. It's not necessarily how many yards they have or any amount of, you know, it's not the touchdowns. It's play to play. Are you seeing some things that are special about these players to just give you a gauge of do they belong here? You know, a lot of these rookie storylines, it's like, do they belong here? And don't, and this is the number one point, Jason.

Don't pay attention to Alan Robinson. Go on. Yeah, that's always a good takeaway for the preseason for training camp. I'm hearing good things. Yeah, I know. I would agree with you that one of the main things I look for, I'm watching rookies as close as I can because this is where you get to see that game speed. Can they pull away from NFL defenders? And you're watching rotations, right? So we're going to talk about the running back rotations. We're going to be paying attention to. But who's first, who's second, who's third? Like who's getting the work in what order? And if they get an opportunity in the, you know, in the beginning of that game to have to do a little bit of a hurry up, who's in there for, you know, that it won't be a two-minute drill, but, you know, it'll effectively be something like it. You know, I just want to look at rotations and game speed. So let's look at the running back position. Some of the position battles we're paying attention to this preseason. Jason, I want to start with you because this is a very,

interesting backfield in terms of average draft position and fantasy. They're all outside the 10th round and they're dealing with injuries. Like where he most are, oh, I just revealed it, didn't I? Whoops. He didn't practice. And then Jeff Wilson hasn't been practicing. And then. Devon A chain mispractice. So you're talking to Miami backfield. Yes, I am. They are the team I want to keep an eye on the most. I am so excited about Devon A chain and what he can do in this system specifically with his speed and the way that they run this system. And all the reports from camp have been glowing about A chain, that he's exceeded expectations, that they might be out of the Dalvin Cook sweepstakes simply because of him. The other players are saying that he's a dude. He's so fast. He's break of tackles.

Between the tackles, too. Yeah, and you saw it in college. Coming into the NFL draft, I was completely out on A-Chane. I loved what he did in college, but when you're 188 pounds at running back. 189, please. Give him his due. He had another meal this morning. He added a pound since the combine. I believe he was 188 at the combine 189 now. So he's really putting on the LBs. 10 years from now. So, but, you know, it. Where he landed was perfect for him. The opportunity with Moster and Jeff Wilson is the only other two running backs. And the thing is, is you saw this last year with Rahim Moster with Jeff Wilson. They ranked seventh in the NFL and fantasy points per touch. You don't have to have him get the ball 20 times for him to be really good for fantasy in this system. In this system, when you're trying to keep up with Waddle and Tyreek, and you can't stack the box, and you've got...

you know, a really creative offensive play caller. If you can get him to the second level, he gone. Let me quiz you on some. You might already know this number off the top of your head, but I happen to be glancing at it earlier. Do you remember the yards per carry for Rahim Mossert and Jeff Wilson last year? I do not. I would guess that both were near five. 4.9 each in that offense. So very effective, but both players. Prone to injury. It is a committee in Miami. Is that fair to say? I mean, it's a full committee. I think all three players will get worked in, absolutely. 31st and rush attempts last year, but 16th and fantasy points. Wow. Mike, you are paying attention to the Chicago Bears running backs because much like the Miami Dolphins, these are guys. Sure, Khalil Herbert is technically at the 9-12, but.

This is essentially another three pack of running backs who all have a chance, and they're all going in the 10th round. Right now, my chips are on Khalil Herbert. I am betting on the talents that I believe that Khalil Herbert has. Also, the reports in training camp have been. This is Kalila Herbert as the number one. It is the rookie Rocheon Johnson, who a lot of people like, but he is currently the number three, and then Deontah Form and the free agent. has been brought in, and he looks like he's the number two. But it's like Khalil Herbert, I'm trying to do some quick box score hunting, but it looks like when Khalil Herbert receives at least 16 carries, it's a small sample, but if he's at 16 carries, he's at 70 plus rushing yards. Now, that isn't always great if you're not putting in any receiving work or you're not scoring a touchdown, but if you're getting 70 plus yards a game, and if Khalil Herbert's the guy, he should see

at least 15 plus carries a game because you look at what they've done with David Montgomery. Montgomery the past four years, 200 carries, right? If you're getting that amount of yards, that's a thousand yard rusher in the 10th round, who can give you some spike weeks. We've already seen that happen where last year when you had Cleo Herbert playing for David Montgomery, he was a top 12 running back. Two times. He's been the number one overall. Sorry, that was 2021. You had last year against Houston, he was a number one overall running back. You had a stress from week six to eight where he was a top 24 running back each of those weeks. I think he's a good player. I think that Chicago Bears' offense is going to be improved. So Khalil Herbert is very interesting to me. And specifically what I'm watching for is, does Khalil Herbert come in, get a few drives?

And then he's gone. Or is it Khalil Herbert comes in, gets a drive, then Deont de Foreman gets a drive, and then Khalil Herbert comes back onto the field, kind of signaling, no, we're going to be taking turns, we're going to be shifting guys in. So I think that's a pretty important thing for the team to tell us with their actions. And Rochon's that type of player that's going to get a lot of preseason work because of where he is on the depth chart right now. So you're going to get to see his skill set on display for the first time.

and what potential could be there over the course of the year, because I believe this is Khalil Herbert's final year under contract. I might be mistaken there. He has one more. This is year three for Herbert. So Roshan's role will be interesting as well. Deont de Foreman added this offseason. I'm excited to see how much of Jemir Gibbs we get this preseason in Detroit. David Montgomery and Gibbs join a roster that produced, you know, so many rushing touchdowns with Jamal Williams last year. A lot of effectiveness with DeAndre Swift in the past couple of seasons. I know that there is worry out there in the fantasy universe that Jamir Gibbs could just be DeAndre Swift. It could be that level of involvement and workload. I don't think that's going to be the case. What I am most curious about is whether you get.

You know, is this going to be the Alvin Camara emergence of Jemir Gibbs to the Mark Ingram of David Montgomery? That's the likely outcome, but we have not seen how they're going to use these guys. I think we're likely to see two potential outcomes here where I think Gibbs could be very, very effective for fantasy and David Montgomery could be used way more than we think. I believe both of these players will produce at their average draft position. I really do. The question about... Is Jemir Gibbs just D'Andre Swift? I think that is a little bit fair, but also you have to separate the actual talent. Gibbs is a far more talented player than Swift coming into the NFL. I mean, you could see that just by the fact that he was drafted number 12 overall. This is a first round talent who has incredible speed. Swift does not have Jemir Gibbs' speed. Swift was a good...

prospect. Gibbs is a great prospect. So at the running back position, that's some of the things we're paying attention to. Quick break back with some wide out battles. All right, I'm going to kick it off with what I'm looking for at wide receiver because it's mostly a follow-up to the name Mike throughout earlier. And it's the Ravens wide receiver room in general because sometimes these very murky situations like the backfield in Miami where guys are going in the 10th, 11th, 12th round. You know, they are where, you know, the diamonds are found. They're mined. Do we mind diamonds, right? Yeah. So, you know, it's some hard work. And sometimes it's easiest in fantasy drafts to just not deal with murky situations. But the ones that are always worth dealing with are ones that involve later round draft picks because, you know, the cost of getting it right early in a draft because.

You know, it's second, third, fourth round pick. It's, you know, you get that wrong. It's a big mistake. Maybe you take someone safer. But later in the draft, if you get it right here, it's a huge advantage. And here's what I know about the Baltimore Ravens wide receiver room. I don't think that all three guys are going to finish wide receiver 45, 50, and 52. Agreed. So I think you're going to have one of these players, maybe two. Is it the wide receiver 31? Is it the wide receiver 22? Is it the wide receiver 25? Like there's going to be players finishing well above this ADP and this ADP is there because we don't know who they are right now. And so Zay Flowers, Rashad Bateman, Odell Beckham, you know, you look at possible outcomes. Beckham could be more involved than we think he will be. You know, this was a recruitment project by Lamar Jackson. He wanted Beckham there.

So from a PPR perspective, we could get surprised. Wide receiver 52, you know, Beckham's on the bus list because we haven't seen it from him. But it is a place where you could be surprised. Yeah, the stat that just blows my mind is the league low 12% of plays that were three wide receivers last year for the Ravens. That is not just the league low. That's the lowest 11 personnel rate over the last decade. The NFL average is 61%. They ran it on 12% of plays. So getting more wide receivers out there is just inevitable. Yeah. And they have the lowest wide receiver one average draft position for a top five drafted quarterback. That's interesting. In the last decade. So it's literally the biggest discount you've ever had on a quarterback projected to be a top five quarterback ever.