THE UNOFFICIALFOOTBALLERSFAN ARCHIVE↗Transcript links use the exact YouTube video’s clock. Machine transcripts can contain errors.
A polo-brand polo becomes the Coca-Cola of polos and proof of entertainment value. The clothing audit then revisits Jason wearing a jacket all day because its wrist openings made removal so awkward that he refused to attempt it publicly.
The show announces a full-time, on-location social-media specialist role and insists only one person on Earth can fill it. The precedent was an impossible front-end, graphics, and marketing hybrid who also had to be named Andy—and whom they say they found.
The hosts advertise working near Brooks's wealth by saying he literally drives to work inside a yacht pulled by a truck because Arizona has no water. They escalate the commute to Brooks jetpacking to a helicopter and flying home so he can flaunt the lifestyle before a new employee.
The show tells listeners that preordering the Ultimate Draft Kit at its lowest price also gives them a chance to win a Listener League spot.
The rookie review introduces Isaiah Pacheco with four rapid 'pitter' sounds. An unidentified host asks production to find the Isaiah Pacheco drop and calls the request very important before the discussion compares the hard-running character to Pacheco on the Super Bowl parade route.
Resident Falcons fan Kyle rejects the hosts' $2.50 Desmond Ridder stock valuation and offers $35. Later, Packers fan Al says Aaron Rodgers may have played his final Green Bay snap, believes it is time, and will wait for Rodgers' darkness-retreat results before deciding whether to take one himself.
While defending positional strategy, the hosts say removing kickers could make Kyle emotional enough to walk off set and would also upset Jason because of Boom Boom; kicker analysis is then called the most important analysis.
The desk directly asks whether Mike is still in love with Drake London after a rookie season rated 53 percent bust. The response remains optimistic about London's talent, while another turn groups Kyle into the same early-draft excitement and later pain.
The hosts open by auditing one another's clothes. A polo-brand polo is called the Coca-Cola of polos, Mike is declared a zip-up man, and the hosts joke that removing pullovers can expose a stomach or the tops of butt cheeks. Jason recalls wearing a jacket all day because its wrist openings were too tight to remove gracefully, leading to a proposed restroom-stall wardrobe maneuver. The episode's major show-meta announcement is a full-time, on-location social-media hire. The hosts recall previously finding Andy Schneider for an impossible web/design/marketing hybrid role and insist the new opening likewise has exactly one five-star, jack-of-all-trades person on Earth. That search becomes the episode's strongest film material when the hosts describe Brooks's supposed wealth literally: he drives to work inside a yacht pulled by a truck and sometimes jetpacks to a helicopter. Brooks then says he looks forward to flaunting the lifestyle before another employee. A UDK preorder also provides a chance to win a Listener League spot. Removing kickers would supposedly make Kyle emotional enough to walk off set and upset Jason because of Boom Boom. In other crew beats, Kyle defends Desmond Ridder as the resident Falcons fan, the hosts request the important Isaiah Pacheco 'pitter' cue, Packers fan Al says he will judge whether to take his own darkness retreat after seeing Aaron Rodgers' results, Bryan's rookie-review graphic and Matthew Betz's ACL research receive explicit credit, and Mike's Drake London loyalty survives a painful rookie year.
Oh, we got rookie fever. We are looking back at last year's rookies. There were so many great rookies. We're going to take a look at their situations. Are they going to be better next year, worse next year, replaced? Who knows? And we have a ginormous, huge, very important announcement. So stay tuned. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in.
The Fantasy Footballers podcast Thursday, February 16th. We welcome you in to what I think will be a very entertaining, entertaining, entertaining, entertaining show. Wow. Three. That's a lot of entertainment. One from each of us. I was going to say, I kind of putting you on the spot to be entertaining in that scenario, but I think you're up for the task. You've got a nice polo on today. That's normally... Yeah, that's the key to entertainment is looking nice. You know a guy is going to be entertaining. When you see the guy on the horse. And you've got a polo brand polo. Well, yeah, it is a polo shirt. Oh, man. You're wearing the Coca-Cola of polos. Right. Yeah. We have a rookie review on today's show. They're still around, huh? What are you wearing, Mike? A t-shirt. Yeah. And some kind of zip up.
Yeah. How many zip ups do you? I mean, I feel like you are not enough. You are a zip up man. I do not have enough zip ups. Uh, because like if you're saying, if you're including my hoodies in there, that I've, I have a decent amount. Yeah, like a plus minus 15. But the, oh, minus. That might as way under that. But the problem is it's hard to find a good one that zips. Because, like, when it's the hoodie, you feel you're pretty committed to it. If you ever want to remove it. You're talking about the pullover. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you, if you ever remove it, you know the tummy is coming out. Maybe, maybe the tip, tip of the butt cheeks are coming out. Just, like it's an awkward moment for ever. Yeah. Didn't you just have it? We were on a trip or we were doing some stuff around the Super Bowl. Didn't you have?
A shirt you wanted to take off, but you didn't think you could get it off, Jason? Yeah, but it wasn't. Yes. Yes, I did. It was, um, it was the wrists on this jacket were so tight. And so I'm like, I don't want to struggle. Like, I know I could take it off, obviously, but I know it's going to be a struggle in the process of, like, putting my arm behind me and getting that, like, force it. So I was like, I'm wearing this jacket today. This ain't coming off. Can you do the, go to the restroom, go in the stall, do the jacket switched in? Isn't that the, oh, you could do that. Yeah. You ever, you ever done that before? Not yet. Okay. No, you just do the, you look around.
And I'm clear. But then sometimes the shirt goes all the way over and you're just, you're stuck. You ever started the process and then just put it right back on? I was checking something. My tag was bothering me. All right. Well, we've got a rookie review show. Like I said, we're going to break down every rookie that made contributions this year. Any high draft capital NFL? rookie at each position. And we're going to talk about what we think their futures are about, how consistent they were this year and what to expect moving forward. And look, some positions have more players than others, but we'll get into it all. We do have a really big announcement. Oh, it's huge. And I'm excited to share this with the Foot Clan to the listenership out there because it's February 16th. This is hardcore season. This is, you're still with us. The Super Bowl's over.
You know, you exhaled and then you began again. You started the next season. So it is a perfect time to announce that we are in fact. Oh, there I am. We are in fact hiring. Yeah, you want to come work with the footballers. Yeah. I mean, this is going to be an on location, full time position. You can read the full job description on the website, the fantasy footballers.com slash careers. But we are looking for a. industry leading social media specialist, somebody that has done it for a long time, has digital marketing experience. And so you can, again, you can go see the entire job description on the website. You are underplaying the reality of this role. We are not, we are looking for you, the one person. A couple years ago. Yeah. We needed a web guy and we needed something impossible. We needed someone who was a front end designer.
who also could do graphic design, who also had some marketing. We needed someone that didn't exist. And we said he also needed to be named Andy. Yeah. And we hired someone named Andy who was perfect. We're looking for perfection. If you're out there listening, you're like, I am a social media expert. I have tons of experience with marketing and these platforms. Design. Design. And if you, and you love the show. And you love fantasy. I mean, and you want to move out to Arizona and work. There's only one person that exists on this planet that's right for this job. And I hope you're listening, and we need to find you. Please come and apply. Yeah. The fantasy footballers.com slash careers. That was great, Jason. That is a better summation of what we're looking for. And so, yeah, I look forward to reviewing the applicant.
And if you're good at social media and you love it and you love the brand and that's the end of the list, don't apply. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah. We are looking for a bit of a jack of all trades. Superstar. Superstar, as Jason said. Five stars. Five stars. Yeah, five star recruit. Yeah. Mike, do you have anything to add? No, Jason said everything there. No, I guess if you want to like experience Brooks's. wealth in person to like to see how he the see what the other side eats lifestyles of the rich and famous he literally drives to work in a yacht that is pulled yes he it's pulled by a truck but he doesn't want to he just that's crazy we're in Arizona there's no water here there's not a lot of room for that sometimes he will jetpack up to his helicopter right and then fly home yeah you're looking forward
Two finding this new person, Brooks? Oh, yeah, definitely. Just somebody else to flaunt in front of. That's what I'm all about. Money, money, money, money. All right, so again, the fantasy footballers.com slash careers. Excited to find that one person, as Jason said. A couple other updates. The Ultimate Draft Kit pre-order is available now. Ultimate DraftKit.com. Lowest possible price. Chance to win a listener league spot. Check that out. Today we have a quick question from Josh. Josh writes in on Twitter, says, with the tight-in position being so top-heavy, what are your thoughts on combining it with a wide receiver-receiver position, so like a wide receiver tight-in combo in terms of changing the league format? Yeah, so this is getting rid of the tight-in position and just basically assimilating those tight-ins. You can play them in that slot. And there's two different ways you could do this.
You can either just get rid of the tight end position and allow a tight end to be eligible for your wide receiver slot, or you add an additional slot that is, you know, if you play two wide receivers and a tight end, then you would go and play two wide receivers and a third wide receiver slash tight end spot. If I'm going to do this, if the question is do we like this, I would certainly go in that direction, adding another roster spot for depth. for difficulty. I objectively hate it. I do too. I'm actually, I was, I was leading the argument in the direction where I definitely prefer to have the horrible tight-end position. Yeah, I mean, we make light of it, but this is not the kicker world. This is not a world where you doing research leads to nothing.
Right? Like the kicker universe, there's so little. I mean, I'm not saying that there's not a strategy in playing a kicker. I know, Kyle, you would get really emotional and maybe walk off set. And Jason would too just because of boom boom. Yeah. I mean, kickers are, you know, kicker analysis is the most important thing. I think the issue we have with kickers is that you actually don't do the analysis. Like, yeah, sure. You might look up and be like, oh, who's got to hire over under. That's the end of the analysis. We talk about tight ends. We have a whole tight end show. We spend draft season, not we as in the footballers. We as in fantasy football players. Thinking about tight ends. Who do I like? Who's going to break out? There's a lot of love that goes into trying to get it right. And there are players that break out. It's exciting to make those correct calls and be on the front end of it. I mean, it's kind of the same argument.
I wouldn't make a league that just has six positions and every position's eligible in each one, right? You could do that too. Combine your running backs and your wide receivers. Put your quarterbacks in there. Like the point of fantasy is making decisions across positional lines. And it's also a challenge. Like if you're going to do that, and I'm not saying you can't. If that's what you want to do, do it. If that's what your league wants. But you are going to not be on common ground with the kind of consensus of rankings. Like we don't put out rankings of. I mean, we have our flex rankings, but we don't really analyze every single week and give you advice on, do you start, you know, Garrett Wilson or Travis Kelsey this week in your tight-in wide receiver flex? I like the part of the drafts where you have to make your decisions on how do I build my team? Like, do I just?
Go after whoever the number one guy is at the time. It's been Travis Kelsey for quite some time. But you had the Rob Grunkowski years. You had the Jimmy Graham years. Like do I? Am I willing to sacrifice at the top of the draft? Because I think I can find some running backs or wide receivers later on in the draft. I believe in my research there. Or you're in the middle rounds. Like I believe, you know, that Mark Andrews is going to have the breakout this year or finding the sleeper at the end. I think it's fun. And it's fun and easy to make fun of the tight-end position for fantasy because we all get burned by it so frequently. But I do like the element of strategy. So personally, I don't want it to be totally removed. Yeah, I think the most important draft aspect when you're playing fantasy football is roster construction. It's not did you pick the right guy because there's so many players in every round.
12 in every round if you've got 12 teams in your league. But, you know, it's a matter of how do you want to build? Do you want to go tight in early? Do you want to go tight in late? Those things are fun and probably more important than just who you pick. Yeah. And you face that with quarterbacks too, obviously. When, you know, the onesie positions, when do you go in on a quarterback? Exactly. When do you wait? It's a strategic boost, I think. What we have done in, it was probably about five years ago now, but we did add an extra flex spot.
in one of our leagues, just to add a little bit more decision-making depth, those decisions to be a little bit more difficult. I liked it. I think I've enjoyed it. Yeah, and the flex spot having the Titan eligibility, that's great. You know, it shouldn't just be running back in wider seat. Yeah, yeah. But don't take away the Titan necessity. We'll not be hitting the news drop today, but I do have one piece of news. The Cardinals have finally hired a head coach. The Eagles defensive coordinator, Jonathan Gannon. And the opinions of this are kind of all over the place. It seems like most of our friends from the Philadelphia area are laughing, saying, ha, ha, ha, good, take him away from our team. They are very, very angry with Mr. Gannon, the defensive coordinator who oversaw the elite defense.
That, in fact, brought them to the Super Bowl. Yeah, I'm a bit short-sighted. You didn't win that game. Totally understand that watching the game and the defense that you had, like, how did we not get a single quarterback sack against that offensive line? Those are, I think that's a fair conversation to have. But your team was elite throughout the year. What was the stat, Andy, about how many? sacks over the season. I think they broke the single season sack record. They had 70. I mean, they were a tremendous defense. Now, we'll find out is that at the hands of Sariani and company? Is it just the personnel? And you'll get to see if Gannon could do anything on his own. But, okay. Yeah, I don't think we're like thrilled out here either. First time head coach in Arizona are our championship Super Bowl odds are.
the same as the Houston Texans right now. Oh, baby. Plus 20,000. That sounds like you got at least just put a $5 on it. Yeah. Yeah. No. No, I'm not. I don't want to burn $5. If there's one thing we learned in Super Bowl Week, and we talked to people from all over the country, everyone had the same question about Kyler. It's like, is he a good quarterback? Is he not? Do you have a quarterback? That's the question. I do think he's a good quarterback. That'll define Jonathan Gannon's entire tenure. Yeah, obviously for the purposes of fantasy football and Kyler Murray, we are still currently waiting to see who he's going to bring in as the offensive coordinator. I know there were rumors of the quarterback's coach from the Cleveland Browns. I did have this question pop up in my mind. Would it be insulting for Jonathan Gannon head coach to offer Eric Bien to me the...
offensive coordinator under him after Biennamy just destroyed his defense in the Super Bowl like he won you want to come work underneath me that that just seems like that seems backwards yeah he won't come here because there are better situations for Beanimy and he's being interviewed by Ron Rivera I think as this podcast is being recorded so there's as is Greg Roman they the commanders interviewed him as well Shane Steichen Yeah. Also hired by the Indianapolis Colts. I don't know if we had talked about it. I think it was on the cusp, not official, but he is, he's their head coach and the Eagles lose their OC and D.C. I listened to a beat reporter from Philadelphia this morning talking up Gannon. And then the question was asked, if you were starting a franchise, would you rather, would you rather hire for your head coach, Gannon or Stuyken?
And he was like, oh, definitely staking. Ah, man. I was thinking you were going to break some really impressive news. I did for the Colts fans. All right. Into the Rookies we go. Rookie review. I really enjoyed for those watching on YouTube. I enjoyed that graphic. That was a very nice graphic. That's a nice thing for you to say about Brian's work. Yeah. I just compared to the truth graphics. What the guy in the week? Maybe it's just the contrast. All right, looking at the general overview here of the rookie class, starting at the quarterback position, kind of breaking down which players were helpful to fantasy managers, which ones had a little bit of impact, and we can talk about their futures, and then these players that ended up in the not relevant category, which there were some that I think we...
believed would be relevant. I'll spoil the alert, Skymore, and weren't. So it'll be an interesting conversation. There's not a lot of conversation to have at the quarterback position. But let's begin with the okay some fantasy impact category because there was nobody in the regular contributor category for rookies in year one. Not surprising. No, not surprising. But Brock Purdy was the one quarterback who took over in week 14. had a couple of impressive games where if you started him in fantasy, you would have been happy, especially week 18 and for some reason you were playing then, but a couple of top 10 weeks. George Kittles on record saying our offense operated at its highest since 2019 with Brock Purdy at quarterback and said, I think it's his job to lose. That's crazy for a player to come out and say that. It says a lot, and that will be.
impressive to me if Brock Purdy does retain that role over Trey Lance coming into this year off of the elbow surgery. Does it say anything to you about Lance by not saying anything about Lance? Was there a lack of an impact made from a leadership perspective in the first two years? No, I think the fact that he missed with injury, it's not like he was at practice, throwing the ball around, running the... the other team and they just weren't impressed. This was no opportunity to see Lance. So I don't see this as a slight on Lance. But that was only this year, right? And Lance was there last year? Right. So, like, has he made no impact on this? Well, that's what I was asking. It's like over two years, is there not a, there's no loyalty to Lance, I guess. Well, nothing has been built up. And the statement of Kittles saying about the offense, I mean, what were they averaging over that time? Like, something like 35 points or so? I mean, they.
They were in the 30s every week except for Seattle, and they hit 21. Otherwise, they're in the high 30s. I mean, you can't argue with that. Like, the team was putting up a huge amount of points. It didn't really turn into really, really delicious fantasy action. But, I mean, he averaged two touchdowns a week, just wasn't giving you huge yard or anything. He really never, he almost never busted once he was a starter. Sure. His ceiling is. Not very high. His floor is decently high. To me, this reminds me of a future that looks like it could be very Derek Carr, where you're going to have a lot of stats by the end of the year, probably be an okay high-end quarterback too if he is the starter, but never really win you fantasy championships. Okay. And he'll have surgery on the 22nd of February and hopefully be back within three to six months ready for training camp or competing for that job.
For the rest of the quarterback class, I'm going to, we're going to play a game. Okay. Okay. And here's what it's going to be. I want you to pretend that you're investing $100 in each of these players, like a stock. Okay. Okay. And then I want you to tell me what you think that $100 will be worth a year from today. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You win? All right. Kenny Pickett. Kenny Pickett did not make contributions that were fantasy relevant this past year. You put $100 in the Kenny Pickett stock, and then we're on this show next year, and that $100 is worth what? $110. Yeah, really? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, 110 bucks. Yep. I was going to say about 85. So you think he's, that would mean he's probably not going to be a starter? No, I think, in his future. I'm speaking only fantasy football wise. I think that he can be.
an okay NFL starter, went six and two over the final eight starts. He just, and it was only one year. We do have to remember Trevor Lawrence was terrible, but Trevor Lawrence was also terrible in a terrible situation. I mean, this was still Mike Tomlin and company in charge, and they went from, you know, the high flying, not high flying, but I should say heavy pass attempt past couple years of Big Ben. back to a more run-centric offense while Kenny Pickett was a quarterback. He can improve. I think he can be an average starter, but I don't see a world where Kenny Pickett has ever anything more than a streaming option. So a bad investment or a low-growth investment? Low-growth investment, yeah. And never had a single game above 20 fantasy points. If I asked you about Desmond Ritter, Falcons quarterback. Possible starter.
And I said, yeah, you put a hundred bucks in the Desmond Ritter bucket. And we come back on the show a year from now, that $100 is worth what? $2.50. That is my belief. $2.50. About $2.50. So not a full-in run, but not very far off. Yeah, I can go get a Snickers. I mean, it's not nothing. Mike. I mean, let's look at through the game log here. Final week against Tampa Bay, 19 for 224 and 2. Top 12 quarterback. I love the inflection in his voice. You're at 250, Jay? Yeah. That sounds pretty good. I mean, like, because you're already at the way of Desmond Ritter, you're already in super danger of being replaced this off season. Yes, the owner, the NFL owner, Mr. Blank is saying, we're excited for Desmond Ritter.
I think they'll also be really, real excited if they're on the clock and one of those quarterbacks happens to fall and then they just get, you know, then they draft him and the writer is gone. Kyle, as the resident Atlanta Falcons fan, do you have any reply or response to what the number is being put out here? 250. That is mean. That's not a lot. Yeah. I mean, he only started the final games, but I would say, I think it'll be worth like $35. I'd say like 55. But on the way out. So you don't think he's getting replaced in the draft. Not at pick eight. They need to move up. The reason I say $2.50 is because I believe going into the 2024 season, he will not be a starting quarterback. So it's almost worthless. And so Malik Willis is worth what? And so I'm just not a believer that he's going to ever be able to do it. Would you rather have Willis or Ritter in a dynasty league?
For fantasy purposes, I'd rather have. I'd rather have Ritter. I'd rather have Willis for the potential of rushing. What was our guy's name for the Titans? Who played that last week? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He got replaced in the final week. Oh, my gosh. That's a good example. Josh Dobbs. Yeah, we couldn't remember the name of the quarterback. But the point being, Josh Dobbs, not on the team. Yeah. They bring him in to fight for a playoff spot. I'm on the Ritter side. And they're like. I think we've seen Malik could get better, but it just, I, that seems pretty far fast. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you there. Okay. All right. We'll take a quick break. Come back with the running backs, much more exciting position we can't. You can't yet because. You want to talk about Sam Hal. $500 return. We're going to the Moon Lake Doge coin here with Sam Howell. That's what you believe? No.
But it's fun to say. What I want to happen. I do think that Sam Howell will he start week one. Percentage chance he starts week one for the commanders. Percentage chance I would put at 40%. I think it's pretty high. I think that's a pretty high number. If he starts, I believe he will have more success than Desmond Ritter, more success than Matt Corral. And if he has success, what kind of sounds would you make? How, ho! Ho! Are we allowed to move on now? Yes. All right. Time to talk about the running back position. There were three running backs that fit the bill in terms of having a, that we classified as good. Yeah. They made contribution significantly to the fantasy football world. The first one that we'll talk about is Breece Lightning. Yeah, baby. Breece Hall, who.
was really, really good through week seven before the ACL and meniscus injury missed the final 10 weeks of the year. We'll be undergoing, you know, recovering from that injury throughout the offseason. You know, our injury expert Matthew Betts, he talked about the kind of future he sees for brief. And, you know, we kind of said he was more bullish on him in 2024 than 2023 this upcoming year. because you're recovering from a serious injury, and I think there's question one, which is how recovered are you? And then there's question two, which is like, no matter how recovered you are, how does the team treat that? Does the team handle that with kid gloves? Do you have other options? Do you not? And, you know, this is the team in New York that seems at the tippy top of the list for Aaron Rogers and or Derek Carr. There's a lot of talk about...
Car being the backup if they can't get Rogers in terms of an option this offseason, and they view him as a massive upgrade on Zach Wilson, which of course he is. So briefs haul, off the injury, you know, while he played, he was 86% of the time he was considered good by our metrics, 14% great, 14% bust. It was by all accounts a successful debut, fourth most consistent running back. Just the injury. That's all it was. The average 5.8 yards per carry, the identity of the team was going to be Brees Hall. You couldn't have asked for anything more out of Brees Hall. The seven games he played, just unbelievable. He was fantastic. Like you said, he was our consistency, true score number four running back. He was as good as it gets in his rookie year. Obviously, the question is, how will he come back from the ACL injury? Last episode, we were on a mailbag, talking about, like, who?