NFC East Breakdown + Michael Thomas Injury, Happy Days - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/24

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Turn to the world of sports. The football season is upon us, and that means it's time to get ready for your fantasy football drafts. The ultimate draft kit from the fantasy footballers is the cat's pajamas, and only tool you need. The best rankings in the business, sleepers, breakouts, values, it's even got a free companion app. Don't be a pigeon-libered fuzzler. The ultimate draft kit will keep you on the up and up, and keep all the horn swogglers at bay.

Don't even think about entering a fantasy football draft draft draft kit without it. Don't be a square. Head to ultimate draft kit.com today. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Saturday, July 24th, the fantasy footballers podcast. Ooh.

Only one more Saturday show after this one. That's true. You're inferring. Then there's a Monday show. Then there's a Tuesday show. Then there's a Wednesday show and a Thursday show to boot. Oh. Yeah, five a week. Singing the song from Happy Days. Oh, yeah. Monday, Tuesday. Yeah. I realize. Andy's like, oh, a Happy Days reference? You guys want to riff on that for a while?

You know what? I guess I need to be proud to say that I wasn't really a happy days guy. Yeah. You should. I'm surprised for one. Well, I had just finished watching, you know, Andy Griffith. Yeah. So, no, you're right. We've got five days a week coming soon. I realized this morning, as I was getting ready for the day because in the off season, when we have three shows a week, we record these.

the day before. And when we move into the regular season schedule, we record them very early in the morning. And I realize that now my kids are going back to school at the exact same time that that starts. And the whole, like any summer lazy routine, any slow wake up in the morning, it's gone. Yeah. All right at once. I had the realization, whatever, yesterday was like, oh.

Back to the old alarm clock. Yeah. I know. We've been getting up so slowly in the morning lately. Wait a minute. You don't use an alarm clock? No. Do you, Andy? No. What? No, the sun is my alarm clock. It wakes me up. It wakes me up every morning. I still use an alarm clock. I sleep forever. What's it set at? It's set at seven right now. What? Yeah. You need an alarm clock to wake up at seven. That is correct. Interesting. Yeah, we, Mike and I are.

We've been trained from years and years of... I guess. Of sunrises and sunsets and kids. Well, it's because at the old job, we weren't the boss. We had to be on time. Oh, he's the... I never set an alarm clock at that job. All right, we do have big news to talk about on the show today. We're into the NFC East on our divisional breakdown shows. A lot of great feedback coming in about these episodes. Last week we did, or...

I should say Thursday we did the NFC West, had to talk about the Cam Acres injury. And we've got another injury to talk about today as well before we get into the news and discuss those sad realities of fantasy football. I want to remind you, you can go to Instagram, follow the show, Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Subscribe over on YouTube.

I encourage you. Go do that. We do a lot of live streams. Mike has a Sunday morning live stream we do during the year. Oh, baby. And like when we did the Sleeper Bowl, that's on YouTube as well. And if you subscribe, click the bell, you'll get notified about all the live events as well as the episodes. You can also win an Antonio Gibson signed mini helmet. That giveaway is coming to an end very soon, Brooks. Yep, just a few days left. You're not eligible.

Dang it. But everybody else is, and you just have to do a couple things, but they're all free. Yep. Footclan giveaway.com to enter there. And one of those things that you can do to get that entry once you go there is by going to Footclanvote.com, you can nominate us right now for the podcast awards. Yeah. You're sure that? I am sure that it forward. Oh, yeah. Did you do it? Yeah, of course. No, I'm just.

I thought maybe you were the one who went and did a forward. Oh, no, no, no. I make Andy do that. You're bringing just new information to me and I'm embedding it to make sure that it was right. Anything else that we need to talk about, Brooks? Anything you got on the agenda before we get into the news? Nah, let's talk about Michael Thomas. Oh, Michael Thomas. News and notes from around the league presented my sleeper. Okay, we woke up to it. Look, and I guess this is.

This isn't the worst. Like, this is not the Cam Acres news. No. It's not great, but it's not that. It's not Cam Acres. And there's a lot to talk about with it. Michael Thomas expected to miss the start of the season. He underwent a surgery in June to repair ligaments in his ankle. In June. Thanks, Saints beat writers. They kept that on the down loan. And the estimated time of recovery for this surgery is four months.

and so he could be on the sideline for several weeks into the year. I've seen everything up to a half a year. And I believe the three of us, when we went into the ultimate draft kit in our rankings, we made adjustments based on the present right now assumption that he'll miss at least six weeks. Yeah, he feels like a perfect candidate for the pop list, which means he automatically has to miss those six games. Not Mitch them.

No. Which is what the Bears did at quarterback last year? Yeah, well, nobody beats Mitch. Treyquan Smith, Marquez, Calloway, Deontay Harris. Welcome to your wide receiver room. No more Emmanuel Sanders, no more Jared Cook, who, you know, whatever you want to say about how his skills are progressing, he had experience at the NFL level. So right now, don't know the quarterback. You don't really know, I mean, Treyquan Smith has the most experience by far of that group, but has been inconsistent.

We were looking up Emmanuel Sanders contributions last year with Michael Thomas missing time. He was over 700 yards receiving. So how do you look at this offense now and, you know, Adam Troutman's there, Alvin Camara's there? Yeah, I mean, those two guys get a clear bump. Adam Troutman, Mike is super excited because he was, you know, one of the first to the party on the Adam Troutman train. And this, this ends up obviously giving him an opportunity for more targets.

You know, we've seen a lot of times when a tight-in becomes fantasy relevant, it's because they are just necessary. It's not like they're super talented. Now you're mixing the hopeful talent. We have not seen it realize on the NFL field, but he was drafted with talent in mind to be a good pass-catching tight-end at the NFL level. He was drafted to be a starting tight end. He wasn't a day three pick.

That it's like, well, let's see if this guy makes the team. Right. And you mix that with the necessary opportunity. So that gets a little exciting for those who are, you know, in that camp. The wide receiving core is, as it stands now without Michael Thomas, might be the worst in the league. It is, it's one where you expect New Orleans to, there are no free agent wide receiver veterans out there just waiting to be scooped up of any note. They're all busted. Larry Fitzgerald.

Right. Larry Fitzgerald would be the best, and I doubt he's going to change teams at this point in his career. And he's also, you know, he's the best of the group. No offense to Larry. He's not in his prime. Deonti Harris has had 20 catches last year. Marquois Calloway had 25. So you're right. I mean, there's not really a lot to go on. This is not something where many of us are going to be having to take a July.

24th gamble on the wide receiver room. We need to wait for training camp to see what happens. And if you have to take the shot, it has to be Trequan Smith. Yeah, 100%. But I mean, let's be clear. Trequan Smith, the experienced Trequant, 34 catches. 34 last year. You only missed two games at the end of the year. He barely out.

had more receptions than Calloway. Yeah, I mean, you had him basically. I'd almost take the shot on Callow. You'd have him being third fiddle last season to Emmanuel Sanders and Michael Thomas when he was out there. Treyquan Smith was part of my argument in favor of Adam Troutman. Treyquan Smith holds a special place in my heart right now. You know, oftentimes when we roll out new products here at the, you know, the fantasy footballers.

It takes multiple years. We don't roll it out in year one because we want to get things right. And I was working on something called the true score. Plus the alarm clock. Well, yeah, the alarm clock. I mean, we don't wake up very early. So that's going to take extra years. But I was working on something for a true score that really looks at all four levels of the field behind the line of scrimmage within 10, over 20, and 10 to 20. Where wide receiver is catching the ball. Yes, where they're.

catching it, what they do relative to other players at the position. And one of the reasons I especially pushed the pause button was because one receiver who just looked really good in that was Trey Kwan Smith. So I'm actually curious to see what this opportunity does he do anything. That doesn't mean that you should be drafting him. He has not done much to date. 28 receptions in his rookie year down to 18, then to 34.

Yeah, so. I'm fine taking one of like a double-digit flyer on him. And since we don't know who the quarterback is, I think this makes it possibly more likely that Taysam Hill would be the quarterback in the sense that they're going to need to get the running game going. He gives, it gives at least another option if the past.

You know, the passing game isn't there. Tayson could scramble. I do agree with that. I think it does lend itself towards Hill because Hill provides offense. I mean, with his legs, he provides another weapon. Camara, Troutman, and Hill, plus a top five defense. Could you imagine how many picks James could throw with this wide receiving core? Oh, my God. I mean so many. There is no limit. There is no limit. Yeah, I guess I think the more important kind of final thing to say here is there's a question mark.

into how long Thomas is gone. But then there is a question mark about will he be Michael Thomas when he comes back? And that... Whoa, we got some thunder going on. I think the studio just got rocked. Were we... Was that a lightning bolt of some sort? Brooks, we're all still here. Brooks, can you get the door? Thor is here. I thought you were going to ask him to pull the umbrella out. He would fly away.

Wow, a storm in Arizona. We're not used to this. We may have to pause and go watch it. It's a special event. But Michael Thomas, last year played hurt. And last year wasn't the same Michael Thomas. Now he's coming back from an injury that was likely a re-injury because he clearly wasn't fine. He took part in some stuff with the team in May and then had to get surgery in June. Yeah, and unfortunately, you know, a lot of players hurt their ankles. Sometimes they need surgery.

And then sometimes it is this surgery, which is much more rare. It's the deltoid ligament. So it's on the inside of the angle, which has a much more difficult. Dr. Donuts in the house. Much more difficult recovery time. You can't speed it along. So it's one of those things where he could end up missing half the year. I fully expect him to start on the pop. If he starts on the pop, he's missing six games. So the question goes, where do I draft him? And because people are, you know, he's Michael Thomas.