Fantasy Football - Too Hot To Handle + Risk vs Reward - Podcast for 6/25

Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Thursday, June 25th, the Fantasy Footballers, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway with you today. Closing out the month of June. We'll be into three shows a week here in July soon. And then I think it's 50 to 100 shows a week from August through December, is it?

No, it's every day. It's every day plus the footcast. Plus we got the Dynasty show. Yeah, Wednesdays. And the DFS show. Yes. And spitballers. Mondays. Many, many, many ballers shows. No, it's great. Look, five days a week means football is coming. That's what it's going to mean. And when August hits, it's mayhem. And we will see a lot of movement regarding ADP, which is the topic of today's show. Because we're doing a Too Hot to Handle, taking a look at a handful of players. Ooh. And they're hot. Who, yeah. Too hot and a hot tub. We might like them. But they may become too expensive.

Yeah, it's all opportunity cost. Excessive heat warning. Yeah. Those are going around. So, we do have a few tickets left to the Megalist show. If you want to come visit us, the Fantasy Footballers Live, the Megalist show presented by SiriusXM and sponsored by GMC and PetSmart. Friday, August 28th at the Van Buren in Phoenix, Arizona. You can go to ballerslive.com. And that will be a great time. And then if you are prepping up for your draft as we get into three shows a week and then five and mock drafting season and all that good stuff, and you want the number one tool to prepare you, head to ultimatedraftkit.com.

We have some new features coming out hopefully early July that we'll be able to talk about soon. Just to, you know, like a cherry on top of everything you get inside the UDK. We're going to jump right into news because we do have some news. News and notes from around the league. Well, well, well. The Falcons have signed tight end Kyle Pitts to a three-year $54 million extension that includes $36 million in guaranteed money. I mean, at his age, he'll see all of that money, I think. Yes. So that's a $54 million commitment. It puts him up there with the highest paid tight ends in per year average right behind Kittle and McBride.

Ahead of what likely got this offseason. Ahead of what Andrews re-signed for. I mean, if you had to summarize the Kyle Pitts story so far in his career, I don't know what it is. I think the summary of Kyle Pitts' story is massive disappointment quality player. He is actually a quality player for this team. Obviously, they're giving him a $54 million extension because they need him. They need another receiving option, and he is not a bad player. For fantasy, we're especially disappointed because he was supposed to be one of the generational— you know, he was supposed to be what Brock Bowers actually turned out to be,

and it doesn't seem like he'll ever do that, but he's cool. And yet he had an isolated game where he broke every record. Yes. So those are, like, almost worse for us because it shows— What could be. Yeah, not every tight end could go out and do that. No, I mean, no tight end has ever done that. He had the highest fantasy point total of any single game in the history of the NFL. Now, we like following trends because, you know, finding fantasy football players, that's how you got to do it. Oh, my gosh. Jason, I just went and looked at Kyle Pitts' touchdowns.

Per year. Oh, all right. You ready? Is it trending? Go ahead, Mike. Year one, remember that we had the disappointing—it was only one touchdown. It was actually a great year. Yeah, he had 1,000 yards. Year two, he had two. Okay. Year three, he had three. Wow. Hold on. Okay. Year four. Can I guess? Are you sure? You want to take a shot? Do you know what the trend is? Okay. Four touchdowns. Yeah. You got it. All right. Year five. Five. Wow. Like, how is this possible? He's just getting better. When he turns 30, he'll have a 10-touchdown season? Is that what you're saying?

I mean, if you look at what he did last year— How is that possible? He was the lowest yards per catch by a lot in his career, but his yardage was back up at 928. I mean, do people realize that he had 88 receptions? Like, we hear the number two overall tight end number, and we dismiss it because it was under 10 points a game. I think a lot of people do that. But this was by far, unequivocally, his best season ever was last year, which he timed up wonderfully for his contract situation. Yeah. But 118 targets is insane for a tight end.

Just under 1,000 yards, five touchdowns, a career high, and 88 receptions. Yeah. I mean, he can do it. And none of that is unrepeatable. I would agree with that. He could be the number two tight end again on volume. But I think the big issue for me when I look at the season, it's not even the one insane 40-point outlier game where— No, in the playoffs, no less. —fancy playoffs. 166 of his 928 yards came from that single game. It's more the fact that almost all of his really good games came without Drake London on the field. It was when Drake London was injured, he stepped up big time, which shows he can step up.

So now the hope, I think, is Drake London comes back, and now they've got two guys that are able to go out there and do something special. I'm skeptical that Pitts will do it special while London's on the field. You don't think he'll do it special? I don't. Brenton Strange, another tight end. Three-year contract extension, $25 million guaranteed. Get paid. Worth up to $48 million. Brenton Strange's season, I was talking to Mike about this a minute ago, like, his was sort of set up to be the kind of situation fantasy managers can take advantage of, which is if you pace him out over the year, he was pretty reasonable as a tight end, but he missed

five games in the middle of the season. After he came back, so weeks 12 through 18, his involvement was—again, they had some injuries, but 63 for 8, 16, and 7. And if you remember me talking about Parker Washington a couple weeks ago, everything that I had read from Jacksonville was Parker Washington, Brenton Strange are the contract priorities for the team. They've now fixed one of those. They signed Brenton Strange. I mean, he is certainly just a streaming tight end, I think, for all of us, but— He's very capable. Yeah. He had some good games at the end of last year.

They're just—he's stuck in the Jacksonville. Who will it be? Like, he'll definitely have games where he pops, and guys, you're never going to believe this. Brenton Strange, year one. Oh, come on. No, wait. Wait a minute. What are you telling me here? We're in year four of Brenton Strange, and I can tell you, without a doubt, he will have four receiving touchdowns this year. Because he's gone one, two, three? That is correct. Amazing. Why are we going so slow? I don't know. Why not two, four, six, eight? Who do we appreciate? Kyle Pitts. Big numbers. Just stumbling into this. Right here, live on the show.

Live on the show with the two guys who got paid. Then I'm going to report, Mike, on this next tight end, and you do the research needed. Oh, let me know. The Athletic is reporting Tucker Craft could start training camp on the pup list, but reports he should be fully go by week one. You are never going to believe this. No. Okay. Oh, God. I know that one's not true. How dare you? Tucker Craft's a dog. Yeah, Tucker Craft was breaking out. Imagine not scoring seven touchdowns your second year. In an amazing way, he was breaking out. Look, the health of two important tight ends, Tucker Craft and George Kittle, the offseason's

been good. I mean, these were situations, injuries, and timelines that we would have assumed, maybe you start the year on the pup for both of these guys. Which we did get, you know, craft on the pup for training camp is the most likely thing. Yes. So there's two different pups. A lot of times people get those confused. Right. If you start the season on the pup, you have to miss four games. You can start training camp, and lots of players start training camp on the pup. That's just like, it's a free release. Just, you're not ready to go yet. Put him on the pup.

That does not mean he will miss any games. But the videos right now, the workouts, the involvement from both Tucker Craft and George Kittle say that they will be playing football in week one. Now, whether they're at full strength, certainly more skeptical on the Kittle side at his age. I don't know, man. I'm getting more talked into it. I'm already. Just join me. He has two and a half months, and I've watched enough of him right now to feel like two and a half more months. How is that dude not out there? I mean, they will both be playing in week one.

That's for sure. The question is just, will they be at full production from the get-go? I am joining you, Mike, on the Tucker Craft side. I moved him up this morning before this show. Two dogs. Yeah. Tittle and Craft. Those are two strong, bullish dog of men's. Those are not Meowth and Tailors. Those are Rottweilers. That was three species in one sentence. Oh, thank you. So we've lost our trend. Just to circle back to Brenton Strange, I did see another article talk about, and it kind of sounded the alarm. We did bounce back players with Brian Thomas Jr. Now you signed Brenton Strange.

You have Jacoby Myers, and you have Parker Washington. Travis Hunter. And Travis Hunter. And the article was like, they're going to get Brian Thomas Jr. involved way down the field. That was the article. Oh, boy. Which is like... That's what they tried to do last year. That's how your catch percentage goes down. That's how you don't get the 17 screen game opportunities he had the year before. And that's how you get volatility and a lack of consistency in an offense. Brian Thomas Jr. will have big plays. But if he's being drawn up for the ball to go to a bunch of different places, and he's

just the vertical threat, which is the phrase, it is a little concerning. Which, a good friend of the show, Matt Harmon, he has coined the phrase, the sacrificial ex. Yeah. Which, it's like, Alec Pierce used to be that for years. Where they're just like, hey, how's your cardio? Is it good? Run. Nice. Because you're running a goal route 80% of the time. That's the talk around Jalen McMillan slash Ted Hurst in Tampa Bay. To free things up for Abuka, who's going to be out there running straight down the field. But there you go. What else do we have? Well, the Soresby stuff.

Yeah, we had a brief conversation about Brendan Soresby, and he had a brief moment where he was going to play in the NFL. And the NFL has now declined. They just declined to hold the supplemental draft. Yeah, they said, nah, we're good. They said they didn't have enough time to investigate his situation, so kick him to 2027 regular draft, which helps fantasy managers, but hurts Brendan Soresby. The Soresby legal team is going after this and going to try to fight it, but more than likely... Good luck. Yeah. You're not going to win in time. I wouldn't take that bet. So...

All of the conversations we had... Nice. All the conversations we had about what to do are irrelevant. He will be in the 2027 draft, most likely. And it wouldn't be an off-season news segment without somebody being investigated for allegations of assault, and it's Geno Smith this time. Being further investigated, no other news. There was just... Yeah. The video was posted with some accusations on there, and it seemed like it was all going to be resolved quickly, but now this is popping back up, so... Yeah. They'll look into it. Yeah. I... You know, we haven't had any indication that it's going to impact anything yet, but you'd

never really know. Correct. Although more and more stuff is on video. That is for sure. Any other news to jump into? You guys have anything back there? The only other piece of news I can think of is we posted a very bad video of some of our golf today. Yeah. It had been requested. Yeah. And so the Falcon... Get a couple swings in there. Falcon managed to get us to pay him for like a whole day's work to get this one video out there. Yeah. To get him out on a golf course. I feel like... Which he's also in there.

So I am... He's in the video. I am not in the video. I feel like posting your golf swing on the internet... Is dangerous? Is very dangerous. Yeah, I expect... Certainly for me. I expect some serious blowback. It's a... You're exposing yourself. You feel a little naked. Yeah. Because it's like... Golf swings... That's what Charles Barkley's now known for. Yeah. He has that. And it's like... Some people, you know, especially golfers of our skill level, like... It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing swing, but it can get the job done. Yeah. We may be okay with it. But then you see it on video and you're like, oh.

Yeah. Oh. How did you... So I... What was your reaction to seeing your own swing? My reaction looking at my swing, which my swing is bad. I was like, I look good. So... Is that why you wear the shirts you do? To just kind of distract from the form? Yeah. Just pay attention to the silliness. We... What is that on our Instagram, Matthew? Everything. It's on everything. All right. Instagram.com slash fantasyfootballers if you want to... I don't know. If you're a good golfer, probably don't watch it. Yeah. We'll take a break. We'll jump into Too Hot to Handle. It's more of a comedy piece.

Too Hot to Handle. I don't think my heart rate was ready for that drop. That thing got going. It's hot. That wasn't my tempo. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, things are certainly heating up out here. We almost die every time we go out on the golf course. But today's segment, Too Hot to Handle, we're talking about average draft position for players, where they are now, and where they're potentially headed, players that you might be excited for. You know, this is a part of fantasy football that actually is just annoying to me. In the sense that there are players I adore.

And I have to be mature enough to never draft certain players. Because every year, certain players become the darling of the fantasy football world. And the cost, right, the opportunity cost can become too high. And we certainly see this in the projected breakout quarterbacks a lot of the time, where I'd love for these guys to be a late-round pick, but they are not. So we're going to talk through some names, what we think. We'll start with the quarterback. And whether we're passing on him or we would pass on him if he moved to this range. It's the Iceman. Caleb Williams.

Caleb. Isn't that what they're calling him? That's right. The Iceman. Isn't that his Madden cover? Yeah. Because he needs sleeves. Give the man a sweater. Fourth and 36. He's got ice in them veins. All right. Here's the context for Caleb Williams. Average 19.3 fantasy points from weeks 1 through 17 last year. Being drafted right now on underdog is the quarterback 6. When we mention underdog, that is best ball. That is not redraft formatted. That is looking for, you know, explosive performances. Players with tremendous upside tend to do better on underdog. That is true, but I think it is more than just, oh, these are explosive swing for the fences type of players.

It's also, this is where the money is. And this time of year, the drafts that are going on on sleeper are less serious or maybe it's mock draft data. Whereas on underdog, these are people that are paying money to do these drafts that are taking it serious. So we tend to find that when there is a disparity between an underdog or a best ball money on the line draft this time of year versus ADP we see in our normal, you know, fantasy football platforms, those numbers will get closer to underdogs come August when push comes to shove. And in this case, he's the quarterback 9 on sleeper, quarterback 6 on underdog, you know, set the Bears all-time passing yard number, wasn't 4,000 yet.

Had five high-end finishes of 24 plus points. That's the stuff that you paid attention to. Also, the stuff I chased a little bit last year with Caleb. He had a couple big games. I started playing him. He let me down. You know, very erratic is a good word. I wonder how many of those five really big games he was sub 10 points going into the fourth quarter. Right. I just felt like, man, some of his best games were complete collapses for three quarters. You know, I actually think for me personally that I will not draft Caleb Williams as a quarterback 6 and what that will entail.

It's too hot? It's too hot. But at quarterback 9 and I look at the names he's around, I don't mind making that selection. If you're the quarterback 9, you're going 8th round around Pierce Saul and Alec Pierce and J.K. Dobbins and Godwin and Parker Washington. You'd have to choose them over Trevor Lawrence and Dak. But I don't think that's too hot to handle. I just think it'll move up. I mean, this is your cover athlete for Madden. Underdog's already showing that. I mean, I know, Mike, you know, the Bears are one of those teams for fantasy that are really interesting.

Yes, the and we it's kind of the same conversation as the Jaguars. We're like, I don't who's it going to be, you know, and we have the Luther Burton V Rome Dunze showdown that we keep having here. And you're like, well, Caleb Williams, he should. He's the one who's going to get all of those yards. It doesn't if you're on Team Caleb, you don't care if it's Rome or Luther, who's who's the actual breakout. QB six is. QB six is tough because I completely understand it. I can rationalize that my projections don't have him there, but he's the he's a type of player that.