Fantasy Football - 2025 Bust Picks + Risers & Fallers - Podcast for 8/25

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Monday, August 25th. The Fantasy Footballer's back with you. Mike the Fantasy Hipman, Jason Moore. I'm Andy Holloway. As we sit in this beautiful studio,

illuminated by the, you know, the controllers over their inducers alley. I think about the humble beginnings in the upstairs bedroom, Mike. And yes. The reason I think about that with this show is because for some godforsaken reason, YouTube is just algorithmically sending an old episode into people's feeds from like 10 years ago. It was a good episode. I'm sure it was, but it was like the first episode that Jason, you had to control the cameras with an iPad. Oh, yeah. And you're sitting there recording, we're recording the show. And I do realize that speaking right now will bring the world back to that episode. But you're like looking down at the cameras while you talk and, you know, Mike had a man bun. Yeah.

at the time very large beard too i would imagine big old headphones on and and somehow everybody i'm getting messages from everybody look what showed up in my feed so weird could you not do that youtube we've grown up a little bit and apparently jason nye's voices are completely different oh it's crazy you go back and listen to super old episodes mike sounds exactly like mike yeah his nose has been stuffed for 10 years yeah he sounds identical and we We were little baby children. I don't know what happened. It's not like there's... We became men. Yeah, I don't... You know, we had different microphones, so I want to believe that some of it was that. But Mike. Oh, but Mike. Yeah, but Mike. He had the same different microphone. I was already a grown man. Oh, that's true. We were prepubescent. Yes. Um...

So, yeah, that was hitting me this week and people sharing that with me. And I'm like, please hide that. Monday, August 25th. Probably go delete it. I know. There's too many of them. And now they're all going to be found. And then the algorithm, well, just stop. All right, we've got some, you know, preseason football is over. We're done. We're finished. We can draw whatever conclusions you want. We're going to talk some risers and fallers. It's a busts episode as well. We're each going to pick out a name that we think. We'll disappoint. I don't know how long we'll spend on them, but we'll bring some names up of situations we're a little worried about in the context of fantasy. The big headline I want to make sure we get out there once again. The Megalabole. It's available to enter right now. It is the largest fantasy football league in the world. It is for the Foot Clan supporters of this show. It is easy to enter. You just go to Megalabol.com and every foot clan member gets an entry. So the winner of the...

of the megalobole, along with the bragging rights of beating every single person that listens to the show and us, because we'll be in it. Yeah. You also receive a spot, an exclusive spot in the 2026 listener league, which is exciting. And you get a UDK for life as well. And I think we're about 15,000 people. Some are in that vicinity right now. Megalabol.com. Yeah, if you haven't played in a couple years, the format has been perfect. Trades are back. They are open. Waivers are open in the playoffs. It is going to be an outstanding time. So make sure you join. All right. What else do we have going on? Jason, what is the status? Whoa. Hey, see? He's still growing up. You're going to get hair in the funniest places. Just wait. It'll shock you.

Oh man, yeah, 41 years old. It's time. Jason, you had things that I was going to ask you to say about the listener league in general. Oh, yeah. We are announcing all of our winners this morning, so make sure you check your email. Everyone, thank you so much for all your submissions. You guys always blow our minds every year. I'm so sorry that we've already made it a very large league. What is it? A 14 team league, which? sucks uh but yeah um and if you again just like just like we were just talking about if you didn't get in this year uh just beat us in the in the megal a bowl and you get an automatic entry yep that is uh thank you yeah i mean i hate i hate that we have to say notice in people because they put time and effort in but that is jason loves it yeah

YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballer. Subscribe. Click the bell. The time to do that is right now because we have a Sunday live event every single Sunday that you do not want to miss as you prep up for the games, which are coming so soon. This is the last week of no football. Yeah, we're in... as college would call it well i guess it's going to do a week zero joke you see all this nonsense is that what they talk about yeah what they have they have a week zero they do in week zero they play football game no is it like inner school i don't know or something i did matt help me out here matt do you know anything about college sports did you go to college no okay but yeah they have a week zero and it's like uh uh

And so we're in week zero. Yeah. Okay. We are because there's no games. Does that make it more exciting? If it, if so, then cool. We're week zero. Yeah, well, no, yeah. This is what week zero should be. The megal. Yeah, sign up for the megalible. There you go. Prepare yourself for fun, fake games. All right. Hey, I'm going to ask out born, do you got a preseason power up drop back there for me? I can get to. Because I think, uh, because I think, uh, it's. Hot start this Monday. I think it's in demand over here. Hot start. Do you remember back when we were in that upstairs bedroom? We'd hit all the buttons. Yeah, we'd have them ready. We'd have them all prepped up before the show. When we controlled everything, everything went much, much better. It was so smooth and easy. Preseason power up. Oh, classic week zero mistakes. All right, we're looking at the biggest preseason risers and fallers. We've each picked a name.

I'm going Ollie Gordon of the Miami Dolphins. My goodness. I mean, there was a point in time before the preseason began when he was very much the fourth running back on this roster. Fell in the draft. Madison looked great in camp. Jalen Wright was going to be the goal line guy. Average 1.5, a carry. in the preseason that's all you need on the goal line though jail and right might that is fair if you're on the goal line you get one and a half that's true that's true yeah and then the injury to devon a chan and then olly gordon's up over five a carry in the preseason and looked really good so there's a world where you know uh there's a and b combo there with a chan and olly gordon and olly gordon may have a shot to i mean what if a chan re-injures i mean the re-injury risk is significant with soft tissue situations trying to get back in time for the season

and they can run the football there. So, you know, offensive line notwithstanding, he still looked good in the preseason. I'm going to go Ollie Gordon is the biggest riser. That's a fantastic pick. It's a name people need to be aware of. Jalen Wright was an untalented, in my opinion. Was, whoa. Was an untalented back that I was still willing to draft because his situation said he should get work. I think Ollie Gordon is a little bit talented. So, you know, that's a huge upgrade. Sure. I've got a couple of preseason risers. Ricky Pearsall, I mean, he stayed healthy. Some of our biggest risers and fallers in preseason is really just like we get close to the NFL season and we know who's actually injured and who's actually healthy. And so it's like, okay, hey Ricky, great job. That's a good point. You're healthy and you're in San Francisco.

Darn near impossible to do that combination, but you've done it. I also want to throw out Marvin Mims. Yeah. Marvin Mims has been on the field and two wide receiver sets almost every snap with Bow Nix. That one feels like a little, like maybe we're too quiet there. Yeah, I mean, I think it's because we don't necessarily expect it to hold true. You're waiting for that rug. Yeah, exactly. The Marvin Mims rug is, it's on the way. Yeah. So, yeah. Gotcha. You fell for my trap. I'm still a little worried, but that's a perfect, like. last round pick, though, because we'll find out week one. Week one, he doesn't need to go out there and have 80 yards in a touchdown for me to go, okay, it was real. He just needs to be on the field for, you know, 80 plus percent of snaps. If he is, he's going to be very relevant for fantasy this year. If he's out there 47 percent of the snaps, kind of how I expect. But I would never have drafted him before the preseason. And right now, he's a target for me at the, at the end of drafts.

I mean, we all know the number one is. Oh, yes. Bill Kroski, oh, baby. He could strangle you with a cordless phone. Bill Kroski. I didn't know we had one teed up. He's always got one teed up. He's got to be prepared. Please only ask me one more time this episode. I'll come into every episode with two. That's my promise. I got no more than that. So, I mean, it's him. But if you're a... See, I thought you'd just instantly say Trayvion. Oh, he is... Those two are the biggest risers. So the footballers crack staff over here, they put a few suggestions in before we picked ours. Right. I deleted Trayvion out so you wouldn't pick it. But I just assumed you'd pick it anyways. No, I did not because he's my guy. I like your answer. But if you're following me on the Twitter machine...

This is an Isaac Tesla account. This dude just keeps getting it done with huge plays, huge blocks. People might not know who he plays for. So Isaac Tesla, third round pick of the Detroit Lions, third round that Dan Campbell and crew traded two extra thirds to go and get. It seemed wild and insane at the time, considering, you know, Tesla's production profile of, you know, playing at lesser school than uh and then just really no person really no production once he finally got to play for a d1 school but he just keeps getting it done including this past weekend a 30 plus yard touchdown and then hits a hits the worm after the touchdown and it was executed really i missed the world oh you got dude that's a big boy that's a huge is a 9.5 out of 10 worm i mean it was uh it was serious worm it was

It was sensational. That's a problem. And he just, like, I don't know how the lions keep him out of the wide receiver three position for long because he's just, he is so dynamic and pun intended, he is so electric. The comments from Dan Campbell are what matter to me. It's that this guy can be an impact player for their team early in the season. Those comments are not necessarily associated with a rookie. And in this case, I think they're very impressed. And it's not just catching the ball. And his athletic profile is out of control. Like he is gigantic. He is strong and fast. But they're talking about like the other stuff involved of getting on a field. We talk about a rookie running back. I don't necessarily love when a running back is good at pass protecting because I want them out there catching, you know, getting dump offs. But to get on the field.

you have to be good at pass protection. And Tesla is good at other things besides just catching. Andy, you've been a Jameson Williams, you know, he's one of your my guys, truth or a big breakout season coming forward. Does Tesla scare you at all? No, it doesn't. I mean, we've seen Tim Patrick make an impact on this team. We've seen Khalif Raymond make an impact on this team. I'm excited for the offense to have these guys. And I think Tuslaw is just, he's impressed as much as he can in the preseason. Yeah. The roles for those other guys are defined, and there's room for him to come in and be much better than Tim Patrick on this offense. If anything, it might impact my view of Sam Laporta a little bit in the red zone, just because I think Tesla can make an impact there. But it doesn't really affect it. Yeah, he doesn't scare me off of James and Williams. And we may go through this entire season where Tesla is not really a part of your fantasy football team, but longer term, you need to be paying attention to him.

it could be one of those things where it's just better for Jared Goff. If you have another wide receiver who at any moment can hit a 50-yard touchdown, and the defense has to worry about that with the other guys, maybe Goff will be safer than we. I hope they can protect him because he's going to carve people up. Some of those deep routes that he's been running, and I know it's pre-season, but I'm talking when it's one-on-one, and it's like, okay, it doesn't matter. Maybe in preseason the defender's not trying as super hard as he could, but it's like he makes it look so easy. They're trying. They're trying to get a job. The separation that he's achieving seems like, I don't know how you stop a guy with his athletic profile. And why, why wasn't he great in college? We're not sure. Just it. It happens. Sometimes the scheme and players just don't work their way into the good graces. So he's 6'4-214.

and he ran a 4-4-3. He's very talented. And his, you know, the explosive score is in the 91st percentile. So his size and speed puts him in a 91st percentile speed score. He is. It's really hard for me to figure out how he would be fantasy relevant on a regular basis this year. Best ball. But he could be really good for golf, like you said. Yeah. I have two names for the fallers. Well, I got one first, Joe Mixon. Oh, yeah. He's playing a game of hide-and-seek, and he's doing it well. He is hiding. No one can find him. Nobody has been able to find him. He just dropped. I'm literally about to draft him right now in a league. He made it back to me. Where are you? I'm going to draft him. What round? It is the very end of the 11th round. Wow. I was going to say he just went 13th round in my- Oh, shoot. Should I wait? Well, it's a 2 QB in my expert league. It is probably about the same spot. Because Andy, you're wrong. Someone found him.

That orthopedic surgeon guy who posted on Facebook. And I'm going to throw one more name out. Just, it's Tyler Shuck. I mean. Oh, shucks. The saints, first of all, the Saints are going to be terrible. Second of all, you spent a very high pick on Tyler Shuck. And he had every opportunity this preseason to easily win a job over Spencer Rattler and couldn't even come close to doing it. I don't know if he saw. Did we get an official announcement? There's no official announcement, but the odds, like the Vegas odds of the starter are so heavily in favor of Spencer Rattler. Chuck has not looked good. And if they're a bad team, what happens then? What are they going to do in the draft? This is the problem of re-rolling. And he's the Brandon Whedon, right? He's much older. He's 26 or whatever, a 26-year-old rookie. So.

Picking a starter or not, I think the excitement for him has dropped off. Yeah, we got a tweet here from Nick Underhill from four minutes ago. The Saints have not picked their week one starter. I think it's minus 200 on Rattler right now. At this point, and you haven't picked, that's... I got a snake, man. Well, here's like, I mean, what would you do? If you're the Saints, what would you do? Because even if Rattler is twice as good in camp, is he a future quarterback? Yeah. I mean, I know you want to win ball games, but it's like... You got to develop Shuck. Yeah, you just spent the money. It's the Anthony Richardson thing. To some degree. I mean, you don't got a lot of time to develop Shuck. He's 26. Got to get on it. So, yeah, if you're that age and you come in and can't beat Spencer Rattler, then, I mean, we know for sure. Like, the Saints will be drafting a very highly drafted quarterback.

It seems very likely, yes. I hate Mike and I's fallers that we've picked in here. In fact, Mike, I picked mine because you picked yours. I understand. What are you attacking each other? We're attacking each other. It's really true. Because it's the same exact reason for both of that. Exactly right. These are these are two rookie wide receivers. We like the tape of. Second round picks. Second round picks. Super high draft capital. Everything looking good. going to situations where there was opportunity. Unfortunately, the opportunity has been taken by not them, but their teammates. I'm throwing out Jack Bash, massive dropper. He's dropped 51 spots in Underdog, you know, second round pick. They had a... Contavian Wix also a massive dropper. Yeah. Oh, nice. Wicks catching strays out here. Wicks just... Leave the man alone.

Yeah, he is bad at catching. I didn't want to miss the chance. No, you got to take it when you take it. You don't say massive dropper a lot. Yeah, but Jack Bash, rookie wide receiver for the, for the Raiders. I mean, they have a different rookie who is on the field, who was drafted later. Thornton. Yeah, Thornton is, and he's looking great. He's a candidate for a top riser. I mean, he, Jacobi Myers is the wide receiver won. So the hope when Bess went here. was maybe you could become the best wide receiver on this team outside of Brock Bowers. There's the opportunity for that. But even if you're not, they need another wide receiver on the field. Thornton's taking that job and Jack Bess just fallen. Yeah, the name for me is Trey Harris and of the Chargers. Both of these guys, Harris and Bess, longer term, I still believe that they will get it figured out. I feel like Trey Harris has been impressive.

Yes. But his circumstances have now... Yeah, but what happened with him is, like, so much buzz for Kandre Lambert Smith, who, like, it felt like, is he out playing the second round of Trey Harris? And then on top of that, they went and got Keenan Allen off of the couch. So the chances of Trey Harris making an impact in year one feels like he needs other guys to get hurt. He can't just play his way into it. For sure. I agree. And obviously, Isaac Garindo with the, you know, Shanahan came out. He said Brian Robinson is our number two. Yep. So to me, that is the high priority backup running back. But in San Francisco, you normally need seven. So we'll take a break and we'll jump into some news. All right. Let's catch you up. Big news this morning. News and notes from around the league. Presented by progressive insurance. Well, it's Monday, August 25th, but we got there.

Hey! Terry McLaurin has agreed to a three-year extension. We're still trying to figure out if it's worth up to 96 million, more than 96 million, or exactly 96 million, but that's the number. We know that number's involved. Yeah, that number is, yeah, it's on the table. 30 million in a signing bonus. Terry McLaurin getting paid. Good for you, Terry. Should have got paid. Please stay healthy. Terry, I always roll my eyes. when the last minute, the guy who's been missing training camp, missing preseason, and now has to go out in a couple weeks and play ball like he's worth $96 million. Please don't get hurt. Please be at full strength. Like just, what did you save commanders? Like two million, three million? Their line item on the contract, one of them should have been loyalty tax. Oh, for sure. That should have been on there. And.

You know, he deserves it. They had an amazing year. It was a huge part was due to him, and he's got a quarterback. And now you can rest easy with your Jane Daniels situation because, you know, if McLaurant, I guess we all kind of believed he'd be there. But if he wasn't, that would pretty negatively affect Jane Daniels' passing game. So there was a report that the Jaguars may be looking to unload either ETN or Tank Biggsby. I think Mike alluded to that. as a possibility uh i don't know if it was mike or jason one of you guys said it like recently that seems like one of these guys should go and that would be awesome so it would make things a lot more clear and if there are a lot of tooting fans out yeah the the the the the twitter hive for him they would be very excited about this so that was one piece of news kyle shan hansai and brian robinson is the number two we just said it

It looks like maybe Adam Thielen won't be a Viking. What? Oh, man. Financial hurdles remain. Come on. I mean, you've got to have money saved, Adam. Don't make that the problem. Dude, no, Adam, make that the problem. You get yours. He gets Social Security in a couple of years. That's true. That's a good point. Cam Acres has been cut by these Saints, but the bigger news there was. It seems like Kendrae Miller is solidified as the number two running back with the Saints. I listened to the press conference with Kellan Moore, all positive about Kendrae Miller. I mean, he has done what was impossible. He has stayed healthy through a preseason. I thought you say please a coach. One of the one of the biggest fallers, which isn't even worth. I mean, he has fallen tremendously and he was already at the bottom is Marshawn Lloyd.

because you just can't stay healthy. Kendrae Miller has a legitimate shot to be fantasy relevant, obviously harder on the Saints, but being healthy, he's a good player. The coaching staff is actually not just putting him in the dog house. You can catch the football, and literally Alvin Kamara not only is an older running back, but got hurt to end last year. Like he wasn't on the field. Yeah. All right. Some injury updates. Chargers General Manager came out and said Najee Harris could be ready for week one. I think he said he should be able to go. Which is... And then Harbaugh said, when Naji's ready to play, he'll be ready to play. Whoa. It's just crazy to me because every... I've been looking recently. Like this past week, I have been checking on what Naji's been doing at practice. And he's been like jogging off to the side in individual drills. How you go from that... To a significant role? Right. Because it's not like... It's not like you're waiting. I don't know. It's an eye. So it just... I mean, go...

slam helmets and hopefully it's okay yeah joan jennings kyle shanahan expects him to be ready for week one so you know he said uh the quote was i expect him to be back i think he should be back from it but you never know with calves which uh that team yeah yeah we do know you said you expect christian mcalfrey back from his calf injury in week one last year too so that is um you know that calf could i mean another different paycheck could cure the calf we don't know the issue with jennings is He should be a great fantasy football pick. But when guys miss the entire camp with injury like this, the numbers on those players hitting is very, very bad. I'm feeling much more out on Jennings now. But that's the question here is, is he really hurt? Is he really hurt? Or is he just saying, I don't want to do this because you're not giving me my money? I think he's really hurt. When the first report came out,

of his injury early on, I thought for sure. I was like, wink. You know, this is a contract play. But the way that they've talked about it, it seems like he is injured as well. The more details on the mix in recovery, the most recently, recent thing we said, Aaron Wilson from Texas Insider, Texans Insider said, it's been a long, tough and complicated rehab. It sounds like his rehab had been progressing. and he had had injections in electromagnetic therapy to remove scar tissue, and then it like plateaued, and he sought those alternative, you know, rehab options in the medical world. And his hunch is that it may take more time. He doesn't think he's ready. That doesn't mean Mixon is off your draft board. I mean, Jason just said it. Like, he keeps dropping because, yeah, you don't know when this guy's going to be available. You've heard nothing. It's one of those situations where...

assuming he gets healthy and plays football this year, which maybe is not a guarantee, but that's a presumption. You know, I don't think he misses the entire season. Even if he starts on the pup, misses four games. Whenever he's back, he's going to be the starting, you know, if he's able to play football, he's going to be the starting running back for this team. He is better than everyone else. And they'll use him as a workhorse again is my belief. So I do think he is relevant for fantasy. I'm very worried about making the wrong decision with. the rest of the backs there that I'm not sure that they're worth taking because I don't between chub and pierce yeah like I think that they're going to really truly split that work I think both guys will be on the field a lot and I just don't know if those are going to be wasted draft picks later on in the draft because okay you take those guys which you start them I mean it just seems tough like I'd rather take a week one I'd rather take Dylan Samson

than those two guys in Cleveland. That makes sense. Jaden Blue, low ankle sprain, which he already had an ankle sprain, hopeful to be ready for week one. They were worried about high ankle. It wasn't, but the Cowboys running back situation, you know. It's Javentte. It's Javante right now. Jalen Wright, not only can't run well, he can't run at all right now, left leg injury week to week. Aiden O'Connell, he's out, and then there you go. I think that's all we have by way of news. We did get some news on the offensive line for the Falcons. That was pretty not good. Pretty bad. Yeah, the right tackle is going to miss significant time. He was the, they had the highest or second highest graded run blocking offensive line. There are a handful of offensive line situations and running backs this off season that are concerning. You know, the Falcons injuries, but not just that. Like we've talked about.