Super Bowl Reactions + 2025 Draft Steals - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/11

Peyton Manning and Steve McNair in 2003. Yeah, like, I'm going to call up my other writers and be like, let's make sure that this thing is tied because they both. Oh, collusion. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Because they both, they both deserve it. How about one of those old, old school pro bowl style throwing contest between the two of them? Ooh, I think Ellen wins that. Then Josh Allen's got that. All right. All right. Did I hit that drop already? We have not. Oh, okay. Here you go, Mike. Mailbag. All right, we're going to answer some questions here on the show, starting with a voicemail. If you have a question and you would like to submit it, you can go to the website, the Fantasy Footballers.com, click the submit a question button or dial our voicemail hotline 302464 TFFB. Here we go. Hey, ballers. This is Sean from San Diego. I have a theoretical question, and I was wondering if you think that half-interference yards should count for receivers and quarterbacks. Love the show. Thanks.

No way. Should pass in it? Oh, hold on. So the question is should pass interference count for fantasy points. This has been. Well, he actually said for receivers and quarterbacks. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So they should we get awarded points for that? We have had, I think those are two separate questions. We've had many spirited debates. Oh, yeah. Around the office is the footballers headquarters about should this and it's a stupidest thing. I don't think we have. Have we really debated this on air before? If we have, it's been a while. Just barely. But this is a comment. Like, it's, it's usually a fight between Jeremy and Andy, uh, because Andy thinks it's the stupidest thing ever. Jeremy thinks that 100% should be there. I'm on the, I'm on the side that I have, I think I wouldn't, you want to be persuaded? I want a point per pass interference. That's it. Not yardage. See, that's a fantasy. That's why I said they're separate.

They're separate. It was this question. This question was about whether they become quarterback and wide receiver numbers in the NFL. No. That's what the question was. If you listen to the question, that's exactly what he said. Oh, well, I'm reading what the summary was, should players get fantasy points for it? Well, that is not what he said. Let's play that voicemail again. Let's go back to John from San Diego. I have a theoretical question, and I was wondering if you think that past interference yards should count for receivers and quarterbacks. Love the show. Thanks. I have to imagine the spirit is for fantasy. We can have that discussion. I'm just saying it does matter on the record books and things like that. That's where you'd go away from like counting them as... Yeah, I'm not adding it to a two-year total. First of all, it's not a completed pass. Correct. It's not a completed pass. It's correct. It's not a completed pass. Correct. It's for any sort of yardage. So you talk about fantasy. I've actually been on your camp of saying, look, if you're a receiver...

and you force a PI. I'm fine giving them a point. I don't care about that. That's great. You did something to help your team. We're never going to know in this mythical world where there wasn't a PI, whether you would have caught it, whether it was coming down as catchable, whether you stepped out of bounds on the attempt to catch it, even when you did catch it, whether you fumbled after you caught the ball. You do not know all of what if. What an embarrassing drop they could have just had. So there's an infinite amount of alternate realities post- attempted catch. But what is 100% always true is you got them a first down every single time. You've helped your team. Completely agree. If you're playing in like the Scott Fishbowl league has points per first down. But that's not awarded there, but that player got a first down. So I don't know. I think it would be fun. I hate when I see my wide receiver get, whether it's a bomb or even just, you know, a 15 yard cross around the field, it's like he gets held up. It's like, oh, that robbed me.

We don't know if it would have came true, but he did help your team. He did get them a first down. I think you should get a point. Or if you're in a half PPR and you want to argue, it's basically giving them the equivalent of the fantasy points. So does that go, you're saying give a point to the receiver or a point to the quarterback? To the receiver. So the quarterback gets nothing. Correct. Okay. Yeah. I mean, technically the defender did it? The defender earned the yards. You know what I mean? Should you give him a point? I'm just saying like technically it wasn't the receiver.

Yeah. I did it. I feel like something should happen because fantasy football is not real football. We play a very different game. Even though it's based on football, it's still different. So I think something should happen. The more hyper. Something should happen for the wide receiver. The more hyper-fair you try to make fantasy because you think that's what you want, the less fun it's going to be. Yeah. I genuinely. I genuinely believe that. I think the- tragedy and screaming and yelling and sadness and unfairness creates all the fun storylines that we enjoy in fantasy. Now, that doesn't mean you can't make tweaks and adjustments and go half PPR like we like to do. And I'm fine with the point. I'm fine with the point to the receiver. Which that is probably why. That's probably why the NFL still has all the old antiquated. Like, we have chains and we don't have perfect camera angles. Like, yeah, because the NFL knows that.

us and other big shows like we're just going to spend all that time drawing people's attention to the NFL can you just imagine this crazy thing that they did the refs they love the chiefs all publicity is good publicity this it's not after that first yeah the first I was worried down I tweeted it out I was like no not right off the bat the fourth down an important fourth down and they call a terrible I was very worried Oh, yeah. Because they don't want it to be the story. It's so annoying. Yeah, it's one of those things that's I'm one of the people that believes that you should change the NFL rule for past interference of the collegiate rule. It's 15. It's 15. And the reason being not because it's not because that like if you could perfectly apply pass interference 100% of the time, the call.

I'm fine with the NFL rule, but you can't. Nobody knows what it is. You have the catch child, right? Dealing with catches? He knows what it is. The catch child has a friend that might know what a pass interference is, but we really don't always know what it is. Sometimes somebody grabs a little bit. Sometimes they don't. You turn your head? Oh, I can P.I. When I turn my head, I can't. We've all watched games where the three of us disagree with each other on whether that was PI. So to me, because of the fact it's so subjective of a call, you'd nerf that.

by taking away the potential 50-yard penalty and make it the college rule, make it a 15-yard penalty, and yes, you're going to have more intentional pass interference. Okay, that's your choice. You're giving them a first down. You're giving them this. I think you harm offense overall, though. Because if I'm a DB and I'd be like, oh, this is a huge play, I'm going to play it way more aggressive. You help fantasy because none of those yards count for either guy when you go 50 down the field. You give them 15. They've got to go the rest of the field. Don't take my yards away from me.

No, I love it. I would 100% do that. I also think that the holding, defensive holding should move to, you know, instead of five yards and an automatic first, I don't know, 10 yards and then no automatic first. Because I hate when it's like, oh, which one is it? Defensive holding? I hate when it's third and 28. And a five yard penalty gives them a first down. It feels like such a bailout. That's tough. I agree with you most of the time, but what if that holding happens 40 yards down the field on a wide receiver that's wide open and they do it before the ball's released?

It's just rare. Okay. Usually defensive holding is earlier. Yeah, I think, I think some people push back on the 15 yards saying they'll do a bunch of intentional pass interference. I would. It doesn't happen ago. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. I mean, no defenders are trying to draw a 15-yard penalty. I mean, it does happen sometimes. It just doesn't happen a lot. I mean, from the point of I'm going to be far more aggressive and less concerned about it because the consequence to me is not. 50 yards because I got called on a tiki-tack valve. There's also the other side of where there is a lot of wide receiver selling stuff on the pass interference because of the value down the field. It's an interesting debate. But let's start with first downlines that everybody knows whether the ball gets across them. Can we do that? Can they? Of course. Will they? I don't know. Maybe upgrade to. Is the chain gang union that strong? Yeah.

They've been around for a long time, 100 years. We like the drama. I'm not opposed to having people walk around and do nothing of value. Just carry chains around. That's fine. I would also, I just, if I was part of the NFL Rules Committee, I would just demand, demand that we get, I don't know, goal line cameras both directions. Yes. That's it? Yes. It's pretty simple. That seems like you can afford it. I don't even care. Use a camera phone. Don't you know? Use an iPhone. Just put it on a little tripod right down the line. Yeah, why? Have you ever seen a young chain gang referee? You ever seen a young man out there? No. Like, is there anybody growing up? Like, they're like 18, 19. Like, this is what I want to do in life. No. It's the first down markers. And I'm in shape. And I can carry that chain with, like, it must be light.

Because these guys are not. Yeah, it's not a heavy thing. It's a small chain. You've seen it? Well, give them a big chain. They'd all be in shape. Huge. Like a, like a Titanic anchor size chain. It'd be so slow to move the burst. Oh, man, that'd be so funny. Like 12 guys. What are we talking about? We talk about what we want. The season's over. We just, we want cameras. We'll talk baseball, Jay. Is that what you're saying? We want cameras. Yeah, just cameras. What you don't know about those end zone cameras is that if two of them face each other, they destroy each other.

That's why you can't have one on both hands. Makes sense. Jalen Waddle question? Is that what this is? No, it's not. From Tyler here? No, it's not. Tyler said, which. Jaylon Wattel. That was my answer. Yeah, this is your answer. You're playing Jeopardy over here. I'm not used to have answers in. Just read what you said. Which under? No, no, no. Say the name. Tyler Tracy. Did you do. No, I was saying Jalen Waddle. And then I would say, what is? An underperforming player of 2024, that will be a steal in 2025 drafts. Jalen Waddle. Yeah, there we go. That was my answer. Who is Jalen Walth? Tyler asked which underperforming player would be a steal. I said Jailen Waddle because he finished it like wide receiver 46 and isn't that kind of a player. Like he got elite wide receiver money. He's an elite player. Banged up to the hardest part for Jalen Waddle is.

Like, he gets hurt seemingly a lot, but he is a really good wide receiver. Like, I think he's talented. I think he's a great player. It just has not. I didn't want to answer this, by the way. It didn't fully work out. With Waddle or just the question overall? No, with Waddle, because I just, there's so much, there's so much risk with him. There's so much fatigue and annoyance. And yet that was true of DJ Moore. And that's true of Terry McLaurin. Like, talent does win eventually. Yes. More often than not. This was a player finished in the top 10 before with Tua by his side. Yeah, three years before this season. He was a thousand yard receiver each year. This was a really down season for him. And I would expect to bounce back, certainly not all the way down at wide receiver 46. But there is no way to answer this question without risk. Because otherwise we're talking about a player coming off of a bad season.

There is a problem, whether it's age, whether it's injury, whether it's whatever. My answer to this is Chris Olave. Chris Olave carries enormous risk. It feels kind of like Tua. Like your one hit away from your season is over. You know, hopefully they get that figured out and he doesn't deal with concussion issues going forward into the next season. It will be a risky pick. But because of that, I don't think he'll cost you a lot when he's out there playing, especially when he's playing with a quarterback. that's, you know, healthy and active. Derek Carr should be good to go. I think that Chris Olavi is a really, really talented wide receiver who can put up wide receiver one type of numbers, but he carries a lot of risk. So he's a bounce back candidate for me. The best ball drafters are agreeing because the early basketball ADP, Jail and Wattel is at wide receiver 30, and Oliva is at wide receiver 31. So they, though both of those guys feel like.

That is really undervalued for. It's a rough year for both guys. Yeah, it was, but they're both good. Yeah, you're betting on talent. And young. Yes. And my guy is not young, but he is talented and I'm going to be willing to forgive him. It's Christian McCaffrey. So steal drafted as the RB1 last year. It did not work. But here's what's going on in baseball right now. Sequin, Bijan, Jamir Gibbs are the top three. I have no issue. Like, that is perfectly fine. You would do the same thing? I don't know that I would, but I don't have, it's not weird or... I would. I would take those three as the top three. Yeah. But then after that, it's Devon A. Chan, Derek Henry and Ashton Genty. And it's like, I'm not saying for sure when...

When the UDK fully releases in June 1st and we're in full projections and everything, maybe McCaffrey is here. Like I like those other guys more, but that's some big question marks, especially H&A is a real surprise. The way that he played this year, I mean, if you don't PPR your way in to extreme value. And it's just, you've got to do. Like Christian McCaffrey, you're saying Debo is off the team? Not that Debo's taking everything, but Debo's stole some work. I mean, look, it's risk aversion. It's age and risk aversion. And the team struggled. The team struggled. I mean, is this era of 49ers football going to be rejuvenated? And he's old? Or is it going to be the end? But he's still under contract. They just kind of moved some money around for him last off season.

before the whole Achilles tendonitis thing. I will bet, though, that the real ADP, the true ADP, I'm going to bet you now that McCaffrey is either four or five. I think the true ADP and redraft is going to be different than best ball. I think you'll see Barclay, Bejohn, and Gibbs, and then you will see a 50-50 Henry or McCaffrey in most leagues. I do not believe Gentie or HM will be anywhere close to them. But when you are... often. And it's, you know, these are based off of preseason projections and assumptions. When you are drafting, you know, it'll be, oh, here's the big three running backs because you feel like in your projections and just looking at football, any of those three guys could easily be the running back one. It's not common that you're drafting a guy at the RB5 spot where you go, yeah, this guy could be the number one overall running back.

Of course, things never fully work out to plan, and some guys end up at number one, and they were not drafted that way. I'm just saying that feeling you get after the draft. You drafting the RB 5 or 6, I'm never like, I did it. I got the guy who's going to sneak into the number one position. It's not just other running backs that you have to compare him to. When we're in the draft next year, you know, Jamar Chase, Justice Jeff, Seedy Lamb, all those guys will go over him. You're going to be dealing with. Do you want Nico Collins and Amin Ra and Puka and Malik neighbors, those type of players where I think when people are like the risk of the age, because when we saw Christian McCaffrey on the field this last year, he was good for fantasy, but he was not Christian McCaffrey dominant. He wasn't scoring touchdowns one or two a game. Yeah, he wasn't right. And so I think there will be some risk-averse people pushing him down. But as a reminder, his career is he finished as the running back three.

the running back one, injured year, 53, injured year, 39, comes back, the running back two, the running back one, injured year, 70, that was this year. It's just, is he healthy or not? I don't like how many times you said injured year. Yeah, I get that. But I promise you in 2022, if you took that shot, you were very happy that you had Christian McAverage score. How old is he now? 28. He'll be 29 this season. He's 28.7. That'll be fun one to watch. Yeah, I don't think he'll go ahead of H& in. In redraft? Yeah, because you can have news. I mean, right now he's not on the field, right? Like, yeah, his papa. His papa is saying he's healthy. Dad says he's healthy. My boy is ready to play. I mean, come on. Please excuse his absence from 2024. We can't. Gentie will, Gentie could easily be ahead of CMC solely depending on the landing spot. He could. He could. He could. We'll take a break. We'll do some more questions.

All right, Baylor writes in on X. Will Pooka be good when Stafford finally retires? Or would you look to trade him in Dynasty before then? I think this is, can I frame this for you? Yeah, sure. Let's frame this in a Michael Thomas. I thought you were going to say like Michaels. Let's frame it. They do. Michaels does frames. I see. It's a craft story, see. Michael Thomas. I was very displeased with their framing job for me. Oh, Michael's let you down? You're putting them on blast for a framing job? What kind of framing job? That's my namesake crafts. Hold on. Hold on. You had a high stakes framing job? Yeah, I had a high stakes framing job. And they let me down because they were trying to do it right now. What's in? What's in? It's a, it's a signed movie poster. Oh, okay, okay. I got signed movie posters. And so because they were signed, they're like, well, we can't, I don't know what they use, like a glue or something that, like,

flattens it out, like in the normal application, if you just bring them something to frame, picture of you and your family, they do this thing to make sure that it's real smooth. I didn't think it would matter because it's pushed up against glass, right? Isn't it going to be smooth? They're like, we can't do that. It's like, okay, that makes sense. That's fine. So they framed it. They're the experts of framing. Yeah, they're the experts. Not really. Because I got that thing home and in the light. I mean, it's like it's like it's an ocean of waves. All that you can't see anything but waves. You can't even see the poster. Owl, you've seen these right? How terrible are they? It's so bad. It's awful. And I'm like there's a lot of airspace between the poster. I don't understand it. It didn't squeegee it. It's not a real tight fit.

No, bad job, Michael. Say goodbye to our arts and crafts sponsorships. Yeah. Or we've just brought a problem to their attention, then they will fix it. And then they will rise back to the top. And this is all because I said I was going to frame my argument. But here's, if you're not going to go to Michaels to get a frame, where are you possibly going? I don't know. There's hobby lobby frame. There are framing places. There are stores. Oh, it's Michael's or bust. Really? Well, then it's bust. That's why they can charge so much because they know no one else does frames. Frame it yourself, man. Yeah, just go to.

Frame it yourself. Yeah, you buy a frame. This is not rocket science. You never do it with your posters where you just slide the- You couldn't put a poster in a frame? I guess I have a lot to learn about framing. Look, what I was going to say, which I'll use different words for. Pooka Nakua. Look, Michael Thomas had special years with Drew Brees. Very special, unique. We saw this with Cooper Cup as well. Very special years with Matthew Stafford. Saw it with Robert Woods. You've seen it with a lot of guys. Calvin would have done it anywhere. But Puka, maybe he gets another year with Stafford. Stafford's time is running out either in Los Angeles, which some have alluded to could happen, or in the NFL. He's going to retire at some point. So the question is, will Puka be as good? Or would you look at this period of time at 23 years old, entering year three, to try to trade him? I have my answer.

And now I have presented the question, so this is the time for it. I would not be trying to trade him. I learned a lesson with Justin Jefferson. And part of this question is, what do you really believe about Pooka? Is it Puka? Is it Stafford? It's the combination. You know, Kirk Cousins helped make Justin Jefferson better than he was this year. But Justin Jefferson was still really good this year because Justin Jefferson is really good. Puka Nakua has been better than you think, both statistically, but as a player. As an actual, you know, you just watch the film, what he can do, how guys can't tackle him, how he gets open, how he's used in every possible way. Down the field, bomb touchdowns, screen game, handoffs. And, you know, I would be a little bit more concerned if I knew that if Stafford retires or moves on, that if Sean McVeigh also attached that same year to leave, that would be an even bigger hit. Would you like to know what his overall...

PFF grade was in 2024. Not really, but I'm sure. You don't want to know. I don't trust those grades a lot, but what was it? I mean, even if it helps your argument. I think it's going to be good. Well, I imagine it should be. He's awesome, but it could go either way. I want to know. Number one. Oh, he was. So one out of 98 that factored in. His rookie season, Pooka Nakua, was the wider receiver four. He was obviously wonderful, broke every rookie record there was. And for fantasy football purposes, was like, you know, well, he was the wide receiver four. This last season, he went from a rookie year of 14 and a half fantasy points per game to 16. I'm sorry, to 15.2. He was better this season than he was his rookie year. You just didn't feel it because he missed, you know, the five games, you know, basically the first seven weeks of the season, he was gone.

Well, you are going to have to consider his injury history in your dynasty evaluation of Pukanakua because that's something he dealt with in high school and college. And now we finally saw it in the NFL last year. He was dealing with injury, missed games due to injury, played injured. He played all 17 as a rookie. Correct. That's why I said last year because it's, you know, something where Jason was so frustrated with that experience. that he traded him. Jason traded a player he believed in entirely due to injury. I think it was more just, and then Jason being sad. Well, it was also. Yeah. I mean, it was tough. I mean, when you go the first two months of the season without your player and you're, you've lost games along the way, you have to make moves based on more than just your hopes. I think the feelings to after the rookie year still have some doubts of like, was this just a real fluke?

This fifth round pick, just he was in the right spot at the right time for everything. Going into year two, I think it was fair to have some questions about it. But now after what he did on the field this year, just remove his draft capital. Puka is one of the better wide receivers in the NFL. And I'm not trying to get out of guys who are that good, just because I think their situation might be rough in a little bit. It's 23 years old. Situations change. This is Sean McVeigh. Now, if you say, hey, Stafford and McVeigh are both going to be gone from the Rams, I'm a lot more concerned now. But if it's still McVe, I think that he figures out how to get himself a quarterback. These are always tough, right? I mean, there's a lot of players that we've had belief in their fundamental talent that sometimes it's worked out when a quarterback changes happen. Other times it hasn't, right? I mean, you...

We're sitting here with names like Waddle and Olave, who we believe in their fundamental ability, but they keep running up against sometimes his injuries, sometimes it's quarterback play, injuries for the quarterback position. We saw Malik neighbors begging for a quarterback play. I mean, the thing is, all of those things, those are, you can't, those are random variables that just go out of control. But that's where the decision of the trade would be, though. It's like, do you try to trade Puka Nakua? for an established situation. There just aren't that many. I think Marvin Harrison. Do you trade it for Marvin Harrison? I would definitely rather have puka. There really aren't that many established situations that are long term like C.D. Lamb, Jamar Chase. Those are great. We don't know with McCarthy whether Justin Jefferson is truly established. Maybe he really is. Maybe it's a downturn. It would be like, would you rather, this is just positionally. Puka.