Regress or Impress + Dynasty Values, Find Your Niche - Fantasy Football Podcast for 3/9

Footclair, we've got a great show for you today. We're going to talk all the big NFL news, including Lamar Jackson Situation. And we're going to jump into the mailbag and cover a whole lot of stuff to help you win your league. Don't miss a minute. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. I just let, you know, our good friend Jay Gris take care of the welcome. I don't think he really did a good job if I'm being honest. How dare you? Cardboard bear extraordinaire holds it down. Yeah, we have a two-man show today. Mike and I are here. And the bear. And the deucers. And one of which is having a birthday similar to your birthday. Yes. Yeah. Look at that. Happy birthday. Yay. Owl. Thank you. Thank you. Old.

Now, I know you already felt old, but you look it now. Thank you. How's it going? Good. Better yesterday? You look great, Al. Thank you, Brooks. Get out of here, Brooks. Classic deucer support. Yeah, what's that all about? Coming in from Brooks. I thought we did a good job of turning you all against each other. No, we didn't. They stick together. They have to withstand all of our troubling comments. Jason would normally be here, obviously, but he is out there, from my understanding, he is searching for... Oh, no. Oh, no. He's trying to find a niche. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, at some point in time, maybe if he works really hard, he can find the niche that's right for him. Look, you should follow us on social media, everybody. Yeah, Jason...

Because if you don't, you miss some good times. Yeah, Jason is just, he's good at giving advice. And, you know, connect with other people in the industry, be a delightful person. And then there's other things you can do to become successful. Yeah. And so Jason shared that on social media in the middle of his AMA. So check that out. But hopefully he'll find it. Spelling. Spelling. was not one of those and then getting auto corrected and not noticing because your spelling was so attractive. Okay, let's be more transparent thing. Sure. Because the problem was the spelling. Yes, it was. It's like it was two steps down the stairs that he fell because he was trying to give some, he had an AMA, you know, he's had a busy couple of days, had some downtime, went on Twitter, did an AMA. Someone asked him how to be successful in the podcast industry. He's just trying to share some good advice. Yeah.

But what let him down was his education. And so he was saying, find your niche. But then he chose to spell that, N-I-T-C-H. Oh, uh-oh. Not N-I-C-H-E. Ipsi facto, a little auto correction and not the advice I expected. But everybody's got different advice on how to succeed and he has his. Apparently his is being a big potty mouth. Yeah. So that was entertaining. We had a great show for you today. Hitting the mailbag. We've got some NFL news. Yeah, we do. A good quick question. Yeah, there's a lot that's been going on. Ooh, ooh, yeah, I just thought of another piece of that news we get to talk about. So here at the top, I want to remind you, the ultimate draft kit presale is going on right now. You can pick it up at the lowest possible price. And if you pick up the UDK Plus.

at Ultimate DraftKit.com. You get instant access to the Dynasty Pass. That means rookie and startup rankings, rookie mock drafts, dynasty trade targets, the rookie production profiles, team opportunity pages, and so much more. We're going to have an update after this combine now, probably in the next week or two. So you can get in there, see what's in there right now. Another update coming through. And, yeah, Ultimate DraftKit.com, if you want to check that out. Before said news, Mike. Brooks needs us to answer a question. Am I wearing a fedora? What is happening? The video drops are. What is happening? I would go with regress. But here's the quick question for the day, which is a regress or impressed question. In 2022, Omari Cooper finished as the wide receiver 9. Yeah. So that's a top 10. It was a great year. Top 10 fantasy wide receiver for the second time in his eight year career.

Will he do it again? Will Amari Cooper do it again? So he has a problem with... Does he have a problem? Well, I mean, he... Amari Cooper, for all the things that, like the ups and downs of his career, he has struck me as if you put the sorting hat on, you would get Gryffindor for Amari Cooper. Okay. Why is that? Because he is at odds right now with the Dark Wizard himself. Okay. You went deep on the... You tied it all together. Look, Jason's not here for the nerds and their Harry Potter stuff. Right. So... You said you got tickets to the D&D movie. Is that right? Oh, my gosh. Ladies of gentlemen, the Dungeons movie, it's going to be sensational. Okay, go on. But back to the nerds and their love for Harry Potter. Look. Deshawn Watson, aka...

Voldemort, aka he shall who not be, wait, what is it? He who shall not be named. Yes, or played for fantasy football. Look, Deshaun Watson was awful. One week, you had one good week of Amari Cooper with Deshawn Watson. All the other damage was weeks one through 12. Watson came in weeks 13 through 18. And in that time period, Cooper was averaging 59 yards a game. I apologize, apologies. 61 yards a game. Okay, much different. Three and a half catches, point three touchdowns per game and was a top 30 wide receiver one time. He was a wide receiver three. It was a great game. But like, you're, so does it all come down to Deshaun Watson for you? Yeah, 100%. And what I'm going to get to is I think, I think Deshaun Watson will improve. But.

He looked like a guy who hadn't played football for a few years, and which was the case for him. So with a full off season and everything, with what Cleveland traded, you would hope, or they would hope that Deshaun Watson will be better. But it is definitely not a guarantee that Watson... is going to be a true franchise quarterback at this point. I'll go a less complicated approach to answering the question, which is just the probability that Amari Cooper does not set another career high in touchdowns. Last year, the reason he's inside the top 10, just barely, nine touchdowns on the year, 132 target, 78 receptions, not taking a thing away from him. But he snuck in with that touchdown total. Those things are pretty variable. I do think Deshaun Watson will be fine.

I think he'll be fine for fantasy players. And I, you know, maybe, you know, you're rooting against him. I don't know. I just think he'll be fine. I think he'll figure it out. And, you know, coming in in the middle of the season after that long of a break, very difficult to do. Amari Cooper will be a very relevant fantasy player, but I don't see top 10. So I guess that would be a regression. I think there'll be other wide receivers that have opportunities in this offense as well. You know, we saw nothing from David Bell last year. whether they invest in another draft pick. There are too many things, I think, against his probability of hitting that mark. Now, a friend of the show, Matthew Barry, had put out, he puts out an article kind of every year of, like, things that he's hearing at the NFL Combine. And one of these rumors and the whispers was the Cleveland Browns are going to continue to be very pass heavy, which, like, they were trying to let Watson.

be the guy, which what Barry was pointing out in his article of there could be, there could be a limitation on Sir Nicholas Chubb's rushing attempts, which would suck for fantasy football. So, I mean, if they're going to really switch to that type of an offense, Amari Cooper should have the opportunity. He's still good. He's going to be the wide receiver one for this team, but I'm with you that I would say regress. Let's put this into the right context. Amari Cooper. regression is based on his stat line. It's not necessarily based on his fantasy value where he's not being drafted as the wide receiver 9, which is where he finished. He's being drafted at 18 right now. So I'm happy with him there. Yeah, at ADP, I would love to have Amari Cooper. I think he'll continue to be, you know, he's not the sexiest pick. Right. You associate the Browns with the running game. Deshaun Watson looked awful. Cooper's older. There's a lot of things and reasons why you might be.

kind of against him and that's probably why he'll stay around that ADP and I'm fine with it there. Yeah, I don't have a problem with it. All right, let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. All right, I want to start with the Lamar Jackson News. Good. Lamar Jackson was tagged with the non-exclusive tag. This means that, and what is it for, like $32 million, something like that, Kyle? I believe that's correct, yeah. So what this means is that he is essentially a restricted free agent in the sense that teams can approach him. They can make an offer, a contract offer to Lamar Jackson. The opportunity will be presented to Baltimore to match the offer. If they don't match the offer, they will receive two first-round draft picks. Correct. Did I miss anything in that structure?

Just that he didn't go to the Falcons. Okay, yet. Well, yeah, we haven't got there yet. So this is kind of, this is a wild situation. Yeah. You have a 26-year-old quarterback that is a former MVP and represents himself, does not have an agent. You know, we saw what happened with Jashon Watson's contract, the fully guaranteed money. The guarantees are what are a sticking point in this deal. So let's discuss this. This is not a normal situation to have a couple of two things. One, a 26-year-old MVP available. Like right now, you can go sign him. The other part is the fully guaranteed side of this. Like if that is the only kind of contract he's looking for, thus far, it seems like teams are lining up to say they're not interested, which is the strangest thing ever if you have a chance to get a game-breaking, franchise leading.

locker room, you know, leader in Lamar Jackson. So I'll jump in. Yeah. For one of the points that if you're not aware of this, so in the NFL, should Lamar Jackson be offered this fully guaranteed money, it means the owner of the team has to cut a gigantic check that's going to go sit in an escrow account and be available for Lamar Jackson. Yes, that's how guaranteed contracts work. So number one, you have to have, and I know these owners are billionaires and everything, but, I mean, you got to cut a check for $200 million or whatever and have that sit in account, and you don't have access to that anymore. So that's a sticking point, which I can see where that's coming from. But the fact that so you, what you laid out, Andy, I'm like, this is insanity.

that a true franchise quarterback is there. You just have to go and meet his financial demands right now. And we're getting team after team after team, at least allegedly saying they're out. They're not even going to try and pursue Lamar Jackson, either for the reason of the ownership can't cut that check to maybe they don't want to put in. the work because they believe that all the work on that contract focused on that player. When we're hitting free agency, there's a bunch of other players that they've got to focus on where perhaps Baltimore is just playing a game of fine. You do all the work. Write up that contract and we're just going to match it, which, I mean, that would be a win for Lamar Jackson and then that's a huge loss of time and resources for these other teams. Yeah, and there's so many facets to this. One of them being.

proving to Lamar that maybe the market for a fully guaranteed deal doesn't exist? That's what Baltimore's trying to do. That's what they're trying to do. And look, I'm not going to sit here and be the advocate for billionaire owners. Correct. However, Occam's razor says sometimes the simplest answer is the right one. And the simplest answer legitimately could be the Browns are stupid. Like the other the other ownership groups can very easily look at saying you're paying Deshaun Watson what you did to get him is. certifiably a stupid decision. He had the ability to do it. They did it. It's not how most of these teams might be able to function moving forward with the escrow, with the liquidity needed. There is the possibility that the Brown's owner, Haslam, right, is just dumb. And Lamar, the only thing I will say is Lamar who has been injured for two consecutive years. Yeah, also true. That is a hard.

You know, Watson was missing time not due to injury. Lamar's been injured for two years. Now you're like, give me $250 million with that injury. There's a lot of things that factor in. Now the Falcons, Dolphins, Panthers, commanders, and Raiders have reportedly said they're not pursuing Lamar Jackson. Three of those teams in the NFC, if Lamar goes to the NFC, there's a decent argument that he's the best NFC quarterback in the entire conference. because Aaron Rogers could be leaving. Yeah. I mean, Jalen Hertz is in contention there, right? Matthew Stafford and, you know, there's not as many, they're all in the AFC. Yeah. And so you have this opportunity. That's why the Falcons, sorry, Kyle, the Panthers and the commanders are teams that I'm like, how can you not find a way? But maybe they know, maybe they know that there is no wiggle room on fully guaranteed. Maybe they know or maybe they're.

All the ownership has wink, wink, sent the message to each other of, we need to shut this down immediately because they don't want to have to pay fully guaranteed contracts to these guys. Yeah, and it's possible. I don't want to say that that's not possible. But I do know that human nature is like, you know, you get, if you get 10 competitive people in a room together. And we all agree we're not going to eat the marshmallow on the table. It's like at some point in time, you're like, I'll be the sneaky one. Like, that's your chance to beat them all. Yeah. That's your chance to go beat them. So we still need some time for it to unfold. But for a team like Atlanta to not do this, like the trade compensation is two first round picks. And they're all like, it's very possible. I think they're at eight, right, Kyle? It's.

It's very possible that they want to take a quarterback at 8 this year. So there's one of your picks. There's one of your picks, a totally unproven player. Yeah, you have the economics of it, and you don't have to pay them a bunch. But that's one. So you're paying one extra first round pick to get a former MVP proven franchise quarterback on your team. It is insanity if these teams. actually aren't going after Lamar. Fill in the pick. Will Levis at 8? Right. Okay, Will Levis in a first for Lamar? You're like, uh, yes, please. So, yeah, it is the financial, it's certainly the commitment part. It's, it's the contract deal. I'm sure that, you know, Baltimore wants him back. But this is going to come to a head. And the deadline right now for teams to make him an offer is Wednesday, March 15th at 4 p.m. Easter. There you go.

That's the lay of the land. It's going to be wild to watch. Other quarterback news, Gino Smith agreed to a three-year deal worth $75 million. Up to. He got 40 million guaranteed at signing, which we were just talking about Gino in the past episode of it would be crazy if Gino's not a starting quarterback. So congratulations to Mr. Smith there. Maybe could have got a little bit more money, but I mean. He gets $40 million. There's incentives should he continue to play well. He'll get a whole bunch more money. And he's in a very good situation. It also keeps Seattle in contention for Anthony Richardson. Yes, it does. Because he could sit, he could learn and be the next man up in Seattle. And then Daniel Jones, Mike. Yep. What's the latest on DJ? So latest for a year, $160 million deal. Again.

I don't get caught up in totally in the numbers, but Daniel Jones will be the starting quarterback for the Giants for at least the next couple of years. They beat the buzzer, which means the two for one did happen. They didn't have to put the franchise tag on the quarterback. They immediately put it on to Sequin Barclay. So he will, Barkley will be back with the Giants as well. Is this going to be a contract that the Giants look back at with? With Daniel Jones? Yeah, is that going to be like look at Tannahill situation right now. That's kind of the one it reminds me of is like the Titans paid all this money for Tanna Hill. It looked kind of good for a little bit. But now the cap hit for Tannahill is a top five cap hit for two years where he's not maybe the quarterback that you want. Kyle pull up Tannenhill's current contract situation. I think he's like a $37 million hit. I'm saying like can they cut him and things like that? I don't recall the numbers.

Right now, sure, you can look at the Tanyhill contract and say, well, moving forward, it's not great. But the Titans have had a very good run with Ryan Tanyahu. I mean, they took their shot to try and win a Super Bowl, and they fell short, obviously, but they at least were in the running. They had a chance to make that happen. Yeah, I mean, it was tough. There was a four-year, $118 million deal. What is this for Jones? Four years, 160? Yeah. Yeah, his cap hit is $36 million this year. Tanahill or? Tanahill. Okay. So I'm not saying it's not going to work out. I just think that there are, you have to be a little bit, like you're making a commitment to Daniel Jones. Like he's your quarterback. You're not able to make a pivot here, at least in the first couple of years, right? Yeah, yes. Yeah, he'll be the starter for at least a couple of years. And, I mean, 3,200 yards, only 15 touchdowns, but five interceptions. And.

really, I mean, an additional 700 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns. But the crew around Daniel Jones was a skeleton crew. I mean, there were truly no top tier passing weapons. And they, Dable and Daniel Jones took this team from what they were last year, which was a steaming hot dumpster fire, got him into the playoffs. I mean, yeah. No, he, credit. I mean, he earned this money. It's, it. He was on the precipice of backup for life, and now he just got a $160 million deal. So, like, for Giants fans, because I've seen mixed emotions about it, you know, some are just furious that you gave Daniel Jones this money. Some are like, I don't know, I get it. I'm on the side of I get it. You have a quarterback who can help you win, and you can build around that player. And the leap that Daniel Jones took this year from his previous years, what if he?

What if he's even better next year? I know that's a pretty big hypothetical statement, but he's on a trajectory now of maybe the Giants were right all along and Gettelman and Sir Claps a lot there. We're just absolutely destroying his career. Now you have good coaches around him. Do you want to explain who Sir Claps a lot is? I can't even remember his name right now. Jason Garrett. I just all I can see is the only thing I think of for Jason Garrett. Only on this show could we remember things like Guns Mahoney and Sir Claps a lot. First nickname of the 2023 season. The videos of Jason Garrett clapping and then the photo of him leaning out the train are just social media gold. Yeah, Sir Clapslaw was not a not a helper for Daniel Jones. No, it's a good point. I mean, I just told you the landscape of the NFC quarterbacks.

Not a lot of great ones. Yeah, it's either do this, be in the race for a Super Bowl. I mean, you're not the favorite, but things can happen, or start it all over again. And most teams will be like, I want at least a chance. That's a good point. Yeah, being in the quarterback tumult that like Indianapolis is in, Carolina, that's not a fun place to live. That's why I think it's so wild with what's going on with Baltimore. I know. Yeah, because what, we didn't even, let's circle back. Okay. Because why not? What if he leaves? Exactly. Have we not? I mean, it's almost like you forget that part of the equation. If he leaves, Baltimore is the, I mean, think about the division. Yeah. I mean, what are they going to do a quarterback? You, you hope that Jimmy Garoppolo or someone could be wooed into, like you go from. Oh, please bring back Joe Flacco.

You go from franchise quarterback to a bridge quarterback, and that doesn't work. One other bit of news, I want to mention that the tea leaves are certainly pointing towards the Andre Hopkins being moved by the Arizona Cardinals. Oh, yeah. I think it's a matter of win, not if. Looks like it'll be a second rounder plus a player type of deal. And last I heard from some beat reporters, they were saying it's probably New England. Are you saying teams or? I was trying to remember the timeline. I would have to look it up. Yeah, right now there is talk that he'll be flexible with the last two years of his deal as well. So, yeah, DeAndre Hopkins could have a new home. I've heard lots of different teams there. I mean, who wouldn't want him? He's one of the best true receivers in the league. Let's go ahead and take a quick break and come back with the mailback. All right, Mikey, it's time to get into these questions. I hope you got answers. It's mailbag time. Always.

Mailbag. Jay Gris, big fan of today's man. Oh, I mean, Jay Gris is big supporter. Of the show. Yeah. We give him a platform. Pretty good hype, man. It's always there. He's always standing true. Yeah. So let's jump into the voicemails here. If you have a question for the show, go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com. Click that, submit a question button or dial the voicemail hotline. That number is 302464 TFFB. Let's start with a voicemail. Hey, ballers. This is Cody over here in Dallas, Texas. I appreciate everything you guys do. I've got a question about Tula. What do you guys think about the injuries going into next year and his future with the Dolphins? I got him in a Dynasty League as a QB2, and I don't know if I should chip him off or hold on to them and see if I can't make a three feet for the championship run. All thanks to you guys. So I appreciate you guys. Thank you.

Look, they're committed to Tua in Miami. That's step one. So I think as long as he's healthy, he's their quarterback. If he's their quarterback, he has Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle in an offensive mind that is able to put him in a position to succeed. Part two is will he stay healthy? Yeah. So, you know, it's a difficult decision because it's not the kind of decision that I like making is guessing whether or not a player gets hurt. Right? You can get burned both directions on that type of a guess. Do you have, is his concussion situation, Mike, one that you are looking at with extreme fear moving on in a dynasty league, like moving forward in a dynasty league? Yeah. If I have Tua, I'm probably holding on because the upside for fantasy football of Tua is fantastic. You saw it in multiple weeks. You saw what he could be.

Another year in the system, another full off season ready to go. He could be great. But to have three concussions in the same season. And we know of all the studies, it's kind of a snowball thing. Once you've had some bad concussions, your likelihood of another one, it is elevated. We had a 2019 review showing 3.76. times more likely. I mean, it's, it, it's incredibly, he's going to have another one someday. He probably, he probably will. And it's just, it's, it's scary, is dangerous. You've seen, you've seen multiple careers cut extremely short from, from concussions. So, I mean, if I, if I have them on my team, I'm going to hold on and. Better have another planet quarterback. But yes, you do need to be, uh, it would,

You're lucky that this is a great year to try and get another quarterback on your team. There's going to be, you know, I mean, the two great options, I believe. And then, you know, Richardson's worked his way in there. Can Levis be a quarterback? I don't know, but he's going to go in the first round. Yeah, he's going to go in the first round. So he's going to get a chance. to become a good quarterback. This is a good year to try and get some more of those guys on your team. Rob Main on Twitter, Mike, wants to know, can we explain how we are getting free agency news before the free agency period even begins? Because it technically begins next Wednesday at 4 p.m. Eastern for players with expiring contracts. Now, you're going to have the legal tampering period before that. Which news are we talking about? Oh, I dare car. Well, because car was...

Carr was, I don't believe under the rules of the new league year has to start because he got released. He got officially released by the team. So he's just a guy. He's a dude. He's a free agent. So he can go do whatever he wants to do. And teams can sign guys off the street whenever they want to. Now the other guys, their contract hasn't told yet. But you get the expectations of, you know, certain players are likely to be cut. There's the whole. business of football of what day you actually cut that player that can affect your salary cap because maybe some of it gets pushed and then you know you can designate guys as we were going to cut this guy June 1st but we'll cut him now so that he can go try and get a new job but that's that's the type of news we're getting right now you're not getting the the truly juicy stuff until the the wink legal tampering period begins that's right the very legal tampering period