Fantasy Football Daily - Fantasy Points Podcast | Ross Tucker

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

Welcome to the Fantasy Points Podcast, your ultimate destination for all things fantasy football! Join “The Guru" John Hansen and Brian Drake as they dissect the latest in NFL action, offering invaluable insights and strategies to dominate your fantasy football league. In this episode, we're thrilled to welcome former NFL player and media personality Ross Tucker, who offers a personable and energetic take on the happenings in the NFL. Whether you're a seasoned fantasy veteran or just getting started, our expert trio has you covered with in-depth analysis, expert tips, and we can even throw in a few laughs along the way. Tune in each week for the latest player projections, matchup breakdowns, and winning strategies to ensure fantasy success. Don't miss out on the excitement - subscribe now and never miss an episode of the Fantasy Points Podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm John Hansen. And on this week's edition of the Fantasy Points podcast, Brian Drake and I will chop it up with former NFL offensive lineman Ross Tucker. He of his online media empire. We'll talk about his career, him starting out in the broadcasting world. We'll talk a little football. We'll talk about the big uglies up front. And then we'll also pivot on over to a little strength. The schedule analysis as we take a look at some.

Scott Barrett's excellent strength of schedule overview up in the website at fantasy points.com. We'll cherry pick and isolate a few needle moving players because I do think at the end of the day, strength the schedule matters on a case by case basis. Some teams, some dudes need a little lift up, a little help by the schedule, and we do have some offerings here for 2024. So stay tuned. Thank you for liking and subscribing and commenting. Welcome.

All across the fantasy universe, welcome everyone. John, we've got a really fun guest on episode number three of the Fantasy Points podcast, someone who is not only a former player, but is a broadcaster and a businessman in the content creation game. I'm excited to talk to one, Ross Tucker, and I'm interested to hear how you guys connected. Yeah, what's up, Brian? And absolutely thrilled to have our guy, Ross Tucker, my guy here on the show. We were just talking in the green room, the virtual green room about how I feel like I am a fantasy broadcasting guru, basically.

I can predict who's going to have a great future career in broadcasting. And Ross and I met 2010. I just tested him and he passed Radio Row. He had just gotten out of the league. and he was very, very much interested in the broadcasting thing. We chopped it up a little bit, maybe exchange numbers or something. But I knew it at that time. Like, yeah, this guy's going to do it.

Of course, he went to Princeton. But what's up, Ross? It's great to see you. Yeah, great to see you guys. Thank you for having me. I love what you guys doing with the new show. Pump to be a part of it. And it's so funny because when you talk about that, John, like immediately two things

pop up my head, right? Number one, I don't know. know if I've ever told you this, but I grew up wanting to be a broadcast. Wow. I would say I wanted to be a football player until like sixth grade. And then I was like the last kid in my grade to go through puberty. Wow. And so seven, eighth and ninth grade, like people are bigger than me and all that stuff. And my dad is five nine a buck 65. That I know. Yeah. So I, I was like, yeah, I'm not going to be a pro football player. That's not going to happen.

But I was obsessed with Sports Illustrated. Like my school would only keep in the library the previous 10 years Sports Illustrated. So when it would go to 94, they would give me all the 83 Sports Illustrated. And I would go back and read through the 83 Sports Illustrated. So I wanted to be a broadcaster. That's awesome. And so I was going to go to like Syracuse or something. And then, you know, I gained three inches.

I averaged three inches and 30 pounds a year from eighth grade through my senior year. Wow. Like every year. And so then I got the opportunity to go to Princeton and play football there. And then what's weird is in the NFL, I didn't do any broadcasting stuff. Like when I was with the Cowboys, I interned for Rogers Stalbacks commercial real estate company. the stallback company. Yeah, yeah.

I guess I thought, you know, I went to Princeton. I can do one of these, you know, uh, highfalutin jobs or whatever. Plus, when you're in the,

when you're a player, so many guys say they're going to be broadcasters. And I could tell that the, the best jobs went to like, you know, the Hall of Fame type players. So I just kind of, but they newly are not good broadcasters.

Yes. And I just kind of forgot about it. I don't think I forgot about it, but I was just leaning in on other things. And then I went to the NFL's, first ever broadcast boot camp in 2007. I literally thought I would do finance in New York City. Wow.

But I had to do something football. I thought maybe I would just do the printing games on the radio. Because like I, you know how I am. Like I am obsessed. I love the sport. Yeah, yeah. So I went to the broadcast in boot camp and I met and I met like Steve Cohen from Sirius XM.

I met Howie Denneroff from Westwood One. And next thing I know I get hurt against the Ravens. I'm doing the Prince of games on the radio. I'm starting doing stuff for Sirius XM. I'm doing stuff for, you know, I got a job with Comcast. Like I had like three gigs while I was still on IR getting paid by Washington, which I always tell players now,

hey, if you know you're going to retire, I are your last year is a great way to go out. And you struck while the iron was hot because, you know, if you're out of the league a year or two, it might have been a little more difficult, maybe not with your drive. But also you can comment on like, you kind of start out from a fan perspective,

and maybe that's why you resonate with the audience and the fans very well, because you kind of went a little while there thinking, well, I'm not going to be a pro athlete. I'm just like everybody else, just a fan. It's so funny that you say that because what you, like I remember somebody did an article on me and they asked Justin Bannon, one of our defensive tackles.

Remember Justin Bannon, the tackle? They asked Bannon like to describe me and they said he's like the biggest football fan you've ever met that actually happened to be good enough to be able to play. That was how he described me.

Because there's some guys, do you know like Matt Light had never watched a college football game until he went to Purdue? He had never watched an NFL game until he played in one. Some guys are not into it. They're not into watching it.

They like to just play. So anyway, that's not me. They don't, and if they are, Ross, they don't care about the other positions either, right? Like the guards, they're not tracking a corner and how they're doing. I'm blown away. I'm actually blown away that guys can have that much success, not loving it. Now, I do think they love, I think they love playing, because playing and watching it are

very different, but I think they love playing, but I love, like, no joke, okay, if I'm doing a college or NFL game, but definitely college on a Saturday. Friday night, I am in my hotel looking at my phone and my laptop watching high school football games. Like, that's me. Or if I'm not driving, if I'm not driving around trying to find lights somewhere and just to go to a high school football game, primarily for the national anthem so that I can get goosebumps and my eyes can fill up during the national anthem. Like that, like I seek that out. But I love that you guys are doing this podcast and that you're killing it. It's funny.

I don't know if I ever told Brian, you definitely never heard this story. You know I'm like the luckiest podcast guy of all time, right? So when we met right before, yeah, no, right before we met Hansen, I got hired away from Sported Illustrated by ESPN to write for ESPN. They were going to pay me more money than Sports Illustrate was paying me to write. I said, okay, great.

They said, we also would like you to host our football podcast. And I was like, sure, I would love to. Literally, Brian, I had no idea what a podcast was. Never even heard of it. I mean, I had like a droid razor phone. So anyway, I started hosting there. I just knew they're going to pay me money to talk about football. So I went.

And next thing I know, it's really popular because it was like the only football podcast around in 2009, 10, and 11. So it did very, very well. And so I kind of started to talk to. some of the sponsors and some of the ad agencies and I realized how much money they were paying. I thought, hmm, interesting. So, long story short, next thing you know, I started the Ross Tucker football podcast. A year later, I started the fantasy feast year after that, thank goodness, I started a betting podcast,

the even money podcast. And so I guess I've had the whole network now for like 11 years. And it all started because they asked me if I wanted to host a podcast and I had no idea what it was. So I can't really claim anything other than being right place, right time. Hold that thought. I can't wait to dig into more about the fantasy feast and the gambling podcast. But you talk about all that ad money that they're making. Let's go pay some bills. We'll be back with Ross Tucker on the other side. At Capital One, we're more than just a credit card company. We're people just like you who believe

in the power of yes. Yes to new opportunities. Yes to second chances. Yes to a fresh start. That's why we've helped over 4 million Canadians get access to a credit card. Because at Capital One, we say yes, so you don't have to hear another no. What will you do with your yes? Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca.ca. Yes, Terms and conditions apply. All right, guys, back here with Ross Tucker, host of the Ross Tucker podcast.

You've got this whole family of network of podcasts, our guy Joe Dolan, who I've hosted shows with for two years now. does your fantasy feast. And I'm curious, you've got the football podcast, you've got the fantasy podcast, now you're doing gambling. In terms of, you know, interaction, in terms of downloads, revenue, can you see sort of where the NFL's going? And if you had to pivot a certain way, like, do you kind of see where the markets are flowing in terms of with those different specific podcasts? Yeah. So what's interesting about that is, you know, that first year, Ross Zucker football,

podcast, right? And they're all about 30 minutes. And that's daily during the season. And then three times a week in the off season, this time of year, right? And so I was able to bring over a decent amount of the audience from ESPN. But I had so many of my buddies were always asking me about fantasy football. And I might even talk to John about it before I started. I can't remember. I don't know how I got Evan Silva to be my co-s. I don't remember that connection or or how that went down. But I got Evan Silva to be my co-host. I think you're the respect you commanded as being a former player.

Right. But I don't even, my point is I don't even know how I knew him. Right. I don't know. I think I was NBC. Big force on Twitter. And he was, yeah, and he was at Rodo World or whatever. So what's so interesting is those years,

and then I think it might have been the very next year or two years later, I started the Even Money Betting podcast. and that's because it wasn't all my friends. So I probably had, like my core high school buddies, 12 of them, probably had five that would talk about fantasy a lot and ask me questions. But then there's two that would ask me about betting all the time,

like all the time. And I thought, I got to have a betting podcast. So I started an Even Money podcast with Steve Fezick. And what's interesting is that I would say, and maybe you guys have numbers that are similar, but I would say from like 2013 to 2018, maybe the fantasy one was the most popular certain times of year.

Like August, it's insane the numbers. We would do these tiers of Evan, which was like his tiers of each position group, and they would do crazy numbers, like crazy. and then, but I would say ever since PAPSA or whatever it's called, ever since betting became legalized, it feels to me like the fantasy has gone down a little bit, and with every year the betting just keeps growing and growing.

And I don't know if you guys have seen similar stuff or not, but on an individual episode basis, the Even Money betting podcast during the season is easily our biggest show, right? We record it Tuesday mornings. People listen or watch right away. It's probably double anything else we do is what that betting show is now during the season. What's interesting is that the Ross soccer football podcast is pretty much the same numbers year round. I think maybe part of that is because in the office, season, I only do three.

you know, rather than the five. But that number is very consistent, which by the way, Brian, kind of a, what annoys me about it is that a lot of the advertisers only want to advertise during football season. They only want to, and I'm like, I'm like, listen, it's the same amount of people.

But during the season, everybody's trying to advertise on the same show. So maybe I'll have three commercials, right? Maybe four even in 30 minutes. you know, like a minute, 30 seconds, whatever. In the off season, and I sell, like this past fall, I sold out during the fall, right? Like, so during football season, the show could not take any more ads, right? It was sold out.

But then the off season, there will be a couple ad spots available. And like these ad agencies, it's just like, we only can advertise on football shows during football season. It's like, wait a minute, if you advertise in May, it's the same amount of people, but it's, It'll be like the only commercial or that and the bat blue light. I go, the only two commercials they hear the whole show. Like, it's better for you guys. And they just cannot like comprehend that.

It's it's bananas to me. Man, Ross and I have so much in common, Brian, that, you know, I literally wrote down five different ways of conversations I can, we could veer off into based on what he just said. I have a high school football story. I have my own ESPN story. It's actually very similar. I can talk about my interest level as I've been re-energized to an extent for props,

you know, because I'm, I used to own player props.com, Ross. I'm the first person to register that. It was like 1999. Of course, I, like an idiot, I let it go, but it's neither here nor there. So, I mean, a lot of tanges we can go off of Ross. Oh, my gosh, John. That's unbelievable. Yeah, yeah.

I also want to touch on, like, you and I, having a lot in common in terms of like having fun with it all because you're doing all the games now in the preseason and beyond in regular season but mainly in philly i see a lot in the preseason but like you're you kind of have your own your thing going here it's like it's a madnessk in terms of like you know you being yourself but like it's it's comedy so uh just talk about that approach because you know especially for me i'm like at the end of the day we're here we're talking about fake football here all right i can't take taking it that serious, but I talk about how, you know, you like to have fun with it.

So you know what's interesting about that too is there's all this conversation about Tom Brady and how well he'll do, right, as a broadcaster. And I think he'll do well. You know, we were teammates 05 and 06 so I got treated to Cleveland for a conditional seventh round pick, the greatest honor and NFL football player can have bestowed upon them. Wow. The vaunted conditional seven. Do you know what the pick will end up in? Anyone of note? Guess what? Cleveland cut me so the condition wasn't met.

Oh. So, dude, Charles Bentley tears his knee up. Cleveland trades for me. This is funny. You guys all appreciate this. I'm one of the, I'm competing really to be a backup center guard for the Patriots, 06 training camp, okay, behind Dan Copen. And I'm supposed to be second string center that day and get the two minute drill.

So right before the two minute drill starts, the O-line coach tells somebody else, like Gene Murkowski or Russ Hochstein, he's like, Russ, you take the two-minute drill. And I'm thinking, well, that's not a good sign. That's not a good sign for me at all. Like, it's my day. So afterwards, the offensive line gets together

and coach talks to everybody. And then he says, talk, come here. I was like, yeah. And I'm glad he said that because I was going to talk to him and be like, why did I lose my two-minute drill? Like, that was my opportunity. And it was my day. And he said, so evidently, we trade you to Cleveland during practice.

Oh. And I had already been cut in my career three times. Yeah. So traded sounded so much better. Texier. I was like, I was like traded. I said, for what? And Skarnakia said, I don't know, probably a bag of balls.

Because that's him. So then I go into the. the office and like I talked to the Browns and they're like yeah we got a flight for you and I was like man I really want to have my car out there like I'll just drive over all night and they're like no you don't understand like let Charles Bentley tore his knee up you're our starting center now we don't want our starting center you know driving all through the night from Foxborough Massachusetts to Cleveland they're like just we'll ship your car and what's interesting is if you get cut, you get nothing. If you get traded, they have to pay all your, all your travel expenses.

Oh, nice. So they have to pay to ship your car if you get traded. Right. It's funny little, little things like that. Relocation services. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I fly to Cleveland and anyway, so I'm a Brown. I start the next three preseason games. I thought I played pretty well. I played average. I was an average player. Yeah. Final cutdown day. They trade for Hank Fraily from the and cut me. Oh. And I went to Romeo Cornell and Bill Savage. I was like, you're cutting me? And they said, yeah, but they weren't, they wouldn't tell me they were trading for Hank Fraily yet. You know, because it wasn't official. You were a pawn. Yeah, I was, I was like, hold a second. I said, how you did a trade for somebody? And then they come in like, I'm an average player. You traded for me.

I came and I did average. I did exactly what you'd try. traded for. Like I gave you guys what you thought you were getting. And then you and then you cut me. That was rough. Why was I telling that story? Something about, well, we're talking about broadcasting. Yeah, yeah. What I was saying is he'll be good on the preparation. By way, Brian, you don't know me that well. This is like how John and I are. Like, we're 19 minutes. And we haven't like that like this is just how I am. So the one point I was going to make. I can't tell you John how much it means when you say that, when you, when you first of all predicted that I would be good and that you like what I bring to the table. And I've had at least now five to 10 people say

the Madden thing, which is so humbling. It's not, it's not intentional. Right. Right. But I do think some of the stuff I say is probably because I watched him do a zillion, you know, you can't help it, right? I watched him do a zillion games over the years. Have you ever met Mad, meet, do you meet Madden? No. Well, no, I regret that and I wish I had. But my point is this, and I'll, I'll wrap it up here. Yeah.

Preparation's important. And Tom will be great at that. I do think, though, there's a certain component that's just what's your natural personality? You know what I mean? Like, I'm a naturally outgoing person. I like to, like people, I think, it's funny, when I do a game, 95% of the people it feels like really like me. And 5% don't.

Because I think for some people, like my energy and my excitement and my laughing and my humor, I think for some people, it's like, whoa, it's like too much for them. Right. Right. But the way I look at it is if you're doing something that 95% of people are going to love, like you're never going to get 100%. Like if you just try to play it safe, you're not. going to get 95% of people that really really or 90 or whatever the number that really love you.

You got to be who you are. And so I'll be curious to see what Brady's personality is like on the air. But anyway, I appreciate that. I love it, man. Every time I'm about to complain, I'm about to complain, I'm like your eighth grade self would kick your butt right now. Like this is unbelievable that you're getting paid to go to this game tomorrow and like I would complain about travel or whatever like suck it up buttercup. I don't want to speak for John Madden, but. having had a little relationship with John Madden, he, he somehow, he's one of these things. Like he, if he gravitated toward you for whatever reason and he liked you, if he liked you, he liked you. And he wouldn't like you unless he could see the authenticity.

Like, you know, you were totally 100% being authentic. Then the sky's the limit. And I think that's kind of what he liked about me. And I'm sure he would have felt the same way about you, but we should talk a little football here, Ross, not to pigeonhole you into talking about the big uglies, but let's get into it here. And I know you're, um, I do want to focus on the O line, Ross, because I think it's important. I think we need to isolate the four or five lines that have really helped themselves, uh, this year. And, you know, let's draft accordingly. How about those Pittsburgh Steelers? Uh, are we looking at like a top 10 line, top seven line here this year? Well, so in fairness, not done my O-line rankings yet, but yes, yes.

I mean, significant upgrades. They might have gotten two of like my three or four favorite rookies in the draft. I mean, that Fataunu guy from Washington, I love that guy. And then Frazier, a four-time state wrestling champ, like those guys are both, here's the thing. They're not just good players, they're badass.

They're badasses. You know what I mean? Like they are, they are Pittsburgh Steelers through and through. And the fans are going to absolutely love them. And I love that the Steelers are kind of getting back to their identity a little bit. Oh, big time. Big time. Let's pound people.

Let's be more physical. They've always been that way on defense. And, you know, they finally told Najee Harris, he finally watched, you know, some Bam Morris and Barry Foster videos and found out how you run. run. If you're the Pittsburgh Steelers running back, you go downhill, especially if you're a big guy. By the way, I will say this fantasy nugget. Love the fact that Najee Harris is losing some weight for this year as a contract year. If you took every guy in the off season that's ever gained weight or lost weight, okay? And like people wrote articles about it. I would buy any guy that ever

lose his weight and I would sell the guys that gain weight for the most part. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's a benefit, but not always. A lot of times it's not. I love when I read about a guy losing weight. I get a little bit nervous when he's talking about trying to put weight on. Absolutely. One one rare example was that from this last year, Rashad White told me in June that he had packed on like 10 pounds of muscle, but it was to withhold the rigors of, you know, Belcal duty. And that did work. I think he lost a little juice, but I'm with you.

By the way, Najee Harris, 11th best explosive run percentage among 68 running backs with at least 50 carries last year per fantasy points data, Brian. So we're even getting slimmer and trimmer. And this backfield can support two RB2s under Arthur Smith, who wants to run like we got leather helmets on. Let me ask a question about America's team. But first, let's step aside more with Ross Tucker from the Ross Tucker podcast after this. All right, Ross, welcome back in.

It's the Fantasy Points podcast, Brian Drake, the guru, John Hansen. Talking with Ross Tucker, I want to ask you about the Dallas Cowboys. For years, the media has thrown in our face, shoved down our throat, this is the best O line in the league. You can run behind them for a thousand yards. Your grandmother could do it. Well, now we're looking at Tyler Guyton at left tackle, Terrence Steele at right tackle. They lost their center, Biotish.

He's out of town. So I think there's some kinks in the armor there. And you're looking at Zeke Elliott, RICO Dowdle, maybe running the ball, you know, for us fantasy guys out there. What are your thoughts on the Cowboys and what they're doing with this O line? I don't only know what the Cowboys are doing, period. I really don't understand. I don't know how by far the team that makes the most money and is,

worth the most money can also be the team that might be the worst contract team in the entire league. Yeah, because they don't go aggressively, proactively to get the guys locked up long term. They wait too long and pay too much. I am, I am blown away by the strategy. And Jerry Jones says he wants to see some more hands get played. Like what I would want to say to Jerry Jones is, what would have to happen for you to not give C.D. Lamb a new contract. Exactly. Like what would, like, does he have to rupture both Patela quad tendon? Like, like, what would have to happen for him that?

Or like Micah Parsons. What are you, just so everybody knows. And I live near there and I do their preseason games, so I'm biased, blah, blah, blah. But like, Micah Parsons and C.D. Lamb, if they played for the Philadelphia Eagles, would both already be signed. through like 2028. Okay? They wouldn't be.

They would be because they're the type of people, there is no scenario, plausible scenario in my mind where the Cowboys let those guys go. It's their best offensive player and their best defensive player. And maybe the best defensive player in the league. I mean, it is rare to see a guy that moves differently than everybody else. And that's what I see when I see Parsons play.

I mean, he really, nobody else moves like that guy does. It's just crazy. The amount of guys he makes whiff like in a close space, it's bananas. Yeah. But there's no scenario where the Cowboys let those guys go. So all they're really doing is allowing the price to go up and messing with their salary cap in the process. That's the only thing they're accomplishing.

And so what happens, Brian is you get to the point where you don't want to keep Tyrant Smith, you don't want to pay him, you don't want to pay Be Otis, and you think we can just fill it with young guys. And to their credit, they've been a really good job drafting offensive linemen, right? Tyron Smith, Zach Martin, even I thought McGovern was a good pick in the third round. He's in Buffalo now.

Obviously, Tyler Smith is a really good player. So they're really good at drafting offensive linemen, so they have confidence in themselves there. but I would submit to you with Guyton at left tackle and it might even be Cooper Beebe at center. He might be their starting center. That to me is at least one loss. Like if you're starting, arguably the two most important positions,

left tackle and center, you're starting two rookies. I would be shocked if they did not lose a game because of those two guys. Maybe Beebe messes something up mentally. Maybe Guyton blocks the wrong game. guy or just gets beat, you know, those are tough positions to play right away as we're, and it's not like these guys are like top 20 picks, you know, Dighton was like the 10th tackle off the board and Cooper Beebe played guard at Kansas State. So, you know, they'll still be a pretty

good team this year. But my theory on on the Cowboys this, this offseason is that it's like that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza decides to do the. opposite of anything he's ever done in life because it's never worked for him. I feel like Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones were out to dinner and they're like, you know what? We've been trying to make the team better. We got Gilmore and Brandon Cooks last year. We did this.

And we still just losing the playoffs every year. And they were like, what if we just did the opposite? What if we did nothing to get better? What if we just let some of our best players leave? Like maybe it's just crazy enough. It might work. That's what they've. done this off seat. They've done nothing to get better and they've done they've lost guys.

You can't argue they have a better team. You can't argue that they're deeper. Now, maybe they'll be better. Maybe they'll play better and maybe the playoff game will go differently this year. But it is, if I'm Jerry Jones, he's like in his 80s now. Like, dude, if I, if I'm if I'm ever in my 80s and I own an NFL team and I'm worth billions and billions, just for the record, just just write this down. We're going all in that year. And then the next year we're going all in again. I'm going all until I die. Okay, that would be my theory at that point.

I'm short. I'm balding. I live with my parents and I'm unemployed. Like, let's go on a date. And the girl's like, hey, hi. She goes, what was the response? She goes, I'm Elizabeth. Ross, what about the Tennessee Titans?

This line was an absolute shite show last year. Even though Derek Henry ran pretty well, it looked bad. but Skoransky looked like that was a good pick. Obviously, now J.C. Latham, bring in Cushingberry. Have we done enough here in Tennessee? Because this is an interesting offense with Brian Callahan moving over. They're going to actually be into the forward pass when you look at what they've done, bringing in Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd.

And I love Tage Spears. What do you think of the Titans O-Wine? Well, so first of all, I respect the additions they've made at the skill, the receiver, because they need to decide at the end of this year whether Levis is the guy or not. And by the way, I thought he did some really positive things last year. I was,

I called their game against the Steelers. I was like, damn, this guy's pretty good. I mean, he would stand in there. He would deliver. Some quarterbacks,

you can tell it's just too big for them. It's just going too fast for them. That was not, like to me, and he wasn't C.J. Stroud, but Levis looked like he belonged. Levis looked like he belonged.

belong more than Bryce Young did. I can tell you that much. A lot to work with physically, for sure. Yeah, Levis looked like he belonged. So I like that they brought in these receivers to make sure that Levis had enough around him so that they could see what they had in him. You know, it's interesting, John, when you mentioned their offensive line, you didn't mention their biggest addition.

It's Bill Callahan as the offensive line coach. That is huge. Guys, I had nine different offensive line coach, the NFL. when I tell you there's a big gap between the really good ones and the really bad ones, it's big and it's significant. And it's hard to quantify what that means in terms of wins and losses. But it is definitely a factor. I mean, definitely.

I'm sorry to cut you off, but a guy like Munchek, like wherever he goes, it's like, okay, they're going to have good old line play now. It's unbelievable. And think about how much that's worth to a franchise. Yeah. So when's the last time a team had good O line play and they suck? Never. There's never a team where you're like, man, they got the best O line in the league.

I'm shocked. They're four and 13. That's never happened. That's not a thing, right? Jeff Stoutland stays with the Eagles, no matter who's the head coach. Jeff Stoutland's your offensive line coach. Right. And the Eagles are always at least pretty good.

And the one year they weren't, 2020, they had so many O line injuries. They had guys, Jamon Brown. They signed them on Tuesday. It was starting on Sunday. And that's why they always draft them. That's why they always keep 10 because they decided we're never going to let that happen again. We're never going to let that happen again.

So I think Callahan is a significant addition in Tennessee. A significant addition. And by the way, the whole thing like, I knew, I didn't know that Vrabel was going to be out of there. But when they signed Andre Dillard last year, André Dillard is the exact antithesis of what Mike Rable wants in a football player. Yeah. So the fact that they signed him last year, do a good contract, I was like, there's no way

Rable signed off on that. This is Ran Carthon and he and Rable are not on the same page. Because it just, that would not have been a guy that Rable would have been like, yes, he's just not a physical guy. Like, that's just not what he's about. And that's the opposite. how Vrabel feels. I think that disconnect started with the AJ Brown trade too. Oh gosh. Well, that was before Ran Carthon. That was actually Robinson, right.

Yeah. But there's a schism there with the organization. Memorial Day weekend, you know, that's when everyone's listening to this podcast. And so we're enjoying a couple of beverages outside. Something you're known for, and I've, I've sent some tweets your way is hashtag show me your beer. John talked about how fun you are in the booth. And that's something you've brought to social media. Not only are you talking about great press food, you know, in these boxes, but you're having people send beers to you.

I want to know, John, I want to know Ross, what are you drinking on Memorial Day weekend? I know Ross is an IPA bro like me. And John, we talked about that last night. You could do without those, you know, pale ales. I'm a logger guy. It's probably

a little pretentious, but my favorite beer really is Peroni. which is absolutely delicious. It's much like Estella Artois, but I am a logger guy all the way. You know what's interesting? I am an IPA guy.

And I've been such an IPA guy for so long that it's almost, I'm enjoying other beers now. Oh, that reminds me. I need to reach out to Troy Aitman because Troy Aitman, name drop. Troy Aitman has this beer called eight. Yeah.

Lager. and it's uh it's in and he sent me a case of it and it's good it's like organic 90 calories but it's tasty like it's got a nice flavor to it so what i do now is i'll have an ipa or two and then i'll switch to like a refreshing like labat blue light which is my sponsor delicious love labat blue light living in upstate new york we got a lot of it up here where do you live i'm in syracuse so oh gosh yeah of course yeah it's so i love so when we when i was a player with the bills fridays after practice we would go to the big tree in okay on a friday and we would get wings chicken fries which were absolutely delicious it's like french fries but chicken but it was like the the texture of like a really

good chicken nugget but in the shape of a long fry it was so good and the entire The entire table, it would be the O line and Drew Bledsoe. The entire table, by after like an hour and a half, would be Labat Blue and Labat Blue Light. I'm telling you, 30 to 40 bottles easily in an hour. And Bledsoe would just pick up the tab. It was amazing. Wow. So, yes, I love me some Labat blue light now, for sure.

I just find the lager to be a lot more refreshing. Yes. And I like that on a hot day. And I also like it. You know a beer? I like, my buddy's really into Modelo. I like a nice Modelo. Moldo is a lager.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I like Modellos too. That's huge. That took over last year for a period. It passed Bud Light is the number one beer in the United States. It's unbelievable, right?

I feel like I never even heard of Modello like five years ago or 10 years ago. And now it's so popular. I went to a Dodgers game a few years back. And I walk into this, you know, like, gas station or something. I'm getting some beers for the parking lot. And it's all, like you don't see that upstate New York. You know, like I said, it's all, you know, bud light, blue light, Miller light, stuff like that. And then it's it's all Modelo and Corona. So it's a whole different world out there. Well, let's talk also about, you know, if we're,

if we're out there grilling and cooking this weekend and you're all about the press box food, who's got the best and who's got the worst press box food in the NFL? Good question. It is funny, by the way, this is very good for me. Anytime it reinforces that you guys notice that I do the show me your beer and the hashtag tuck spreads, like that just reinforces it. Like, it's a thing. And I've been able to monetize both of those at times, which is just like, I just put a picture in my beer on social media and I can monetize that or like tuck spreads, you know. It's consistency, Ross. That's your key word. That's your word. Consistency. Consistency. And, anybody can send you a beer so the algorithm likes it and then people like to look at food videos

they're like and they're genuinely curious about what gets served in these stadiums like yeah it's so i would tell you my favorite place to go is lambo wow in particular for a noon game a noon kick because you get there at 9 a.m. They've got two guys running the omelette station. Okay. So right when you get there, don't have breakfast at the hotel, wait until you get there, omelets. Go down on the field. Talk to some players, talk to some coaches, whatever.

Come back up. They'll have pulled pork and mac and cheese, probably the best salad bar in the league. They always have Coke zero, which is critical. like it tastes like Coke, but it's zero calories. I don't understand people that drink Diet Coke or regular Coke. What are we even doing? What, you know, it's called Coke Zero. It's been around for a while now.

Anyway, they have that. And so what I do is I get a whole plate of the pulled pork. And I put the mac and cheese on top. I'm at the stage of my life where mac and cheese is more like a condiment or like a topping for me. I had this exact thing yesterday. You don't have mac and cheese for dinner. What are you eight years old like my daughters? You don't mac.

Oh, me have mac and cheese. No, no, no, no. There needs to be a protein involved. And you mix the mac and cheese in with the protein, please. You're doing pretty well. You must work out a lot, Ross. I mean, how often you recognize? Twice a day.

Twice a day, unfortunately. Yeah, because you really have avoided the dad bought thing, which I had a dad bought thing. I'm trying. Trying. The beer and the food does not help. I was just at a college graduation party that was at a brewery. So I had a beer. I had like five slices of meat lovers pizza.

But anyway, to finish up the Lambo thing, half time, which is tougher now because they made it shorter, two brats at half time. Oh, yeah. Two brats. One with the bun, one without the bun. I don't really need the bun, but it does make it a little bit better. Got to have the spicy mustard. Anyway, I leave Lambo fat and happy. And who's the worst?

I'm going to guess because they're a cheap franchise, the Bengals. Bengals are okay. The worst, it's actually, might have changed now with the new ownership. The worst was always Washington. Yeah. It was always Washington. They made clear upgrades last year and the new owner, including like they had like an ice cream box, like where you could grab like frozen ice cream.

It's so funny because I'm like kind of tongue in cheek, but kind of not. The press box food is a reflection on the organization, right? It is. Right. It's like anything else in life, right? So you have these people- Like the hors d'oeuvres you serve at a dinner party, like, you know. You have these people coming to your stadium.

These are the people that are the voice of the team to the public, right? And if you stink, they're going to say you stink. And if you're good, they're going to say you're good. But there's also stuff in the middle, but also why wouldn't you want to put your best foot forward? It's almost like Daniel. Snyder said, I hate the media, screw those guys, giving the worst food you got. You know what? Whereas other organizations are like, you know what? Why would we, why would we try to be bad at anything? Why don't we try to be good at everything we do?

Snyder's like one grade higher than prison food for those scum, the media. So true. We want to be respectful of your time here. Ross, thanks for joining us here on this this fantastic Memorial Day weekend. I want to, though, hit on the NFL is going to be streamed on five different new platforms this year. I mean, there's Netflix, there's ESPN Plus, there's Amazon, Pornhub, wherever they're putting games this year. So is this a good thing for the NFL, for the fans, for the growth of the game?

It's going to cost you a zillion dollars to watch all these games nowadays. I don't know how you argue it's a good thing for the fans to have to, you know, if they want to watch every game to have to subscribe to all these different services, I think that's a hard argument to make. But they're not, they're not really making an argument, right? Like, it's a good thing for the league. And remember,

I'm a former player, right? The players get 48.5% of every dollar. So it's like people like, oh, they're making the players play on a short week on Christmas. Yeah. For $150 million. $150 million.

And only four teams have to do it. Okay. So $150 million. So the players get almost 50% of that. So $75 million goes to the players for 12%, four of the 32 teams having to play on a short week, a game they already have to play. It's not like this is an extra game. They're signed up for 17 games. Okay. They're playing 17. Chuck Bednerick played both ways, guys. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like, that's why I laugh about all the extra game. You realize if you went in the locker room, okay, on January 3rd, after week 18, and you went to the teams that didn't make the playoffs. And you're like, guys, we can play one more next week and everybody gets another,

another paycheck. These guys are making, like, if you make 1.7 or you make 1.8 million, right? Yeah. get $100,000 a week, a week. Every guy in the locker, almost every guy would be like at the end of the seat, they're not going to only make you practice hard because they know you're kind of beat up and sore. You have the next seven months to do nothing, six months to just let your body heal. Every guy would be like another hundred grand for two more days of practice and one more game. Yeah. Yes, direct deposit. Don't even have to go to the back. It just shows up in your bank.

And if you're with Washington, it's not direct deposit. It's a paper check because I think they hope that people forget to deposit them. And it's the last day they're legally allowed to give it to you. So they pay you for a two-week period. And they pay you the last day that they're legally allowed to pay you for that prior two-week period to get every cent of interest that they can possibly get. And they did not have direct deposit. They probably have to now, but they didn't back then.

That's pure evil right there. Jeez, Louise. So a lot of fun here with our good pal, Ross Tucker. If you're following them or you're not following him on the old Twitter machine or X or whatever you're calling it this weekend at Ross Tucker NFL, want to make sure you're checking out the Ross Tucker podcast. He's on Westwood One. He's on CBS.

You're filling in for Dan Patrick here and there. I love catching on there, you know, with the Danettes. It's just a great pleasure to have you here on the. the Fantasy Points podcast, Ross. We appreciate your time here. And getting ready for that 20, 24 season. But before we get to there, we're going to have to have some nice summer beers beforehand.

So thanks for the time, my friend. Hey, my pleasure. Absolutely. Congratulations to all the success you're having. And make sure everybody listening or watching, check out the Fantasy Feast with my guy, Joe Dolan from FantasyPoint.com. You've probably heard of it. He is fantastic.

I, John recommended him and John, you hit it out of the park. There's a guy that A loves it and B has the combination of the knowledge of preparation plus the delivery. I mean, you're not even knowing he's supposed to swear on my shows. And last week, he called Malachi Corley an asshole twice on my show. I'm like, Joe, what are we doing here? He's like, that guy is an asshole. And I mean it as a compliment. man, he is an asshole.

I was like, all right, cool. Tom Brady was an asshole, too, in that regard. Thank you, guys. You got to. You're the man, Ross. All right. On the other side, guys, we'll be back a little more fantasy talk with the guru. Stay with us.

All right, John. What a great interview with Ross Tucker. Super interesting guy, man. I wish I had that work ethic. This guy's got 58 different podcasts going, and he's at breweries, and he's calling games. So I really hope people enjoyed getting to know Ross Tucker if they weren't familiar with his work.

somebody else you need to be familiar with is Scott Barrett because Scott, he of dank stats is killing it and has been killing it for years over at FantasyPoints.com. You should all be following him on the old Twitter machine at Scott Barrett DFB. And maybe one of your best hires there, John, is Barrett because he gets so in the weeds with these numbers. And it's perfect for the Fantasy Points data suite that we now have. And if you're signing up at fantasy points.com and reading these articles, we're going to get into strength of schedule here in a second.

I mean, there's just so much information that these other guys in your league are not going to have. Yeah, no question. And Scott is really, really good. You know, him and I are processes are a little different, but we do have a lot of similarities in that we, you know, I think we produce content that people are willing to pay for at the end of the day. I mean, really, I think that's the crux of the matter. And a lot of that is because we're completely and fully immersed in this stuff. We're all up in there. And we have a passion and a desire to get it right. I mean, not to speak for Scott, but that's really at the end of the day, all I really care about.

I don't care how I get there as long as I'm correct with my analysis. And yeah, strength of schedule, the impact of it overall has diminished, I'd say. but I still think it's very important on a case-by-case basis. I'll even bring up how a bad schedule early in the year can ruin everything. The New York Giants, that's all I have to say, because, you know, they won a playoff game the year before. You know, they were very competitive. Daniel Jones was a QB1. So we're like, all right, year two, get a little bit more, you know, get Sequin Barkley back,

a little bit more, you know, Ed receiver, a little bit more talent, you know, Darren Waller. Like, let's go. No, we didn't go anywhere. Why? Because I got their asses kicked by a couple of defenses really early in the year. Dallas and Sam Fran. And like they completely derailed their entire season. And Daniel Jones was shell-shocked. And now we wonder if the dude will ever have a career.

So let's just kind of take a top line view of this strength of schedule article. And again, if you're listening to us here, go over to fantasy points.com. Make sure you're reading it. So what Scott decided to do is look, position by position, quarterback, running back, receiver, tight end. not only does he look at their current season, but he goes back to last season and he makes some kind of interesting tweaks and they look at who has improved their schedule over last season. Because again, you can't look at this in a vacuum. It's not the same.

The same teams that played in 2023 aren't the same teams playing in 24. There's different personnel, different coaches. It's just a different game. But, you know, we got to try to find that slim edge in fantasy football and looking at strength of schedule is one of the ways we can find it. So let's start with the quarterback position. And I want to go down to a guy who has what Scott says is the best overall schedule weeks one to 17. Again, we're talking regular season here. So maybe you can use this for your regular season. Home League, best ball, you know, we'll kind of get into a lot of that if you read the article.

But John, it's a guy that you've been touting now seemingly for two years. It's Jordan Love, the Green Bay Packers. The number one schedule weeks. one to 17. What do you like about love? I mean, what's there not to like about love after what we saw last year? Yeah, no, if we if you go back and look at that video I did last year, I only did a few of them or really, only one. I did one long form video on Jordan Love. So I added up the pros and the cons and I came to a conclusion at the end of the video. You could watch it. The conclusion was it was going to work out well, basically. And I did place a lot of weight on the strength of schedule because I studied it and I'm like there are no shutdown defenses here this is a very

good schedule conducive to production you know part of that is you know luck of the draw but here we are luckily for them they didn't win the division actually picked them to win the division that was a controversial pick and it almost came true but so that helps uh although jared goff's schedule is also good so it clearly is a function of them playing the weaker aFC south let's be honest but once again philly indy tennessee minnesota l a rams without arnold and rheim morris uh arizona this is unbelievable houston is probably i mean that might be the biggest challenge right there houston week seven jackson lamo yeah and it's in limbo yeah jacksonville detroit chicago of course you have the niners um that's that's home too and that's good miami could be a challenge also

at Detroit, at Seattle, New Orleans, at Minnesota, Chicago. I mean, there is really nothing there at all to be afraid of. None of these defenses are anything really close other than San Fran to being dominant. So look, it's it's only one of like 26 factors involved with a quarterback, but I like this when, you know, maybe you're you're not yet truly elite yet. And, you know, your margin for errors somewhat small. You need a little bit of boost, a little bit of help. The schedule is a nice thing, and it's good here for love.

So it's great news for everyone involved. Let's stay in that same division with another quarterback that has a great schedule. Scott has him in the top five. And it's Caleb Williams, the rookie quarterback, you know, number one overall pick. There's a lot of folks out there who think that he could be a top 12 fantasy producer here in his rookie season. Look at what he gets to do this year. Starts off. He's got a home game with the Tennessee Titans,

goes at the Houston Texans, at Indianapolis. So, you know, he gets a couple of, I think he gets at 1.3 straight dome games. So there's a lot to like about the Bears down the stretch. You know, there's some dome games in here at Detroit. Then in the fantasy playoffs starts at Minnesota, home for Detroit. And then, you know, he's at Seattle at Soldier Field. So I'm not loving that necessarily in the fantasy playoffs.

if you're buying into Caleb Williams, do you look at that playoff schedule and say, geez Louise, last two games of the season, for the fantasy season at least, or in Soldier Field, are you scared off at all by that? Not really.

I mean, look, he's also a cheat code guy. So if we're really playing competitive football and we have a big game against Detroit, you know, I think Caleb Williams' rookie season will be over. You know, if you get,

if you're bowling at things, Thanksgiving, you're no longer a rookie. I think, were we looking at C.J. Stroud really is a rookie. I mean, maybe in the playoff game, you know, but even then, he was pretty darn good. So I think if they're playing competitively and the Lions are on their guard because they're protecting, you know, a playoff spot at the time, that would mean that Caleb Williams is playing well. And this schedule helps because, you know, again, nothing really scary.

I mean, Houston's D might be a challenge in Houston right out of the gate. you know they were very well coached last year indy secondary is really suspect so is the rams rheim morris did it last year with a lot of scheme uh and no more aaron donald carolina has talent but they're kind of all over the place so yeah i i would feel you know there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about cala williams let's throw strength the schedule on the pile along with stud receiving core you know decent o line granted you know we're all new to the system they were Shane Waldron, but also a pretty proven guy in Shane Waldron, who was there when Geno Smith had a career resurrection.

You mentioned the receiving core. If you go over and you read the receiver article that Scott put up, the first player he talks about is Keenan Allen. Now, the new bear is going to, he's going to benefit from this strength of schedule, which Scott says is the number one difference from 2023 to 2024. Again, that's on an individualized basis. he played for a different team last year. But still, you'll look at Keenan Allen,

what he did last year, finishing as wide receiver 3 in fantasy points per game, and he's been a top 12 fantasy points per game guy the last seven seasons. His ADP right now, John, is wide receiver 30. Does that seem a little off to you? I mean, there are a number of situations like, and this is one of the biggest ones where it's like,

guys, Houston comes to mind as well, where like unless our quarterback is throwing for 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns, I don't know how we're going to support all these number or top 30 receivers, basically. I'm, you know, me, I'm an ageist. I think I would look a little, I look a little bit more at, you know, the quarterback, obviously, because, you know, a great schedule for Keenan Allen could certainly be a great schedule for DJ Moore.

But I've got to make Wivesy for 36 myself. So I guess I'm a little below the markets. I'm a little ahead of the markets on DJ Moore. So I'm a little more bullish on more. But by the way, Roma Dunzee is one of the most egregious rankings I've ever seen. Last year, I was railing against the JSN and Quentin Johnson rankings. That seemed to work out okay in terms of the analysis. And I feel, you know, I'm just going with what I'm seeing and feeling.

and like, guys, we can't invent a new game with two footballs, basically. And Roma Dunza, there's no way he's going to be able to put up top 40 numbers if DJ Moore and Keenan Allen are healthy. And, you know, let's say their backfield remains relatively healthy. So something's got to give. But hey, look, end of the day, if I'm considering Keenan Allen, this is worth noting. And again, it's another positive for me on Caleb Williams and the bear passing game in general. Well, those are some of the guys with the best overall schedule for the beginning or for the full season.

If you want the full list, again, go over to Fantasy Points.com, read Scott's article. How about some of the guys with the worst overall schedule at quarterback, John? And number one is Joe Burrow. Okay? This is overall schedule, again, compared to what he had last year. Now, Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert lead this list, numbers one and two. Joe Burrow, though, coming back, healthy with this receiving court. God bless America, T. Higgins plays, you know, more than five games this year because, you know,

we go back and listen to our Schefter podcast and, you know, he talked about some apprehension he has with T. Higgins. Does this schedule scare you off Joe Burrow at all? No, I think, yeah, it does. I mean, look, that's a nasty division. I mean, it's brutal. Like, is there any worse feeling than you just got done a rough, loss in fantasy and Burroughs your quarterback, let's say. And you're like, ah, man, that was brutal. All right. Well, who we got this week? You're like, oh, Jesus, we got the Browns. I mean,

Burrow craps his pants against the Browns. I mean, it's, it's unbelievable. Go look at the game logs and look at the split. So yeah, I am concerned. I'm very concerned about this T. Higgins situation. I do like Jermaine Burton a lot. But, you know, you probably know this, Brian, but I was a major borough person. In fact, after he won the natty, because I happened to watch a lot of LSU games that year, I think it was COVID. I was stuck in a hotel room in Los Angeles flying out there. So I saw a lot of Burrow. And I got a Tom Brady vibe. I'm like, this guy is more athletic Tom Brady. So I tweeted, Burroughs the next Tom Brady after he won as he transit last game. Hey, so that's, that's a very, very hot take and a strong take and, you know, seemed to be hot takey at the time.

but I truly meant it. Like, this guy's special. And he is. But we're getting a little word here. Thank God that hair meme and image was fake, right? I believe that was a fake. I don't know. I memed it out.

I put him on the cover of poisons. Look with the cat dragged in. I looked amazing. But I see, I didn't like it. I got a really, really bad vibe from it. So I was about ready to take two touchdowns away from his projection. I mean, I'll be honest here.

I would kill to have that hair. I would do it. Oh, sure. I mean, give me a break. I'll do very dirty evil things to get that locks. True. But, you know, I look Cleveland twice, obviously Baltimore twice. Pittsburgh is going to be a handful. I mean, they're loading up here. If they, if they're healthy, they're nasty. They're going to be really good in general. I mean, they're looking good. They're powerful. So Burrow is not all my players to target list. I'll say that for the first time ever. You know, I'll consider them.

But, you know, you combine that with, you know, Patriots, Chiefs, Baltimore, you know, Philly might get their act together by then under Vic Vangio. I mean, they might be great by then. So, yeah, I'm worried because, you know, I must say, I was at the combine and I was talking with someone close to the situation and the team. And Cliff notes version, apparently Burrow, he's not down for playing under center. Maybe he will this year. But he's like, nah.

And we're like, what? You know, like, but this is maybe the young entitlement nowadays. These guys calling their shots more than ever. I don't know if there's truth to it, but he is never under center, which begs the question, why? Because I like quarterbacks under center. You can do so much more play action and things like that. So, you know, that's, that's a thing that just, that was a vibe. That was a thing that I heard that.

I was like, ah, that's, that's not great. So look, I'll even go as far to say, and I've been, again, I'm a huge borough person. If he has another injury hiccub, I'm going to be like, that's it. I'm done. I'm out. I'm out for this year. Some other nuggets you can glean from this article is quarterbacks who could get off to a hot start in the first five games. Some names in there you might like for your fantasy team include Jared Gough, Josh Allen.

And then they talked about some slow starters. Herbert, Prescott, Joey B, again. The last thing I want to talk about with the quarterbacks before we move on to running back, John, is the playoff schedule because I know so many fantasy players out there, they look at that when they're on the clock, they're getting ready to pick their quarterback or running back. They're like, oh, who they're playing in the fantasy playoffs.

And there's a couple of guys here for quarterback, what Scott claims is the best playoff schedule. Brock Purdy, Jaden Daniels, and both of those guys, for whatever reason, are, in my mind, values at the quarterback position. Best ball especially. And I want to pull up Jaden Daniels because I'm just always intrigued by these guys who can run a little bit. His playoff schedule is at the Saints. So you're in a dome against the Saints. God knows what they'll be at that point.

Then he gets back-to-back home games with the Eagles and Falcons. I think those could be a little, you know, last year the Eagles obviously fell apart. the back end. They spend a lot of resources to fix that in the draft. And, you know, C.J. Gardner Johnson and then Atlanta championship week, you know, playing in in Landover, it's not likely you're going to have any bad weather. But man, I'm big on Jane Daniels this year. I'd love to have him. And best ball for sure. But I kind of think I'm going to sneak him on a ton of of my season long teams as that like upside QB2. Sure. Sure. And Saints will see, maybe they know they won't i guess they they play a lot of man that leaves them a little vulnerable uh falcons

they they won't be man they'll be they'll be zone heavy uh but it could run on the saints uh for sure there was another one here that that was intriguing to me oh you know what if you don't mind and look brock purdy it not it doesn't hurt but i will say just while we're talking strength the schedule. I saw DAC on the slow starter list. Also see J.J. McCarthy on the slow starter list. One thing I learned, well, not that I didn't know it already, but one thing that kind of came out last year was you could call shots based on strength of schedule. And I'll give you a great example of it, actually. Dak, after that game against the Niners, you know, I'm sitting there doing season projections. So I'm looking at the strength of the schedule. You know, I do that normally

on like Monday, Tuesday, early in the week, I update season projections. And I just happen to notice like, oh, wow, you know, the Cowboys are out of the woods here after this game. So what did I do on the players to trade and trade for article? I wrote up a big thing on Dak Prescott. I'm like, look, you're in a two quarterback league? You're desperate for a needle mover?

Like, let's do this. Let's get Dak and get them for nothing. I had picked up in the ACI, 14 team ACR, Skank League, I picked up Dalton Schultz, who was actually dropped. This is when he got off to a real slow start. Then I flipped them for Dak because I actually drafted freaking Danny Dimes. Okay. I thought he'd be a 14 team special. Dak Prescott saved my season. He was a QB1 the next like eight weeks. So, you know, when you see these slow starters, look at it as an opportunity. I would say J.J. McCarty, let's take a look at that because if they are slow, Sam Donald stinks,

as he does, we could be looking at buy low opportunities for, well, McCarthy and, of course, Jefferson and Addison. Let's flip over to the running backs. And again, if you want the full article, guys, go to FantasyPoints.com. You guys know that already. Read what Scott's doing and everybody else at FantasyPoints.com. So this is going to be, this is challenging because the more I read, listen, and learn about the 2024 fantasy season, the more I realize I hate the running back position, John. And now I'm looking, and I used to be an old school guy. I'm like, I'm taking running backs when you think you shouldn't take a running back. Take another one.

You can never have enough, right? Best overall schedule for running backs week one through 17. Romandre. Maybe the only piece of talent they have there in New England. You look at Ramondres ADPs, RB20. He's picked 77 right now in fantasy. I don't know if anybody wants a piece of Ramandre, even with the schedule or not that team is so, you know, up in the air. But, oh, boy, running back is just the pits this year.

It's like, just draft more receivers. This. Well, yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a cluster F, basically. There, there's a lot of sameness. You got a lot of dudes in committee type situations like the, you know, even the Seattle situation, you know, the, then the Detroit lion situation. that doesn't help but i will say you know every little bit does help for the patriots whose margin for error is not great and for what it's worth i got a lot of stuff wrong but i am going for

three years in a row to be correct on remandre because i actually was out on remandre last year which i said a lot on the radio and there were there were certainly moments where i'm like oh that's not maybe a great take but i mean my concerns played out and zeke elliott was a big part of those concerns because I thought you know what he's still got a little gas in the tank he's still a very good short yardage runner so he could usurp him and get some goal line work and he's still very good pass pro so what what he does well is a threat to remandre i feel like that kind of played out it was also an ugly year in general for remandre well this year i'm back in because a the price is way down and b you could argue that his competition got work

this year because they didn't do anything of note other than bringing in Antonio Gibson. I mean, it doesn't look amazing on the surface since in Seattle, Jets, Niners. That's not a good start. Miami, Houston, but then it gets softer. Jacksonville, Jets again, Titans, Bears, Rams, Dolphins, Colts, Cards, Bills, Changers, Bill. So really, the strength of it is the back end, the back half. So hopefully Ramandre doesn't get worn down and he's still rolling because that was one of my problems. He kind of got worn down the year before.

Looking at the players that Scott lists as some of the worst schedules, I want to talk Josh Jacobs here with the Green Bay Packers, new team. So, you know, we're going to throw him into a system that, you know, we're not familiar with. Scott ranks him as the second toughest season-long schedule here. And, you know, I'm just, he had that one great season a few years ago. He's going to start, you know, in Brazil against the Eagles and he gets the Colts. I know they got some big, big guys up front. It's just, I don't know. I'm so torn on Josh Jacobs.

It's like, do I want to really go and invest in this guy? Josh Jacobs, RB10 right now on underdog going off at pick 37. I don't know. It's like, do I want to just let him go by and maybe I'll just find somebody cheaper later? Or is he going to have this dynamic season with Jordan Love and the boys in Cheatestown? Yeah, I'd, I'd have. have to lean toward the ladder there because you know i've never been a huge jacobs guy he's really only had the one major season he hasn't really been that efficient his role in the passing game has

been weird as we've outlined you know there was a time like two years into the career dude didn't have a target on third down you're like what um remember that oh my god yeah yeah so i mean i I look at the offense here in Matt LaFleur. I do believe that the running game is foundational with LaFleur. So maybe that helps. And maybe that's why they signed him. But it was only like a one year deal. Like they can get out or it's really essentially just a one year deal.

So, you know, unless he brings it and maybe he'll have plenty of motivation, you would think, I could see them, you know, essentially settling into being a little bit more of a passing team. but the real problem is, A., I wasn't expecting them to bring back A.J. Dillon, so he could steal those short touchdowns, and A.J. Dillon is also a pretty good receiver. Then also they drafted Marshawoyd, who was one of my favorite backs in the class. And if Marshaun Lloyd is up to snuff in pass pro, he could render Jacob somewhat worthless on third down. And, hey, A.J. Dillon can do it, too. He's a pretty good receiver. So that is a path to, you know, like a little hole there in, you know, the volume.

if you will. Now we're early down dependent and we're on a team by the way with Jordan Love who throw a lot of touchdowns. You know, so Love seems to be a guy who throws touchdowns right. He got 30 plus as I thought he could. So yeah, I think

ultimately this does not help at all with the tougher schedule coming in by the numbers. So I'm probably out on Jacobs. Scott talks about players who can start slow and if this player does, it's going to drive people bananas. People are going to literally drive their cars off a bridge, Hansen.

If Bejohn Robinson starts slow after the Arty Smith disaster a year ago, all right? And then, you know, he starts out with a home game with the Steelers. Then he gets at the Eagles, home for the chiefs, and then he gets Saints, bucks, you know, kind of opens up a little after that. But if he starts off slow, every trade four article will be begging people, please buy be John Robinson after the first three weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Pittsburgh could this could be a problem, I'd say. I mean, I'm not that worried about Philly at this point. You know, the Rundee did really tell off last year. I kept saying it for about a month before everyone else was. I'm like, guys, they're not dominant anymore. I mean, maybe they will bounce back. I do think Vic Fangio is good. But, you know,

KC, they're solid, man, just in every way. Spegnol. So it and then New Orleans they were a little they were down last year, but yeah, I mean, it's not like, oh my God, but it could be better. I will say that I think like a quarterback with a running cheat code. So you don't worry as much about the strength of schedule because the strength of schedule for a quarterback comes from the passing. So when it got first so it's a concern if Jared Goff's strength of schedule is bad. but a cheat code quarterback doesn't really matter with a running back their versatility is kind of that version so i would presume that bjohn robinson will get the majority of the past catching reps here which should offset any tougher matchup so i don't think it's going to be entirely disruptive

and we do have stability with an o line that's been together for a while and a very obviously veteran quarterback and kirk cousins i know they're all new to each other but they should be able to hang in there and hold down the ship. Basically, what you're avoiding to me is absolute disasters. And a lot of that's the quarterback. Like the giants fell apart. Wasn't all Daniel Jones, but, you know, he was the face of it, if you will. And then even in Pittsburgh, too, I mean, Kenny Pickett, like, I still can't believe how bad he was. I still haven't given up on him, by the way. I blame a lot of it on Matt Canada, but there's no question, Kenny Pickett, boy, he's got something going on. I think there's something else going on there. Maybe he had an attitude

two problems, but we shall see. But we just don't want things to unravel. I don't see that happening here in this case. With the running backs, folks always look at that fantasy playoff schedule. And one of the worst schedules that Barrett points out is Christian McCaffrey, Mr. 101. I heard you speaking on Sirius XM about Christian McCaffrey. And you said you wouldn't even take him 101 this year. And folks are going to be listening to this. They're going to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? I got the 101. I'm not taking McCaffrey, but the playoff schedule, uh, just maybe it scares a few people off. I mean, I still love CMC. I think for myself, just because I'm an idiot, I'm going to still take him 101 and basically any draft that I can,

but are you scared off at all by this playoff schedule? Let me pull this up so I can see who they're actually playing. We got, we got the Miami, Detroit. It doesn't look that bad. The Rams. They don't give up a lot of catches, though, those, those, teams. I think that must be it. I don't think they really haven't given up a lot of catches, but you know, we can look at the entirety of it. They've got the jets to open it up. That's not great. Minnesota's D is pretty good. I mean, they'll probably need some time. They've got a lot of new parts there, but Brian Flores coach's ass off. New England, you know, and then we got the Rams, Patriots, Cardinals, Seahawks, Chiefs, Cowboys. It's not too bad. It's fine. But,

you know, I think it might be the catches with McCaffrey, but look, he's obviously a year older. I wasn't adamantly against him last year. I wasn't taking him. But I didn't really, I just let it alone like, hey, hey, good luck, you know, go right ahead. I got him at like six, five overall, whatever. But he also is a year older. And, you know, again, it could be speculation. It could be just a bad wrong guess. But as someone who had CMC and lost out on like 28 grand or whatever hell it was because of that injury late in the year i will say this i he did not look good that day before the injury i'm like what is up like he thought just looked off and then he got hurt but i think maybe we didn't notice it because they pulled him from the game and then he didn't play

again for like three weeks so he missed the next week then he missed they had a buy right and then then he plate. So that was three weeks. So that would be a concern to me. I think he had three weeks to recover from that injury. Otherwise, it might have been a problem. So what happens if that occurs again in week two? I'd rather just avoid that, man. Can you imagine McCaffrey has a serious leg issue week two? Like, you're despondent at that point. At that point, I think a lot of people would be like, oh, God, this could be the beginning of the end, like maybe dramatizing a little bit. bit, but that would be bad. That would be very scary. If you didn't start drinking yet, then you may start if CMC goes down. Don't you think? That's what happened. Anytime you take a

running back, first overall, second over any of that, every carry when you're watching, you know, on Red Zone or whatever, you're holding your breath. You go, get up, get up, get up, please God, you know, and it's just. But then again, Justin Jefferson got hurt last year. We've seen Jamar Chase gets hurt. It's fantasy football, folks. People are going to get hurt. one guy who has been hurt in the past and we're still kind of waiting for that big breakout. And I know you've been a fan of him. And he's got one of the better playoff schedules, according to Scott Barrett. It's Giovante Williams of the Denver Broncos.

ADP, he's RB 31. He's going off 104 picks into a draft. I just don't know John. And this is why I brought him up. Is he going to be the running back at the end of the season who's going to be getting the carries? I've been seeing all this talk about Jol. Jaliel McLaughlin.

They drafted Estime, the kid out of Notre Dame. You got P. Ryan still hanging around there. I mean, is Javante a guy I should be investing in? Or you kind of wash your hands of it and say, I'm just going to take darts on the other guys later in the draft because I don't trust Sean Peyton. Well, number one, let's see how Javante looks, you know, when the pads come on and all that. Right now, like his stock has kind of dropped a little bit.

So we're actually a little ahead of the markets on him, but obviously that is a very fluid situation. I've been waiting for basically any good vibe here because he was not the same player last year. Obviously, I thought it was a little bit of a rush job, bringing him back that quickly. And I think maybe we all paid a price or he did. The team did because he was a little sluggish.

So then you take the fact that Sean Payton didn't draft Javante Williams. Sean Payton has been a dual backfield guy for the most part. You know, I mean, I even go back to the first year there, Deuce McAllister and Reggie Bush, Alvin Camara and Mark Ingram, to name a couple. And then the fact that also they didn't have a lot of picks, had a lot of needs, didn't really need to go running back. I know it's only what a fifth round pick,

but they not only do they go running back, but they take an estimate a little. bit of a Giovante clone. So, I mean, I don't know how we react positively to the offseason here with Javante. I have not heard anything good. I'm asking people out there like, what's up? Like, is he moving better? Like, I'm not getting anything. So right now I would have to preach caution on Javante. Please, God, give me a sign anything. Let a brick fall on my head. Jesus. Oh, but I don't even want to go back in the fantasy points of the honesty league when I drafted them a couple of you. I don't want to know who I passed on, but it's probably going to make me

sick, but I do have Mr. Giovante on my side. So, so, you know, when one of my guys sucks, just know that I'm suffering along with everybody else who took them. That's right. And as everybody out there is probably suffering through a Memorial Day hangover, we appreciate you, hopping on the Fantasy Points podcast with John and I. So stick with us. Hopefully you enjoyed the Ross Tucker interview. If you didn't hear the Adam Schaefter pod, go back and listen to that. It's on YouTube, and it's available in podcast form. And we need this from you, folks. We're going to ask you one thing. The guru has given you so much over the years. We need you to go give a nice five-star review into this podcast.

Tell us how much you'll love it. Even there's a tweet out there if you're following at Fantasy PTS on Twitter X, whatever they call it this week, where you can win a Xavier worthy autographed helmet for giving us a five-star review. So what's wrong with that? Go get a kick-ass helmet will look great in your man cave. So, John, well, I hope you, uh, you can enjoy the remainder of the holiday weekend and, uh, getting some sun out there. And before you know, brother, it's going to be training camp time. Oh, yeah.

It's the unofficial start of summer, which means it's kind of the unofficial start of fantasy draft season. It is a, it is a wonderful time of the year. I'm, I'm looking forward, uh, greatly to the season. I love, I love the preseason. I love that. I love all that stuff. I'm a season-long guy, but when we get into the regular season,

I'm certainly going to still preview all the games in my Hansen's Hintz column, which I think was the best it's ever been this past year. But I'm I think most excited about player props because that's like a new deal. And I really got good at it late. So I'm fired up for that. Let's go. Let's win some cash, you know, all the, totally, the 500 high noons that everybody just drank this weekend.

You got to try to bring some of that money back. Bring the five cents back. Hey, we're looking at the same day to point. that the books are when they're setting all the lines. We see everything that they see. I think one difference could be me with my vibes and 30 years of experience because I'm already looking at that data. So how do you get an edge?

Maybe that's how. That's how, folks, and you're going to get that edge. Listen to us all season long on the Fantasy Points podcast. For the guru, John Hansen, I'm Brian Drake. We'll see you next time, folks. Take care.