Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - Bounce Back Players + Jason's Cleavage??? - Fantasy Football Podcast for 6/23

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Fantasy Football show for June 23rd, 2026. Which players will bounce back for the 2026 fantasy football season?! Will Brian Thomas Jr. and Saquon Barkley be difference makers again? Plus, fantasy football draft strategy for double flex leagues, Colts wideouts hype, and more! Manage your redraft, keeper, and dynasty fantasy football teams with the #1 fantasy football podcast. 2026 ULTIMATE DRAFT KIT is available now at UltimateDraftKit.com Get MEGALASHOW tickets at BallersLive.com Connect with the show: Subscribe on YouTube Visit us on the Web Support the Show Follow on X Follow on Instagram Join our Discord Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Tuesday, June 23rd. How are you guys doing? Pretty good. How are you? I'm pretty good. Hey, Duceus.

How are you guys doing? Doing great. Wonderful. Great. Oh, they all came to work today. Oh. They all came to work. to work.

And we really appreciate that. Thank you. Welcome back, Josh. Welcome back, Josh. Adventures with spider rooms. Josh basically went on a vacation where he tried to check. I'm going to give the super fast TLDR of the whole situation. They rented a place by some water, a lake, whatever it is.

It was filled with spiders. They tried to change to another. The room, not the lake. Right. Well, the lake. It seems like the lake probably had probably. probably both. I went to another room filled with spiders, another room filled with spiders. They left. Then they took a train ride someplace and the train broke down. And he said it was the best vacation ever. He is nothing if not an optimist. So, um, welcome back. It's good to be back. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I will say the spider, uh, the spider cabins didn't, I would think that's down on your list, Jason. It's down on my list, but stupid people at the lunch table, not myself, but others were like, why didn't. Why didn't.

you get photos and videos of this? Yeah. Yeah, because there was no proof really. Why would you do that? Because you come back with, look what you survived. Tall tales of how many spiders were in a room. Disgusting. Like when Mike goes up to Alaska next week, he's going to take pictures of the grizzly bears chasing them down. Well, that's fun. Grizzlies are awesome. I'm a live stream that. Plus, nobody who holds a camera during those ever dies.

That's right. The cameraman always lives. Always survives. Welcome into the show. We have bounce back players on the show today. Some NFL news. Maybe we'll talk about it. A little bit of hype stuff. And then we got a quick question. Some mailbag if we have time. Should be a fun show. We're almost into July, guys. You know what July means.

Training camp. And three shows a week, Mike. Yeah, because of the training camp. That's what he calls our training camp. It's our training camp is when we go to three days a week, preparing for August every day. Yeah, for those that are unfamiliar or forget the schedule. We all are twice a week right now, and we'll be three shows a week, Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday,

Saturday in July. And then our season starts a month before the players, because we go to five days a week every single day. We'll have a new episode for you. August really is the most fun time of year. August is also when you'll be doing your drafting with the UDK. If you haven't picked it up, Ultimate DraftCat.com. We just did some more updates over the weekend. And today, we have a brand new feature coming out very soon that we're working on. I mean, it's not. It's not a small feature. I will say that.

No, it's not. It's a big, big feature. So huge. But I don't want to say anything else yet, but soon enough. And if you didn't hear it last week, there are a few tickets remaining at ballerslive.com for our live show, the fantasy footballers live, the Megalus show, presented by Sirius XM and sponsored by GMC and PetSmart.

Friday, August 28th at the historic Van Buren, an amazing venue in Phoenix, Arizona, come and visit us. I want to see the full clan out there, and it should be fun because they say August in Arizona is, I mean, that's going to be some good weather. You guys are going to love it. They do have air conditioning in the building. It's great.

If they don't, we won't be there. Jason will not be there. Yeah, there's no chance. That's the thing. You've brought fans on the building. the road before. That is the funny thing about Arizona. There's not a place that exists here that does not have air conditioning.

People around the country are like, oh, it's hot. It's like, oh, turn on the AC and sometimes they don't have it. It actually couldn't exist here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We're actually better in cold weather than you are because we're used to bundling up for the air conditioning. Twitter at the FF Ballers, if you want to follow us there.

The quick question of the day comes from Jeff in Chicago. Hey, ballers. This year, we have changed our starting rosters to be two wide receiver, two running back, and now two flex positions. With a double flex, is it recommended to draft more wide receivers or running backs? What would be some good strategies going into this year's draft with this roster change? I think this is actually a really important question. It's something that every couple of years I look up the data on to remind myself the

differences. First of all, it actually does make a very large difference, whether you're in standard half ppr or or full ppr. Most of the leagues we play in everything, you know, if you're going to be playing, you know, in the Meglabel league, it's all half PPR. We feel like that's the fairs. And part of the reason why we like that format the most is what this data shows, which is basically, look, if you're starting two running backs, two wide receivers, you can already take the top 24 running backs of wide receivers out.

So your flex is really going to be amongst the running backs and wide receivers in the NFL that range from, you know, the running back 26 to 48 and the wide receiver 26 to 48. If you're in half PPR, the first couple of those flex players, on average, obviously this takes everything out, right? It's not a specific player. It's not matchup details, home road. But just on average, what does the running back 30 versus the wide receiver 30 or 40 versus

40. What do they score? And predominantly wide receivers crush. Right. Like you're talking about if you're in a full PPR league pretty much from wide receiver 25 through 48 versus running back 25 through 48, you're talking

about two fantasy points per game on average more at the wide receiver position than and it is universal across the board. Every single you know, if you go to the the wide receiver 36 versus the running back 36

the running back 20 I mean all of them they're all outscored by the wide receivers on average in full PPR you want to load up and play in your double flex wide receivers over running backs obviously there's nuance there depth of running back matters all of that but as far as scoring point wide receivers in your double flex will outscore running backs especially in a full

ppm but even in a half PPR And you just need to think about it in terms of on any given week. You know, you have three wide receivers out on the field all the time, and you've got a running back out there. So you're going to have 96 players taking snaps on a regular basis versus 32 running backs, even if they're doing rotations, whatever the case may be. I will say the other strategic thought process you need to have is, and you can approach it however you want to, but depth is going to matter more.

The free agent, like the waivers every week are going to have 12 fewer, you know, players on it than you would have had before the league change. And so depth is going to matter quite a bit. Maybe you're, depending on how you look at it, maybe you're not swinging for the fences completely, you know, for a player that is either going to be a hit or not startable. Maybe you are taking some of those more boring players from here to there. At least that's how I would think about it,

making sure I have some starts in that spot. But I think altogether, we would all agree it's a good change. Yeah. I think two flex is fun. Oh, for sure. You want competition. and you want some players that can fail. It brings a lot more strategy.

And yeah, I mean, if you just think about how the makeup of the NFL is, when I was looking at these and I'm like, okay, so who is, you know, the running back 48 on average per game scoring versus the wide receiver? And it was like, okay, so one of these players was Woody Marks and their equivalent player at wide receiver was Justin Jefferson. So it's like, oh, who obviously had a down year. But it is not the same. All right, I debated whether we get into news or not.

We have bounce back players coming up, but let's just talk about it. News and notes from around the league. This one's a special edition. The Hype Train has arrived in Indianapolis this week. We had a Sports Illustrated article talking about what the Colts will expect from their wide receiver core. We know Michael Pittman's no longer a part of that. By the way, there was also a huge article talking about how much they're going to expect from Tyler Warren. and so let's just work him into the hype train as well.

But Tyler Warren, sophomore season, tight end. Alec Pierce paid to be the number one on this team. The article by Andrew Moore came out and said he's expected to receive close to double the number of targets. Let's calm down, Andrew Moore. Then a season ago. And then that article also mentioned that they're lining Josh Downs Up out wide and in the slot. The removal of Michael Pittman, and by the way, And Doolin will be most likely the wide receiver three there.

You do have to have somebody on the outside. And so if Josh Downs has the ability to go out there, he had only run, what, eight routes? Eight routes in 2023, eight routes in 2024 and 17 last year when there were two or fewer wide receivers on the field. So basically he was not on the field unless he was playing the slot. Yeah, he is a three wide receiver formation player only in his career. And this is what actually excites me the most.

about Josh Downs is he's been good. Like his sophomore season, he scored 10 and a half fantasy points a game, and that was while he wasn't playing in two wide receiver sets. If he actually works his way into two wide receiver sets, right now he is doing that. Obviously, Alec Pierce is not on the field because he's recovering from his injury. But if week one comes and he's out there in two wide receiver sets, I am so excited for him because I think he's a talented player.

He reminds me of like a Zay Flowers, right? Well, it's a good comp with the size. That's my biggest concern with him. playing outside. He's 5-9. Yeah, I mean, this isn't a guy I think that's going to just break fantasy and be a top five fantasy wide receiver. But I view him the way that I've used Zay Flowers, where if he can really be one of those two smaller guy who, on a team that really needs a target hog, they just lost 111 targets from Michael Pittman. That's going to be, that's going to be pretty impactful. Yeah, I am obviously a big Alec Pierce fan. I think Tyler

Warren, we all believe, could take a huge step forward. They talked about him working in and out of the breaks. I don't think all of these guys are going to dominate for fantasy. One good piece of news that's come out from all of this and the training camp is it. Daniel Jones appears to be fully healthy. I mean, he's not at 100% right now. He says he's fully expecting to be ready week one. He is playing the seven-on-sevons that's going on right now.

He is there. He is the one throwing the ball. So this is great news, I think, for the offense. Because what we saw happen last year when Daniel Jones went down is they did not have a replacement. That offense collapsed. I was watching some film and it was hard to remember. I was like, oh, yeah, they were like, I'm listening to the broadcast. And this was like week nine or something.

And they were the number one seat in the NFL. They were the best team in the NFL. And once he went down, they did not win games. There are also rumors about them maybe needing to add a veteran wide receiver like Keenan Allen, who had played with Shane Steichen when he was the Chargers offensive coordinator. Honestly, when you think about it being Alec Pierce has never been a one, Josh Downs had never

not been in the slot, and then Ashton Doolins your third, it does feel like a really, a need to add maybe a veteran receiver. This is why I'm in love with Tyler Warren. This is, I don't want Keenan Allen to go there because I think Tyler Warren is just set

for like 140 targets at the tight end position. And if Keenan comes, he's going to So he's, you know, Keenan gets, Keenan gets the targets. Yeah. And just for context, people, this proclamation, if Alec Pierce gets anywhere close to double his targets, he will be the greatest pick in this year's fantasy football draft. If you're up in the 160s of targets with his ability, so it's trying to find. He will not be there?

No, but it's like, what's the real number? It's exciting to see. The real number cannot be lower. No. That's the thing that's wild is where he's being drafted. I will go back to it over and over and over again. And thank you, maybe thank you for being hurt this summer, Alec, because I think the team has done nothing to say that they don't have confidence.

He'll be healthy. He should be back in training camp. But being injured is just going to continue to depress his ADP. I don't think it's going to go up. And in my opinion, he will be a number one wide receiver for this team. In that same article, they talked about the fact he's going to be running routes at every depth, asked to do more and more. He talked about how he knows he's going to get the ball more.

It's a bet. It's a fantasy bet you can make on a guy that makes big plays on the regular. And I like the touchdown upside of that position. So Dan Campbell said that Sam Leporta could be clear for the start of training camp next month. Jason won't draft him, even if he's played in three training camps. Do you have any concerns, Jay, about Jameson Williams? Like whether or not he takes a hit with Leporta.

I mean, absolutely. The lines are very clear of looking at the box scores. Now, I mean, there's the variable of Dan Campbell taking over play calling duty. So you do have that in there. But it's like Jameson Williams took off like a rocket ship when Sam Leporta got hurt. Yeah, the questions as to whether or not that was because Leporta's targets were gone and now they needed James more or whether it was the coaching change or whether it was just chaos. I think the truth is in between. I mean, we saw him be pretty good. good the year prior with Leporta on the field. I don't, the whole issue here is, is a great offense and Amin Ra is going to get his. He's the number one target for sure. Jamir Gibbs is going to get his. So then I do feel like that next read in the offense will just be split and shared between those two guys. Yeah, I agree with you. And as somebody who loves Jameson Williams, he is perennially set up to be the Zayflower's fantasy finisher of the year, is the award I'm going to call it, which is you can finish at 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and not be predictably helpful for your team because there's going to be games that Jameson has two long touchdowns, and then games

where he disappears. And that's, that's the scary part. I think his fantasy finish will be better than his consistency, but we'll see. He was the wide receiver nine last year. Okay, so he already did that. Yeah, he did exactly that. His splits are insane. You have 35 games with Leporta where he averages 48 yards a game and then the nine games with no Loporta, 85 yards per game. Like that's, that's not just a small uptick in your production. That's wild.

Yeah, and a lot of those were last year, right? Yeah. I mean, out of that is nine, how many of those games were last season? And that's where you were talking about the hard part of predicting because there was a play collar change and he started getting the ball more, but Leporto was out. It's a tough one. I don't know if you were looking that up. He missed the last seven games. So seven of the nine in his

entire career without Leporto were the last seven. And that includes a zero. I mean, wasn't he on pace? For James and Williams. Wasn't he on pace for like 1,400 yards in that span? Probably. I mean, it was awesome. Yeah, after the by week. And again, this is why I think Jared Gough is just weird. He's just a weird pick

for fantasy. Like I, the stats ended up with him much higher than ADP for me or then consensus. Sure. And you love Alman Ra and Leporta and Jameson and Gibbs and the play caller and the team

and the fact they're favored in 14 of their first 15 games. So how do you not like golf? That's the hard part. Like that's your free pass at the end of the draft. Another, you know, line in this analytical train. Jared Goff, if you don't remember to start last year,

Jared Goff was very mediocre for fantasy. After, you know, in 2024, he was the QB6 with 19 points a game. So he was. Under a new play caller. He was interesting. And then you're like, hey, let's draft golf. Maybe it's looking good. And he was very mediocre.

They buy week happens. They switch. And then there's a lot of top 10 finishes there for Jared golf. After the buy week, he was on pace for 5,000 passing yards. That's encouraging. Which. Because we had a bump in the road. Which offensive scheme shows up?

Well, not the one of the fired guy. I don't think it'll be that one. That's good news. They were also dealing with a very injured defense where they had to get into a little bit more shootouts at the end of last year as well. I do like that Dan Campbell is one of the few head coaches in the league that is willing to stomp on his opponent's throat. Yes. Why don't more coaches do this? Yeah, don't take it easy.

don't take the foot off the gas. Just go murder your opponent with tons of fantasy points. It's the espresso. It really is. It's the extensive caffeine in it. If you can't calm down, you can't calm down. Yeah. All right. We'll take a break. We'll get into some bounce back.

I am back. Is that you in a Waldo outfit? Apparently. When did you dress up as Waldo? Or is that the magic of AI? I don't know. Well, I know you didn't dress up as Waldo. I'm pretty confident. You never did? That was never a Halloween thing for Mike?

No. Audio. Audio crew is just... I looked like Waldo, everybody. Bounceback candidates. These are submitted by the Foot Clan. So you guys sent these in for us to discuss and debate. There is nothing quite like finding a value in the draft as a bounce back player.

Somebody they had performed really well before. A few years ago, Mike Evans is a my guy. was one that, you know, people were able to draft later in the draft. They come back to form. They help you win. The number one answer submitted by the Foot Clan is Brian Thomas Jr.

Because, oh, what of ways you'd have to bounce back from? Number four in 2024, number 44 and 2025. Disaster. That was another piece of news that popped up. Just how on the same page, Trevor Lawrence. and Brian Thomas Jr. are, which is good. I mean, I want to hear that. Yeah, man, there's 48 catches last year, Mike.

The stuff coming out of Jags camp is everybody is the greatest player. It's roses. Like, it's going to be Jacoby. No, it's going to be Parker. No, because it'll be Brian Thomas. Travis Hunter. Travis Hunter has been playing offense the entire time. Everybody's going to be great.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of things change for Brian Thomas Jr. He dealt with a lot of drop problems. The screen game was removed that involved him. His average up the target went up an extra three yards from his rookie season, and he ended up struggling on some of those. I do agree that they were never on the same page. His catch percentage dropped 12%. His yardage 500 yards scored twice on the year.

And the team basically proved that, look, if it's not working for you, we're going to win a different way. I think that's, like, this is not a, this is not a player with such tenure in the NFL where you're like, oh, you have a few bad games. We just got our offense has to run through you. No, they just said, we'll just turn Parker Washington into a star and we'll Travis A. Chan Jr. out of the backfield will dominate and we'll find a way to win without you. Well, Liam Cohen wasn't even here for Brian Thomas Jr.'s rookie year.

He wasn't a part of, you know, during the offseason leading into last year, Liam Cohen shows up, talks about how great Brian Thomas Jr. is, but he didn't have him. He's like, we're going to try to get this guy the ball as much as we can. And they really did. Out the gate. They were throwing a lot. Out the gate. Week one, seven targets. Week two, 12 targets. That amounted to a combined 50 yards. And so, yeah, you're right. They went other places, and it worked really well. So the bounce back can it happened, obviously, I think everyone in the world believes he has the talent to go out there and be a dominant wide receiver one. However, the way that they're going to be able to spread the

ball around, the way that there are so many mouths to feed in this offense, it is very, I'm skeptical that abounds back to being an alpha, to being a top, you know, to being a wide receiver one. I think he was wide receiver seven as rookie year. Four. Geez, Louise. I mean, I don't think that's happening. I think you have to define a bounce back as returning to the form of the previous year, which would be in the top five.

I don't think that's happening either. One of the craziest stats, he had 17 screen targets as a rookie, caught all 17 of them, and it was one of the most valuable wide receivers behind the line of scrimmage. He had one screen target last year. And if that's the way the offense is going to run, because the offensive coordinator is consistent right now with Liam Cohen, those easy targets don't seem like they're. They're going to be on the way, Mike.

Yeah, we all have him. I have him at 23. We all have him ranked that he represents a value compared to his ADP. You know, Jay, even for you being like, ah, you know, sounding more negative. You still have him above ADP. You still have him even one spot above basketball ADP. He is a, I think he's a unique bet. You're going to want to, you'll, you're going to want to, you'll, you're going to.

going to want to take at least one sort of bet on Jacksonville. Like I think, like, in almost every single one of your fantasy teams between, I'm not just talking about receivers. I'm going to include two. Like, just, you're going to want pieces of this. Of course, not all of them will work, but it's for how good Parker looked and Jacoby, it's just, it, Brian Thomas is the one that makes the most sense of the guy who it bounces back and they're like, no, okay, he is the target leader. He's, you know, he, he goes back like he

goes to a 24% target share which would be a very big uptick and you know he started hot and I think there was some injuries not being properly reported and so I guess I would I'm more on the side of a bounce back than him ending up his wide receiver 37 or he's going in sleeper

I certainly like where he's being drafted and he's being drafted around Jacoby Myers and Parker Washington so it's like it's all the same bat I will certainly be betting on him to emerge because he is the most talented. He's a former first round draft pick for a reason. He's, you know, had 1,500 receiving yards in a season. He's the, he's the good bet. However, this is just, it's a different team than the one that he was the only target to throw to a couple years ago. Now they've, they've added pieces. They've got three guys that

were not involved. Parker was there. Yeah, but Jacobi coming in. Travis Hunter. And they added, It's important to mention they added Jacoby last year while they dealt with struggles with Brian Thomas and decided they needed somebody else. Yeah, I mean, it's just very different. I mean, I'm looking at, you know, his rookie season where he had 133 targets. The next most targeted player on the team was Evan Ingram at 64 targets. And so, yeah, he had that big Mac. He had that great breakout season, but this is just a completely different offense now. Last year, they, so they rank passer rated when a player is targeted, or passer rating when a player is targeted. Where when he was targeted, the pass rating was 65.1. That's 101.1. That's 101 out of 109. You know who that was tied with?

Jefferson. Justin Jefferson. Oh, man. But behind that, it was like Josh Palmer and John Dotson and Adonai Mitchell and Jerry Judy. that's not a company you want. 10 interceptions for Trevor Lawrence when targeting him. How many picks did he throw? Wow.

How many did he throw in the year? Last year it was 10? 10 interceptions when targeted. That's got to be. He was at 12. Huh. Yoinks. All right.

Someone trade for Jacoby Myers, please. The next, where do we want to go? Let's go David Montgomery. Let's move it to David Montgomery, and then we'll bounce back up, talk about another wide receiver running back situation. 29 years old. Did we mention him on the footcast or was it on this show? Footcast.

We talked about him a little bit recently. What is the vibe around Houston right now? Let me start there. Before I introduced this segment, what is your general vibe on Houston? Because I'm getting... General vibe is they are a great football team with one of, if not the best defense in the league.

And they've got a question market quarterback that is the entire, the answer to how good this team is is entirely just, is C.J. Stroud, the real deal or none? Yeah. I mean, that's my vibe of the team. They have everything. Oh, sorry, not everything, but they have a lot of what you want in a championship team, the defense, and then including an elite wide receiver,

a very, a pair of interesting young, up-and-coming wide receivers. And then you got the guy, and then you have Tank Dell coming back from injury. So they're surrounded. It should work. But I think that's what the vibe is entirely on the questions on Stroud. We basically are in a situation now. Woody Marks had a lot of fantasy relevance for periods of time last year, got banged up.

Joe Mixon a couple of years ago burst onto the scene. Joe Mixing's, by the way, we don't even talk about that. Put Joe Mixing in the Waldo outfit. You won't find him. That's the end, right? Is that what it is? Oh, it's over. Absolutely.

Joe Mixon will never play football. Certainly seems like it. So they trade for David Montgomery. Houston does. Or he's just waiting for a training camp injury. And, you know, I guess the interesting thing about Montgomery. So last year, he only averaged nine fantasy points a game. He still scored eight touchdowns.

So that is, I mean, that was real feaster famine. He basically scored or made you sad. It was a big step back production-wise or fantasy than the year before. We was the running back 18. By the way, he was the running back 18 and he missed three games in 2024. But I don't feel like anybody here is like, well, David Montgomery, you really suck. You really took a step back and they just couldn't put you on the field. It was more, we're just better with one of the best running backs in the game on the field. And I'm sorry, but it just can't be you out there. Yeah, there was a lot of reporting at the end of the year and

and with how they got rid of David Montgomery that it was kind of rumored that they were doing that as much for David Montgomery as for themselves. Like they wanted David Montgomery to be able to go somewhere where he can get the ball more. He wanted more touches, dessert. You know, he's that type of back. You know, he used to be David Mopportunity because it was all about the opportunity. It was, you know, back in the day when, you know, his sophomore season, he's got 315 opportunities. He was the running back four in fantasy, obviously a long time ago. different team. That was for the Bears. But they just could not keep giving him the ball over

Jamir Gibbs. It's just a, it's, it's a negative play for your team. And so this is exactly what the Texans did a couple years ago. They looked at their team and they said, we need to go out and get a veteran running back that we can like rely on. Bigger back. Bigger back that can catch the ball. That can be a three down back. And they went out and they got Joe Mix. and Joe Mixman was excellent for them. I mean, he was great in fantasy football. I think he missed three games that year and was still the running back 11. Had a stretch of time where he was the running back.

First 12 weeks, he was like the number one running back. Yeah, and he was an older back. And so I don't think. And just his age, he would have been just turning 28? Oh, 28. I'm I doing the-Nixon? Yeah. I think he was 28 or 29.

Because he's 29.8. right now and that was two years ago. Yes, correct. So he was 28. and Montgomery's going to be 29 this year. Montgomery didn't look to me like he lost anything. I know he's an older back, but he was

never like the breakaway explosive type of runner. He's better yards per attempt last year than the year before. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's, I believe that this is a great pick in fantasy. You're talking about a guy who is not a high end expensive draft pick

where he's probably going to get the vast majority of work, be a belkow for a team that is projected to win a lot of games. And be leading a lot of games. And be leading and be conservative. They want to put the ball in David Montgomery's hands over C.J. Stroud's hands. Yeah, every

handoff is not an interception. Correct. Is what they say. That was the quote. So, I mean, I, the bounce back doesn't fit my mindset on David Montgomery. It's just more like a returned opportunity for David Montgomery. I don't

think, like you said, it's not going to be flashy, it's not going to be big plays. You know what you're actually looking for here? You're looking for the Texas Kairn Williams. That's kind of the makeup here. Tyron Williams doesn't run away from people. He's just good in the red zone. He's versatile. He can catch the football.

That's what Montgomery can do. Montgomery got tons of targets in Detroit and did a lot with him. He reminds me a lot of what James Connor was for several years as an older back. He's just a guy that's going to go out there. and he's never going to get 20 yards on a run, but he'll get 15 yards on a run regularly. You know, it's just like it takes a village to tackle him. He is, he, he's a scary pick.

You want to hate him, I know it. Yes, because everything about this profile of a 29-year-old changing teams to, and where I stop myself on the Texans don't have everything because they don't have a great offensive line. it projects to be a pretty weak part of their game. They keep trying to find a way to rebuild it. I know they can't do it yet. Montgomery's going to get a ton of work,

but he's in the, he's about like a six-rounder, it seems, on Slaper. He's just, he is in the running back dead zone because he, he's a starting running back who is not exciting with a bad offensive line. And like the numbers, you know, the two years ago when he was not getting a ton of opportunities on the field, he had 12 rushing touchdowns. Like, he's not getting 12 rushing touchdowns with the Houston Texans.

You don't think so? I don't think so, no. I think you can get to 12. I think it's actually possible there. I think it is possible that he could get double-digit touchdowns. Obviously, this isn't project to be a top five offense. And with what you're saying about the offensive line, that's true. They did spend their first round pick on a guard, so hopefully that is going to

help improve the line. But there's a team that will keep running the ball all game all the time. And when they get around the goal line, they have not been able to punch in touchdowns. 23-5 zone carries for the running backs last year led to four touchdowns. Exactly. That's why they went out and got David Montgomery. They're like, we would like to score touchdowns when we run it in the red zone. I remember a lot of these plays. And who knows, maybe that is entirely the offensive line. But I'm sure, what's the ceiling? I think he could, sealing best case scenario, I think he could be a running back one. I think he could be like RB9.

Yeah, exactly. Mike, what's the ceiling for you? I don't disagree with the ceiling there, but it would take the 12 type of rushing touchdowns, which last year, I mean, you guys with 12 or more, you had Taylor Henry Gibbs, Jacobs, James Cook, and then you have the,

hey, I'm Zach Charbonnet, guys. I have 12 touchdowns, but it's like, Zach Charbonny had 12 rushing touchdowns in the season last year. Wow. Gosh, they must have won the Super Bowl. Just imagine Ken Walker with 12 extra rushing touchdown. RB 26 right now on Sleeper for Montgomery. I have them at 26 on the dot. Jason at 22, Mike at 25.

ADP's not out of control. I just hate that this is exactly the profile and arc type of a player that is bad news and you should not. And Woody Marks did flash at times last year. It's not to say that, like, I don't think that this team is going to, not put marks on the field at all. So that's another risk factor is just what the breakdown looks like. And I don't mind if people, I mean, when you're in your draft, it depends on how the first few rounds, what do you need here?

Because you're going to be sacrificing a quarterback. Yeah, exactly. The opportunity cost. Yeah, you're giving up a Jaden Daniels if you want to take a shot there. Or Roma Dunesay, if you want to take a shot there. Someone that could really break, you know, while I say that running back nine is like best case scenario, I think what you're drafting in David Montgomery is just a solid running back too. I think he is being drafted well after solid running back two's, and so he's a good value.

But he's probably not going to go out there and just flat out win you a championship. At the end of the year, we're not going to be like one of the best picks in the entire, you know, the way that Rome could be or the way that Jaden Daniels could be in that same area. But he is, to me, he's safe. All right. We'll take another break and we'll come back and talk about two players that are 30.8 years old. Oh, oh. All right.

Back to the bounce back To the Bounceback players Back to the buffet 30.8? 30.8 years old Which I, dude, honestly, I bet Josh doesn't even remember

when he was 30.8 years old. That was a long time ago. Did you have hair at 30.8, Josh? No. No way. No? When was the actual? Like 25.0?

0.2. Yeah, when was the shavening, though? Yeah, that's what he... That was about 30. Oh, you held on for four or five years? I wore a hat for like four years. Great. Been there, brother. Well, I mean, who would wear a hat to cover your hair?

Just be careful. I realize this from the pictures of some of these golfers on tour, and we've been we've been golfing so much that we're developing, like, dangerous tans. Like troubling tans where, like, I'm still looks like I'm wearing my watch. Look at this. But I'm not. This is ridiculous. And Jason is. Jason's wearing a YouTube right now to see. He has a white or don't.

shirt except it's not i mean jason's ridiculous because yours is a little pink you got a little burned yeah but listen my point was if you are if you have hair and you're wearing and you go golf and your face gets tan you're fine you have hair yeah but if you go out if josh goes out with a hat and golf oh right right right then the top of his head becomes like my sock line yeah and how do you go to a fine restaurant looking like you're wearing a white skull cap you got you got to put makeup on that dome have somebody come out and just spray tan the top of your head. Did you, did you tan yourself some cleavage?

Is that what? I don't go back. Is that what you did? Let's see here. I mean, I think you did. But yeah, it's like I got bazoongas over here.

I need to wear like a, just a deeper V and I look good. Oh, man. No, you can't. We'll get, we'll get flagged. Yeah, we need to keep our, stay on YouTube. boozingas.

lose our monetization, Jason. Oh yeah, don't demonetize us with your golf decisions. How do golfers how do golfers manage this? You just end up looking like you work on a farm or something? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Or you know, just go to the pool and balance it out a little bit. I would never.

If I'm in the pool, I'm not golfing. Let's just say this. Like, so we're going to do some family trips here soon before the season starts. And you're like, I need to be able to take my shirt off, you're going to the Caribbean. Now, if you take your shirt off, then you'll get the tan in the spot that you need, but you want the tan beforehand. I need to pre-tan.

Yeah, that's what you need for sure. Good luck. When you, the problem is is when you even out, does it make the, I need to like, does it always stay even or do you have to cover your face? A stencil and like sunblock all my currently tan parts that go out there without sunblock everywhere else. I think as long as the disparity is not lobster and snow. Yeah, the issue is really how disgustingly white my skin is where not tan.

That is, that's fair. Terry McClorin's 30.8 years old, which is, that's old. And you know he's older, but that is shocking. It is, almost 30. He'll be 31. This is why I honestly feel like Washington was an impossible position last year. Because last year is when Terry McLaren got paid and barely played. So before the season he holds out, right?

And at that point he was 29.8 years old. And they're like, this dude is the, he was the wide receiver of fine. He had over 1,000 yards and 13 touchdowns. He's the go-to receiver for Jaden Daniels. You pay him. He plays 10 games. He's the wide receiver. And the contract doesn't look as good right now.

No. Right? So you paid for nothing. We knew that when it was, one of those tough situations where because you're on a rookie quarterback deal, you can afford it because he is the only, like, reliable target in your offense. You had to pay him, but they're just going to have to eat it. It's going to be a bad contract at the end of his career. The question is, the loyalty reward? Can he, can he bounce back? And he really needs to bounce back.

Because when he held out to start last year, he started so slow. I mean, you're talking those first three games, he would have been on pace for 50 receptions and 800 yards, just worthless, worthless production. And then he gets injured and was gone for most of the rest of the year when he comes back. That was like Jaden Daniels wasn't really around for a lot of those games. So we just don't, we basically have a deleted season last year. Yeah, but he didn't have enough time left in his career to have deleted season. I know.

Now he's going to be playing at 31 this year. And that is usually something I don't like at wide receiver. I don't want a 31-year-old wide receiver, but I do think this could be a very good offense with Jaden Daniels. And you want to talk about an easy-to-predict high-target market share. It doesn't get much easier than Terry McLaurin. There's just no competition here for other targets. So I don't see how it, I don't see how it doesn't work unless he is really lost it.

I don't think he bounces back for multiple reasons. we want to paint the most rosy outlook to a transition to a different offensive coordinator and system in Washington. But I think that is a challenge we see sometimes work out and sometimes be a disaster on a yearly basis. I think it's a lot easier when you have a predictability factor of like, hey, Kellynne Moore's played as offensive coordinator, so we know he's going to bring a system that works.

We've never seen David Blau. Beyond Terry McClearn, we don't have confidence in receiving weapons in Washington. there were comments about jaden daniels quote having a long way to go to master the schematic changes there's just risk there's a lot of risk here i think altogether there's been talk of the tight ends being more involved so that would be chica concoe mike's guy the senator i am the senate i i just been senate any day now i just think there's no chance that terry mccloren is anywhere close to what he was in twenty twenty four i jaden daniels i think two are wide Super 20 is about my, that's not a bounce back to me.

Going into last year, we had Terry McLaurin as a bust. It was pretty easy to see that he wasn't going to get 13 receiving touchdowns, and he wasn't really a high volume player. So we didn't expect it to be great last year. Obviously, with that year deleted and him now being two years older than his 13 touchdown pace, but I'm starting to actually worry more about the commander's offense. Because, you know, a minute ago, I'm like, sure, this should be a good offense.

And it's because Jane Daniels, when you've got a good quarterback, you're just going to assume the offense should work. We all believe Jane Daniels is a good quarterback. He's going to figure it out and get stuff done. But when I just look at the entirety of the offense, the skill positions, this is like, oh, we're so excited for Bill because Jacori Kroski Merritt has opportunity to be the guy. But maybe it's Rashad White. But like, maybe it's neither. Maybe neither one of those guys are that good. And we say Tara McLaurin should be okay because he's all alone.

I am the secretary. It's going to be Benz. What about that guy, Jay? But I mean, you know, they drafted Antonio Williams, who I think should be drafted for a lot of these reasons because they need other targets. They lost Zach Ertz. This is...

You don't like Trailing Berks or Van Jefferson or Dammy Brown or Jalen Lane? Exactly. Van Jefferson was getting some love. That's a red alert. Yeah, it is. Hold on. Oh, I just hit a... Never mind.

Maybe this. That's a bear alert. You do, you do sound an alarm when you see a bear. You do. And bear market is bad. That's true. But yeah, I mean, maybe what we're saying here is less

Tara McLaren and more commander's offense. Maybe the commanders are... I just have concerns because you have to have McLaren a year, you know, at 31, plus Jaden returning from injury, plus offense coordinator change, plus offense succeeds with all these other pieces. I'm sorry.

It's going to be, you got you one year, and then I'm going to be against you again. And wide receiver 20 is fine. His ADP is, I think, interesting. Where is it at? So I'm seeing him right now in the back of the fifth, which, so he's right around Devante Smith, which, I don't know what's going on with the market on Smith, how we all knew the trade was going to happen. And it felt like, okay, but we're being a little bit careful just in case it doesn't happen. Because Smith in the fifth just seems outrageous to me. But it rhymes.

Oh, dang, it does. It's probably why he's that. It's pretty hot. Yeah. I took Smith in the fifth. We got a Bucca after that. And then wide receiver wise, it's like DJ Moore and Mike Evans are next. So I don't know.

I don't hate it. Yeah, I mean, there's obviously upside. If Jaden can get it going in this offense and he's the only one that can catch the ball. but the other 30.8 year old player Mark Andrews doesn't that 30.8 feel more like 37.8? Yes. He, him and Terry being the same age

that doesn't make sense. So he went from the tied in 5 in 2024 on the back of 11 touchdowns to the tied in 19 last year, points per game dropped 3.2 points per game down to 6.3. Yet, he had three top five finishes, which is as many as Kyle Pitts had. But basically, if he didn't score a touchdown,

he averaged four fantasy points a game. This is no longer the centerpiece of the offense. I saw Devontes Walker chatter this morning. You've got Sarat and Jacoby Lane and Zay Flowers. I mean, no more Isaiah likely, but what is the case for a 30.8 year old Mark Andrews returning to form? I think the case is rather easy to make, not to return to what he used to be when he was going to go out there

and have over a thousand receiving yards and be their primary receiver. He's a little old for that. But what you just said, Mike, him and Terry McLaurin are the exact same age. Let's just say they were born on the same day. I don't know. I don't know their birthday. But they're basically in the same month. Now I've got to find out

Athletically You know we're making it we're making McLaurin seem younger to ourselves as a group as a people and and Andrews be older Which is so ironic because it's actually the opposite truth They're really close together as to what As to what positions you can play longer Like wide receiver at 31 you're going to have a real hard time to be athletically able to separate and do all those things At tight end we've seen plenty of tight ends

succeed, you know, at 32, 33, 34. Yeah, absolutely some of their best years. So I don't think he's aged out. That's one. Two, Isaiah likely is gone. That is no target competition. They picked Andrews with the contract extension. Yeah, they paid him, and then they likely walk.

Three, Lamar missed a ton of games last year. He missed like four games and was injured in others. So the offense wasn't what we were used to seeing from Baltimore. I think if you have a healthy season from Lamar without likely at age 31, you can definitely see a path for double-digit touchdowns here. I mean, that's, that is how he succeeds for fantasy. Where he's being drafted right now is, is he even being drafted? Like in, uh, tied in 14. 14, so maybe.

This is the perfect example for me of like when I'm sacrificing a running back or wide receiver to get a Laporta, when I can get Mark Andrews for absolutely nothing. Just with my last pick of the draft, I would rather take the shot of that, you know, wherever Lepore is going for the sixth, seventh round, running back or wide receiver. You know, but... Mike and I are not in like you are, statistically speaking.

Yeah, I mean, I've got him... Not on my projections, but I can see it. This is the least favorite type of tight end I could ever draft, which is just roll the dice on a touchdown. I mean, that's what Kelsey's going to be this year. It's not most in the sense that there are younger tight-ins that can develop into better players. Mark Andrews is not getting better. That's my contention.

Mark Andrews has gone from 11.3 to 9.5 to 6.3. We can make all the reasons why that's happened. We can say he hasn't aged out. That's not true. David Najoku's not the same athletic player he was when he was younger. He's 29. David Najuku, none of us are like pining for the return of David Najoku's. Like you kind of see it on the field.

still has something to bring to the table, but not to my fantasy team personally. That's like, like, I'd rather take a shot on any of the younger guys having a breakout campaign than just the touchdown, roll the dice, which maybe he is the best bet for a random touchdown that you can draft. But would you rather have Kelsey starting every week or Andrews, Jason? I would, that's, that's tough. I mean, your numbers probably say Andrews. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't have my rankings right in front of me right now. I would put those guys very near each other. I think I would rather take the shot of

Andrews with Baltimore right now. The story makes sense of Mark Andrews being the number two target. I know it hasn't played out that way and it feels like, especially when you compound two years ago, you know,

where we had the double goose gate to start the year for Mark Andrews and it was like, what do we do with this? But if there's a world where Mark Andrews has the second most targets on the Baltimore Ravens to me. I'm not projecting it that way, but I can see it. He's been at about 70 for two straight years, I think, but he has played all 17 weeks.

Yeah, that one's a tough one for me. I think bouncebacks anytime a player's getting older are tough for me in general. Yeah. Because you're asking them to do a couple of things. You know, you're asking them to kind of turn back the clock and things to work out and the team to playing around it. are some signs that Andrews is obviously very important to them. I think it'll be important to Lamar that he has the tight end in general that he can find in the red zone. The snap counts for Andrews. He's never played all the snaps. I mean, but it's been down in the 60% range. Does that

change back up? Or do they add some more pieces because the depth chart for Baltimore, you know, you just find the next guy up? No, I'm very much hoping that the snap count is back to the 70s, you know, where he was more... Grovee. Yes, where he was, you know, more dominant when he was out there 75, 72% of snaps. I think that that's in the realm of possibility. Doesn't scary that Durham Smyth is right there behind him? Correct.

Wait, is Smyth there? The? The Smyth. The real one. Smyth has become a descriptor for any random white tight end that we don't know their name. Yeah. They're like, oh, it's Smyth.

Because Smyth kept stealing our touchdown. Yes. At one point. And we were like, I'm Smyth again. Get out of your Smyth. Don't do it Smyth. So is that a bet on?

Would you think bounce back, Jay, for you? I mean, bounce back from Teton 19 to being much closer to a top 12. I do think he bounces back to being a top 12 tight end. I think he will finish the season inside the top 12. We'll see what Declan Doyle, new offensive coordinator for Baltimore, can do this year too.

Real quick, Sequin Barkley. I just want us to weigh in I find myself wanting to answer in the affirmative. As do I. In the bounce back category, I really see a lot of reasons why he could be one of the best values in the draft. People would like to move on from Saekwon. It was a really inefficient year,

the explosive plays weren't there going in the middle of the second round. It's rare when you can draft running back in the middle of the second round and you can easily see an argument why they finish in the top five. And I still see that with Saquan. year it was like we knew the carries had piled up we knew the playoffs had piled up he had 388 opportunities and we said look he's not going to be number one again but the pendulum has swung to a degree now where yes the efficiency went down the touchdowns were cut in half but i still think this is the guy that's going to get the ball almost every play and they have an offensive line that we believe in

a defense that we believe in to me he he seems like an rb five six candidate yeah i mean i mean I mean, certainly the way that it bounces back is easy, right? He's a great guy on a great running back on a good offense. Just a great guy. You also lose. He always tips well. You lose a lot of target share here with A.J. Brown being gone. And we've seen in the past that when teams have to fill the void of lost target share,

it often ups some targets to the running back position. And Sequin can obviously catch the ball. I do find myself a little bit more fearful and less bullish on him simply because at 30 years old, coming off of four straight seasons of 300 plus opportunities, it just can't last forever. But is he more Derek Henry? Yeah, I mean, that's true because I have no problem with him.

I am more, I am less skeptical of Derek Henry falling off than I am of Sequin Park. He's seven months younger than CMC. actually he's more than that nine months younger yeah um well to be fair i'm i'm equally terrified with cmc like those you got to draft him at five though yeah i mean where where sequin's being drafted right now i mean if he plays a full season he should finish as a running back one that's that that's kind of so you're worried about injury yeah yeah i mean he's he's dealt with injuries. I mean, him and CMC have both had

plenty of injuries throughout their career. They're both around 30 years old, coming off massive workloads. It's just tough to bet on those guys. How old is Henry now? Henry's three. Immortal. Three? I mean, did you answer how old he is

with the word immortal? I did. That is correct. He's 32.4 years old. So I just wanted to paint like a little let's say like you could easily in a draft go Puka

Sequin or you go CMC Drake London which of those combos would you rather have? Puka Sequea. Yeah I think the Puka one. Okay Inside the five the work was still there. He had

17 carries inside the five two years ago. They turned into four touchdowns 13 carries inside the five this year. year only one. So you like that's that's pretty wild that I know they have the touch push and everything but it's still it's still Sequin Barclay.

Getting one rushing touchdown inside the five and in that you know from four to one doesn't sound like a huge difference but give Sequin Barclay three more rushing touchdowns and no he's at 10 and you feel much different about it. All right last

bounce back I have to ask you guys real quickly it's the Falcon. Obviously last year was a struggle. Falcon bounce back? Well, last year was a down year, we all know that. But was there an up year before that? Was there an up year?

I mean, I think everyone would agree here in the office that it was a down year relative to the other deucers. Yes, but not relative to himself. That's just the... You're saying you can't bounce back to something you never admit. You know, like, how we're...

You have the guys where it's like, how did he get back in after that concussion test? And you're like, well, maybe he's concussion baseline. Yeah, his baseline was... kind of just a ditty. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just saying it really went to

that really went to 11. You can't say Caleb Johnson can bounce back. Right. It's just so terrible. He's the Caleb Johnson. He is the Caleb Johnson of this team. I mean, we had high hopes. My God.

We had high hopes with the Falcon. I love Caleb Johnson. And we really thought we were doing something good when we hired them. Okay. You know, someday. See, we always go right over the line where people are like, uh-oh. Now I got to go ask for the actual health and wellness.

of the Falcon. But no bounce back for any of us. We're not voting bounce back there. Just kind of the same. I'm voting step forward. One step forward. One step forward. Two step back. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back with another show on Thursday. Too hot to handle. And we got a

mock draft episode coming up as well. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on Join the Foot.com. and follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers.