Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - Breakout Picks + MEGALABOWL is BACK! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/19

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Fantasy Football show for Aug 19, 2025. Breakouts for the 2025 fantasy football season! Andy, Mike, and Jason pick players who will take a big step forward and be difference makers. Plus, you are invited to participate in our special fantasy football league, the MEGALABOWL! Manage your redraft, keeper, and dynasty fantasy football teams with the #1 fantasy football podcast.2025 ULTIMATE DRAFT KIT + Draft Analyzer available now at UltimateDraftKit.comCompete in the largest fantasy football league! Megalabowl.com(00:00) Intro(05:51) Undrafted Gems(16:35) NFL News(33:09) Breakouts(34:33) Jason’s Pick(38:30) Mike’s Pick (44:14) Andy’s PickConnect with the show:Subscribe on YouTubeVisit us on the WebSupport the ShowFollow on XFollow on InstagramJoin our Discord

The Fantasy Footballer's Studio is sponsored by Walmart. Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Tuesday, August 19th, the fantasy footballers podcast, Jason Moore, Mike Wright. I'm Andy Holloway. Welcome, one and all. Preseason week two, officially over. And it's a big time show. We've got a huge announcement on the show, something a lot of you have been

asking about. I don't know what you mean. So we'll get to that momentarily. We have undrafted jimms on the show, some NFL news to talk about, and it's a breakouts episode. So we're each kind of mentioned,

did you growl again? No, that wasn't me. Did you grow up Mike? No. Okay. It might have been. Oh, go ahead. I mean. Maga. Mega. Mega Bowl!

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but basically you're going to play in a totally normal league, just like how we set up our main league of record other than the keeper system. same scoring, playing against medians, same roster construction, half PPR, and you're going to play against other Foot Clan members in your 12 team leagues is going to be awesome. But here's a thing. There's 20,000 people playing in the Megalabole. And so at the end of the season, when you get in the playoffs, you're playing against a ton of people. You've got to make the top half. Then you got to make the top half again. And then you've got to be the highest score to take down the Megalabole say and prove that you are the best fantasy football play.

of the year. And if you win, you will automatically be in the listener league with us next year. So if you're not sure, like, we're still waiting to get back to all the entries. Thank you, everybody, for submitting your listener league entries. We are a smidge behind on getting through all those, but we're working hard on them. And thank you. If you don't get in, just go win the Meglabel. It's so easy. We're also going to give you, I think the winner gets a UDK for life as well. I'm looking at the draft times. We've got you want to go right now. You want to pick your draft time. Megalibol.com. We've got a

couple Saturday drafts, a couple Sunday drafts, a couple Monday, Tuesday, and then the final draft will be Wednesday, September 3rd in the morning. Before the season begins, if you are a supporter of the show, there are 35,000 of you out there. You all get a free entry into the Megalibolable. So you don't have to do much. Just go to Megalibol.com, click the button, join one of the draft queues, get placed in one of the leagues and you'll be part of the largest most fun fantasy football league

on the planet. And to my knowledge, one of the only shark-themed leagues. I think it's the only megalible shark-themed. Megalodon shark-themed fantasy league in the universe. I feel like calling a Megalodon a shark

is not fair to. It's not paying real honor to the Megalodon. But it was a shark. It's King Shark. Okay. Now it's a little bit more honorable. It's the biggest of all sharks. Yeah.

Right? For sure. So yeah, check that out. Is there a chance there are still some like that we don't know about? In the ocean right now? A thousand percent. Have you ever been down there? We don't know.

I don't know what's going on down there. Yeah, to the bottom. To the bottom? I don't think so. Could they be swimming down in the deeps? Like the only one who knows for sure is James Cameron. Yeah. Don't they get bigger the farther down you go?

Isn't that where the big, the big, the big, The big squids? Aren't the big squids way down deep? They are. Yeah, those are. But you know, the angler fish? Yeah. The terrifying monsters that have the lights and the images. They're actually very tiny. They're small. They're not that scary. Well, when you zoom in. Clownfish. Yeah, you zoom into the face. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We are scientists. Some Bill Nyes over here. Megalobole.com head over there. Like I said, if you are a supporter of the show, you already have an entry. one of the things you can do if you are somebody that purchased the ultimate draft kit, and we should mention this, we give you a dollar for dollar credit for the ultimate draft kit purchase, whether you bought it

yesterday or back in February, if you would like to become an ultimate foot clan member, that is the top tier of our membership at jointhefoot.com. It gives you everything. You get the UDK every year, the DFS pass, draft analyzer, in-season app, all the tools and resources, the dynasty pass.

You get 100% of everything, and we give you a dollar for dollar credit from your UDK towards that if you want to upgrade to the ultimate tier. Did you mention the extra episode every week? And there's an extra episode every week? There's a lot of perks. Literally every single thing. Megalapurks. Megalapurts. Every single thing

that we offered, there's no other thing to add on ever if you are an ultimate footclam member at join the foot.com. It's the easiest way. It's a Chipotle burrito a month and you get everything we do forever. All right. We better get into it. We got a lot to

talk about. Undrafted Gems, presented by Walmart. All right, during this month leading up to kickoff in the NFL, we're identifying some late-round undrafted players to keep an eye on as training camp and preseason rolls on every week. We bring up a different name that we're paying attention to. in case you're curious it's undrafted gyms g-em it's not like just players named jim right they have not been drafted or the location right right like get your pump on yeah yeah oh

undrafted gyms oh yeah yeah like lifetime mountain size i needed to work through it his face is like i have no idea you're talking well we often don't know your references mike so we're used to power you're trying to connect too many dots no just just jym you know regular Got it. No, I know. It's also not the popular female band. Oh, Jim, yeah. Truly outrageous. Thank you, Mike. Let's talk some fantasy football players.

My undrafted target here at tight-in. It's Mason Taylor. My brain's trying to find another gym reference. Don't do it. Mason Taylor, rookie tight-in for the New York Jets. He is 21 years old. He is not being drafted. He's down at tight-in 22 right now. This is going to be one of those players that I think ends up a waiver-wire pickup really, really fast. He's going to play all the snaps.

Tyler Conklin vacate 72 targets. I know we don't like Justin Fields the passer, but you go beyond Garrett Wilson, and what are you left with? Is it, you know, Breece Hall out of the backfield? Correct. Dot, dot, dot. I mean. Josh Reynolds is the clear, it's been confirmed that he is the clear number two wide receiver here. And just think about what I said.

Ross Reynolds is your next best option. Look, Mason Taylor's good. He's a really, really good player, and people need to pay attention to him. And so for me, that is one of those players. If you're going to end up streaming tight ends or you have a tight end injury that happens or you just want to throw somebody at the back of your bench right before Sunday morning when the Jets play and you just want to see what, you know, 90 to 100 percent of snaps looks like for Mason Taylor on this offense, you know, you talk about.

Justin Fields likes to check the ball down. Well, tight-ins are very good for that as well. Did you say he was a second-round pick? I mean, no, I didn't mention it, but he's a second-round pick. We love Colston Lovell and Tyler Warren for good reason. But Mason Taylor went in the second.

I wish he had the dog. Oh, you don't think he has the dog. Oh, no, I know he doesn't. He's been through the machine, and there is nothing in there but just a tiny little kitty cat. That's a dog debate. No, go watch the tape. So here's...

I'm in the middle between you guys. Meow's and Taylor. I agree that he's not like, he's not like your Bin Cinnett type of guy that's looking to deliver the pain and run over guys. He's not like a third same tight in. Got it. But he is a very good player. He's son of a Hall of Famer. He's a, he's a pro as a rookie.

So I really like the bringing, the bringing meous and table, Taylor up. I think it is worth. Jason, who's your guy? Mielsen Taylor just... Let's move it forward. It just became a thing. Okay, okay. I hope you guys haven't seen my guy.

Because my guy is an undrafted gym. I feel like it's you cheating on another one of your guys. It's an undrafted gym. What if I told you that three of the last five games he played last year, he was a top six wide receiver on the week. My wallet knows that. Oh, yeah. Because you and I had a little bet about this player.

But he plays no snaps. It's Marvin Mims Jr. Marvin Mims is a really talented player who I've been pretty out on. You don't go into year three not, you know, having ever played snaps, looking talented, showing flashes of brilliance and then still never getting, you know, he's a gadget player. He's a guy who's been used. He's literally never played more than 47% of snaps in a game ever. And so you, that's why he's undrafted, you know, he'll, you can be in a deep league.

won't go drafted. However, what we saw last week in preseason is at least a glimmer of light that maybe just maybe the words Sean Payton has said before of like, we've got to get this guy on the field more could happen, which Peyton, you can. In preseason week two, he played 16 of the 19 snaps with the starters. He left at the same time as Bo Nix. In 11 personnel, both Sutton and Mims played 11 of the 13 snaps. In 12 personnel, the Broncos used Sutton and Mims. Every single play except for one when my dude came in from one. Here's another undrafted gym.

But I mean, if I don't know, this is preseason. This is just trying things out. See what works well. And so maybe this coming week it'll be Franklin in for every play. But if this is what happens and Mims grabs a hold of the wide receiver two role. I believe he is good enough to be very successful in fantasy football. He is a fast, big play machine, highly productive, collegiate profile, young breakout age, has pretty much every single thing that we look for across the board other than opportunity. So if this opportunity

comes, Marvin Mims will be an important player this year. All right, Mike. What do you got? So I'm going to throw this out. This wasn't the player I'm going with this week. We were, you know, we talked about the Colts quarterback situation, which that'll be in the news, if you didn't hear, Daniel Jones is the starter. And I was looking through ADP of his guys who were going real late. I was like, man, Michael Pittman, like, as much as we love Josh Downs, that's all fine and well. But it's like, Michael Pittman is a good player. And he's just really being forgotten about. But I really thought it would be Richardson. So just like, want to throw that out that Michael Pittman, pay attention. And Pittman is a, he's a squeaky wheel. He really is. He's got a little bit of

of the diva wide receiver in him that I want. He's paid like one. Oh, for sure. He's paid as a true number one alpha wide receiver and he demands the ball. I mean, there were quotes earlier this off season. I think it was Daniel Jones who was who was being quoted. Correct me if I'm wrong, Kyle, where he was saying basically Pittman makes sure I always know where he is. That's what I want from not if I'm like the coach of the team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for fantasy football. We play a different game. We sure do. But the player I'm going to bring up is because of a different quarterback situation that got settled. For the Cleveland Browns, I want to talk about

Cedric Tillman. Just don't forget what happened in that stretch of, it was only three games, so it was the smallest of small samples. But Amari Cooper gets traded midseason last year, and James comes in, and Cedric Tillman just goes nuclear

for three games, eight for 81, seven for 99 and two, six for 75, and a touchdown. And then, unfortunately, he had a concussion in week and then he was just out for the regular season. So this is a, just pay attention to the Cleveland Browns of we're excited that Joe Flacko has named the starting quarterback.

How long will he be the guy? We don't know, but at least the beginning of the season, the wide receivers will have more value than. He's Winston Light. I mean, Flacco is Winston Light right now. Andy, this is a, you weren't in the office when I was showing this to Mike. I don't know if you remember, but two years ago. Flacco started three games for...

The Jets? No, for the Browns. Oh, okay. Two years ago. Yes, yes. Two years ago, he started three games for the Browns. And I was like, I wonder what his pace. I remember he threw the ball a lot.

I was like, because he had a couple starts last year. That was the time that I won the championship because of Nojoku because of Joe Flacko. Yeah, so his pace through the first three weeks that season of attempts, you want to take a guess? How many attempts? I mean, it's got to be like five. they're like 700. Yeah, that would be outrageous. It would have been

800 to 78. I mean, he just was throwing the ball over 50 times a game. Yeah, he is I would say that like the new again we're going to talk about the news and different quarterback situations.

We got the news we wanted for fantasy. Yeah, we got the news we wanted for fantasy in multiple situations. We're not rolling the dice with unproven passers that are going to run too much for these receivers to get targets. We got guys that are going to chuck it. So just kind of the closing argument for Tillman is like Jerry Judy is the player who's being drafted.

Jerry Judy, you know, for how long his career has been, it's been okay-ish. And then we had the second half of last year. And for three of those games, Cedric Tillman was also doing those things. So it's a, you know, depending on your lead format. It makes you nervous. Right. It makes you, but Jerry Judy is like what, six or seventh round pick? where Cedric Tillman, it could be Tillman.

All the camp news about Tillman has been positive. If it was the opposite, like he's the perfect player to pay attention to the news because the depth chart, does Deontay Johnson take over an opportunity from him? Those type of questions, I think they've been answered. Deontay Johnson was playing in this most recent game. Yeah, so it's just, Tillman has not been. Tillman is going late. He will be starting on the outside.

And if this team has to end up doing a Joe Flacco, let's chuck the ball. And like, Tillman might be the guy. The only problem is the Browns have a good defense. I wish they didn't. That's a shame. But with Deontay Johnson, we don't even know what team he plays for come week three. Yeah, I mean, the Brown's schedule-wise, they might win a game or two. If you look at their schedule, I think you can give them between one and three wins.

On the beginning what? No, no, for the year. Oh, wow. For the year. For the year, I think if I look at that schedule, and I'm not. generous to the Browns. I see one to three wins. I think they've got too good of a defense and the NFL has too much parity for it to be that low, but they do have a very, very rough schedule.

All right, that was undrafted gyms presented by Walmart. Who knew that you could get what you need in as fast as an hour? Get free delivery on your first express delivery order with the code Express. Valid for First Express delivery order, $50 minimum, subject to availability. Restrictions apply. It's time for news. News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance. The Colts have named Daniel Jones as their starting quarterback.

Head coach Shane Steichen came out and said it is not, he's not planning on it being a short-term arrangement. His quote was, he's the starting quarterback for the season. Stuyken said. I don't want to have a short leash on that. Like the length of Steikin's season. Well, yeah, Stuyken's season could be shorter than a full 17. But one, I think it's the right move.

We talked about this on the show yesterday. I thought they might go Richardson because the path of the change is clean that way. If you bench Richardson now, like we didn't really talk about if they made this decision. If you bench Richardson now, to me, it's a full. Forever. You're done. You're done with Anthony Richardson. You should trade him.

The experiment. It's over. And so I think that decision was made. I think this is Daniel Jones is our starter. Um, you can debate it. I, I think he's a better passer. I think he's a much better quarterback. I don't think that's fully debatable. It's just, could Anthony Richardson have gotten there? Because he, he needs reps. He needs practice. And completely fair. And this coaching staff is like, we don't have time. Right. Why draft him in the top five then? That's the question. Yeah,

it's weird. You can follow that on the Indianapolis. Like, if you, if you draft a player that has almost no college experience and needs reps and you don't give him reps, now he's been injury prone. He's been inaccurate. They obviously made a decision that goes beyond the preseason games where they were pretty even and said Daniel Jones is our guy. But my goodness, am I happy about this decision? Yeah, Tyler Warren's. And my guy for you, of course you're happy about this decision. And Josh Downs, we like Josh Downs, whether he's there week one or not.

Michael Pittman, the office, Jonathan Taylor. I love Jonathan Taylor. It's a huge deal for Jonathan Taylor. It's great for everybody. It's great for everybody other than Anthony Richardson. Yeah. He had standalone upside, you know, magma potential for fantasy. But here's the thing, Daniel Jones is not in and of himself. He's not a terrible fantasy option.

If he's going to start the season, like if you're in a Superflex league because he was named the starter later, I mean, this is a guy that is not, you know, he's one of the last players drafted, but he runs the ball. He's got good weapons. Four out of his, believe it or not, Daniel Jones played 10 games last year. And four of those games, he was the top 12 quarterback, including a top five finish because of what you're saying. He runs the football. I would say he definitely has more talent around him right now than he had in New York and the receiving room. And on the

offensive line. Yeah. And with the running back, I mean, they didn't have Sequin last year. So it was Devin Singletary to start the year when Daniel Jones was quarterback. So it's not to say he's the savior. It's going to be an uphill battle for Indianapolis. But it's very good for fantasy. Unless, of course, you're a dynasty manager of Anthony Richardson. In which case, he may be on the Tray Lance path at this point. Yep, feels like it. We did mention the breaking news yesterday. We just talked about it.

Joe Flacco is going to be the week one starter. He had a bit of a different quote around the longevity as being the starter. Yeah, he was asked, are you the starter for the season or until further notice? And his answer was, we all know how that works. Dude, Joe Flacko's quotes at this age, he's 60, 45, something like that. He's 40 on the dot. 40 on the dot. He, I don't know when it was.

I think like three years ago he turned into the old man I don't care and I love it his quotes he is he's cool he's so cool he's so cool Joe Lago's cool I love him

You see David Nogoku's joy and Flago be in the starter? I felt so much happiness and relief like I felt the weight off David Nogoku's shoulders he was clearly so afraid it was going to be Kenny Pickett and he couldn't say that because it could have been Kenny Pickett and that would have been his quarterback and he would

support him, of course. But when Flacco got the starter, he's like, Flacko! Yes! They're going to keep four on the roster. Which is supposed to be. Which I don't think a team has done in a really, really long time. That does go a little bit towards your prediction of not winning

a lot of games, because those quarterbacks don't help them on the roster. They take up roster spots from other players who seems like they need. Their weird situation is they didn't spend top draft capital on Gabriel or Sanders. And then Kenny Pickett's certainly not the future. So if you end up with one to three wins

or their Vegas line, five and a half, you're in the running for the number one, number two, number three pick again. And that should be on the table for you. If you didn't spend high draft capital on a quarterback, it's going to be tough for Cleveland, but they do have a great defense. The commanders, Terry McClure and Brian Robinson, Jr.,

they were not in attendance to last night's game. So not only not playing, but not even in attendance. Brian Robinson is counting down the days, hanging up the for sale sign on his house. He does not seem like he will be a a piece of the commander's offense. He will be a piece of someone's

office. He's a good enough running back. I'm afraid of him right now. Right. He could ruin a lot of situations. You hear, you hear the Texans, right? Like, if he goes to the Texans, it is a death knell for Mixon. It is basically saying... Everyone, I wouldn't want Robinson. I wouldn't want Mixon, Chubb? No one. But it would be like saying Mixon's

injury is... Yeah, they would be admitting it. And then, you know, Chicago, it gets brought up, right? And then, like, what in the world do you do in Chicago with that ensemble? That would be awful. I think the Cincinnati's been brought up. I mean, that would be a problem. Oh, man.

That would be a problem. It would, I think, service level, but overall, I wouldn't be, honestly, I wouldn't be overly concerned about Chase Brown. It would certainly hurt Chase Brown's total volume without a doubt. I think the best landing spot where a team needs him is the dolphins. They desperately need a larger back, a goal-on guy, you know, a, a, a, a, a, a, a short yardage back to mix it with Devon H. And, and I'm, I'm kind of the same way that you are with Chase. If he were to go there, I don't think that kills Devon H. And it certainly eats into

his opportunities, but it doesn't make him, you know, a terrible fantasy asset. So we, because of the absence of Brian Robinson, we got Chris Rodriguez starting. People for Washington. We need to talk about it. But everybody was paying attention to Bill, Bill, Bill, Twitter, Crossky lost its mind. They're watching the game last night and the snaps and the runnybacks. So it's Jacori Kroski-Marrett who we're talking about the seventh round rookie

for the Washington commanders. He goes by Bill. He goes by Bill. Now, what can we take away from last night's game? You know, Jaden Daniels played four snaps. Chris Rodriguez played those four snaps. So as of that moment in time, Rodriguez is ahead of

Bill on the depth chart and the my biggest takeaway watching that game last night was Jerome Ford is in play in week one for the Cleveland Browns. Yeah, you're saying because they're playing the Cincinnati Bengals and

there was a point where the, they were Bengals were giving up like 20 yards per rush to the team. Here's, when you talk about Jacori Kroski Merritt, who's the player that, you know, everybody's all excited about final running back taken in the draft. First of all, his story's insane.

Because if you know the actual, like he didn't play in power four, power five conferences until he played in New Mexico, which was a bad team, was amazing for that team. But if you know what happened is he transferred to Arizona, he played one game, dominated his old team, and then was ruled ineligible to play because he had a six year of eligibility that was taken away. It came down to some controversy about him like giving his jersey to a different player and losing eligibility because that player played with his jersey, all this crazy stuff. But his actual numbers, his metrics were high percentile numbers.

For the New Mexico year, yes. For New Mexico in just terms of some of the raw talent and ability. But here's my bigger point is that you can buy into the hype, you can not buy into the hype. You can talk about how many seventh round running back succeed, how many don't. The point is Chris Rodriguez and Austin Echler or Jeremy McNichols are not the reason Brian Robinson is going to be like. go. They don't make that decision because of those players. They make that decision because of Bill. Yeah. Who?

Bill. Bill. That is an actual, we held a microphone up to Twitter. That is what it sounds like on Twitter. Twitter was very fun last week. That is why it can be, you know, you can pick up a Chris Rodriguez in a dynasty league. You can pick up some other players and hope that it works out. Rodriguez numbers last year, like his advanced analytics are good. They could perform. But I

don't think your upside exists for those guys the same way it would with Bill. So take it for what you will. I think this is an indictment on, Brian Robinson is not needed. Right. Because they have these other players. I'm guessing behind the scenes, this hasn't come out yet, but I'm sure it will. Brian Robinson

is kind of spearheading a lot of this. He wants more work. He wants more respect within that room. They don't need him. They're not going to give him Belcow usage. They're not going to pay him, you know, an extension. And so it's as much him as it is the team. It's not just a team being like, we hate, we hate Brian Robinson because we've got Bill.

He doesn't want a little role on the team. Exactly. And so it's like, well, we don't need you. I will say you're, I don't disagree with what you're saying. That Bill is the reason that maybe you now have a running back room that really does not need Brian Robinson. But as of right now, Bill is third on the deputy. And while he did have a very nice 29 yard rushing touchdown last night, I mean, I couldn't have scored that, but that was a, you would have got 15. I would have got 15. Austin Echler is, to me, the value here. He was good last year. On a per touch basis, he was good on a per touch basis, had a lot of fantasy finishes. For tusses. As a top 24 back.

Watch out for it. Got hurt. That's not good. He is, he's the starter here. And I think he's still talented. And he'll be drafted so much behind. Like the crazy thing is right now on the depth chart, Bill's third. Would you agree with that?

Currently. Yeah. Week one, week one. Yeah, I view him second, but go ahead. So week one, I think officially he will run behind Chris Rodriguez, behind Austin Echler. He will be drafted first in fantasy drafts next weekend. He won't get ahead of Echler? Well, that's stupid.

Dude, he, I think he will. That's my point is I think he's going to be drafted at a stupid spot. Well, we've got more news to talk about. We're going to have to take a break. We'll talk about the rest of the news and then get into breakouts. Head coach, Mike McDaniel, talking about Devon A-Chann. We got it revealed. It was a calf.

So he's unlikely to practice next week. You don't want calf. You don't want hammy. No. You're okay with the groin. Because you can get back a little quicker. The calf. Man, there was another running back last year with the calf.

Yeah, who was that? Yeah. Yeah, Christian McCaffery. I really hated when I heard it was calf. I was like, no. For a small, speedy guy. But you have preferred calf or hamstring? Because we already knew it was a soft tissue lower body. Well, I would have preferred groin. Doesn't groin still count there? Yeah, okay. Okay, it does. I mean, that's, the groin's up higher. Yeah, but it's the top of the lower body. Yeah, it's the top of the lower body. Yeah. For sure, that's not. It's mid. no what it's the low part of the mid would be like oblique it's the low part of the mid no oh the mid is the mid once you get to the hip bones you're in lower body yeah you're up you're almost adjacent to hip bones you're adjacent lower i mean you're at the top of the bottom it's definitely a lower body i'd rather

have groin you're saying your groin isn't lower body i'm saying your groin is it's low to mid wait 10 years okay oh i don't have to wait long all right But this is bad. This is bad, and you start to put Ollie Gordon into kind of a sleeper category for the dolphins. And you also have to up the risk rating and worry a little bit about A-chan, who has top-five potential, but you don't want him to miss time and you don't want him to battle, you know, what was it? Like his rookie season, how many, didn't he miss multiple? He did.

So he only played 11 games in 2023 his rookie season. But the problem was missing three separate times. Different injuries. That was always the worry I mean it is always the worry with an undersized back Like there's a smidge of Bucky Irving worry for me When you've got a guy who's actually getting Massive workload

If you're if you've got you know A 200 pound sub 200 pound running back That is going to try to go out there And touch the ball 300 times 275 times It's physically difficult to do that over the course of 17 games Yeah So not not excited writing news heading into the season.

Teteroa McMillan. Am I a guy for Mike? Teteroa McMy guy. Hamstring injury. Don't love it. Might not play in the preseason game. Hopefully he can get back. Jalen McMillan, it's a severely sprained neck.

He will miss some time. Not going to be ready for the season opener. You have Godwin on the pup. McMillan with a neck injury. Likely to be on the pup, but yes. You have Kate Otten, who's just returning with a hamstring injury. Now that's a beneficiary, right? If you don't have Godwin and McMillan.

Cade Otten was a phenom for several weeks last year. Rashad White still dealing with the groin injury, and they don't have their left tackle. So injuries are not great situation for Tampa. John McVeigh said they'll continue to take things a day at a time with Stafford. Tell us more. Actually, I can because one of the quotes, it made no sense to me.

You can explain it. They said something about his back being upright for week one. That's what the hope was. They're hoping his back was upright. I've never heard that expression before. As opposed to laying down. They don't want him laying down in week one, Mike. I don't think any football player

No. Like a pre-sack? Yeah, he's just on the bench. He's laying down. That's how he takes the snap. I mean, there are. He can still throw it. He's got great arm strength.

There are people out there, and I'm not, I am not one of them now. But there are people out there that think that the Matthew Stafford back injury is more severe than the Rams even new. And there are people taking Puka and Devante Adams, basically off their draft board because moving them down means you don't get them, right? So it's like if you're not willing to take them anywhere near their ADP, they're off the board. If I'd take Pooka in the third, well, you can't. Right.

So that is, it did make me nervous. I was in a draft yesterday. Second round, late second round. Pook was sitting there. Late second. I took them. Okay, I was going to say late seconds where I took them, but it made, but it did make me, like, my finger held above the mouse. Man, I'd pull the trigger there.

would. I did. And it feels like it could be a trap. Yeah, I mean, it's not like he will be not productive if Safford misses, but he won't be puka. Right. It'll be puka light. And that will make me sad. And then Quinshawn Judkins still hasn't reached a deal with the Browns. They are, there's a chance that like we need to see the disciplinary process in the NFL take place before Judkin signs a deal with the Browns, which could happen. So, you know, there's leverage being played there, but Judkins not going to be on the field. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, there's, there has to be contractual implications of this of, like, if you go before you've even signed and you're suspended for a character issue, I'm sure that then the Brown's lawyers are going to put a whole bunch of things in that to protect the team.

Groins, groin muscles, growing muscles, both consider lower body muscles. Yeah, because, like, I agree that they're lower body. If a boxer hits someone in the groin, they have gone, they've gone lower body. It's just not. We're not like, oh, we hit him in the midbody. No, no, you're right. I'm not, I'm arguing to argue. All right, that was news and note, sponsored by Progressive Insurance, quote today at

progressive.com, progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and third-party insurers, not available in all states or situations coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. It's time. Breakouts. All right. define a breakout to a fantasy football player out there? What is your definition? I think the easiest way to understand a breakout is that next year this player will be drafted many rounds ahead of where they're being drafted this year. They'll be drafted to be a starter. Yeah, exactly. A starter or

a star depending on where they're currently being drafted. But breakout means they will not be anywhere near where you're drafting them next year. So we have consensus breakouts, sleepers, values, bus, all in the UDK, players that we've agreed upon. We have our my guys. We've mentioned them recently, but a breakout candidate individually that we both see with a path forward, that's the opportunity today to share those names. I'm going to let Jason kick us off if he's willing and able. I am not.

Okay. Go for it. Pass. By the way, both of you, your recovery counts. Oh, yeah. Your recoveries. You're present. Yeah. I feel like a human today yesterday off the back of that travel weekend and wedding time. I was hollow inside. And so today I'm back.

Mine is second year, wide receiver, a first round NFL draft pick. Those are usually things that automatically mean the next year the players drafted very high. I'm talking about 49ers wide receiver, Ricky Pearsall. This is a player. I liked as a prospect coming in. I think he's got exceptional hands. It's got enough speed, good route running. Now, we don't know how his rookie season would have gone if he didn't get shot in the

chest. Yeah. Like, he shouldn't be alive. Where, I mean, he was an inch away from death. And then he still got... He was a beast. He still got back on the field in week seven. Didn't do a ton last year, but he did have a few flashes. You know, week 10,

four for 73 and a touchdown. At the end of the year, he really flashed the exciting upside. Eight for 141 and one on 10 targets against Detroit and six for a nice 69 and one on eight targets in week 18 at Arizona. So this is a guy who it's like, okay, we saw some examples on the field of him being able to dominate an NFL game as a rookie who's a first round draft pick. It's what he's supposed to do. And then you look around the team and you're like, okay, well, Brandon Ayuk is not Eddie. Debo Samuel is gone, which we didn't bring Debo up, but he actually looked last, I mean, it's, you know, very little to see, but he looked like Debo to me last night. Anyways, we'll see how long that gas tank lasts. I do. I think Debo's being stupidly ignored. I'm starting to believe that as well. But you, you know, you have Jennings currently injured. The whole wide receiver team, other than Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, and Ricky Pearsall. are injured. So get those

three players. This is a team that is projected to score, I think, like the third most points, according to Vegas, in the league. They're a 10 and a half win expectation. Their schedule is super easy. Brock Purdy's good. Brock Purdy got paid.

And Ricky Pearsall should be the number one wide receiver for this team. And he doesn't cost you that much. It's one thing to say that a player has opportunity and is being underdrafted or undervalued. It's another to have the talent level that Pearsall has and still, like, not every player with opportunity has ceiling, and Pearsall has ceiling.

Yes. He can be the most dominant player on that roster for years to come. Ironically, despite missing half of his year and not being that involved, he had three games of 15 or more fantasy points. The list of rookie wide receivers with three games of 15 plus fantasy point games. in the second half of the season it's all great other than Christian Watson. I mean it's Tyree Kill

Jou, Debo, A.J. Brown, Justin Jefferson, Brandon Ayuk, Amina Rae St. Brown, Jalen Wattle, Jamar Chase, and then Christian Watson. So Piersall's in good company with what he was able to do in limited action and his opportunities like it's going to be really telling if he doesn't do good. Maybe he's

you know, maybe he's stink. No, he's going to be great and there's huge opportunity there. That team was being ignored, you didn't see those performances because they were a bad team. So the end of the year, they were not relevant. So you missed Pierce-Sal's breakout. That is why his ADP is where it's at. Where is his ADP? His ADP right now is the wide receiver 43 in the ninth round. Oh, baby. 10th round on ESPN, ninth round on Yahoo. And so definitely undervalue, definitely a great breakout pick, a perfect breakout pick. I feel like I want to play on ESPN again. Because every

player that I like, their ADP on ESPN is just ruinedly low. That's not a word. I'm sticking with it. I like it. I knew what you meant. Yeah. Mike didn't even blink. All right, Mike, you've got a breakout candidate.

What's his name? I'm going with Tucker Crafts tight end for the Green Bay Packers as my personal breakout pick. Last year, like, it's the trends. You have to, you know, remember the whole story of. Luke Musgrave drafted before Tucker Craft. He felt like, okay, well, draft order says he's supposed to be the guy for the Green Bay Packers. And Luke was the guy, the rookie year. And then he gets hurt going into year two, and Tucker Craft kind of just takes over.

But it was snap count-wise immediately apparent. No, Tucker Craft has played his way into being the receiving tight end for the Green Bay Packers. last year you know 700 yards seven touchdowns and in year two i've talked about an ADP study i've done where tight ends who break out in year two they they return on a a high percentage of their ADP in year three and right now Tucker craft is going into this year he's the only one who fits that criteria for me so i already liked him because of that like you know historically the percentage chance is there And I put this in here, and Kyle's helping, you know, dig up some, some goodness.

And it's like, okay, tied in since the year 2000, that put up 707 in year two. And the list is Antonio Gates, Chris Cooley, Jimmy Graham, Mark Andrews, all these guys who hit those number. And look, a lot of them massively outplayed what Tucker Kraft did, you know, not comparing him to Graham or Gronk. But just saying the trajectory, the players who did that, you know, the 707 the next year, all of them were at least top six in year three. And Tucker Kraft watching him be just a yards after catch machine last year, 8.8 yards after catch, two full, two yards higher than the next qualified tight end. And we had some fun debates about Tuckercraft, about how easy were they?

And then we went back and watched those big touchdowns. It's like, oh, Tucker Craft is putting bodies in the ground, and he's just, he's fast, he's big, he's tough. We look at the wide receiver room for the Green Bay Packers, and it, yeah, they spent it first on Matthew Golden. There's some, you know, draft Twitter had huge debates of, does Matthew Golden belong there? Because where his profile is, is he just a better, more of a better help for Jordan Love? Can Matthew Golden make that jump? But then the wide receiver room is just, it's talked about all the time because there's no true. standout yet. We all have our favorite guys in the room, but I don't think any of us look

at and go, yep, that's a number one fantasy football option. If Jaden Reed's your guy, that's a great player. But fantasy-wise, Jaden Reed, other than a couple weeks last year, was actually harmful for your fantasy football team. And I think that there is a chance that Tucker Kraft takes the role of being like maybe the number two option in this. Double-digit touchdowns are in the range of outcome for the way that Matt Lefleur and Jordan Leff have played historically. I think he is a great upside shot towards the double digit rounds. He's outside of that range, you know, where we don't like to spend the draft capital on the tight end because they just historically rounds five through seven, they just don't pay off. But I like Tucker Craft as someone who can break into the top six

and maybe even make a little bit more noise. I think his talent is undeniable. I think he's a really good tight end. I did notice in the preseason when Jordan Love was out there getting reps a really nice, it was an incompletion, but a deep seam route to Luke Muscray in the middle of that game. So just remembering that he's back there out on the field,

Musgrave will not take Kraft's, you know, the majority of his passing game work, but it was a reminder that there's some other players in the mix. I think Kraft is undervalued. He's in that tier of tight end though where I think, you know, five touchdowns, you're not happy, eight touchdowns,

super happy. I think, sadly, you know, there are certain tight ends that just fit that role of like, if the touchdowns go their way, you're going to be thrilled with the season. There's a bunch of guys in that four or five, you're not happy, seven or eight, you're super happy. To be honest, that's the vast majority of all tight ends. I mean, once you're past the top three, it's like, who's going to be good? Well, who ends up getting eight touchdowns? And if you want to make a bet on that, Kraft seems like a decent bet. I've come around quite a bit because I know That's interesting. To start this offseason, I was not bullish on Kraft. I felt like this, too many wide receivers, too many other ways to score, another tight end. But I think as I've dug deeper, watched film again, Kraft himself is a really good weapon. And this is a good offense. So if you want to say who could get seven or eight touchdowns, you look at Sam Leporta, he's a good player on a good offense. He's not the number one tart. You know, you've got Aminra, St. Brown. there. You've got Jameson Williams. You've got

Jamir Gibbs out of the backfield. It's not easy for Leporta to go out there and be the number one tight in again, but we know he could because he could get a bunch of touchdowns. I see that somewhat similarly for a you know, when I'm doing my late round targets,

I just want who could be good. Who could have upside there? And there's not a lot of them. All right, we will take a quick break. By the way, I've got my breakout candidate still to reveal and then we pulled the Foot Clan over on our Foot Clan Discord and got some of their favorite breakout picks

we'll share with you as well. All right. Well, we found a spot for this guy. I think he has received a lot of buzz and optimism and excitement. I think he's such an interesting player, especially with the ADP, I think is still slightly depressed as in like

this was a player I figured people would just be guns blazing you're like just real hot and bothered to get him and the ADP is not it and you still don't know who that player is out there so I'm never going to tell you but you should get him get him based off of this here's a hint he's the wide receiver 35 by 80P on sleeper here go yeah go look it up all right that's it for today's show no it's Roma Dunes a second year sophomore wide receiver

for the Chicago Bears, you just mentioned it, wide receiver 35 off the board, eighth round pick in all leagues pretty much, maybe seventh round in Sleeper. Last year, this was, I think the focal point here, part of the argument for Roman Dunze is he might have done the best he could do in light of the circumstances around him. With the performance of Caleb Williams, the fact that this was one of the worst offenses by way of play calling in the entire NFL. I mean, they were dead last in EPA on first downs, constantly put themselves into horrible down and distant situations. Rome did not have the season that people hoped from a top 10 pick. He was the wide receiver 47. He was kind of like Marvin Harrison Light

in terms of like he was out there a lot. He had over 100 targets. That's very rare for a rookie to do, but it was 54 for 734 and 3 and Keenan Allen dominated targets. DJ Moore was there. You had, you know, just so many problems on the offensive side of the football. So he was a disappointment last year. But I think this is the year that Roma Dunesay makes it happen. And part of that is, you know, Ben Johnson's coming in. Yes, the Bears have won the preseason again. It's great.

And they looked good in the last preseason game. But, you know, Keenan Allen has departed. He was a target monster for this roster. And this is a perfect situation for Caleb Williams and Roma Dunesay to grow up together with this Ben Johnson situation. And one of the things that has stood out to me this offseason, when you pay attention to what's happening at camp. These two are, uh, it's a, it's a dynamic connection every day in camp.

Like these two players, the red zone, Roma Dunesay is a true alpha type of wide receiver. And, you know, a lot of the talk from the beat riders out there in Chicago, uh, Greg Braggs came out and talked about this basically saying, look, they're trying to figure out how DJ Moore even fits in the system right now. Like Mike has been vocal about Luther Burden. That's a player picked by, you know, this head coach. Second round pick. you know, they have Roma Dunesay, who their head coach, Ben Johnson, has come out and talked so much about.

And D.J. Moore is sitting here getting backfield carries all the time. And we talked about D.J. Moore in the short area targets. Like, he does not necessarily fit this offense the way that Roman Dunesay does. You know, Braggs also came out and said it's becoming very clear that Caleb Williams and Roma Dunesay are going to be a deadly duo in their second season. Those are the players making the headlines all the time. Honestly, we have not talked about D.J. Moore that much.

There have not been a lot of, you know, camp reports around D. Moore. We know he's a great player, but I don't think that the future of this team is going to be built around DJ Moore. It's around Loveland, Burden, and Adunze. There is no Keenan Allen. I think you can see a significant tier jump for him. And when you look at, if you're a top 10 pick at wide receiver, and you get over 100 targets as a rookie, 75% of those guys historically end up top 24 in year two. So your odds are pretty good. There have been a couple, I think it was like Drake London and Garrett Wilson, actually, that didn't do it in the last like decade. and those are still players that eventually did it so it's like 100 targets top 10 pick very good recipe for bounce back very good recipe for success and a good player and a really good player he is

legitimately good there was nothing on film of his doing that you were like oh man I'm not sure about that rookie season so yeah I think Rome is set up for a tremendous amount of success this year if this offense moves the needle at all if it gets to the middle of the pack I'm

I'm really excited, Caleb. Come on, Caleb. We need you. Please, be good. I was, you know, like I said, I was very surprised that the ADP has held for Rome. I was pretty prepared going through the off-season process to just be 100% out on Rome. Not that I don't see the path for it, just of with all, in that path, there's so many options for everything to go. But with the way the news, and he trended on DJ Moore and the ADP, the upside case is tremendous. And when you're in the seventh, dude, I don't want safety in the seventh round. I want a player who could, if things break right, that guy could end up in the top 20.

And so I'm still behind ADP on my projection, but I have no problem with that, with the draft pick. I thought he was going to go like in the fifth and I was going to be super out, but this is fine. so he's Roman Dudesa is 23 years old Colson Loveland's 21 years old Luther Burden who looks great I love this college 18 years old he's not he's actually 21 as well but next year like you think about the transition of this team next year DJ Morby 29 I don't know how they

he'll be 29 years old they have to trade him because his contract is yeah they're not getting out of that is very lucrative it's gonna it's gonna make some complications he signed it the right time yeah I mean there may be a way out maybe it's to be a trade We did poll the Foot Clan over at Foot Clan Discord on the Discord channel, which, Papa Josh, he helps run the Discord. He's over here in Ducer's Alley. And we've got, what, 50, 60,000 folks?

We're over 60K now. Nice. So you can go join. It's free. You can join the Discord server. But we got the most popular breakout answers to hear from the Foot Clan. Number one by far was Ricky Pearsall. Smart people.

Marvin Harrison Jr. was another big name. Okay. That one is, I think that's fair. it's like the Rome conversation. It's like the Caleb conversation. Please, Marvin, be good. Yeah, come on, Kyler. Drake May. Yeah, big name. I agree with that a lot. Emeka, Egbuka, of course, and Amari and Hampton.

A couple more rookie breakout picks. In fact, more and more this offseason, I just, you know, when you look back on 2025 and you say, what's the lesson we learned, I do think it will be a tale of rookies this year. Like some people were, some people I saw were making comments about like we had more rookies than normal in are my guys. And it's like, we've, we've had 100 my guys in 11 years. And this was the most rookies we've ever had in there. There's a reason for that. We're trying to give you the best players to draft. Like, we're not paying attention to how many years they've played. It's the best player for this year in accordance to draft position.

And rookies get discounted. This year in particular, there's talent we believe in at the rookie position. And the rookie running back class this year was especially good. I mean, we knew that about that two years ago that last year was a weak rookie running back class and this year would be good and then they ended up going to situations that are advantageous you know in the ultimate draft kit we've got so you know our breakouts a lot of them are rookie running backs and it's like we were we had the conversation like can we can we have another rookie it's like well we just want to get we just want to get it right we want to give you the best picks and it seems like this year i agree with you andy it's going to be a lot of the rookies yeah there's some rookies we just

really believe in, the opportunity, the talent, the draft capital, all of the math equations, and they get discounted in drafts sometimes, and we'll see how that looks on draft day with Trayvion Henderson and some of these players shooting up the board, but there's still some guys that are going to stay really, really low in draft. So we've got Sleepers, values, bus shows coming up. We've got a Superflex mock draft episode for the Superflex people. Mike, I'm looking at Mike. He's like, are so excited. I can't wait. He's like, are we doing that? I can't wait. See how late, I can take my quarterback's. Oh, baby. He's only going to take one. He still takes

one. Yeah, it's just, guys, it's not two quarterbacks. It's not too far. Yeah. We've got a bold predictions episode coming up. We've got an MVP episode coming up. And let's, yeah, let's make sure we make that announcement again, Jason. Go ahead. The Megalaballah ball is here, baby. It's back, baby. Go sign up right now. Pick your

draft slot. And we're playing. I'm absolutely playing. I'm not telling you which time slot I'm in, but I'm already signed up. Yeah. So, Please join. Maybe you'll be in our league. The Megalable this year, all the details at megalable.com. That'll do it for today's show, but we'll be back tomorrow.

Thank you for tuning in for listening. Make sure you follow, subscribe. This is the time of year to get ready to rumble. Your drafts around the corner this upcoming weekend. Biggest draft weekend of them all. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on Join the

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