Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - Preseason Hype + Fantasy Curses - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/14

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Fantasy Football show for Aug 14, 2026. Will Caleb Williams take another step forward in 2026? Which players will be overlooked in fantasy football drafts, but surprisingly relevant? Lots of listener questions answered on today’s podcast! 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. Friday, August 14th, the fantasy footballers podcast, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and the bear. Back again. We have to assume that Mike has the lettuce diarrhea thing. Hope, Hope is, I'm sorry, I said assume, Hope. right that's the word we're looking for yeah that we have to hope thank you

al i think um he was close he's close to coming back he'll be here monday for sure yeah he uh he's in preseason form you know what i mean and and he doesn't he's a man of few words he hasn't really even given us details about what he's no idea the only thing he said is he's like whatever he's got it hit him like a ton of bricks and and he's down for the count and and we choose to believe he has the lettuce diarrhea thing. We hope, Andy. We hope he has the lettuce diarrhea. The funny thing is the difference between him being infected and normal.

He wouldn't know. He wouldn't notice the difference. He has no idea. He's had the lettuce diarrhea thing for 15 years, 20 years. It's been a long time. That's how he keeps in shape. Yeah. I think one of the ways they treat that is the hot salsa at Chipotle.

I think that's one of the treatments. Something like that. We have plenty to talk about, though, Jason. We've got the preseason games going on. I mean, maybe LaFleur is a good coach. I don't know. The Cardinals quarterbacks are like 49 for 55 in the preseason. Maybe, maybe.

Maybe it was preseason defenses. We will. Time will tell. We will talk through what we saw last night. That'll be a big part of the show. We will get into some mailbag questions. And right here right now, Jay, just start using that brain of yours to decide

which of our deucers will do the mailbag drop and why. So just think about that. We got a while before that. We have a little bit of time. I will work on it. I'm going to workshop that. Keep them all guessing. Yeah.

And I've got good reasons for all three. Right. I want you to pick one and then give us the reason when we get to the mailbag. Yeah. And then we'll find out together. It's really good. Let me see. I'm looking at the faces.

I want to see who's sweating the most. Three happy people. Okay. Oh, Josh, giving the thumbs up. Josh is playing the reverse psychology game. Our Megalos show, our live event here in Phoenix,

presented by Series XM and sponsored by GMC and Pat Smart Friday. The 28th, it's two weeks away. That's two weeks from today. We'll be live in Phoenix, 800 plus foot clan. There are a handful of seats you can still grab at Ballerslive.com, but that is coming up. Super excited to be in person with you before the season.

season kicks off. We'll be doing bold predictions. You'll be part of a live episode of the show. You'll get to do the mailback. Like right now, it's an honor. So whoever, whichever deuce or I may do the mailback today isn't, I'm honoring them. Yes. Yeah, you are. And we want to honor everyone of the folkland that will be at that live show. Ballerslive.com. Might not be honoring the ears of the listeners, but the people doing it. It's an honor. You can follow us on X at the FF Ballers. Follow Mike at FF Hitman. Jason at Jason Moore. I'm at Andy Holloway and it's a great time to jump into our free Discord

at BallersDiscord.com if you want to be part of the community. I don't know what that number's at. It's probably 60, 70,000 folks in there. Great place to find leagues. Talk about your upcoming drafts. It's just a great community of human beings that you can check out. Our quick question of the day to day, Jason, you ready for this? I am ready. Who is someone that's going to be annoyingly relevant in fantasy this year? So you might give this type of player a nickname like a snap goblin, somebody that is just out there either stealing snaps or somebody else or stealing production from somebody else.

The Tyler Alger of the past and possibly the Tyler Alger of the present as well. My answer for this is there's two things that have to come together to make us really angry. One is you take a talented player and you put them on the bench in certain situations and two is the coach. that is required to do such things. So to me it's Tyrone Tracy. Oh, this is a Mat Nagy attack. I mean, I do think by the end of the season, Scataboo will have established it.

But to start the season, like I love Cam Scataboo, loved his tape coming out. I mean, we've talked about that for, you know, a year and a half. And then he proved he was the dude that he was in college on the NFL field. He could continue to run people over. and then unfortunate injury, and it looks like he should be the centerpiece of this office. Him and neighbors should really be the engine that makes it work, but I just don't trust Matt Nagy. I think that Tyrone Tracy is an above average back.

I mean, it does take a back behind the starter who is capable. They're not going to throw in, you know, a Zemir White and be like, go, you know, take over. But Algiers good. Blake Corum's good. Tyrone Tracy is a good player. He's not a bad player. It would be annoying if two-minute drills were Tyrone Tracy. Yeah, if he gets involved in the passing game and all of a sudden you're sitting there with 14 opportunities a game for Scataboo. You'll be really upset. I have two names. One is Don Tavian Wicks of the Eagles. I think that will be an annoyingly relevant player because he will stand in the way of what fantasy players want to see the most.

You're saying McKay Lemon. McKinleman, like a rookie wide receiver having success. That's fun. You know, a kind of journeyman, rarely relevant player that switches teams. Let me, let me push back on that. What if Wix becomes a very relevant wide receiver flex play on a weekly basis? With that, like, I don't see Tyrone Tracy doing enough where you could start it, but what if Wix is startable? Because I think that's in the range of outcomes here. It's in the range of outcomes, but it'll still be annoying because the process of a wide receiver two or maybe the third or fourth target on this team when you consider Goddard and Sequin, that player's probably not getting stronger over the back

half as McCai Lemon gets healthier and more involved. So that's where I think it might be annoying because I don't know if you can ever count on him, but he will stand in the way of somebody. I also just want to mention this. This is more annoying, I think, just like you guys or other people that don't want him to have any success for some reason. I think Jalen Naylor is going to be annoyingly relevant for the race. So this is like, you think he's good.

I think he's better. And that will annoy me. I just think. It would very much annoy me. In the, to put it in the most plain stupid language possible, every offense plays four quarters and they have to have somebody go run routes on the outside and receive targets. And this team has got very few names that isn't, that aren't Brock Bowers that, but they're going to get the ball.

And I think Jalen Ehler will be an annoyingly, relevant acquisition that I think will be, I think it's more likely that Jalen Naylor is that flex guy that you can start than it is Don Tavian Oakes. I don't. I don't think so. I think Brock Bowers takes order, but that is to your point.

That would be annoying, wouldn't it? That would be super annoying. Other shoutout names, I think if LeQuint Allen is involved for the Jacksonville Jaguars, oh man, everyone will be upset. Because it's like, if it's not tooting, let it be crawed. And if LeQuint Allen comes in for passing work, it's just going to be nobody. Kenny Gainwell, obviously.

He was a thorn in the side for the Steelers backfield last year, leading the team in receiving. Bucky managers will be not happy there. And then we saw it in preseason, Charlie Kohler, he could end up being very, very, very annoying. Why can't you say Kohler? Well, now I'm going to go further. It's not, you don't like, It's Calar. It's not Collar.

No, it's Calar. Like Calarney sauce? Yeah, that's right. Like a molar? Like you pull your molars? Yes, exactly. Dummy. All right, news time.

News and notes from around the league. I've never heard that in my life until you said it yesterday. Yeah. I mean, every time I've ever heard Charlie Kohler's name. Calar. Oh, gosh. Yeah. No, I just want.

And then yesterday. You just invented, I mean, maybe I'm going to leave the door open that I've said it wrong my whole life. No, no, no, no, no. Everybody else has said it wrong in their whole life. But that, you don't need to leave that door open. Okay, all right. This is not inside information where I'm trying to correct you.

Okay, you don't have a video of like his mom when he was three years old referring to him with his last name. No, this is. We had a preseason night. Yeah, lots of news. I want to kind of go through a ton of names and talk. and talk about some things that I saw, talk about what I loved,

talk about some things I hated. I will start with what I kind of said at the top. It is kind of a weird thing to say because the Cardinals have the lowest projected win total like we've ever seen. It's four and a half wins. Three and a half? Yeah, it moved down.

It opened it four and a half. It's unbelievably low. And this is a 17 game season. We have not seen that in decades. So to say all that, through two weeks, their quarterback play, their offensive play calling, all of that stuff, even if Vanella against bad defenses, it's hard to ask for much more than what you've seen. Jacoby Broussat was perfect yesterday. Great touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison. You saw the week before how good Carson Beck was. Gardner Minch who was 12 of 14. The Cardinals are 49 of 55 or something like that at the quarterback position. So I'm just saying like, and then what, what else you saw from Arizona last night was Jeremiah Love's debut. Electric. It is like the minimum possible descriptor.

11 for 58, 3 for 14 comparisons to Adrian Peterson on the cuts. Amazing work in the receiving game. And to me, it's a headline move to have so much work given to Jeremiah Love and not like just be splitting it with Tyler Algear the whole time, who did get work. But like, I don't know. It gave me more confidence that this. is just something that's going to be obvious and in place.

Cardinals are going to be trailing in a million games. Jeremiah Love is going to be the pass catcher in all those situations. What I saw last night was a top back in the NFL and whether the opportunities are there or not. I'm just saying crack the door open that the Cardinals' offense, even if their team sucks, their offense might be a lot better than people expect. Therefore, Jeremiah Love could be better than people expect.

Yeah, you can never shut the door on someone that talented. Every time he touches the ball, he will gain extra yards above expectation. There's just, he is, I mean, he's truly a sensational elite level. You're talking about the bejean, the Gibbs, you know, the gentie, those guys that are drafted, they're, you know, going all the way back, Zeke, and those types where it's like, yeah, this is a difference maker that other guys can't replicate it. So it's just a matter of how many times does he touch the ball and is he catching the ball or getting carries more and then how many opportunities around the goal line? That is the whole argument against Jeremy Love. No, nobody out there is saying

he's not, he's not. He's unbelievably good. We broke down everything that it takes to be a running back one in fantasy two shows ago. You average 10 touchdowns. You get probably not going to happen. Well, I think you could easily get 10 combined touchdowns. Right, it's combined touchdowns, yeah. So, I mean, I think that's an easy, I mean, if Genty can do it last year, this is, Jeremiah loves a better player as a runner and a passer than Genty. He is. In my opinion, they're not very close to me in terms of where, well, I mean, they might be close,

but I think Jeremiah loves a better player. Mike talked about, he scouted him better than Bijon. He scouted him better than Gentie. I just think that 10 is, 10 is not out of the realm of possibility at all. We've had years and years of bad offense in Arizona where James Connor was a double-digit touchdown threat. So all I'm saying is like, what is the ceiling for Jeremiah I love? This is not the promise. This is the ceiling.

What do you think the ceiling is this year? Honestly, I mean, I have, you said you didn't trust Matt Nagy in New York. Right. What I saw last night was very encouraging to me, not just the play by Jeremy I Love, the snaps with the starters. Right. Why did you not see if they were going to do the real? stupid coaching mechanism. Why didn't you see 50-50

snaps with Tyler Algear, the off-season acquisition? Well, they did. The first quarter they split carries. The first quarter, Algier saw three carries on the first drive. So they, and so you know, it's as the game went on, love got much more work and it's obviously the more explosive

player. I think the ceiling for him is like running back five. Yeah, it's around there. I mean, I feel like I put it closer to 10. The floor is much lower than the guys being drafted in that range. But I don't, I don't, I don't mind taking the shot on someone who is as talented as Jeremiah I love. It was nice to see him on the field. And LaFleur, this is the thing. Nagy, there's confidence in that Nagy gives me no confidence. LaFleur gives me confidence that, hey, he's just going to try to

score the most points he can with a bad team. DeJohn's stribling was awesome. I mean, he's seven for 63 with the starters, pulled with him, I think seven minutes left in the first half on eight targets. this is an offense where this is what you wanted to see this is why the ADP is going to rise you have Mike Evans who is an injury prone older receiver who has never been a high volume

receiver in his career ever he's a 70 to 80 catch guy Ricky Pierce falls out for the season Juan Jennings is no longer a member of this team no it's so this is what you wanted to see was like take advantage of your opportunity to start what is so exciting about this

so the draft pick was mocked and the history of the 49ers reaching on guys who are not good enough for where they're drafting, especially in those like, you know, second, third round is, there's a laundry list. In fact, it seems like they did it already again this draft with Kalin Black. However, that doesn't mean that they get everything wrong. The camp reports on stribling have been outstanding. They've been saying he's the best wide receiver in camp. So to see that happen in the first preseason game, you go, okay.

I mean, this guy was taken like 303rd or... Yeah, 33rd. Yeah, I mean, overall in the draft. So the capital is there, the opportunity is there. The question is the talent there. And the reports have been that it's been there. And then he shows up in the first game. Super impressive.

He has the speed. He has the size. He has the hands. And I don't know that his ADP can go too high. Like it will rise, but he's so low in ADP that your average leagues probably won't draft it. which will keep his ADP just buried. I'm going to the Strip Club.

Oh, man. I'm going to the strip club. You naughty boy. You naughty boy. So I was excited. Let me go to a bad, something bad I saw yesterday. Okay.

That was the last possible thing I wanted to see from Cam Ward, is what I saw yesterday. The Cam Ward, the Cam Ward, you're like, oh, it's a preseason game. That matters to me, because we had a freshman year where there was decision-making challenges. And what I saw yesterday, I believe he was five for 12 passing, Jason.

And he wouldn't take easy throws. Instead, he kept the backpedal game of getting the pass rush and, oh, I can backpedal out of this like Kyler does sometimes. I was disappointed and it really concerned me. It's one week. Maybe he comes out and he's better next week, but I didn't like what I saw from Cam Ward. It concerned me about the Carnal Tate, about that offense, and I've been optimistic about them, but it's all dependent.

And we've said this a million times. It's all dependent on Cam, we're taking a step forward, not backwards, or neutral. Yeah. Neutral's not good enough. No, he has to take some step forward. But I do think that one preseason game is not enough to move me off of my belief in Carnell Tate. Fernando Mendoza was 10 for 16, 97 yards, and a touchdown to Jack Bash. Poor Mike, not here to celebrate it.

But there you go. It was nice to see. Behind the scenes, I don't know if the Foot Clan is as aware. I know he loved Besh, especially if you listen to the Dynasty show. Besh was one of the guys that Mike was really excited pre-draft. And then surprisingly, he got good draft capital. It was like, okay, they saw what I see. And then he did nothing.

In our slack, any whisper of Jack Besh is, like, we're back, baby. Yeah, we're not. No, we're not. Naler, Tucker, I think Benson's better than Bash. Mendoza looked good, though. Well, and people need to realize if Mendoza is what he's supposed to be, Brock Bowers will have stability for a decade.

So that's an exciting proposition for him. Like the Cardinals with Trey McBride, we don't have that answer long term. So when you look at a Dynasty League, if you weren't already on the Bowers over McBride's side, Just keep that in mind. You will have stability if Mendoza works out at the quarterback position with a play caller and head coach that you trust in Clint Kubiak. All right, you want another, where do you want to go negative? I got a real negative for you.

Okay. You can probably close the door on Arronda Gadsden being a thing. Oh, that's a big one. I mean, he played 27 snaps, and they sat their starters. So Charlie Kohler, David Najoku, rested with all the starters. and here was Gadsden playing 27 snaps. Yeah, all the reports, this is so, we talk about this time of year,

don't overreact preseason, which I would urge you on the Cardinals front. Like that seems like the classic, look how good this team is. Do you remember when the Steelers were just unbelievable, they didn't have a drive that didn't end in a touchdown for the entire preseason with Kenny Pickett? They were so good.

And we kind of bought in and it was like, oh, it was preseason. However, the things that were, we say pay attention to are things that continue from drum beats in camp like stribling and also snap orders and like who is out who's rested with starters the camp reports on gadston is that he has not been playing with the starters at all and then the chargers come out and they rest their starters and gadston plays so that is really bad news yeah it's not great um not that he was high on our boards anymore but it was kind of a confirmation of what we expect to see.

Honestly, Charlie Kohler is like entering the deep sleeper category because you think he could be out there all the time. And you talked about yesterday. He had collegiate production. He got paid a bunch of money. Njoku is not in his prime. Like, you could get it.

Like Will Disley had relevance with Herbert. Yeah. I mean, like, well, and so did Gadsden. Herbert's good at throwing of the tight end. And so this is an offense I think you want pieces of. It just doesn't seem it's going to be Gadsden. It could be Najoku. It could be Kohler.

Coler. Oh, gosh, don't do this. I'm going to do it. Isaac Tesla played all the starters for Detroit rested. It's a slop. You know what I'm saying? You're in real special form. Yeah.

I love that, so we just got, for those listening, we just got what looks like all of our monitors broke because that was the Tisla drop minus the sound. Yeah, so for the audio listening audience, you're like, what? Yeah, no. There was just, like our monitors broke. Interesting. It's supposed to be an electrical effect.

Man. Does he want another chance at this? I'm just wondering as I'm deciding who does the, you know, the mailbag drop here. Maybe I should penalize Jeremy on that one. Hmm. Jeremy's trying to say dropbox broke it. I don't know about that. Okay.

Minus one to Jeremy. It's caller, Jason. It's caller. I just just. I know it's Charlie Collar, but I'm just saying it. confirmed it. All right. Anything else from the headlines?

I mean, we had... I would say a couple things. Hampton and Keaton Mitchell sat as well with the starters. Camani Bidale played. He's definitely a depth piece. There's good news, bad news with the Packers and Jaden Reed specifically. The good news is they played a ton of 11 personnel, which that's when Jaden reads on the field. The bad news is when they went down to two wide receivers, he wasn't there.

It was Golden. Matthew Golden is in two wide receivers. and I will say this, right now, they don't have Tucker Kraft. When Tucker Kraft comes back, that is more likely to have two wide receivers on the field, 12 personnel. And by the way, Kraft will be their week one. Sure, yeah, yeah, I'm just saying right this second. The reason they were playing so much 11 personnel, I wouldn't look into that like,

oh, they're going to be all 11 personnel anymore. They didn't have craft yet. And this one's really stupid. I mean, this is an irrelevant one, but it just, for some reason, it, it, one of the things I was watching for, but like the first play, you know, the honorary, who gets the honorary first snap? Jalen Warren got it over Rico Dowdell? So I don't know.

That's, I feel like that backfield has the potential to have real fantasy relevance for where those guys are drafted. But I just don't know which way to go. Like, I'm like coin flip right now. So I was paying attention and I saw Jalen Warren out. I was like, okay, maybe. Is that how you have him statted Warren ahead? I do have Warren ahead right now.

No, Mike and I are both Rico. Yeah, and I don't blame you. I don't blame you at all. My argument has always been that I think that when push comes to shove, Aaron Rogers is going to want the not even the better pass catcher. They can both catch the ball. But Jalen Warren's such like a veteran. He's going to be in the right place, the right time, the right pass protection.

He's just, Jaylon Warren does everything right. Rico plays well and then somehow gets benched, so I assume maybe he doesn't. So that's where I think I'm on the Warren side. Yeah, yeah, we got to draw the line there. We are going to take a quick break and then come back and get Jason's analysis of who's doing the mailbag drop. Important. Can I, can I like just contribute a few thoughts to your process? Yeah, no, I've got a, I've got a, I've got a, because Mike's not here.

Chart here. Mike's not here, Jay Gris. Oh, he said he's not going to do it. The mailbag drop. So we've got the three deusers. We've got Al who obviously had that huge snafu a moment ago. Yeah, that was a minus. in that. Actually minus two because he's tried to skirt it with Dropbox.

Yeah, blame something else. And then then you got Josh and look, he's always deserving. Always. He's minus two for age and baldness. Age and baldness. And honestly, I'm giving him another minus one for that thumbs up. He gave a thumbs up earlier like, you could call on me. Right. Give me a, yeah, that was annoying. He's annoyingly relevant. He's the annoyingly relevant deucer too. Yeah. And then we have the Falcon who, I mean, it goes without saying what happened at the end of the last yesterday's show excuse making. I don't even

oh yeah. About your video and like, oh, I'm going to take like three days to figure the traces out. He did finally get it out. Yeah, you don't know why? Because I called him out on the show. And I went blah blah blah. Good work. Yeah, the video's out if you want to see me golf poorly and give a few stat nuggets.

Actually, the video I think is doing well. I'm not too ashamed of it, which is so shameful. Right. You should be ashamed of not being ashamed. Yeah, but I actually am not ashamed. I think it was a good video as well produced. And so for the honor of how good that was, it's definitely the Falcon. I mean, what an honor I'm giving you. Mailbag.

Oh. We're about to have someone fired on live to you. Like, we are about, can I explain? Did you not understand that the Falcon was supposed to do that? Okay. So Matt, Jeremy suggested that all of us do the mailbag together, which we were fine with. And then Matt DMs me. Oh, do you guys own the company? Matt DMs me and says, let's not jump in with Jeremy so that Jeremy winds up doing it all by

himself. Matt, so I picked the right guy. Jeremy and I were talking and saying, hey, we're not going to screw each other over. And then Matt didn't do it because he thought we were all going to do it together. I've got a fix for that. It would be, it would be kind of. Is it a change of employment?

No, no. Change of employment is part of it. I got a fix for it. I'm not hitting that drop again, but you're going to be doing it. You're going to do the music. You're going to do the music and the mailbag. Get the camera over there. All right, so we're going to go.

You're doing the whole thing. You know how the drop sounds. Keep in mind and I, and I, your job might depend on it. So let's go. Let's get into the mail bag. All right. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Mail bag.

Yes. Oh, you know, you know it's good when when you can hear Al Borland probably on our microphones. I promise you are responsible for more than two car accidents right now. All right, we're in the mailbag. We're in the mailbag. We're going to get it started. Lots of questions, lots of things to talk about. Also,

I will say, that was terrible. I mean, like you didn't hit any of the beats. You're in here for every show. He's heard it before. He's heard it before. He heard it right before. And he went, Do do do do do do. Real colar situation. All right.

Matthew writing in, The Madden Curse has given many reasons for us to believe it is somewhat true. Can we really be high on Caleb Williams? And then I've got the chart here of the Madden. There's a lot of curses. Well, listen. Here's what the Madden curse really is. And I don't know if we just want the joke answer.

Here's what the Madden curse is. It's called you can't be the best at the game. two years in a row. That's Madden Curse. So was Seekoine Barclay curse last year? Because Seqwan Barclay wasn't, he didn't do his, he didn't win the Super Bowl and finish number one at the position. He was okay. He wasn't good. Was he okay? I mean, I would say he's a medium level of curse. But I'm just saying, in recent history, let's say we didn't expect him to be, I mean,

he was being drafted maybe to be the running back one again. But he wasn't even a running back one. If you want to say he's cursed, that's fine. The year before, McCaffrey cursed. But before that, we had a run of four straight guys. Mahomes. Josh Allen, Lamar, Mahomes twice, with Brady. To me, it is, you reward the guys that played the best by putting them on the cover. Then why did they reward Caleb Williams? That's the real question. Because he didn't play the best. He had one play that was worth putting him on a cover for the fourth down conversion. I'm high on Caleb Williams. I'm high on the offense.

I like that he lost some weight. I'm high on Caleb. I don't think he's cursed. The accuracy. I think you were already cursed as a bear. Yeah. So this is the uncurced. This is the un-cursing.

It's the reverse the curse. Yeah. Put him on the cover. I agree. I'm in on Caleb. Double stamp. You can't triple step and double stamp. You just can't do it.

No. Caleb Williams should be very. very good this year. The fact that he changes diet, lost the weight, but then the accuracy reports are very good. Everything that I've been watching, like, camp videos, not the ones that are like

the team puts out the one highlight, but like when I'm watching pass after pass after pass, there's no, it's just, it's been very accurate, and that's if Caleb Williams could be accurate. In fact, here's a stat that I shared in the golf video

is the fact that Caleb Williams, the only two players that were worse in accuracy last year for Caleb Williams was Matt Falcon who was who were the two j jay mccarthy and shaddha yeah j jay mccarthy and shaders were the only guys worse now you could say well that's really bad for Caleb but that's also like what if he's average what a what a step up for this offense if he's not throwing you know 58% of his passes for completions it's a huge growth operative opportunity for a guy who wasn't bad last year, but still it's like he doesn't need to go from 27 passing touchdowns to 42. No. No. And I think he's going to run a ton. I think the upside of these, you know, a full season of Loveland, Burden, Adunze, that head coach, that offensive line,

Swift and Menong guy. There are, it may be a lot of bluster for the, for the bears, you know, their head coach is overconfident maybe. But the personnel, are capable of executing it. Bowers question from RJ is Brock Bowers at the end of the first round? Crazy. I like him better than most around that ADP. I think a funny question or part to throw in here for context, Jay. You got to pick 10 yesterday.

We talked about Jefferson. I mean, I don't see it being out of bounds to draft Bowers over Jefferson. We had a question recently on a different show where it was like, where is too high? And 10 was the spot where I said, I'm okay drafting them there. would I personally probably not there's still some guys there that I really like but if you're

taking that tight end if you believe he's going to be a point different you know like two points better than second place that is absolutely worth the first round pick and so you know once you get past James Cook Jonathan Taylor the five wide receivers and the and the superstar running backs I feel like you're at the back of the first and you could make an argument that Brock Bowers is just as good as any of those guys. So, yeah, the back of the first, it's earlier than you maybe should take him.

But if you don't take them there, if you want Brock Bowers and you don't take them there, you're probably not getting. I guess... No, you're not. If you are drafting at the turn. At the turn, specifically. Then you don't have a chance.

No. If you don't take them or... Yeah, and I don't think it's bad to take them at the turn. G. Thorpe writing in my league always has a huge quarterback run after the first one gets drafted. Should I stick to ADP value or grab a quarterback early? So, I mean, you know your league now. That's one of the things that this show is all about is you cannot perfectly apply everything we say to every single league situation.

We want to give you, like, advice that you apply to your league context and then you go and benefit. If you know that that's what's going to happen, let me tell you what's going to happen. if there's a huge quarterback run after the first quarterback gets drafted, that means a ton of wide receivers and running backs are dropping further than they should in their ADP. So that's a guarantee. When we did our mock yesterday, I was thrilled when two or three quarterbacks went right in front of where I was able to take somebody because they get knocked down the list.

So I wouldn't get caught up in the run, right? I mean, I definitely wouldn't get caught up in the run at quarterback. There are certain positions where what happens with the tiers, tier-based drafting, and if you've got the UDK, all of our rankings are in tiers so that you can kind of group certain players, it's not just like, oh, this guy's the fifth ranked quarterback and this guy is the ninth ranked quarterback. If they're in the same tier, they're basically saying the range of outcomes is so similar to those guys. When you're drafting by tiers, that's where the dictate of you look at, which guys you want, like what tiers you're happy with leaving the draft. For me, there are

lower tier quarterbacks I am happy leaving the draft with. If you're not, then when you start running out of the tier above that where you're like, this is where I'll be happy, then yeah, pull the trigger even if it's ahead of ADP. But I agree with Andy specifically on quarterbacks. If your league pushes quarterbacks up, that is the perfect opportunity to just keep smashing, running back some wide receivers, getting better value than you should, and then grab the late guys that have the chance, you know, there's a handful of late quarterbacks this year that are... There's a lot of them. There's actually a lot. Yeah, that are really exciting. I mean, there's a world where you're getting Matthew Stafford wildly late, and he's great. I mean, golf is another one. Purdy is

another one. Dac is another one. Caleb. Caleb is another one. Darts going last I saw was in the ninth round. That's an exciting one. The funny thing is there is a... I met my maximum scared at this exact moment, by the way. With Dart. Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean, again, Nagy ruins all. But there is a quarterback who was the quarterback seven two years ago, and that was his rookie year. Then he was the quarterback six this last year. Then they added a wide receiver one to the team, lost nobody.

And he's being drafted as like the quarterback 15. So if you're in a single quarterback league, he's basically not drafted, which is Bo Nix. Yep. And Trevor Lawrence. I mean, the list goes on. So just keep, bear that in mind. Scarf up them running backs and wide receivers. We have, obviously, we were supposed to do our top 10 tips and tricks show today. Mike is out.

We've kicked it back to next week. It's going to be great. But one of the things I'm going to talk about as a teaser. Oh, no, spoiler. It's fine. The difference, spoiler teaser. Yeah, well, it depends on how much you give away. Is I'm going to talk about how important it is to keep grabbing those running backs and

receivers in the context of the last 20 years of fantasy and what you need. That's good. That was a good teaser. I didn't say anything. Honestly, I want to hear it. Yeah. And you're going to. Awesome.

If you subscribe. Unless I catch that lettuce diarrhea. Can you get that from another person? I think so. Yeah. Really? Yeah, you got a kiss. Yeah, I think you'd have to like, yeah.

Yeah. So yes. League tendencies. We just talked about that with the quarterbacks. Let's go to T. Grove here. Dynasty question. is Devante Adams were trading a 27 second round pick to get? I don't think so.

I mean, if you are, this is the nuance of dynasty. If you're a contender, I'm happy to add Adams for a second round pick. Why? Because that second round pick is going to be late. If you're an actual contender. And Adams, I think, can give you another year of high production. You need the depth and dynasty. I'm okay with it if you're a top three.

If you're, the nuance matters there. If you are really truly a one of the best. Not like I'm competing for a championship, but I'm one of the seven. There's seven of us that are in it. If you're like a top three team and you know this is going to be near a third round pick if you do well, okay, you can convince me. But otherwise, I do think in general, just taking teams out of it, a 2027 second round pick is probably worth more at this point than Navante Adams, who it's not outside the range of outcomes that Devante Adams, this season is done. Like he could come out this year and be like, oh, okay, he, you know, he's 33 and 34 this year.

He just kind of lost the step. It's funny because I'm like leaning on McVeigh and the Rams and their moves at wide receiver to tell me that Adam still has it in some regards. Yeah. But they did that with Alan Robinson. And they were wrong before. I was wrong, but they were wrong. Yeah, you can't always do it. We just make probability bets here.

And probability bets say a guy turning 34 this year doesn't have a lot left in the tank. Help me understand this question on Instagram here, Westbrook writing in Better 2026 for Carnell Tate or any Bears wide receiver. Is that just? Yeah. So Tate versus Tate versus Sround versus Burden in the fifth or Dunezay in the six? Exactly right. That's what it is. So Tate or the Bears?

Yeah. Okay. I know what he's going to vote. I think I'm going to vote it too. I am not. But I can't imagine that one of the bears don't outperform Tate. I can easily imagine. You have a good imagination.

Well, the thing is, is Colson Loveland could very well be the number one target. It could also be Rome. It could also be burden. And should all three be very, very involved, I think that there's a, world where you're disappointed definitely with the two wide receivers because a tight end doesn't need to do as much to be valuable at that position. But if Colson Loveland has a breakout season, really good. If he dominates and becomes like, hey, he is a tier one tight end, which a lot of people are projecting. I know we are pretty bullish on him. If that happens, I don't think that Burden or

Dunesay splitting the rest will be a top 15 wide receiver. In which case, Cardinal Tate should easily lead this team in targets. I think he gets 140 plus targets this year as a rookie. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, and if he does, it would be very... You're not worried about the, like, Wondell and Ridley and any of those guys contributing to the... It wasn't, I mean, it wasn't a good day last night for Tate, not that it needed to be. He didn't catch a pass.

but I was just curious what you thought there. Let's take a break and we'll jump into some more mailbag. I'm still mad at Falcon, by the way. That was one of the worst things that's happened on the show in a long time. We were literally doing a recording of a podcast listened to by millions and he made it worse. But then you made it better. Okay. By making him do it.

Yeah, it's good, but it's been a tough two days for him. We'll take a break. A lot of people don't understand that. It's owl, O-W-L-Borland, right? They think it's Al-Borland. A lot of people don't know that it's not Falcon. It's Falcon. Right.

F-A-I-L-C-O-N. That's right. The falcon. Fly. Fly, falcon. I accept. Oh. All right.

I sensed a tiny bit of humility in his reply right. A tiny bit of humility, a tiny bit of shame, a tiny bit of sadness. Not enough of any of those. Not enough. That's right. That is what I'm not. I was saying. Instagram question from G.S. Laney 41.

People say, I want to work for the ballers. No, you don't. Good job on that video yesterday. Great job. Thank you. No, he was talking to me on the swing. Yeah, yeah, because you left the, it was not the swing.

You left the microphones out at home. When is a time you threw analytics out the window on a player you had a gut feeling on? I mean, I think part of me is doing that with Devon A-chan right now. Because, you know, you, we've, we've, I, understand, you can comprehend all the arguments of something and still choose to reject them because arguments, analytics, those are percentage odds of something happening. Let's say you have something that has a 70% chance of happening. You might say, well, I'm really up against it.

Well, there's a 30% chance that you're wrong. And so for me, I'm throwing out Malik Willis's lack of passing to the running back. Why? Because it's a chance and he doesn't play starting quarterback very much. I love that take. It's true. You are spitting in the face of the probabilities, but you're right to point out that the probabilities are not guarantees. So, you know, if you believe that this is the exception to that rule, there are exceptions to that rule. That's, I would say this year, the player that I am that way with is Travion Henderson. Okay. I totally recognize, totally recognize that Ramandre Stevenson is kind of that starter that Ramandre Stevenson is good,

that Ramondre Stevenson is a better pass blocker, that Ramondre Stevenson is an important part of this offense. And I'm like, I don't care. Trevion is better and he will take over this backfield and score a ton of fancy points. I feel like it's almost a great segment is I don't care. It's just called I don't care. I don't care.

Yeah, yeah, there are going to be players and you know what? I'll tell you this. One, we tell you to go with your gut all the time. Yeah. So if you don't just go blindly with ADP or our opinion. Go with your gut. that way you can be mad at yourself right but you can also there is no better feeling than when you press back against the consensus opinion oh yes oh yes you're a hero yeah i mean it feels great so

and by the way all the consistence opinions they're not going to be right not all of them and and that point i was talking about earlier on the 10 tips and tricks we're going to talk about some of that as well um skyler what a show coming up skyler jensen writing in would i be a dog if i took cdiam in the first and George Pickens in the second. Oh, man. Or is that cat like, Jason? So that can win, however, genuinely, no joke. If you draft those guys, you absolutely have to get Dak Prescott. There are large-scale tournaments that have been won by a double stack

at wide receiver for a quarterback. If you pick the right time, the right season, the right team, the quarterback with their two main weapons can work. I won with Reggie Wayne, Peyton Manning, and Dallas Clark before. I won with Peyton Manning, Demarius Thomas, and Julius Thomas before. So you have to have Peyton Manning as part of this? I did notice that part. Yeah, no, but I mean, Jimmy Graham and, you know, Drew Breeze with Colston, like those

things happened. They can happen. If you believe, go with your gut. It's putting a lot of eggs in a basket. but it might be a real nice basket you know it's like well that's comfy those eggs ain't ever freaking nice basket uh tray

would you do that would you be tempted if you had CD Lamb no I wouldn't either no I'd pivot away why isn't Beechall Tutin high I mean I also don't want to play Jason Higgins on the same team I mean I just don't

it's just not part of the way I want to run my roster. Trey wants to know why isn't Bayshall Tudin higher on draft boards? The reason Tutin isn't higher on draft boards is simply the reality that he might

not be the past catching back and he might not be the goal line back. If he's neither of those, he's a terrible pick. Right now he projects to be the starter and therefore have the most work, which

would include some goal line and some pass catching. LeQuint Allen has been working in as a pass catcher. Crod was not there for the off season, so he was not, we didn't really see what the split would be, but this could turn out to be a three-headed backfield. Now, the, you know, the coaching fallacy of like, will they do the right thing or what is the right thing, if Tuton is truly good enough to take over the backfield.

He's so much more explosive. I mean, it's like four, three, two speed. If he really takes it over, he'll be an outstanding pick in fantasy football. This could be a very good offense. I think the Tootin bros are super bullish. But if you're asking the question, why isn't he higher on our rankings? It's because we project more of a timeshare. 40x40 writing in on Instagram.

Does Jay Gris prefer smoked or unsmoked salmon? Oh, he is. Of course smoked. He's been so domesticated. He's like, oh, raw fish. Yeah, it used to be raw. Oh, he would right out the river. Right out the river.

He'd bite that head right off. But then he's like, I'm cardboard now. Smoked. Yeah. Yeah. But you said smoked? Yeah, he won't smoke that. Mark, for defense and kicker leagues, does it make sense to reach for studs?

It actually kind of does, but less so at defense. Is that like the Brandon Aubrey and the Seahawks defense? Yeah. The thing about the defense is a lot of times in years past, it's been very hard to predict. You think it's easy. Before the season, you're like, oh, well, this is clearly going to be the one. And then all of a sudden, you know, defenses take 11 people on the field at once. And if things don't work out, great.

You go, okay, well, I reach for this defense, but then they're the fifth best defense. Which is not a good place to reach for the fifth best defense. Right, exactly. Now, if I had to, like, if I had to guess on the defenses right now, like the Texas, defense is unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, I think you're very safe there. I think you're safe with Seattle. I think you're safe with Denver.

Yeah, Denver. Those feel like the safest ones, but I wouldn't, I mean, again, I give you three names. So why take the first of the three? Yeah, that's fair. I could not, I could not confidently say one of those three teams will be the number one. I'm very confident. I mean, the Rams. If you've got Miles Garrett.

And Aaron Donald, maybe they should be the number one. I don't know. Whereas I think at kicker, it's like, okay, Brandon Aubrey, yeah, go ahead and reach on him. He's going to score more fantasy points than probably everyone else. Tyler brings up a good question here because it was almost the answer to my quick question of the day. Is Adnai Mitchell the best sleeper no one is talking about? I think that is absolutely the case. I mean, I think he's one of the best.

It was him or me mentioning Naylor. Adonai Mitchell is going to have a prominent role in a Jets offense, probably playing every down, all the arguments that you know you have made for your boy, Gino Smith, apply to Adonai Mitchell in terms of more targets, more yards for the Jets than they've had in your years past. And I think he showed when he arrived in New York last year that he could play with not good quarterback performances.

So to me he is a deep sleeper. But that's the category for me is deep sleeper. I think he would have been an appropriate answer for the quick question of, like, who would be the snap goblin keeping someone else upset? Like, if there's Omar Cooper Jr. believers out there, first round draft. It's so weird. I don't remember the last... Omar Cooper's getting negative press. I don't remember the last time we had a first round NFL drafted wide receiver who's not injured. That's like, I mean, he's undrafted. He's undraft a ball. It's funny because that, you know... In fantasy.

I mean, it was Omar Cooper and Saddam. there, right? Yes. Neither a guy No. Looks like they're going to be super relevant. Sadiq is trying to get back by week one. I think Adonai Mitchell will be the clear wide receiver two for this team.

I don't know. My Gino argument of the Jets having more passing work, volume, yardage, counting stats than they did last year is true. But I do think Garrett Wilson soaks up. He's such a target hog, and I think he's going to have a 30% target share of offense. Yeah, I look at Mitchell more like, you know, what Trey Tucker could do at times in Las Vegas last year, which ironically was with Gino. Like there were games. Yeah. Like Trey Tuck, like Adonai Mitchell is going to be a downfield threat very often. I think big play potential for him. He's going to be up over that 13, 14 yards of catch. But yeah, I mean, you should have more arguments

against the sleeper than for them. That's what makes them not drafted or drafted very, very late. Last question from Joshua. It's a good one. Right now we're in the middle of our UDK for Life giveaway. What is the best way to use the UDK to do tier-based drafting? I think you touched on this earlier. But what about specifically with the way the UDK functions in terms of the app or the marking players? Functionally, I like doing it personally on an iPad.

I mean, not everybody has an iPad. You could do it on your iPhone. You could do it on your laptop, your desktop, whatever. But if you have one, I really love putting that sucker landscape and you mark all your players. You highlight the ones you want to target. Highlight the ones you want to avoid. You've got all of the tiers right there. You scroll.

Yeah, you can mark players as drafted. I think people don't necessarily know that. Just swipe and mark them as drafted. So as your draft goes along, you can just follow it. You can make sure that those highlighted players aren't missed. Alternatively, and I know we're old men. But like Andy, your favorite way to use the UD. we have customizable printable cheat sheets and you print it you bring a marker and a piece of paper

to every single draft that I can remember and that is a really easy way to see everyone at a glance you never miss anybody any players further down the list even if you're using your iPhone your computer web browser iPad it is nice to have that printed cheat sheet handy right next to you. So maybe check that thing out too, because you can turn on what you want on if you want ADP on or not. It's a very valuable resource. Those of you that have already been in there using the mock draft tool that's coming to the web very soon. It's right now on iOS and Android. But this is the perfect time to jump in. Your drafts are on the way. I can't imagine a better next week of shows. Breakout, sleepers, values, bust, 10 tips and trips. So I think it's going to be a...

We're here, baby. A fantastic week and a Mayhem mock draft. is taking place next week. The UDK for Life giveaway, if you pick it up before August 24th, we're doing a live stream that evening, we're giving away a UDK for the rest of your life. We just decided we'll let you bequeath it if it's in writing to your next of kin.

So it's a UDK for lives. This will, of course, be a UDK plus. This will be, you know. Cream of the crop. Yeah, cream of the crop. You get the best forever. But Ultimate DraftKit.com, jump in there. Everybody that's purchased it up until that date

will be entered to win. even for as long in the past. Yeah, well, I mean, this season. This season. But we'll give away a sign Jemar Chase jersey as well. Communities over at Jointhefoot.com, but we're going to say goodbye for today. We'll be back. I think tomorrow we have adjusted tips showing up on YouTube so you want to get up.

We do. And check that out. YouTube.com slash the Fantasy Footballers. Take care. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on Join the Thefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers.