Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - Second Chance Players + Ranks Alive, Burning Questions! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 5/7

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Any hope for Quentin Johnston? On today’s fantasy football podcast, second chance players for 2024 and more! Christian Watson or Marquise Brown? Who will be the top TE picked in 2024 fantasy football drafts? A handful of listener questions answered, plus a look at initial fantasy football rankings and stat projections! Manage your redraft, keeper, and dynasty fantasy football teams with the #1 fantasy football podcast. -- Fantasy Football Podcast for May 7th, 2024. Get the lowest price on the 2024 UDK at UltimateDraftKit.com - Dynasty Pass content available NOW with the UDK+ Connect with the show: Subscribe on YouTube Visit us on the Web Support the Show Follow on Twitter Follow on Instagram Join our Discord Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Monopoly is back at McDonald's, everybody. This is an alert. It's time to get back to Mickey D's. Monopoly Double Play is back at McDonald's, and it's easy to get into the win. First, you peel on pack, and then again in the app. There are millions of prizes to be won,

including a new chance to win cash every minute in the app. Get into the game with Monopoly Double Play at McDonald's. While supplies last, one in five chances to win game piece prizes at outset, chances to win Double Play prizes based on time of code entry, and draw prizes based on number of entries in each draw. See rules in the app. Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Tuesday, May 7th.

Jason Moore, Andy Holloway with you, the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. You know, Andy uh you came in you had a you had a you had your pointer finger up like you had a yeah you had a point to say but i'm telling you from my perspective the way you were holding that hand yeah flipping you off i thought you were flipping the camera off i was like what is happening welcome in youtube i was like okay well andy pulling out his no no it's a pointer finger it was kind of directed at you like hey jason it's you and me today best friends day mike is sick as a dog or sick as a bear sick as a bear jay gris sitting in today yeah so it's you and I, and that's okay. I think that makes for a great show.

You and I have also just completed our initial run through of the 2024 stat projections for every single offensive player in the National Football League. Yes, we have. It was a grueling labor of love and this is only the first go-through we'll we'll obviously be updating things non-stop when superstars like jalen geiten sign right at certain places but odell beckham well i mean i said superstars so um yeah i mean it's it but it it took a lot of work and uh it's nice to have the first set done i got away to a cabin and just like hunkered down because I'm very ADHD. It takes me too long if there's any noise, any movement.

And I have different processes for completing our statistical projections. Yes. Very different. Yeah, mine is really good. Slow. Mine is also very slow. Yeah, I think it is good. Yeah, mine is really good. Slow. Mine is also very slow. Yeah, I think it is good. I think your process is good.

It's just that sometimes you end up in this place of desperation because normally I am done before you. And that was not the case this year. You started very early. This was the first year. You got away to a wilderness. Yeah, our 10th year doing this show. This is the first year I was the first one to to a wilderness yeah our our 10th year uh doing this show this is the first year i was the first one to finish because of the wilderness i think the woodland creatures they helped they certainly did yeah so you and i we we went through our first run through we've been

it's fun when you get done statting out all these players or at least the first you know draft of that which all goes into the ultimate draft kit that's where all of our rankings come from all of our projections and everything are in there it's also what allows your custom scoring formats to you know if if you do things where you know whether you're six point or four point or you do a extra bonus for tight ends at this you know whatever your league is you can plug in your stats, and we have the statistical backing. Yeah, exactly. Contort the rankings to your league style. That's part of the UDK's customization.

But it's fun when we kind of get done with it and we look. For example, my first run through, I have Marvin Harrison Jr., somebody that people are very excited to see where he gets statted. I have him at number nine, and I think you've got him somewhere around 16. I have him a little bit lower. Right now, yeah, I believe he's my wide receiver 17 in half PPR scoring. His upside is through the roof, though. I don't blame anyone taking him as a top 10 wide receiver.

Is there a name on your initial rankings at any position that you are embarrassingly high on and would have preferred I didn't bring it up so you could adjust it and then come back and tell me the number later? So this is the weirdest one. It's so, so, so silly to say that you're embarrassed to have this guy number one, because he literally might be the best player of all time in the NFL. But I was genuinely wholeheartedly shocked when I finished my rankings and saw that Patrick Mahomes was my quarterback one and six point scoring formats. Now, obviously, he's been there before, so that's not like an outlandish thing. But he was the quarterback eight last year. The system that they've been employing is more dink and dunk. And while I do think he's upgraded his weapons I was just I was surprised to see that's how it landed but you know part of my process is going through

the entire tea of the teams and seeing there's a higher the entire tea of the teams because I you know I love a good high T team. And when you looked at Marquise Brown added to this team, and you look at Xavier Worthy added to this team, and you still have all the other cast of characters, possible suspension notwithstanding for Rushie Rice, it all compiled up to where I think Patrick Mahomes is going to have a bounce back season. Statistically,

obviously he won the Super Bowl, but for fantasy purposes, I'm more in on him. And especially when you combine that with the fact that because he had a down year, he's not going to be like last year, he was in the second round of your draft. Most quarterbacks that you would define as a pocket passer require an outlier to high-end touchdown season, which oftentimes is difficult to throw into your stat projections when you look at averages. So it's rare when a touchdown-dependent type of quarterback ends up that high in the rankings. Mahomes is very much worthy, much like Rodgers was during his peak of projecting those kind of years. But I have him at three.

I have Dak at four in six-point scoring, which was different. And then I have Evan Ingram sitting at three at tight end. Yeah, that one. Which, you know, is not part of my brain. No, you're very anti-Ingram, and that is surprising. I've got Evan Ingram at my tight end nine. I just look at it. That's where I normally like to keep him. Yeah, you know, a low-end tight end one where he doesn't matter.

No low-end tight end one matters. And so he's coming off a season where he almost set the reception record, played a lot of games without Christian Kirk in that underneath area of the field where I think that boosted him up. Obviously, there's a ton of targets vacated here between the departures of Zay Jones and Calvin Ridley. So he's an interesting player to debate. Where is Jaden Daniels on your first run through when you talk about, let's do the rookies? Sure. Rookie quarterbacks, Jaden Daniels. Jaden Daniels, I was run through when you talk about let's do the rookies. Sure. Rookie quarterbacks. Jaden Daniels.

Jaden Daniels. I was surprised he is just outside my top 12. He's my quarterback 13. Okay. I've got him at 14. Yeah. When you have the ability to rush for, you know, the ability to rush for 850 yards and five plus rushing touchdowns, that's usually going to be a top 12 quarterback.

It's just hard to, you know, we're never going to, you know, Jalen Hurts ran for 15 touchdowns last year. You're never going to project a number like that. And so that's why also in the UDK, we've got an upside meter in there. So you can see like, not just like, here's what should happen. Here's the most likely outcomes, but also who's got the chance to just go nuclear who can explode who are you willing to take your shots on and that's out of 10 what's your upside for jayden daniels out of 10 uh for jayden daniels let me pull i have it while you pull it i have them at eight on the upside which is very high uh i have let me see i have them at 8.5, so you suck. No, I have the low end of the upside.

Yeah, I'm just saying I feel like he's got more upside than you do. No, you do feel that way. Just mathematically. Caleb Williams at 18. So Caleb Williams I still see with very high upside, but because of the weapons. He finds himself in a great situation, has as much talent as anybody that's been coming in. The only obvious difference for fantasy is he's not the 500-plus rushing yard type of guy, and because fantasy scoring is stupid and broken for quarterbacks,

where they score more for running than they do for passing for the exact same amount of yards, it's just always unfair. You've got that very succinctly prepared it's just do we need to just a drop i think i want to drop it just where he can just explain his disdain yeah it's not going to change no i know it's not gonna change move on brother i i've moved i play moved on i give my analysis moved on, but I still look. Sometimes you need an agent for change, and I will try to speak truth into the darkness. Now, we didn't add testosterone levels to the rankings this year, right? Yeah.

Upside meters and risk meters. There's no high T, because that would be the Chargers this year, right? But I saw you put Justin Herbert. You had him a little higher than maybe you thought he was going to be. That was definitely maybe far more surprising than Patrick Mahomes because right now I've got him as a top 12 quarterback. And obviously Herbert is a very talented real world quarterback, but he's lost most of his weapons. And this is a team that's going to run the ball. So, you know, for a pocket guy to really be up there you've got to have 35 touchdowns you don't see him throwing 35 touchdowns this year in this system with these weapons but you have them in your top 12 i do i

have them running the ball quite a bit more well i i do as well i i think what people need to realize is like when you have rankings that go top to bottom, like to put Herbert there, that pushes other players out like a Jaden Daniels or a Tua or a Jared Goff or whatever, Stafford. So, you know, they can be misleading at times when you have rankings that go top to bottom because I was talking to you about this this morning, rookie wide receivers, for example. My highest ranked is Harrison at nine. I've got neighbors at 17.

And then Roma Dunzey is down in the 40s right now. But that doesn't mean that Roma Dunzey is not going to be worthy of your roster just because he's outside the top 36. A lot of the times these players, running backs, wide receivers, when they're rookies, they earn snaps opportunities second half of the year can be a lot stronger than the first half of the year so there's nuance there that's what upside factors into so i just thought we'd walk through a little bit of it but yeah kyle's pointing out since 2014 3.7 rookie wide receivers per season finishes top 36 options.

So maybe it's not Odunze. Maybe it's McConkie. Maybe it's Roman Wilson in Pittsburgh. Yeah, I've got McConkie in my top 36 right now. So I believe I've got three rookies right now in my top 36. All of the player-by-player statistical projections, they launch with the UDK on June 1st, ultimatedraftkit.com. The best ball rankings normally launch on June 1st. Best ball rankings are live right now.

They're live today. People are playing it now. We've got them now. We needed to get them out, so we bring it to you, the people. So if you've got the UDK Plus, boom, bam, check your rankings. You've got best ball rankings. That's right. And you can also get in on the Discord channel,

the Best Ball Discord channel, people talking all the time because you're playing, you're drafting right now, and the Best Ball Primer comes out on June 1st as well. All right, quick question of the day, Jason. Oh, boy. This one comes from Marcus. It's Marcus with a K. Marcus, M-A-R-K-U-S from Marcus. It's Marcus with a K. Marcus.

M-A-R-K-U-S. Marcus. It's not how we spell it over here. Well, he's from Germany. Oh, bonjour. Thanks for the great work. Do you guys believe in Chargers wide receiver Quentin Johnston? I don't get why so many people seem to quit on him.

Seems to put in a ton of work, and a new coaching staff could mean a fresh start i don't know if the ton of work is correlating to the video circulating right now of him working out with cardinals rookie phenom marvin harrison jr man don't have you seen that yeah i've seen that don't don't use that as a video in favor of quitting johnston you watch those two guys go they're both first round picks and it's like one of them looks like a sensational super route running gazelle and by comparison Harrison looks much better yeah maybe it's just by comparison because you're running next to Marvin Harrison Jr but uh Quentin Johnston does not quite look as fluid but let's talk about Quentin Johnston

there's a lot of people that invested in him in dynasty leagues last year had some I would say headline catching drops the kind of drops that were played over and over and over again on Twitter uh where people laughed and very consequential as well very consequential yeah yeah when they happened. I went back and I watched every target and reception of Quentin Johnston last season. I heard tale of that. It took 11 minutes. I don't know if that's a lot, but I don't think it is. That's not a lot. No, that's not a lot.

That's the problem. But continue. What did you see on film? So I say that because what the film doesn't show is every play he's not targeted. And there were a lot of those his targets per route run 13.7 that's 39th out of 42 first round rookie wide receivers over the last decade so didn't get targeted a lot low yards per outrun um 33 out of 42 in target percentage and had opportunity with Mike Williams going down. But I will say this. I watched every single play that he made on the entire year.

Every target, every drop, every PI call, several of his drops came on plays where he did draw pass interference penalties. There were three real bad, real bad drops. He did make big plays. He made hands catches across the middle. He made plays down the field. You know, there were back shoulder throws and some rapport he was building with Justin Herbert that I thought were pretty great plays. So I thought it was better than the drop for Vade, like the story of opportunities.

When he got them, there were more plays that he made than I thought he did. But the question isn't going to be – like that should be the given to me. Your first-round wide receiver, you should make some plays. The question should be how many opportunities are you getting to make them? You know, and then could he be the one? Okay, so let me ask you this. To rewind just, like, two seconds into what you said.

Your first-round wide receiver. Let me give you a hypothetical situation. Okay, you are a first-round wide receiver. You go to a good quarterback. Yeah. And you are the first round wide receiver you go to a good quarterback yeah and you are the number two in targets like you are set you're you know Jordan Addison last year is an example of this first round wide receiver goes to a decent quarterback he's the clear number two in the offense but like he's not on the bench he's on the field given just that generic thing you're not a person not Quentin Johnson not not Jordan Addison, what

stat line would you be expecting for a first-round wide receiver on the field as the wide receiver, too, for a good quarterback? Awesome question. Let me come up with an answer for you. Yes! I did it. So you're on the field all season long? Is that what you're saying? All season long.

Game 1 to 17. Where would you... What number would you need? Let's say you play 75% of the snaps. And what number would you need to be to where you said, oh, that's an okay rookie season? Yeah. I would say probably just a hair above what JSN did last year. Because I don't feel like JSN's rookie season was – JSN was what, like 650 yards?

Yeah, so I would say about 750 to 800 yards. I mean, it's a 17 game season yeah so 700 750 800 yards and 60 catches okay so 55 to 60 catches let me give you a sample of quentin johnson now quentin johnson got off to a slow start but also mike williams was there to a slow finish but the finish was without Justin Herbert. So that's not fair either. Okay. So you've got a rookie year in the beginning where it's not really fair.

You're brand new your first couple games. Right? The first couple games of Justin Jefferson's incredible rookie season, he didn't play. And you had Mike Williams there. The end of the year, no Justin Herbert. However, there was a six-game period where he was the number two. He was, Mike Williams was gone where he was the number two. Mike Williams

was gone and Herbert was there. Six games. And he has a great quarterback. Here would be his, and for the record, he played 74% of those snaps. So he was the wide receiver two for this team. Setting up real nice. Here's the total stat line if he played that stretch for 17 games. It would have been 53 receptions for 504 yards and three touchdowns. To me, that's not the end of the world.

It's not the end of the world, but it is absolutely a dud, which is not surprising. Nobody's surprised. Very underwhelming. But jumping up to 67 to 70 receptions, 700 to 800 yards, and putting five or six touchdowns at 6'4", 220, that doesn't seem unrealistic with no Mike Williams, no Keenan Allen. Yeah, so this is why I've got Ladd McConkie as high as I have him.

Yeah, you have him the highest there, right? Yes, not only because I believe in the talent, but Quinton Johnson has a role to play, and he's still figuring out how to do that well in the NFL. He's going into his second year. I'm not betting – well, I am betting against him, but I'm not closing the door. I don't think it's a guarantee that he can't be better.

But you did grab the handle. Oh, yeah. I'm closing the door, but I'm peeking out first. I'm like, is he going to make it in? Probably not. I'm ready to shut it. But the thing is he was not a target earner. That's the biggest thing.

He was on the field for 74% of snaps for that stretch and did not earn enough targets. Like you said, 39th out of 42 first-round draft picks and targets per round run. That is objectively awful. I think that Ladd-McConkie will be a target earner. He's going to be open in the spot where Herbert is expecting, and so that's why I've got Ladd-McConkie coming in here

and being immediately the number one target. I've got Quentin Johnson with about 100 targets, and I've got Ladd-McConkie with 125. It's a good discussion. I haven't closed the door on Quentin Johnson with about 100 targets, and I've got Labakaki with 125. It's a good discussion. I haven't closed the door on Quentin Johnson. One thing I didn't get to add from watching every single play, there were a number of plays where he did not achieve separation down the field. Thus, no target.

Usually. And it was mostly intermediate routes. It wasn't over the top down the sideline some of the bad drops he actually had separation on those plays and then they did involve him not enough underneath using the yards after the catch but in the intermediate routes not enough separation kind of kelvin benjamin-esque in that sense um percentage chance he's their number one fantasy producer at wide receiver i have it like 20 yeah exactly 25 he's definitely not the leader for odds on favorite i don't know if that helped the deuces alley over there i know papa josh had some dynasty investment in quentin johnston have you uh yeah do you see what we just said as a pro quentin johnson or as an anti

quentin johnson thing he's on my team i'm pro quentin johnson so he didn't hear it at all yeah it's whatever you wanted it to be okay that's fair yeah um quentin johnson's not gonna work you don't think no i there's there's there's ways that we can paint and narratives we can paint, but it's not going to work. Yeah, yeah. I know you're probably right. At least the historical situation is not good. Dotson, like Josh Dotson, Laquan Treadwell, John Ross, Nikhil Harry, Jalen Rager, those are other rookie first-rounders that –

That are on the field and not earning targets. Yeah. That's the problem is that he had opportunity. If you sat behind someone and you got on the field for 20, 30, 40, 50% of snaps, okay, but like. Yeah, it's good for them that they weren't the Brock Bowers destination because I think that would have made it easier for me to like, the door would be locked maybe. Oh, right, right, right.

All right, let's take a quick break and come back with some news news and notes from around the league not surprising to me but the steelers did decline the fifth-year option for running back Najee Harris. I've got to be honest, I was a little surprised. Because you thought they liked him more than they should? Yes, 100%. It was not my opinion on Najee and that I think he should have the fifth-year option.

I'm surprised that the Steelers didn't do it. Very proud of you, Pittsburgh. Yeah, I mean, they're a well-run organization, and I think it does tell you something about Najee that is not a rosy outlook. You know, Najee has not been bad. No. Najee has not been what they thought he was. Both of those things can be true at the same time.

Last year, Jalen Warren was the better running back in basically every metric. He had a ton of targets. Explosive run rate was 7% higher than Najee Harris. Najee still gets into the end zone. And you and I talked before the show, Pittsburgh's greatest accomplishment in the draft was the offensive line in upgrading what Najee and Jalen Warren will have to work with. Slash Cordero Patterson. Thank you, Arthur Smith. Yeah, and they got a quarterback upgrade. Say whatever you want about Russell Wilson and Joseph Fields.

They're not great. Oh, I will. But they will threaten the defense more than Kenny Pickett did. And so that should help the running backs. Honestly, both of these guys, Najee and Jalen Warren, are huge winners after the draft. You want to talk about the sneaky veteran winners? It's not that they just didn't draft a running back.

It's that they drafted no running back and totally improved the offensive line. This will probably be the nicest thing I've ever said, but if you want to get boring and take Najee later because nobody else wants to get boring and take Najee later because nobody else wants to get boring it'll probably help your team wow that is without a doubt the nicest thing you've ever said about Najee you've been anti-Najee as long as I can remember he was the running back for his rookie year running back 14 two years ago and running back 21 this last year I expect fun fact nobody has ever won a fantasy championship with him. That is actually inaccurate because Najee Harris is a second half of the year champion.

They definitely won one the first year because that was when Mitch Strabisky gave him like 9,000 receptions. Dude, the last two years. And what, last year he was RB8 over the last half or something? Yeah, and even two years ago he was unbelievable when it came to the second half. He sucked the first half, but the second half, he was very good. He's going at RB22 in best ball. That's about where he belongs. I was going to ask you.

All right. We have a bunch of new players on new teams. Mediocre signing of the week. Odell Beckham Jr. to the dolphins dj charke to the chargers by the way dj charke put up better numbers than all of those quentin johnston season-long numbers so that one is something you could pay attention to because he's probably better than quentin Johnston yeah Chase Claypool to the Bills Boston Scott to the Rams and this morning Rashad Penny to the Panthers and you said well maybe Miles Sanders is not long for that roster yeah I mean they've got some dead cap to deal with if they were to get rid of Miles Sanders but the fact that they drafted Jonathan Brooks they weren't part of bringing

Miles Sanders in Miles Sanders still has a big name. They're grabbing Rashad Penny. They've already got Chuba there. It's like, I feel like maybe a team is knocking on Miles Sanders' door saying, come on down. You either deal with dead cap or a dead running back because he is done. Dead cap or dead back? I don't. Just remember this time last offseason, Frank Wright was the head coach of the Carolina Panthers,

and Miles Sanders was supposed to get over 4,000 targets. So I wanted to bring this up, not here, but I will, specific to the Frank Wright. When I was doing the statting and all of this, I was looking at the Panthers situation and I I like Dave Canales I like what he did for Geno for Baker for uh this last year for um Rashad White yeah but last year at this time I did like Frank Reich like I I I thought Frank Reich was a good hire he's good for the offense he's good offensive mind offensive mind. He has had success in the past. I thought the Colts did him dirty. Now, it was bad.

It was very, very bad, but I don't think that he had the weapons. It's not like the Panthers got good when Reich was gone. From the top down, when organizations are run poorly, whoever the coach is is set up for a harder time at succeeding. This is a David Tepper. This is a David Tepper comment. This is David Tepper at the top. I know he came in and when he bought the franchise, it was like all exciting because he's got plenty of money. He's going to go hard. He's going to be aggressive. That's exciting. Look, we're Suns fans.

The Matt Ishbia. We get this. We're excited. Matt Ishbia comes in and buys a team and wants to throw money around and make big trades. It doesn't always work out. Sometimes you've got to get out of the way. David Tepper seems very much in the way. So, like, I like Dave Canales. I like some of the moves they've made. But if I have to bet on whether a franchise succeeds or loses, a lot of times I take that bet at the top.

I've done that for years and years and years and years with the Browns, and most of the time it's worked out. Yeah. So, teppering your expectations. Oh, baby! Ten out of ten swish! Teppering my expectations. Well done, Andrew. It's tough when you have a coach that you have a lot of confidence in.

Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. Frank Reich, you liked him. Yeah, I mean, maybe that was the foolish part he's just you know not good but um he didn't get the chance to show it with tepper stepping in all right we have some mailbag questions to get through which will be fun because we just did our rankings so we'll be able to talk about it with um kind of a deeper look on each of these players now who's doing the mailbag drop because there ain't no mic oh i believe josh put his hand up first so papa josh it looks like it's on you baby mailbag not bad and for the record that was pretty good since you're on camera right now

show the people how you put your hand up first. Yeah, you touched your nose. You're like, nose goes. And I don't play by that rule when the camera's on. You broke the code, man. When the camera's on, I just like to roll the bus right over Josh. You go, seniority over nose. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. You did well. That was great. On time. And it wasn't Brooks's. So pretty good. On time. And it wasn't Brooks'. So pretty good. All right.

Let's jump in. We've got voicemail questions. We've got questions from IG, from Twitter. If you have one for the show, you go to the website, thefantasyfootballers.com. There's a lot going on over there. Click the Submit a Question button. You can also dial the voicemail hotline.

We got voicemail questions today. 302-464-TFFB. See, I got Brooks already weighing in, and he said Josh is not allowed to do that again because he wasn't bad enough, which, yeah. Well, you might earn another shot to be bad. Don't worry. All right.

We do have a voicemail question. We'll kick it off with Luke from Maryland. Hey, ballers. It's Luke from Maryland. And I had a question about redrafts, full PPR. Who do you guys have having a better season, Christian Watson or Marquise Brown? Thanks. It's a good question.

Hollywood Brown, if you don't know now kansas city chief and with the rookie xavier worthy coming in and then rushy rice having some time away from the team there will be an opportunity for impact for Hollywood Brown. However, I have Christian Watson ahead of him. Really? Because I know you're a Jaden Reed guy, and so I thought you would not have Christian Watson ahead of Brown simply because I thought you'd have Christian Watson behind in the Packers pecking order.

Does that mean Christian Watson is, for fantasy purposes, at the end of the year, your number one Packer? Christian Watson and Jaden Reed are both very close. I have Reed higher. He had a nose for the end zone last year. Obviously, Christian Watson missed a significant amount of time. I have him very, very close. Now, when did he miss a significant amount of time?

Was it every year he ever played? Correct. Okay. No, when did he miss a significant amount of time? Was it every year he ever played? Correct. Okay. No, I have them similar. You know, Hollywood Brown, we watched him out here in Arizona for the last couple of years. And it's just hard for me to imagine him coming into Kansas City on a one-year deal with a bunch of other established dink and dunk players

with Kelsey and Rice and, you know, soon to be and soon to be Tony will be back and Watson will be getting targets and Noah Gray and Xavier Worthy getting worked into the lineup. It's just hard for me to look at that and say Hollywood's going to be a monster. I have them with about 100 targets. The problem is his catch rate last year was 50%. He was obviously bad last year. Like, you watch him on the field, and he was dealing with a heel problem.

And so whatever excuses you want to say, but he was a bad wide receiver. Straight up, was unhelpful. And there wasn't demand for him this offseason. No, no. As well, which tells you something. So it's either it was the heel issue and maybe he's healthy because he's been a quality receiver in the past. He's been a guy that has had good stretches,

great collegiate production, obviously, and now he has the better quarterback. We might be in love with love, but he's no Patrick Mahomes. So if you want to go tiebreaker and take Marquise Brown, I'm fine with that. If you want to go tiebreaker and go, well, here's the ironic part, right? Like if you're worried about the injury to Hollywood Brown, then you have to be worried about the injury history to Christian Watson. I'm worried about the, I just think the better younger player is the one I'm going to go with. I mean, Hollywood Brown in five years of playing fantasy football,

because that's what he does. He plays fantasy football. He's also in a – Yeah, he's a huge fantasy football player. 46, 34, 23, 46, 51. So I don't care what the reasoning is. At the end of the year, and he's had over 100 targets, four of five years. So something just seems to go awry.

And his catch percentage is 63, 50. I don't know. Like he's going to make big plays for them. But is he their new MVS more than he is their new, you know, number one target? I think it's closer on the MVS side. So I have Watson. I mean, neither of these guys I have super high. Yeah, neither of these guys do I have super high either.

But I'm going to go Watson as well. Watson has been extremely explosive in the games he's played. The problem with Watson is he hasn't played a lot of games. You know, he missed pretty much half the season last year. And in that stretch. Soft tissue issues. Yeah, he still had two top ten fantasy production games in that short time he did play. His rookie year, he missed a bunch of that.

But when he got on the field, he was a dominator when he had, what did he have? He had like seven touchdowns in four games or something insane. So fantasy points in a half point, looking at Green Bay and where you had them on your initial run through, I am curious. Because we had this question about a month ago when we did our early ranking shows and we hadn't statted them all out yet and it was gut. Where are they stats-wise? What is your order?

Between the wide receiver core? Yeah, Watson, Reed, Dobbs, and Wicks, I would say. So I've got Christian, Watson ahead, then Jaden Reed, then Dobbs, then Wicks. Okay, I have Reed significantly ahead, then Jaden Reed, then Dobbs, then Wicks. Okay, I have Reed significantly ahead, then Watson, then Wicks, then Dobbs. So what's your target situation there? Just targets, because obviously Watson will be- Total targets or percentage?

Just total targets. 107 for Jaden Reed. Okay, I've got him at 89 which feels fewer than last year a little are you making a little no well jayden reed last year his his big games were when christian watson was gone so the splits when you when you look at those it was just different world of utilization for jayden reed um not that he was any worse of a player uh but uh yeah and there's a lot of mouths to feed in this offense. Yep, I agree.

That one's one where I believe the talent of Reed and Watson will bring them to the top. It's an interesting offense. Their offense could be better than Kansas City's for sure.

Kansas City's got a really good defense. I think that the Green Bay offense could be a better offense. That's weird to say. I know. Because when you said it, I wanted to be like, you're so stupid. Right. But I think it's true. They really could be.

Instagram question from Brooke Sifu says, What are his thoughts on Jahan Dotson with the new quarterback? Last year he got his cardio in, 635 routes run. That is the fifth most run routes in the NFL. You wouldn't have known it. That's not a full-time player. That's a super full-time player. Four touchdowns on the year, four finishes in the top 40.

49 receptions. So I had a hard time with them because you look at the depth chart at wide receiver and you're like, Dotson has to do something. Like if Jaden Daniels is anything, Dotson has to have some production. Curtis Samuel had over 100 targets, whatever it was, 119 last year. He's gone. Yeah, Luke McCaffrey is a day two pick, barely. It was like the supplemental day two.

And he looks like he's literally listed on the depth chart as the third wide receiver right now. Yeah, so it's like how does Dotson? I've got him stated as the third. So Jahan Dotson will be very, very involved. He's obviously going to be running routes, and the question is will he be targeted? Because he wasn't last year, and he was his rookie rookie season how many targets did you give him 90 all right i

got him at 89 so lucky there and uh not as many catches as targets that's for sure i mean in the end don't hear what i'm not saying 90 targets is a good amount of targets i've got him as my very not so nice wide receiver 69 so i'm not a huge believer it's painful what's happened there because from a promising perspective as a rookie came in on fire double digit touchdowns what if i and if you had taken that and you said you know what before the season i'm going to tell you that they're going to throw the ball more than every team in football i wouldn't have believed you but okay i'll say let me let me go with that mental exercise they'll throw the ball more than any team in football. He had seven touchdowns in his rookie

year. Oh, seven, yeah. In his rookie year. Only playing 12 games. Alright, voicemail question. Hi, this is Victoria from Maryland. I was wondering if you guys thought that Justin Fields would be a full-time starter or Aaron Rodgers will retire.

Which one's going to happen first? Thanks so much, guys. Love the show. Okay, so that question kind of changed on me. Justin Fields, which will happen first? Justin Fields is a full-time starter, Aaron Rodgers retirement. I'm going to go Rodgers retirement. I don't think Justin Fields will be a full-time starter.

Now, what do you mean by that? That means a team signs. No, no, no. Okay. Because full-time starter. Now, what do you mean by that? Do you mean like somebody gets hurt? No, no, no. Okay. Because full-time starter isn't for a week. Full-time starter is going into the season. That is their clear starter. Now, even if he doesn't play the whole season, but that's what it's saying.

Yeah, like Baker in Carolina started that way. Exactly. And then Marcus Mariota in Atlanta got that chance. Those are what your dreams are right now? Right now, yeah. I think the dream, to be honest. And this is the last year of the deal, right? They didn't pick up the fifth year.

They didn't pick up the fifth year, so he's going to be an unrestricted free agent. No matter how good he plays this year, he's not going to be a franchise type of player. So that means the best case for Fields is that they split time this year, or whether because of play from Russell Wilson or because of injury to Russell Wilson, Fields comes in and is very, very good, wins games with the Steelers, and gets the contract to be the Steelers starter next year. That's the only path. Rodgers retirement is what I'm going with.

I agree. Rodgers retirement. All right. Another voicemail. What's up, Ballers? This is Isaac. I have a question for you guys. I was wondering what are some of the biggest rules

or your favorite rules around keeper leagues? I'm thinking about doing a keeper league with my friends. I've only done Dynasty so far, so I was just wondering what your guys' opinions are on kind of the rules and stuff and how you go about starting a keeper league. Thanks. Everybody I've ever explained our keeper league to really enjoys the format.

So do we want to get into that? Yeah, everybody I've ever played with our keeper format loves playing the format. So there's a thousand ways to play keeper leagues. When we first started our league, which is going into year 17, I believe, we had you could just take three keepers. You could keep them for a certain amount of years maximum, and they could be at any position and give them back. And that was it.

You don't lose a certain draft pick for the player. You know, it's not based on the round you got them. It's just who's your three favorite players from your team. You get to keep them. Can't keep a player more than three years. But what happened is LaDainian tomlinson happened and and guys you know just stacking running backs and hoarding they'd trade keepers and that would reset their keeper numbers so that they were there permanently and we decided to do something

different that i'll explain and it introduced a new fun day of the year for the league and what we did is we we have one franchise player so you would consider that to be the year for the league. And what we did is we have one franchise player. So you would consider that to be the king of the keeper, so to speak, the number one franchise player. That player is locked on your team. Yeah. If you've got Christian McCaffrey and you want to have him next year, you can franchise him. You just call him your franchise player. Boom, he's on your roster next year. You then select three more players from your end of season roster. They must not match the position of your franchise player. So if you

franchise Christian McCaffrey and you had Brees Hall on your team, he's not available. Correct. And so then those three players go into what's called the keeper lottery for your team. And we have a special day every year that we jump on Zoom or people in person and literally your keeper lottery, it's names out of a hat.

Two of them go to your team, back to your roster, one goes into the draft. So you could take a risk like Jason did this year. I put Brees in my lottery. Yeah, because you had a couple running backs and you wanted the chance to keep them both of them. And so that day is really fun every year, and it means that some really big talent drops back into the draft. Somebody lost.

Tyree Kill. And Jamar Chase this year. So big players go back into the draft. In fact, Al Borland, sitting back there in Deucer's Alley, was on a nice five-year run of losing the best player. He would take a chance every year, and that player would always go back in the draft. Was it Mark Andrews, Nick Chubb?

I can't remember all of them, but yeah, those were two of them. And then this year you finally lucked out. But that's how we do it in our Keeper League. Yeah, we had Justin Jefferson in the lottery this year. We got to keep him. Yeah, maybe stop putting such good players in the lottery, bro. I had to franchise Bijan. Yeah, all right, your team's pretty good. But Owl is also a gamb B-junk. Yeah, all right.

Your team's pretty good. But Owl is also a gambler. He is. He wants the upside. Well, we'll take a quick break, come back with some more questions. And I know Kyle's going to put up an article on the website, thefantasyfootballers.com,

that details our Ballers League of Record settings, which is that three-keeper lottery plus the one franchise. Everybody gets three back on their team, but it's fun. It's a fun way to do it. All right. This question comes from Kingdom 33. Who is the number one tight end off the board in 2024 in a standard scoring league?

In a standard scoring league? Yeah, it's Kelsey. Yeah, it's Kelsey. Yeah, for sure. You're just looking at in a standard scoring league, you're really, really touchdown focused. And yes, Sam Laporta had 10 touchdowns as a rookie. That's great. But his utilization, a lot of times you'll see all sorts of reports on what the expected touchdowns would be for a player based on

where they were targeted on the field. And he very much outproduced what his expectation was. You've got Travis Kelsey getting the ball thrown to by Patrick Mahomes, getting little tap passes near the goal line. I'd clearly put all my money on him having the most touchdowns this year all right I'm really excited about this next question because it's going to spawn another discussion Dylan L writes in he says if Kendra Miller was in this year's rookie class great way to look at it where would he fit into the rankings wise compared to the other running backs so you're talking Benson and Brooks and Corum Mars Marshawn Lloyd, Jalen Wright. He's just 21 years old.

He missed nine games as a rookie, so he's kind of a rookie again. Kendra Miller. And he's very, very talented. New Orleans Saints. New Orleans Saints behind Alvin Kamara. To me, they're still the round two running backs in Jonathan Brooks. And I guess Trey Benson was a third rounder right so you've got to talk about like Trey Benson Blake Corum Marshawn Lloyd these are day two backs who are behind incumbents and that is what Kendra Miller is he's a day two back behind Alvin Kamara

so he's in that tier I was I would certainly put him ahead of the jalen rights ray davis's those types so i um yeah and jamal williams still rumbling around there too i watched one other player's entirety of their snaps other than quentin johnson it was kindred miller so i watched every play he made for the saints all of last year i did like what i saw because i've seen it and it's good jonathan brooks i have at 36 right now kindred Miller at 41 Benson at 44, Corum at 45 so to put it in my rankings Kendra Miller is ahead of Benson and Corum

and Lloyd and Ray Davis but for dynasty perspective he's obviously he might be as young as a rookie but he's one year less on his contract Alvin Kamara ran for 3.9 yards a carry last year and he was and Alvin Kamara as a runner on9 yards a carry last year. And Alvin Kamara, as a runner on the ground, an inefficient runner on the ground,

was so much better than Jamal Williams. Jamal Williams is done. That little fun thing, it's over. Yeah, yeah, he scored like one time. Rashad White averaged 3.6 on the ground last year. So I'm saying that because Rashad White was the RB7. Kamara was essentially a top five, top six guy when he

came back. Points per game, for sure. And so both of those players, they don't have to average high yards per carry to be the workhorse that gets all the passing game work and be great. But I'm telling like if Alvin Kamara went down, like Kendrick Miller can catch the football. Kendrick Miller is, I rarely saw him

go backwards. He had explosive plays in the passing game. He's a very good player. He was disrupted by injury. I love him. And I just don't, I think from a sleeper, like we can talk about it right now, Mike's not here, but Kendrick Miller and the sleeper list on the UDK. For sure.

For sure he should be there. Now, so the question here is like if he was in this year's rookie draft, I know for sure he's behind Jonathan Brooks Trey Benson to me those two guys to me are gotcha yeah to get back on the question yeah I would um would you I know Jonathan Brooks would be ahead of him for you I don't think I'd put I think I'd put Marshawn Lloyd ahead of him okay Marshawn Lloyd and I think I put Benson ahead of him okay me too yeah so then it's Blake Corum Marshawn Lloyd and Kendra Miller yeah and then I think Corum and ahead of him too. Okay, me too. So then it's Blake Corum, Marshawn Lloyd, and Kendra Miller. Yeah, and then I think Corum and Wright and Davis and them are behind. I liked Kendra Miller's film more than either Corum or Lloyd.

So I would go Kendra Miller behind Benson. Okay. There you go. So either three or four. Yeah. To answer the question. All right. It's a great dynasty target, too.

Right now, like a trade for a target. Had a lousy rookie season. No one's like, oh my gosh, so excited for him right now. All right. This question from Jason on X says, when should you do your rookie draft in dynasty? So you obviously wait until after the NFL draft. Some people don't, but that's so insane. I mean, you get guys like Troy Franklin going in the first round where,

you know, once they fall in the draft, there's no reason to make a team play that way. So do it after the NFL draft. Now, most of the leagues that I'm in, our rookie drafts are over. They are after the NFL draft and immediately after the nfl draft it's like that thing is over we give you like a chance to go to sleep take a big breath wake up and go you should breathe during your sleep though i don't well yeah i i've got a machine that does so um but to be clear that's not a um cpap you get intubated every night that's right that's right full intubation um i just i prefer enjoy the feeling don't do the work pure oxygen um yeah so uh you know i think you can wait as long as you want you can go all the way up until it's draft season for else you

know for for redraft leagues but the point of a dynasty league is to have fun in the offseason so for me i'm doing it right after the nfl draft all right tyson and florida dear goodness help me find the chargers rb1 amongst gus and dobbins and uh vidal sassoon yes yes isaiah spiller still there and jared patterson and elijah dodson this is really, really, really easy. It's the Gus bus. It's absolutely the Gus bus. Vidal Sassoon is an exciting rookie prospect simply because of his name and his landing spot.

He's a sixth-round pick, though. He's a sixth-rounder. People get every year most of these six round picks that go to a good spot you're so excited for and they don't do jack squat and vidal sassoon's not doing jack squat more than likely uh kimani vidal is his name uh but we call him vidal sassoon passed away at the age of 84 in 2012. The real Vidal Sassoon. This is an honorary. You can take the name. Yeah, it's up for grabs.

So we honor you, Vidal Sassoon. Is that a top 10 name of all time? I'm loving it so far. I mean, just like human. Oh, just like nicknames. No, I just mean the name Vidal Sassoon. Yeah, that's pretty good. Especially for someone that was like a salon guy. Like he did like shampoo. Yeah, Vidal Sassoon. Yeah, that's pretty good. Especially for someone that was like a salon guy. Like he did like shampoo.

Yeah, Vidal Sassoon. Yeah. That can't be his real name. I can't say the name and not laugh. It's spectacular. The real question about this backfield is J.K. Dobbins. Because J.K. Dobbins is either healthy or he isn't. That's it.

If he's healthy. Yeah, how much is he lying? A little or a lot? They paid him nothing he has fifty thousand dollars in guaranteed money what his guaranteed money was reported as fifty thousand dollars fifty thousand but yeah not five hundred thousand like the 50k yeah two two one zero and then a comma that's the kind of cut that you cut him you don't even know exactly you don't notice it on the budget sheet but it also it works in both directions right it says that this is not

an investment they're making in him to be something special but it also costs them absolutely nothing to move on so if he doesn't have it i expect him to be cut which means if he makes the roster he might be okay and if both of these guys are healthy, if J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards are just, they're ready to go, they're who they are at full strength, then there is an argument that J.K. Dobbins is ahead of them. J.K. Dobbins was ahead of them when they were both healthy on the same roster with Greg Roman. But the question is, how could he be healthy after an Achilles injury?

Isaiah Spiller is going into year three. He's averaged 2.3 and 2.6 yards a carry in his opportunities. That's impressive. He is toast. Yeah, I mean, this is another one of those, you know, highly touted running backs who fell in the draft. And most of the time, highly touted running backs who fell in the draft and most of the time highly touted running backs to fall in the draft do not work out Braylon Edward or Braylon Allen um yeah no Braylon

Allen's got trouble yeah it's well and plus he's behind Bree so you sometimes you just got to let these guys go and there are hits sometimes for sure uh the you know they're but they are the outliers and they are the 10 is or if you're making the bet you want to be on the 90 side now every now and then you're going to get kyron williams but kyron williams was someone we love or kareem hunt or you know yeah i know he wasn't as far but third or fourth round yeah but like you know kyron fell late in the draft where you just you know he was to us. But the people that have Kyron on their teams now, they're not even the people that drafted him in the rookie drafts. He hit waivers. Yeah. And then you picked him up. All right, we'll close it out here. Jeff wants to know,

two questions. Why is Andy rarely on the Dynasty show? And when doing rookie drafts, do you do NFL draft or snake draft style? Rookie drafts are all NFL draft style because it's a dynasty and you've got like the entire roster together. When you're doing a redraft, like a startup, if you're doing a dynasty startup, then it's snake to make it even. But once these rosters are established and you've got to build it year after year after year. The worst team gets the best pick in each round in reverse order all the way through the 12th pick. Why aren't you on the Dynasty show? Well, that's the reason I don't like NFL draft style.

I'm a snake only man. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, ride the snake. Big snake guy. No, I mean, look, we've got two excellent dynasty uh gentlemen and kyle borgannoni matthew betts and we wanted to have a baller on there and so jason and mike have taken the mantle most often i have had occasional appearances and i'm happy to continue to do so yeah you're the too many

cooks in one kitchen man yeah you're just the like break glass a case of emergency type of guy yeah i'm here when you know jason's tummy hurts and he's got to go home. My tummy's hurting. Oh, great. I shouldn't have said that. I got to go home and wrap it up. Okay. I got to sit on the toilet.

All right. That is it. We really need to shut this down. UltimateDraftKid.com. A reminder, the Best Ball Ranking is available right now. So if you go pick up the UDK Plus, you can go browse them on the app, on the web, wherever you're at. We'll be back on Thursday. We'll have an overreaction episode, and we'll find out if Jay Grizz moves out of here. We get Mike back. We'll see. Goodbye.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers.