Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - Shocking Stats + Fantasy Valentines - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/12

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Fantasy Football show for Feb 12, 2026. Shocking stats and fantasy draft implications! Can Garrett Wilson and DK Metcalf overcome their poor offenses? Will Ashton Jeanty have more big plays in 2026? And will Dak Prescott be undervalued in fantasy football drafts? Plus, find out which players Andy, Mike, and Jason have early crushes on for the 2026 season! Manage your redraft, keeper, and dynasty fantasy football teams with the #1 fantasy football podcast.Connect with the show:Subscribe on YouTubeVisit us on the WebSupport the ShowFollow on XFollow on InstagramJoin 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. The fantasy footballers podcast, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway, Thursday, February 12th. We welcome you into the show. Happy to have you with us. We're going to talk some fantasy football today. Oh, that's good. and talk a little bit of

a little Valentine's crushes. I don't know. Something thematic with the holiday. Very timely. Is Ken Walker still the Super Bowl MVP? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Probably for a while.

Probably about a year. Yeah. I didn't think of it that way. Are you a reigning Super Bowl MVP? I think you are. I guess you are technically. That's good for us, Jason. That won't be brought up again. this will be the last time we hear about it.

Honestly, I doubt we hear that as much as the reigning champion that he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm guessing that comes out more than the Ken Walker, which is way worse. I guess I'm curious, you know, we all have varying degrees of interest in fantasy football in our extended families. And I know, you know, my wife is, she's not into fantasy football. She's not into the NFL. She's happy to oblige Al Borland when he calls her up and says,

do you want to hop on the show and congratulate him for his title last year, not the champion anymore, of course. But like, how much does your wife understand how good the year was for you in football? Is what I want to know. I've been, I tried to express it. I don't think I was dancing through the house, pantsless. Well, I mean, and my video out in the street with the fireworks, like she filmed it. She was filming and the whole, the kids were in on.

the act and everything. But I don't think she realizes how good. I've said, I was like when, you know, like after the McAfre did everything, I was like, this was the, this was the best year of my professional life in terms of, you know, giving advice and me taking my own advice. But so I don't know if she really knows, but. I'm just curious. I'm just curious how much. She just cared that I didn't lose in the championship. That's what I was going to say. That's all she cares. They notice when losses happen.

Yeah. But do they know the depths of your victories? The fireworks let her know that I won. It's pretty good, pretty good reason. The Ultimate Draft Kit pre-order available now, lowest possible price. Some amazing pre-order bonuses, including a chance to win a listener in the league spot to play with us in 2026. All available at Ultimate DraftKit.com.

if you get the UDK Plus or the ultimate subscription, you will get instant access to the Dynasty Pass and all of our Dynasty Startup rankings and content that we have up there right now, including our initial pre-draft rookie rankings. The draft is not that far away. Nope. But not that close either.

We got a little bit of time to breathe. The Combine is less than two weeks. Okay. Well, yeah. You're right. Combine. That's insane. I know.

The NFL doesn't let you take a break. the running back free agent period where like George Pickens will get franchised. So I mean, we'll have. I like that it's just the running back free agent. Well, that's what I mean. What are you going to call it the Rashid Shaheed period of the year? Alex Pierce is, I think he's a very interesting player and he could end up somewhere. What about David Nizoku and Kyle Pitts?

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, I care about Kyle Pitts actually. Yeah. I feel like maybe Njoku's, Nizoku's world is sort of closing. He could go somewhere and be fascinating.

Yeah, yeah, fascinating's fine. I can deal with fascinating. But yeah, Alec Pierce, Rashid Jeh, no matter who signs him, there's no point that we're going to be blown away with the significance of that sign. It will be fascinating. But it's not the Gamebreaker superstar signings that were, like, it's E.T.N. and Breeze Hall and Ken Walker that are super interesting. Ken Walker, I think it was the parade this morning

where John Schneider was talking about, you know. He tried to make a joke about him negotiating with him. It didn't land. Premise, good, execution of joke, very bored. Yeah, the Solo Cup had to do it. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think he was in his sharpest mind state. What a tradition we have where like after someone wins a Super Bowl or a championship. See them.

We get them progressively intoxicated over the course of the parade route until you speak at the end. Speak at the beginning. Yes. You really need to, it needs to be a... Remember Brady throwing the trophy on the boat? I also remember him being shuffled by multiple people. Like a puppet. Falling over and it was like,

let me put my hand up there, Tom, so you can walk. That's funny, right? Yeah, that was, uh, it's funny. You're right, they should talk at the beginning. And then do like a big circle parade and at the end, they just scream and shout and wave and go. Get into their ubers. You get taken a horse.

some very funny Sam Donald T-shirts if you did not see those. I saw it on K. Adams show. It was a... Hey, it was a delightful t-shirt. It really lets... It sends their message. It is an incredible story that Sam Darnold has written.

Seriously. Because Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, haven't reached the Super Bowl. Sam Darnold goes from seeing ghosts to getting kicked out of a place where he won 14 games. games. Not brought back. We have a quick question of the day. How many? You know the video you're watching in the back of Deuce's eye? We can hear the sound, right? Can you not figure out how to stop the video? There's a video. What are you clowns doing? Is that your phone?

Your phone? Do you understand the heart rate situation back there now? Oh, man. They were. Andy said triggered Siri to start playing something on my phone. I heard it say something about Kendrick Lamar's playing on spotting. The first thing I heard, I thought it was Matt talking. And he's just, and I assume that was bathroom break related. That's never happened before. Remember when you tell us to mute ourselves? Yeah, let me check that real quick.

I mean, like, he's a Super Bowl winner. And how many, and they, I don't know if this is a Kyle question, if we can even get the answer right now. But, like, he won 14 games back to back. Yeah. That in itself is an accomplishment. Yeah, and Colin Coward, I think was trying to be, you know, Colin Coward and have the big question of like, what other quarterback would you even start a franchise with right now? Over Sam Darnold?

Because of Sam Darnold's two seasons of. Stop it. But it was a point. The only point that landed with that conversation was what you just said. You look at the last 30 games Sam Darnel that started. Yeah. And you have to just, I don't know. give him his flowers.

It's been amazing. Now I just want to find an image of Sam Darnel in a backwards hat. Yeah, I mean, go for it. Because coward will lose his mind. Oh, man, it's only forward hats, guys. He's a coward guy. He's that kind of a leader. Watch this, watch this, leader.

Yeah. Not a leader. You're not the host here. Leader. Leader. Hooligan. can't do it can't worry backwards that quick question of the day do you have an early fantasy football crush for 2026 uh like i said we'll play into the valentine's day is there somebody that right out

of the gate here maybe you didn't get to see him on the field a bunch last year maybe you did and you just like the opportunity but is there an early fantasy football crush for 2026 that you want to talk about on february 12th yeah i'm gonna uh we just talked about david ojoku um he is not my fantasy crush but he was in the way of my fantasy crush harold fan and junior, rookie sensation who is really, really overlooked for what he did because right now

in most consensus boards, he's the third most important rookie. He's the third most desirable rookie in Dynasty leagues. And I'll bet in drafts next year he gets drafted. You mean out of the position? Yes, out of the tight ends because you had, man, he really moved up the rankings. No, because you had

Colson Loveland, you had Tyler Warren, who are the higher drafted first round draft capital and the NFL draft's supposed to be awesome. And Harold Fanon, the tight-in five on the season in his rookie year, outscored both of them, was dealing with Shador Sanders and Dylan Gabriel and David Nogoku in the way. And he just got it done, similar how he did in college, where it's like, I don't know, the competition is this, he runs duck foot and it's just, he just gets it done. And now, I feel like this is a team that's really going to be built towards him, around him, hopefully

they bring in some better quarterback competition, but even if they don't. I don't think that they can. Well, I mean, they can in the sense, I know you don't want to hear it, but Deshawn Watson is going to be part of this team. He is going to be battling for the coaching, or you know, for the quarterback position.

And he's just got to battle Shador Sanders. So it should get better than rookie Shador Sanders either way. My point is I think he is... Did you watch Sean Watson play? Oh, yeah. I mean, I take a rookie but I watched Shador Sanders play too. I'll take rookie Shradoreh Sanders.

And they, I mean, they did talk about drafting a quarterback highly. I mean, that's been in the news around Cleveland to do that again. I mean, you're going to end up. Like, no disrespect to Fannan. He's awesome as a talent. But I'm much more confident in the stability of those other two guys. Yeah. So right now, Harold Fannan is tight in five and best ball.

Yeah. So he is being respected by the drafters. In my opinion, according to Jason, he's still being disrespected as because he's behind. And who's disrespecting him? So right now with McBride Bowers. I haven't seen that. I felt like it's been. Loveland, Warren, and then Fanon is like everybody else has a crush on him too.

What I'm saying is specific to the three rookies from last year. Generally speaking, Loveland and Tyler Warren are seen as more valuable and higher fantasy assets than Fanon. I don't know that that's actually true. All right. My fantasy football early crushes for 2026, Malik Neighbors. Oh, yeah. Who we did not get to see enough of? last year. But with the new regime,

Jackson Dart year two, some stability for him. I'm excited about Malik Neighbors. We lost a handful of players last year. It does not make fantasy football better when Malik Neighbors is off the field. He's an exciting, explosive player. And then Armory in Hampton,

who I feel like this season kind of feels like it never really started for Hampton. It was just like, you know, you began the year. Najee Harris was going to get the opportunities. He gets knocked out. Hampton starts to get going. He gets knocked out. They come back. Their offensive line is beat up. I just feel like we never really got a prolonged exposure to what he's capable of doing for the team.

And so I'm very excited about that with Mike McDaniels. It was actually that way for. Did I do it again? Yeah, you did it again. This is 100% your fault. I know. I had no problem with this for my whole life. To my credit.

I am proud that I have made you say Mike McDaniels. It's really outside of Ashton Genti, who, obviously, Obviously, his situation is going to change quite a bit. I think Kubiak coming in could improve that. But the entire rookie running back draft class from 2025, which was one of the better ones to come out in recent memory, chock full of talent. And almost all of them showed that talent,

but almost always just for a little. You saw a blip of it. Judkins got hurt. Judkins got hurt. You had Henderson have his incredible middle of the season. And then. Scataboo? Yes.

Oh, that's still too soon. No, you're right. That is a good point. So it's like I'm actually really hopeful for the 2025 rookie running backs next year. That makes sense. By the way, we are talking about Genty on today's show. We're doing shocking stats. We're also talking about fan, not fan, Warren and Loveland. The Chase Brown continues to be on my list of he's going as in best ball where there's wide receivers are definitely propped up. But he's at the back of the second round and he's behind like Derek Henry or Chase Brown, I think it will be a tough decision.

And then same team's chargers. Like, Quentin Johnson and Trey Harris to me are going to be really interesting in drafts because neither of them will likely end up being drafted extremely high. They will be value-wide receivers. And like, I mean, the two seasons that Q just put together are like solid seasons. Now, it didn't go forever because of the offensive line problems. and then it's will Tray Harris who showed up in flashes will he be a full-time starter now after being a second round pick last year

does Keenan Allen leave the team and what does McDaniel do like who is who does McDaniel see as the true field stretcher like Q has been that guy but maybe he looks at Trey Harris and says no It's actually McDan We can just call him Mike McDee I mean that might make it easier for you But one of those guys will be the field stretcher. So I think that'll be a fun offseason thing as we're trying to get information on it.

All right. Let's talk a little news. News and notes from around the league. You like Mike McDee's? That's dangerous. Tied in David Najoku. Scheduled to be a free agent announced he will not return to the team. He made a big post about goodbye Cleveland.

Should you or see it? Hey, Cleveland and a Cleveland. Remember when they could have traded David to Joku? at the trade deadline and got something? Hot commodity. And you had his replacement ready? They were making a big playoff push. Man, goodness gracious this team. Shadour Sanders

will get quote, runway to be the number one quarterback for the summer and early fall. That was also the article that talked about them drafting a quarterback. What about late fall? We'll give him some runway like pretty early. It's weird. Specifically early fall?

Do you guys, you guys? absolutely hate him? His play was very bad. His play was not always bad. He had bad games and he had bad stretches, but he also had very good stretches at times. He does have a lot of talent. He has a lot of physical

tools, but I just, I don't when things go bad for him. You don't think he can develop, though? I mean, you've seen bad rookie years. This was a player that was at one point a top five pick. Right. I'm not saying he will reach that and certainly probably won't reach it in Cleveland. I understand all of that.

I'm just saying that players look bad early in their career, and they're definitely going to look bad in Cleveland earlier in their career. I just, you know, it's not like this dude practiced as to be a starter for the first half of the year. But it was. I just wonder if there should be a little bit more optimism around the potential that he's their future versus Watson or a rookie. He just like his advanced analytics. You're talking about pro bowler. His advanced analytics are are catastrophically bad.

and me all my you know I'm like I fantasy's in my bio I don't know what I'm talking about but everything bad that I saw should do or do it when I was scouting him he fell right back into all those really bad habits always backing up never getting into the pocket creating it's all I'm saying when his mistake when he makes a mistake it's a bad mistake and it's just like it's a drive killer so do they have the people in place to fix it It's not impossible because of the physical tools, but it will take a lot of work to get him where he needs to be.

ESPN Ryan McFadden reporting comically to me. Alec Pierce, Rashid Shaheed are on the radar for the Raiders. Both of those players seem like the most Raiders signings ever to me. I mean, Alec Pierce, Rashid Jehid, both of those players to me are not complete wide receivers. They're both extremely fast, deep threats. I'm not sure if I'm a football team which player I'd rather have between those two

if I'm honest with you. Yeah, it's tough because Shahid can do special teams. That's it. It's like Shahid, I think, brings probably more total to your team with less production that you see on a stat sheet probably, or certainly in a fantasy football stat sheet, but maybe as the more valuable player. But this is where we're at.

I mean, if these guys go, one of them goes to the Raiders, and we're talking about, let's say Pierce goes to the Raiders. I don't think we're like none of us are excited about this situation. You've got you've got other players there already. Bowers is going to be the primary target. You've got a rookie quarterback. So betting against wide receivers for rookie quarterbacks is a very winning strategy.

It doesn't always work. Sometimes they actually do come through, but the bet has been really strong. So year one, I would not be interested. But Mendoza, Mendoza looks like he could be a real. real quarterback. Did you know that this last season was Alec Pierce's career high in receptions? Do you remember the number? Oh, I mean, it was, is he

in the 40s? He is. He's in the 40s. He made the 40s. That is, that is... He had a thousand yards. That's literally the most problematic. What's 1,000 divided by 20? He had a thousand yards and 47 receptions. He is very... It's just the most fewest receptions for a thousand yards season since

1990. I mean, it's the most problematic possible signing for a rookie quarterback ever. It reminds me of like the early seasons of Deshaun Jackson, whereas the volume wasn't there, but it was always big plays. Yeah, which he can do. It's just harder to do. We looked at that rookie quarterback study a while back.

I think, Ha, Kyle just popped it up. Deshawn Jackson, 47 for 1,056. That was the all-time highest with under 50 receptions. Wow. Yeah, I mean. So it reminds me. Exactly of Deshaun Jackson.

Because it was almost an identical season. Same receptions, almost the same yards. Both those guys would scare the tarnation out of me for dynasty and for, like, I don't know. Pierce could end up somewhere much better, obviously. This was interesting, Zach Robinson, the new Buccaneers offensive coordinator,

because they collect a new one every year. But this one, you know, we respect what Zach Robinson brings to the table. Says he sees Bucky Irving in a very similar light to Bejan Robinson with what he can do passing game. Zachary. I mean...

That's a kind comment. Yeah. Zach. I mean, look, it's good to hear your OC relate you to a superstar simply from a workload perspective. You want him on the field. You want him catching passes. This is a good comment. It's mostly irrelevant. He's not Bijon. I don't think anybody's out there saying

Bajon are, you know, interchangeable. It's still good, though. You don't want... You could have someone come in and say, you know, I think he's so talented. He's going to be, you know, I'm going to work him in as part of a great, talented core of running backs. Remember Aaron Glenn when he got to the Jets and was talking about how great their running back room was because he's talking up the backups and, you know, it wasn't just Brise being the special player. And it's like, I would much rather hear this. Tell me how special you know, he's on, he's on pace for 51 receptions last year.

Rashad White is a free agent. Rashad White did the David Najoku thing and basically posted... Did he? That I'm out? Yeah, that I'm out. Like, that's the most encouraging thing to me is that if you're comparing him to a guy that catches a ton of passes out of the backfield, and we looked at the truth of the running back position earlier this offseason, and it was a really down year for running back receptions, that's the only...

I don't think he's Bejohn, but it's encouraging to me that you're talking about Bucky Irving to be your past catching specialist. that's super encouraging. Bucky's weird, man. He's in this nebulous area of, like, people aren't quite sure what to do with him. His points per game were almost the exact same as last year, but he only scored one touchdown, and he scored eight last year.

He seems like a steal. He could be. In best ball, in ADP right now, running back 14 is Brees Hall. Then it's Ken Bone Walker. Then it's Bucky. Wow.

So two guys that don't have teams. Right. Yeah, it's I think I think Bucky is sneakily. I mean, with one touchdown, I know he missed time, but one touchdown on the ground?

There's some positive regression. Giants are hiring Brian Callahan to be their quarterback coach. Some disagreements internally on whether this is good or bad news. Internally here, not with their team. Yeah. Mike, I know you are not a fan of Brian Callahan.

and what he did at his Titans tenure. I was looking directly at the Titans, and Cam Ward seemingly got much better. Overnight when Brian Callahan was fired. And that feels bad when you're supposed to be an offensive guru type of a coach. When the team improves, not over a course of a few games, it was like we started watching Cam Boards like, Oh, maybe it's not just a disaster here.

The nice thing, though, is that maybe Callahan is not greatly equipped to be the play designer and play caller and have too much fall on his shoulders. But he's being hired as a quarterback's coach. You know, he's not the offensive coordinator or the head coach or the play caller. Pretty good offensive coordinator for five years with Joe Burrow and Cincinnati. Yeah. So I think it's pretty good. Some of these guys aren't equipped to be a head coach. The pressure was on.

and the screws were, he knew he was potentially on the way out. I don't know. Rookie quarterbacks get better over time, Mike? I mean... Yes, it just seemed overnight. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he did not do the job in Tennessee. But I'm not too freaked out about this.

I'd be happier if you told me Cliff Kingsbury had signed that contract there. Yeah, I think it's also a combination of it starts with Matt Nagy, We were like, ugh. And then Calh and you're like, oh, wow. You got double. Yeah, double groans going on for the Giants' offensive hires. All right, we'll take a break.

We'll jump into some shocking stats from 2025, some fun conversations. Before we move into shocking stats, I did want to check back. Is there any videos you guys want to watch back there? You can just prop your phone up on the table. We could do like a YouTube video segment. Oh, dude. Favorite video from Jeremy's phone. You know what I'm so jealous of for other content creators?

What's that? The reaction videos. Yeah, we never get to react to other. You're like, hey, you know this video that went viral or someone really put in a lot of work? How about a video of me watching that video? Yeah. Yeah, what were you watching back then? Sign me up.

You even know? The Kendrick Lamar halftime show, apparently. See, fine. I'll watch Lamar. Yeah, we'll let you know what we think of it. And you can watch us watching Lamar. Oh, a double? Yeah.

When do we get into the watcher of the watcher? That's what are you saying? Well, no, Mike's taking at one more level. One more level. I'm saying Jason watches a video of me watching Kendrick Lamar. I actually want... Is he reacting to your reaction? Yes.

Oh, yeah, yes. I want to watch... He cannot react to the original video. Correct. Correct. It's a review of the review. I want to watch an audience watching your reaction. video and I'll react

to the crowd. Okay. They're ooing. This is good. Oh, no, they're booing. Let's jump in. How'd you do that? I'm not even mad. That's amazing. All right, we're going to bounce around a little bit. We have, uh, the team here has pulled out a handful of, uh, number four will shock you. Shocking, I'm starting with number four.

No, you can't start with a number that I need. That's the one. That's what I want to talk about first. That's fine because I met number seven. Yeah. will shake you to your bones. We'll call this DAC the loser. I don't care for that. No, no, no. I actually want to have a conversation about DAC

beyond even this shocking stat. But here is this stat. Dak Prescott had the widest fantasy points per game, gap between wins and losses of any top quarterback ever. So when he won, when they won the Cowboys, he was 24 points a game, and that is pure elite fantasy production. When they lost, it was 12.7 points a game. So we know how much a blessing the Dallas defense was to our existence. The other side conversation about DAC is I saw a first, is it 10 years now for Dak?

Can you check that for me? I think he's right around the 10 year mark as a quarterback. He's played 10. So 2016 was his first year, so this will be his 10th season. If you go look side by side at the statistics, it'll be his 11th season. What year is it? Yeah, this will, he has, you have to count the six. He has finished.

Oh, okay. You've got to count zero. I got you. I got you. If you look at the first 10 years of Drew Breeze and the first 10 years of Dak Prescott, and you put their numbers next to each other. Drew Breeze, renowned, well thought of. Hall of Famer now. Hall of Famer, and you look at what DAC has done in his first 10 years, and the numbers are shockingly comparable.

Oh, man. Careful saying these things out loud. Not to mention, I believe that, I believe Breeze through significantly more interceptions than DAC has. So we don't look at those two players at all in the same way. It seems like whenever DAC succeeds, we try to hitch his victory wagon to some other cause. It's not DAC, right?

it's, well, he's got CD or he's got, you know, for a while it was what, Des? Well, yeah, yeah, Des, but the running, Ezekiel Elliott. Oh, yeah. You know, or the offensive line, right?

Remember how long, the offensive line was why they succeeded. I guess it was just a way of saying from a production standpoint, Doc has been regularly great, rarely praised, and here we have another season where these disparities are wild. Like, you could start DAC this year

fantasy and it would be not worth it at all. There were nine games in which you were like, whoops. And then there were seven games in which he was an absolute difference maker. When he has played 16 games, he's finished in the top 12 and often finishing much higher than... How many times has he played 16 games? I'm just not a gotcha. I'm just curious. Seven, there are, yeah, so seven times he's completed the season and three times he's been out because of injury. Yeah, I mean, it's just, I think we're going to always have this conversation with Dak about what he truly represents for fantasy football.

And it's hard, it's hard being the Cowboys quarterback in terms of the scrutiny put on to you. Like, I was, you know, not talking about the commentary stuff, but Tony Romo the player, Tony Roma the quarterback was a very good quarterback. Yes, he was. He had, he has, unfortunately. one of the biggest gaffes in football history of botching the snap. And it's like that stains the, but, dude, Tony Romo was great.

And Dak Prescott is great. I want to actually give you the numbers. Please. With Breeze, if you don't mind. So this is 10 seasons. This is 139 games played for Dak and 138 games played for Drew Breeze. Okay. Dak has a better record as a starting quarterback.

Okay. 83 and 55, Breeze was 79 and 58. Higher completion percentage goes to. That one's surprising if it's. Yes, DAC. 66.9%. Breeze was breaking records. Well, later on, but first 10 years, 65%.

Passing yards? Dak. More passing yards. Passing touchdowns? Dak by eight. Interceptions, 92 for DAC, 132 for Drew Breeze in that span. And that doesn't even give him any credit for being the four times the rusher that Drew I was gonna say you know on the ground

DAC was way better when did Breeze change teams what year I mean it was early it was really early I can give you that yeah because in my head I'm like he was a he was a charge while you look that up right he was he was a charger for yeah longer than than I thought he had played

four years there as a starter five years total so again his his record breaking like completion percentage years go well beyond his 10th season when he, I mean, his last four years, 72, 74, 74, 70. I think the issue, Michael Thomas. The issue with Dak Prescott is the same as what you were bringing up with Tony Romo. It's a, it's a Dallas Cowboys issue.

They're a franchise. And never winning playoff games. That's what I mean. The franchise is not taken super serious right now. They haven't been in an NFC championship game in longer than every other NFC team by like triple almost everybody. And it's like a Jerry Jones problem. If you were to give Dak with those stats,

one Super Bowl. He won a Super Bowl four years ago. Yeah, it changes everything. Everything of your perception about him, for sure. And I don't think that's fair to Dak. He, you know, to be honest, for the last several years, I feel like we've been a very pro-Dak. Yeah, oh, yeah. As a player group, he is not given the,

not given the credit that he deserves. for fantasy. Yeah. I don't think he's ever not finished as a quarterback one if you finish the season. Correct. So I'm on team deck. The wins and losses thing, it's a, you know, it's an interesting stat. But it's not really that indicative. Like, it's not against good defenses or against bad defenses. Obviously, you would expect to score fewer points in the games you lose because you scored fewer points than your opponent. But there's also the weird games this season where, you know, like week one, deck played great moved the ball against the Super Bowl champion Eagles and then Giovante got all the touchdowns they lost that game by a few but they scored a lot of points I think the

highlight there is just that it was the biggest gap ever for a quarterback that finished as high as he did and then you didn't get clearly you didn't like some garbage time special stuff from DAC this year otherwise maybe those even out a little bit better we'll see what the defense can do next year I'm trying to decide what I want to go with

for the second one I think want to have the Gentie discussion. So our second shocking stat, let me see if I can pull it up here. I don't remember where. Where is that one? It's number five. Number five, it's just right next to it.

This one's called Where's the Big Play? So Ashen Genty touched the ball 321 times. That's a lot. Six plays of 20 plus yards. This next part is going to hurt. Austin Hooper touched the ball 21 times. So 300 fewer times, six plays of 20 plus yards.

You cannot hear stuff like that and not. If you've been in the fantasy football. That's a funny stat. Yeah, that one's ridiculous, Kyle. If you've been in the fantasy football world for enough time, you just can't look at the Gentie season and not having the back of your mind somewhere. See, I haven't told either what I'm going to say,

but you might already know it. But Trent Richardson has... Oh, yeah, that's the name. It's tucked in the back of your head because the volume masked things like this. Now, the very end of the year, there were a couple big plays by Genties that I think were truly special, but it is in the back of your head. 60% of his runs went for three yards or fewer. I am excited about Kubiak arriving. Yes. I'm excited about them having, you know, Mendoza stabilized that position. They had the worst quarterback in football this year.

I genuinely think that. I think Gino was worse than Shadour this year. I think he was the single, most detrimental offensive player for any team. Poor Pete Carroll. The record would bear that out. But Ashton Gentile, let's talk about him for a second. I'm not going to hold it against him that he got that many opportunities. That's a good thing. If he didn't get that many opportunities and he was this inefficient,

I think we would be talking bust slash fears. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If he was someone that touched the ball 240 times this year and was as inefficient. That would be, you know, he wouldn't be drafted in the top 15 running backs at all going into next season. The fact that at the end of the season, he had a couple big breakway plays, breakway games, his single game against the Houston Texans, where he did have a 60-yard touchdown reception where he had a 51-yard carry against a great defense was like, that's him.

that's the guy that, you know, we drafted high in fantasy, the Raiders drafted high in the NFL draft. Honestly, the change over as a whole quarterback, offensive mind play caller Kubiak coming in, it's going to forgive a lot of, you know, the problems that he experienced us last year. I think everything will be forgiven and he'll be drafted. I was going to ask, probably higher maybe than he should.

I was going to read some names to you, if you don't mind. give me your first initial reaction on who you'd like more or less. I'm looking at the top finishers for last year, by the way. His yards per carry, just to give you context, one, plus for him. He finished at 12 overall, and at 12 overall, it was on the worst team in football. That gets the number one pick. And we always want running backs with winning teams, so he managed to finish top 12. Well, winning teams, but also running backs who had a rookie quarterback start 10 or more games over the last decade.

The running back won for those teams averaged seven and a half. Total touchdowns. You want to hear something crazy? First season. Top 25 finishers at running back. The lowest three in yards per carry. You ready for him? Ash and Genty.

You know Ash and Jentee's there, right? Mm-hmm. There were two at or below his number. What was he at? 3.7. Now, by the way, Barclay was sub 4. Number one overall, Christian McCaffrey was 3.9.

So that was actually exceptionally low. Was Barclay's sub 4? Sequin Barclay was not. He was 4.1. Okay. The other two are rookies. Oh, how funny. RJ Harvey was 3.7.

Okay. And then number 25 on the total list got hurt. Judkins? Quinn Sean Judkins. Yeah. Was 3.6 per carrier. The three rookies. And guess what the fourth one is?

Down at 29. Woody marks at 3.6. So literally like out of the top 30 running backs, the four lowest yards per carries were rookies. If you want, at least some hope. And RJ Harvey's offensive line was way better than J.T. Harvey is Harvey's kind of a scary

He's starting to look at Like I'm starting to see his career out in front of me In the looking glass, whatever It looks like committee back type of guy The if you want at least something hopeful We're looking at lowest yards before contact Per attempt Poor guy

Yes, yes Very much so And we're looking at We've got 14 first round running backs The oldest one being and going back to Ezekiel Elliott. So of the 14 players, lowest yards before contact,

aka his offensive line is doing nothing to help him. He was last. At 1.6, just in front of him would have been the Najee Harris rookie year, if you remember. Very similar thing to Ashton Genti of volume took care of everything,

care of everything, especially receiving. Now, different players, because no one confuses his nodgy, even rookie Najee, his big playability versus Ashton Genty. Those are very different things.

But so they got to fix the run scheme. I mean, the fact that we had Pete Carroll's kid running the offensive line. Yeah. That was a, that was a Nepo fail. Yes. It's funny because we look at like the Kubiaks. Yes.

Nepotism. The Shanahan's. Yeah. Nepotism. And we're like, good. Give me more. The hard boss. Have more kids. Give me more, Shanahan. But sometimes it don't work, especially when it's your kid who seemingly doesn't deserve it and then gets it as a surprise and then everyone else was fired but him. The, you got to remember like, Sequin Barclay was sub for a carry in his final year in New York.

Yeah. You changed offensive lines and he added two yards per carry. I mean, you have the thing where a player like this on a team like this, they start pressing. They start wanting to hit a home run Are you looking for that to move them up in your rankings that they Oh man. Offensive line is 100%

Could he make top five for you? With offensive line moves? No, I don't think you can. Because of a rookie quarterback. I think he could get near it for sure. But that's what they need to do. They need to go out and trade for a guard, sign a tackle. The fact that right now.

Give me the other positions. The fact that right now we are talking about, on today's news that they're really targeting Alec Pierce or Rashid is like, go and spend some money on, you know. Not that. Not that. Just any of the other. It's the gross stuff.

It's the gross stuff. Look at Chicago. You've got the money now. Rookie quarterback contract, baby. Make the most of it. All right. We'll take a break and I've got more shocking stats for you. All right.

Our next one, let's talk about rookie tight-in quirks. All right. We have Tyler Warren, Colston, Love, and we talked about fans. in earlier, so we'll complete the trifecta here, the tri force of rookie tight ends. Tyler Warren and Colson Loveland's seasons did not just end on different notes, right?

Warren took over the front half of the season. He looked like, maybe you'd have the top tight end again. When Bowers got hurt, for sure. There was a chance that Warren would be the top tight end. At the second half of the season, it was Colson Loveland's time. I just looked at, I think, the last eight games of the season.

Point for Fanon, even in that span, or Loveland was I think number five. I think Fanon was like four. Like in points per game, there were five and six or something. Phantom was still ahead in the second half of the year when Loveland took off. But the interesting thing about Warren and Loveland is that they actually, they even produced in very, very different ways.

62% of Warren's fantasy points came in the first half of the game, which that made a great impression on us too. You turn the game on and Warren every time. It was pretty often. I would prefer that. Yeah, it's nicer that way. But it was also pretty often where it's like you'd watch what Tyler Warren's doing. He were going to be like, oh, he's finishing. He's the number one tied in this week.

And then he didn't do anything else. He's finished playing this week. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then 42. I remember that with Jonathan Taylor too. It was like the Colts were so good.

The first half of this year before Daniel Jones went down. First half of the first halves too. They were so good that they didn't do much of anything in the second half. That was brutal. And then they didn't make the playoffs. 42% of Loveland's fantasy points came in the fourth quarter. So they're completely different. You would start Loveland and go,

I would be surprised, or maybe that's the wrong word. I would be interested to see what of, what percent of Caleb Williams points are scored in the fourth quarter? Because watching Bears games was, Kyle will probably figure that out in about 30 seconds.

The story of the Bears and Caleb Williams was how do they possibly keep coming back in the fourth quarter? But they did it, on the weekly and then they did it in the playoffs. Like this was, they really got to get the first three quarters going.

Yeah, and I look at those specific disparities for those two guys as incredibly fluky and non-prescriptive personally. You know, Loveland, part of what he did, again, we have the fantasy context. They went to the playoffs. They won a game in the playoffs.

They played two playoff games. We kept seeing Colston Loveland be an important part of this offense. I think his establishment over the second. have regardless of what time of game the points game is what I'm more looking forward to in the next season where this was the progressive unlocking of a super weapon in my opinion. It seemed that way and I know I've brought up the fact that when Colson Loveland started having

his breakout, that was when Roma Dunesay went down to injury and the targets went his way. And it was really a question of when everybody's healthy, when Luther Burd, is healthy and when Rome is healthy is Colson Loveland really going to matter but you're right Andy down the stretch into the playoffs once they were all healthy. Loveland was their best receiving option including the wide receivers. Jacob Gibbs on Twitter tweeted this out. There was basically about 100 routes where all three of those guys were on the field together.

Oh, okay. And on those routes, team target percentage, you had Luther Burden at 18.8 Roma Dune's at 20 and Colston Loveland at 33.8, which is an outrageously high number. Yes. Mr. Lova. So, I mean, that's, if you want to be bullish on Loveland, that to me is the stat that says he can be a high target even with everybody healthy and active because he was in the most important time of the year. And there was a part of this year and this just shows the reactionary sports fantasy culture where the because of his injury we were ridiculing Chicago for the

pick how could you let time look at what Tyler Warren can do how could you possibly go right and then by the end you're like well maybe they uh did their homework and to me the eye test was passed by all three yeah all three of those rookies that's why you put them in order that's where like I guess me personally I don't feel a disrespect for fanning just because I have them third of that bunch, because it's like three A, B, and C to me. Right. Or one A, B, C.

We disrespect them all. I guess three works because if you want to put McBride and Bowers. Sure. And then it's three A, B, and C. It probably is very accurate. I remember early in the off season, you came in and you're like, dude, I just got to ask the question I can't come up with.

And it was basically put those three guys in order, and the three of us had three completely different orders. So Kyle looked it up, Caleb, second most passing touchdowns in the fourth quarter and overtime to the NFL. Spread it out. Number one was Mr. Stafford. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going to read you some more shocking stats. I just want to get your kind of knee-jerk reaction to any of them.

If there's anything prescriptive or fantasy, if you want to make fun of anybody because of them. Oh, I do. Whatever the case may be. One that was really cool. It was just Daniel Jones, who had gone from the worst quarterback under pressure in his career to apparently the best. He led all quarterbacks in completion percentage when under pressure and in passerating went under pressure.

The previous two years, he was basically basement dwelling when it comes to under pressure pass rating completion percentage in yards per attempt. And then he was number one, number six in yards per attempt and number one in passerating. How? I think if we had more numbers, I'm guessing that he was. was under pressure far less this last year and had opportunities to, like, get into the game, get into play action, have a lead where he's not spent his career usually having a lead in the pass rush that's coming after him is because it's like, oh, this is great advantage

for the defense. Now he was playing for a team where it's like the advantage was usually on the offense. He was usually leading and they didn't know if they were going to run or pass. Less desperation went under pressure? Exactly. Yeah, well said. How about this one, Mike? the 2025 Steelers' offense

through the ball, on average, 2.97 yards short of the first down marker. The lowest... I love this stat. Of any NFL team in 10 years, 67% of Pittsburgh's passing yards came after the catch.

This is a simultaneous gut punch to all METCAF managers and a confusing headstrong scratch to the we got to get this guy back behind center. Aaron Rogers? Yeah. My initial reaction is this is the most Aaron Rogers. I get to blame everybody else for the like, how did we not get the first down? I completed the pass.

You're like, bro, throw to the sticks. Wasn't he historically even when he was at his peak? Wasn't there a big conversation about not taking certain chances when he had those incredible 37 and 4 touchdown to interception ratio seasons. Do you remember this? There were times when they really, I think it was kind of towards the end of the Green Bay era, he had put up back-to-back seasons of like 37 and

4 and 38 and 3 or something like that. Yeah, the ayahuasca years. But he wasn't, there were certain plays that looked like he left him out on the field because he didn't want to throw that interception, didn't want to mess up those numbers. Yeah. These numbers that you're talking about before the sticks, it's like, hey,

my completion percentage stays high, my numbers look good as I move into the Hall of Fame season. It's everybody else's fault. Well, that much is always true. So I love that. Also, he's going to say yes to McCarthy coming back and then he's going to yell at McCarthy all season long. This is like, so it's now framed as like a D.K. Metcalf question. And I will, I will be out.

I will be out. I was dragged in. That's your guy. D.K. Mike, I was dragged in by the possibility of Aaron Rogers' wide receiver one getting volume. That volume didn't show up. No more Arthur Smith, though.

Yeah, but D.K. McHaff still is who I think he is, which is a good wide receiver, a player I'd like to have on my NFL team, but not paying him wide receiver astronomical contract money. A couple wild jet stats for you. The Jets were are trailing on 93% of their offensive snaps. And the Jets ranked last and rushing plays inside the five for the third consecutive year.

What a fart of a franchise. I am so sorry to Jets fans. They are just about the only one I feel for more than us Cardinals and Browns fans. The Jets, J-E-T-S sucks, sucks, sucks. I mean, they are the worst. I don't know if you know how to spell. I don't know if the Jets know how to spell. Oh my goodness

Yeah I mean there's not a lot to go with there Other than the fact that Brees is going to be gone They did not get inside the five enough To give Brees opportunities to be elite Braylen Allen is still Being gone should help him Braylen Allen is still 22 years old

I am Curious about what that looks like for the Jets Next year Isaiah Davis is also very young If they don't draft somebody Over under 275 targets for Garrett Wilson. Who's the quarterback? I don't know.

Well, if it's a rookie under. To a tongue of Iloa. Oh, over. Dude. I would take it. Yeah. I would. A struggling scale are the Garrett Wilson hive out there.

I know you are with me. Yes. Now, wait a minute. You grade on a scale when it comes to Gary Wilson. We would take to a. We absolutely would. Have you heard the. latest rumor for who could play quarterback there now that I forget forget who they got a quarterback's

coach or someone who's good friends with a guy who recently said he would be willing to come out of retirement to play quarterback oh no yeah oh no indeed Bill musgrave is there new yes Bill musgrave yeah is their new quarterback no no that's the new offensive yes and uh good friends with derrick car i'd take derrick car really say that tell that to chris olive and enjoy your murder balls for Garrett Wilson. I will tell that to just based off of the current depth charts. All I know is that if Garrett Wilson has to catch Derek Carbals. Garrett Wilson won't survive.

No, he won't. Okay, no, I'm out on that. Give me Tua. Yeah, because Tua doesn't blow his guys up either. Tua throws it so far behind his players. They have room to come back and get it. It's the best way to throw a D pass. It really is.

I don't understand why it's like not the way. Run a nine and then like when you get to the 10 yard liner, however far, just play. plant in the turf and come back straight. Get that PI. They should just literally have that be a play. Where you go 30 yards down in the field, full sprint, boom, crush it back straight to the quarterback. You're going to be wide open.

Do you feel like the Jets, the Cardinals, and the Browns in particular, they're like teams stuck inside of a maze and somebody hands on a map and the map is just gibberish? There's like no path. No, like I don't see a clear path out for either of those, any of those three teams. looks at the map and they're like, no. I can draw you. I can draw you on that. We don't need this. We run professional football teams that we worked really hard to buy to be born into owning. Yeah. Well, that is going to do it. We'll wrap it up right there. We've got a couple great episodes coming up, a rookie review show. What in the world? What do you got? Did you see next Thursday?

what they've come up with for us. Oh. Why don't you just tell me what next Thursday is? Mock draft. Oh, baby. I love. Just the first round. Just the first round.

I love it. Well, we'll see where we disagree there. But that'll do it for today's episode of the show. Ultimate draft kid.com. Also, don't forget YouTube exists. I'll send them some links. Stuff you're watching. or we'll watch it together on next show.

Take it easy, everybody. 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 theFF Ballers.