Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - The Fantasy MVP Episode! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/28

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Fantasy Football show for Aug 28, 2025. Fantasy Football MVP Picks for 2025! Andy, Mike, Jason, and a number of special guests name players who can be true difference makers! Find out who has fantasy football league-winning potential this year! Manage your redraft, keeper, and dynasty fantasy football teams with the #1 fantasy football podcast.2025 ULTIMATE DRAFT KIT + Draft Analyzer available now at UltimateDraftKit.comCompete in the largest fantasy football league! Megalabowl.com(00:00) Intro(04:00) What is the Pants Store? (06:13) NFL News(14:51) Fantasy Football MVPs(15:00) Matt Harmon(18:40) Rich Hribar(21:30) Nathan Jahnke(26:02) JJ Zachariason(29:00) Kyle Borgognoni(31:04) Matthew Betz(33:50) Jamey Eisenberg(35:37) Rich Eisen(39:12) Jason Moore(45:27) Andy Holloway(48:08) Mike WrightConnect with the show:Subscribe on YouTubeVisit us on the WebSupport the ShowFollow on XFollow on InstagramJoin our Discord

Foot Clan, you got lots of drafts this weekend. It is go time. Time to set the foundation for your entire season by dominating your draft and making your league mates look like stupid, dumb, dumb, idiots. Idiots. They're so stupid. UltimateDraftKit.com. Pick it up right now.

Grab the app. Be prepared. Be set for your draft. You're so handsome. You're good looking. The Fantasy Footmuller Studio is sponsored by Walmart. Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers, Thursday, August 28th, the MVP episode.

I'm just doing a little live pivot in our show doc. Oh, please see for a MVP. I'm not changing my MVP. Oh, you almost changed. Well, I almost changed out of, I felt bullied. Yeah. No, not bullied. Not bullied.

Because that would blame, that would blame you. Right. I felt, uh, no. Are you changing Kyle's MVP? Yes. Yes. No, I'm changing our quick question of the day. Oh.

It's just more important. It's just more important to answer this question off of Instagram that I was just reading. So we'll get into that momentarily. But welcome in one and all. It is a big time draft weekend on the horizon, Labor Day weekend. Three days of drafts. Our League of Record draft is Monday. Mm-hmm.

And I'm going to try to piece together a season from the remnants and scraps of picks that I have left. After my tax man coming through you. Yeah, after my run to the, try to win a back-to-back title. You were just swiping. Yeah, I was, uh, he's the 20-26 Saints. You're like, whatever, man. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. I was living for today.

Okay, Kyle Shanahan. Yeah, I was living for the moment. I, come on, you know. If you had a chance at back-to-back. Oh, yeah. You sold out. You sold out trying. The can was kicked so far.

And then you came into this year. We're not allowed to trade first round picks in our league. So you came in, obviously, with your first round. because you had to, otherwise you would have burned that. And then your next pick was the seventh round. It was the seventh round. I've made some adjustments to my team. But yeah, my dead cap was the highest in our fantasy league.

History. Yeah, you can put it that way. But, yeah, big time drafts coming this weekend. The Ultimate Draft Kit available right now, Ultimate DraftCat.com. Go check it out. Including all the Megalible drafts, they start this weekend. So two drafts. Oh, megalible.

So if you want to play I love you trying to talk And then you're like I got to work a dragon in here Or I mean a shark voice A dragon Yeah dragon A monstrous voice

Dragolable get out of here It's a megaladon Goodness gracious But yeah if you want to play with us In the Megalodon You can go to In the Megalable Go to megalable.com

And there are two drafts There's a morning draft And an evening draft On Saturday, Sunday Monday and Tuesday And then one last morning draft on Wednesday so there's there's plenty of slots for you to sign up right now go to megalobol.com i think there's a draft i think there's a draft going on right now because alborna hasn't

looked up in a minute and i'm wondering if i knew you were on the clock out who'd you just take in our draft i haven't yet i'm still looking but that is what i was doing yeah i could tell you had your attention on the drafts that's what it's like right now so uh i'm pivoting the quick questions of the day sometimes like we've we've done the show for a long time there there are inside jokes there are people that you know take some time to catch up on what's going on. But my favorite quick question of the day has to be this one from Instagram. Al Chase

25 writing in. It's very simple. He just wants an answer, Mike. What is the pants store? Well, the pants store is... Please explain this for the layman. Well, I thought it was pretty self-explanatory. The pants store is where you buy pants. Oh. Yes. Okay. Yes. And so...

That's all you would get from it. Do they sell shorts there? No, it's the pants store. And what's the significance of not needing to return to a pants store as your little hit your little button I will this game I'm never going back to the pants store

the pants store is this is like a joke on top of a joke on top of a joke so I understand if you are fresh to the show and fresh to fantasy football the concept of no longer needing pants it has been a

it's been a part of the fantasy football world on on Twitter for quite some time it's like when something goes really really well for your team or for a player that you have touted. You're ripping your pants off. Yeah, because you're free. Yeah, you don't need the restriction of the work. No, life is better without pants.

Exactly. You're fancy. I mean, when you get home, you got, like, take off your pants. You got your, uh, kick your shoes off, your toy work pants, your slacks, your chinos, no stretch, no give. When you get home, you're not like, yeah, I'm just going to keep wearing these things around my, no, a lot of people don't know. That's why I have changed all my jeans into snap button on the side.

So that I can rip the warm-up? Absolutely. They're all warm-up pants. So that has been a thing on Twitter for quite some time. And I love that joke. I think it is very funny. And then that turned into writing a little ditty for the Arizona Cardinals drafting Marvin Jones. Marvin Harrison, Jr.

Wish we had Marvin Jones. It went way better. So now we have this. So you don't even need to go to the pants store because you are living life permanently without pants. That's right. Running through the. streets free. Yeah. No. And I'm not going to ask about whether the underwear are. No, I'm still street legal, man. Okay. Good. Good. Not full Donald Duck. Yeah. Come on. No. That's inappropriate.

That's, uh, that's another level of fantasy production to accomplish that. All right, let's jump into some news. News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance. The important thing is that Mike doesn't win a title because I don't want to know. what that situation's like. All right, Jaden Reed, we got an update. He is starting to run routes, but then, you know, the reports have been he had not been able to do that without pain, and now we're learning he is recovering from a Jones fracture,

which normally requires surgery. Yeah, it's a lot of pain management. So to go back to what I talked about on yesterday's quick question of which player is probably going to make us look foolish and outproduce, I retract that statement about Jaden Reed. If he's really playing with a Jones fracture, like it's not that guys can't do it, but I mean,

imagine having a fracture on the, just the outside of your, near the outside of your foot, and you have to plant and cut every single week. It's going to be horrific, like horrifically painful to play through, and then all year long it's probably, oh, Jaden Reed didn't practice.

Jade Reed didn't practice. Limited on Friday. Then he plays. Yeah, his situation is awful for fantasy managers trying to play Jaden Reed. I don't know if I view it that terribly for the offense and Jordan Love, to be honest with you. I am a believer in Matthew Golden as their number one. What do you think, John? I've gotten to that place as well.

I was not bullish on Matthew Golden as a first-round NFL draft pick. His disappearing act so often in college was just one of those things that's confusing. If you're really that good, and he's got the talent, but how do you, your team just have games where they don't need you, and they did. However, the Green Bay Packers are a good offense. Jordan Love is a good quarterback. They've got a, you know, an awesome system around, and he is on the field in two wide receiver sets. Matthew Golden is going to be a week one starter. He doesn't cost what a lot of these other rookies cost. And to me, this news, and it is different for everybody. You've got to know your own, you know, risk tolerance level.

But Jaden reads off my board. There are players who have played through a Jones fracture. Julio Jones has done it, Julian Edelman has done it, there's a handful of players. And oftentimes, it causes more issues. I believe after Julio Jones, and this news broke this morning. So I don't, I haven't vetted. Done a deep dive. Yeah, a deep dive. This is off of memory.

But I believe he played through a Jones fracture. And then later needed surgery on the foot. You know, does Bryant struggle with this? We've seen a lot of wide receivers, Sammy Watkins, where it's like, it doesn't feel like a forever solution to just be like, you know that broken thing in your foot it's finally ignore it forever it's finally gonna make sense to not play him a lot and all the other sets and a Jones fracture is a break in the fifth metatarsal bone located on the outside of the foot just in case people are that is what you don't have your medical degrees like we all clearly do yeah we can go straight from pants store discussions into metatarsals oh yeah and then law yeah no big deal we do it all John Lynch said the team is hopeful but not sure on week one when asked about John Jennings. He also came out and said

they're not trading him and he said hey he can want a new contract and have an injured calf. Both can be true. It's kind of what we said on the show yesterday. Jason was saying he believed in the injury being real. MvS who was added this could just be shifting the pieces around it. So San Francisco

brought Valdez Scantling onto the team but he's on the practice squad as of right now. No he's probably eyeballing Kendrick Bourne right about now. Yeah. Marvin Mims. Uh-oh. Groyne injury. Left Wednesday's practice with an injury, didn't return.

Uh, groin index.com. Their newest member, Marvin Mims, Jr. So, that's so sad for a player who looked, I mean, I've drafted him a lot in, um, some later mocks and even in some live drafts where he looked like he was going to be two wide receiver sets on the field. And now there's just this. Oh, my God. he's out.

Oh. Who's that? I could be Troy Franklin and it could be Pat Bryan and it could be. It might be a little bit of both. A little bit of both. I think both of those guys are so interesting

at the top of the season for big plays and Troy Franklin could have a handful of them. They are limited at wide receiver right now. Khalil Shakir return to practice. Okay. So you need to just kind of

probably draft him like you would have drafted him. he's been slipping I believe he's tough because he hasn't he hasn't practiced eat your fantasy vegetables

and draft Kalishuah I agree with the fantasy vegetables overall about Shakir but he he suffered the high ankle sprain on August 1st and the Matthew Betts are he's on our staff

he does a lot of excellent injury work for his certified physical therapist he talks about when guys miss that, you know, multiple weeks in training camp with an injury, the probability hit rate on them is bad. I will say this. The timeline, you know, we'll say this a bunch through the season, but if you remember a high ankle sprain, you usually miss zero or three weeks. And so he's

got a month after that injury to recover, plus he's got about another week and a half. I believe he will be okay from the injury. I will draft him like I would have drafted him prior to the injury, which is I'm not drafting him. because prior to the injury, I just don't care about Khalil Shakir. He's, I don't think he's fantasy. He's like fantasy Keenwa. He's fantasy Keenwa where it's like. Fantasy Keenwa, 100 targets.

We throw that 100 targets away. It's fantasy keen wall in the sense that Keenwald is like supposed to be the super healthy food. It's okay. It's not, you know, it's a lot of carbs. You're getting a lot of carbs in there. It's going to turn to sugar. It's not great for you. It's not as good as you think it is.

And that's, that's, uh, Kalil Shakir. Yeah, 100 targets. That's great. Turn into, I mean, you do have. bunch of usable games. Yeah, careers have arcs, though. If you're in a full PPR, he got paid. He sure did.

I don't know if you know this. Every single player playing has been paid. He was on pace for 113. He missed two games last year. He's been double paid. 86 receptions from Josh Allen. I'll take that all day late in the draft. Panther second year wide receiver, Jalen Koker, will be stepping into the slot role in Carolina.

I'm telling you, he is a great. He is a good player. He is a great player. He is a good to great player. I'll take that. He's a very good player. he's a very good player thank you that's what good to great is yeah let's go with that jalen cocker i think is a better player than zavier legett you're going to have tetaroa who by the way i mean

let's just not forget tetaro macmillan is just now starting to practice again after tweaking i believe it was his hamster yeah he had a yoohoo so uh he did have a yuhoo so you know re-injury is a risk with mcmillan unfortunately it is but goodness gracious the lanes have opened up ahead of him for driving very fast. An auto bond. Yes, exactly. He is on an auto bond. And this will be really interesting.

They love Jalen Coker. They love him. They do. But Lugette's going to be on the field in two wide receiver sets, whereas Coker will probably be more of the slot guy. I don't know. I don't know if that will happen all the time. Devon A. Chan, Tyreek Hill, on track to play week one for the Dolphins.

It's been the quietest of off-seasons for Tyreek Hill. It's either negative or neutral all offseason long. I haven't, you know, when you talk about the vibes, Mike, and when to pay attention. Follow the vibes. And when not to, the vibes are not positive Ontario killed. And yet, there remains a chance that he is awesome. I mean, he can't shut the door on that. He's a special player when he's right.

And Jalen Wright had a minor procedure and will be out. And the goal to return is one of my favorite quotes ever. It's September-ish. Yeah. You always want your, you always want your expected return. turns to have an ish. Malik Neighbors said Wednesday that the back injury that sidelined him the last few weeks was a minor thing and shouldn't be an issue moving forward.

So we'll take that as a little soft pat on the back and we'll be encouraged to draft Malik Neighbors. That was news and notes, sponsored by Progressive Insurance, quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and third-party insurers. Not available in all states or situations coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. All right, without further ado, it is time. The season is upon us. Let's pick some MVP's. Who's your fantasy MVP? All right, we have asked some friends in the industry to share their fantasy MVP with us,

as well as we've got Matthew Betts, Kyle Borgannoni from the Dynasty podcast sharing theirs, and we'll share ours at the end. We'll start with Matt Harmon, good friend of the show, one of the very, very only few guests in that old school upstairs studio that we had years and years ago, football writer and analyst for Yahoo, creator of reception, which was featured in the UDK for a handful of years. Here we go, Matt. Break it down.

This better be a wide receiver. What's going on, everybody? Matt Harmon here, host of the Yahoo Fantasy Forecast, and of course, creator of reception, my 2025 Fantasy Football MVP is Drake London of the Atlanta Falcons. Normally wouldn't want to go with somebody that's a top pick in one of these type of segments, but I think the upside this year is absolutely massive for Drake London. First of all, this is a guy who's a proven target earner, 29.3% target share last year, third most in the NFL among wide receivers.

owned an outrageous 38.9% target share in Michael Pennix's three starts. That's not necessarily going to carry over to 2025, but this was the second time in his career where London's pushed north of 29% or been right around that number. Target Hogg, who also got a big boost in his layup targets due to a flip in his role. He played just Boundary X receiver in his first two years under Arthur Smith. Last year, career high in reception, 38.9% sample. snaps in the slot and 52.7% snaps off the line of scrimmage. Weaponized in motion, ran a career high dig routes in reception, the guy that's been a proven man-press beater in his three

years in the NFL now weaponized with this role. He's been one of the best receivers I've charted over the last three years on deep out routes. Michael Pennix can hit him there. I think this is the guy who's a dark horse to be the wide receiver one overall, lead the NFL on targets and maybe even push for the triple crown. So big value. Who has him in Dynasty? Drake London We Look at Drake London Could he be the

Wide Receiver 1? He's talked about Triple Crown. Could he be the wide receiver 1 in fantasy? It's always comedic When people put You get so used to how players are being drafted And then one player goes slightly out of order And everybody's eyes are like,

Oh, I took Pukunakua over Jefferson in a league Recently. And it was, oh my gosh, what are you? doing and it's two picks later. I feel like Drake London's in that camp. Like if you took them over CD, if you took them over Amun Ra, if you took them over Puka, would that be appropriate? It definitely could be. It's a matter of your belief, I think, in Michael Pinnock's, right?

If he's going to have the Triple Crown and be in the running for wide receiver one overall numbers, obviously he's got to have a good quarterback. You're not going to ever have someone as the wide receiver one with a bad quarterback. At least I can't think of a possible example of that. 35 plus percent target share can help you get there. Yeah, and he could be there because they really need him. The reason that we have talked recently, positively about Kyle Pitts is because there's not a lot of people to throw the ball to.

And it's Drake London, Drake London, and Drake London. Yeah, yeah. And that's our first MVP pick here from Matt Harmon. We'll move on to our second MVP pick, Rich Rebar, at Lord Rebes over on X from sharp football analysis with his MVP pick. Since I'm hitting at Madden Cursed level, since you guys introduced this segment, the player I'm going to curse this season as rookie wide receiver, Tedaroa. Oh, no.

McMillan. You look at McMillan as a 19-year-old freshman, eight touchdowns, 18 yards per catch, carried that through the rest of his collegiate career. He closed second in this draft class in yards per team pass attempt last year. He was seventh in yards per outrun. This is a 6-foot-4, 219-pound monster. He enters the NFL where that archetype is a little less prevalent than in previous eras. But this is a player that I don't believe offers linear production.

He has some versatility to his game. Last season, he forced to miss tackle on 35% of his receptions. That was third in this class. He also did play in the slot for 21.6% of his snaps to ravage 4.48 yards per route run. Now he enters a Carolina offense held by Dave Canales, who has funneled his offenses through his wide receiver ones, whether it be Mike Evans two years ago, Yante Johnson for the open of last year, then Adam Dillon, closed last year. We'll see if Thielen remains on the team through this last week of the

offseason or even through the trade deadline. And when Bryce Young had Tet on the field this preseason, he targeted him on 36.5% of his routes for 3.91 yards per route run. I believe Ted's getting punished for what happened with Marvin Harrison Jr. last year. He should be a smash wide receiver two and one of the best picks you can make at ADP at wide receiver this season. All right, Tederoa McMillan. One thing he mentioned in the middle of that, very well-backed prediction. Reeves always has the stats. It's just the reminder.

We just joked about Deonté Johnson and the amount of teams he's been on. There was a point in time last season. Last season where he was dominating. 14 targets, 8 receptions, 13 targets, 7 receptions, wide receiver 4, 10, 12, with Dave Canales, with this offense. It feels like that was 40 years ago.

It wasn't. It was last year that the Deonté Johnson has been separated from five other teams was dominating in this offense. There was also a time last year, and I know it's brought it up a couple times and we just can't believe it was true. We're Adam Thielen dominated on this offense with Bryce Young. Yeah, dude. So, I mean, this is, who's better? Teterola McMillan, top 10 NFL draft pick or 34-year-old Adam Thielen or

poisonous Deontay Johnson. Poisonous. That's a good word. Yeah, it's definitely wheels up for Tett like we were talking about with the Jalen Coker conversation. That's our second MVP pick. We'll take a break and jump into some more. All right, let's turn the page here. We've got Drake London.

We've got Teterow and McMillan a couple of wide receivers so far. Nathan Yonke from PFF, lead fantasy analyst over there with his MVP pick. My fantasy MVP this year is Jordan Mason, the new running back of the Minnesota Vikings. He averages 5.3 yards per carry and was 6th in fantasy points through five weeks last season. Reports suggest a 50-50 split with Aaron Jones, but the roles matter. Mason has the early-downback, which typically scores more fantasy points, and Jones on passing downs. Mason is also the more explosive of the two, with 15-plus yards on 8% of his career carries versus 4% for Jones each of the last two seasons.

Kevin O'Connell keeps his running-back usage fluid, so if Mason is playing better, then he should earn more playing time. I also expect an improved Vikings offense. Minnesota has elevated quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold. I expect J.J. McCarthy to be just as good, if not better than those quarterbacks. T.J. Hawkinson should be healthier this season, and left tackle Christian Darrasaw is back with his top six run.

block grade over the last two seasons. They also completely reworked the interior of the offensive line, so I expect the Vikings' offense to be better in several areas this season. The team should be among the league leaders and points scored, and I expect Mason as their goal line running back, to be scoring a lot of those touchdowns. Best of all, he works regardless of draft strategy. Zero running back, hero running back,

or even after taking early backs, still draft Jordan Mason. Thanks for having me. all right appreciate that jordan mason has come up quite a bit this off season i i've had the hardest time when i see aaron jones dropping in drafts when i see jordan i have i have had a hard time with erin jones too you know it it's one of those things where it's like reminds me a little bit of brys hall and brayland allen's situation where it we're kind of fatigued a little bit with with you know the years and years of erin jones and brees hall and here's Jordan Mason

who had some games in San Francisco last year got obviously brought over with a purpose but I've had a hard time kind of figuring out where to pull the trigger do you take Aaron Jones if he drops late he seems to be one of the starters dropping the latest Yeah I would definitely I would definitely take Aaron Jones ahead of Jordan Mason

but hopefully I mean on average draft position he is going well ahead it's really when Aaron Jones goes where he should be going in drafts and then late in drafts, Jordan Mason's sitting there. He is of real value. He could be one of those flex with benefits that Mike talks about where a starter on a regular basis,

but then should something happen to the elder statesman incumbent starter, then he's wildly involved. My only issue with Jordan Mason, every time I go to pull the trigger is just this lack of existing past catching work. Correct. And they don't need him to be that there. No. No, they don't.

So my only hope is that if, If Aaron Jones were to go down and Jordan Mason gets an opportunity to have the whole workload, would he add pass catching to that? A little bit. I don't think it's probably not a wild amount. Yeah, I don't. They had another committee back. Yeah, I think when Christian McCaffer went down, a great pass catcher, it wasn't like Jordan Mason came in and caught passes. So you've got a goal line back and a talented between the tackles runner. The issue when you're looking at, because Aaron Jones is the sixth, like that by itself, standalone, you're like, okay. He's the, he's the, he's, he should be the, you know, maybe he's the early down guy that that remains to be seen, but they did, they gave him, you know, some money. It's going to the sixth, high-powered offense. But in the sixth round is also, you know... Were you talking about Aaron Jones or are you talking about? Aaron Jones.

Okay. Yeah, because in the six, if you're, if your target is Aaron Jones, but you go into the six, you got George Pickens in that round. You got DeAndre Swift, you got Tony Pollard going in that area of the draft. So you're bypassing those guys. and then, you know, Jordan Mason's in the ninth. So you, it's like you can get a piece of the Minnesota Vikings offense for cheaper and still, and then be like, oh, no, I got, I want to bet on D'Andre Swift.

The hardest part is just to you, which is wild. Would you put Jordan Mason out in your lineup in a flex spot in week one? I think that's the question. People don't know how to answer that. No, I think you would not. Oh, I'd be willing to do it. Yeah. So there's where I've passed on Mason, but the opportunities in front of him and the team,

if they give him more of the workload, it's a huge opportunity. All right, JJ Zacharisen's next. At late round quarterback, host of the late round fantasy football podcast, living the stream. He has been a part of this show for quite some time. I am sort of teasing, like, before I put this up, I just don't know what graphic is. That's what I was one.

I was just like, we usually put his little kid picture. I don't know what's. Let's find out. Hello, you beautiful gentlemen. It's your good buddy JJ here to give you my fantasy MVP for this 20. 25 season. I really tried to not go with this player because he's just cruising up draft boards at the moment. It's like I'm just leaning into the hype, but I'm having a hard time not saying Trayvion Henderson. Henderson looked great in the Zapp model, and that's no surprise because

his past catching profile was awesome coming out of Ohio State. As a freshman, the dude caught 27 balls for 312 yards and 4 touchdowns. That was on a team with Jackson Smith and Jigba, Garrett Wilson, Chris Alave, Marvin Harrison, Jr. and a Mecca-Igbuka. Now in New England, he's sharing a backfill with Remandre Stevenson. Stevenson might steal a lot of that ground game work, but he's coming up a really poor season and yards per route run. I'm expecting Henderson to capture his highs of 15% target share in that offense. And maybe the rushing volume form will be higher than we expect. It doesn't even have to be insane for him to hit in a PPR format. Since 2011, there have been just five instances where a running back hit between a 50% and 60% running back rush share

and a 13% to 16% target share. Those are both well within Henderson's range of outcomes. Those five running backs ranked 18th, 13th, 12th, 8th, and 6th in PPR points per game. I'm in on Henderson because his floor is really solid, but he has room to grow for a really nice ceiling outcome too. All right. I never even heard of that guy. Which one?

or J.J. I mean, we're in a chopped league on Sleeper. I took Remandre late because I think, I know the train is coming. But it's like if I'm going to get anything out of Ramandre, it's going to be the first couple of weeks when he gets the most work he's probably going to see all year. Henderson, you know, he's not going to be every down, but he is going to be so efficient for this office. He's very, very talented.

Man, 15% target share. guys if he if he hit 15% goodness gracious he's going to be incredible and i agree with jj it like that that is something that could happen when we you know we the the new england patriots they we've talked about them a good amount of their their win total is much higher than you expect and it's like in the wide receivers it's stephan digs and then you got like pop douglas okay it's a fine slot player but who's the wide receiver three, no idea. Henderson might absorb a lot of targets. All right, Trayvon Henderson, Jordan Mason, two running backs in a row. We've got Kyle Borgonone,

his MVP pick coming up right now. What's up, Foot Clan, for the 2025 season. My pick for MVP is Colts rookie tight-in, Tyler Warren. If home leagues are essentially a vicious street fight against your league mates, I want someone on my team who is a certifiable dog. From the wildcat formations at Penn State to being an absolute terror in man-to-man coverage, Warren is simply a match-up nightmare in the NFL. Ignore your platform's ADP

and be willing to take Warren a round or two ahead are the rest of the gibronies in your league who are waiting on tight-in-late. The gibronies and the Borgonones. Look, my guy. I've been reaching on him everywhere.

And sometimes I've missed because somebody else has done it. Yeah. Do not play the ADP game with Tyler Warren. You will, if you want him and you're like, well, according to his ADP, he might be at my next pick. Sixth round? Let me look at whatever the last league I've been in, you know. Tyler Warren went sixth round in a two QB. Because his 80s.

No, he went six round. Yeah, he went six round. He went ahead of. His ADP is late eight. So seventh round in our league of Shadows. Our League of Shadows, we're playing with Eisen. So, I mean, he's, I think seventh round is where you're going to have to take him. Yeah, and that's fine.

Yeah, I mean, that's the other part of the equation to me. Like, I'd do it. I would try to do it. At that point, you know, I talk about the lack of wanting to take a fifth round tight end, even though they're presumably better because in the fifth round, there are really good running backs and wider shears. But when I look at what, you're taking Tyler Warren over Giovante Williams and Tyrone Tracy, and it's like, those guys could work out, but you're in a spot where it's like,

take a shot at a huge, you know, Giovante Williams is not going to win you your fantasy league. Like, there's no world where that happens this year. Clip that. But Tyler Warren could. He would need to take some drugs. All right, Matthew

Betts, our injury expert, one of the hosts of the DFS and the betting dinopod, or the DFS and betting and the dynopod. There you go. I was just throwing words out there with his fantasy MVP pick. What's going on, Foot Clan? In the middle rounds of my drafts, I like to harness the mentality

of someone like Ricky Bobby. If you ain't first, you're last. After we've locked up our starting running backs and wide receivers with projectable volume with our first few picks, we should be shooting for massive upside in the middle rounds of our drafts, not drafting for safety. And this year's ADP landscape presents a unique opportunity to draft a wide receiver with true league winning potential. Your 2025 fantasy MVP is none other than Travis Hunter. Sure, you can play more corner than we realize and it might be tough to play both ways in the NFL, but this dude is different. And if we knew we were getting a full-time wide receiver in this scheme with this draft capital, he'd be going way earlier in drafts.

Liam Cohen has already suggested Hunter will play around 80% of the snaps on offense, and that should be plenty of opportunity for Hunter to crush this ADP. Currently going off the board in the sixth or seventh round, depending on your platform, Hunter is an awesome target as your wide receiver three in drafts this weekend. Good luck, Foot Clan, and let's bring home those hashtag Foot Clan titles. Ball. Do, Lou.

Travis Hunter, I do not feel has gotten enough love on this show or in the fantasy community because he plays corner. If we were able to

just vary in a linear way. I think because he's also the number two. Like when Brian Thomas Jr. is on the team, you don't imagine Travis Hunter's walking in.

Like Ted McMillan, you're like, he's the dude right away. But our analysis gets, it's not clean. Right? Like if he was, let's say Travis Hunter was just the best wide receiver in college football and drafted at number two, if Malik neighbors landed on that team, I think we'd have, we'd have talked about him more, is my point. I think a little bit.

And I agree with what you're saying at the Brian Thomas thing. I just, it's very easy for us. We go to Tetaro-Mickmillan, it's like, you're the dude. Yeah. Travis Hunter, is there a possibility he's just the dude? I don't know if we can get there. Yeah, I think it's both. It's the fact that he's going to be playing cornerback, and he is.

He's absolutely going to be playing both ways. So exciting to see how that works, but the talent is there. He has, you know, the potential to be the wide receiver rookie of the year. I mean, Mike Evans has been a one his entire career, right? Yep, yeah. Okay. We've had Chris Godwin be a dominant fantasy force a lot. In a Liam Cohen offense, he was on a roll.

So it's one A, one B potential. I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah, there is the potential for that, of course. Yeah. So Travis Hunter's the pick. We'll move on. We got a great friend of the show, Jamie Eisenberg, fantasy football NFL analyst for CBS Sports. It's Jamie Eisenberg from CBS Sports.

My fantasy MVP for the 2025 season is Christian McCaffrey. Bang! He's a top five overall player for me. I'm taking him as the number three running back behind only, Jean Robinson and Jemir Gibbs. And by the time we get to week one, I might like him better than both those guys. There's just so much upside with McCaffrey. You know what he's capable of when healthy. He scores like a quarterback over 24 PPR points per game in 2023.

2024 was a disaster, as we're all aware, only playing four games, Killey's injury, knee injury. It was a Greek tragedy. But I think McCaffrey will be back and hopefully better than never. Look, everything around him is falling apart. The backup running backs are decimated. They had to go trade for Brian Robinson. The receiving core is a mess.

He's going to be involved in the passing game, maybe to a higher level than we saw in that 2023 campaign. As long as he stays healthy, he's going to be in contention to be. be the best player at his position, one of the best players in all of fantasy, and I want him on my fantasy team. So if I get a pick in the top five and those other four guys in front of him, again, Bejohn Robinson, Jemir Gibbs, I'll take two receivers over him as well for now in Jamar Chase and C.D. Lamb, I just think McAfry's got maybe more upside than anybody we've seen. So hopefully stays healthy for the entire season. Hopefully by the end of the year, we're

talking about Christian McCaffrey leading a lot of people to fantasy championships. Well, Mike, like that. I heard three hopefulies in there, and that he's the story of McKayette. It is. There's a handful of players where there's not really a lot to analyze if he's on the field. He's great. He's not always on the field. So you're just playing a little bit as, you know, some people love slot machines. Okay. Right. And that's what this is. It's put the money in and maybe you hit the jackpot. Yeah. All right. We have one more before we share our MVP selections for 2025. It's Rich Eisen of the Rich Eisen show and everywhere else. Rich Eisen. legend of the industry. Here we go. My fantasy football MVP for 2025 is going to be Jemir Gibbs. I have a feeling. I don't know what it is.

I just feel he's going to get the ball a lot more and I feel like his home run ability from the last couple of years is just going to get more tape measure. So I'm looking at you, Detroit. I'm looking at you to get the ball to Jemir Gibbs and yeah, I understand he might get

vultured by knuckles but I think Sonic is going to go crush it. My two cents. Eisen's got the vibes. The Gibbs vibes. Yeah, and he also drafted Gibbs in our League of Shadows.

I almost took Gibbs there because I was one pick ahead of Eisen and we had this video in so I knew that was like his guy's like if I don't take Gibbs there but I couldn't take him over Barclay personally so I took Barclay and he got his he got his Gibbs. So, Jemir Gibbs, I mean, I've said it.

I believe it could be the number one overall running back very easily this year. I don't think people are giving that enough, you know, potential. I was thinking about this this morning, knowing we're going to talk about Gibbs, and I've had a slight bear case for him with the workload of David Montgomery and how high he's being drafted, and I've really cooled on that. Gibbs is too talented. He is probably the best office of weapon, including. including Ammon Rae St. Brown on the Lions, which is a great offense.

And so the idea of not getting him more and more involved as his career gets more and more into his prime would be foolish. Obviously, David Montgomery is there. He's going to score plenty of goal line touchdowns. But it was just too good. He's just too talented to be stupid and make a bear case against him. All right. We have three more to reveal our own fantasy football MVP for 2025. Let's take a break and come back with some league.

winners. All right, to run a back, Rich Eisen had Jamir Gibbs as an MVP, Jamie Eisenberg with CMC, Matthew Betts with Travis Hunter, Kyle Borgannoni with Tyler Warren. Love that. JJ Zacharisen with Trayvion Henderson,

Nathan Yonki with Jordan Mason, Rich Rebar with Tederoa McMillan and Matt Harmon with Drake London. Jason, who is your fantasy football MVP for 2025? My fantasy football. MVP for 2025 is rookie running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers Caleb Johnson. This is a player I adored the film on and not everybody did. There were disagreements on whether or not he was truly an elite college prospect or not because he's a patient running style with explosive

afterburners once he gets going. And we've seen that already in the preseason. There's been tons of reports from camp. He was, you know, named offensive rookie for them. And, And Caleb Johnson has been very good so far, I think, early on. He's had some reports of not the best pass protection. Look, that really is overblown. I know he's a rookie and you want to get on the field of being good at past protection is great. But for fantasy football purposes, you go back and look at who is PFF's lower graded, you know, pass protectors. A lot of times it's the guy's getting dump offs.

Go figure. So Caleb Johnson, first of all, ignore the depth chart. He's a rookie. I know you got Arthur Smith there, but for what it's worth, Devon A. Chan started third on Miami depth chart at this point in time. Look at what he did in college production profile-wise and how that translates to the NFL. He had a 52% dominator rating in his final year at Iowa. That's a wild stat. The most predictive stat from college to the pros is rushing touchdowns for running max.

He had 21 rushing touchdowns. his final year. And this was a team where he was the yards per team play, it was Caleb Johnson. Like the defense knew who to stop. It was Caleb Johnson. Here are the round one through three NFL draft picks. So a day two pick or earlier who had a 40% dominator score and a two plus yards per team play. It's Levion Bell, Derek Henry, Christian McCaffrey, Saquan Barkley, Dalvin Cook, Brees Hall, A. Chan, and Caleb Johnson. He is a really good running back. A lot of people in this preseason have complained about a lack of explosiveness, you know,

because he is that patient run style. He hit 22 miles per hour in college. He is fast. Forget the 40 time. Only 4% of running back attempts go for 15 plus yards. But when you get that break, can you take it to the house? I promise you, Caleb Johnson can. You will see a 40 plus.

yard rushing touchdown this year from Caleb Johnson. He had eight forced miss tackles this preseason that led the whole preseason. He only had 24 total attempts. Just for context there, only three running backs all last season had eight force miss tackles on 24 or fewer attempts in a game. James Connor, Henry, and Mixon. He's a good back. And you look at the situation. That's the final thing I want to say is his situation, I think is really nice for fantasy, for being a good draft pick. You've got Ash and Gentie being drafted in the first round, you know, he's going to, you've got to get lucky to even get him.

Amarian Hampton, he's, he's at the, I looked at the ADP across all platforms that I took each rookie's top, because they're probably all going to go ahead of what their ADP is right now. Amarian Hampton was 304 ADP. Travion Henderson is 407 ADP. The highest ADP on Caleb is the 611. He's at that 6-7 turn, and on some platforms he's in the ninth round. He's got to compete with Jalen Warren. Okay, Jalen Warren's a starter.

He's going to start the year as the starter. But Jalen Warren's never had 150 carries in his career. And at the goal line, do you think Jalen Warren's a starter? He is not. He had four carries inside the five last year. You've got a team that obviously you've got Arthur Smith there. I don't like that. But Arthur Smith was there last year when Najee Harris, a slow plotting,

Najee Harris, had, you know, 300 plus opportunities. And Jalen Warren was the, the helpful back. I think Caleb Johnson's too good to stay off the field by the end of the year. I think he has a chance to be a workhorse back here, a league winning back, and he doesn't cost the farm. He can be a non-starter week one. He can go in your flex for where you can get him in draft. So I think he's my fantasy MVP. I love the talent, and I expect him to be a very good player this season. Mike, thoughts on Caleb Johnson? I'm not as hot and bothered as Jason is, but I do like the draft cost

of getting, he was third round NFL pick, Jack? He was pick 83 overall. Which was their second pick. They didn't have a second rounder. Yeah, and I mean they really needed him. They they chose Warren over Naji. Like that for sure happened.

And I don't know if this was part of the plan of they said, okay, well, we're going to let Naji go because in this draft class we can find the bigger body player for that type, that archetype for our offense. that he is where he's going in the drafts i think it is a a fine upside i'm a little worried that people will end up taking the pick and getting nothing for a while

and then feeling like i do think it starts and feeling like well what do i do now with this dude on my bench and am i actually just waiting for an injury i'm not as comfortable with the player or situation as jason is jason's been strongly convicted i remember him having the same convictions around brees hall and then brees hall working out so um one of my favorite things about Caleb Johnson is that it is not universal. Who doesn't love Trayvion Henderson? Well, now. Everybody, you know, I mean, it's true even of the NFL GMs because RJ Harvey, Quinchon Judkins, Trayvion Henderson, these are all players that went ahead

of Caleb Johnson on teams that needed running back. Exactly. So I don't think, like me making him my fantasy MVP, steaming him up right now, I don't think he's going to go super high in your drafts. So that's what I love about him. He actually could be a value. It's crazy because I think you were so close. I mean, you got the like, you know, the guys on the beach that bring out the metal detectors and they go search and they go searching. Like you had the metal detector out and you were so close and you started digging and you accidentally got a tin can. But if you had gone a little bit down the beach, same team,

you would have found the true fantasy MVP. Oh, okay. So I just, I heard the beeps. You heard the beep. It was actually coming a little bit down the way. D.K. Metcalf will be your fantasy football MVP for 2025. Metcalf is a, he's a perfect match for Aaron Rogers in this offense. He will have like unrelated to this debate and discussion and bringing MVP forward. I literally, we were going through our

UDK rankings the other day. I look at Jason and I, and I'll just pull it up right now. And I'm going, is this, is this really the depth chart at wide receiver in Pittsburgh? Is this actually what they're going into the season with? You're darn

shooting. I mean, Robert Woods? Yeah. Calvin Austin and Roman Wilson and Ben Skoronik somewhere Ben Scoronic I mean D.K. Metcalfe, this is, even if you don't believe in him, which I do, I think the money says the league believes in him and he is a true alpha. He has the capability to be a top five receiver.

No question. But even if you just look at the sheer mathematics, the math equation, the targets, like it's almost impossible. to not be a super relevant fantasy football wide receiver with the targets. I think D.K. Metcalf will get in this offense. Over the last five years, 74 wide receivers have hit 130 plus targets, which seems like a shoe win. I doubt any of us have them for fewer than 130 targets. 92% of those are top 24, 89% are top 20, 65% are top 12.

He runs all the routes. He is physical on the goal line. He is going to be targeted a record-breaking amount of times for his career. I mean, I'll look it up real quick. His career high in targets is 141. I'll be shocked if he doesn't get in the 160s, 170s in this offense. Same problem with Arthur Smith. I understand it.

I just don't know what you do on offense. I literally don't. They brought him in there intentionally and jettisoned George Pickin, so you guys love this year in Dallas, obviously. This is D.K. McCaff's show, and this is a late fourth round pick. I got him at a steal yesterday in a draft to be my wide receiver 1

if you go running back heavy and you're trying to identify which guy you want to lock in as a potential later wide receiver 1 to me he is that guy all right you know I agree I mean he was my value pick

I think that he is mispriced in fantasy and because he's going into his seventh year it's not going to change people aren't going to become excited overnight is just a valuable pick for where he's going in drafts all right mike um do you only get the tape from last year are you going are you doing to do it fresh no we're we're running it back ladies and gentlemen we are talking about the great kenneth walker

ken bone walker i'm going to back him again here uh and it where's the boo you want to i can boo myself that's fine oh i'll allow it he booed himself i was doing it for you oh thanks man uh it's a man of honor. I mean, like, it's cool. You just don't like 14.4 points per game, which is what Kenneth Walker did last year. The story, the story is he played 11 games. He did he, like, he let you down in that aspect. He was not available. Uh, and to, to talk to that, like, I will stay super positive, Mike. I'm not going to, I'm not going to go against you on this. I, I fully acknowledge, I think Ken Walker could be a game breaker if things go the right way for him, which is not just the injury thing.

It's everything, right? It's the big picture. It's the scheme. Everything that's setting up. We talked about Darnold. Darnold was my pick for To be the new Sam Darnold. Like I think he'll do the same thing in Seattle. They'll be more successful. They will be in the running for the division. And so that comes on the back of Ken Walker.

I'll be positive for you today. Ken Walker, year one and year two, he played in 15 games. And of course, I want that to be 17. But running backs, for them to miss one to two games a year, that is not uncommon, especially when you are utilized as a workhorse running back, which that's how Ken Walker has been used.

In 41 career games played, he has seen, and you can see this on the fancy footballers.com, we call it the workhorse rating, which is a percentage of total team rushing attempts and targets. He's seen 31% of the total rush attempts and the targets over his career. anything over 30% is elite. You know, just for that stat over the last three years, only four running backs have averaged 13 or more PPR points plus a 30% workhorse rating each year.

That's Barclay, Henry Mixon, and Kenneth Walker. The question of, you know, coming out of the draft, can he catch? Well, his first couple years, a 7% target share and 8% target share. Last year was 14%. They relied on him as a pass-catching running back. He is... Do you think that happens again in a new office? I don't think he gets to 14%, but I'm just saying of the team saw it, that they can use him.

They can check it down to Ken Walker. You don't have to go to your spare running backs as Seattle has done, you know, they did back in the past. The injuries in training camp are not great. I totally accept that. And Charbonnet, you know, the talk is he's looked better in preseason. Charbonnet has looked great, but what really stood out to me was the blocking scheme. The Kubez system, the Kubex system coming into Seattle is very fascinating to me. I mentioned this yesterday that the team on their 53-man roster kept four tight ends and two fullbacks.

This is a team that last year, they won 10 games. They went 10 and 7, and they fired their offensive coordinator. And change quarterbacks. Because they... Judison two wide receivers. Right. This wasn't the system that... They had success, but it wasn't the system that they wanted to run. And while Charbs is fine, like, if he gets the opportunity, I think he will have some success.

Kenneth Walker is a different level of talent. You know, the mistackle we brought this up of, he's essentially number one. He's very good at the individual statistics on a per game basis. He's very good at those. Install an actual real professional. blocking scheme and let Ken Walker do what he can do with his talent in the he he's being drafted in the fourth round the level of work like the workhorse rating that that he's had over his career generally speaking that would be a second round pick like if if you didn't have to worry about

the training camp injury stuff I think he would be going way higher but it's there he is practicing right now the plan ladies have a plan I mean that that tells you have a plan That tells you everything you need to know. Their head coach had to establish a unique, different plan to try to stop him from being hurt all the time. Jason, thoughts on Ken Walker. He is one of those players where I feel like where he's going in drafts, I will always take someone else because there's other guys I like in that range. And every time I go, man, I hope I'm not.

I'm not confident that I'm not watching. Mike has a type, though, doesn't he? Oh, Mike has a type. they're great when they're on the field you just don't know if they'll be out there it's a real boom bust Christian McCaffrey Ken Walker when they're out there

they're the best ever and you know you play for first and Mike really does play for first what is the what is the statistical though there are no there's no one I have ever played fantasy football with more than Mike who has

never finished between like 10th and third Yeah Like every year Because I love biscuits baby You're either You're in it

And you're near that championship game Or you are in danger of the punishment Like that's you are You are playing with dynamite. All right let me And you have a lot of titles Let's play a game here Um

Percentage chance that Christian McCaffrey plays 16 or more games Give me the percentage chance 16 or more. Yeah, I'm giving them a game. I'm letting them miss a game. Yeah. Well, I was saying like...

Oh, sorry, not 16. Yeah, yeah, 16. I mean, 16 is like, that's what I'd say for almost all running backs. I'm good, like, when a running back makes it two, 17 games or 16, they only miss one? Like, that's a great season. Okay, 15. Okay, thank you. Just say, like, just to be like, oh, he missed one game.

I think you understand the point of my question. The minute is what, whatever you define healthy as, if you define it, 16 games. I just want to know the percentage chance. I want to do some math here. Okay. Percentage chance of McCaffrey playing a full season by your definition. Is this for everybody or just Mike? It's just for Mike. Okay. I just want to see. Let's go

at 15 games. I will put it at, I mean, that's like a 50-50 shot probably. Okay, 50%. Same question. Ken Walker. Ooh, I'll go under that. Let's go 40%. 40%. And then And let's just for the sake of argument and historical analysis, T. Higgins. Oh, T. Higgins to appear in 15 games? Yeah.

3%. I guess I was just, like, I think what's coming through about the type is. You multiply those times each other, right? That's what I was like, you're a gambling man, but what kind of odds do you like? Because do you need all three of those guys to play 15? So win a title? Is that the math equation? stack these on a roster. No, I'm willing to stack them. I'm willing to go. That math, I don't,

I don't know if anybody out there is a mathematician, but 50%, 40%, 3%. Yeah, you just multiply those. That's all you got to do? I'm pretty sure. Why didn't you do it then? You could have been I thought that's what you were doing. This was your bit. Why you might be held accountable for your bit? Okay. I guess I wanted to figure out what the odds were that all three could be. Well, are we sticking with 3% because that's not a realistic number. Yeah. I don't know what The actual percentage of them hitting. They have a high percentage chance of getting hurt, I would say. Yeah.

But it's like if they, if Walker plays 15, he's going to be, he will be a top 10 running. If we gave T. Higgins a 40% chance, then there's an 8% chance. That all three say healthy? Okay, that's what I was looking for. Never tell me the odds. Never tell him the odds. Do you, yeah, yeah. So Ken Walker, you said if he's healthy, he's a top 10 running back?

Is that what you said? If he plays 15 games, he'll be a tough time running. So you're not threatened by Charbonnet as much, even though... No. See, I think the team loves Charbonnet. I think you can love Charbonnet. I think he's great for the system. I think he will get a lot of snaps. I am equally unafraid of Charbonnet from a standpoint of will Kenneth Walker be great for fantasy. He's probably part of the plan. Charbonnet is probably part of the Walker plane.

Yeah. No, I agree. I think I think Charbonnet will get more work this season when Walker is healthy than he has in the past. touchdowns, Mike. Do you see double-digit touchdowns for Ken Walker? Absolutely. Yeah, I can see all of that. I mean, again, I pass him in most drafts that I am in because where he's going, I still really like the other players on the board. And I hold my breath. And I guess at that point, I'm almost hoping that he's injured because if he's not, I have to play against him and he's going to be good. All right, we have a final mock draft episode tomorrow before the weekend. That'll be fun. No show on Labor Day. And then week one, we'll be here. We'll bring you our Super Bowl picks, starts of the week, matchup breakdowns. Yep, week one stuff starts.

Yeah, baby. Next week, do not miss a chance to get in on the Ultimate DraftCat right now for the week in Ultimate DraftCat.com. And come play with us in the Megalibolubol.com. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on Join the Foot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers