Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What should the Vikings, Lions and Packers learn from their playoff failures?

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

The Vikings, Lions and Packers all posted double-digit win totals in the regular season but were a combined 0-3 in the playoffs this year. Matthew Coller is joined by Mike Schopp of The Deep End podcast to discuss what those teams can learn from the playoff failures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is a tough week, I am sure, at your day job, Mike. The show, of course, our fantasy show presented by underdog fantasy and we will talk about a fantasy season never ends already we're discussing who's going to be uh there at the top next year but i have to ask you what it's been like these last couple days mike uh after the buffalo bills come just short again in the AFC championship. Yeah. What usually happens, you know, there's the kind of traditional, in our case, perennial, you know, is it fixed or is it rigged or is it God's will that the Buffalo Bills or Sabres don't win? You know, you have that side of things. And those are the officials stuff.

We got it in this game you know there there was Bill's fans and maybe just sort of fans who were sick of the Chiefs braced themselves for iffy at best calls and there were a couple the Allen sneak and a couple others where the worthy play where I'm getting some of the that this week from fans. And that's so frustrating, no matter which side you're on. You know, if you, if you want to blame officials or you hear people talk like that, what do you say to them? And they think it's dishonest. What do you say to them? And then also just like, if it isn't dishonest,

but it happens and maybe it's right that a couple of these calls were questionable, that's just annoying too, because, well, it happens, right? It's human beings. Talking to Ross Tucker two days ago about, he was on the sideline for Philadelphia, Washington, the NFC championship. And, you know, imagine the job of the side judge or the line judge sprinting halfway across the field trying to figure out exactly how far the ball went in the mass of humanity that is those plays. I don't know, but it didn't go Buffalo's way again. And what else? Like the better conversations this week are around what do they do about it?

Because this is five years where they've been really an elite team and they have no Super Bowl appearances to show for it. It's four losses to Kansas City. You know, they're all close in their own way. The last three were as close as it gets pretty much, chance to win late. I think there's some discussion for the first time ever about Josh Allen after this game, like he was sloppy in the beginning of the game and just didn't get it done in the end. That's how we measure greatness in quarterbacks in football over the years. But could you really blame him for what happened?

We've got, so there's so many kind of individual dilemmas within the Bills, I think too, because you know, they had a very successful season. My concern, as you and I talked about all year, was would it cost them that they didn't really have a go-to guy? And you could say that it did. You know, they spread the ball around and did all that again, and James Cook was fine again, or even he was actually really good in this game but it's a loss and I think the range of takeaways from yeah just run it back again and see and find out would you go back to Kansas City next year in the AFC championship would you take that right now I think yes uh but then also you know the first caller to the postgame show Sunday night had the simple you know three words blow it up blow what up I mean that's bills blow them up well they're gonna blow up the stadium eventually and move into a new one but uh that's a it's a funny notion because I mean you're firing the

coach trading the quarterback uh what getting a new punter. I mean, I don't know. That's all, that's just a hard place to live because my entire childhood, Dan Marino was this guy who everyone talked about as the greatest quarterback. And then so many times comes close. And then there's that Chargers game in 94, wherever it looks like he's got it. And then, you know, they win it at the end. And Phillip Rivers is another one of these quarterbacks that was so great for so long and had so many chances and it just never happened and what are we supposed to do with these guys are we supposed to say Josh Allen is worse than Eli Manning or something because and this is a Manning apologist but like he's not worse than

Eli Manning like sometimes things just don't end up going your way. And the call on the tush push, that could be the difference because when they're driving at that point, I think they're going to go and they're going to win this game because Kansas city can't really stop them. And then what, what are the referees supposed to do there? Exactly. They changed the call based on an assumption of where they thought the football was. But at the same time, that little thing right there is the difference between maybe going

to the Superbowl and not. And Kevin O'Connell has said this about his Superbowl in 2021 with the Rams, where he said his big takeaway from winning the Superbowl was how many times they almost didn't win the Super Bowl. Like Matthew Stafford had to throw a no-look pass in the NFC Championship game. The guy dropped a wide-open interception. Not only that, the Packers were probably a tougher team than the 49ers, but they played in a snowstorm and got a punt blocked. And so all of a sudden, the Rams get to play san francisco instead of having to go

to lambeau and face off with aaron rogers there i mean there's just so many things that fall into place like look at the look at the eagles and their two runs to the super bowl their first one they play daniel jones and then brock purdy tears his arm the second one they barely survived the snow game and then they don't have to play the best team. They played the Rams, not in the regular season. And then they don't have to play the best team again, because Detroit has all their defensive players lose. And it's like Philly, their geniuses, like what they are,

but also everything had to fall into place. And I feel like sometimes you just end up on the wrong end of that. And that's where Buffalo is. What did they do wrong? Well, they had to readjust their roster. They couldn't just keep running all the older players and expensive players out. They had to have a roster reset to some extent. And they come within three points of the Super Bowl in a year that we thought was going to be a transition for them.

And it's like, blow it up. It's just so it's so, it's just so hard. This is another one where there's a pretty good range of opinions, you know, like how good were they? I always had some doubt. I was saying, even after the bills had beaten Baltimore, including Kansas city, the roster I most like to go to battle with in the Superbowl from the AFC would easily be the Ravens. I guess that might be reflected if it's not crazy to, you know, care about this at all. But in the Pro Bowl stuff where they had so many guys, like they probably had the best team, but they lost

more games than the Bills and the Chiefs, of course. And I don't know, like the Bills just did not really have, how many great players, right? There's sort of that conversation with them right now. And what I would say about their loss that goes past or just doesn't stop at, well, you know, this fourth and one and a couple of individual plays is that their offense was really short. Like there was a stat late in the game on Sunday and a couple of individual plays is that their offense was really short.

There was a stat late in the game on Sunday that they hadn't thrown a pass beyond the line of scrimmage in the second half yet. And how do you get to fourth and one? Is it a bad call? Maybe, but you're there because the third down play was to the line of scrimmage to Kincaid and the second down play was a five-yard pass. They did not have anything other than the occasional Mack Hollins who knew moment there were two of those in this game that's it like they didn't do anything down the field and the Chiefs are not the the opposite of this but you just have to be efficient lucky and you know just have to get everything

kind of right against a great opponent who can really throw you off, as what happened in this game also with schemes and play calling. It's just hard. And they still scored 29 points. They scored four touchdowns in the game. So any sort of criticism of them seems a little bit unfair. But that was the one thing I didn't like about them all year, is that there was just not a lot of punch in their offense. And it felt wrong to me with their having Allen. But ultimately, you had a team in that game that had not lost a turnover battle all year once, an NFL record in the Bills, and a team in the chiefs that had won 11 one score games and lost none. Also like record stuff, regression was coming for somebody and it still didn't.

The chiefs had the only turnover in the game and one by one score anyway. So that also went unfulfilled. Right. There was a lot of things that statistically just did not bear out for this year of what happened in the regular season. And I was wondering if it's just a weird year or if there's so many tanking franchises in the league on a given year that the Vikings can play the AFC South and get three free wins and one nice one. And they end up with 14 when they're really more of an 11 win strength traditionally.

But a lot of teams are kind of looking at bigger pictures and saying, Hey, if we're bad this year, like I've gotten annoyed at broadcast, making fun of the giants, the giants did the right thing. What they were going to win the super bowl with Saquon Barkley. Of course they weren't.

So they should move on and win three games and draft Schroeder Sanders or something like that's what they should have done. But at the same time, if you were playing the Giants, you pretty much got a free win this year. And the same thing went for, I don't know, 12 or 13 other teams in the league. And if you played a lot of them, you did really well for yourself. So that might have bolstered some teams records and made them look stronger. Cause when we think 13, we think, Whoa, you won 13 games. You are like the real deal where this year 13 may have been, okay, you're, you're good, but that doesn't mean you're perfect. And I didn't see all year.

I said to you, I think even going way back, I did a interview on your show from target where I was talking about while I was shopping, how I just didn't buy this whole thing of, well, you know, we'll move on from Stefan digs and it'll be fine. We'll just be totally. And I made fun of the Packers for the same thing. Am I right or wrong? Like, because in that game, I felt very right. And Amari Cooper just didn't turn out to be that guy. But for the season, am I wrong? Like they almost made the Superbowl. So I'm not, I'm not really sure with the Packers. I'm sure I was right. But with this, I don't really know what to do with it. Like they adjusted their offense. They ran the football exceptionally well, and they're right there.

You need to stop. And Andy Reed draws up some stuff that he's never run before ever in his entire career with Mahomes and they get a touchdown. And I don't know, what am I supposed to do with that? Folks, I found something that I didn't even know how badly I needed. It's called Rocket Money. Like everybody else, I've got so many subscriptions to different apps and websites that I couldn't keep them all straight. And it takes forever to try to figure it out unless you have rocket money. What rocket money does is organizes all of my subscriptions into one place and allows me to cancel the ones that I'm not using. No more hunting all over the place for things I'm subscribed to or getting charged for things I'm not using. I know I'm

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And while they got rid of some age, you know, they overturned the roster to some extent, they had a couple of injuries too. And, you know, just, just didn't get there. It's, um, that's what makes it so interesting. Like It's really hard to know that answer. The Bills, Diggs in the past in the playoffs did not have much going for him in the postseason. Their last drive last year in another three-point loss to the Chiefs, which also, like Sundays, was a game that they led in the fourth quarter. Their last drive, Allen went six for nine, and on three targets to Diggs, he went over three. So what were they supposed to do?

Guys get older. It's just what it comes down to, though, I guess. I mean, there's limitations to this. You can't just have anybody won, and there's salary cap and whatever. They draft late in the first round every year. But the players that they have replaced some of the other important guys with have really not, and they're young still too, but turned out. I mean, in this game you had Kier Elam

who was a first round pick of theirs three years ago that they were forced to play when Christian Benford got hurt, and he just is not good. So Kansas City recognized that and attacked him. Their last two first picks, one a first-rounder, the other, Keon Coleman, the first pick of the second round, Kincaid and Coleman, here's your new influx of pass catchers, and they combined for three

catches for less than 30 yards. So, and then you have Xavier worthy on the other side, who was dangerous and productive in the game. So that's really, I think where the bills are at enough about them maybe, but just they got to get the next big moves, right? Well, I think to our audience, the Bills are always interesting because they are sort of like a brother in arms of comes up a little bit short. But I do think this is a great discussion to talk about a lot of different situations that where teams may be influenced for what they do in the offseason by what happened in the playoffs. We always think, oh, it's bad to judge on one game and stuff like that. But I'm not sure that's how the real world works inside front offices. They react the same exact way that we do on the outside

to what they just saw. And as it pertains to the Vikings, I think there's two clear things that are glaring at them after the playoffs. Number one is it is finally a wake-up call that you can't just glue together the inside of an offensive line anymore. They've tried for so long. They left guard was a development tackle who they just said, why don't you just try it and play 17 games and then go up against Kobe Turner? Like, okay. And on the right side, they drafted a second rounder. He didn't work out. They have to replace him with Dalton Reisner, who was fine, but we'll get exposed eventually if you play the best D line in the league. So they're going to spend money there finally. And I can hopefully not have to talk about it

every single off season. The other thing though, from a fantasy perspective, this is quite interesting. I think is the running game and running backs in general. Like even James Cook was such a huge part of why that team was successful. His touchdown would have been a statue. If the bills had won a Superbowl, incredible, incredible play. And that's a fairly high draft pick there. And Gibbs is a fairly high draft pick and Barkley's a high draft pick. And there was kind of a lot of that in the playoffs of these star freakish running backs being the centers of offenses. And I think the Vikings in the draft have to look at even with their limited draft capital, they have to look at some of the top running backs and say, we've got

everything else on offense. But when the Rams were rushing our quarterback, we didn't have a counterpunch with being able to run or the quick passing game, which, you know, Cook was really good at. And Barkley's really good at, I think that the, it's not just us talking running backs fantasy wise every week. I think that there's going to be a little bit of a shift and the Vikings might invest more at that position because of what happened in the playoffs. I do too. And that aligns with that people who know the draft

seem to all think that this is a good year to want a running back. You might get two or even three in the first round, it sounds like. And I didn't get to a point, at least yet, where Minnesota seems to me a team that should do that. I mean, it would be, you still want your premier positions, I would say. So whether that's offensive line, tackles or corners or whatever it is, I would want it for them to be something else because

they did win a lot of games and they, you know, should probably think that way. But day two in the draft, now Minnesota, I think does not have its second round pick. The Bills have it at the moment. They traded it to Houston and then Houston traded it to Buffalo for Diggs. How about that? Full circle. But third round, and there are guys that seem that might be day one starters in the NFL that get picked on day two of the draft. You've got a lot of these, including what Minnesota was with Aaron Jones, but that's not going to happen going forward, I guess. Right. By the way, that's right. Isn't it? I don't know. I, they can't go into next year with just Aaron Jones. Again, that was a big mistake. I think they thought Ty Chandler was going to be fine. And then he wasn't.

Is Jones under contract? No, he's a free agent, but I mean, he, they all say, I want to be a Viking for life or whatever, when they're about to leave, but I believe it with him. He really enjoyed this. I just think if you're going to bring him back, he can't be the only guy. He's got to run from 800 yards and someone else has to run for 800 yards. It can't just be, Hey, you do everything. Yeah. Okay. Well, there will be plenty of ways to, to feel good about your backfield. I would say from this draft without it being in round one.

The big name is Ashton Gentry from Boise State, who it sounds like could be a pretty early first round pick. I feel like Dallas is kind of perfect there, and they're maybe at 12. I'm not sure that's right, somewhere in that range. But anyway, it's early, wild guess. You might see one or two other guys. There's a running back from North Carolina and two from Ohio State that could sneak into that first round. So I started to say you've got teams like the Eagles, quintessentially, where they did make the big investment on a veteran running running back last year and they feel great about it. Green Bay with Jacobs, Houston with Mixon, Baltimore with Henry,

maybe Minnesota with Jones, although he's up, like a lot of these guys will be back with those teams. And you know, the market will be very different this year. The free agent market isn't really much at all. JK Dobbins is maybe the top guy, and he's coming off several pretty bad injuries, been around. So the draft feels like, just generally, the draft feels like the way to attack what you're laying out as Minnesota's dilemma. And I could see a dozen or so teams feeling likewise and probably feeling pretty good about the talent they can procure rounds three through even the end.

Yeah, I think the third round makes a lot of sense because you can get starting running backs in the third round. If you go farther than that, I think that most of it does get picked over. I don't think you can wait till the fifth round and just say, yeah, we'll find a starter there because there's a reason that they've dropped all the way to that point. But as far as the middle of the draft, Caleb Johnson from Iowa is already somebody that I saw a lot of this year in the big 10 and think that he has starter potential and that they need to be able to catch out of the backfield, which he can do and things like that from fantasy purposes, which is always really big. But I do think that if you look around and you see a lot of the teams that have more

effective screen games, more effective rushing games, you have to have that counter. I also think that for the Vikings perspective, they are going to have to make sure that they build an elite, elite, elite, elite defensive line. Because when I look at the deciding plays, and I know this is all football history, but it really stood out to me, a lot of them are just either the defensive coordinator tricking the offensive line, which you saw from Spagnuolo. Although I saw on the internet that Josh Allen was supposed to throw it out of his butt or something backwards to Khalil Shakir. I don't think that's how that works, but the blitzers

are winning and the defensive interiors are winning. And I look at what Jalen Carter does to impact the game. And I think that's where the first round pick should probably be. And it's a big takeaway for the playoffs. The D lines are winning. The D coordinators are winning this battle and you have to have answers, but you also have to have that. And I think the Vikings had some of it and I think they need more of it. Except when it comes to my homes. Yeah. Right. For whatever reason. Yeah. Yeah. Like you still want to trust what you believe are the premium positions when it comes to the draft and that all makes sense edge rushers it's always moving i mean this this was a season where teams ran the ball against lighter defenses and had a lot of success doing that and the two high safeties and

everything that limited relatively speaking limited some of the top passing games including kansas city's very very much so this year. So will it change again next year? Will defenses get bigger to try to keep that from happening and then open things up for passing games? It's not supposed to be a great receiver year. In the last few, last year maybe most of all, were billed as just so deep

when it came to receivers. There have been a couple that were phenomenal as rookies. Malik Nabors, obviously. Brian Thomas, who was picked in the 20s by Jacksonville. But once you got to, and Worthy is having his moments, once you got into that second round, other than McConkie, there are a lot of very popular names, including Coleman, A.D. Mitchell, Jalen Polk, where we really didn't get anything, you know, to varying degrees from those guys. So that can be wrong. But this so far sounds like a

year where running back is where it's at and receiver and quarterback are pretty iffy. What about the other NFCc north teams what might have changed for them in the playoffs uh detroit and the biggest change for them is going to be their coordinators although if you're taking over as their defensive coordinator you get all the players back yeah healthy i mean poor eric glenn at the end is just uh who who are you uh i'm sure there were some guys that, uh, played five snaps in the season who are asked to chase around Jaden Daniels all of a sudden, but, uh, Aiden Hutchinson coming back is huge. I do wonder what it means on the offensive side.

I tend to think they have so much talent. I don't want to say it won't matter, uh, because it, it might, I mean, I still feel like the Bills offense is never as conducive as it was when Brian Dable was there. That they've kind of chased having that. But I feel like you're also getting so much talent. What are the Detroit Lions supposed to do really differently there? Just do the same thing they did before and keep having that roster and be a juggernaut. Yeah, I mean, golf seems like he's been around forever, but he's still pretty young and the rest of it is so prime. I mean,

Gibbs, St. Brown, Laporta, and Jamison Williams with all the big plays that he gave Detroit. So I would love it. I don't know sort of the insider take on what they're lacking, whether that could be their line was great too. So they might end up being, you know, a team to draft defense, but they ran cold, you know, the Lions with all those injuries that kind of blew up their season for them from, you know, November on really. Like the Bills put up 44, I think it was, and Green Bay went there and scored in the 30s.

Minnesota couldn't, but too soon. Detroit still has a lot to like. And fantasy-wise, St. Brown and Gibbs. St. Brown is going in what I've seen and participated in on the underdog site with the big board. Next year's drafts,s yes that's already a thing uh middle of the first round he was like 107 or 108 last year and he's right there again gibbs has moved above that he was uh late first early second last year you know everybody loved the player can catch the ball like you said that how valuable that is in fantasy underdog is half

point ppr but still um but even with montgomery in that backfield gibbs still had an incredible season he was the most consistently excellent running back in fantasy barkley had more of the high-end games but gibbs was the one guy who scored i think it was 10 points in every single game this year uh didn't miss anything. So one of these early drafts I did, the big board, I picked Gibbs at 104. You have that if you want to see it. Yeah. I want to talk about that in a second of how the top should play out for next year's fantasy drafts that are already starting to happen. But I did want to ask you about the Packers too, for this. And I mean, they go into this season hoping to have a true answer on Jordan Love. Like, is he an elite

quarterback? Is he just going to be good? What do we need to win around him? And I'm not sure that they really got the definitive answer that they were looking for because he was kind of the same as last year. Only he was banged up where there were some inconsistencies, still had a lot of great moments. And his breakout year in the second half, there were a lot of throws into the atmosphere that came down into receivers' hands, but receivers got banged up.

I didn't think that Josh Jacobs was that good. When you look at his carries, he got a lot of them, but maybe that's the bias of seeing the Vikings shut him down. But he wasn't, I didn't think, as dominant as some of the other running backs. So you're left with, what do you have in Jordan Love? Do you have the ninth best quarterback in the league? Do you got the 14th? Do you got, can he be better?

They still are dealing with that same issue of not having a true number one jayden reed was good but he's not really a guy that's a justin jefferson type are they like a purgatory team potentially i think with the packers i mean love is it always been interesting to debate but he's there. That's not changing. And LeFleur is there. They have a lot of stability. I think the thing with them, and I'm coming at this probably admittedly from more of a fantasy player standpoint,

they just have to throw the ball more. They were not a team that really – that was not who they were last year, and they won every game except the ones against the top, fellow top teams in the division. So good game scripts, good defense, and weaker schedule. There's another team, AFC South, which by the way, also does apply to Buffalo. I mean, they played that division and they played the Jets

and Patriots twice each. Like that's half their wins. Can't blame them for it. So I think for Green Bay, I agree with you on Jacobs. Definitely a volume hound, but was very productive, including in the playoff game for them. I don't think they should feel like they have to do that again. And if they can land one real good, everybody agrees, wide receiver,

then that can just help everybody else like a pitching rotation when an ace gets added to the staff. The problem will be doing that, though. That's Buffalo or Green Bay or anybody else who wants to do that. T. Higgins at best this year probably, if you're talking about a free agent, won't be easy to do that. I'm optimistic for the Packers. They did kind of flame out there at the very end.

But one thing you want from them if you're a fantasy player and you invest in Reed, which I still want to do, Watson's tougher because it's another injury. But Wicks, I think, is the sneaky one there. This is very much like last year, and he just didn't get to play that much. Hopefully, if you have those kind of players those players specifically on your roster next year you'll want them to be in in game scripts where they do need to throw the ball more because i think they can be successful that way anybody else in the playoffs that you think was impacted by the

playoff results certainly houston but i think that was bubbling the whole year with Bobby Sloic, where it felt like he was able to trick people the first year, didn't really grow the offense and they just couldn't block anything or anybody, which made CJ Stroud's life a lot harder. I still see them as a team that's going to be dangerous going forward, but they've got to figure out some of that blocking stuff and they have to play Allen and Mahomes and Jackson, which is just ruins everybody's life. But any, anybody else that you were thinking about that could be changed from the outcome of the playoffs?

It's not, it's not easy past the lions and maybe the bills. We talked about the Packers. I think Houston is much like green Bay where they also need to throw the ball more. And can they protect Stroud well enough to do that and get out of these aged running back sort of game scripts with Mixon would be better for a lot of us. Maybe they also need one more receiver. And who is that? Is Dell going to be the same? Diggs is a free agent. Is that up? I don't know what they'll do at that position minnesota is the other one you know you've already talked about offensive line and just what running back is did they they're the they're the quintessential example of a team that as the season finished

did we think something you know important on an important level, different, do we come to a different conclusion than we would have two weeks prior, you know, in terms of the Vikings and, you know, maybe, but other than like Washington being a team that can maybe strike big next year, in some way, free agency, adding a receiver to go with McLaurin that they probably really need, they can believe they will believe in themselves as a championship kind of contender. Everybody else, I think we know what we've got. I mean, the Rams made a, they won the division, they won a playoff game. That's probably a pretty good result for them if you were to think about it from before

the season started. I don't know about the Chargers, but they seem like they should be in a position to add some offensive talent to and should want to. It was a bad ending for Justin Herbert individually, though, with that performance in Houston. They couldn't block him. But teams like the Ravens and the teams that are still playing, what can you really say? Philadelphia has such a great roster. Kansas City has Mahomes, Baltimore, so many good players. I think all these teams in that group should feel like they can try to just be the same next year and see what happens.

Yeah, the biggest thing for the Vikings is that if Sam Darnold wins a playoff game, he's very, very, very likely the quarterback of 2025 and having a complete meltdown in the final two weeks when they needed him the most, despite the whole regular season and how well he played, there's no way to just wash your eyeballs of what you saw. And I think you end up believing because of that, that there's a ceiling on that. And if you run it back that you're just not very likely to get deep in the playoffs. If you have Sam Darnold as your quarterback, because the weaknesses are so weak that they might as well move on to McCarthy. That may be true, or it may be that they got the wrong matchup and somehow went on the road with 14 wins and et cetera, et cetera. But there's no way to forget about that as they

make their quarterback decision. Right. Let's talk about the underdog fantasy element of this show. And by the way, underdog fantasy, the easiest place to play fantasy sports, but playing all year long and a tremendous, tremendous app. So you got to check it out. Now we've been doing the pickums all year, but there's no football game this week so no pick'ems for us there is lots of other pick'ems though i won one oh you did oh really oh we struggled so much this year we were always like one off congratulations didn't you and i do that one the philadelphia washington yeah together yeah that hit hurts to score hurts over diami brown underami Brown under, and A.J. Brown over. And they were all really close.

They were all just kind of right at the line, but four bagger won on that one. Sadly, my beloved gauntlet team lost by six in the playoffs. I was so well set to make it to the Super Bowl, I thought, with eight players out of 10 live last week, um, my homes, I was the only one of the 10 in the group to have him. And he put up 30,

but I basically lost to James Cook, uh, Cook and Zach Ertz were the two guys on the winning team that beat my worthy and McLaurin, I guess. And they both scored like I had a good week, but it wasn't enough. So it's for me and many others on to next year.

And the big board and the different variations of it launched on Sunday during the playoff games. My guys at ADP Chasing were like, great. Pat Corain is doing rankings. Davis Maddox doing his streams. And I think Davis, who's a Chiefs fan, didn't even maybe watch the game because he was so immersed in, you're trying to find the guys who are just going to max out these tournaments, and this is not me.

I'm sort of a second or third tier version of them maybe, but they want to get in these tournaments right away and feel like they can take advantage of what they know. That's the rookie class. That's seeing through situations around the league. Where is their quarterback uncertainty? Where is the value is ultimately what it is. So most people you meet will be like, it's absolutely insane to be drafting in January for next year. But this is

a tournament that'll fill before the draft. I mean, this is all based on not knowing who's going to be drafted where and that kind of thing. So it's a level playing field, but the earlier you can get in, if you feel like you know some of these kind of strategies or what's going to happen with players in theory, the better. So you've got my board there if you want to show it. In one second. Yes. But I need to remind our audience that they can sign up with the code purple and get their free special pick along with the first time deposit offer up to $1,000 in bonus cash. Must be 18 or older terms apply concerned with your play call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org and a reminder that

always helps the show if you sign up and use that code purple okay now to the big board mike 2025 you and i were uh texting about this the other day about just how the choice at number one overall for fantasy, if you're playing already. And if you're looking at the big board here is interesting because I texted you back. How would it be anybody other than Saquon Barkley after this year? And then at the same time, running backs who have a huge year are always a big fear for the very next year to get hurt. He's going to go to the super bowl. He's going to play a ton of games. And I would be a little more scared of a running back than I would a wide receiver.

And I see on the big board here that Jamar chase is the guy who went number one. Yeah. I think it's going to be a year where you see a lot of Barkley and a lot of Chase and maybe a little Bijan Robinson at 101. And that's about it. Beyond maybe Gibbs, I took Gibbs at four, like I mentioned earlier in this draft. Beyond guys who are just going to play hundreds of teams and try to get different with picks. I think those are going to be the players in that conversation. Christian McCaffrey, to your point about older running backs and those coming off of amazing seasons, he was a huge bust this year because of injury. It's not like he was bad.

And you see McCaffrey go in this draft at the 201, pick 13. I think that's a little bit early for him but part of it is always what is likely in the next the ensuing rounds and where is the value by position in in certain drafts this year because of what's happened in 2024 more running backs i think are going to appeal to players earlier. And so that's Derrick Henry in this draft in the mid-second. There's Jenty, the rookie, in the first round. I think that'll be common.

That'll be typical of most of these early drafts. Notice Chase Brown from the Bengals. And that player went Jamar Chase, Chase Brown, Lamar Jackson, and then Burrow. So building a Bengals team there. And that's also part of the strategy too. What I ended up doing here was Gibbs and then Bowers in the second round. JSN, I love that pick. You know, he's coming off a great year and maybe even gets better from here.

Rashi Rice off the injury. O'Marion Hampton is the running back from North Carolina. I'm at pick four, by the way, if you haven't caught it. Mahomes with Rice and some rookies. You know, we have no idea what's going to happen with these guys. Some of these rookies will just not get picked until day three, which would not bode well, obviously, for their chances of putting up meaningful fantasy seasons.

But I think, you know, you want to do some of that to be able to win. And there's our boy, Sam Darnold, Matthew, in the 15th round. I kind of had it in, as I remember this draft, thinking maybe Tennessee for Darnold. I just would not bet on him being back there. You would know better. But right next to McCarthy, isn't that interesting in the 15th round that they went back to back?

I actually don't know better than anybody else. We just don't know how they're thinking. It makes all logical sense to move on, but they know where McCarthy is. And I know that Kevin O'Connell wants to play safe with his quarterbacks, but he also may have thought after the playoff game, what's the point in going forward here if we're, if we're not going to show up in that game.

So I don't actually know how they're going to handle it. But if I was betting right now, I would say a tag and trade that they franchise tag Darnold and they trade him to, I would say the Raiders today. But franchise tag Darnold and they trade him to, I would say the Raiders today. But I think if you're the New York giants, the owner came out and said, yeah, everyone's on the hot seat. Like that's a weird thing for an owner to say, why don't you just fire them then? Like if we don't win next year in the NFC East, that's now a beast. Uh, you are all fired. That to me means you got to do something desperate

at quarterback. You can't just roll out there, drew lock or something, or just draft Shadur Sanders and hope. I think that the giants got to be pretty desperate to try to get Sam Darnold in there. So I, I don't know. I think if you're the Vikings and you get an offer of two second round picks or something for him on the franchise tag, how would you not do that? But anyway, back to the top, I think with Gibbs, we were talking about developments from the playoffs. One of the developments should have been that they realize, oh yeah, we don't need David Montgomery. Jameer Gibbs can just be our guy. And if he only has a career that takes him to 28 years old, so be it. They can just stop trying to protect him. And for me, he would be my top draft pick.

The line, everything that they have there, the passing game opens up the running game. They throw him the football. He's super young still. He would be my guy as far as top pick in any draft yeah I think that's fine and Bijan Robinson for his part did really come on and finally Atlanta got to a point after just not giving him a clear runway to a point where they did and he showed his talent too so it'll be Michael Penix now next year for Atlanta. I think Robinson also makes sense. I'm just the type where this is why I got beat this year or a part of why I got beat this year

is I'd have a really tough time clicking Saquon because I had the same problem this year and look what happened. Didn't want to draft Barkley, didn't want to draft Derrick Henry, was much more excited about receivers in that range and this was a losing year for somebody who played it like that because those two guys had historic seasons. So maybe it'll go the other way next year. I guess I'm going to say now that I sort of hope it does because I still want to get three, four receivers

in those first six rounds. And that's the position where it really does drop off. And in fantasy and in the NFL, if a top running back gets hurt, which did not happen for all these guys last year, this year that we're talking about, also adding to the frustration, I'm not rooting for injuries, but you know, their replacement can often do just as well. And at receiver, that is not the case. If C.D. Lamb gets hurt, they throw a different guy in there in the rotation,

and that guy is not going to be C.D. Lamb. So, you know, you want to, in my opinion, load up on receivers you feel like it's January for next year, but you feel like you can trust to have prominent roles, high target share, that kind of thing, because their replacements will not be usable. Well, the train of fantasy never stops. Isn't that great? It really is. Yeah. I didn't realize that, honestly.

This has all been new for me this year, and I'll maybe have more success next year. But there you go. The big board, Thunderdog fantasy, little board, bigger board, depending on how much you want to, you want to play.

There's different price points. So it's not animal names for this one. Okay. Well, Mike, as always, deep end fantasy show, ADP chasing,

which I was watching your show the other day on ADP Chasing. Thank you. And got you. That'll be Mondays and super heavy, intensive on rookies and strategy, but like which guys, all the premise of the show, you're chasing, well, it's the chasing brand, but ADP, the changes in average draft position as the offseason goes along. Since I jumped on a couple of months ago, there really wasn't that to talk about because the season was underway and we're not drafting these teams anymore. We're just kind of waiting to find out how we did but now that the big board is open the offseason is on that's what that the premise of that show is to sort of watch trends

and you know try to read them so we'll be back uh monday morning with another one of those all right very interesting and i was going to say god be with all my friends in buffalo uh i know what everybody was going through uh on sunday so thanks again. And we will talk soon. Thanks, Matt.