The Ringer NFL Show - 2023’s Most Interesting Fantasy Running Backs

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck highlight a handful of the most interesting fantasy running backs going into the 2023 season with help from The Ringer’s 2023 Fantasy Football Rankings (1:04). Finally, the guys share some stories from their Europe trip and read a few emails (41:48). Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison (1:04) Bijan Robinson (6:50) Tony Pollard and Breece Hall (10:49) J.K. Dobbins (16:39) Najee Harris (20:57) Kenneth Walker III (26:25) Rachaad White (31:20) The Philadelphia Eagles RB committee (37:40) Check out our 2023 Ringer Fantasy Football Rankings here! Email us! [e-mail] Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili, and host of What About Your Friends? A podcast dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed, I talk to my best friend Stephen Othello and your favorites from within the ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed where we try to answer the question TLCS back in the day, what about your friends? Football show, my name is Danny Hyfordson and I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck. we were talking about the most interesting running backs of the 2023 season. We're also recording this ahead of time. We're lying. It's Thursday, June

8th is when we're recording this. So if anything happens between now and then, then please forgive us. However, the thing already happened, because we can just start with Dalvin Cook got released today. So or at least they're planning to, whatever. Dalvin Cook's going to get cut from the Vikings. We mentioned this on last week's episode.

We're not surprised by this because basically the old regime paid too much money to running backs and the new Vikings front office is like we don't do that. That's dumb. So they cut Dalvin Cook. He's widely expected to go to Miami by the time you're listening to this. He may have already signed with the Dolphins. I mean, Dalvin Cook is from South Florida and went to college at Florida State and then his training there and also his Instagram story is him at the Dolphin Stadium Stadium. So I think he's going to go to Dolphins. He wants to be a dolphin.

Bottom line. Who among us doesn't want to, I mean, messy? Everyone's going to Miami. So I want to start with very simple but kind of deceptive question. D.K., would you rather have Dalvin Cook on the Dolphins or Alex Madison on the Vikings now that Cook is gone? Ooh, cook, I think. The more I thought about it, the more I am less confident about Alex Madison being like a really good fantasy player. I just, I just can't, I just don't think he's very good.

He's just not any good. It's the happy Gilmore issue with Alex Maddie. With Alexander Madison, he's just not good. That's the problem. We mentioned this a last week's show, but to DK's point, 404 career carries for Alex Madison, one more than 24 yards.

DK., let me just ask you a question, just in a vacuum. What would you rather have in fantasy? A good running back on a bad team or a bad running back on a great team. They have the same role. I mean, I lean a good running back, period. Like, I'd rather just have a good running back. I just am more confident in that. But when you look at, like, Jamal Williams last year, I don't know. Did the Lions even count as a good team? I guess they do. But like, his situation is so awesome on that offense. That's the only thing that's like keeping me from really being strongly on like good running back bad team. I'd way rather have. But yeah, I'm sticking with my answer.

Good running back, bad team. I don't like this. I don't like relying purely on situation because it can change so quickly. Alex, that's the thing with Alex Madison where it's, so he's made six starts. And every time he's played behind Dalvin Cook and had a start, he's been incredible. Here's the thing, though. He's out of volume. Well, he got, yeah, he's like incredible in fantasy football.

Yeah. He's got incredible in fantasy football. In real life. And that was just different coaching staff. Well, here's the thing, though. Alex Madison made six starts in his career. Three of them were against Lions. who can't defend the run.

And so he's just weirdly always had great matchups and whatever he played and he just ended up playing bad teams or whatever and he's got 25 carries. But he was just getting the Mario Kart Rainbow Boost. Right. So I think we're all kind of like, eh, however one, Kevin O'Connell is the coach of Vikings said

quote, Madison's got that all three down kind of ownership that he's been capable of for a long time, end quote, which maybe that's just coaching bluster. However, the depth chart behind him is barren. they have Ty Chandler, who had a fifth rounder, he had six carries as a rookie last year. They have Kenny Nguangwu, who's a great kick returner,

22 carries in 28 games in his career. And Duane McBride, who's a rookie who has DK, you informed me, Dwayne McBride had more fumbles than catches in college. He also is not practicing right now, the hamstring injury. So like, right. Seventh round pick, by the way, yeah. Who's going to do stuff for this team?

I kind of, I like Ty Chandler, just based on how he looked in college. But yes, you're right. This is absolutely, it's absolutely a complete unknown in terms of what's behind him. The question is, Hyfitz, what if they end up signing a veteran before the season starts? By the way, Leonard Frenette's still out there. Kreme Hunt is still out there. Ezekiel Elliott.

Delvin Cook? Delvin's available. Huge fit for the Vikings right there. I don't know. Yeah. I think at the end of the day, though, I'm just going to be out on Alexander Madison. If he goes off and he's like really good, then obviously we'll eat these words, but I don't know. I just don't get.

I have no confidence that he's. going to be like an electric running back for them. What about Dalvin Cook on the Dolphins? I think it's funny. Also, I'm sorry to everyone. I can't say Dolphins. I have like a speech impediment called it. Dolphins. We shouldn't. We don't need to spend too much time on it considering we don't know if he's actually going to be on the dolphins.

All right. We'll talk about that later. Probably. I mean, he will. All right. I'm going to call him the porpoises. I don't want to subject everyone to me saying dolphins all the time. Are you guys too old to have seen Ace Ventura?

No, I love Ace Ventura. No, I love it. I'm sorry. Too young. Too young to have seen East Ventura. I've seen it. You do love it. Oh, I love it.

That's so good. That's all I have to say about that. All right. I thought you were going to give me a quote. Where he calls him a porpoise and that Ace Ventura corrects him. Yeah, Ace Ventura absolutely rips. I even like if the second one, whatever it's called, is that where he goes to Africa.

The second one's actually pretty good. The sequel to whatever is good, but yeah. Aged perfectly. Oh. But the scene where he comes out of the rhino is pretty great. Yeah, the ass of the rhino and the family's watching. That's age. I like when he gets hit in the thighs with the spears and then he's just like looking at

the spears and I don't know. That's really good. Aitsman Chura won though, all time. I still do the thing with the door where you shut the door and you're like, oh. Klingle is Einhorn. Who the hell is that? He sees a picture from across the room. Laces out, man.

Honestly, the Jim Carrey movie, I always Bruce Almighty when he's like, all these horses are nowhere to gallop. I think I say that to myself whenever I'm in traffic for like 20 years. We just had a rewatchables come out last week. Dumb and dumber. Oh, nice. I got to tell you know how D.K. always loves to be like, airport, you're flying somewhere?

And then one day he lost his luggage and then one day he lost his luggage needed me to drive him in the airport and I actually got to ask him flying somewhere and he was like, no. He's like, I saw the suitcase. I put two and two together. All right, next up running backs.

What are we talking about fantasy football? I don't know. Other running backs who are fun. So we got Christian McAfor is the number one guy. We have Austin Ecclors, number two guy. At Fantasy Football.3.com, where we have our fantasy rankings, really at DK leading the charge here. We have Bijjan Robinson as her number three running back.

And I actually think, D.K., you have as your number three overall player, like straight up. I'm pretty excited about him. We're coming off of the draft. He's a really good prospect, one of the best prospects in Sequin Parkley, probably, really good in both the running game and the passing game. It's going to be on a team that feeds him the rock. They picked him, what was it, eighth overall? they were already a good rushing team last year,

so he's landing in a good situation to be efficient. I think everything that you look at with him, I'm super excited about. I probably end up like chilling out a little bit and moving him down slightly. I think as we get closer to the season, I'm probably going to get a little more excited about the receivers and feel better about like Jamar Chase

and Justin Jefferson, those guys. Yeah, but you're not going to move him below any other running back, though, are you? Probably not at this point. If you look at the past 10 years, like the last decade or two, of guys that have been drafted in the top 10 running backs that have been drafted in the top 10,

like all of them smash. It's like you're automatically almost surely, unless you're injured, going to get a ton of volume, a ton of volume. In fact, the average season for the top 10 running backs over the last 10 years. So this is Saquine Barclay,

Leonard Fernette, Chris McCaffrey, Zeke Elliott, Todd Gurley, and Trent Richardson. They averaged, those guys averaged 244 rushes and almost 10 touchdowns. Not only do I think that's compelling.

I actually think that data set is outdated, in the sense that it's more meaningful now for a running back to go in the top 10 than it was in the last 10 year's sample. So the Falcons, it's like deflation where it's Bejohn's closest compass, Sequin, who went second, but like he went eighth.

It's just so much more important for a team to take a running, but less important for a team to take it that when they do, it's a huge signal. Also, the guys around him are, when D.K. first said, I'm going to just have Bijan my third running back. I thought it was a little crazy a month ago.

And since then I've both mellowed, but you look at the guys around him. It's basically, so we have McCaffrey and Eckler is her top tier. where it's like, you're picking Nits, but if you want to take Eckery McAfrey first, like I'm not going to argue against you. And then we have Bejohn,

Sequin Barclay, Jonathan Taylor, and Josh Jacobs. I'm souring a little on those other three Jacobs. Again, me and Jacobs have a history. But the fact that the Raiders are like, yeah, Jimmy Garoppel,

we're just going to cut him before the season. Is it going to be Aidan O'Connell quarterback? A little scary. Mm-hmm. And then Jonathan Taylor, I just think that Anthony Richardson at quarterback is going to just like suck up so much. It's not ideal.

He's going to steal rushing touchdowns. And also, goodbye checkdowns. It's not Matt Ryan. I mean, you know what I mean? Anthony Richardson, there's no checkdowns. He's going to just scramble. So I don't think Jonathan Taylor is going to catch as many passes. And then also, like, it's not fun.

When it's like the Eagles offense with the Shane Stike and their coordinator going to be the cold set coach, it's like, Jalen hurts is twice as many touchdowns as Miles Sanders the last year's. So you factor all that. And I'm like, yeah, I think, I think you're right. I think Bajon is the number three running back. I think you're right, too. I'm actually, like, fully convinced. I don't really have any huge arguments. I mean, just especially in the

just overall running back, you know, playing field or whatever. Like there's just no other guys that are almost guaranteed to get extremely high volume. You know that they're really good players. I mean, I feel very,

very strongly that Bijan is a very good player. And then in a situation where it's going to be like heavily focused on him, it's going to be him, Drake London, and Kyle Pitts in their offense. And it's just going to be, you know,

they're going to be funneling most of the looks through those three guys. And I think our, Arthur Smith is going to want to run the rock. So I think Bijan's going to get a ton of opportunity. So the only thing that's like really holding me back from getting too excited is just Desbin Ritter and like how good is this offense going to be? Are they going to get into the red zone?

Maybe not. That's the only thing that's kind of worried, worrying me right now. Yeah, you're picking nits at the top. But like you said, you'd rather have a good running back on a bad team. Trust the talent. Trust the process. Trust the talent. Plus, he's absolutely going to get insane volume.

I mean, I feel like there's no reason Bijon won't lead lead in touches this year. trust the process, Craig, I want like a temperature check on the injured running backs. We've gotten the top 30. Tony Pollard and Breece Hall. Pollard, who's faster now. They're both faster now. I don't know if you saw apparently Breeze Hall ran 22 miles an hour this month, which is faster than any speed he reached during the season last year.

So they're both faster now. So should we actually be downgrading healthy players because all the injured ones come back faster? I think so. I think everybody should electively get ACL surgery. Everyone's just a cyborg nowadays. modern medicine seriously

honestly yeah Pollard and Brise Hall are the two most interesting guys in that like they're gonna be the number one

running back on your fantasy team but they're like lower tier number one running back guys the Pollard is just so bizarre because he obviously had the injury

but I guess he's faster now but he was like so electric last year he was like the best running back in the fucking league in total

he was the RB7 last year with Ezekiel Elliott playing with him It's insane. Like Tony Pollard was not in the top 25 in terms of touches per game. Top 25 and he was the seventh best running back in fantasy. Craig, I think at one point last year I literally tweeted like,

Tony Pollard might be the best player in NFL, like legitimately. Yeah, like I have both these guys under the like, what am I missing category? If Tony Pollard's like healthy, I know part of my thing is like I like the year after the year after the guy comes back from the injury. But like, I don't know, man. If Tony Pollard's like running around in training camp looks. good. Like, do I take them fifth overall? I might. Why wouldn't I?

I think, what am I missing? To the year after the year after, it depends on the injury. Like, broadly speaking, multi-ligament tears. It's like when there's an ACL tear, it's, it's a different process than ACL and meniscus, ACL and MCL, like, it gets complicated. Sequin had multi-ligaments. J.K. Dobbins, I guess, two years ago at this point, had like multi-ligaments and it was like bad. Giovante Williams this year for the Broncos, complicated knee injury. Basically, when you, You have to rehab multiple things at once. It's like complicated. So Paul, broken leg is just different.

And then Breeze Hall, it was like a much simpler process. So I think that's why we're also great name. Great names for both of them. Just to be willing to make an exception. Just to your point, like they were both incredible when they played. And with Pollard,

honestly, if he steps on the field of training camp, I know he's not actually faster. But if he steps on the field of training camp, and starts fully participating the first day of training camp, is there any reason he shouldn't be next to Sequin and Jonathan Taylor and Josh Jacobs

in our second tier? I was going to say, like right now, gun to your head. Would you rather have Josh Jacobs or Tony Pollard? I think Pollard. Yeah. I think this is the year that we should actually doubt Josh Jacobs, like unlike last year. Because he had so many fucking touches last year.

It's like a little bit worrisome, you know? What's the opposite of a post-hype sleeper where it's like they were good and now we're out on them? I think it's called, I think it's called Selva High. Yeah, but we need it. We need like the opposite term for post-hyped sleeper. It's like, it's like pre-hype. I don't know.

We'll figure it out. Email us. Always, always write just early or whatever. What is it that we say? Never wrong. Never wrong. You tell June, we can't even say words. Jesus.

Never wrong. I'm not able to talk very well. Yeah, Pollard. The other guy I want to talk about is Breece Hall, who kind of just like burst onto the scene last year. Everyone thought he was going to be. pretty good, right? I don't think anyone expected this, but it was like the show Homeland. It was like, oh, okay, a show

with Claire Danes and Damien Lewis, this looks good. And then the first season happened, everyone's like, holy shit! This show just beat Breaking Bad in the Emmys. Is this like the best show on television? I feel like that was Breeze Hall. He just like stepped in and was shitty quarterbacks and was immediately fantastic. He was the number

six running back in fantasy in the seven games he played before he got hurt. And he was doing everything. He was breaking tackles. He was like catching passes. He like looked completely electric. Yeah. And yes, he tore his ACL. He's recovering now.

He's apparently ran 22 miles an hour in practice this month. And, you know, you insert Aaron Rogers and like, man, I know once again, this is the, I'm going against my rule about the injury thing, but God damn it, if I'm not intrigued by Brice Hall at his draft spot right now, because this guy could be a top five running back in the fucking league. He already was with Mike White and Zach Wilson. I think the hard part with Brice for me is I hear everything you're saying. and yes, he's like, he's still very young,

so that means he's probably more likely to come back from the injury more quickly. And it's not going to be as big of a deal. Like he said, it wasn't the multi-ligament thing, so it wasn't as big of a worry. But he's not cheap, Craig. Like, he's, according to fantasy pros, at least, like he's the 20th ranked player.

You know what I mean? 26th. Yeah, we're a little bit, like, slightly low on him relative to, you know, the consensus rankings or whatever, but, like, he's not cheap. Like, you have to take a pretty big swing on him. and I always worry not so much necessarily

that he's going to like re-tear his ACL but there's just going to be other injuries that are related to it. You know what I mean? Like hamstrings, calves, things like that that kind of crop up during the year. It seems like that always happens

with guys who have ACLs the year after because they have, they're compensating for something. So that's just my main worry. But maybe like at the end of the day, honestly, it shouldn't be a hard and fast rule. It's just one of those things

that worries me a lot. Craig's doing the Seinfeld touching his head, the higher up he touches the fist. I got it out. Yeah, he's going to be fine. As soon as D.K. mentioned hamstrings, Craig just put his hand on top of his head. It was like instinctive, yeah.

Look, look, it's June. I'm horny. I need to go home to my wife and just draft, you know, Derek Henry. Derek Henry is your wife. Absolutely. Hey, man. This guy's 22 years old and he has a torn ACL.

Go home to your fucking wife. You don't want to be out here. Speaking of a year after the year after, I mentioned him earlier, but J.K. Dobbins, man. It's actually the year after now. He's my guy this year, man. I'm so excited about Dobbins. I don't know why I'm just like,

I don't like him as a fantasy player. He, like pissed me off last year too much. I'm like, I'm done. He got bent backwards the wrong way. It was like absolutely, it was like exactly the wrong way. It looked like a, I don't know, like a flamingo leg or something. What are the legs?

What are the bird legs that go with a backwards? No, you had it. Yeah, I think it is flamingos. Yeah. Really? The first time. Anyways, it wasn't good. It looked painful.

I think it's all birds. He like tore his quad or something like that. Is it all birds? I think all birds have like the concave knee. Right. Well, flamingos are just, you know. Just flamingos. Birds stand weird.

They stand, their knees are. Oh, I guess they all do. Google bird and get back to me. Yeah, I guess they all too. I never thought about that. Why aren't our legs like that? Yeah. Wait, are dog legs like that too?

Um, no. No. No. I don't know what this looks like that. Because I don't think about like a dog Like a dog You know, They bend forward

Because the dog The back legs of cats are fucking weird I don't know where the foot begins And the leg ends They got extra joints Who knows what's going on in there Cats are wild Anyway

Where were we talking about Craig yes I agree Like last year he was really frustrating Because especially because he was like so mad at Ian Rappaport for somebody Might not be ready for Week 1 or the training camp I can't even remember

And then he like Missing once You know what I think of when I think of J.K. Dobbins, this is what I think of. 11 carries 78 yards. That's what I think of when I think of J.K. Dobbins. That's fair. That's fair. I think the main worry and it's still a worry, although like I'm hopeful that they'll maybe get him more involved. It's just he doesn't catch passes. He's in the Marjaxon offense. They don't really dump it off to running backs. It's not a big part of their game. I think he's capable of doing it,

but it is a huge unknown whether he's going to do that at all this year in the in the Todd Monken offense. But man, he's just so explosive. He's so fun. He kind of fits to me in the same mold and maybe I just get too excited about these guys is like a Kenneth Walker type guy who's just so fun to watch run that it beats out or it like you know nullifies your fears over like what he's going to do in the passing game maybe that shouldn't be the case but jk. Dobbins to me coming out especially I don't know where he is now hopefully he's back to full help but coming out he was just one of the most

electric runners period and I just want to bet on guys like that that are so good at running fantasy football dot 3.com we have Dobbins 41st we have them actually I mean right after we got burrow and Lamar and fields we got to move him down. There's no way I'm taking Jake Dodbins over like Lamar. When the Ravens are like running like right when they're like

actually operating at their potential JK like there is no running back and no system that looks easier to run in than the Ravens. Like JKs average like seven yards of carry. Yes. Gus Edwards is running eight yards a clip. Yes.

It is insane. You're like I don't know how it. No one touches this guy until he's like at the 10 yard mark. It's ridiculous. So I get it. I mean, he's very enticing when you watch him, but then you end up seeing,

he only gets like 13, 14 touches a game. And you're like, eh. Well, yeah, Craig, I actually looked at it. So over the last four games of the season, when you started to get healthy and was being utilized a lot, he averaged 14 carries for 99 yards. Yeah,

seven yards of carry, which is like exactly what you'd expect. But I only think he only had like two touchdowns. So it wasn't like a big score. But this, by the way, was only on 40% of snaps. And my question, I guess, going into the year is maybe that 40% snap rate stays the same. And then we're really, really sad about drafting him 40th overall.

But if it goes up to like 60, whereas he's the lead back, you know, Gus Edwards is sort of the change of pace like, you know, early down guy who's just going to bowl into the line and go like go straightforward. If he starts getting 60, 65% of snaps, he could be the type of guy who has like 18, 19, 20 carries a game and really put up big numbers. And I just think if this offense takes a step up, he seems to be scoring a lot of touchdowns. So I don't know. I'm just like, he's one of those guys that's hard to rank. He's very hard to rank because I have this inherent bias. He's a really, really good player. But yeah, I mean, I think just you could, you can paint a picture where this offense gets a lot better and he scores a ton of points.

Craig, do you, does all this Ravens talk make you want to talk about Pittsburgh? It does. One of the running backs I'm genuinely interested in, my fandom notwithstanding, is not Ajie Harris. Quintessential post type sleeper. This is year three for him. And I think perhaps he's become underrated rapidly. Last year, he obviously took a step back.

He was the 19th best running back in fantasy compared to the ninth his rookie year. But I would argue both those years, the last two years for the Steelers have just been fucking weird. Like year one, he was with immobilized Ben Rothesberger doing the park and bark. Like he didn't move. He was the Adele at a concert, just standing in the park and barkins. And then last year

Does she just not dance or whatever? Yeah, she just stands and starts on the stool. Oh my God. What a reference. That's good. And last year he had planner for shyness in August. And he still didn't miss a game. And he played through and he played with, you know,

Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett in like a weird watered down Pittsburgh offense against a really hard schedule. And yeah, he was the RB19. And you're like, okay. But there's so many reasons what, you know, why that was the case. And he's clearly very talented and he could do everything. And he's still got a ton of work. He was sixth, an opportunity share last year. He was eighth in total touches. They were still using him pretty much as a bell cow.

So I'm just like, I don't know. I actually think this is the first year where the Steelers' offense might actually look kind of normal and Matt Canada can finally take the reins himself. Nagy Harris is probably a top 10 back and we're just don't see it. He's the guy, Craig, we're, as we update our ranks throughout the summer, like he's the guy, I think, in my first rankings, I had way too low. He, and it's the planter fast he had his thing is, I think, the main one. It's like, you kind of forget that he was battling injuries last year, and that was a big part of the reason why he was he just looked slow on the field. In fact, there were times where people started being like, Jalen Warren is straight up just better than nausey. Every time he touches the ball, he's just more efficient.

But I think a big part of that was because he had a foot injury that really slowed him down. And if he's healthy, you know, the volume thing is never going to be a question. feels like with Mike Tomlin. Like they draft this guy in the first round. They're going to ride him until the wheels fall off literally, like with him in terms of he just can't play. You know what I mean? This is one of the guys, probably one of the few running backs in the NFL where he can

almost guarantee he's just going to get tons of volume. And that's going to be something you can take to the bank. And so I think I have him too low. I want to move him up. And I agree with you. I think he's a great post-life sleeper. I think he's going to look better and a little more have like a little more juice this year than he did last year.

and I think the offense overall is just going to be better. And so there's a lot of variables that are working in his favor right now. Including the O-Lion should be better. They've obviously drafted the first rounder Broder Broderich Jones this year. So I don't know. Yeah, so to Liz Frank Sprang in August. You run with your feet. I don't know.

Do you know people of foot injuries who are like, yeah, no, it's totally fine eight months later? Was it Liss Frank or fasciitis? I don't know if there's a huge difference. Definitely to lose Frank Sprayn in August. I'm not sure what else. Oh, that's what it was. Sorry, I thought it was Planner fichitis. Regardless.

Also, like, this team had no offense last. year. They could barely move the ball. Teams are stacking the box on them. Like, if they can actually, like, become a real offense this year, it's going to do a lot for Najee. Yeah. All right. DK. Next guy. Kivis, are you in or out on that? Give me your thoughts, big dog. Get off the fence, man. Like, you just move on, not even a single opinion? That's unlike you. You must hate this.

No, I just agree with everything you said. But I also love Najee Harris. And his girlfriend loves the Steelers. Did you know that, Craig? this is true no he's never mentioned it got her by the way hyvin's posted pictures of Jackie online

just a hundred comments flex flex flex oh wait really yeah it's so good the comments on the ground the ringer fantasy football

listenership has shown up big time and I really appreciate it Kai Kai just said it flex I love that what was the question what do you like do you like

Nagy. No, I agree with everything Craig said. What I'm torn about is that he's still like a very fun, likable player with like, I think he's a big name. He's like a mid-tier. Basically, I'm wondering if you can actually get a discount on him or not. I see what Craig's saying. But I'm torn.

You're right that Jalen Warren looked better than him last year, but Jailen Warren was like, it was because Nogie was hurt. Jalen Warren is a pipe dream. And I love Jailen Warren, but it's just not going to happen. Like, they're going to give the ball to Najee, like 30. times a game. Jalen Warren's going to get four touches and it's going to be exciting. It's the Zeke Pollard thing all over

again. I'm not saying he's as good as Pollard, but I'm saying like, we're all going to want Jaylon Warren to get more touches as it's not going to have it. I'm looking at our tiers right now. And we've got, I mentioned the first two tiers. And we've got Nick Chubb, Derek Henry, Tony Pollard, Travis E.T. and Ramandre Stevenson. And basically what I'm looking at when I look at Najee,

it's not that I don't like them. I'm saying, should we really have Breesall and Naji Harris in the same tier? That's what I'm wondering. Well, the only, I mean, I think Breece Hall would be, oh, wait, you're saying Noggi Harris up. And then suddenly it's Naji with like Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, I guess Gibbs at the head of it, Ken Walker.

Yeah, but Joe Mixon is only there because of the potential suspension. He wouldn't be there. Like, he's really with Aaron Jones, he's with Jemir Gibbs, and he's with Ken Walker. Does that sound right? Yeah, I hate Ken Walker, but yes. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. What do you hate Kenny Walker? I just genuinely don't under, this is a different conversation. So again, Ken Walker,

second rounder last year. Jeff draft another second rounder this year. I love Ken Walker. Me too. All right. Here's my question. So right now we have Ken Walker ranked 24th. We have Jack Sharbonne 823rd.

That's mostly in line with like, that's, that's not crazy. D.K., here's my question. Who's more likely to like be the, get receiving work by like midway through the season? Zach Charbonnet or Ken Walker? Who's more likely to get, well, and like when you say he's more likely to get receiving work, there's a lot of shades of gray in there. Who's on the field? Probably, probably Charbonnet.

Who's more likely, like, mid-season? Who's more likely to get goal line touches? Like, it's third and goal at the two. They're going to run it. Who's going to get the ball? Charbonnet or Walker. I lean Walker, but I suppose there is a question mark there. There's a lot of question marks, but it comes to sex.

I just lean on, again, this is going back to what we talked about earlier. I think Kenneth Walker is just way better. I know. I just think he's a way better player. They're both seconded up. That's all. maybe we should move Sharveney up a little bit. I mean, I feel like, so where are we at,

where are we relative to consensus with Walker? Are we right around? We're not that off. We got them 24th, so we're a little bit above consensus, and that's my fault mainly. But I don't know, to me, just watching Walker, everything you look at last year. So I actually put these stats together.

Last year, despite not starting like the first four or five games because Rashad Penny was ahead of him, he finished 11th among running backs and yards, 1,050. He had nine touchdowns, which was tied for ninth. He was 12th in PFF rush grade, fifth and rushes of 15 plus yards. So he was ripping off explosive runs. Second and breakaway rate, so he was turning runs into 15 plus yard rushes on like a higher rate than all but one person. And then he had 50 fours of his tackles, which is 12th. He's like a top 12 running back. And that was on, that was despite missing like the first four or not missing, but not being a

starter for the first like four or five weeks. And so I don't know. To me, he's just the talent is going to show out. People have been bringing up the success rate thing, and I think that's it's a valid critique of his style of running, but like, Sequin Barclay is a boomer-russ runner. Like, there's a lot of guys that are boomerous runners.

He's still like way, way. To me, he's just so much better than Charbonnet. I think Charbonnet is a good player. Yeah, but you're making the classic mistake of someone who, like, loves and watches football, which is like, it's not about good players. It's about which random footballs.

It's about dumb coaches. Tumbles under the end zone 18 times. Well, it's funny that you bring up Jabal Williams, though. Like, I could see a similar breakdown in terms of how the Seahawks do it as the way that the Lions did it with Williams and DeAndre Swift, where Swift is like the Sharpen A in this one where he's getting like far fewer snaps. He's getting, but he's getting like high value touches. So I guess it is going to be up to Walker to get into the end zone. But I think he just rips off so many explosive runs that he's not going to get it. He's not going to need as much elite volume because he's going to be more efficient.

You know what I mean? He's in the J.K. Dobbins. But I have two questions for you. If the season happens 10 times, how many of those 10 are Charbonnet and Walker more or less equal or is Charbonnet even better out of 10 times? How many times is Charbonnet better? More or less, like it's a wash, straight up. I guess like one or two.

I don't know. My point being is 100 spots later. And so it's like Ken Walker, you're going to take him over, like take him over Breeze Hall, taking him over Olave, take him over Patrick Mahomes. I just, I don't know. I'm out on Ken Walker this year. Okay. that's fair.

I can't say that I'm without concern about Kenneth Walker. Again, to me, it's just more like my conviction that he's a fucking really good player. You know what I mean? That's just like where I am with it. I understand coaches are dumb. You can never assume coaches are going to be the most logical people. Yeah, the coach drafted Zach Sharpene. It's because they needed running backs.

It's not because of Kenneth Walker's success rate. You know, like, I just don't buy that. All right. I hate it when mom and dad fight. I didn't say success rate. He's arguing with random people on Twitter. Well, I'm arguing. Yeah, I am arguing with random people.

I'm not saying that the success rate is irrelevant. I'm just saying I don't think that's why they picked Charbonnet. I don't think it's going to keep Kenneth Walker off the field. And Kenneth Walker's ripping off explosives. That's what Pete Carroll wants. Kenneth Walker moves like a boxer. His feet, he's got like Muhammad Ali feet. You know, he like shuffles?

Absolutely. He runs like he runs like he's on a elliptical. His legs just move differently. It's very strange. He's way faster than he looks. Craig, you take Ken Walker or Jalen Hertz. Okay, all right. All right, we're going to move him down.

Great. D.K., give us another guy. Let's see here. Who we got next? Rashad White. To me, this is a very interesting player this year. He was a guy that I was pretty excited about coming into last year. He ended up doing kind of well as a rookie in terms of at least the volume and the amount

he was playing. He had a bunch of catches last year, at 50 catches, which was the last year. which was 11th among running backs. But if you look at his rushing efficiency, it was really bad. So he's sort of, I guess, the opposite in terms of Kenneth Walker, where his role, I think, is going to be pass catcher. He's like a DeAndre Swift type player

where you're not going to get a ton of efficiency as a runner. He might not even get very much volume as a runner. So he's the rare bad player on a bad team. Well, I think he's good at catching passes. Port can of Los Dose. He is good at catching passes. And that's why ultimately I'm kind of excited about him, even though he's on a bad team and he's not, he had bad rushing stats as a rookie. I think just the passing game usage is going to be so important and so like useful, especially in half PPR and PPR.

I mean, to be fair, the rushing stats, it's the Rothusberger syndrome where Brady took everything in shotguns so they didn't really have like a great running game because it was like the box. The old park and bark. Park and Piedel. I like the Adele is definitely never been compared to Ben Rothensberger before. It's definitely never happened. Last year, Rashad White, 68% of his points in PPR came from his receiving work. So that kind of tells you about how his season was. He was 12th among running backs and targets with 50, he had 50 catches, 290 yards.

Not very efficient as a pass catcher. But, you know, at least he's getting the volume there. And I think whether it's Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask, which we don't know what that's going to be. This is obviously like a tough situation. But neither of those guys are run first quarterback. So in theory, dumping it off to running backs, using them in the passing game. This offense isn't going to be, I don't think, super explosive down the field where they're ignoring their running back. So I don't know.

He's one of those guys that's going to be in an egg but going into drafts, I think. I don't know how I'm going to feel about drafting him, but I do think he has that upside. And he's being underrated because everyone's talking about how bad he was as a rusher. You know what I mean? We have Rashad White 60th overall. So right next to Cam Acres. Is that too high? What do you think?

too low. I think it's pretty like he says he's going to be even they saw basically the barring they sign like an Ezekiel Elliott which could totally happen. I think it's totally that's a pretty good range. If anything, it's probably, if you actually get him at 60, it's pretty good. Craig's super skeptical. Craig could not look more skeptical of this. I don't know.

He just seems like a real in theory guy. Like in theory Rashad White could have a good year. I'm like, can you name the other running backs on the roster? Don't cheat. Oh, that's a good take. Chase Edmonds? Yep. Who got benched last year because he was so freaking terrible on the dolphins.

I will go to the grave thinking Chase Edmonds is good. Chase Edmonds gets a bet. He got benched because they signed him for a system that he had never done. Go watch him last year. I mean, I'm just saying he looked terrible. Don't they have the other rookie they got, Kashan Vaughn? Yeah, but he's like in his third year now. He's had a tough go of it.

Every running back has really on the box other than Leonard Fornett, who also like isn't really like good. Didn't have a great go. What? He won a Super Bowl. He scored the winning touchdown at a Super Bowl. Yeah, I guess that's fine. So, he didn't get.

Touchdown, Lenny. Playoff Lenny. Sky Moore also scored a touchdown to Super Bowl. I mean, you know, things happen. Who? Oh, Scottie. Scottie Miller? Sky Moore.

Oh, Sky Moore. Okay, okay. He's on the Kansas City Chiefs. What just happened? What was that? You were talking over it probably is what happened. They also have Sean Tucker, an untrafted free agent, who is like the biggest threat to him of all the running back.

So I'm saying like, The situation is pretty good for a shot white relative to guys who would have, like, better players behind him, if that makes any sense. I don't want anything to do with Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask. That's probably fair. Again, once again, Kyle Trasked. Did you guys do this? And your phone, is it just made, like his, he auto corrects to trash. It's Kyle Trash.

Tried. Please take out your phones and try this right now. That's tough. You know that Apple got rid of the fucking turning into ducking? Oh, thank God. Time. I know. What were they doing?

That was a problem, like, in high school. Protecting the children. Craig. I think they did it on purpose because, like, they made a whole, like, the app store doesn't have, like, porn apps. Like, they really want Apple to be, like, the family thing. And I think they just kind of clung to it. Porn apps?

Are there porn apps? No, there's not. I'm saying, like, Apple, like, a porn app. Is that something you're in search of, hyphitz? No, I'm just saying that they're a family. No, a little bit of pause there. What are you talking about? I have a girlfriend.

Exactly. Yeah. Flex. Don't need one. Girlfriend. No. Okay. Hey.

No one, no one pulled. the phone for Kyle Trask. Were we really supposed to do that? It felt like rhetorical. I believe that it happens. It's such a classic Hyvitz move to make us do this. Yes, it does go to trash. I'm just saying.

I refuse to do it. I'm going to trust Craig on this one. Okay, so Hyphitz, where are you at? Craig's out. I'm out. I think Baker's going to... No, I'm in. I'm in on Rashad White.

Enjoy. Enjoy the Baker Mayfield. We'll see if they signed Zeke. That would be a bummer. Oh, yeah. Why would they sign Zeke? I feel like that's the last thing they need. Have you seen NFL teams, Craig?

Well, I think the real answer is like, he does all the unsexy things that they'll get fantasy points. Like, Zeeke's like top five blocking running back. He falls forward for three and a half yards on every run. Zeke needs to go to a team with a quarterback who doesn't want to get hit. Kishon Vaughn is the only thing between the bucks and Kyle Trash starting running back if Baker gets hurt. Honestly, the Jets should assign Zique. Why?

Because then he could fill in for Brise Hall. can block for Aaron Rogers. It's great. He can be the... I think the Jets have like really good running back. They got Michael Carter. They got Zonovan Knight.

They tried to draft Jemir Gibbs, apparently. That would have been funny. Yeah. All right. I don't know. He should just be on a team where he can like play for a vet quarterback and the team's good and he can like play 40% of the snaps. Chargers, honestly.

Sure. Yeah. The Chargers have been searching for an RB2 for like a decade. It feels like they just need somebody. And he's slow enough that he can play for them. Did he somehow faster than Josh Kelly? Yeah. All right.

Any other guys, D.K.? I'd like to talk about DeAndre Swift really quickly. What's the temperature check on DeAndre Swift going into next year? Just him? Are you interested in just him or the Penny Swift combo meal? I guess Penny Swift and Kenny Gainwell. Like, what do we do with this backfill? I guess is my question.

Are we confident about DeAndre Swift? Do we think he's actually going to be in basically the exact same role as last year? My questions with him, too, are can he, stay healthy. Same goes for Rashad Penny. Number two, what happens to his, because he came into this, he came into last year as the past catching guy.

That's what his role was. He was much, much better as a past catcher. He actually was the RB21 last year for the Lions and half PPR points per game, despite carrying the ball just 93 times. He only had 93 carries last year, and he was still the RB21. But largely because he was very good in the passing game. Now, he's

on a team that their running back, or sorry, their quarterback is essentially a running back. He's not going to drop the ball off probably too much to the running backs. He's not going to, you know, I could see DeAndre Swift being kind of irrelevant in the passing game, and does that make him irrelevant, period? Like, I just don't know what to do with DeAndre Swift. I think he's a good player. I was confused why I have Rashad Penny over DeAndre Swift,

and I don't think, I think you guys have the opposite. I wanted to know why. Like, in this offense where running backs don't catch passes, and we saw like that, if you're talented on the ground, you can work with Jalen Hertz and kind of, I know Mao Sanders had that zero touchdown thing, but like in terms of like the yardage and the opportunity,

to me it just makes way more sense that if, if Rashad Penny and DeAndre Swift are healthy, that Rashad Penny is going to have the better season. Yeah. So we have DeAndreux 75th at fantasyfifle dot the rea.com. We have Rashad Penny 82nd. We're actually smushed them together. They're actually further apart.

And like if you look elsewhere, like consensus at Fantasy Pro Swift's actually like 601. And then like Penny is actually like, almost 90th. If you could time travel to the end of the season, I think Rashad Penny will be way better. Basically, it's, yeah, I assume, D.K., you're going to say, no one thinks Penny will be healthy. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. No one, no one believes that Penny can stay healthy throughout the whole year. And plus, if you follow the money, they gave Boston Scott more guaranteed money than they gave Rashad Penny. What are we doing here? I think follow the money, though,

at running back is a mistake sometimes. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes. He didn't get guaranteed money because he's hurt. Like, like, it's the injury stuff that's preventing. The chicken or the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But here's my thing. I think with an injury from player like Rashad Penny, that scares me when you're talking about like a top 40 player, top 50 player. Like JK Dobbins last year. I'm like, why am I signing up for all this risk?

Yeah. In the top 50. When we start talking about the 80s, that's about when you start pivoting from I would like players. You know, in the early rounds, you're kind of like, I want this guy to not make me feel dumb when I look back at this draft in three months. Then you get to the 80s and you're like, oh, these are the people who won me my league. And Penny could lead the league in rushing. It wouldn't surprise me. Can we talk about how far this podcast has come?

The first time we ever really argued was about Rashad Penny because I hated him and you guys loved him. And now D.K's like out on Rashad Penny. And I'm just like, I think if you're talking about like players, the select group of guys that actually win you a league, if Rashad Penny played 15 or 16 or 17 games, I don't think anyone actually disagrees that he probably have 1,400 or 1,500 yards. So suddenly we're like, oh, maybe the guy drafted 85th will get hurt. Okay, so whatever. He's your ninth round pick. Who cares? But if he stays healthy, you can win.

Craig is high. Craig is by far the highest on Penny. By the way, I'm a little higher than you are on Penny for the record. San Diego State sticks together. Go, go, go, Tex. I'm not out on Penny. I just, uh, I just think this is a tough backfield to predict. And so, um, I'm a little tepid on all of them.

My problem with DeAndre Swift, cool name, cool player. I'm out. You'll never get a discount on a cool guy with a cool player that just went to the team that was in the Super Bowl. It's all too sexy. I still think he's actually good. I think his team hated him for some reason. But it's bonk.

It's not like he's the picture of health, DeAndre Swift. Does he ever play the full season? Correct. Well, that's part of the reason they traded him is because he couldn't, he wouldn't play through injury. How dare he? It's just bonk written all over it. It's just bonk everyone on Deandre Swift.

You guys want to get into, we didn't talk about Europe last week. We could do that. We got crazy emails. And then also, I've tried to avoid this. It's been a week. So people are probably tired of this. Producer Kai wanted to explain baby gronk to me. I've tried to avoid this all day.

It just has really blown. up in the last 20 hours and I've have you guys digested baby grok? Yeah, listen my group chat has been a buzz today about baby drunk. It's been a week. Can you explain for us boomers who baby gronk

is? Because I feel like there's been a lot of baby gronks like Pat Friermuth was supposedly baby crog. Then you get like Michael Mayer at baby grok. I don't know. People call everybody who's like big baby grong. Okay, Dekin definitely hasn't seen these videos. This is like a young child. No, I know. He's like 10 years old or something? What is this?

What's going on with this kid? Honestly, I won't be able to do it justice. I don't know everything about baby grog. So, Hyvitz, if you want to take it, if we want to have Kai come in. Kai, jump in here. Come in. Baby Gronk, I'm reading for the athletic. Social media sensation. We're in 315,000 followers. He's a 10-year-olds, as opposed to the next big thing in college football recruiting.

Long story short, sounds like his dad really wanted to play college football and is now living out his dreams, like curiously through his son. He got rizzed up by Livy. Rizzed up by Livy. Kai, can you explain to us? Zoomer guy can explain Rizzed up by Livy means? Honestly, that's even before my time.

But all I know is that baby Gronk is the truth. He's a legend. A little kid that just has like, like you said, what did you say 500,000 followers on Instagram? I don't know. What position does he play? Running back, I think. I don't know.

Football player. Yeah, it came across my Twitter feed and I just can't get enough. And like there's a TikTok series where this guy, I don't know his name. I don't even have TikTok. But this guy literally just looks dead face into the camera and just repeats baby gronk did this, baby gronk did that,

and it's just, it's just hilarious. I don't know. You have to watch it. The explanation does not do it justice at all. It's been a week so people have probably seen this by now because we're recording this June 8th. I will just, can I just read a quote from his father? I've had a plan for my son since before he was born. It's playing out now.

Oh, God. And he got raised up by Livy. Who's Livy? Livy is a, I believe, a gymnast at LSU. who's like famous on TikTok, NIL, whatever. And I guess he visited Ellis. And Rizda means to like, you know, seduce them or whatever. It took me years to find out maybe a year and a half to find out Riz is short for charisma.

So that's something for you. I didn't know that for a while. I mean, I knew that. So Riz is, so Riz can be used as like a noun and a verb. Like I've got Riz. It's versatile. It's versatile. De A Jage has Riz, but I'm out on Riz guys.

It's like to charm somebody, you Riz him up. Right. Okay. God, Jesus Christ, we're looking up Rizzed in the dictionary. What idiots are we? I'm glad this is why I'm brought on. I'm very, very happy to be like the baby gronk truth are here.

I feel honestly, Kai, when we're in Europe, the word Riz was thrown around quite a bit by our group. We're up with it. We're with it. I feel like Austin threw around. Yeah, 90% of that it had to be. Yeah, for sure.

Austin was risen all of us up. I've never felt older. than right now. Do we want to talk about the Europe stuff? Give me a break here. Hi Fitz. Come on. Yeah. Where did you guys go in Europe? Oh, Kai left. Should we flame Kai for a moment? Kai's like peace. I'm out. I just thought my job was done. We were done with baby Grock. I didn't know I don't feel like we really know anything more about baby Gron. But that's the best part. I still don't know anything about baby Gron. It's so boomer of you that you want to learn about it. You know, you're supposed to kind of see it and move on.

To be clear, I'm not a boomer. I just want to throw that out there. Boomer thing to say. Who are you trying to convince? Me think he protests too much. So you don't want a porn app? I don't want to what? Nothing.

Are you using millennial slang with me again? He said you don't want a porn app. Oh. Anyway, Kai, we were out to dinner. Can I embarrass you, Kai? Oh, please. I love it. Let's go.

We found out that Kai has less than a diverse range of, diet. A limited palate. It's a very nice way to put it, honestly. A highly limited palette. Can you give us your Chipotle order? Yeah, I just get rice and chicken, extra rice, white rice, and nothing else.

How much does that cost? Is it the same price? Yeah, it's the same price. I used to get extra chicken too because that got a little too expensive, so I was just like, we'll just stick with the extra rice, which is free. We hung out the whole week, the whole week, all of us hung out. But I think Austin was like truly losing his mind hanging out with Kai all week.

Austin could not handle Kai's food orders. I remember distinctly at one point on one, at one dinner, Austin and I both ordered steak and Kai got a steak too. Austin orders medium rare. I ordered medium and then Kai orders well done. Medium well. Medium well. Okay.

Which is not a thing in Europe. And Austin just looks at me because I'm going to kill this fucking guy. Who brought this guy? just broke it after that one, yeah. That was the straw that broke the camel's back on that one. But yeah, that was great. He just, he doesn't like flavor. He literally, I think you literally said you don't like flavor.

He did say that. That was a quote. Not a fan, you know. Actually dislikes flavor. You must fucking hate Guy Fierry. I know cooking shows not really my bag. Flavor Town. They don't really have a lot on, they don't have a lot on Pop-Tarts on those shows,

so I don't really know what there is to glean from that. Oh, my God. You're like a grilled cheese, chicken tenders. I don't like cheese, but chicken tender. He doesn't like cheese. Not a grilled cheese guy. It's too much flavor. Chicken tenders, yeah.

It's too spicy. Bread, it's too spicy. Well, the Swedish meatballs we had were very, very under-seasoned. Wait, hold on, hold on, wait. We have to tell this story. So we, I think, did I skip the part? We went to Stockholm. Spotify, like, flew us out.

We went to this whole thing. And we went to dinner. We went six people. It's six people. Table for six. This is a busy restaurant. He says, yeah. He said, I don't have table for six.

I have two, two, two. I'm like, yeah, that works. That's cool. That's fine. We're coming in off the street. We'll eat. Yeah. Puts us at stadium seating.

So it's Craig and Liz are like above. Just larding above us. He and I are next to each other. And the guy below. We're looking up trying to have a conversation up and below. And like my feet are like under Haifitz's butt, essentially. Heavis is like sitting up against my legs and then Austin is like sitting up against

Hyphitz's leg one level down. It was like we were at the smallest concert ever. Sean Fennessee walked in and looked like he was in a fever dream. Every ringer employee that walked in because there was a few people making their way through. Everyone that looked at us just started busting up laughing and taking pictures, which is always a good sign, right? Like you're doing something that's cool, I think. We were just eating also.

Yeah. I think he was good. The laughing and pointing, like that means they like us, right? Yeah. Yes. I think so. Okay. Yeah.

That's what I thought. Craig, you also, you went to London. I did for the first time. You told me you had London takes, and I told you to save them for the show. It's just better New York. Let's be honest here. It's just better New York. We tried to make our London, and we failed.

Did you go to York? Is York better than New York? I didn't go to York. Okay. I don't know where that is. So it's in England. I've never been to the UK. Jesus.

It's an England. England. So the new ones in the United States, but the old ones in England. It's wonderful. You know, the walkability, New York is like very walkable, but also the actual walking experience is kind of a disaster. You know, you're just like, there's a million people underwear. It's like a thousand degrees. It's like a homeless guy trying to stab you. There's like bird shitting on you. You're getting dripped on by air conditioning. Scaffolding is everywhere. Europe, dude, I was cruising around Soho and you're just like, man, it is Tuesday at 3 p.m. and there's just like a bunch of lads standing outside the pub having a beer

And everybody's drinking and hanging out smoking cigarettes There's motorcycles everywhere there's pastries everywhere Pastries They figured out paying the bill in Europe by the way In America we don't know how to pay a bill The paying the bill situation is a disaster here They are so good All they do is they walk up to you

The tip is already included You don't have to worry about the tip They just hand you something You tap your card you leave That's it. How is Greece? I was going to just skip that You want to just do emails?

No, how is Greece? Give me two, two, give me one minute on Greece. Yeah. It's incredible. Santorini is like the most beautiful place in the world. Paris Santorini. It's incredible. How was the food in Greece?

I was actually thinking of you, Craig, because you, you love Mediterranean foods, like your favorite food, right? I feel like I did your honeymoon for you before your honeymoon. He's scouting it out. I just scouted it. It was incredible. Yeah, good. Give me notes.

Grilled fish and just Greek salad could live on it. Unbelievable. With the feda on top? Oh, the fed up. Dude, they come out and they like bring you the fish. Like the raw, big old fish is like, let us know which. Like, you look at the menu, you're like, I don't know. What do you think?

And they're like, here. And they just bring you like eight fish. And they're like, you want this one? You want that one? Let me know. You speak. I got to say, why the hell does America not do pastries well? Like everywhere in Europe, the amount of pastries in Europe is staggering.

Every other store sells like the best pastry you've ever had. You walk around L.A. and I get it. It's L.A. Everyone's trying to be healthy. But, like, man, the lack of pastries in this country and the lack of good ones is disappointing. I didn't realize. I can't believe America has been outbuttered. But, man, the butter is better.

How is that? How have we let this happen? We've fallen behind. I know what behind in math and science and all these things. Do the Aaron Sorkin speech. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sorry.

The Arsonson newsroom. But for fucking, we're losing on butter. Chocolate. How do we lose all the shit? How do we lose all the shit? Come on. We got no job. No food.

Our pet. Hits are falling off. That was a dumb and dumber joke. Fell off the jetway again. Yeah, man. I don't know. I don't get it. People eat cereal here for breakfast.

You know, it's like the thing. What would you say, what would you say is the stereotypical American breakfast? Oh, I don't know. Maybe a Pop-Tart. Okay. Too spicy. I'm a big cinnamon toast crunch fan.

I bet you are. I don't know how Kai's alive right now. He literally told me verbatim. I don't really like flavor. Incredible quote. It's like flavor. Kai, what about juice? Kaya is a fucking gem.

Guy is the best guy. Not the biggest juice guy. No. I do love some Dr. Pepper though. Dr. Pepper. What's funny is like you do like cinnamon toast crunch is incredibly flavorful and

Dr. Pepper is extremely flavorful. So let me amend my previous statement. I either like no flavor or all the flavor. There we go. I think that covers it. No in between. I don't think you know enough about flavors to make that claim. It's a fair point.

You like like canned. Andy. Oh, yeah. Austin was going to kill you because he kept saying, like, I like cookies. She's like, yeah, no shit. Everybody likes cookies. But like curry has a lot of flavor. I don't know if you would love curry. No. If you like Dr. You know what I mean? Like, there are differences there. Yeah, maybe I need to think on it more. I need to get a better, better logline for me. I loved it. It made things way more exciting and fun. Just like the anticipation of waiting for Kai to order was so much fun. Kai, can you please rank, can you make a top 10 power rankings of your favorite foods and then we'll read them on the next pod. Yeah, yeah, I'll do it. I got you. What if we do a bit every single week during the regular season? Kai tries a new food. Oh, I hate this.

I hate this a lot. I'm passing this on because this used to be my bit. They made me try oysters in Indianapolis. Oh, that's, which is so fucking funny because you live a state that borders the ocean. I live like 10 minutes away from one of the most famous oyster farms in the state. Oysters in Indianapolis sounds like an album. Dude, I thought I was going to get sick. I was legitimately concerned.

It was like in this basement restaurant. You had to go downstairs. There was like shavings on the floor. It felt like we were going into Hooters. Shavings? Yeah, like wood shavings on the floor. So they don't have to like sweep up or something. I don't know.

You know how you go into restaurants and there's like peanuts everywhere? Yeah. Five guys? Yeah, I do that, yeah. I have a controversial take. Oysters are fucking gross. What are we doing? That's not controversial.

I agree. I thought so too and then one day it'll have. Greg, you're close. You're dealing with general contractors. I've had an oyster. There are so many better things. It's like when you have to cover it and like saracha and parmesan,

it's like maybe it's not good. It happens when you get older. Look, you just had a zoomer explained riszed up. You know what I mean? Like, life changes. Like I like martini style. Like that's fucking weird. Oh yeah.

Hifitz loves ordering, what is it, Dirty Martini two olives? We're the same age. Heifitz. I would just, you know what? I like oysters and martinis. You'll get there.

All right. Okay. I think it's an East Coast thing. I think if you're from the East Coast. Yeah, probably. Do you want to do emails? I didn't say douchebag.

That was you, but it was implied. Yeah, let's do an email or two. A couple notes. We asked for celebrity couples last week. We somehow forgot Russ Russell Wilson and Sierra. I don't know how we forgot that. That's because they're that boring.

I know. Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian, we also left out, which I forgot about. But wow. That was a while ago. I'd also like to just shout out Samantha who last week we were talking about Flex my girlfriend Jackie dropped the body of Christ

to church and we were talking about that and then Samantha said my phone must have been listening in on me because I got an ad on Facebook today and it's for a communion cup with wafers and she's like it's not like I'm walking around googling like Body of Christ like how do I get body of Christ in me

so that's weird that 100% happens email us or ringer fantasy football gmail.com for our podcast has ever led to other weird targeted ads but I want to read one email from Mike. Mike. Mispronunciations. Mickey.

So again, we've been talking about mispronunciations, missayings, all that. Roughly 15 years ago, I was a fresh-faced college graduate. It took an entry-level IT job at a medical organization. After about six months, I gave a presentation at our corporate office and some changes that we were making to cut costs. Looking back at it now, I realized I was a lamb to the slaughter because the changes were unpopular, but I did not know that at the time. So there I was trying to.

my best to get through this presentation amidst an increasing chorus of people discontent, grumbling, and looking annoyed. And as the complaints reached a crescendo, the lead doctor and CEO finally raised his hand and stopped me. He stood up and trying to throw me a life raft to calm down the crowd, says to everybody, all right, folks, let's take a breath and look at this from the 10,000 foot view. And instead of me just shutting up and letting this man bail me out, I immediately say, absolutely, that's a great idea. I then proceed to turn around,

walk over to the huge floor to ceiling window, stare out the window and say, that is a beautiful view. Oh, no. You got to quit. I want to quit on the spot. Just keep walking.

Just keep going. Don't stop. Don't look back. It's actually really funny. Like, if he had, like, pretended like you meant to do that, that would have been even better. That's like an arrested development bit.

Yeah. He says, I continued to stare out the window for a few more seconds. And then I turned around to a bewildered crowd. I then realized the CEO did not literally mean to look at the view. And then at my soul left my body. I have secondary anxiety or whatever you call it. Like, empathetic anxiety. Like that is awful.

That is terrible. Secondhand embarrassment. You got to. I hope you quit, Mike. I hope you immediately just moved across the country. Move to a new city and start a new family. Change your name. It's too late.

It's too late. Wait, have you already had a family, leave them. Yeah, I know. Don't bring anything like connecting you to that city. You guys don't watch for good morning, but it's like, we got to start over, Morty. Witness protection. Don't fuck us close.

They should have witness protection for like really embarrassing moments. That's the next tech startup, Craig. Instead of like reinventing the bus, let's just do witness protection for people that are just what out of their life. Did you absolutely ruin your social life in a really embarrassing way? Come to us. Did you shit your pants at work? You know.

Wait. Should it be like a dating app, but you could switch lives with someone else who did something embarrassing? Oh, wow. That's good. Cringe. Wow. Cringe. Instead of hinge, it's cringe.

Oh, that's good. My God. Oh, my God. I really like that. Thank you, Mike, for opening up. Shut up, Mike. There's also, we also run a little long here, but we do. you'd also get an answer to the question last week about what everyone's waiting for.

When you're fasting for 40 days, if you don't eat food for 40 days, do you poop out your fat? Or do you pee it out? That's how you lose weight, right? You have to, you have to expel the weight. You're burning something. So you're an answer from Josh. Josh. Thank you, Josh.

Is Josh, I'm sure is Josh qualified to get his answer? He's an AP bioteacher. The answer is neither. You breathe it out. What? What? Josh says, I'm an AP biology teacher. This is right up my alley.

Poop is the unabsorbed remains of your food. So all the stuff your body was unable to digest. So how do you lose weight? When your body's breaking food down and provide energy for yourselves, carbon dioxide is created as the byproduct of the burn. The carbon dioxide is released when you breathe out. That's why exercise helps you lose weight. The more you exercise, the more energy your cells need,

the more carbon dioxide you get rid of. So the too long don't read is poop's what we can't use. And the stuff we do use, you breathe out. That's interesting. I've never heard this. Did you fact check him? It sounds unbelievable.

I think it's true. I mean, I'm sure it's true. He's AP bioteacher, but like, I've never heard that. That's interesting. So when you burn the fat in your body while you're exercising, the CO2 that you release is a byproduct of burning the fat in your body. So what if you're not working out and you're just breathing? That CO2 is not coming from.

Well, you're still using energy to literally function, like to breathe and to have. have your heartbeat and all that. So it is burning a little bit of, but you're probably taking it in way more than you're needing. I can't wait for the next diet craze to just be like breathing fast. Just breathe hard. The new diet craze, hyperventilating. Grab a brown paper bag and go nuts.

It makes more sense than not eating for 40 days. Let's be honest. Honestly, anything does. Remember the like vibrating belt from like the 80s? That makes more sense. Just jiggle it around. So Russell Okung, who said he fasted for 40 days, let's be real. He probably had to eat at night, right?

Probably left that out. So somebody who tweeted just said that he was probably eating at night and just not He didn't mention that. Got off on a technicality. I signed up for AkungFest.com. Here's the day two newsletter. Can I read you a little tidbit? You saw how he fell in love with idolatry?

It's quite the thing. With idolatry? Yeah. If I'm honest, I loved deceit. I didn't want to know. Deception was an intoxicating drink that never left its cup empty. I would continue to drink from its chalice for the next 20 years. of my life. My entire existence was built upon it, but I knew I needed to break free. I lied. I cheated.

I stole to stand atop of her altar. I often thirst for her. Are we talking about eating? What the fucking weight? He's talking about, I think, the concept of being worshipped by other people. Her lips drip honey. Her speech is smoother than oil. She gave me the world. And what's worse, she gives you your world. Okay. And then he's like, anyway, so I just like jogged a bunch. Don't do this diet. Anyway. That's all we got. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Thank you, Kai. Thank you, Austin, for being here in spirit. Thank you, Russell O'Coon for the Coonfast.

I'm not hungry, I got to say. Fantasyf Football.com. Have updated ranks for you. I think actually, we're recording this head at time. I think now. Check out fantasyfurtle.com. We got updated ranks. Thank you, Lord.

Lauren. Thank you, Adele for just standing there. Parking and barking. Barking and barking. That was one of the big, like, arguments against Rihanna's. a halftime show when she was pregnant. She wasn't like dancing around as much as normal. No, she had a little...

People need to chill out. She's pregnant. She had her little park and bark, a levitating platform. She was going up and down. Yeah. So that was impressive. She moved a little bit.

She had some subtle gyrations. She's like kicking and stuff, yeah. To get the crowd in a tizzy. Yeah, she got me pregnant. I will say, live, watching it live, it kicked ass. I think everybody was a little bit shocked that when we were in our post Super Bowl show,

like talking about how awesome it was. because I don't think it translated as well to TV. People didn't like it. Watching it live was sick. I think it was popular. I mean, 100 million people saw it. So I think there will always be people. People are going to have takes in this world.

Pretty incredible if 100 million people were like, yeah, great. Shut that, Adele. Keep barking and barking. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. All, goodbye, everyone.