The Ringer NFL Show - 2025 QB Arguments, Mahomes Off Mount Rushmore, Caleb Curiosity, and a Our Friend Gerg

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

The guys fight over the most interesting fantasy quarterbacks heading into next season and place them into categories, including the hardest to rank, the hipster pick, sleepers, and much more! Plus, emails! (00:00) Intro (01:41) The top-4 QBs (06:24) Hardest to rank (17:06) BONK! (22:13) The hipster (28:18) Sleepers (35:08) Post-hype sleepers (40:38) Teammates we aren’t sure how to rank (46:33) The Ricky Bobby guys (49:46) Flaccid picks (57:11) Emails! Check out our 2025 Ringer Fantasy Football Rankings here! Email us! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Kai Grady and Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you hear the word Seattle Supersonics, what comes to mind? Maybe it's Sean Kemp, The Rain Man, or Gary Payton, the glove, or maybe an image of a tall and skinny 19-year-old rookie, Kevin Durand. For fans in Seattle, it's something else. It's tragedy. It's theft. An iconic team with an incredible fan base that packed its bags and shipped off for Oklahoma City. From Spotify and The Ringer, I'm Jordan Ritter-Con.

And in my podcast, Sonic Boom, I talk to players, politicians, owners, and fans about how Seattle lost the Sonics. You can listen to it on the Book of Basketball feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hyford. And today we are joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck. And today we are going to argue about all the quarterbacks in the 2025 season. Well, not all of them, but our fantasy rankings for them.

We're going to go through a bunch of different categories on just everything we started with the quarterbacks are going to preview the 2025 fantasy. season. But it's May and honestly full transparency. We're recording this May 12th. It's probably going to be released next week, but we recorded it last week. So if anything crazy or dramatic changes, that's why, D.K., I feel like there are clearly four guys at the top in fantasy. And it's like not even remotely close. And there's like a chasm. And there's like Jalen Hertz. And there's Josh Allen and there's Lamar Jackson and there's Jaden Daniels. And then there is like everybody else. And it is May. And I'm going to hold you to this. No matter what you say right now, you have to do it. in your most important fantasy league.

Do you want one of the top four quarterbacks or do you want to just wait? What are you doing this year? I want one of the top four. Give me one of them big ones. Yeah, give me one of them big ones. I want to be part of that. I want to like, and all four of them,

I think when we talk about the quarterback position, the way that it's positioned right now is like the pocket passers, it feels like you're sort of just spinning the wheel and hoping one of them ends up being one of those pocket passers that turns out to be a top 10 quarterback, whereas the top four guys right now, Josh Allen, Jane, Daniels, Lamar, and Hertz,

they just have such a high floor because of they're rushing that I just want a piece of that in my rookie, or in my fantasy team. So, yeah, I am just kind of, you know, the superstar quarterback pilled at this point. I think last year was the year the superstar pocket passer and fantasy football died. Like, I don't know if it's possible to be a pocket passer

and be trapped that as a top three quarterback in fantasy. I don't know what, the consistency that you would literally have to throw for 45 touchdowns every year. to be included in this category. It's true true, because these guys can throw and run, and I won't give my whole spiel right now on just how rules of fantasy are dumb, but they are.

But obviously, as long as running is three times more valuable than passing, like you're going to need it. But there's such a gap to me. I am so like one or the other, but there's clearly just that top four of Jaden Daniels and Hertz and Lamar and Josh Allen. And then you have, I guess, a two-person tier of Joe Burrow and then Mahomes.

And you can put a, other people in there if you want, I guess. Mahomes is just in there for tradition mostly at this point, right? Tradition is a perfect word for it. It's because Mahomes QB7. It's getting grandfathered in. Yeah, exactly. And like, you know, Burroughs really good.

And like, obviously you could, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm not going to come out against Joe Burrow this year. But like, the idea that like Baker Mayfield, like, oh, yeah, I'll take Baker Mayfield with the 70th pick. I just, I just feel like more than other years, this is such a deep year at quarterback. I mean, and we'll get through overall. But like, the depth of pocket passes in the end of,

felt it's like kind of stunning. Frankly, that like six person class last year a quarterback, like just getting those guys, getting a Bo Nix, getting a Michael Penix is going to start. Like Bryce Young coming back and like actually being viable. Like all these people, I feel like we talk about this a lot. But there's a lot of quarterbacks that you actually be like,

oh, I could pick them up off the waiver. Why are you kidding me? So yeah, I feel like it's truly like I want to use my third round pick at a quarterback or my 14th round pick and nothing in between. Right. There's a lovely combination of high floor and high ceiling with those quarterbacks that just every Sunday morning you wake up, having Lamar Jackson is just such a comforting feeling.

It's like a warm cup of tea in the morning where you know you're going to be all right. This is my resolution for fantasy of the season. Not me. No. Craig, he says a warm cup of tea. What do you always say, Craig? You don't need coffee.

You're naturally motivated? Naturally, we'll save this till the end, but there's a new drink I'm into that you're probably going to call me some L.A. yuppie about. But let's get food at the end. Oh, boy. That's a good tease. the I will say I'm trying to incorporate that more into my 2025 season of the idea that you know instead of it mostly being about numbers how about like 93% about numbers and 7% considering it's a feeling in your loins yeah the feeling in the lines but also you're going to be sitting on your couch for like 10 hours 12 hours and sundays for like 18 Sundays with these people and as someone who had jaden Daniels in a bunch of leagues last year do you know how incredible it was to spend time with that motherfucker like you're spending time time with these and there is something to what you're just saying of what's it like having a gun yeah it's like it's like having two cocks that's like i think that's what it's like having one of these guys

in pants a hundred and it's like it's really fun to you know like sunday ticket you get to organize your multi-view right on youtube tv and like you pick the teams of that you know you have fantasy guys on right it's just so fun in the morning to be like i'm i get to put the bills on in the quad box every morning because i have josh allen it's the best so with that said we have some categories here, and we're going to get to them. I want to start with the hardest player to rank. The hardest quarterback to rank as we did. And our rankings are up at fantasy football.org the ringer.com.

And I don't know about you guys. For me, this was very easy. I think the hardest quarterback to rank is like very easily Anthony Richardson. Not hard for me to rank. He's at the bottom. Fair. Fair. Dude, you say that ESPN has

they don't have 32 quarterbacks ranked. They have 25. Anthony Richards is not one of them. He's unranked there. 26th on fantasy pros. That's why it's because he could literally be the worst passer in the world if they run him a lot and he keeps playing. He's going to be good in fantasy.

We said that last year. Like you're, it was a top 70 pick. You're going to like not have him ranked? No, but I'm, no, no. I mean, I obviously am ranking him.

But like he did that last year. He was a horrible thrower and he ran a lot. and he, like, still wasn't that good. No, he didn't know. But his last five games, he had five rushing touchdowns in the five games. Yeah.

Do you want to go back and look at Anthony Richardson's 2024 and in disgust if he was good or not? I, we will have a lot of Anthony Richardson conversations, but I, he's like the definition

of a lottery pick. Like, we always like, oh yeah, those like end spots go upside. Who the fuck is more upside than Anthony Richardson? Like, he's the reason you do all this. he's the reason you get up in the morning is for Anthony Richardson to work out

yeah you need coffee though if you have him but anyway I just I just the hardest player to rank no this is this makes a ton of sense if it's like despite what Craig is saying I think the upside there is so scintillating what he can do if they do end up running him on so last year we went into the year

thinking that he was going to be running a ton but like if you look at the first few first like three or four games that he was in or sorry if you look at the first like five or six games that he played. He was running and scrambling very little relative to what we were expecting. I think that was like a huge sort of wake-up call

to like this is not going to work out what we thought it was going to work out. They were trying to essentially turn him into like a drop-back pass where it felt like he was still scrambling and running a little bit, but this is the design rushes that he had in the first five games, three, two, four, and then he had eight and then back to three. And then later in the season, they started running a whole bunch more. He had 10 the next game, 7.7.

But like the calculus with him is literally what I just said is like if even if he's the worst pastor in the world, which he might be, if they run him a lot and if they make, they build a run game around him, then he could end up being a top three quarterback in fantasy. So this, I think he is really hard to rank. It just depends on what they, how they want to use him. I think he's easy to rank as he should be outside the top 15, but it's easy in that you can draft him as your second quarterback. And then if it works, you plug him.

in. So I don't know if you should like rank him in your top 12, but taking him outside of the top 12 might be smart. I think Richardson's a good example of why we're rankings fail sometimes because it's silly to ask this. This is a dumb question, but it's not. What is a ranking supposed to be in for fan, like an actual draft? Because if you think about it, like you pick a pocket passer. I mean, literally I'm going to go through all of them. These people will probably be better than Anthony Richardson in fantasy. Like I'm just kidding in pocket passers. Joe Burrow, Baker Mayfield, Jared Gough, Justin Herbert, Brock Protees 5, C.J. Strat's 6. Trevor Lawrence is 7. I'll give Drake May as rushing.

Dak Prescott's 8. Two is 9. Michael Pennix is 10. Matt Stafford's 11. Bryce Young, Gino Smith. Like, that's 12 people. I'm not including like the top four. I'm not including Kyler. I'm not including like eight, Bo Nicks, Drake May. So when you get to 23 quarterbacks and like a dozen pocket passes, I don't think I mentioned Jordan Love, that's like 13. at some point

it becomes about scarcity. And so if there were 13 pocket passers, I'd be perfectly happy with. But Anthony Richardson's like one of the two people left on the board that, okay, but what if Anthony Richardson's good? Like, what if he becomes a good quarterback this year? Well, then he's in the top four. Now it's the top five, right?

Like, it's that simple to me. So it's a, like, he probably won't do it, but you could just throw a rock and hit a pot. Dak Prescott's like 18th in this fucking, like fantasy pros. And I'm like, you know what I mean? So at some point, if it's that easy to go get a Dak Prescott, then I don't know. I'm going to have anything that Richardson on my teams.

So you're playing, you're approaching this as like, this is a worthy dart throw, a worthy lottery pick potential. What does your gut tell you? I'll probably suck. That's why I don't know to rank them. I don't know where to rank them. It's a smart bet, but it's going to, but you're going to lose money. I don't know.

Anyway, who's your hardest player to rank D.K.? I think J.J. McCarthy is very difficult to rank going into the season. just because of the situation. That is very specific to him. He was the first round quarterback to miss his entire first season, right? I think I saw that stat. He was the first round quarterback to miss the first season with an injury. And if you look at the environment that he's going into, obviously, really good receivers,

potential to be a really good run game, potential to be a very good offensive line after they redid, basically the entire offensive line this last offseason. And last year, I remember joking around about Sam Darnold, whether or, what he could do in this offense. And I don't even think most people expected Darnold to end up being the starter there until McCarthy got hurt. But Darnold finished the QB11. He averaged 18.1 points per game, which is a pretty good number, honestly, for a non-rushing

quarterback. He had 35 touchdowns of 12 picks. Going back to 2023, Kirk Cousins, 18.7 points per game and eight games before he got hurt. Josh Dobbs averaged 15 points per game and five stars. And that includes two absolutely disastrous games where he had like four points and three points. and basically completely fell apart before he got benched. And then Nick Mullins averaged 18 points.

So between Darnold, Cousins, Dobs, and Mullins, all those quarterbacks are averaging 15, 16, even 18 points a game in this Kevin O'Connell offense. So what do we do with JJ McCarthy? Right now, I think we've got to rank 26th on our board. That's probably too low, and it's partly because of me. I'm kind of like talking myself out of where I've got them. I've got them lower than you guys do. I think fantasy points has him at QB 22. But if things to go right, if things break right from McCarthy this year,

it wouldn't be that surprising to see him end up be a top 12 quarterback because of this offensive system, because of the people around him, because of his potential. I think he also still has a ton of potential. So I just don't know exactly. I think he's appropriately ranked-ish just because there's so many question marks about what he could be. But I think he's the one guy who we could look back and be like,

wow, we were way too low on him considering what offense he's in. Yeah, Kevin O'Connell, the head coach of the Vikings, it does feel like he's icarus a little bit. Like he's flirting with getting ridiculous where it's like Josh Jobs for three weeks, I can make that work. And then he's like, Sam Darnold? Yeah, I can make that work. And now he's like rookie wide rookie JJ McCarthy who like didn't even really need to throw the ball in college coming off a horrible knee injury. And we have no other really good backups. I can make that work.

And it's like, if he pulls this off, like, kudos to him, but there's all, I mean, I might be more willing. I mean, look, he's not going to be anyone's first or probably even second quarterback taken, but you're right, D.K., kind of in the same Anthony Richardson conversation, it's like we've seen these quarterbacks who we don't think are that great, perform at a really high level on the Vikings team under Kevin O'Connell. So it's like, if there ever were like a worthy pocket passing dart throw late in a draft, it might be J.J. McCarthy because of what we've seen.

Jackson Dart has ruined my dart throw. Every time now I hear Dart, I'm just going to think of a fucking Jackson Dart. Craig, who's your hardest quarterback to rank in fantasy? I think it's Mahomes, dude. Mahomes is impossible. I don't know what to do with Mahomes because...

I know. Seriously. Like, he just hasn't... It hasn't... I mean, they've made three straight Super Bowls, and yet in the last two seasons, he was the 12th best quarterback, and last year he was the 11th. And I'm like, I don't know.

Are things that much better with the team? Maybe it's like, you have... Travis Kelsey's coming back, but he's a year older, She Rice is coming off at Torn ACL. You got Xavier Worthy. He's exciting. Marquise Brown. Do they have a run game?

I don't know. It's like this team is a really good defense. I just think he needs 45 touchdowns. And he's kind of just off-brand Joe Burrow now to me, where I'm like, I actually, I feel much more confident that Joe Burrow can repeat last year than I am that Patrick Mahomes can repeat what he did in 2022. At some points about value, what are the odds that you get like a deal on Patrick Mahomes? versus the odds you overpay. More likely you get a deal. Right?

No, I think just generally speaking, Mooms is so fucking famous that like he's always going to be over it. He's always going to be over drafting him based on their expectations. I mean, you guys have him as quarterback six and I have him at, I have ninth. Yeah, and honestly the six is just because I was like,

am I going to put Kyler Murray over my homes? But I should. I should put Kyler Murray over my homes. He's one of those ones you don't think. I feel like he is one of the players in fantasy that we don't think about enough. You know what I mean? Like we don't analyze him enough. We don't pick knits around what his supporting cast.

It's just like, oh, it's Mahomes. Because he was, you know, because he almost three-peated and became, like, the greatest player at, like, the whole Tom Brady's the goat, but Mahomes is a better thing. We were about to do all that. You know, you get wrapped up.

But I think Kyler, I'll move over him, but even then I'm like, I'm going to take Baker over Mahomes. It's kind of fucked up. You're right. It does just feel weird. Like, I don't seriously. You have him ninth.

Who's the eighth quarter? You've Bohnicks over Mahomes? Yeah, yeah, I do. I have Kyler, Bownex, and Caleb. I think that's fair. I think that it starts to get hard. But, yeah, it's, yeah. Also, I can't tell with Mahomes, like, where are we with Mahomes?

In like the superstar mentality life cycle, right? Are we in Mahomes' revenge territory or because he lost in an embarrassing way? Or is it like they actually just went to three straight Super Bowl? This is not revenge time for Patrick Mahomes. They went 15 and 2 last year. Where is he? I can't tell. remember when the, I don't remember what Cavs Warriors finals it was,

but LeBron lost that first one to KD when the KD joined and the LeBron was like Instagram living. He was Instagram living from the gym at like 8 a.m. the next day. I think that's where Mobs is. But like I don't think that's necessarily going to translate now. They're also just like they feel like that veteran team now. Mahomes almost feels like 33 years old even though he's not. It feels like he knows how to pace himself properly.

He doesn't run that much in the regular season. turns it on into playoffs. It's like they can fucking think and dunk their way to 15 and 2. It's a defensive team. It is. So it's like, I just, I don't know. But maybe I'm an idiot. And then it's like, Mahomes has 45 touchdowns.

And it's like, of course, why would you ever bet against Mahomes? A slighted Mahomes. So that's why he's hard to rank. Yeah, you probably right. All right. Nice one here. Let's end every category. And that's why it's hard to rank.

And that's why you always leave a note. And that's why he is a player I am too horny for. Yeah. So, yeah, this is the sixth to midday rankings, the bonk that, yeah, players, he just deal a little bonk for, yeah, the horny police. Players are you a little too horny for, DK. Who's getting your blood going? I mean, it's Jaden Daniels.

I think he's going to be the hardest player to get this year in terms of if you're looking at auction drafts, people are going to be absolutely just going, like, ready to risk it all for Jaden Daniels to be on their team kind of deal. You know, I think the upside of what he can do. with a little bit more weapons around him, Devo Samuel, you know, some of the additions they made to the offensive line, you know, in year two, I think the people, the visions people have in their head of what Jane Daniels could be

in terms of a league wrecker, Lamar Jackson, whatever. I think that's going to be in a lot of people's head. So I think he is going to be the guy that I'm just like way too excited to get, and it's going to cost me too much to get him if that makes sense. I think you nailed it, D.K. I think he's going to be the hottest commodity address. Yeah. I think that the two players we just talked about,

like sometimes you're in an auction league or a Salli Kept league and like, you kind of want to put someone up just because you know your friends will bid on them. Like if, you know, it's a Patriots fan, you have Patriots fans that you really used to put up Tom Brady and have them waste the money on Tom Brady.

The two players you might have to throw up this year and Mahomes and Jan Daniels just because people will have such crazy bidding words just to get Jay and Daniels that, yeah, it's going to be expensive. I think it's Jayne and then honestly Sequin. I think Seekwon and Jay Daniels are the two players that are just the coolest players to have this year.

definitely. But what did you say, D.K.? It's like having two cocks. Right. That's it. Yeah. Craig, what about you? I'm buying the, I'm drinking the Caleb Williams Kool-Aid, and I do feel like he has an incredibly

high ceiling for where you can probably get him. Last year was a terrible disaster. But the upside is, is titillating, to be honest. Like, titillating. Ben Johnson on calling plays. like a massive upgrade to the offensive line. The interior offensive line is way better. The weapons, it's like DJ Moore, Roma Dunesay, Luther Birding, Colquemette, Colston

Loveland. And if you look at last year, which again was a disaster, they fired the coach halfway through, the offensive line was a mess. He led the league in sacks. Like, they couldn't pick up blitzes. It was a disaster. And you still saw Caleb, at least from a fantasy perspective, like the spike weeks were there.

He had five games over 22 points last year. Yeah. The problem is, is he had seven games under 10. but I think the rushing upside is really there. I mean, he evered six yards of carry last year, which is fifth amongst all quarterbacks, and he had zero touchdowns. That was like the only reason why I feel like

the rushing fantasy stats didn't really stick because he didn't score any touchdowns. But that was not, I mean, in college, he had 12 touchdowns, 11 touchdowns in his last two years rushing. And it's like, Caleb is a thick. He's not that tall, but I mean, he is a sturdy guy. They don't have like a big rushing presence at least,

you know, like the Andre Swift and stuff. To me, it's like, I think there's a world in which the offense really clicks, and Caleb is in that, like, 600 yards rushing, seven, eight touchdowns category. And if that happens, I think he's right there, like a fringe top five, top six guy.

I think he's right outside that, like, top four group we talked about. Yeah, this is getting me going a little, to be honest. It's like, somebody balked me. Yeah, seriously. No, this is, this, I think a lot of your arguments are really, really smart. I think if you can get rid of some of the disaster games, which I think Ben Johnson and the upgrades and just another year of experience, all that stuff, I think we can get rid of some of the

disaster games. But if you get rid of some of those disaster games, how much different does he look in terms of fantasy scoring, right? Like if it's seven games under 15 points rather than 10 points, you know, how much of a difference does that make? I think that's the real thing with him, and what made him so frustrating last year was he never knew when to start him because sometimes he was going over 25 points and then sometimes he was losing you the week you're like three points or something. So if we can get rid of some of that variance, I think, you know, then that makes him a value right away. And then if he does like ascend to what we thought he was, you know, going to be coming into his career. And then, you know, the sky is the limit with this guy.

So yeah, this was well argued. This makes me a lot more bullish for him than I maybe was like five minutes ago. I'm also just like, Ben Johnson, you know what he did in the red zone a lot with the lines he ran the ball? And it's like, what he had, David Montgomery and Jemir Gibbs and Jared golf. And it's like the opposite now. It's like, okay, they have DeAndre Swift still. They have Rocheon Johnson. And they have Caleb Williams. I have to imagine that inside the 10-yard line, they're going to want the ball in Caleb's hands and roll him out and move him in a ways to get him in the end zone. And it's like he had zero touchdowns last year. I think it's very reasonable to suggest that he got a, I mean, Brock Purdy had five rushing touchdowns last year.

Caleb Williams could have double that. And if he does, and this works, I think he's like immediately a top seven guy. I love this one. Or he sucks. I don't know. And that's why Craig is so aroused. That's why I'm six to midnight. And that's why I'm currently at midnight.

The hipster one, this is for the player team thing that everyone else loves that you don't and refuse to love. You absolutely refuse to love the thing everyone else loves. For me, honestly, it's just Baker Mayfield this year, which is brutal for me because I do love Baker

personally. Like, I actually just love, like, the NFL is better when Baker Mayfield's succeeding. But, like, dude, I'm not taking him as the seventh fucking quarterback. Get the fuck out of here. Like, I absolutely refuse. Like, the idea, I'm basically doing a parlay that I won't list the name again, but the other 10 pocket

passers. And the idea that I'm just going to bet that, like, I will just, I'm so confident I can pick one of the 11 good veteran pocket passes in the NFL, that I'm going to take Baker, like, after the Joe Burrow, my homes and the top four guys are gone, I'll be like, I bet Baker beats all 10 of these guys again. Like, there's no chance I'm doing that. No, Liam Cohen, Chris Godwin coming off the foot injury. Yeah, like, why would you take, like, at the end of the day, why would you take Baker Mayfield seven, in the seventh round or eighth round or whatever, when Trevor Lawrence has

Baker Mayfield's coordinator as his head coach now and Trevor Lawrence is going to go like nine rounds later, eight rounds later. I just, I refuse to take any non-Joe Burrow pocket passers. And now you have Josh Grizzard and the Lizard wizard calling plays for Tampa Bay. Exactly. Josh Grizzard.

And that's why. My hipster pick. I think, yeah, Mayfield's tough because it is one of those things it feels like it's going to just regress, regress back to the mean, essentially, with him where, you know, he's not going to throw over 40 touchdowns again. There were games there where he was just going

absolutely bonkers. I love Baker. Yeah. I think the bucks are going to be good, too. I just, it's such a trap. 41 touchdowns last year. Yeah. You record that he had 28.

Exactly. Yes. It's probably going to even out a little bit, let's be honest. But I mean, I think he'll still be usable, but I think the point is he's probably not going to pay value from where you have to take him. My guy in that category is Bo Nix, and it has less to do with my personal biases against Bo Nix and all that and more about my personal biases against Sean Payton, the person.

I just do not want to... I'm taking a new stand. I hinted at this last summer and then kind of fell off of it. And I am just not going to let Sean Payton dictate anything in my life ever again. I'm just not going to let it happen. He's just not going to be a part of my life.

The Broncos are not going to be a part of my life. I'm not going to draft R.J. Harvey. Maybe I'll regret that. I'm not going to draft Cortland Sutton. I'm not going to draft Bo Nix. I am opting out of the Denver Broncos. Broncos this year and therefore, Bo Nix. I, you know, it's funny.

The first person you talked about in fantasy football as a person you're cutting out of your life because there's toxic energy with Michael Thomas. And that was also like Sean Payton adjacent personality. But you're right. Honestly, like there are, it is, it's fantasy football. You should have toxic people in your life. It's like, he's like, he's not nearly as bad because I don't think he does it to make me mad personally, but Arthur Smith was.

Arthur Smith did it. Arthur Smith, 100% was going. His main goal was to piss off fantasy players. And I don't know if Sean Payne is doing that. You, I think part of you believes that, though. Yeah, I do. I do believe that. He hate, he's a petty guy.

And we definitely were mean to him. And I think there was a part of him that was like, fuck these motherfuckers. I'm just going to play Tyler Alger a lot. And they're going to hate it. And it's going to be awesome. You think Dek is insane or do you think he's right? Or Arthur Smith is just playing chess. and he's a fantasy player himself

and then he just dressed Tyler L.Gere late droughts. He took a shitload of Tyler LGere and John Smith. Would that make me like him more? Maybe, I don't say, I don't know. Craig, who's your hipster player you like that everyone else? Or don't, what did I say? Someone you love in real taste.

I don't know if Sam Darnold counts as the guy everybody's likes, but I think people are talking themselves into like the Seattle thing. And I'm kind of not. Sorry, D.K. The Seattle thing. That is so mean. Yeah, you know, Sam Donald last year had

the best season of his fucking life, and I would say every star had to align for this to happen, and it did, and he was the QB8. And so I'm like, all right, he went from Kevin O'Connell, who's like the quarterback guru of the 2020s, a good old line,

the best wide receiver in the league, one of the best second wide receivers in the league, and an indoor stadium. Now he goes to Clint Kubiak, calling plays, a mediocre offensive line. His receivers are now Jackson Smith and Jigba, Cooper Cup and Jake Bobo, and he's playing outdoors. Jake Bowdo?

And I'm like, I'm good. I think I'm good. You included Jake Bobo in this analysis. How dare you? Well, he will be on the field probably more than you want to do. But yeah, I think I'm just kind of like. I think Marcus Val was Scantling. You forgot about Marcus Valeth Scantling, Craig.

Did I? Did I have done? Yeah, that's where I'm at with Sam. I'm putting up a very like, I can't even bring myself to defend the Seahawks in this case. So, yeah. Yeah, remember that time you traded Gino Smith and brought in Sam Donald? And D.K. Metcalf.

I forgot about that. That was crazy. Why'd you do that? Somebody pointed this out, and I didn't go back and check to listen to make sure it was true. But the first two players that Clint Kubiak mentioned in his introductory presser as the O.C. No way. No way. Gino Smith and T.K. Metcalf?

I could be wrong. That could have been like just an internet thing that people were saying. So I should probably check that. But I saw that this weekend. I was like, fuck. Why would he have mentioned them? Well, because they were on the team when he got hired. Oh.

Fuck. So he was like, I'm really excited to get my hands dirty with Tino and TK. He probably did then. Yeah. That's brutal. Well, yeah. You know, it's funny. Sometimes you look and you're like, damn, if you could flip to Arnold and

a third rounder for Gino and D.K. That'd be pretty great. All right. Sleepers. My number one quarterback sleeper this year is Justin Fields. Yeah. Justin Fields. So, I mean, in our rankings right now, you know, we have them like a hundredth or so. I think this is like the definition of like upside and what, you know, basically you want more.

You got to be, they're going to be misses in your team and you got to make sure that the misses are being countered by if you hit that they're going to like hit a home run. So if we're even talking about the fantasy, I just think it's worth. Justin Fields is the starting quarterback for the New York Jets, which somehow we didn't talk about, I feel like enough in March. It's so weird. Like Justin Fields, like this sequence of events, I feel like doesn't happen. First round pick ends up going to, a six-round trade goes to the Steelers. He goes four and two as the starter for the Steelers, goes four and two,

benched for playing poorly, but like, or at least not in line with Arthur Smith wanted. And then signs for $20 million a year to be, the quarterback for the Jets without any real competition. And I was going to say he has a reasonable amount of security. For a guy like him, for a guy that's had his type of career, he has a reasonable amount of security as that started right now. Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe people can email us if they can think of the other situation, ringer fantasy football at Gmail. But for a quarterback to basically have been benched the final 10 weeks because even though he's winning, they didn't like how he was winning. And then just get a different starting job with no competition. That never happens. but anyway, in fantasy,

we used to have the Blake Bordel's award for like the don't watch and play just fucking rack up the box score stats. Like just Blake Borda's gonna run. That's Justin Fields. Because Justin Fields now has multiple seasons where he's been a top five fantasy quarterback per game and gotten benched.

Like last year, like just through week six when Justin Fields was playing, the top fantasy quarterbacks in the entire league were Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayer, Field, Jaden Daniels, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, and Justin Fields. Like he was right there. And he got benched.

And then two years ago, from week five on, it was Josh Allen, Jalen, Heardt, Stack, Prescott, Lamar Jackson, Justin Fields. So when Justin Fields plays and isn't getting benched, Justin Fields is actually a top six fantasy quarterback. And if they're not going to have anyone to bench him for, I'm kind of like Justin Fields could be pretty incredible this year. So to me, it's the epitomeomew of get a pocketback, get Dak and and Justin Fields, and he'll be pretty good.

I think because I had Justin Fields on the Steelers for six games I have like a really lovely relationship with him now I completely have a different opinion of him and I'm really excited to see him on the Jets I feel like I went to

like I went to Europe and had like a fling for a week. It's like a before midnight situation with or before sunset with Justin Fields he's kind of like safe Anthony Richardson because Anthony Richardson could very likely be benched for Daniel Jones and Justin Fields is

probably not going to get benched, and I would say their upside is quite similar, right? We've seen it from both. We've seen it more consistently from Justin Fields. You're going to have to pay a little bit more to get them, probably. But if you want to go after somebody like Anthony Richardson, it might be safe for her to just go get Justin Fields. I totally agree, Hypertz. He is, I think he is like

the sleeper of the quarterback position this year. He's the epitome of just don't watch the games like argument when it comes to fantasy players. He's going to run it done. That's it. That's why he's going to be valuable in fantasy. He averaged almost nine points per game rushing last year, which is second only to Jaden Daniels. If he could even be marginal as a passer, top three quarterback.

If he's bad, still could be a top 10 quarterback. You know what I mean? Because of the amount of rushing that he does, if he can stay healthy, of course. And the way that the team is built around him, I feel like that is going to be their number one goal. Just run the ball, just run the hell of the football. We used to joke the Bears were the Navy offense.

They're going to go back to this again. He rushed for over 1,100 yards two years ago. That's crazy. Yeah. And so I think he is, I think the perfect example of, he's the furthest delta between the way that fantasy people look at Justin Fields and what he gives you in fantasy is a wider delta than almost any other player, I think, right now. Fields is why people hate fantasy football. Right. Because Justin Fields is a great quarterback.

He's not a quarterback that, and well, the Jets did this sort of, but he's more of a bridge quarterback for them. But like you can't design it. You can't build a franchise around this player because he's just not developed as a passer yet. But that said, you can still run an interesting offense with him because of what he does on the ground because of how dangerous he is as a runner. And then hopefully they can bring him along as a passer. But, you know, that's probably not going to happen. In the meantime, we're just going to do well in fantasy with him. And you pair Fields with another quarterback in case Fields sucks.

And he's on the Jets. You're like, oh, wow, Justin Fields and the Jets didn't work out. You know, shocking. Any other sleepers, D.K. I think Bryce Young is a little bit of a sleeper based on how he ended last season. He's obviously got a high variance, but from week eight on last year, he really started to get going. He averaged over 18 points per game, which is a QB13 in that stretch. He also was kind of a sneaky runner.

He scored five rushing touchdowns in that stretch and was, I think, utilizing his scrambling skills. That was kind of the story on him coming out is he's a really, you know, magic. He has some magic in terms of his ability to. to avoid the rush, keep a play alive, escape the pocket, pick up first downs, pick up touchdowns. And he started to show that. He looked just a lot more confident, I think, last year doing that. He had an 8% scramble rate, which is fourth in the NFL behind Jane Daniels,

Drake May, and Jalen Hertz. So he was scrambling a ton. He averaged five points in fantasy just from rushing last year in that stretch, which is six most. Now he has Ted McMillan. The defense is still bad. They're probably going to pass a lot because they're going to be trailing. I just think there's meat on the bone here for Bryce Young to be a sneaky,

you know, pretty usable fantasy quarterback, assuming he can say healthy. I agree with you. And he was doing it last year with nobody, with no help pretty much. And the offensive line is looking like it's coming together, obviously Ted McMillan. So I agree with you. I think Bryce is an example, someone that, like, I don't know if I want to draft them, but if he's on waivers and he had a good week one, I would just like, okay, I think you could pick him up and add a play in the entire season.

He's also somebody I'm just like brooding for personally. Yeah, it's true. You want him to be, you want him to do well. And that's why he's your sleeper. And that is why. It's like you're finishing up like a like a middle school project. Right, right. And that's how Eli Whitney and following my outline.

Yeah. In conclusion. Yes. The post, within sleepers, I just wanted to shout out a couple post type sleepers of just like, when I was looking through our rankings and then, you know, also, you know, fantasy process rankings where, you know, in case you want to see if you're absolutely insane for maybe having Anthony Richardson higher than like 20th or something. And I was looking through, and I kind of couldn't believe too back to back, Trevor Lawrence

19th, C.J. Stroud, 18th. And I wanted to time travel to a year ago and tell us that C.J. Stroud would be like 18th in fantasy quarterback rankings and Anthony Richardson would be like unranked and Lawrence would be 19th. And I just, I'm just taking the entire AFC South all, well, not Camboard, but I just, the idea that you can get Stroud and Trevor Lawrence if you want them like incredibly easily and cheaply outside the top 100 is incredible to be. And we can go deeper to that if you want. But like I think CJ Stroud, new offense is going to be way better without Bobby Sloick.

And I think Trevor Lawrence with Liam Cohen is going to look every bit the part of being the number one pick and what we were told Trevor Lawrence would be, and everyone who's doubted and made fun of Trevor Lawrence the last couple years is going to look very silly this season. Yeah, I think when I did the blind, when I did, when we did our blind rankings a couple weeks ago, and this was just like off the dome, didn't look at anybody else's rankings, just kind of like feel it, fill it out with your gut. Like, Trevor Lawrence was the furthest away from where I thought he would be on all the consensus rankings, you know what I mean? Like, I thought people would be more excited about him. Yeah. I understand.

And Liam Cohen, who just resurrected. Oh, yeah, yeah. I understand why people are. kind of sick of him because we've been hyping him up every year since he was a rookie, and he's not really delivered. But that being said, I think the stars are aligning for him to have a much better, have much more stability in everything this year, and better weapons, better coaching, all that stuff. So I just thought people would be more excited and have him quite a bit higher. Yeah, I mean, the similarities to Baker, both number and overall picks,

kind of flamed out, Liam Cohen comes in. Although Baker was good the year before with Canales, but I agree with you very much. high fits. I think Lawrence is like the post type guy. Also just like I think not only I mean, Travis Hunter Brian Thomas, Liam Cohen

coming in, not only is he going to help the passing game, but I think the running game quietly, like the Jaguars rushing situation last year was a disaster. And the Bucks could really run the ball. They turned Bucking up Buck Irving into like a legit running back. Now they have, they still have ETIN but Bayshould Tutin. The Jags were just like couldn't run the ball.

They were last on offensive place per game. Like, the bucks were kind of the opposite of that. Like, they could move the ball. They ran a lot of plays. And the Jaggs went got Robert Hainesie. He was the center from Tampa Bay. I just think this offense is going to be like much more high octane.

Yeah. I mean, Travis Hunter, Brian Thomas at receiver, everything about it's going to be better. Lord is just clearly the most physically talented guy in his tier still. Like, if you just look at what he has, like size, arms, speed, athleticism. I mean, he has all that. Yeah. I think we're shaping up where I think Lawrence and Fields is going to be like my quarterback. So like every team I have is I'm going to have Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields.

I have one other post-life sleeper here. I think Dak Prescott's getting slept on a little bit just because of, again, it's sort of just like people are getting sick of him. We've talked about him for a long time. The Cowboys get a lot of press. People are kind of sick of it. There's a lot of, I don't know if it's just because of all the rivalries in the division or if it's really what people think national. but people, it feels like the impression of Prescott is he's super overrated, which may or may not be true, but in fantasy, I mean, go back two years, literally,

20, 23, and he was a QB4 in points per game. He was scored 20 points a game. And so I think there is, in his range of outcomes, there is a elite, not a, not necessarily top three, top five, but, you know, middle of the QB1 area where Dak Prescott could end up this year, upgraded the offensive line. They took Tyler Booker in the first round. They went and got George Pickens, which I think is a perfect fit for them. Assuming he can keep his out on straight, I think he really upgrades their offense,

gives them a guy on the outside that can get down the field, stretch the field, change the geometry of how you have to defend that team. That also opens up things for CD Lamb. Brian Schottenheimer, my only memory of him, honestly, is he was the guy who let Russ cook and it got him fired, but like maybe he comes in here and is the coach and it just lets Dak Cook. Maybe they're just super pass heavy. They have done jack shit at the running back position. Javante Williams, Miles,

Sanders and then a fifth round, you know, rotational guy from Texas and Jaden Blue. So I just think this is shaping up to be a pretty high volume passing offense for Dak Prescott. And if he can, if things come together, he could be a sneaky, like, value later in draft. So he's going to be the one guy that'll just be scooping up because people are sort of just ignoring him.

Dak being, I mean, you know, we have him 19th among quarterbacks, but that's just a function of like how, you know, we have to rank them in some order. And I decided I'd rather have Trevor Lawrence and Strout ahead of DAC. but like Jordan loves Ced Strad, Trevor Lawrence, Dak Prescott being available as top 20 quarterbacks is why I don't want Baker Mayfield as the seventh quarterback. It's like that's just crazy to me.

There's a lot of good quarterbacks. I think Dak will fall even further than that for some reason. I think people are just kind of out on him. No, I think but at some level, someone's going to be like, wow, DAC's available at like 14. Like people are going to want the name brand at some point. At some point you're just like, oh shit.

But I think you're dead on, DK. I think that's why I think he's a post type sleeper. Now the tuxedos are kind of fucked up award for the teammates. You are fencinging on or not sure to rank. And so, you know, when we put two players from the same team next to each other, it's because we don't know what to do with them. And the two for this, just the quarterback competitions. Tyler Shuck and Spencer Rattler and New Orleans,

Tyler Shuck's probably going to win. But like, what are you going to do with that? Like the oldest and most injured least experienced rookie starting week one with Cam Ward. And then you're going to have the Giants, one where I think Russell Wilson's going to start. I don't think it's going to be an open competition, but they have Jamis Winston there, Tommy DeVito, my guy.

And Jackson Dart, D.K., your objective about this, when do you think Jackson Dart plays? See, this is, I put down Russ and Dart just because this is specifically for like a superflex conversation because I think in a world in which Russ starts a whole season, he's pretty useful in Superflex. Like, he averaged 15 points per game last year. So he's a good cheap R.B. or quarterback two option in Super Flex leagues,

which are definitely being more popular now. But the problem is, I kind of think he's going to get benched at some point, maybe week six, seven, and they're just going to bring Darden to try and spark something and save their jobs. Joe Shane and Daiball are coaching and GMing to save their jobs this year, I think,

and they're going to want the opposite of Russ at some point down the line. Russ takes a ton of sacks. Even in his heyday, even at his best, Russell's kind of a frustrating quarterback to watch. because especially now he takes a lot of sacks. He does hit the big play, but they're kind of few and far between. He just does enough to kind of move the offense and score points.

But his style of offense is really ugly to watch, honestly, and really frustrating. And so I could just see fans clamoring to get Dart. Fans? Any fans in particular? And also, with regard to Dart, like, I'm actually a little bit excited about Dart because he runs around a lot. He's pretty athletic. He's willing to scramble. There's some hidden value.

there in fantasy. So what the fuck do we do with Russ and Dart in Superflex leagues? I don't think I don't think you do anything. I'd recommend not doing it. Just avoid?

Yeah. But I'm talking about Superflex. Obviously, in one quarterback leagues just avoid these guys. But yeah. Craig, anyone? They're not teammates. But I just think

both of the quarterbacks who lost their play calling gurus this off season. We already talked about Baker. But Jared Goff is a guy who I kind of, I don't really know what to do with. It's like still

they still have the infrastructure, right? That's still there, but the play caller's not. D.K., right now, can you tell me who's calling plays for the Lions? What's his name? Uh, I can't off the top of my head. Hi Fitts, can you? Yeah, it's John Morton. John Morton.

He's great. He's the best. He's the best. He didn't hire Tanner Engstrand. Because they, Tanner Engstrand was the passing game coordinator, and then they didn't hire him to the EuroC. went to the Jets with Aaron Glenn, which honestly is my red flag for Justin Fields of the Jets is that, that's kind of weird. But yeah, John Morton.

It's John Morton who was with the Broncos last year. He's a Sean Peyton guy. He's credited with doing a lot of good work for Bo Nicks. Well, yeah. Which that's a red flag. Anyone coming out of a Sean Payton-led world? And he's like, yeah, he helped. That's a red flag to me.

Yeah, and I'm just like, I don't know. Golf was actually pretty good last year, and he really picked up the pace later in the season. I had him on a team last year. I was very frustrated because they just fucking run the ball all the time. Like, they run more touchdowns at any team. And so I think I'm just like, I don't really know what to do with this pocket passer who obviously has a very high ceiling and this team scores a lot of points. But they're in this like very balanced run heavy offense with this new play caller

who nobody really knows. The guru's gone. And I don't know how to feel about it. I mean, I actually staying away, I think, perhaps naively. I don't know. No, I agree. I think that it's one of those, again, I keep thinking about the week one test of how much how much would you need to see till you're like, oh, I don't know about this. The lion's just looking bad. You'd probably need a few weeks.

But eventually, if the lions just were like, oh, this is, this offense isn't the same, you'd be like, wow, why did I draft him on raw? There's a sixth. That was dumb. I'm already picturing just, you know, the, the meme or the age, just the HR, it's like the really good looking guy versus like the ugly fat guy that walks in. And it's like she's really happy.

And then obviously with the other guy calling HR. The lions above all teams the last couple years are just the most preposterous play callers. Like the shit they do during games is always like wild. And you're like, man, if this is any other team, we'd probably be saying they're stupid and like feeling themselves way too much. But the lions just made it work. You know, they're fucking throwing the football to Penn Isoul. They're doing end rounds. They're doing all this kind of crazy shit.

but they got away with it because Ben Johnson was fucking good, and they were scoring a ton of points. And then if this guy comes in and starts calling this shit, and they're not scoring as many points, and the offense is discombobulated, and the play sequencing doesn't make very much sense. It's just going to be funny to see kind of like the differing reactions if they do end up, like, you know, making these...

Because they're the team that we're calling plays to, like, troll the other team or troll the refs. Yeah, Monro's throwing touchdowns to Jared Goff, and you have three different linemen catching footballs, and then you have that play where Jerdgoff pretended to fumble the ball so that they can... If Jones Morgan calls one fake fumble and it doesn't work. That's what I'm talking about.

H.R. Tuxedos are kind of fucked up. Right. But also I'm like, man, these guys have like the best rushing attack in the league. They have Amonar St. Brown, Sam LaPorte, Jameson Williams. They're like, maybe I'll look like an idiot and they're just going to be great. Yeah.

All right. The Ricky Bobby first or last guy, someone who, again, you put a number on someone, but like, you kind of know, sometimes you put it ranking in someone like the Kaderas Tony Award of like, yeah, we'll put Kedars Tony 90th. We know he won't be there, though.

He's going to be 20th or 120th. He always, sorry, Kadarist Tony, never played. So who is the guy, D.K., that no matter where we rank them,

you know they're going to be like way higher or way, way lower than the actual number you put on him. I think, well, we already talked about Caleb Williams, but I think he could fit into that category. Maybe he's, you know,

top five quarterback, or maybe he's just an absolute, abject, disaster. And then I think Drake May kind of fits in the same category. I was very encouraged with what I saw from Drake May last year. But at the same time, you know, it wasn't like he was perfect. It wasn't like he was getting in there and making everything work.

You know what I mean? He was running around a bunch. He's kind of getting by on his athleticism in certain points. And, you know, the 49ers, or sorry, the Patriots did do some things in the draft that were encouraging. But I don't know if they really. change their offense entirely, you know what I mean, to get around, to like, to help him and protect him and make it easy for him. So I think there's a wide range of what Drake May could do.

And I guess I wouldn't be that surprised if he goes either way. I have Drake May as well, because I think it's the rushing upside that is so interesting, kind of like similar to Caleb, but, you know, Josh McDaniels is back calling plays. Josh McDaniels was there with New England when they had Cam Newton. Cam Newton had 12 rushing touchdown last year. And that's Drake May's favorite players, Cam Newton. And he was recently talking about, he was on some, like, Twitch stream,

talking about how he's excited to be in the Patriots offense with Josh McDaniels doing the Cam Newton thing. And so, like, damn, you know, if Drake May is more Josh Allen than not, and they really start using him a lot in the red zone as a rusher, I think, like, there is a huge ceiling with him. But, you know, the surrounding cast is closer to Caleb last year than Caleb this year, I think.

And so it's like, maybe we are still a year away from all this happening. I mean, I don't know. The average fan could probably not name a single Patriots wide receiver, and they probably forgot Stefan Diggs is on the team too. And so it's like, you know, the offensive line is still very much a work in progress. So I see this similar to Caleb last year where it's like, I bet you there will be pretty big spike weeks.

He probably will put up like 27, three different times next year. But I think the floor might be low. A lot of highs and lows. I'm curious too because obviously, I mean, I'm a big believer, Mike Vrable and I think he was a great hire for the Patriots and he's going to be great and I think he's going to work. But if the Patriots don't play well, I think Drake May is going to get the Justin Herbert treatment

where all the, just all the people talking about the NFL yapping all summer, like, oh, so just like, Drake May's good. Drake May's great. Did you see Drake May? Did you see Drake May? And then it's kind of like Herbert where it's like, eventually he's going to be like, does he fucking win or not?

Because it's like at some point like, holy shit, Drake May won three games last year, two? He went three and nine. So it's kind of one of those, like, we're going to hear all summer about how good Drake May is. And then I'll give it to, like, mid-October for people to turn on him with pitchforks. It's like the Seinfeld, the Drake. I love the Drake. We love the Drake.

Yeah. Honestly, yes. I do like Jake May a lot. He's good. But they, patrons actually have to be good soon. Guys you hate but have to rank. Like with a fiduciary duty. This is to be the pocket passers.

Baker, Mayfield, Jared Goff, what you were saying, Craig, about like, ranking Jared Goff without Ben Johnson. Having to rank Baker Mayfield have 40 touchdown passes. All the Brock Purdy with Brandon and I. It's like one of those four is going to have a big year. You know?

Yeah. And I don't want to, I, and it's weird, I am artificially lowering Baker, Goff, Purdy so much just because I don't want to draft them.

And then like some guy who went 40 picks later as a pocket passer is just like way better. because that's Baker last year. Baker went undrafted in like a lot of leagues last year. And I'd rather just try to get that guy. So I hate ranking the pocket passengers that aren't Joe Burrow. Yeah. I think the guy that stood out to me,

hyphids you mentioned him, Purdy. Last year he was a QB 10 points per game. The year before that, he was a QB7 in points per game. And yet somehow I'm still sitting here. Like, I don't think I really want to draft this guy. It still somehow doesn't feel real to me, even though that's probably unfair. but there are big changes coming to this offense.

They didn't really do anything out offensive line this off season. They traded away Devo. Christian McCaffrey, maybe he'll be back, and maybe he'll be the difference maker that he was in the past. We'll find out 90 minutes before the first game. Right, but that is a huge question mark with what he's going to bring. Brandon Ayuk may not be ready to start the season, may not be himself the entire season.

So that leaves George Kittle, who is great. Juan Jennings, who is, he's actually really underrated, but I don't know if he's like a huge big-time difference-maker. Ricky Pearsall, who didn't really show much as a rookie. Jacob Cowling. He was shot. But yeah. Okay, that's fair.

Okay, that's fair. You forgot one little. Valid point. Valid point, Craig. He was shot. I'd like to see you get shot. Have you hop on a podcast? I mean, I like Ricky.

But, you know, he was shot. That's true. That's true. Maybe he'll be better now that he, you know, he wasn't shot. again. But I don't know. Just the 49ers offense feels pretty easy right now. Did that be a quote card this week?

Maybe he'll be better to share now that it wasn't shot again. He was literally shot in the chest. God, the funny thing is your video was frozen when he said that. So it was just you like smiling and then I hear, but he was shot. He was shot in the worst place. the chess. Well, it's probably the second worst

argument. Right, yeah. Other than the head, it's for the worst place to get shot. Anyway, yeah. Speaking of the head.

Just auto fill Tua, every year, Tua, Tua, two and Tia. God, I hate ranking them. I won't draft him. You know,

this is how I feel every year. I agree. I don't want to. I'm a team. He's the correct answer, actually. I can't root for him. I mean,

I like him as a guy. I'm not saying it that way. I just, I don't enjoy watching to it, take hits, simply. football.

It's not fun. Dolphins vibes are bad. It's like, I don't even know. I feel like a parent in the stands where the parents just, they're like rooting for their kid, but they're kind of like just hoping their kid gets through the game without being hurt. That's how I feel watching too at play football. That was how my mom felt watching me play fifth quarter

freshman year of high school. That's right. That's right. I said fifth quarter. Which is what I would play. To let the freshman play? Yeah. You didn't, you never, you know, your high school didn't have fifth quarter.

No, we didn't. Yeah, they would play a fifth quarter for all the undersized, pre-pubescent kids. Like myself. And I would still get absolutely trumped. Do they describe it in like the game or whatever, like the magazine that you get when you get there? These are all pre-fubescent boys.

Yeah, it's basically to make a wish quarter. And everybody claps and they give us a jersey and we run out. Still waiting on these kids to go through puberty here. Well, look at me now, baby. I did. Took me long enough. Six two. And still growing.

Wow. All right, D.K., any other big, other than, you know, one of the players who got shot to do better this year. Any other big picture of thoughts on the quarterbacks? No, not really. Where's Rogers going to rank for you? You're right. Sorry, I want to do this again. Guys you hate but have to rank. Rogers is in this other category.

Guys you hate and refuse to rank. Guys you hate and no longer have to rank. I won't rank him. I'm making the attest I won't rank him. Like there's no way. After seeing the Steelers, after seeing the Jets and also just him as a person, I have no, I have zero interest in having him be on my team. Craig's all in. I have to be.

Craig is desperate for him. I am. That is correct. That's exactly right. Maybe he's signed by now. Do you think by the time this podcast comes out, Craig, that he'll be a Pittsburgh Steeler? We should take bets. I would have said that every week we've recorded since.

I don't know when. Sure. We should take bets. Sure. We're recording this Monday, May 12th. I think we should all throw out a date. And whoever gets closest gets something. What are...

When do, like, OTA start? Yeah. When is Mercury retrograde over the pyramids? May 27th? Does that sound right? Mandatory? Okay, the team's mandatory veteran minicamp. Hmm.

Is June 10th to 12th. I guess he's going to get signed June 3rd. I'm going to say May 25th. Yeah, because OTAs are starting on May 27th. Hmm. I'm torn between saying May 19th and August 6th. You know what I mean? Never.

Also, like, I think that Mason Rudolph's the backup. Like, how embarrassing is it that it was like a backup you had, you sucked. He left and he got him back again. and he might start again. It came crawling back. Yeah, it's pretty embarrassing. It's like going back to the girl that your friends all like talk shit about after you broke up with them. Oh, yeah. She cheated on you and then you broke up and then you got back together there.

It's different now. Oops. She's changed. Oh, God. Please. Please, Aaron. I have nothing else. Oh, my God.

I'll say May 19th, but it's going to be fucking August. That's the day this podcast comes out. Ooh. All right, today, I'm calling my shot then. There we go. That would suck for us, but yeah. That would be brutal.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's my big takeaway from these, doing these rankings and everything was there's so many fucking pocket passers that either get one of the cool four guys or don't. And if you don't, just take a guy that could rush, like Fields and Richardson or Caleb or Bro Nix and then pair them with Jordan Lowe's. CJ Stroud, DAC.

Yeah, take your pick. Lawrence, like, yeah. All right. Let's do some emails. Emails. So last episode, which, spoiler, was today. He recorded that. We talked about the Lou Groza.

Don't let them know how the sausage is made. It's okay. Yeah, well, it's fine. When we were talking about Lou Groza, who, again, what was the nickname? The Toe? Yeah, Lou, the Toe. Because he was an offensive line

and a kicker. That's incredible. Is it Groza, do you think? Like, we probably should have found out the interim. But anyway. So, Lou, the Toe Grows. I have a sequel to this. So Rich Samini,

The Toza. I like it would, my favorite time is when Craig gives me like a courtesy laugh. It's not courtesy, like shakes his head at me. That's the best. I'm like a, Dad watching his five-year-old fart and laugh. So anyway, so the Jets have two brothers.

They have Quincy Williams and Quinn and Williams, and they sign their younger brother Giovanni Williams. So there's three brothers on the Jets. So Rich Simini at ESPN, he posted this via Elias Sports. If Giovanni Williams does make the team, which probably may not happen, but if Giovanni Williams does, it would be the first time three brothers played on the same team,

since the 1920s. Wow. Where it happened on three different teams. Did this never happen with the Gronks? No, they played in the same game, but they never played in the same team. But in the 20s, three Rooney brothers played for the Duluth Eskimos.

Of course. Three Nesser brothers played for the Columbus Panhandles. Panhandles. And the Kinderdines played for the Dayton Triangles. Kinderdines. That sounds like Red Dead Redemption. Why were they the Triumph? again, Dayton?

This comes up a lot, I feel like. The Dayton Triangle's shirt somewhere. Why are they the triangles? I don't remember. Strongest shape in the universe? I don't know. And then so this led to a deep dive where the Nessers are the only family to have four brothers played in the same game.

And the Panhandles also became the only NFL team in history with a father and son on the same roster when Charles Nessar joined his father, Ted, for a few games in 1921. That's a great story Wow Who can be the next one to do that The next Bronny James Yeah It's got to be a quarterback

Because they got to be old right It's got to be a quarterback who had a kid young Did Mahomes have a kid In his early 20s? Yeah, Mahomes could I was going to say Russ Russ is corny enough That he would stick around

Just to do it like LeBron did I don't know if he's going to make it dude He doesn't have that juice now. All right. That sounded like he's going to die. Oh, God. I feel like it has to be,

it's like you need somebody who guaranteed will be playing at 40 if they don't get hurt and that's probably only like a few guys you can point to. It's like Mahomes, maybe like Joe Burrow.

But Joe Burrow has many kids. You know what rattled me? You know what rattled me? You know what rattled me? You know what rattled me? You know what rattled me? He was seeing Steph Kerr's daughter be like standing up,

like an adult or that adult, whatever. She's like, what is she in high school? Yeah. That's insane. 13, 14, yeah. I know that is weird. I remember when he was holding her at press conferences.

Yeah. Oh, my God. So how old are Patrick Mahomes' kids? Let's see. He just had a kid a couple years ago. But he's multiple. Oh, yeah. It's silver, bronze, and platinum?

Sterling, bronze, and golden. Sterling, bronze, and gold. Imagine me, here's the thing with that. I have an issue with this. Okay. But I will say, bronze is, that's not his actual name. His real name is Patrick. Okay.

I'm glad because that's where I was going. Wait, is bronze a nickname? He's Patrick Bronze the third, like the third bronze. That's interesting. So is Patrick Mahomes's middle name bronze? Sterling's only, Sterling's only three. Patrick Mahomes is Patrick Mahomes the second. So.

I thought you get the second if the middle name's the same or you just people will give a shit. You just do it the same way. Well, bronze isn't his middle name. I think it might be his nickname. That's kind of where I'm going with this. If you got in your family, you're a kid grown up. And your siblings' names are golden and silver.

And your bronze. Yeah, that's tough. Doesn't that kind of do something to you? Where does that rank on the precious metals ranking, right? That does suck. One of the precious metals. It's not even a precious medal. You get your dad's name.

He is Patrick Mahomes the third. Well, is that a good tradeover or is that bad? Didn't LeBron already say he regretted naming Brony LeBronie? LeBron, like he regrets putting that on him. Yeah. Also, Mahomes' kid, his oldest son, Sterling. is only three. So Mahomes is 29.

So they're going to have to stay in the league for a while here. Oh my God. So we need 20 years. We've got like 17 years. He would need to be 45 and his kid would be 19. Like no way. I guess I never thought how much of a huge thing of the LeBron thing was his like he really wanted actually kids early.

Yeah. And that. Man. Yeah. It's pretty tough. Do you want to read some names from the 1921 Columbus. hand handles. Yeah, hit us.

They went one in eight. Ah, that's right. Nine's a funny number for games. They were 17th in the APFA, whatever that is. 17th. They still went to the dance. That reminds me of like, Craig, you were talking about Oklahoma. Didn't they finish like 14th?

Yeah, in the SEC. 14th in the conference. Let's see here. Emmett Rue, Ruh. Mett Ruh, Ruh. Emmett Ruh Homer Ruh Whoa they had two brothers

Whoa Emmett and Homer The most 1920s names you can imagine Oscar Wolford Joe Marlbarger Mulbarger Joe Mulbarger

By the way There's only six players listed on this So I don't have a ton of people to choose from here Frank Bacon Frank Bacon? Yeah, Frank Bacon.

Swede Youngstrom. Bunny, Bunny Corcoran. Bunny. Bunny. I like the name bunny. Bunny. Milk Gee.

So, wait, while we're on the names, this one, we got an email from Kendrick. Kenning. Kendrick. Kay, Bon. Kendrick says, My God tiered San Diego Padres

has hit us with a football score as they wrecked the Rockies 21 to zero. the Rockies fire there. Maybe you're after. And the stat from Opta stats is the Padres are the first MLB team to score 20 runs and have their starter through a nine-inning shutout. Since the Cincinnati Red Stockings did so against the Baltimore Orioles on August 10th, 1889. Whoa. They were recording stats back then.

That's a real record. The Cincinnati Red Stockings. I just Googled Red Stockings and it's very sexual what came up. Since the Red So we're baseball's first all professional team. Whoa. In 1869, with 10 salaried players. Wow.

Dude, the baseball one of these is going to be nuts, isn't it? When we do the baseball team memes. They also have the only perfect season in professional baseball history. They went 57 and 0 in 1869. Holy shit. Dominant.

Holy shit. The Red Stockings. and they were the origin of the Red Sox in Boston Red Sox. Well, yeah. Do you think Bill counts that World Series? Is Bill Count 1869? Felt like that one was pretty obvious. God, this team's so old.

They spelled baseball as two words. That's good. They were the first team to play on the East and West Coasts in the same season. That was probably pretty fucking hard in 1869. That's good. That's like a wacky. train. Because the trains go

that far? Wait, now I'm like, when were the railroads done? Look at Lewis and Clark. We're playing the managers. Playing the San Francisco gold miners in three weeks.

We've got to get going. She could have went with 49ers. Yeah, I guess I can. 69ers was the 49ers? Oh, my God. Oh, this is an incredible Wikipedia article. Wow.

Okay. Thank you to Kendrick for email. That's incredible. So he says, and Kendrick Contadius, ringer fantasy tradition. I present to you the starting roster for the 1889 Cincinnati Redstockings. Shout out to Bug holiday. Bug, Hugh Nickle. Bug.

Hugh Nickle. Hugh Nickle. He's incredible. There's an outtake scene from Anchorman where Will Ferrell and Paul Rudder talking about breast implants that he's like, yeah, apparently they're putting all types of new materials in. breast implants. I don't know when they talk about

like whip cream or something like that and then Paul Rudd's like trying to riff and like think of something and in the background you just hear Adam McKay yelled

Nichols then Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd just crack up for like five minutes Nichols oh god anyway

Nichols we still need like Toby needs a channel that's just bloopers they might already have that Oh, that's a good idea. I feel like Anchorman has more blooper reels

than any other movie of all time. They definitely have more bloopers than actual footage like the used in the movie, I think. Yeah. We could put that on Flem. Oh, Fleem and crush on Flem. You got to log into Flemme though using Borg. Last email here. This is from David. D-Bone.

David wanted to write about DeBone. Wanted to write about how I was talking about different spellings of names and like Caleb Johnson Timothy K, probably way cool, and Caleb Jones of the C. So David writes, I went to art school at UGA, and there was a guy in the class ahead of me whose parents accidentally misspelled his name

on his birth certificate. But they thought it sounded like an interesting name, so they kept it. Oh, boy. So instead of being named Greg, this guy's name was Gerg. No, no. G-E-R-G?

How do you misspell Greg? Gurg? Gurg. His name was Gurg. Oh, Gurg. Gurg? His name was Gurg? His name was Gurg.

That sounds like some esophageal condition. I have Gurg. It sounds like Gerd. I have GERD. have Gerg. GERG. There's no way he kept it, right?

I think that's how the guy knows the story. Oh, hell. Gurg. Gurg. That's like... His name's Gurg. Also, Dicke's right. How do you misspell Greg?

Of all the misspelled, you get the G and then you're like, E. So like, what kind of sick couple? Like, those two really were meant for each other, then they both looked at one another and were like, you know what? Gerg. Yeah.

They needed two people to agree to that. Like, if it was one to one, it goes back to Greg. It's like the submarine with the, they locked in the keys of the submarine. They were like, Gurg. We're going down together with Gurg. That's really good. Do you think if I Google people named Gurg, if there's anyone? Look it up.

Gurg, it feels like a very like Scandinavian, like a low-key, old-school Scandinavian name. Gerg. Everything that's popping up is just Greg. It's like the Danesie football show. Did you mean Greg? No. I want to know this guy's last name. Gerg.

Dave, email us back. I want to hear more about Gerg. Oh, my God. All right. If anyone knows of any other names, people you know that were named like Gerg, email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. What was the other one we wanted? Oh, I don't remember.

Did you guys know, do you guys remember the running back for the bucks? I think he had a very brief career, but his name was Craig Lumpkin. Craig Lumpkin? Do you remember how he spelled it? K-R-E-G-G-G-K-R-E-G-G-G. Craig. Never seen that in my life. It's like a Star Wars-ass name.

Sounds like a barrel maker in Game of Thrones. Star Wars ass name. Craig. Star Wars Rewatchables was really funny. Yeah, if you haven't listened to it, we did two part and three and a half hours on Star Wars and New Hope. One of the best we've ever done. Dude, Rucillo answering the phone and he's like, hey,

you're on with me and Van and Chris and Sean and Craig. And he's like, what's up, Craig? The best is he's about to get off the phone. He's like, yeah, I'm going to the Laker game. And Bill's like, all right, cool, I'll see you there. And he's like, yeah, I'll be. sit next to Arod and then he just hangs up. Oh my God.

All right. You guys want to hear about a dumb thing I saw online or do you want to just end the show? Well, you can't do that. We have to hear about it now. It's not dumb. I don't understand it. And I was going to work through it with you guys. Let's do it.

I want to do a dumb version with it. We'll know. I want to do a dumb version of it with you. And then I wanted to like learn the answer and then like come back around with it. But anyway, so you guys know Hank Green? He's like an almond person. He's John Green's brother. Yeah.

So Hank Green just posted this on Blue Sky. So he'd come ski to some Blue Sky. Damn it, Tika got me. But yeah, Hank Green... Skeeted it. Said... He skated this... I saw this right before I was trying to go to bed.

And I try not to scroll before bed. But he said, the Earth doesn't go around the sun. The Earth goes in a straight line through an area of space time that bends around the sun. and I think that's neat. I thought about that shit for 20 minutes. Anytime you start thinking about space time, that's when you need to be high. YouTube videos I've been trying to learn of the idea that like a 3D coil

like a slinky and 40 is like a straight line. And I got to tell you, I think that's the water's edge of my personal intelligence. Like what I try to hear people talk about, there's actually 11 dimensions, I just keep fucking nodding. I don't know what the fuck they're talking about. I don't know what any of this is,

but that like broke my brain. Gravity is weird. Gravity is like a weird, weird thing. I don't think it's, yeah, the theory of gravity or what it's, I don't know. Well,

so there's this like YouTube video that I posted about this and someone went to like, like suggested it to me and I was trying to watch it and they were like, what's down? It's the title of video.

It was like, what is down? And the point was basically down is if you drop something, it falls. But like on the other end of the world, you're down is there up. So what's it falling toward? It's falling toward mass.

And it's like, what the fuck is that? What is gravity? I'm like, I don't, I don't, I still don't get gravity, dude. Anyway, apparently the earth goes in an area. The earth goes in a straight line. Fucked me up. We got to,

we got to let Jerry know about this. Is he aware of this? Perhaps that will allow him to track the son's trajectory earlier, more, you know. Get a couple years ahead. Do you think we get AI, Jerry Jones, to explain this to me? For sure.

You have AI holograms. They have Jerry Jones holograms at the Star, at the Cowboys Stadium. They have like AI Jerry Jones, like start, yeah, like the little Star Wars beam of whatever, like, help me Obi-Wan. Like that, but Jerry Jones telling you how to get to your seats and shit. No way. In the Star, yeah. I hate that. It's fucking weird.

I don't understand. It goes in a straight line through an area of space time. So all of the planets surrounding the sun are going through a straight line. Yes. Okay. I think the idea is that the sun is moving. It's not like the sun is stationary and the Earth's moving around it. It's the sun is, I don't know if it's the universe is still expanding, but the idea is the sun's moving.

And the Earth is moving with it is really what's going on. Which I actually am not going to lie, I had never thought about once in my entire life that the sun is also moving. Is the sun moving in a straight line? Dude, I don't know. I just heard about this. That's what I'm saying. Probably, I was going to bring it up. I just...

Getting influenced by the mass from other suns, right? And other galaxies. I don't know. So anyway, I thought we could have a dumb question and then I kind of want to learn the answer and maybe we follow up. I'm sure...

Gravity is from... Midnight tonight and having a panic attack, so that's great. If anyone can explain this, email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com if you can explain to me how the earth moves in a straight line in an area of space time that bends around the sun. Yeah, if you could kind of explain that

in a couple sentences, that'd be great. be sick. Yeah, that'd be tight. Spark notes. Yeah. Spark notes. You can make a TikTok about it. That is like half the answer, but then the bottom half, it's a split screen where the half is like the information.

The bottom half is just a guy playing skate. It's a car just going down like a cliff. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be sick. Jackie gets those slime videos on her algorithm and I'm so off put by them. Do you think of our every YouTube video we put up half of it was just a car? careening down a mountain.

You'd have better? Better retention. We would. We would. I feel like that's what people do now with the audio where they just take the audio of something popular

and they're like, here's me making guacamole and they never address it. I would like that. I would like that doing that. Yeah. That's a good idea. All right.

O'Kai just takes a half of it's just Temple Run. Dude, Temple Run is great. You remember Temple Run, Craig? Oh, yeah. K-R-E-G-G. That was a real sweet spot in like iPhone games, you know?

Like Cube Runner was like the OG, but then it was like, doodle jump. and Fruit Ninja. That was like when it felt pure, you know? When they released, because you used to, God, I feel like I'm fucking talking about back of the day, Jesus, but they used to,

it was a big deal when they'd update the games on the iPhone. Like, it was a big deal. And so when Doodle Jump released the World Cup edition of Doodle Jump, and there were all the different, oh, my God. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Uruguay and to Columbia, and you'd have worked through all the different countries, and you could get, oh, it was such a big deal.

Yeah. D.K is fully dissociated. I was going to say, I'm trying to remember, but, and forgive me if I'm getting this wrong, but I don't think I've ever played a game on my phone. What the hell are you talking about? I've never used my phone to play games. Your entire life? Maybe like really early on in games, like some bullshit game, but I can't think of anything.

What about OG? With friends? OG. What about Snake? Do you ever play Snake? No. What? You never played Snake on your phone? phone? No, what a waste of time. What a waste of time.

Your job is talking about fantasy football. Craig is offended. Sorry, go back to your 27 dynasty rookie mock drafts. Yeah, I'm building something. I'm building, I'm building a snake. It gets bigger. You never played snake on like a shitty Nokia foot phone or something? I don't even know what snake is. Get the fuck out. Shut the fuck up. That's your generation. It's not ours. You don't know snake on the Nokia. I mean, I don't know. I can't picture how it's played. Is the pong of phone games? Yes.

That's, couldn't describe it better. Okay. Yeah. This is very much like people your age are on our side. This is my mom played that. I'm not trying to pick a side here. I'm not saying I'm better.

I just have never done that. But you never heard of it? Is this the like weird thing your generation has of like video games? Like it's still, even though you're told it's like, oh good like video games in your core like you're like, you're like lazy if you play video games. I feel like that was really instilled in you guys.

Yes. I think it is. I think it was, but I also just never had the draw for video games. I think a lot of other people did. I played video games a bunch in college. And then after college, I think it's like Peter away.

I haven't like played video games since the aughts. I don't know. Like, yeah. I agree with you. I feel the same way. I would say my relationship to video games has always been sports and like fighter games, like dumb shit,

like Super Smash Brothers. I never really got into like the like whatever. I don't know what they're called. Like the single player like story driven video games. games, like the last of us, that's the stuff that I don't really have any relationship with. So for me, it was, we got my brother, oh, thank God, he did this. My brother successfully negotiated for an Xbox when he was like eight or nine for Christmas, and I was five, Christmas onica, I don't remember.

And like I, I, but I was five. So I got to play the original Halo, which was like, I mean, man, that was, that was, that was the original Halo and Halo and Call of Duty. And so that I got a Halo and Halo Call Duty. It was very basic, Halo Call of Duty, Mad, and I was very basic. basic. But then I did stop because like I did feel that twinge of like, oh, it's a waste of time. But honestly, what got me back into video games was GT5 and Red Dead Redemption 2. Like I stopped playing when I moved to Los Angeles War for the Ringer.

But then Red Dead Redemption 2, I was that loser who just bought a PS4 that the box was just Red Dead Red Redemption too. Yeah. And then I would sit. I would come home from work and I would just like sit there and like go on my horse and Red Dead Red Dead Redemption. And I would just associate. I think I was always afraid of like when I talk to people who love those games.

They would tell me that they could sit down, turn the game on, and they would, like, blink in eight hours would go by. And that's what they would do, like, all. And I was just like, I can't, I'm, like, afraid of that level of addiction. It still feels like a waste of time. Honestly, but to your point, DK, I did stop playing games on my phone because it feels like a waste of time. And, you know, instead, I just scroll for hours and hours and hours. I mean, to be clear, I waste time on phone. I watch people play video games instead.

I'm not, like, saying I'm better than anyone because I fucking waste so much time on my phone. but I don't play games for whatever reason. I just never got into games on my phone. But I still have this going on right now because I downloaded backyard baseball, which was the greatest Fortnite ever. And I've been playing it on my phone. And it's weird because I am,

I'm 30 years old. And sometimes I'm like, oh my God, I love this. And the other times I'm like, are you just sitting around like playing backyard baseball on your phone? There's a lot of great memes about like men at 30 years old in 1915.

And it's like them working in a steel mill and have the three kids. And then it's like men who are 30 now. And it's like, Hyvins playing backyard baseball on his phone with an Oculus on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The funny thing is, like, I see the, I see people posting clips of, you know, Medal of Honor or whatever those games, Call of Duty, like, the ones that were set in World War II and stuff, I'm like, oh, this is fucking sweet. Because I love, I, like, love history, and I think it would be really interesting to do that, but I just don't have the time to do any of that. Also, it's just kind of, I find video games kind of stressful because I'm terrible. at them. Before we go.

It's like the thing where you just like get stuck in the corner and then you get shot because you can't get yourself out of the corner. Yeah. Like that's, that's me. Before we go, I almost forgot. Was it this episode or the one the last Monday where I mentioned the yuppie L.A.

drink that I'm drinking L.A. drink that I'm drinking L.A. drink. Yeah. Okay. I'm drinking, I'm drinking matcha now. Oh, yes. Masha? I'm a matcha guy now.

Okay. Can you explain it? We got matcha in Seattle. Yes, we did. I'm about two weeks in. I'm loving it. I'm a macha guy now. So it's kind of like grass, right?

You're drinking grass? It's green tea leaves that are ground up into a powder, but they're actually grown a different way. The leaves are grown in the shade, which gives them more chlorophyll. So they're a little different than traditional green tea leaves. But it's the actual leaf itself that is ground. They're like the stems and stuff are removed,

and then it's ground into a powder. There's a good place that just opened up near me that has like ceremonial grade matcha from Japan and now I'm in love with it and I get it on the same day. Ceremonial grade matcha?

Yeah, it's the highest grade. That was the most California thing you never said. That is the most California thing. He said, since Craig said I went to California high school. Yeah, which I did.

I know you're probably thinking. The California high school kid says drinks matcha, ceremonial grade matcha. When you're in stores and you see macha and you see premium grade, I bet you're probably thinking, there's nothing higher than that, right?

Wrong. Ceremonial. Can I ask you a serious question? Because I saw something recently that it was like, if you, like long term drinkers of green tea have like better cognitive abilities. Yeah, dude. The Japanese can sleep better and all this stuff.

Yeah. Does it give you the same like medicinal value of, as drinking like tea or do you need to brew the tea and stuff to get the same deal? It has a lot of great medicinal. It's like, a lot of antioxidants. Also, it has an ingredient or a, not an ingredient, but it has an element to it. Elthianine, apparently, is something that when paired with caffeine, helps slowly release

the caffeine over time, unlike coffee, which has more of like a spike. It's also not as much caffeine as coffee. It's like half, if that. Right. But, um, so I do feel like a little bit of like sustain, L-theonine, um, like the letter L-dash theanine. Um, am I, um, I, um, I, but do you know what that is? D.K. You're nodding. No, I mean, it's vitamin or mineral or whatever. It's like there's like L. L. Licine is another supplement you can take. It's an amino acid.

Oh, all right. So, anyway. Craig, I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I want to make fun of you so much for this, but I actually have a bag of like finally ground matcha that I can put into smoothies. Is it a ceremonial grade? It's definitely not.

What was the grade that you hit? Ceremonial Japanese matcha. No, it doesn't. I don't think it hit that level. I kind of am hit or miss drinking it, though, putting it in my smoothies, because I have a smoothie every day. Because it's a very strong flavor. It, like, overpowers.

Very earthy. And, like, I don't get it. It tastes like you're eating grass. Yes. And I don't get it super sweetened or anything like that. So I basically have it with, like, milk and, like, a little bit of honey. But, man, do I, I really like having a thing to, like, drink every morning. It's nice.

I really like having a thing to drink every morning. is the guy who shits on us for drinking coffee. What I like is that Craig is just slowly, like, coming all the way around to drinking fucking coffee. I know. Greg is going to do everything in the bean his power, and then he's going to be 50 years old and, like, fucking just drink black coffee. That's another thing.

Send us all the medicinal value of drinking coffee, and then Craig will maybe finally start doing it. He's going to, no, he's going to reinvent the coffee bean. He's going to be like, he's going to just reinvent the whole thing. Tech pros and Silicon Valley. Yeah. Tech pros need to disrupt coffee. It's the thing that we want to drink in the morning.

it makes you wake up a little bit. It makes you feel good. Maybe it will. You know what? There's a ritual to it. If I do, that's okay. I'm open to growing and trying new things and I think it's great to change. And I didn't drink macha because somebody was like, you know, Mancha has all these great health benefits. I just tried it at this coffee shop.

I liked it. I liked the way it make me feel and now I drink it more. And I guess it also is healthy. Well, you know, I'm scarred by Machia because I, Craig shared the story a thousand times. But I did the first live show that Ringer did and I had to get coffee for everyone who's it was like, uh, oh, yeah. it was like Bill Mao I think he might even

never watch it was I don't know but Andy Greenwald was there and I had everyone write down their coffee orders because I was like I'll fuck this up and then Andy Greenwald wrote down like M.O yeah and I go to the near Starbucks which oh God huge mistake it was one in a target

that was the only one of walking distance which was you know those are not the same so it's like a 16 year old kid is the only barista and I hand him the paper thinking that this was be foolproof and the kid's like what is this? I'm like, I don't know. You're the barista, dude. Like, make what's on, I don't know. And so he made a mocha. So I'd come back

with a mocha for Hedy Greenwald eight minutes before he's supposed to go on. And that scarred me. But I literally, he was like, I wanted macha and I was like, what the fuck is a macha? You're like, what is this foreign land I'm in? What is this weird green drink? Masha, my third week in Los Angeles.

I'm like, oh my gosh. Much is good, though. I like it. It is good. It is a big thing. I've heard about it before, Craig. So that's cool. I'm going to eat it more now, or whatever you want to call, consume it. If you can only have mach or poppy. Take it in.

You can only have mach or poppy for the next year. What would you do, Greg? Right now it's macho. You still on the poppy grind? Yeah, I drink poppy. Not a ton anymore, but every now and then. I still drink kombucha. Yeah, kombucha's good.

I will say there's a great little shot from this. You know what? I don't even know how to explain it or what it is, but it's from whole... a friend has a bottle for it waiting for me I've had a couple of shots of this like a fermented

I can't even explain what it is I'll get it and I'll talk about it but it's like a shot I'm not doing a good job no I don't know what you can you give us

any drinks no I don't know anything about it okay Kai says guys the Mavs got the number one pick the Mavs won the lottery oh wow what's the opposite of karma that's so

now it's the wow that's the final actually are you fucking kidding me the Mavs got So now is going to get Cooper flag So they're getting that Duke guy Do you think that was rigged? Yeah, they're going to get Cooper flag.

I'm going to tell you Will they take the Duke guy? Will they take Cooper flag? They will. Can I admit something? The first time I heard Bill talk about the like the Patrick Ewing lottery being rigged, I thought Bill was nuts when he was talking about like 15 years ago.

Uh, I'm not saying this one is. If it's having thoughts. But I will say I'm more open to some of the, I'm more open to like. I need to see the odds. The lottery specifically. Reactions on on Twitter and

Blue Sky are hilarious. They had a 1.8% chance. Wow. Rigged. What were the lottery odds? Dude, they were 11th. 1.8% chance. Has a team ever won with that?

I was going to say, this has to be the longest odds ever for a first of a day. I mean, you can't get, I mean, there's only 14 teams in the lottery, right? Wait, let me see. The first four teams are Dallas, San Antonio, Philly, and Charlotte. So the only other teams that had a lower shot were the Spurs and Hawks had a 0.8% chance and then it was the Bulls and the Mavs had 1.8. Dude. Wow.

Amazing. All time good karma for those fans. So do you think that, do you think, what are the odds that the Luca trade just? What if Luca just kind of like never really recovers from this calf injury? And Cooper flag is unbelievable. Yeah. Also, now, I feel like there's been a lot of Mavs fans who have abandoned the Mavs that they like quietly coming back now.

Yeah, that's a good. Wait, Kai, Kai, wait. Kai, Kai, get in here. man. Kai, get it in it. Yeah, Kai, get your mic going. Is it kind of like,

well, no, no, I didn't officially abandon them. We are back. So, Kai, well, Kai has a great perspective on this. Kai,

you somehow have escaped talking with the Lukutrade on this show because there was a lot going on. But you're from Dallas and you're a Lakers fan. Yeah, Typhus, be careful.

Jesus. Yeah. My group chat is going insane right now. And these are the same people who have disavowed the Mavericks and now they're just back in immediately. So yeah, good karma. All time good karma.

This is insane, truly. Is it good karma? Yeah. Well, it's good karma for the fans. Yeah. It balances the scales for sure. This is someone you can seemingly build, you know, a team around, a franchise around. It is an all-time snip, snap for a fan base.

It's up there with any fan base I can remember from like the last three months to end. Like the idea that you're going to go from having Luca to going Cooper Flag and under free, what is that, 90 days. It's pretty crazy. So, Kyle, you have a lot of friends who are Mavericks fans. They're all Mavericks fans. Some of them just were like, I despise the team. Now they're just going to be, they were always just maddened fans, right? They said they were going to be Lakers fans. They're going to follow Luca. But as soon as something like this was going to happen, they would go back. What's the meanest thing anyone said your friend said to you about the Lakers trade? I mean, there were friends of mine who blocked me for multiple days before I even had a chance to

say anything. It was just like an instant block as soon as it happened. So. Preemptive block. Well, people will hear about this in two weeks. Sorry to cut you off. I just got this. People hear this in two weeks? Yeah.

Very timely. A friend of mine just said, if we fire Nico, we'd be so back. Oh, there we go. That would be funny. Dude, what a win for Cooper Flagg. He dodged the Hornets, the Jazz, and the Wizards. and gets to go to the Mavs now. Insane.

I mean, he's going to step in playing with Anthony Davis, like a decent team around him. This is next to Kyrie when he gets back. It's kind of insane to think the Houston Rockets had better odds than the Mavs did. Like, the idea that he could have gone to the Rockets is insane. Oh, because what they had the Sun's pick. Yeah.

I'm, yeah, I just kind of mind blown that some of these teams, lucky motherfuckers. Well, maybe that's the wrong word. I think they'd still want Luke a back. You know what it is? You know what it is? You know, it's what Mark Zuckerberg said about Twitter? Clown car that drove into a gold mine.

Right. Yeah. Good. My God. All right. Or Nico knew. Maybe he knew. Or he knew. Yeah, he knew.

He was given assurances. Yeah. Yeah. The frozen envelope. All right. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Kai.

Thank you, Carlos. Thank you, Austin. Thank you to. the 19 or sorry, the 1889, 89 Cincinnati Reds. With baseball, two words. Shout out Nico Harrison. Quite the comeback. Shout out Gerg.

Gerg. Gerg. Gerg. Gerg. I can't get over Gerg. He wrote Gerg and you're like, I like, you know what's so funny? That's also just like them, instead of admitting they made a mistake in asking for a new birth certificate to fill out, they're like, we'll keep it. You know what I mean?

It's like when they make you the wrong coffee and you're like, I'll drink this, it's fine. But like for your kid's name. It was a mocha macha situation and they just ran with it. Gurg. Excuse me, you couldn't have possibly meant Gurg, did you? No, we did actually. How dare you?

It's fine, it's fine. We'll keep it. Thank you, Lord. Lord. Thank you, Tribe Called Quest. Nice. Get back to your roots, D.K. That feels...

Yeah. Nice. This is the wheelhouse. You probably named them before, but whatever. Yeah, it doesn't matter. That's pretty common at this point. Great vibe. When are you guys going to start naming bands, huh?

I was thinking. I think we tried for like two episodes. Should we ever switch it and have like me name movies or like high fits names, whatever, something else? That would be fun. Ooh, I like that. But that kind of goes against the whole point. But yeah.

I know. I know. I feel like most people don't know the point. Yeah. Most people don't know that we're referencing. Well, maybe most bleep it out. But yeah. We're referencing SNL. Yeah.

Thank you, Lauren. People think we're thinking the Lord. We get one email a month of who's Lauren. Who's the Lord? Which Lord are you thinking? Oh, yes. Someone thought we were really religious. And they were like, doesn't really jive with the rest of the show.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Lauren is my Lord, though. Yeah. I think I mentioned something about being Jewish on a show. And they were like, that's so confusing. And you're like, why? He runs SNL. What's the big deal? Goodbye, everyone.