The Ringer NFL Show - Preseason Week 2 Risers and Fallers

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

The guys are live in the studio in NYC to discuss some of the NFL preseason news from this past week, some injury updates, a crucial update regarding a previous email about a missing bear from a New Jersey zoo, and Taylor Swift’s appearance on the Kelce brothers’ podcast. 2:30 Preseason Risers and Fallers 46:16 Injury Updates Heading into Season 1:25:02 Reporting on the Bear 1:33:42 Taylor Swift on New Heights Low Stakes Conspiracy Sponsored by YahooFantasy. #YahooPartner Play now at yahoofantasy.com/promo. Getaway sales event. 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: Ronak Nair, Kai Grady, and Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, in your computer, not mine. Jesus Christ. Oh, here. Are we recording, Ronick? That has to be the beginning of the little clip. We got to put that on Instagram. I'm wet. Welcome to the Rear Fantasy football show.

My name is Danny Hyperts, and I'm joined in person by Danny Kelly and Claire Coralbeck. We were in New York City, in the World Trade Center and Spotify headquarters. Dek has never been to New York City before. The Big Apple. That's what they all say. Yeah, I'm walking here. Hey. I slapped so many car.

Yeah, you can't hail a cab to see him in the damn life. You can teach me the form. Follow us at Ring your Fantasy Football on Instagram, or on Instagram at Ringar Fantasy Football, if you want to see our behind the scenes, D.K., just we're just feeding him food and teaching him how to jaywalk and stuff. And so we're doing that. It's a lot of chicken and cheese today. Hold the bacon. So it's also a rough start.

Yeah, it's pretty brutal. I will say also in New York City, they let us do Amy Pollar's studio. This is where she does good hang with Amy Polar. This is her ficus. You're in her spot. Behind me. Oh, I am. I am.

I mean. Idriselba is going to join us soon. Yeah, we have Ingerselba here. All the guests are just right outside. They all just stay here. Yeah. So, yeah, and then we're going to, we also get to, it's preseason week two winners. Like, there are a lot of players that looked really good.

A lot of players have gotten hurt since we last did a show. So going through all the injuries, going through all the guys who look good. And we're running back deep cut, sleepers. We kind of decided on if you guys really like it sleepers. And then also, more importantly, Taylor Swift, we have a low-stakes conspiracy theory on Taylor Swift. And then also, most importantly of all, we have an update on Jelly the Bear. A verdict. an alleged verdict. Allegedly alive.

The Turtleback Zoo went live in the gym with the bear. We have a bear update. All that. We, you know, kind of have to, we do the football first and then we have the bear update. So that's coming. But yeah. So we're very excited. Going to get to all of that.

But first, we're going to take a quick break. This episode of the Ringer Fantasy Football Show is presented by Hyundai. Get into the Hyundai getaway sales event and get away with a deal so right. It almost feels wrong. You can get huge savings on their adventure ready SUVs like the Hyundai. like the Hyundai Santa Fe and Santa Fe and Santa Fe Models. Orgo all-electric and choose from America's most awarded EV lineup like the breakthrough, Ionic 5 or Ionic 6.

Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-3-3-3-3-4-4603 for details. Offers end September 2nd, 2025. We have to go through a tremendous amount of things that had happened over the last week since we last recorded together. And I think we should just get into it because, I mean, contracts have been signed, hamstrings have been polled. We'll get the zoo that was hiding the black bear.

Oh, my gosh. Have been allegedly. Jelly the bear. They did in a live stream with Jelly the Bear. We have a lot to get to. Proof of life for jelly. Sort of. Craig, you've been on vacation, so you've got to pull your weight here.

Just take us through, like, honestly, just take it through all the preseason games and everything. This is the last week of preseason that matters. The next week, it's going to be no starters. There was actually a lot of action this week, a lot of quarterbacks that we had questions about played this week, which is a great place to start. So Caleb. Caleb played last night, Sunday night. He's earned one name? I like that we just saw him. He's earned one name, Caleb Williams?

The mononym. Well, he's the only Caleb. That's fair. If his name was Matt, it wouldn't work. But Caleb works. He lost 10 games in a row last season. He gets one, he's like each year row now. We're going to call him one name.

Yeah. Caleb last night played against the bills. Caleb looked really good. He had two series in his first drive. He had a 93-yard drive in a touchdown. In total, his stat line, he finished 6 for 10, 10, 107 yards in a touchdown. His touchdown was a 35-yard throw to Olamadee Zakias. Sleeper.

This is a real, like, everybody breathe. Yeah. The bears are the it's so over, we're so back team already. 100%. Like every three days on social media, it is like the bears are screwed. Caleb's a bust. And like, wait a minute, actually Ben Johnson's going to fix all of this. I was today early at the gym.

I was at the gym together. I read the gym together. We didn't acknowledge. We did that. Have you heard of astronaut time for relationships? It's like when you're living together. but you're like pretending one astronauts over there and so we didn't acknowledge each other

No I was on the treadmill hyvitz was hitting the weights Wow No big deal Dumbbells and stuff But Get Up was on As gym TV But they don't put the captions on the gym TV So it's just like just watching a screen

And you don't know what they're saying You know the takes are good though I want to ask you guys The same question that they asked Dan Orlovsky and the Get Up crew Sure What did Caleb Williams prove last night. And I'm going to add my own, if anything at all.

I would say maybe not proof. Proof is a strong word. He gave me a lot of confidence, more confidence, that he can play on time. And that was like the big thing. When he was dropping, like, and they were playing under center. They were doing rollouts. They were doing things like that where, you know, it's not just, you know, in shotgun and he's doing his thing and running around and trying to make him play happen, which was, I feel like a lot of last year. He was hitting his back foot, getting the ball out, going over the middle of the field, and just playing in rhythm that I feel like we only saw in small spurts last year. He had a couple of really good games where he kind of was like feeling it. And this game, it just looked crisp and in rhythm.

And that was something I feel like we rarely saw last year. So I was really, really encouraged by that. Yeah, he looked like Jared Goff. Right. He was just sitting in the pocket, ripping passes over the middle. Yeah, just ripping passes. To Cold Command, to Zakiya, and to whoever. and

um how much are you because you're out you have been pretty pretty public the last couple weeks about how you're kind of out on the bears has this I love preseason the most

because this is like he threw 10 passes and he completed six of them are you now changing your entire opinion because of last year literally I'm totally in out of the Bears time no I think what I've been I want to be clear that I think I've been

out on the bears necessarily for fantasy because I think that actually Ben Johnson will fix this team but I'm a little out on the whole thing being fixed in week one in you sorry in year one of this whole experiment. You don't fix a team ever, though. I mean, like, it's not like all of a sudden we're fixed.

It's going to be gradual. It's tough because on one hand, the biggest change there is in the NFL is going from a really bad coach to a great coach, which is what we all think the Patriots are going to be good because Gerard Mayo to Mike Vrable is a huge change. And, like, you know, back in the day when the Niners went from, like, Mike Singletary to Jim Harbaugh, it's like the team that had, I don't know,

four wins, three wins went to, like, the NFC championship game. So it does happen sometimes. But the flip side is when there is as many issues, as Chicago had, Caleb Williams has to develop. I mean, Roma Duneses out here saying we might not learn the offense in year one entirely. However, to your point about what did Caleb prove, I think the question has been, basically,

for Caleb Williams, it's been, to your point, can you play on time? Which, what that means is football, the passing game ever since Bill Walsh, last 40 years, is the west coast is the footwork of the quarterback is tied to the footwork of the receiver. It's dancing, it's timing, and so you have to be tied. But what Caleb Williams did under

Lincoln Riley at USC is jazz. It's like, oh yeah it's like you know Lincoln Riley's kind of a vibes coach and it's like yeah you'll figure it out like it's gonna be chill like you know here's plan A but you got a riff it's fine which is kind of just relying on raw physical talent raw physical talent and vibes and athleticism I'm gonna recruit the best quarterbacks and they figure out yeah and so then Ben Johnson when he was doing in Detroit it was like an orchestra like it was so well done like not quite my tempo he's like the drum teacher yeah exactly and so the question is can Ben Johnson can adapt to someone who's not Jared Goff and is not six five and going to play in this offense. And I think the how, I don't know what halfway is between jazz and orchestra, but I feel like a really cool rock band. That is to me what I saw. They proved to me that Ben Johnson can do something and that Caleb Williams can be a little closer to golf and they can do it in the preseason. I would like to see that, you know, was he sacked? In a real game. I don't think he was sacked. No, he got the ball out way faster. So, I mean, that's the simple. That's the simpler

answer is he got the ball out a second and half. He took three and a half seconds on average to throw every goddamn football last year, and he threw the ball under two seconds, like four times. That alone is great. I would like to announce that I'm back in on the Bears. Yeah. He's back, baby. Yeah, I think I'm, I saw him throw three passes.

Doesn't it also feel like I think Caleb is the type of player who really benefits from positive momentum, or he's really affected by momentum, kind of like mentally and personally. To me, he seems like the type of guy where if he can parlay a couple good games together and the train gets moving, it's going to be really hard. hard to stop that momentum. And I think once he starts to feel confident, and he can just start playing and stop thinking, he'll be really good. But it's the same way in the other direction where if things start to go poorly, you get in your own head, you start over thinking, it'll go really badly. I do think that he's kind of a little bit more volatile in that sense,

and that if like a couple games work out and he gets maybe even like a lucky bounce that wins them a game or something like that, it's enough to really get Caleb going. And he could take off earlier than I think of it. Kind of like, so you're saying if they hit adversity, it's bad, kind of like, I don't know, just to make it up, like, if you lose it a Hill Mary, you lose 10 straight kicks. Exactly. Got it. That was tough, man. Remember the time those 10 games after Hillmare?

Does it remind you at all of, do you remember the narratives? And Jared Goff and Caleb Williams are different style of quarterbacks, but both top picks. I didn't know that. Yeah, they are. Both top picks, both pretty atrocious in their first year in the NFL. And then now you're seeing, like, Sean McVeigh came in and basically. Gough look completely different. Yeah, from the Jeff Fisher.

Right. And then I'm hoping this is what we see sort of in the Ben Johnson offense. Like it's just the detail. And this is what we hear, we've heard during training camp and why you probably were kind of like out on them is there's just been consistently negative reports. Every training camp practice. Well, everyone's just like, this is really hard.

This is a great. It's like planning for the LSAT in a month. And you're like, okay, maybe, but it's also difficult. This is why I've been so stubborn about Trevor Lawrence and Jacksonville, people giving up on him. It's why I'm still stubborn about Anthony Richardson. where again, you're right. Jared Goff is a good example of how well he played in Detroit, where mad Jared Goff didn't make the Super Bowl last year, basically.

Jared Goff was a salary dump to the Lions. And then Baker Mayfield on the bucks, Baker Mayfield, who were like, oh, yeah, three-quarters is not a problem. Baker-Mayfield was salary dumped from the Panthers. So I'm not to giving up on any of these guys. That's a good. Other team that looked really good, the Seahawks looked really good for the drive and a half, basically. They played starters. Try not to get, I'm trying not to overreact. Preseason is the best.

I know. It's awesome. Best offense ever. This reminds me so much of the first two weeks. of the Saints last year. Sure. Where they couldn't, you couldn't do anything to stop them. Like the Saints office and Clay Cubuette. I don't think I can talk about you.

Did you fall off the roof? You sailor, you. Clay looks great in warm-ups, doesn't he? But I will say, the scheme, the scheme really does feel very different. There's a different identity. They want to run the football. They're doing a lot of play action stuff.

It's just, it feels so much different. And this is like the classic preseason thing. I saw this from Ian Hartett's. According to the charting, I don't know where he got this, but yards before contact, the Seahawks are fourth in the 2025 preseason. They were 30th last year. Yeah, which is like a huge sign of scheme and offensive line. But Gray Zabel, I think, you know, obviously they've made multiple changes.

They drafted this guy in the first round and he's looked awesome. Jalen Sondell, their center has looked really good too. Basically, I'm starting to have a little bit of hope that this run game will completely change the Seac's office. I'm starting to buy into it a little bit. Every back that's played for the Seahawks so far in the preseason looks really good. Zach Charbonnet is awesome in this last game. Damien Martinez, their rookie out of Miami, looks pretty good. And George Holani, who is, I think, a second-year player has, like, run for a bunch of yards.

So it's like it's not just like one guy who looks good or whatever. It is kind of just this offense feels like it's really clicking. So I don't know. I'm starting to get excited. How do we feel about – so Sharbonet had another big day. Kenneth Walker hurt This is four straight seasons with a foot issue for Kenneth Walker He's had a multiple injuries

He's had like an oblique injury which is always some Somewhat worrisome he's one of the few players You know people always say You can't be injury prone players aren't injury prone you just get hurt Kenneth Walker might be injury prone Right I am out on Ken Walker Just because he's so fun to watch when he's healthy

I am officially kind of like I kind of can't handle like a running back with foot issues for the entirety of the season. Meanwhile, with Zach Charbonnet, I just think I'm looking at, we have them 118th, which is, you know, basically like, you know, 10th, 11th round.

We need to move them up 25 spots because I just feel like Zach Charbonnet is so, like any game that Ken Walker misses is so clearly the number one back in Seattle, and Seattle's running back game is going to go from bottom four to top four. I mean, even if you look at last year

when the running game was bottom five, Charbonnet, when Kenneth Walker was out, was a top 12 running back straight up. It's just in that top 12 group. every week. There's a weird quirk, and I'm probably going to mention this a lot over the next couple weeks of shows, but I did a lot of diving into like basically what are like very basic differences and values of like ESPN and Yahoo or Sleeper or wherever you have your rankings. And for whatever reason, ESPN has ranked Zach Charbade like 133rd. So like that's like, what is that? Like a 13th round pick, like 11th round pick. And he's like 40 spots higher in Yahoo, 40 spots higher in Sleeper. And like that's where I want to be. I think Charbonne is, I mean, like we use this term maybe too much, but Charbonnet him is a league winning player. We already know it's August Kenneth Walker has a foot injury. He was back in practice this week. But like they don't go away.

You're running back. It doesn't get better. Snip snap. It's a foot injury. Like he's a running back. I don't know. He's literally had four straight years of his foot injury. Yeah, it's like his foot, he just has a foot problem.

His foot hurts all the time. His foot, yeah, he's constantly. He's going to play some. Yeah, we got to move up. Yeah, Charbonnet is our running, is the running back 36 and Walker's the running back 16. I literally did a podcast that, uh, with Sheel Capadia, co-host here at the ringer. and I picked the Cardinals to make the playoffs, not win the Super Bowl, sorry, make the playoffs.

And then I, like, saw the Seox play and I was like, God, that was stupid. I should have picked the Seahawks. It is. Another person looked really good, I thought, was Cam Ward for the Titans. Cam Ward, good example of bot, like, you know, when you're golfing sometimes and you're like, yeah, I mean, I shot terribly, but I played well.

Cam Ward's stat lines, like he completed two of seven passes, look pretty bad, but he has sick throw to Van Jefferson that Van Jefferson did not catch, but it was awesome. him. He had another sick throw along the sideline that was called back for like holding or something stupid, but it was an awesome throw. And then like a good throw on third and three, but the quarterback like had a smart pass interference that like was not slick and was not called. And I'm like, I just, Kim Ward hasn't been pressured a ton and the Titans offensive line. If it's basically, you know, it's the preseason, maybe there's going to be more exotic blitzes. But if the Titans offensive line's good, Kim Ward in the backfield, I'm very, I'm bullish. I'm not saying the Titans going to be great to make the playoffs or anything, but I, I, I, I, I, I, I I'm really into Cam. I think he's going to be like a very exciting player. I do too. The Titans are on my short list of,

there's like the sleeper teams that aren't really the sleeper teams. Everyone's like the Bears. Those are the obvious ones. But there's always one team that truly comes out of nowhere makes the playoffs. Nobody believes in the Titans right now. It's going to be the Titans. It's going to be the Panthers. It's going to be potential of the New York Giants.

There are certain like teams that are truly in that group. And I think the Titans are one of them. I also just think Kim Ward, sometimes you just know when somebody has an intangible and X-factor aura as Gen Z likes to say. He has aura. And you know who kind of does it to me? He's Caleb Williams. For how cool Caleb Williams is on the field, for his style of play, for how flashy is, all that stuff.

When you see Caleb Williams in an interview, when you see him at practice, versus Cam Ward. Cam Ward looks like he walked into Titans Camp and was like, this is my team. I'm going to motivate everybody here. My speeches are awesome. He's already recruiting players to come with him, get there early and work out, get their early and start practicing before everybody shows up. Like he just, even if he doesn't end up being an amazing quarterback,

he seems like he's already a leader and I just like I buy into that So you're saying Cam Ward has aura of a Kayla Williams as an aura farmer? Yeah, perhaps. Okay, we'll explain that to DK after the show. We're going to bring back to the Genzy Spelling Bee. If you have Genzy spelling me... I keep hearing about that. When are we doing that?

Well, Kai's moving to... He's not here. Yeah. So... Can we talk about another guy who surprised me because he has aura? Yeah. Is Jackson DART. Jackson fucking DART. Has aura.

He has it. I don't know. He's cool. Damn right. Did you say, because you said last year, I think that Caleb Williams is the first Gen Z quarterback or whatever. I kind of understand what that means, but when I see Jackson Dart, I'm like, this guy is Gen. Jackson's Dard. He has a literal mullet.

Jackson Dard is the first good Gen Z court. This guy looks like a youth to me. He's just a youth. He has like, his style is really an interesting. Did you see him in his post-game presser? He's got like, he just has a crazy, crazy look to him. And I'm saying that. I'm recognizing very much that I sound like a boomer.

He just has a crazy style. Sure. Well, he does the Star Wars. He does the eye black to remind himself he wants to look like Anakin Skywalker for the prequels. Which is funny because then Abdul Carter is such a star, he's Darth Vader guy. He wrote Darth Vader on his eye black for the Orange Bowl. Yeah. Which mostly, first of all, the fact that Giants have two first round picks obsessed with the Star Wars prequels.

I'm like, that's pretty good for Star Wars. I mean, these kids were even barely alive when those movies were made. So Star Wars not, you know, maybe they're not making enough content. You ever thought of that? I think they are. No, they probably are. They're willingly pulling back because they realized they went to the argument.

Here's the biggest thing that's changed between when I last did a show with Craig and now. When Craig left, I was like, man, I think the Giants gonna have the best defensive line in football. I'm not saying the Giants are going to win the Super Bowl, but like the Giants, every Super Bowl, all four times the Giants ever won the Super Bowl,

their defensive line looked like this. He gets just looking at photos of Jackson Dirk. Dude, well, you know what? He looks like he's walking around Venice Boulevard on Saturday. Which he might be. James was asked about being in the Giants. You know what James said?

He said, the white boys here have spice. Because it's Jackson Dart looking like that, Tommy DeVito, and Cam Scataboo. And he's like, yeah, they got flavor. Yeah. They got flavor. They do, though. This is like, as a 42-year-old man, I'm like, I wouldn't even know how to have a conversation with this guy.

I don't know. What am I going to say to this kid? I like your feathered hair. Hello, my fellow youth. Hello, my fellow kid. You know, it's like... You're like, is Jackson Dart a stage name or what's up? Yeah, and also his name is the most Gen Z name.

J-A-X-S-O-N. Jackson. Jackson Dart. Dude, also the dart emoji, because you can use the bullet bullseye, but also you can do the cigarette. I mean, look, if he works out, one of the better quarterback names we've ever had. In all seriousness, the dart... DART looks good and, like, I know I was skeptical of him, but he looked, one, the... He's all in.

He is all in. Here's what's changed. I'm kind of... making everyone's coming up I'm holding myself down to not jump on the train I'm so in on this team

I'm in Abdul Carter is Michael Parsons Cops is truly poison Dart though Yeah sorry Remember Kenny Pickett Do we remember Kenny Pickett? I know I know

I'm just saying Jackson Dart He was like 11 for 11 He was incredible In the preseason And everyone's like We knew it was gonna take a year He's like a professional

Joe Montana He's gritties He's in his own Well we never said that You said that We all acknowledge that he looked good Stop.

Play the tape. No. Run it. Don't. Play the tape. No, play Jackson. Dart looked, he can move. The deep ball's good.

Like, the runner, like, the part of Daniel Jones that was exciting in the beginning, people forget Jones got bad because Jones was really a good runner. He was physical and he was good deep ball. The part of Daniel Jones gets left out is he had a neck injury, a spinal injury, and he lost his deep ball. And he tore his ACL.

He tore his ACL. So suddenly less athleticism, not a deep ball. And now you're just like a shitty Alex Smith. Jackson Dart still, still, like he's a. a good runner with a good arm. You know, not the Ole Miss offense is not the most advanced thing. But I'm like, you know what? I'm like Russell Wilson.

What's going to happen is Russell Wilson is going to play the first half of the season or whenever. And then Dart's going to come in and he's actually going to throw over the middle of field. It's going to like a revelation. Anyway, I'm so excited by darn it. It looks great. It's interesting because the Dart offense is very different from the Russell Wilson offense in terms of what they're trying to do, trying to accomplish, like the way that they run it. And not for nothing, but Russell Wilson's look pretty sharp. Stop.

We can't get it in this way. He has. No, no, no. Stop. No. By week... You're telling me to stop. Yeah, I am.

All right, pal. You're like looking back on your ex. And you're like, you know, she was actually pretty great. He had like an 80-yard touchdown, pass. Stop, stop. It's going to be week four, and he's going to be terrible, and people are going to be begging for Jackson Dart. I think DART is going to play much sooner than people think. That's the thing.

I know the giant schedule was really hard, and they got unlucky. And that there's no time that makes sense for DART to come in until, like, week 12. I don't know, man. I think it's going to be hard to deny... him after watching Russell Wilson for the first month. I drafted Jackson Dart and I draft this weekend. In a one quarterback league. I mean, it has.

I know it is super flex, but yeah, still. It's like you have the D-line is incredible. You got my league neighbors. The offensive line, dart. I just want to say. The Giants are a month away from being like, holy scatibus, like kind of doing things. You're like, man, they could be kind of sneaky frisky. Okay, okay.

I just want to say, I'm waiting. More closer to hymns is hiding wherever you are. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. I just want to say, put it on the record to have it out there, that regular season, football, especially the defense, looks very different. La, la, la, la, la.

My spidey senses are tingling with dark. Okay. I just want to say it. Speaking of spidey senses, Ashen genty for the Raiders, I won't lie. I was a little worried when the first game he had like negative yards against Seattle. I was a little concerned. Yeah, and the second game he was a little bit better.

Well, the Seahawks defense might just be great. But he did. truck the Niners cornerback Diomador, Lenore, or Lenoir? I don't know. I'm not going to... It's like a French. I don't know. De Amador or Lenore. But he got like rocked. And I was like, that's the guy I know. And I'm like, all right, Gentie's going to be good. Do you think if Genti only played in week one of the preseason, his draft stock would have dropped?

Maybe like a few points? I bet. Like a few peg. A little. It's just like weird to be like, oh, the negative yards in the preseason. That's weird. But I just think to steal... You think it's weird. Says the guys who are all in on Jackson Dart. Yeah. Those are separate things, D. But he looked good and Gentile looked bad. We're acknowledging what we saw.

It's very consistent lunch. Did Gentie, DK, you're big on Gentie, you're our draft expert. In week two, where he played a little bit better, he played a little more. Does Gentie look like you thought he was going to look in the pros? I mean, I don't... Unstoppable, is the... Right. I don't...

He hasn't, no, he hasn't looked like different than what I expected. Wait, he hasn't looked... So he does look as advertised. He looks about like what I was expecting, yes. I just think... I think the thing with Gentie is... It hasn't not looked... Hasn't un...

The same as what I was... Yeah. I think what Craig's saying is... No one wanted to criticize the Genty pick because we're like, yeah, you shouldn't take a running back that high, but this guy's sick. Yes. And I think that this season will probably be a reminder

that your offensive line matters a lot. And both Gentie can be really good. And again, there's a salary bullshit that we don't have to get into in the middle of August when the season's about to be here. But basically, I am a little worried that the Raiders offensive line, but he's still going to get so many touches, and I do think his upside as a receiver is really underrated. I think he's properly ranked kind of the end of round one, beginning of round two.

Kind of going to let other people have, Gentie? It's kind of where I've decided. It's so funny, though, because if he broke one 30-yard run in the preseason, I think I'd be like... Well, he broke one 30-yard run. First overall. You sent Lenoir, Diomador, Lenore, into another stratus. I wanted to ask, what is the absolute worst career comp Jentee could have that would

make him not a bust? Like if he had Josh Jacobs' career When he's 28 years old He's had Josh Jacobs' career Is he a bust or no? Disappointment, not a bust Yeah I mean the

I think disappointment is a bust The expectations are high Yeah, it's fine Change it's a disappointment No Trent Richardson is a bus Yeah but like Relatively disappointing is what he's saying

If you're spending You know what was he fifth or sixth pick Like if he has Josh Jacobs' career as the sixth pick No that's not what you want Right So that's so Josh Jacobs is not good enough. So raise the...

No, he has to be in the... What if he's Zekul Elliot? Todd Gurley. Christian McCaffrey, that tier, I think, to live up to his draft. Yeah, his draft. Do you agree with that? I think he can be. I mean, McCaffrey is the best running back in the league.

Gurley's the best running back in the league. Yeah, they were one offensive player of the year. You went offensive player at year one time, then the pick was justified. So you're saying... I think that has to be... What was the first name you said? I thought that was like fair. Zeeke.

I think Zeeke makes more sense. I don't think Zeeke was ever the best running back in the league. Zique is tough because a statistical comp because he went to the best offense line in the NFL. I think a better comp, honestly, Jonathan Taylor. I'm not saying Ash and Jensi is necessarily that kind of guy. But Jonathan Taylor, like, I don't think Colts fans don't like Jonathan Taylor. I also think if Jonathan Taylor had been drafted six, he'd be disappointing. He was the second round of six.

So it's like, yeah, the chiefs to Clyde Edwards, Adelaire of Jonathan Taylor. Huge mistake. but if Jonathan Taylor gone six, you're like, I don't know if this guy's, but that to me is probably the worst player where you're like, oh, I'm still okay with this. I think, though, from the fantasy point of view, what I was just about to say to in that, this segue is really good, really well to that is basically,

I think you can expect, you need to expect, that he's going to have the type of production that we've seen from some of these other top 12, top 15 picks, where he's a high-end RB1. He was a receiver in high school, right? Mid to high-end RV one. I do think we're a slot receiver in high school. That's what matters to me is he can catch a football

He just wasn't asking He was a place Who's it? Oh some random teammate that was good Oh let's do our favorite thing Reminding oh this is where all the podcast Did he replace Marvin Mims? Yes it was Marvin Mims

Who had the most Receiver The most receiving yards in the history of Texas High School football and he replaced him And he replaced Mims This is a good segue into another rookie Tyler Warren Tide in for the Colts

Has looked great In two weeks I've seen enough Yeah for sure So the Colts took him, I think, 14th out of Penn State. Warren is dangerously close to, like, I've seen enough. I do feel like I've seen enough. Like, this guy.

I want to give one stat over the two games he's played in the preseason. The Colts starters have played 35 snaps, and Tyler Warren has been on the field for 34 of them. I love that. I think Tyler Warren is, like, going to be not just my, but, like, our show sleeper tight end of, like, if you're listening to this before your draft, like, get Tyler Warren and make him your number two tight end if you want.

But, like, you should probably just have Tyler Warren. Right now in drafts. he's going like we have him around like round 11-ish and he's going after guys like Jake Ferguson, Evan Ingram and Tucker Kraft he's going right before guys like Colson Loveland, Dalton Kincaid and Kyle Pitts should he be, do you think he should

now be kind of elevated into the Jake Ferguson Evan Ingram, Tucker Kraft and Joku Kelsey Caddictier? Yes. Like yeah I mean to me easily because of something we had a conversation on the way here about the nature of sleepers and stuff and if there's something we could probably do a better job of is like highlighting underline bolding

players when it's like no no no but like the high range of outcome for this guy is top four. It's not just that, like, he could return some value where you're drafting him. I think Tyler Warren has as good a chance as anybody to be like the tight end four this year, which is the big three, right? You have Kittle, you have Brock Bowers and they've trained to bride. I think Warren could legitimately come in and be fourth this year. He checks a lot of boxes, right?

He's going to play a ton, which is like, honestly, one of the biggest things for tie-end is just, how often are they on the field and running routes? He has no clear high-end competition, which is, is also huge with tight ends. You need a guy who's like the number one guy or the number two guy on a really good offense. He has the chance to be the number one guy. And you can't say that for somebody like Colston Loveland, who is surrounded by a ton of talent. Tyler Warren set, he tied or set the single game record for catches in an FBS football game.

Literally, I think I forget, it was 17 or 17. 17 catches in game, which literally is the most any tight end has ever had in an FBS football game. The USC game. Yeah, versus USC. And just the point being, Nate Tice are by. Buddy Natis, who's at Yahoo does great stuff, made a great point that basically Tyler Warren got typecast as like a George Kittle. And I swear to God, it's because George Kittle and Jeremy Shockey have long hair. And so they were like good blockers who could catch.

Tyler Warren is actually like, he's not quite an evident anger, but he's not like some advanced blocker. He is a receiving tight end. And I'm dead serious to long hair throws people off. But he is going to be catching balls. And you kept comparing if Dallas got it and we get the ick. But the point being, Shane Stuyken, coach of the Eagles, or sorry, coach of the Coles. Imagine if Stuyken didn't have A.J. Brown and Devante Smith. Yeah, but when she, exactly, because when Shane Stuyken was the coordinator of the Eagles, the first one that went to the Super Bowl and lost to the Chiefs, that team.

Zach Ertz? No, but their thing that season was Dallas Goddard screams. They were like just spamming these Dallas Goddard screams. Was it not Zach Ertz? That's my bad. Zach Ertz was on Arizona at the time. We thought he was going to be. In 17?

No, no, sorry, sorry. There were three Eagles Super Bowls. I said first time. That's my fault. The Eagles won the Super Bowl in 17. That wasn't Stikin. Stikin was there in 2022 and they lost the Chiefs. No, you were right.

Earth's won that game. You were right. So the start, the second, God, the Eagles have made three Super Bowls. Fuck. It's kind of flies under the radar, actually, like how dominant the Eagles have been. That's insane. Because it's been two completely different regimes, so I feel like you don't really think about both of them. I know. So the point being that when they went to the Super Bowl and they lost to the Chiefs, and that was like a great game, the Goddard, that season was so many screens. And to your point, what if Tyler Warren just gets all those Dallas Goddard screens,

but all those like slants by A.J. Brown are also Tyler Warren? the bar is so low for him to be a good tight end and so rookie there is a pattern of like the elite it's been three or four Kyle Pitts had a first thousand yard thing in 60 years Brock Bowers just had the most catches ever by rookie Sam LaPorter we are seeing elite tight ends every year for the first time ever be good as rookies so yeah

I really think we should like officially stamp Tyler Warren is one of like our favorite players he's fucking huge he's so big out there he looks big even in larger than life even in the NFL he um yeah I think it's people are scared of the quarterback thing. We could talk about Anthony Richardson versus Daniel Jones at some point

in this show, but I think it's mainly just people look at the quarterback situation, they're like, I'm out. But I think he Tyler Warren actually has a higher floor than people think because I think he's going to get like three or four schemed up plays a game. And he's the perfect match

to Anthony Richardson because his catch radius is so big. Anthony Richardson can literally be inaccurate and he'll still catch it. Yeah, yeah. That's real. That's why Michael Pittman. And they're just grabbing as big as people as possible. That's why Michael Pittman has a bad back, because the balls keep halting him. Yeah.

A couple of things that happen. So the Brown's name Joe Flacko, the starter. Also, the Colts thing. Should we talk about that? Yeah. He's going to name his starter soon. I feel like by the time this comes out, we might even have one. What do you think?

So the first game Anthony Richardson started and then Daniel Jones came in after, I believe, right? Because Richardson got rocked. Got lit up. Right. Oh, that's right. He broke his pinky. And then, sorry, I didn't mean to laugh about that. It's not like.

No, go ahead. Get to it. Make fun of the player being heard. And then Daniel Jones started this last weekend, preseason week two, and Anthony Richardson came in after my impression. And maybe this is, I'm probably a little bit biased. And I said it before, though, I think if it's even close, they got to go Richardson. Even if Richardson is like a little bit worse than Daniel Jones, they still got to go Richardson.

They have so much draft capital tied up in him. His potential is absolutely still through the roof. It's more embarrassing if they start Daniel Jones and then have to bench Daniel Jones to put Anthony Richardson back in. I have an idea. You guys ready? Oh, God. Anthony Richardson starts the season.

It plays a couple weeks. It looks terrible. They bench him. No, it doesn't get hurt. He's healthy. They bench him. Shane Steikin's like, I'm going to play the best guy. Daniel Jones comes in.

He plays all right. Stage a car crash. Hit Daniel Jones. Anthony Richards to come back in. He's not got a neck issue. That's kind of cruel. Well, he's got a seatbelt. I don't know. He'll be fine.

We're faking it. Hollywood magic for you. And then Anthony Richardson comes back in, getting this chance he never thought. Boom, plays great. Anyway, I think Anthony Richardson looks better. He's going to get the job because, holy shit, everyone's going to get fired if he sucks. I think I also, and it's kind of more like I don't think Daniel. And I still do think Anthony Richardson should be your last pick in fantasy football for the simple

reason that every week he plays the rushing, like, you know, I'm just, I'm just, again, you can cut him. If you think it's dumb, then whatever. But like, have you ever had Anthony Richardson on your fantasy team? Do you know what it's like? Be honest, because it's kind of agonizing. You know it's like. Yeah, but he's on your bench, though.

You have a, he shouldn't be your quarterback. Yeah, but here's the thing. It should be your backup. Okay, let's say you're going to play like, Jared Goff and your backup is Anthony Richardson. Sure. And you obviously start golf week one. Goff has 18 points.

Anthony Richardson runs for three touchdowns, puts up 29 points. You're like, holy shit. You make the swap next week. Don't make the swap. Leave him on your bench? What's the point? You got to your whole argument. The upside is so insane.

Starting Anthony Richardson on your fantasy team is truly one of the worst feelings. Can I flip it on you if he has three rushing touchdowns in week one and he's on waivers? Aren't you going to feel stupid? But then if you add him off waivers, do you start him? How are you going to get them off waivers? What do you mean? 11 other people in your league. Everyone's going to want him if he has three touchdowns.

Well, I don't want him. That's my point is that whoever then has to start him next week, he's going to have four picks, zero rushing touchdowns and score four points. I'm sorry for the guy who, that's even. I'm sorry for the guy that's even in the range of outcomes. Like, you're basically like, why would you want a guy who could score three touchdowns in one game on your team? That's stupid. He's just rushing roulette. So they trade him.

Three or four times a year he'll put up 30 points. But the other 12 games, he'll lose you your week. Russian roulette. That's kind of good with like rushing. A rushing roulette. Holy shit, that is. Anthony Richies is rushing roulette. Like, do your mind is trapped in a bottle?

Do you say rushing roulette? Dude, that's good. Justin Fields and Richardson in a rushing roulette. Oh, man. Justin feels has looked pretty rough. Did you think I said rushing roulette? No, I didn't think that, but I thought it's a good pun. Anyway.

Isn't that how they came up with the name Spotify? Wasn't it that Daniel Eck misheard? Right. Something like that. His friend and he was like, did you say Spotify? And he was like, oh, Spotify. Spotify sounds kind of cool. We're in there.

Daniel! He's here. Come on it. Russian roulette. Russian in and with like an apostrophe. Oh. They, they're Russian. Yeah, yeah.

That's actually really good. Okay. You're like, okay. too much. No, no, I get it. Don't spike the football too much there. Okay. All right. Wait, wait. Wait. Russian. Hold on. Let me write it down for you. Oh, my God. Actually, no, do write it down. We're going to forget it. I'm going to write it down for you.

The Brown's named Joe Flacco the starter, which, I mean, yeah. I'm actually excited about that. I do want to just shout out. That's so weird. Craig, look. No, no, no, you're just excited because he's your age. He's playing football. Turn it out of round. Russian. Where's the camera? They're not going to be able to do this is so embarrassing.

You can't just typed out as the word Russian in big fun. Did you think when you said Russian with an apostrophe, we didn't get it? Is that what you typed? Craig didn't get it the first time. No, I got it. The second you said it. Whatever, man. Okay, fine.

No, that is good though. No, it's great. It's great stuff. Flacko the starter week one. Flacko the starter for the Browns makes zero sense from a like a football strategy point of view because who cares. Why? They're going to try and win like three games. No, I just throw Dylan game.

No, you owe it to the team to be competitive. Wait until you feel like either Shador or Dylan Gabriel's ready. Yeah. Oh, okay, fine. You're not trying to win the Super Bowl right now. You're trying to build something a long turn. That's why are we starting joking? No, no.

I actually think that's crazy. You don't want to throw him to the wolves and just ruin him. Genuinely, I think this is a huge blind spot for you because you realize that what happened with the Seahawks. Russell will say third round pick starting for week one. That's like borderline unprecedented in the history of the NFL for that to work. I don't know if there's two other examples in 50 years of a third round. pick starting week one and his career working out.

Like you want him to like work at the NFL. Dylan Gabriel look good in the three season game. He's the fourth and fifth rounders. Yeah, Dylan Gabriel works well. He played well in the preseason game. I actually starting him. Because he's better than shit. I know. It's fucking crazy. That's like classic what someone says about another team that's not a fan of their team. That's like

anyway. I think it's fucking pointless to start Joe Flacco, but I'm still for it. You just, you need to give time for Shador and Dylan Gabriel to like prepare for NFL. Who do you think gives them a better chance to win in week one? Remember Remember, we had this, this is a terrible comparison because, like, Herbert's actually good. But remember when they were like Tyrod Taylor's going to be our starter? We're not putting Herbert in for like way too long.

He was the sixth pick in the draft. Nobody thought he was really that good at the time. The Giants would have taken number one the previous year. They were mad. He didn't, he went back to school. The Giants wanted to take him first. He was the fifth overall pick. I know.

Chedore Sanders on the fifth round. Dylan Gabriel also the fifth round. Dylan Gabriel's five foot ten. on a good day third yeah all right fine sorry we just screamed it's like capitulated

you should have stuck with it Gabriel look kind of good though yeah you're right also he looked good he looks good D Gables Dylan Gaves the other

the other thing I want to mention so yeah we would have three lefties in the NFL we would have two of Pennicks and Dylan Gabriel that's what's the most

we've ever had starting in a season probably one I don't think there's ever been three more than one never Michael Vic was anybody with him Steve Young was it who's with him

I don't know if I really highly doubt Was Kellynne Moore lefties overlapping? Let me get Gemini on this Because coaches don't want lefty backups Jamie pull that up Coaches don't want Dude Steve Young

Ironic got that Steve Young Is a Joe Rogan joke Steve Young at BYU The coach converted him to safety Because he didn't want to flip his playbook When did Kelly Moore play because he's lefty Did he even ever get on the field

Are we going to get caught up at this? Yeah, hold on. Okay. Most lefties starting QBs. I mean, it actually will be simpler to just pull up a list of all lefties and just eyeballing. Kellanmore played in 2015. But Kellynneye didn't play. Gemini said he played in 2015, three games.

Gemini says the most left-handed starting quarterbacks in a single season is two, and it was two in Pennicks. Yeah, dude, I don't think there's been, there probably have been under 15 lefty quarterbacks like ever period to throw football. Because coaches wouldn't teach you, it's like they wouldn't teach you lefty quarterback. Would have me if coach didn't hate me. Yeah, there you go. Craig is lefty. The other thing with the Browns, so Quinchon Judkins, the running back Ohio State, who was drafted by the Browns really high in the second round. And so it turns out he's not going to be charged criminally for this alleged domestic violence incident that happened in July.

And so the criminal charges are dropped. The same day we find this out, the Cleveland signs Texas receiver Isaiah Bond, who was charged with charges related to an alleged. sexual assault incident for the draft and nobody drafted him and it was to me just a banner day for the Cleveland Browns where I feel like they're like you know I know we gave Deshawn Watts at a quarter of a billion dollars but they had a meeting and they're like can we alienate

the women more? We're not doing enough. Yeah, triple down really because they added three you know three guys now they got the trifecta but well they haven't signed Judkins and they didn't know about it when they drafted them no I know I just wanted to give them but they signed they're signed Isaiah Bond I'm not defending them but they went out of the way to add Isaiah Bond which I think is just

so Just actual housekeeping here on the Judkins thing. So law enforcement's dropping the investigation, but... The NFL still investigates. So the standard for the, like a criminal charge is beyond a reasonable doubt. The NFL is much closer to just like more likely than not 51%. And so now the, yeah, the NFL investigation begins now that the criminal investigation has ended. So for football purposes, this is still weird because the Browns haven't signed him to a contract.

Because he was the last holdout from the whole second round pick thing where none of the second rounders after Jane Hicken signed so that he just didn't have a contract. This is all that's a bunch of weird situations. So he's unsigned. So for him to contribute this season, Quinchan Junkins need to sign a contract with the Browns. Then the NFL has to not put him on the commissionist and they have to decide to end up not suspending him.

And then even if he does all that, then you need him to overcome missing the entirety of literal training camp with the Browns and just trying to get on the description Mike Tolman and a lot of people always use it. it's getting on a moving train for rookies. And if you miss enough time early, it's like, we just gone. We'll see you next year. The odds of, I mean, I know the football, the most important part of all this,

but like the odds of him contribute as a rookie feels, I mean, unlikely, frankly. Right. So you just have a backfield here with Jerome Ford and Dylan Samson. Right. And from a fantasy point of view, it's complicated because, like you said, he's probably not going to play for the first month as he, like, gets up to speed. And then it's going to be suspended probably for a while. I don't know.

It's a tough one. The other thing I'll say, not to be on a moral high horse, but I will say there's a juxtaposition for me personally because I'm just reiterating, of all the players I've ever spoken to at the NFL Combine, my favorite person I've ever talked to is Dylan Samson, the other running back they drafted this year. I was more impressed with his just maturity outlook on life.

Like I just thought he was so even killed and impressive as a guy. And again, it's like a 10-minute conversation. You don't know anything about people. You don't actually get to know him that well. But it's funny that these are the two rookie options in this backfield now with the Judkin situation. I'm like, I really would love for Samson to succeed. I feel like he was like a Kirkland brand Tony Pollard.

But like him, him and Ford, like, you know, again, this offense is probably going to suck. But whatever. The other thing that happened was Rishie Rice. How do we're – this happened a while ago, but Craig was out. But Rishie Rice basically, it feels like he's – so what's the deal exactly with this, Craig? So they pushed his NFL disciplinary hearing until September 30th, which means a decision on a potential suspension can't happen until after September 30. Isn't it going to an arbitrator, too? Yes.

I think so. But essentially, he's going to play the first month of the season. So if he does get suspended, there's a chance it's like week six to 12 because the NFL wanted to suspend him for 10 games. Which is strange. Which is a lot. But this hearing being in the middle of the season's odd. They usually try to do this the week of the week one.

So just keep that in mind that there's a chance that you could have or she writes for the first four games of the season, then not for the middle six to eight, depending on where they land on the suspension and then have him back for the fantasy playoffs. This is where fantasy gets weird and fucked up where you're like, I'm going to draft Rishiris because I'm going to try to arbitrage the uncertainty around his car crash that almost killed people. There is a conspiracy out there, though, that the NFL is basically allowing Rishi Rice to play for the chief for the first month when. Because they have a harder schedule. They have a harder schedule.

And also they have a lot of prime time games. Week one, they play the Chargers in Brazil. Week two, they play the Eagles. Week three, they play the Giants on Sunday night football. And then week four, they play Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. And then week five, it's the Jags. And they're like, all right, he can go now. You know, it's funny.

I think I would have in past years totally dismissed that. And the older I get, I'm like, well, that's something right. I think it's dumb. I think it's dumb. It's probably wrong, but I hear that. Has Rice risen to that level where he's like some indispensable player that you like had a half a good year? Chiefs being good is good for business. He is getting, Taylor.

There's an arbitrator. Okay, come on. I really don't think I ever would have believed that. People get so weird about the chiefs. People do get weird about it. Here's the deal. They're taking this to an arbitrator, Sue L. Robinson, who has done this. Are you familiar with her work?

She's done this before. Oh, that's your life. And apparently, I think the reading between the lines here is that NFL and the NFL and the NFLPA could not agree on terms, which means, again, reading between lines, the NFL wanted a big suspension. Yeah. And the NFL PA was like, no, that's ridiculous. It's rumor that they wanted a 10 or 12 game suspension.

Which sounds like a lot, but I got to tell you, it is a crazy miracle that Rishi Rice didn't kill anyone in this race. Yeah. Like if you watch the video, it's actually also cars. Wear your seatbelts. It's crazy what you can survive. Wear a fucking seatbelt. You don't wear a seatbelt. You're crazy.

I agree with that. I'm pro seatbelt. Hot take. But it's insane that, like, he really could have killed someone. It's, you know. But also like on the grand scale of things that people have been suspended for and how long there's suspended. Him getting 10 to 12 games for this compared to what other people have received for what they did is out of whack.

Dude, I'm not going to sit here and defend the NFL's adjudication process. All right. We also have to get to do a bunch of injuries that have happened with last week, and we have to frankly kind of sit here and hash out what we want to do with certain players in our rankings. But first, football is almost here, which means it is time to start thinking about how the season will end. That is why Fandle created a whole new holiday, Futures Day, happening on Tuesday, August 26th. It's 24 hours. of deals on your season-long picks, a day when you decide who will win the division, take home the MVP, or take the whole thing.

For one day only, all customers get an instant bonus on any football futures bet, plus flash deals every three hours that you won't want to miss. So mark your calendars because the greatest day in futures history is coming, August 26th. What are you doing for Futures Day? Visit the Fandall app to learn more and get your picks ready. Fandall play your game. must be 21 plus in present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-8-Hop.com.

Call 1-888-88777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Yahoo Fantasy. Yahoo Fantasy is the best place to play fantasy football this season. Yahoo Fantasy is dropping 28 big new features over 28 days throughout August. They just dropped Yahoo Fantasy guillotine leagues, a killer new way to play on Yahoo where the lowest scoring team gets eliminated weekly until one is left standing.

Give this new modi try or stick with classics and private head-to-head leagues or public leagues played today at Yahoo! Fantasy.com slash the ringer. Okay, all right, let's get to some injuries here. I want to focus in on Matt Stafford, who we talked a little bit about a couple weeks ago, and I was a little nervous.

You guys shook it off a little bit about Matthew Stafford's back injury, where he was receiving epidurals, which is what they give women who are giving birth. A little bit of a red flag. He practiced for the first time today, much like jelly. We were kind of like, where is Stafford? Matt Stafford is jelly. You're like, no one's proof of life.

I don't know if Matt Stafford's alive. Like, maybe, you know, maybe it's been six months since anyone's laid eyes on him. Yeah, so Stafford spent time in a restorative and rejuvenation chamber park next to the Rams practice field. Have you seen it? Have you seen them? No. He's like a giant air stream.

He's like the accountant. He's just living in this airstream now. I never know what he's doing in there. What is he doing in there? How do you guys feel about Matthew Stafford right now? He practiced today. And the trickle-down effect of Puka Nukua, Devonte Adams, Kyrim, everything going on.

Got to tell you, not interested in Puka and Tavante right now. Yeah. I've felt this way since the beginning. Drafting Puka Nukua is like hitting a two-leg parlay. If he is a good season, it's because somehow Matthew Stafford's back held up for 17 games, and Pooka Nakua didn't get hit by a car like Happy Gilmore did on the golf. I listen to our last... Puccahouda!

That will happen to Pukukukau in like week six. Screw that, I got to play. What would I know? I'm just a doctor. He's British. One of the things we resolved at the end of last season was just like Pooka Nakua has no sense of self-preservation. every time he's never ever once preserved his health going down I'm gonna say every time he catches the past I'm like Puka look out

she like goes like this too like what she says oh my god and then they killed her in the sequel unbelievable they should had her when I saw that part of the movie I was just like okay I think I think I'm out of the stuffer thing is one of those where when I'm not thinking about it my attitude is Matt Stafford is always hurt he is honestly one the single toughest players in sports, period. He plays through any, he won't tell anyone he's hurt. He wasn't even be, I genuinely think he's not even honest with the teams he plays for

about how hard he is. He's a tough motherfucker he's going to play. Then like every time Sean McVeigh opens his mouth, I feel worse. And I mean literally, every single thing, Sean McVey has said about this since July 24th has made me, when he's... He's going to be running or maybe walking. Like, Sean, some of the things he said is like, yeah. He looked good walking around today. I saw him walking a breakfast.

Like, should have seen him get out of bed. Someone asked if he was related to an injury he had a couple years ago, and Sean McVosy said this injury is not related to what Stafford went through a couple years ago after the Saints game. It's totally different. Great. And I'm like, great, awesome. Sean McVeigh is like, he had to get one of those chairs that sort of just like slowly ejects you. You know the things that take you up the stairs?

My grandparents had one, though. Just like very, very slowly sideways up the stairs. Dude, Sean McVeigh, they asked him, is the back injury a functional thing or a pain tolerance thing? And he's like, yeah, it's probably both, you know, the aggregate of it does. He's like, we're trying to get our hands around this, you know? He's like, I don't really have much more information other than we're trying to get some different things that are hopefully going to be in alignment. With getting him back out on the field. Just word salad.

Dude, I'm like, he, McVeigh gave an update that was like wrong with the timeline. I don't know if it pissed off Stafford or the training staff or McVey had bad information. He said something trying to be honest about it the first week of camp. Got it wrong. And then literally was like, oh, I should have phrased it very differently. And everything he said since then has been so bad. And I just, I am thinking it's. Like, on one hand, the upside to me is obvious where this, if Stafford's healthy, Puka,

Devante Adams, McVeigh, like, McVeigh is like R. Bill Walsh. Devante Adams is not washed. This offense, the ceiling is crazy they could, like, make the Super Bowl. It is worth remembering that while Stetson Bennett played well in the preseason, Jimmy Gropold is the backup here, number two. Number three is they did try to, like, not guarantee Matt Stafford's contract beyond this year leading to a potential trade request. Wasn't that the whole thing?

Like, well, they almost traded him because they didn't want to give him long-term deals? They didn't trust. He could play. Yeah. And then Stafford called her bluff and they're like, well, he's too good to get rid of. Number four. Let's say Stafford misses a game. Jimmy Gropos there.

Devonty Adams requested a trade from the Raiders because of Jimmy Garapolo. He literally is on the. He's going to lose my life. Devonty's like, I'm going to lose my life, bro. The wording of that is so good. I'm going to lose my life playing for Jimmy Gropolo. So the vibes shift is. Hey, Jimmy.

How could it? be weird. The vibe shift of like... Did he really say that? I'm gonna lose my idea. It was about Jimmy. Was it that exact phrase? Dude, Miran Fader wrote a story

for the ringer. The ringer.com about how he wanted to get off. He didn't want to play with Jimmy. Like, he didn't feel safe. Do you know how hard it has to be for an NFL player to be like, I don't feel safe on the field?

You know how dangerous that has to be? He goes, this is the quote, I got to get the fuck out of here before I lose my fucking life. Yeah. So I was underplaying. Before I lose my fucking life. So it is worth loading. that is literally the backup, which again, you can't tell me that he's just over that.

Like, he's 33. Like his, like his, like, he's trying to win a Super Bowl. He is also trying to get another, like he wants another payday. He just got it. But like, Devante wants to be an all-time great. You cannot tell me this is just going to be like, okay, if Jimmy G. So I'm just saying. Stetson Bennett's been balling out of the preseason.

I know. Settison down. Yeah, please. Jackson Dirt, Dirt. But the point being, oh, get the fuck. How dare you, sir? Dets and Bennett won a, he won a national title. Wait, he was old enough.

He wasn't eligible. for a... He couldn't get on Cobra. Why did I... How am I suddenly a Setson Bennett defender here? I backed myself into this corner. Will Howard won a national championship. You went on him?

Sure. He's a nice guy. I will... Shook his hand. Nice firm handshake. Yeah. Look me in the eye. Yeah, he's nice.

He said nice to meet you, son. Yeah. Good. Nice young gentleman. I love that we're just saps for anyone we've ever met. Which is like four people. Remember we walked by Kirk Cousins once? We were like, Kirk, not that big. That was you guys.

I didn't see him. In Arizona. He wasn't really big. We were on the plane with Sam Donald. Not that big. I mean, yeah. He's kind of like normal science. Bored in the plane.

He had good etiquette, boarding the plane. He was in coach. I was on the plane with Rome and Caleb. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

What the hell happened there? What do you mean? I mean, not a great rookie year. It's funny to be on plane with Roma Dunezee because Roma Dunezai then at the combine was like, I couldn't fly a plane. Everyone I'm bored would die. So, you know,

which is probably pretty. Is that the most obvious take of all time? But if my neighbor, But a receiver can't have like normal confidence. A receiver needs like outlandish preposterous confidence. Yeah, I can't play a plane. Like, the league neighbors, I guarantee he's like, yeah, I'd land the plan. He's wrong, but it doesn't matter.

Like, the point is he believes it. He wanted to believe he can't play in a plane. Anyway, so I actually do agree that I think that if you're playing this in an Excel spreadsheet, Pukidikungu to me could win the triple crown this year because this offense could be crazy. Devante and him could both have a year where it's like they're both like 2019 bucks like Godwin and Evans both top five. However, in reality, I'm like betting on a 38.

year old quarterbacks back that the head coach literally is like, I don't know. And also, he's in an airstream. I feel pretty confident. Matt Stafford's not being honest with them either. He's got to be like Larry Bird, like laying flat on the ground when the defense is on the field. And so to your point, I do think we should probably move him down for Stafford. And unfortunately, Devante, which I really wanted to be in on Devonte this year,

but it does feel like at some point in the top of the draft you do want to avoid landmines. And the Rams do feel a little landmining considering DeVante Adams went on a reality show and said, I hate Jim McGrathley. It could blow up. It could blow up. It could blow up. But it could be great. So possibly highest ceiling floor variance in the league.

Do you think Puga should still be in the tier with Justin Jefferson, Nico Collins, Amon Ra, Malik, neighbor's Bryant house? Yes, but he's just at the bottom of it. Because like the ceiling is higher, is just as high as all those guys. Okay. The other quarterback that got hurt, I want to mention is Jordan Love, which this matters and doesn't. So he had surgery or procedure or whatever on a thumb ligament in his hand.

Non-throwing hand. But it's his left hand. Yeah, it's his non-throwing hand. So it kind of doesn't matter. However, what matters is, it's not really a big deal. I think the larger deal is every receiver on the Packers, except the rookie Matthew Golden, is injured. Like, literally, if you get on the list,

Jaden Reed has a foot sprain and was in a boot. He just had that surgery, too, I think. Yeah, and it's separate from his toe issue, which is separate from the ankle injury he had last year. Christian Watson's returning from ACL in like, maybe his background on Christmas, maybe. Don Tavian Wicks is a calf issue. Romeo Dubs is a back issue.

Savian Williams, the third round guy, the Cordorale Patterson. TCU, like, gadget type receiver they drafted, has a shoulder issue, then got concussed, and then hurt his shoulder more. So, like, it's weird, because on one hand, all these guys are expected back for week one, except obviously Christian Watson and Savon Williams. But the flip side is, they're all hurt. So I don't know where I love Jaden Reed, but I feel like I, again, I'm like, why given

the chance would you draft a receiver is going to have a foot issue all year? I'm like, I just don't want that. And I know I'm just a broken record, but I just think Matthew Golden and the rookie is just an absolute smash player this year. It's looking really good for him right now. He needs to be significantly moved up. Right now we have him below Jaden Reed. Jaden Reed is like basically going in the ninth round.

Matthew Golden is going in the 10th round. I think now straight up, Matthew Golden should be the highest ranked receiver in the backers. I think Golden's right there with like Ricky Parasol as these guys that could like going in, you know, the six or like the seventh round that next year might be going in the third or fourth round. Like these are guys that might be your like a really great number two receiver for you next season. season. And I just, yeah, I'm really in on them. I agree. Other team I don't know what to do with, Khalil Shakir and the Bills. He has a high ankle sprain.

So Josh Allen's are number one quarterback. He's everyone's number one quarterback. And now his number one guy is a high ankle sprain. So we don't have, we don't really have any of Josh Allen's past catchers in the top 100. Josh Palmer? Keon Coleman. I actually think we have to move Palmer up. I mean, yeah, we have to move them up for sure. We have to move Coleman up probably a little bit.

I guess we should be. Everybody should be moved up a little bit. The problem is we don't know who it's going to be. If it's going to be anybody. It's going to be someone different every game. Well, last year it was nobody and Josh Allen was the best quarterback in fantasy. I like Khalil Shakir, but I, I mean, high ankle sprain, but if it's really a high ankle sprain, again, when it's bad, and there's different severity. But if it's bad, like Michael Thomas's career ended because he mishandled the high ankle sprain.

Like, O'Dell Beckham's career was never the same as her high ankle sprain. Like, it's a worse injury than it sounds. I just don't want a guy on a ankle sprain. No. Currently, there is no Bill's player outside of, no Bill's pass catcher outside of, oh, I'm sorry, there is no Bill's past catcher we have going in the top 10 rounds. But here's the thing, I think that's all right because the bills literally the redesign the run game and their whole offense to just be about,

we're going to throw it to who's open, but there is no alpha. Like when they got rid of digs, the whole thing was going to be, this offense is about Josh and him distributing it. And just matchups week to week and down. Yeah, and it's not predictable. Like, it's not predictable. It's like what we say about the Packers, where ironically, I think Matthew Golden is going to be predictable now,

but just the bills are going to be an enigma and they don't have a vision for like, this guy's going to get fed. It's not like the Vikings are going to throw to Justin Jefferson every week. And I just, I think it's okay to just not have any receivers of the bills. Yeah, if you're going to make a bet, I would still bet on Keon Coleman, who, like, had moments last year. Again, when Keon Coleman played last year,

he was the most targeted receiver, went on the field with the bills. I'll get a lot of end zone targets as well, I think. Yeah. It wouldn't it be hilarious if Josh Palmer just went off? I actually think we need to move him up. We need to move him up because he's a professional player. Like there are certain times like the floor,

because Matt Collins left Buffalo for New England. And there are times when teams really need it, especially contending teams. Like, this is actually always my advice for like college kids going to the pros. Like not like football. I said that pro is really weird. I meant college kids going to like the workforce. Okay.

And they're like looking for a job. And the most underrated thing is competency. Like they don't actually need you to be great. If you're 22, like you just need to be competent. kind of the same as rookies, honestly, where they're like, one of the issues of the issues of Luther Burden for the Bears is like,

do you know where to line up? Do you know when to motion? He looked like, yeah. But I do think that Josh Palmer knows what to do. Like he's competent and at some point he will play like for the best offense. I just know he's going to be making crucial

third down plays in the playoffs. You know what I mean? Who Luther Gordon? No. Josh Palmer. Hopefully Luther Burton. Did you hear what Greg Olson said about him? No. I think, and he, he,

might have let this slip. He might not have, he wasn't maybe supposed to say this or whatever, but he was talking to, I think the GM, Ryan Poles. And he said on the broadcast that Poles thinks Burden could be better than Rome or DJ. 100%. Yeah. He's like Ryan Poles traded the 30 second pick in the draft for fucking Chase Claypool. Fair point. Fair point. He just likes athletic people who are five-star recruits. I can just sort by filter by that in college football 25. I don't. Well, all he needs is a 50% success right then out of Claypool and Luther Burden for one of those to hit. And the odds are with him now. Sure. All right, Craig. Take us other injured players. Well, I think we just got to talk about the Niners a little bit and what we want to do with that. I mean, Brandon Ayuk is going to start the season on Pup. Going to miss at least four weeks. Could be more. We have Joanne Jennings, who is still dealing with a calf injury. We don't exactly know what's... We don't know if it's a calf or just I want more money, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we don't really know what's going on with that. And then we have Ricky Piersall, who has been healthy for the last few weeks.

who I think should be the top player drafted outside of George Kittle on the Niners. Yes, I agree. And I think he's honestly one of, like, the biggest, steals best values right now in drafts is Pearsall. I mean, right now we have him as an eighth rounder. I think that's, like, as low as he should go. You could talk me into six, seven, eighth round. Yeah.

I do stick with what I said last time we were together, which was I do think for receivers and running backs, white skill players, no one wants to believe it until they see it. And I do actually think Ricky Pearsall was for a variety of reasons underrated in college because he was a transfer, he was an older prospect, and there's like huge biases against, I mean, obviously, white receivers, but also just being an old prospect is kind of an ick.

Like, it's just you're immediately an outlier, but it's also the beginning of the transfer portal era. I think that's going to change. And so I think that we will look back and be like, it's okay if you're like, get great later. But Pairsall just has all these, really, he's a really talented thing at all the things that are hard to quantify

at the receiver position with like ball tracking and placement, route running new, And you know who was a receiver in college? Kyle Shanan. Like Kyle Shannon likes him. And the other thing is C.J. Stroud did a live stream with Mike Renner for Bleach Report during that draft.

And the only, you know, Stroud actually was like weirdly honest. It was in his podcast era. And when Ricky Pearson was drafted the Niners, I was like, damn, I wanted him. He was like mad. And he was like, dude, this guy's going to be so good. And he just like did a great breakdown. And like, I don't know. When Kyle Shannon and CJ Stroud and like so many people I really trust and respect

like he's great. And then he like get shot and like, I don't, his rookie season is just a wash. This is a great player on an elite offense for Kyle Shannon, who's been turning random people into stars for like, at this point, we'll come up on 15 years. Ricky Pearson is on the list for me of my A-list guys of,

like, Matthew Golden, Tyler Warren, tied for the cults, and Ricky Parasol have just crazy talent who for really weird circumstances is underrated, but like everything about the situation lines up. And he's like, he just should be more expensive than this. I agree. And even though he got shot last year and kind of got,

had a slow start, he kind of finished the season. pretty strong. He's like their number one guy for a... He led the 49ers in yards per run versus man last year, just straight up. He had three... I think he had three of the first four catches

for the 49ers or maybe the first three catches for the 49ers in their preseason game. I'm just looking at this box score. Robbie chosen. He's chosen. They don't have choice either. Bobby chosen? I really do think it's as simple as it's overlapping biases.

And I'm half checking with the white thing, but I'm not because he's an older receiver, which he didn't like. We didn't like that the Florida. But the Florida situation was weird been caught, like everything about it was weird. And I just, and again, most rookie years, we just don't know what to do with it. Purdy really seems to trust him, too, which is huge.

Yeah, it's like, man, it's just going to be Joanne Jennings and Ricky Pearsall and I, and George Kittle, but this Niners team has a really easy schedule. Again, the season last year was a disaster, but they were not, they were second and yards to play last year. And also the other, and again, Brandon Ayuk, maybe he's back week four, week six, but when he's back, he's not going to be Brandon Ayuk. Like, there is a gap when you come return where, you know, you can walk around. You can jog on a treadmill, but if you want to perform at the 100th percentile athleticism that's required to win on an – not just run around on an infill field, but win and beat a cornerback, which are like the best athletes in America. Your brain doesn't throttles you down. Like it doesn't let you get there for a period of time. So I just think he's going to be the third best receiver on this team for this season.

And so, yeah. Similar person is Chris Godwin for the Bucks. You dislocated his ankle. And it's actually super similar to me to Tampa Bay, where it's like Mike Evans is Mike Evans. and I just think of Mukabook. You guys on rewatchables always joke about like market corrected. To me, amokabuka is totally market correcting Chris Godwin this year. They're going right around.

In our rankings, they're basically back to back in the 10th round. I don't know if there's a situation where I'm taking Godwin over Abuka. No. No. Not now. Certainly not now. He's looking incredible in the preseason too. Ibuka, to me, should be in that same range.

Everything out of camp is just that he has immediately stepped in and been a professional and looks great. That's the trio of guys that I feel like I'll be doing great of like in the, like, in the, 70th overall to 80th overall, which you can divide that by 10 or 12, depending how big your league is and what round that is. But basically Matthew Golden, Emaka, Buka for the Bucks and Ricky Pairsoll, those are guys who I'm like, if I get one of those guys in my bench spot, or like if you want to go like two running backs,

elite quarterback, elite tight end, and then like that's your second. Like you are cooking, I think if you are able to add multiple of those three guys because that's the range of guys I want, like breakouts that for whatever reason are kind of flying under the radar. DK, what, anything else on the Bucca? Abuka's just like this start. He's like Hansley's so hot right now. Yeah, I think it's feeling like a lost season for Godwin.

He might still play, you know, in the second half or whatever. It feels like the rookies are hotter than they've ever been this year. It feels like the value that used to, like, the whole like, oh, the, you know, the secret trick to win your fantasy league is like draft the rookie wide receiver, cinema. Everyone is saying that everybody knows it. These guys are getting inflated with their ranking. Right.

It like no longer feels like Matthew Golden or Abuka are values. it's like, yeah, we are projecting a lot for them and you have to pay for it. It depends on your platform. The biggest advice, I have a column going up with the ringer today about just how to win your league. And I do think the simplest thing you can do is just have other rankings up.

We have our rankings at fantasyf football dot the ranger.com. But again, everyone's looking at the same rankings. And so the easiest thing you can do is just not because like if... You're just anchored to those. If you're looking at Buck Eirving and it says expert rank 44. There's just like a little section.

You're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, you're going to think about 44. And so just having, oh, ESPNism, high, And that's not what they haven't ranked. But the point being, a good example, this is Matthew Golden. On ESPN, he's ranked 78th. And on Yahoo, he's 1002nd.

That's Matthew Goldman for the Packers. And so it's like, that's a huge difference. But ESPN is Ricky Pearceau like three rounds after Yahoo. So just being aware of that, if you have a target, where is he on your platform? Is he getable? So like that's the difference between reaching. So if you reach your Matthew Golden on Yahoo a round earlier,

that's like a round later than he goes in his space. So like it's actually a value of you. So that's just. something to be aware of as you go with all these names. I know it's hard sometimes to talk about names. Where do you take them? Just literally look up where the difference is in average draft position. A couple other injury stuff that happened.

D.K., I have no idea what's going on with Devon A. Chan in Miami. Nobody does. What's going on? So Devon A. Chan, soft tissue, lower body injury. So I think it's very purposely vague. We don't really know exactly what's going on. And then Mike McDaniel said, days and weeks it's

between days and weeks when he's going to come back so that's obviously like oh god he says he's confident it's like days to weeks yeah days to week McDaniel's a troll

he's getting pretty hard to ultimate the McDaniel stick when you're winning is cool wow what a different independent thinker independent thinking when you're losing is speaking riddles to us

but he said he's confident that he'll be back for week one but I don't know if I trust that necessarily. I think it's kind of a mess right now. And then, so to complicate that even further, and I haven't even gotten to Tyree Kill yet, but to complicate that further, right now, Jalen Wright is ostensibly the backup,

I think, in Miami. And he's the Rohinge Moster clone out of Tennessee. Right. He drafted last year, right? Yeah, and however, he has not looked good whatsoever in the preseason games. And Ollie Gordon, another rookie this year, has looked great, I thought. He's, like, shown a lot of explosiveness,

um, toughness and, like, running between the tackles, like, breaking a lot of tackles. So I don't know. What do we do about this? I think you still take A-Chene. He probably's moved down him. He's moved down now. I think he has to get him down. But that's another parlay where it's like if he's hurt, so you're already parlaying any dolphins. Right. Tua would be healthy. And then A-chan's hurt. And you're like, oh, so he's a small guy. He's just a super high variance. Probably fantasy option. And then so like, I guess who is the handcuffed to him? I don't know

if it's clear right now. Jalen Wright, I don't think he's looked very good at all in the preseason. and Ollie Gordon is a rookie, so maybe they don't trust him right away. But I think it's a complicated situation. Hopefully A. Chan can kind of come back before week one, so we kind of know what's going on. Here's the real question about Miami. Is Devon A. Chan, we kind of know the volatility that he brings

with the whole thing, the upside. Tyree Kill has this oblique injury. We don't know a lot about that. He's had a bizarre offseason. He's kind of lower now than he's ever been. He's like a third rounder now. but he's banged up, Devon Aitian's banged up, too is healthy.

Jalen Waddle is just sitting there. Jalen Waddle is sitting there. He's going in the fifth, sixth round. He's 52nd overall in our rankings. He forgot about Jailen Wollell. What should we do? Is it time to buy back in? I mean, I was never out.

I always love Jalen Waddle. We have ignored him for this long because we hate him. However, it is kind of It's screaming at me that this is an obvious good selection at 50 second overall next to D.K. Metcalfe or Rishi Rice or Tony Pollard or David Montgomery. The Jalen Waddle, if Tyreek Hill misses any time, is Jailen Wattel going to have 1600 yards this year? You're going to have a 35% target rate. There's no Jonu Smith, especially if H. Ann's out. It would be Jalen Waddle and it would be like Malik Washington and receivers.

I honestly, fuck it. You're probably right. It sucks. It sucks. but it might be right. You're probably right. I hate to say it. But you're right. Again, like 80% of the might... Miami concentrates more of their passing game

to their top three guys Hill, Waddle, and H.N. And the other two are injured. I mean... So right now, okay, let me ask you this. This is like the part in the movie where you're looking... Like, everyone listening right now is like, no, don't do it. Why are you going to...

We should go in the house. I think I heard a noise in the shed. I'm going to go check it out. Go by yourself, though. Like right now, we have Jalen. Waddle, 10 picks behind Terry McLaurin, Marvin Harrison, Jr., Devante Adams. Is that right? You're right. We should move him up.

Is that right? This is also that this is the end. He's like, we're not splitting up to say Scooby-Doo? I don't know. Do you move up to Jail and Waddle? Yeah, fuck it, we'll move Jail Wano. Fine. You're right. I think that receiver break, we haven't talked about this much, but to me there's a weird

receiver to your break where there's a top, I forget the exact number, called 13 guys. Tyree Kil really is, to me, the 13th guy. weird. Then there's like a subgroup of like Mike Evans, Terry McLauran, you know, like guys that are good. Marvin Harrison, Jr., guys that we, can Mike, are you going to bet against Mike Evans again? Probably not. You trust him. Marvin Harrison Jr., Garrett Wilson. And then there's like this flattening of like DK Metcalf as like the 18th receiver or whatever, all the way to Calvin really at like 31st or whatever. And like you could just take anyone. I would that the order of those, I would be so unsurprised

if any of those guys finished in any order whatsoever. And I, you could kind of convince me that, you know what I mean? And so I don't care. Like to me it's like a 15 receiver tier Would you rather have like Maybe you mentioned this already sorry Terry McLaren or Waddle right now All right this is so funny because McLaren's such a lovable Wonderful story but I will say

He was like highly dependent on touchdowns He is the negative regression Right Which is priced in which is a weird thing Because it's like priced in But I think the reason McLaurin is ranked where he's ranked Is basically that even in the season where everything went perfectly And again he tied the Washington record

Was he top 10 hundred see last year? like he was well because he will get 13 touchdowns but he only had like a thousand and eight yards like he barely he didn't only have a thousand something yards and so then you add debo samuel and you're like okay what if jaden daniels what if they don't go 87% on fourth down again like what if he doesn't hit terry lincoln for like seven different tier drop beautiful touchdown passes because if he has merely eight touchdowns that's still a good season for terry but like he's probably not hitting 12 like what does it have to happen from it 1300 yards now that Diba's there. Like, it's probably just harder.

But having said that Terry McLaurin in Washington, such more fun offense. No offense. Terry McLaren was the wide receiver 15 in points. Yeah. That's why he's ranked where he's ranked. You know who the other one is, I think when we're talking about this and trying to figure out

like sort of the hierarchy. I keep thinking Garrett Wilson, I don't think anyone has fallen more in terms of just the excitement level. I'm so out. Yeah. I love Garrett Wilson and even I'm like, no. I don't think so. It's not Garrett Wilson's fault. If Justin Jefferson was on the Jets instead of Garrett Wilson,

I would also be dubious about him. And if Garrett Wilson was on the Vikings, the last three years, he might have had Justin Jefferson like seasons. So another... He said like a 30% target rate over his career almost. It's like always high 20s. Did you see the Justin Fields passes to him this week? It's tough out there.

I wanted it to be the first year that he actually had a, you know, 28% target rate and caught 70s, whatever percent of his catchings. So other... A couple other injuries when I get to... The Joe Mixon thing, which we've been on, but basically Joe Mixon's foot, we don't know exactly the deal, but for the most part, I don't even know Joe Mixon's going to play this year if he dies. Whatever's going on with his foot-ankle situation is just seems not great. We don't know exactly what's going on, but I don't know when he will be available to play. So we just don't know who's going to be the running back for the Texans. I just think it's going to be Nick Chubb. I don't know who ranked these people.

Or Damian Pierce. Damien Pierce, who had a hamstring injury. He was also infisically unable to perform, but he came off. So he's kind of behind. So you got Chub and Pierce. He got Dari Gumbum. Wally doing passing downs because again, Nick Chubb, even when he was great in Cleveland, wasn't really doing pass catching stuff. So Logan Bowley's there. So Woody Marks, who actually, I was concerned that he couldn't make a dent in this rotation.

Then in the preseason game, I thought he looked good. I thought he had juice. But I'm kind of weirded out that he's playing behind, like, kind of randos for Houston. I don't know. You just have to take a flyer on one of these guys in the last round of your draft or something. I do think Nick Chub is a good example of someone that sometimes it's a simple. is draft Nick Chubb in like the 11th round and let him be the starter for three weeks and then trade him to someone who needs a running back because the odds Nick Chubb makes it through

a whole season are low. But the odds that Nick Chub and like Janky Dobbins to the Broncos, we barely talked about are like just good until they get hurt. I think it's really high. Like Nick Chub is going to be fine. He's going to be the starting running back for Houston and you can get him 70 spots after you would have taken Joe Mixon. Yeah, we have him ranked currently with like the high end backups, the Jordan Mason types. but we should probably shift him up towards the low-end starters. It's one of those guys where it's hard to just

you almost need a philosophy on where to take a player like that. It was like, Nick Chubbs's probably going to start for the Texans and you've got to roll dice and like, all right, well, how long will that last? How long do you want a competent veteran starting running back on a decent team for that's not going to be incredible? But you can just fill your second running back spot late. But he's not going to, like, change your world or anything. He's probably going to get hurt.

It is very similar to the JK Dobbin situation because I feel like there's been a bunch of camp reports and quotes, I think, that fantasy people have glommed on to, and it's like, Chubb just looks bad. He just does not look explosive. But it was like a couple weeks ago. Right. I saw him. I mean, he looked fine.

And I didn't, like, Dobbins didn't look especially explosive to me last year, and he still went over a thousand yards. Exactly. I mean, like, it's sometimes you just have to not worry too much about the camp reports. If he looks good. He's a trustworthy guy, and he's, they're probably going to give that the majority that carries to him to the guy they trust them on. The same way that I think your willingness to draft Brandon Ayuk very late is frankly different based on, like our rankings would shift dramatically. I think if we could account for whether you have an IR spot or not. If you're in sleeper and you have like two IR spots, you can put Iyuk in from week one.

That is different to me than if you have zero, like it's not worth a bench spot at all. Don't take them. But if no one's taking them, I'm like, yeah, stick them in your IRR. Because maybe November. Yes. I'm basically like anything that's in real life and you can't do in fantasy football is like defeat the purpose. Like if you're like, well, you can't play Travis Hunter in an ID, like a league that does defense because that's unfair. I'm like, well, if he can do it in real life, why can't you do it in fantasy?

So if they have IR in real life, why can't you create an extra ostrac spot? Are you anti? No, no. I think it gets weird. Like, the league we're in, your dynasty league. I was just getting ready to hear the reaction. But in your dynasty league that you, with your friends that I've won twice in three years, I'm going to dick about it. Because you forgot who won and I never brag.

I don't brag about winning because it's our fucking job. Except right now. You asked me, well, no, you asked me who won to my face. It was like, me, I won. You're like, did you really? And I realize, if you don't talk shit as the winner, no one remembers. No one remembers who won your league. Because the moment you're out, you stop paying attention.

Exactly. The only person who knows is the person who's in the finals against you, everybody else has known. And I realize that unless you're an ass with out of your mind, move on, just get the next year. No one remembers who won. And I realized, I'm not talking shit. No one knows. So, yeah. I mean, I'm, yes.

I was mad you didn't remember. You have to talk more shit. You have to talk more shit. You're the commissioner. And you asked me, I was so mad at you. You've won two out of three? Yes. You didn't even know that.

Really? I hate you. I don't know about that. The dirty little secret of this podcast is that High Fitz is actually really good at fantasy. It's a dirty little secret. Hyfitts is annoyingly good at this. A lot of fantasy is honestly effort. And it's like just trying and like talking to people and negotiating, making traits, like living on the Waverwire.

And Hyphitz is a maniac. He's also, he'll fucking sweet talk you into some. trade. You did great with the trade. I gave you Evan and you gave me Egram and Conklin and I won the league and then but you got the third run pick and you fucking drafted Pook and you coot with the pick. So I don't hear anything for you. Turned out all right. No one gives a shit about any of this. I will say though, but the Chubb thing, that's a good segue with the trading. I actually think Chub is worth more in a league where you actually think you can trade with your league mates because there are

leagues where no one does trades and there are leagues where it's very possible. Nick Chubb, three weeks in the season if he's good, someone's going to be like, oh, Nick Chub. Because like, it is the easiest thing in the world to trade a running back three weeks in the fantasy season. Like, everyone, three weeks in the season is like trying to trade. I have too many receivers. I want a running back. Like eight of the 12 teams are trying to do that.

So if you have Nick Chub, you can flip them. But if it's an office league and you're like, I'm not going to make any trades, then to me it's worth a little less, actually. Anyway. Yeah, there's a few more mini-injury things. It's like Najee Harris is back at practice, but he's not practicing. Daniel Popper reported that he might go on the NFI list and might not put the first four weeks of the season. I think Najee's career is like over.

That's pretty grim. And I know, well, I guess I'm not going to say, I think it's over. I think it's like certainly, I think it is, we're at the point where it might be more possible that Naji's crew is over than he's going to, like, significantly contribute soon. Like, and I'm not trying to just say that, but it is really, this is like now third-handed information, but Evan Silva established the run called his, like, his, his friend is an eye doctor. And I'm now I'm just relaying the information from a different show. I know a guy. I know a guy. I know a guy who knows a guy who called an eye doctor.

I'm like, yeah, this isn't probably the best journalistic practice. Maybe have some eye doctors email us. Yeah, email. Oh, email us to your doctor so we could be more responsible. But he basically was like his doctor was friend, your eye heals really fast. And it was like the fact that like it took more than four days is back. We're coming up on like, when was July 4th? Like a month and a half ago?

Not great. So anyway, not ideal. I'm a little worried for nausea. And again, I don't mean to make fun of it or anything. It's like his eye. That sucks. Right. But I don't think he's going to meaningfully contribute to the Los Angeles charges this year.

That's a bummer. Right. It sucks for him. It's awful. It's going to be, I saw a report the other day that Greg Roman is, he's like, I believe in a committee. We're going to do a committee. So there's a Mary Hampton, there's Hassan Haskins, there's Kamani Vidal, who I actually, is weirdly young, but probably the best past catching guy. He's like, he is the post-type sleeper because people were in on him last year.

He's a six round out of Troy. And then I think Vidal's going to be the past catching guy for the Chargers. And then Hassan Askins played for Harbaugh at Michigan, and like, that's enough. Dude, he's 5-7-215. Just, Kamani Vidal. 5-7 or 5-8 I guess 2-15 what do you mean 5-7-58 I guess well he's 5-077 so he's like closer to 5-8 I don't want I don't did you just give me a third decimal and a height 5-077 is 5 foot and 7 8's yeah okay that's like he'd be 5 8 an inch but he's 5 7 7 and 7 8 he's 5 7 8 he's 5 7 and 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 he's 5 7 and 7 8's that's a mouthful just say 5 0 07's But I don't know what 507 means. I just told you.

How about 5.7% of an inch? I told you the last two or seven. Hold on. The last two are an eighth of an inch. How about 5.7.8. But that's wrong. That's not what it is. What do you mean?

It's close enough. What are you? 57.75? 5.7. No, he's saying he's 5 foot 7 and 7 eighths of an inch. So 5 8 minus an 8th of an inch. Yeah. And you're trying to just add a different thing.

I think a decimal is an easier way to kind of understand. that he's not quite 5'8. I will take the L here because big picture, I'm the one who said, D.K. said, like, 5.8, and I kind of... Yeah, that was my fault. Can I just say 57, 58? 5.8? Yeah. He's right. 58.

I just didn't know what 577 meant. I was like, Greg Roman should just give up on his dual backfield bullshit. Play Omerian Hampton is built to get 300 touches a year. Give him the ball. That guy, you know who's not 58? It's fucking like a true fantasy. What are you doing? That's the whole point of having a guy like him

He can always be on the field. Marion Hampton's 6 foot 220. Yeah, he's a truck. He's a large person. All right. Any other injury? Quentin Johnson also, he had a concussion, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I... He got knocked out. Any other injuries? You know, Darnal Mooney. He's gonna still go to shoulder thing. They'll get him back this year. I think the big picture takeaway from this long discussion is there is a class of unheralded, unsexy, boring receivers. Darnel Mooney, Khalil Shakir, Jaden Reed, Chris Godwin,

that are to some degree injured and are like, gonna be back for week one. Chris Godwin's injuries, I'm serious. And I'm like, I kind of don't want any of these older guys who are gonna be hurt unless they like drop. If they drop, that's cool because they're boring hurt, got the questionable.

But I would way rather have the young guns of the Matthew Golden, the Ricky Parasol, like even Tyler, like these injured veterans, like Mooney probably I'm more excited than the others, but I don't like, I almost prefer shoulder injury to a low body thing, but I don't love veterans picking up injuries in training camp or whatever.

I think we're way more excited about the young rookies. Well, speaking of picking up injuries in training camp and young rookies, Tet McMillan not practicing hamstring. Don't like that. That sucks. It's so funny how a headline can change your mood because one headline says Ted McMillan not practicing due to a minor hamstring injury. Do they have a grade?

So the grades like DefCon where it's not the way you think. A minor hamstring tear. A minor hamstring injury. The next headline, Panthers temporarily shut down. Tedderella McMillan. Well, that's one of those ones like, if you miss practice, is that... Are they temporarily shutting you down? Technically, literally, that's correct, I guess.

They are shutting you down for that practice. We're so back. The other thing with the hamstring grades and all... Like, you know, they have like a grade one, grade two is I always get it wrong where it's like, oh, DefCon. Five. Oh, God, Nuclear War. No, no, no. That means we're fine.

Yeah, DefCon. I'm like, yeah. That's the same thing. Like, grade three hamstring. I'm like, oh, no. Anyway, other things, the contract, James Cook signed his contract with the bills. end up getting like, I don't remember, like 12 million hours a year, whatever. Congrats for him.

It doesn't change anything for me. I don't think we priced it like it mattered. I think it's more just like he's going to us. He's like a late third round or like a late third round, mid third round, mid third round, mid fourth round. Yeah, late third. Probably unlikely to crazy out to his value because he just had 16 touchdowns after having two and then two the previous seasons. Yeah. And we actually have late fourth.

Yeah. So we're kind of like, he's a fine player. He's the poster child of. Terry McClure and James Cook are the poster. Yeah. touchdown. Negative progression coming. But it's also priced in.

So, like, he's like just putting it on the fairway. I don't think he's, he's unlikely to fail you, unlikely to be the singular reason you won your league. I know. It is funny. Remember how that one year we were like, Austin Eckler can't have 20 touchdowns again and then he had like 18? And then we did it for Aaron Jones.

And he's like, he can't have 20 touchdowns again and then he needed 20 again. Right. It's kind of like, well. And there is a world in which James Cook fits that archetype too because he's a highly efficient, elusive runner. That's a great call. And James Cook will just have 16 again. But he wasn't.

He wasn't actually as involved in the passing game as you wanted him to be either, though. So it's a tough one. You can really talk yourself out of James Cook and into him. You can be like, Ray Davis, oh, the negative regression in the red zone. All that stuff is coming. And then you're like, what if they just give it to him every time they're inside the five again? And he has like 15 touchdowns. And he's great.

Any other, we have to talk about the bear in a low-stakes conspiracy theory. First, any other really nerdy depth sharp depicts and running backs? We don't have to spend much time. I just want to say, I think Tankpigsby looked better than Travis Tena Jacksonville. Yeah, boy. Kendry Miller in New Orleans to be looks like clearly the backup to the backup. He's a Lanker. He's looked good.

He looked good. I think the backup to Jonathan Taylor's D.J. Giddens, who's a rookie, but also it's kind of weird because he's barely played running back that long. But Tyler Goodson's hurt. So that's a weird situation. I don't think there's any clarity. Honestly, I don't think you want the Coles running back if Jonathan Taylor gets hurt. It's not like the Falcons were.

Bejohn's backup. Tyler Rageo ran for 1,000 yards. His rookie. It's not like that. but any other really nerdy deep cut running back takes DK? I think that's it. Okay. Yeah.

In that case, do you guys want to do a low-stakes conspiracy first? Well, I guess we have to report on the bear. I know. This is a huge story. Huge story. We have, for those uninitiated, we have, we asked for low-stakes conspiracy theories because high-stakes conspiracy theories can affect lives. Low-stakes ones are pretty fun.

And we ask for, and please email your low-stakes conspiracy theories to ringerfancy football at g-gumel.com. And someone wrote in... The guy who emailed the bear one, it must be just having the best time ever. And he said, I go to this turtleback zoo in Essex County, New Jersey. And I don't... They have a bear. They claim they have a bear.

I don't think they have a bear. Name jelly. Name jelly. The bear's named jelly. He's like, jelly's not there. Jelly's never an enclosure. He's been there like a dozen, two dozen times with his kids. Bears never there.

He thought the bear escaped and attacked a woman. A black bear in the same range where the zoo is, the same national park. Coincidence? I think not. Essentially is what he said. So then we got all these other emails from like, I'm talking. I got, we got like, over. two dozen emails from people that were like, I also live in New Jersey, also go to that zoo,

never seen the bear. I got text from people. What the hell? I got text from people who were like season ticket holders at the zoo. Come to think of it. Haven't seen this bear in like two years. A lot of people that were like, I've never seen this bear. So much so that the Turtle, the Essex County Turtoback Zoo literally announced that they

were going to go live on Instagram to show jelly the fucking bear. Craig, before they announced that they were going to go live, you should have seen like all the comments on their previous like five or six post was just show us the bear. Where's jelly? Where's jelly? So they literally show us the bear. They didn't really acknowledge that it was our show but they did do I dubbed it they went live stream with the bear but it was in a live

stream and it was literally just them being like we have a bear shut up you weirdos and but they did show and what they claim who is that weirdo? What they claim was that jelly is I mean 20 years old which is old for bear and basically they're saying that It's Boo Radley. Like, it doesn't, the bear to jelly doesn't come out that much.

I mean, yeah. It comes out for breakfast in, like, 10.30 in the morning when the zoo opens and goes back in her enclosure and, like, it is kind of like old and doesn't give a fuck about them kids. And that's their explanation. And so, on one hand, I'm like, you know, maybe this bear is just 20. On the other hand, all the people in the instrument comments were like, this bear is like a crisis actor. Or like this bear. He's a man in a bear.

Even on the live stream, all the comments were like, fake. I can see the zipper. Like, because there are zoos that have done this. Like, there wasn't there a famous, there was a famous case of a zoo in China. Yes. Had like dogs that were like painted like pan. And there was an animatronic whale shark at a zoo in China that was like a fake, robotic wheel shark. Don't get mad at us.

We're just looking for the facts. Dude, even my mom, who I went up, we're in New York City right now. I saw my parents before you guys got in. And my mom even was just like, you know, how do we know that's the same bear? And I was like, wow. Jinksie cat? I mean, we don't really know. You spray painted a random cat to look like jinxie?

How hard is it to get a bear? I can get a bear in like three days. I can get a bear for you on the weekend. You got a bear guy. I do have a bear guy. Actually, in college, one of my friends, his dad sent a bear meat. Whoa. Yeah, I know.

I'm not going to name it anymore because I think it was illegal. But it was a black bear. Okay. Grounded up. No, I didn't fucking eat it. It was mailed from Florida. I was going to eat it. I mean, it wasn't sent in ice.

They mailed the bear meat from Florida? It was not sent in ice. No, maybe he brought it home from Florida. I don't know. Is it turkey or was it fresh bear meat? No, it was like, I made burgers. I did not eat it. Let's get off of this.

My friend listening, you know. Let's get off of the bear meat. All my friends listening know exactly to this person was. Were you around when he was eating the burger? Yeah. How did it do? Well, he's like true Florida man. Like, he's like a true Florida man guy and like.

Like Mullet. Had he had burger before? I mean, bear before? Yeah. Oh, plenty of times. I thought it was weird that I thought it was weird eating black bear. I'm like, we're 21. What are you doing?

Like he just, yeah We're 21 That's definitely, yeah That's our definitely like our liberal Coastal leaf blind spot Is like hunting and killing the food you eat That's the corrective blind spot Kill what you eat.

Yeah Anyway, jelly Probably alive I think all the There's a preponderance of evidence Do you think our including Including like 15 people in the comments Saying they either work at the zoo

Or have been at the zoo lately Do you think we're going to like upset the conspiratorial wing of our coalition Where they're just kind of like We're like stop talking about jelly. Stop talking about jelly and everyone's going to be like, you're part of the cover of me. Right. Well, this is how it goes, right?

Like, if we, like, we could just like double down and be like, actually, this is a bigger conspiracy than we thought. This goes all the way to the top. The top. And just like, enter the rabbit hole. Or we'd be mature and we're like, hey, he's probably just an old bear. Yeah, we could do the Aaron Rogers and just be like, yeah, why me? I have to go

visit for myself. But I'm like, you know what? I won't lie. The bear being old and won't come out was weirdly relatable. I was like, yeah. We tell Bill, like, he was like a week off to visit this bear and see if it's real, just like Aaron Rogers, you know, is in appearance. I don't think we're going to be welcome at that zoo. They're not going to know what's us. Yeah. Our photos are on the wall.

Hide our, we got to go in like costumes. Let's do a poll. Let's do a poll. What are the options of the poll? So do you think, like, basically like, do we need more proof? That's the real jelly. Do we need more proof? Yeah, do we need more?

I think that was somewhat sad. Put it this way. Did they say anything specific? about like the day Yes, they did. So, well, I will also just say, we're in New York and people are probably like, why do you go to zoo?

Definitely saw our clip. Well, they beat us, of course they did. They beat us to the punch, though. People were probably like, why are we going to zoo? Hundreds of comments saying, show us the bears. Dude, show us the bears, where's jelly? That was probably a really fun couple of days

for them in the office, like at lunch being like, this fuck, what is this random fucking fantasy football podcast claiming our bear is fake? I know, it's the internet. Well, this is why. I wonder if it was fun for the, or if they actually just hate us. They might hate us.

It's probably both. It's probably something to talk about. I seem annoyed. I will say, this is why I think... Which I get. Imagine taking care of this bear every day for 20 years and we're like, we think he's dead!

Like, that's probably pretty annoying. Yeah, for sure. You know? Although, there was a lot of evidence. Like, this bear has really been relaxing back there for years. Net net, after... I mean, it's been a couple weeks now. I think we heard from 60 different people

that were like, I've never seen the bear. Which is a lot. You know what? Let me push back for a moment. So Essex claimed This zookeeper claimed Claimed Claimed

Claimed That jelly comes out out every morning at 10.30 to eat breakfast? I don't know if it's 1030 every morning But the point is she's the best time to see jelly Is in the morning when they open And basically after her morning appearance She just goes and sits in a party of years

She goes and watches cable news Yeah, she's just watching Fox News So in the morning is the best time to see jelly We've gotten plenty of emails I forget the name of the guy who's like I have three kids they've been to the zoo more than anybody on this earth probably. They've never been in the morning.

They've never been when they're feeding jelly. Well, this is, I will say, we have now been contacted by a few people who say that they did see jelly recently. We had two people email us. This happened since we last spoke. Two people did email us and said they've seen. Well, how deep does it go? But yeah, we did get people people saying, I saw jelly. Like one person said one year ago.

One person said six months ago, a couple of people said in July. like a month or two ago. That's a bummer. But again, could have just been the replacement bear. We don't know. Right. We still don't know. The crisis actor.

Don't tell you on Aaron Rogers. It would be easy to set up a few email accounts and just email. That's true. Fantasy football podcast and say, hey, I saw the bear. Saw the bear. Case closed. Set up a poll and basically like jelly is. Send me a photo with your license in your email.

I want like one of those Reddit things where you have like a piece of paper. It says this date on a. Yeah, the newspaper. Give us one of those and then we'll drop it, all right. All right, Jelly. You're off the hook for now. Jelly, I think Jelly looked like, is it a boy or a girl? It's a girl.

And her sister Jam, her sister Jam passed away years ago. There's Jelly and Jam. So perhaps. Well, according to this live stream, she looks like she's doing great. Dude, the comments were funny. A lot of people were like, she's moving like Eddie Lacey. Well, she's 20. I know.

That's old. years. Okay. Emails at Rear and Fantasy Football Jimmel to come. Fill up the poll. We'll figure out a poll for basically these zookeepers are like, I'm fucking, I have to come in on a fucking Sunday and do a live stream. We got out of a fucking live for this stupid. One hundred psychos who think his bear's fake.

Dude, all the comments too. We're just like, not the real dude. I can see the zipper. Don't you have something better to do with your time, you weirdos? Go back to your shanties. Go back to your shanty. This is zoo. We're not hiding the bear. All right. another low stakes conspiracy

this one's more medium stakes not high stakes but it's like not as low as a bear so Taylor Swift went on the new heights but this was the biggest thing that's happened Taylor Swift went on the Kelsey podcast first podcast she's ever done first ever pod really wow I think it was like the first must watch podcast I don't know if there's ever been a must

watch but that was it and honestly how she'd you do on the podcast she did great did you listen yeah she was good I think Taylor Swift fans themselves would probably be the first to tell you you always watch it and you almost realize that she's never just sat down for one and a half hours or two hours and just been like totally normal comfortable.

That's what shocked me. It was certainly the most relaxed I've ever seen her. It was basically a two hour conversation. It was a two hour conversation. It was a lot of her and Jason and then Travis was just kind of sitting there being like, you're the best. He just did that. I actually was watching it and he's just like, I can't, can you pull it? Like the she was like detailing how she won her rights back and the negotiations that went into that and Jason's asking questions and she's like, and Travis is just like, you're the smartest person in the world.

Okay, literally. You know that? She's like, thanks, boyfriend. He's a wife guy. Literally at one point, at one point, he's like, you're so sexy and he's big words. And she's like, you're such a, you're so handsome. Like she literally is like. They really gave like average millennial couple vibes of just like telling cheesy jokes, hand on the hand in each other's thighs type of vibe.

He's not acting. He actually said I'm the luckiest man in the world and he's the only person of him from like, yeah, you were. Like that, that was. She was talking about the moment she found out. she was going to get the rights to her music back. She was like, so I was in the house, I was so excited. And I was like, man, I got to tell Travis.

I'd go in the other room. Like, he's playing video games. And I was just like, what is happening? He's like, he took his headphones off. He's like, boys, like, I got to go. And I'm like, I don't know. There's something about that. He's in there.

He's playing call duty with the boys. And I was like, man, all right. No, like, she lived with him in Kansas City. It seems for like months at a time. Apparently they're looking for homes in Ohio. Yeah, it was super normal. I thought it was, it was good, like, she was good. It was like, even Taylorshire fans, I just, I think it was like, honestly the most earnest.

She seems normal. She was, she honestly had, as normal as you can be. More normal than she has any business being as the most famous person in the world. Right, which, yeah. And she knows what she's doing. She announces a new album, live of a showgirl. It's coming out in October. So, well.

There's a lot of rumors swirling. This is the low-stakes conspiracy? So what's the law? So, low-sakes conspiracy. We might have the same one. Is this about the sourdow? Yes. Do it?

I think it's, I think it's, I'm so confident. This is so good. This is how, yeah, we'll get there. What? This is how, she is a genius marketer, probably the best marketer ever in media. She like really blew open the internet. She understands what we just did with the bear. Taylor Swift was the first artist to figure out that people will be like, the bear,

but what if the emails were fake? The one lie she said on the pot is that she doesn't spend much time on the internet, which I, that can't, I mean, the whole point is that like she knows so much about her fans and she hears what they're saying and she wants to make sure they're happy. But anyway. I could see her just getting that printed out and handed to her.

Maybe. It's like the briefing. For Trump's briefings that are just like a giant text that are just like giving me an on page. I think a lot of celebrities lie. I'm like, we're not online. It's like, Steph's online. It's like, Steph's on line.

It's like, I didn't see that. Yeah. So she says that she's been getting into bread making. She likes making bread. She's just speaking to you guys. Specifically sourdough bread. Sourdough bread. Sourdough bread.

And she was saying that she had this one sentence that stood out as a little bit, it felt inorganic. The only thing that felt prepared, the only thing the entire time that felt prepared. Like, you know, it's like an improv game where there's a secret word and you have to work it into the scene or whatever. It doesn't like fit quite right. Yes. She goes, I think about bread 60% of the time.

It was so, it was the only thing that caught me of like, what a weird thing to say. A normal person would be like, I think about making bread all the time, like I'm obsessed with it. And I noticed it watching it, having not known the theory, I just was like, that's, that, she just said it weird. So the theory is the brand is going to be 60% or something? No, no, no. You will never get there. The theory is that she chose the number 60 specifically for a reason because. But this is also...

She's into numerology like that fits, right? Yes, this is during a 10-minute conversation about sourdough. I can't believe we're doing this. This is great. She chose 60 specifically because the Super Bowl this year is Super Bowl 60. Oh. The Super Bowl this year is taking place in San Francisco. Home to Boudine, sourdough bread. The mascot for the Niners.

Sourdose Sam. Soudreau Sam's the name of the mascot. For the 49ers, yes. So people think she's signaling to her fans that she will be performing at half-time. She said, I've been thinking about Sourdos 60. The sentence was, I've been thinking about Sourdough like 60% of the time. And she does little Easter eggs like that all the time. It's like what she's known.

This conversation was giving her fans things to kind of nibble on and build theories around. I forget if it was before after, but she literally had an entire section where they asked her about the art of the Easter egg. And they, because it's actually, if you don't know the deal, it's actually crazy. smart, but the lengths they go to lay the Easter eggs where it's like, this is 180 days after whatever, like, it's really intentional. And she actually said, I would never do an Easter egg about my personal life. I think

implying, like, I will not drop an Easter egg about my... Pregnant, engaged, married, not going to happen. She's not turning that into content. No, and she was like, my things are about my professional world, like release, drops, albums, anything about anything I'm excited about. And then, like, either five or minutes before, after that,

it's like this conversation. And I think that's... And the other part of this that no one's mentioning, which maybe it's so obvious to Taylorstaffan, it doesn't get talked about wider. Do you know how many shows she did of the Eris Tour? 149. Okay.

What a strange number to stop that. True. I think she will do the 150th is going to be the Super Bowl. The 150th Eres Tour is going to be the Super Bowl. What's strange number to stop that? Like, that's crazy. But didn't she have a cancellation? But no, they extended it.

I don't, I'm not going to do that anything. She's convinced that she cares about 149 to 150. I think I'm more convinced about the 60 sourdough. Who stops at 149? That's not a thing. That would dry five if it's crazy. Yeah, but this won't be the heirs tour. It's like a different show.

Okay, so what do you do the halftime show is going to be? It's going to be one song from each era. Come on. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Do they decide the Super Bowl halftime show this early? No. Yes, no, yes, they do.

They announced Kendrick Lamar in September. I'm saying in the next, it's August 18th. We're recording this. At some point in the next month, we're going to hear that Taylor Swift's a show. Yes, they announce it. I'm pretty sure if you ask me... I don't think she'll announce that until after the album comes out.

Oh, sure, fine. When is it? October? October 3rd or something. Yeah, so whenever... Yeah, are there smarter people than me can figure out... I mean, you're better at Hollywood than me. Whenever timing... But in conjunction with this album coming out,

they're going to announce that she's doing the halftime show. And I think a lot of people thought that... Because she's never done it. That, oh, it's too small for her. After you've taken over the world, you have the most successful tour of all time, like the Super Bowl's too small. But, God, can you imagine if the fucking Chiefs

Make the Super Bowl. And Travis Kelsey's last game ever. Yeah. His girlfriend is performing at halftime. This is why people hate the Chiefs. It's probably going to happen. The second these guys started a podcast together, they have back-to-back seasons against one another in the Super Bowl. This is why there's Rishi-Rice conspiracy theories.

This will probably all happen. And so they announced Kendrick last year at September 8th. Oh, wow. That's earlier than I thought. But they would move it for Taylor's release. Because Taylor, frankly, is. For sure, they would. They're not going to pay her

because they don't pay the Super Bowl halftime artist because they're basically like However They would be more flexible to give her to turn No she's no she's not to be paid She's gonna make more

But like they would move the release date They typically want For sure for the NFL If Taylor Swift would agree to do it She's the only person like too big for it Even beyond like no one's too big for it But I Except for cold play

Except for cold play Maybe they could collab They could collab I really I think this is gonna happen I actually think this is going I think this is a conspiracy I totally believe She's going to the half-time show

they're going to announce it's August 18th I think by October 18th we she's confirmed the other thing I think she's going to announce is I think she's going to play at the sphere in Vegas yeah I do think that's going to happen I think life of a showgirl show girl in Vegas like her new album as like a little month long residency in Las Vegas is like the fine that's like a new medium for her she's all she's visual now like she puts a lot of effort into like the music videos all that stuff I think her at the sphere is going to happen the best take that's like the best take I've heard from you to hear. I gotta tell you not getting to see the Grateful Dead of the Sphere. Damn. No, I'm so jealous of

everyone who's been to the sphere. If anyone listening has been in the sphere and I have, I know, I'm a sad word of law. I can say it. I would like to go there. I am so upset. I didn't get there. No offense to the back. I'd like to be a inside joke one day. I don't have the Grateful Dead like lore, my family, my parents aren't that into them. But like, I really regret. Not every video I've ever seen of anyone's goes, talks about it like it was a transformative experience. I'm so upset I haven't been. I think I'll, I will try. I guess there's no chance you're Those tickets are going to be so fucking expensive.

No, they don't resell them though. No, they don't resell them. Like James don't, again, it's the, you know the onion meme of like the worst per, oh no, heartbreaking, the worst person you know made a great point. James Dolan is like heartbreaking, the worst person you know reinvented live entertainment. Like James Dolan solely owns Madison Square Gardens and here. There's no resale. They have like a system and they do not resell tickets. I think the Grateful Dead tour was 750 a pop. And there was no, like they will let you sell, resell it on their place.

that Bruce Springsteen started doing this like 10 years ago. He didn't want his tickets resold, but I don't know if he invented it, but like the severe, as far as I know, you can't just go on Seatgeek or Stubhub and like just get $5,000 to pay. Like they make you do it on their thing. I'm sure you can try

but like there's risk of a QR code or whatever, the same ticket being used. But like, you can't, they cap it. And so the Taylor Swift, like obviously Swift, you work out your own deal, but like that would be pretty crazy if you do the air. That's a good take. Yeah, who knows?

I mean, maybe she, that's not interested in it, but I could see that happening as her. It's like, what else? I don't think she's going to want to go on tour again right after this album comes out, after what she just did. And the sphere makes perfect sense. That's smart, because the other thing is,

it was like, I mean, at this point, we're doing Taylor Swift stuff, and I don't know what I'm talking about? 20 minutes on this? She's just going to say. But I'm like, wrap it up, B, wrap it up. I know, but I'm like, but you can't follow up.

I don't think she wants to follow it up in anything that would feel lesser than the Eres tour. Like, you just did the, The bar was set at like, it's going to be like four-ish hours every time and it's going to visually look, and she kept talking about this,

it's going to visually look different every 20 seconds. And she said, it looks like scrolling. She wanted people to get amnesia from the tour where it's four hours you're captured and then you leave and you're like, I don't even know what I saw. That's also an interesting.

And she said that was top of mind for her. That's where this viewer is also interesting. But like, how are you going to follow, you're going to do a regular tour after this album that's going to top what she just did? Like, I don't think she would want to do something less impactful. Yeah.

That's, yeah, well. We'll see. Probably won't happen. Totally. Remember when we thought the relationship was fake? Can we run that clip? I stand by it. I mean, come on. Like, the odds of me being correct were high there.

You know what makes me feel better? We spent 20 minutes talking about how brilliant of a business movie is. Yeah. Well, you know what's funny? Because our first thought was this is fake. And you know what? Jason Kelsey says earlier on, he's like, when Travis told me, he was like, I did not believe you. Yeah.

Which makes me feel better. Jason Kelsey is like, I did not. believe you when he told me. Yeah, it's like, do you believe Tom Cruise and Anna Darmus are really dating? I'm going to go out on the limit, say probably not. And they won't be together in six months. But I guess I could be wrong.

Now they're going to... They'll probably get married. Yeah, they're going to get married. Of course, they're also trying to sell a movie right now together. Tom Cruise and Adarmus. It's like, interesting. All right. I think that's it.

I think they basically covers it. We have a live show in New York. We have a ton of shows coming. We have a live show in New York, and we have another show we're going to record here, World Trade on Wednesday. And then we have a lot of shows coming. out.

But yeah, if you want our rankings, fantasy football.com, we're going to get those updated this week with some of the changes we talked about today. And then, yeah, this is like high time, rankings, drafts, everything. So, yeah, follow us on Instagram. Did you say we're going to L.A. after this? Oh, yeah, sorry. We're going to go to L.A. We're going to be in person for, like,

the next two weeks. So we'll get sick of each other. We'll give you tales of our travels and Taylor Swift conspiracies. Unfortunately, we're not sitting next to one another on our flight home. I know. We could try and fix that. One day, we'll talk about D.K.'s flight here, which was crazy. But we were not going to do that now. but yeah so we're together next so follow us in instagram if you care about our um we're also a week out we're a week out from our live draft on youtube our live draft the ranger fantasy football league's coming back yeah bill mal uh chris shan cousin's style house like like van van lath it's gonna be three of us like it's gonna be later this week we're gonna talk about the punishment well the punishment is officially going to be in the field yeah bill bill's gonna be the adjudicator yes yes so keep sending us emails we're gonna compile a bunch that is important yeah email's the ideas and again things people with kids will

do, but they have to be funny. And stop with love to everyone. You're not the first person to suggest doing a rewatchable. With love, that has been suggested 500 times. They're all funny. They're all funny, but like, unlikely to happen. But also, there's nothing, no iteration of rewatchables that is going to happen that hasn't been suggested already. So think of it some other

kind, and we will figure out what the punishment's going to be with Bill later this week. And then, yeah, that draft on Monday is going to get Sicario in the rewatchables for five years. I don't know, whatever your idea is probably not going to happen. It's going to be live on YouTube, the draft. It's the ring. your fantasy football draft on Monday. Do we know what time it is? Like one or two o'clock.

It'll be the afternoon Pacific time. Fake time. So eat four or five Eastern time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's super different. Ten people, snake draft. It's going to be great. All going to be in person. Email is punishments for that. Emails, any actual football questions you have.

And then if you want to see, like, we're going to put up a bunch of shenanigans on the Instagram. Just like, shit we're doing. If you want to see that in our story or whatever, just ringer fantasy football on Instagram. And TikTok too. So thank you, Craig. Thank you, D.K.

Thank you, Ronick. Thank you, Carlos. and Kai. Thank you, Lord! Thank you, 98 degrees. Oh, yeah. I don't know who that is. I don't think I've actually used that one before.

In the 90s early odds? I thought you were going to go. I'm so confident. Lechise? Or Leachie? Yes, it was. Leachie? It's Lechie.

Jesus Christ. I'm not going to Google that. Tell me, what is 98 degrees? It was like the counterpart to Backstreet Boys. They're like, they crawl so Backstreet Boys could walk in one direction. They were like Tier 2 or Tier 3. What we're saying can backstreet boarders or tier one? I actually don't remember like what their defining songs were.

They have one big song that if you tell me the name, I'll probably remember it. Can you sing it? I do because of you, true to your heart. Sing it. Wait. Which song? I'm trying to remember the, like, the big ones that they did. We have these Spotify just behind us and we're just like,

no, I get backstreet boys. I do cherish you. I don't know. I get Backstreet Boys and 98 degrees and there was another one. In sync? In sync. I get them all mixed. Like, I don't know the difference.

Really? Because he was in college at that. that. Like, he would, like, dude, I'm not gonna lie. Craig is upset with me. The actual boys who didn't think were a big deal. Are we can get sued for this? Can we do this? Ronix's like, no. I don't know if he said no to get sued or no do we can't do it. I like it 98 degrees on on Spotify. It's 98 with a little degree sign. It's not degrees. I don't know this song. That was literally a pre-SEO. You can tell that was before

they had to type anything in. There was a song that I knew by them, right? Sing it, D. Best song. I do is the best? What are these guys up to now? Oh, who just told me the other day that Nick Lechay hosts a show. Anthony, who's the Fetone? In sync? Joey Fetone. Joey Fetone is on Broadway, doing a show.

Oh, that's nice. I guess I should Google this. Yeah, Nick Lachey does love is blind. I'm glad they found something. He also had a show with Jessica Simpson back in the day. That was so earnest. I'm glad Nick Lichay found something.

Like, I am. They're going to make it. Yeah. You know, they're all right. I mean, it's a tough situation. Being famous young. It's weird. You know, the back-shut guys.

You're going through it right now. You know, please. Joey Fatone is a Broadway musical Ann Juliette. Oh, he's an Angeliette. He's an Angeliette. And I think it's basically it's if Juliet didn't die at the end of Romeo Juliet

and it's just like after that holding. Don't know this one either. I feel like they were a little. We were like four years old. But there was a 98 degrees on it. I think it's because of you. It's just so. Our entry tickets for the World Trade Center

are in like eight minutes. Oh, all right, let's go. We should probably go. Check. D.K's never been here. Yeah, Dekke's never been in New York. Check the Instagram. We're just doing his first for everything on Instagram. So check us.

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