The Ringer NFL Show - The Old Guys Who Will Win Your League

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck are back to determine if the key to fantasy drafts this year is to target veteran players who might be past their prime but are still capable of putting up solid numbers. They go round by round to identify their favorite “old guy” picks at their current average draft position (1:55). Finally, the guys close with emails (53:39). Check out our 2023 Ringer Fantasy Football Rankings here! Round 1: Cooper Kupp, Rams WR and Travis Kelce, Chiefs TE (10:07) Round 2: Derrick Henry, Titans RB (14:46) Rounds 3 and 4: DeAndre Hopkins, Titans WR and Keenan Allen, Chargers WR (16:59) Round 5: Alvin Kamara, Saints RB (21:59) Rounds 6 and 7: Tyler Lockett, Seahawks WR and Darren Waller, Giants TE (22:56) Round 8: Michael Thomas, Saints WR and Brandin Cooks, Cowboys WR (30:54) Round 9: Aaron Rodgers, Jets QB (35:59) Round 10: Odell Beckham Jr., Ravens WR (43:45) Late round sleepers: Raheem Mostert, Adam Thielen, and Ezekiel Elliot (47:30) Email us! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Social: Kiera Givens Producer: Kai Grady Audio intern: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Football is around the corner and we are ramping it up over here on the Ringer NFL feed in the month of August. Every week, Ben Solac and I will be bringing you not one but two extra point takens. That's right. Double the trouble as we predict, debate and analyze our way through camp and the preseason every Monday and Friday. But that is not all. Stephen Ruiz and I will be coming to you every Wednesday. We'll talk about everything in the world of the NFL. And who knows, maybe Stephen will even have something nice to say about your favorite squad.

Though frankly, I wouldn't count on it. Subscribe to the Ringer NFL. show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And be sure to follow the Ringer NFL on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter at Ringer NFL. Football show, my name is Danny Hyfitz and I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck. And today we're going to talk about old guys, not just D.K. We're going to see if old guys are the cheat code for fantasy football in 2023. This is a direct reflection of Danny Hyvitz and I nearing 30.

And we're like, you know what? Maybe being 30 is not as old as we thought it was. You know, we're still spry. I feel great. I feel better than I've ever felt. Yeah, this is ridiculous. I'm old. I'm actually old.

I'm 40. Craig is nearing 30. If I'm nearing 30, Hyphitz is nearing 30. We're like eight months apart. I'm in my mid-20s. I don't know about you, Craig. Hyvitz is like 28 and a half,

and I'm freshly 29. And D.K.'s just like on a wild hog store. And this is just the wild hogs of fantasy because we're, youth is wasted on the young. And the old guys get a bad rap in fantasy football. There's an entire narrative around as receivers near 30, as running backs get to 27, 28, they drop off a cliff. You shouldn't draft them.

Even if they've been healthy with their whole career, they're 30. Yeah, so I wanted to just lead in with like why we're doing this today. So I had a fantasy baseball league. I had my friends do it. And one of my friends hasn't followed baseball in five years. And we rose to them at the draft because he just drafted the players that were good the last time he watched baseball in 2017. So he drafted like Christian Yelich and Andrew McCutcheon and Giancarloz-Cutcheon and Giacarlo

and Clayton Kershaw and like Craig Kimball and enrolled his chat, just the who's who of everyone who's good. good in baseball, like seven years ago. And we roasted him. And his team's like kind of competitive. It's weird. He doesn't have any players who were like new since then. And it's like fine.

And I was like, never thought of it again. Then I read this amazing story. Shouted to New Orleans. Dot, Nick Underhill at New Orleans. That football. Great website wrote this amazing story in Alvin Camara. And it was basically how Alvin Camara was dust last year. And Alvin Camer admitted he was dust last year.

Basically, Alvin Camer was like, yeah, I lost my fastball. But he didn't know why. And so Camer kind of just felt. like something was off with his legs. But he didn't, he wasn't as explosive, but he didn't know why. So he fired his trainer. He hired this basically exercise scientist. And he was like, what's wrong with my legs?

They measure him. And you know what they found out? One of Camara's legs was like two pounds heavier than his other leg, which I had never thought of that before. I don't know if that's like normal. I feel like that would be normal because you have a, you favor like your good leg or your like lead leg or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, right.

Like I would imagine that people's arms are not exactly the same weight. right? Like the dominant arm is probably a little bit heavier and has more muscle than the other one. But two pounds is a lot. It's a lot in your legs, especially when you're elite athlete. So basically it was like it throws off how your muscles fire, your actual balance. Camara's whole skill is balance. And then so they like redistribute his muscle mass. They like, you know, retrain him. And they find another problem, which is like his cardio. And long story short, his heart rate would drop way too quickly after like intense exercise. So like if Camara like functionally speaking, if Camerra broke a 20 yard run, his heart rate

would spike, which is normal, and then it would heart rate would plummet back down, back to relaxation like he was sitting on the couch. So like, practical terms, he could break a 30-yard run and he wouldn't be tired. And then when he got back to the huddle, his heart rate drop, now he's gassed afterward. So it's like his stamina was tough. So he fixed that. They just train, so they rebalance his legs. They change his stamina and how he does his cardio. And he says that he has his burst back and his stamina is back. And that like now he feels like more like his younger self than he did even a year ago. And look, we always make fun every August of, like players who say they're in the best shape

of their life. We always make fun of that. But the Saints can prove it. Like, the Saints showed the Nick Underhill. They showed the data. They're like, all the data, they have tracking players and everything. They're like, look, he's faster. He actually can accelerate more.

He's more burst than last year. Like, we can prove it. So I was reading all this. I was thinking about the science and like everything they did. And I was like, do we really have any idea when these guys are going to hit the cliff of their careers? Like we have no idea when this is going to happen, this new technology and stuff. Yeah, I mean, the idea is it's changing.

It's like, look at Tom Brady. I mean, he's the first guy to play to all these 45 years old. I mean, he's obviously an outlier. But, you know, we're going to probably see receivers continue to play a little bit longer in the NFL. It's probably going to happen. I don't know about running backs necessarily just because of the way that the market is working. But like Alvin Camara having a big bounceback year would not be that surprising to me because of everything that you just laid out. Like if you look at his, you know, advanced numbers last year, his broken tackle rate, his explosive rate, all those things.

Like they were way down based on what he had normally done throughout his whole career. And he was always the guy who was going to, you know, I guess be overly efficient every single year. And he was never going to like fall off. That was kind of always the story with him. It's like he can't keep this pace up, can he? But then he did every single year just because he was that good. Last year fell down to earth. This year, I could definitely see him kind of bouncing back.

So that was the idea behind this whole episode. We're going to talk about the wild hogs edition of like the ideal wild hogs draft, I guess. Like you can get the old guys in every round. Yeah. And I think D.K., Brady is an outlier, but I think he's increasingly becoming a trend. And it's that peak age is getting later and later. I mean, you can see it across all these sports. I mean, obviously what LeBron James is doing in the NBA, Justin Verlander, is 40 years old, still pitching in the MLB.

The last five years, I feel like, have really shown what. But kind of the evolution of sports medicine and sports health has done Diana Tarassey's 41 years old, still playing in a WMBA. Jokovic. Jokovic, best tennis player in the world, maybe not anymore after he got beaten. But he's 37 years old. So we're in a new era now and we're like, all right, maybe these running backs and receivers with everything that's going on in modern sports technology can hit 30 and still be, you know, productive. Dude, I think you guys are, everyone just talked about

Tom Brady, Tarasi, Djokovic, and again, Joe Coach Federer Adela won at 36, like majors, LeBron. All those people were old, like really kind of old for their age to be five years ago. You know what I mean? So like everything in fantasy football, we're trying to project the future here.

We're trying to predict the future. And the way we do it, we look at a player's past and we're like, all right, how do we adjust for age? Well, you look at all the other players. You want to know, well, how will this elite player, specific elite player, how will he decline or when will he decline? Well, when did the other similar elite players?

When did they decline? When did they fall off? And so to answer that, we look at data. And we're like, all right, well, the data says that all these running backs, 27-ish years old, they're going to fall off. And receivers, I don't know, 31-ish. And all that data begins in like 2010, 2011. And what I'm wondering, reading the Camara story,

you read about like traveling hyperbaric chambers, like the data, they have. have on my heart, all this stuff. And I'm like, what if the data from 2010 to 2021 is like, what if that's already updated? What if we're now actually in the beginning of the next sample? Because those like, like guys who like were elite

and then fell off at their injury. So like, Jamal Charles was amazing. Matt Forte was great. You know what? I don't think anyone was asking Matt Forte. Hey, what if your leg is like two pounds heavier than your other leg? They just never like, they didn't know this stuff. We've said this before on the pod, but like

the era of the career ending injury is kind of over. I mean, Dak Prescott, Clay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Cam Acres have also- Five months. Give it five months. He returned to football five months after Achilles injury.

If they were playing in the 90s, they'd be out of the league. The second that injury happened, they'd be out of the league. And now it's like, all right, a year or two, they'll be back. I mean, Kevin Durant came back, led the league in scoring. You know? Cam Acres get 25 carries a game. I mean, Larry Bird retired at 35. Steph Curry is 35 right now and is, like, playing better than he's ever been.

That's crazy. I didn't know that. Going back to that era, though, like honestly, a lot of these guys, especially in football, or this was like their weekend job, you know what I mean? Like, it's so different now the amount of energy and the amount of science that is involved with everything. So, yes, to round it all out, we're kind of in on all these old guys this year. So yeah, basically, it's, at the end of the day, it's hard to beat, like the, you know,

this joke about auto drafting and that if you kind of just auto draft and just vacuum up, you know, average draft position, like, you know, there's reason talk. would always win in the league. And basically, right. Again, what if we're basically going to do the big short, but on age?

It's like, it's a bubble. And we're like, what if like all the data that's underwriting all the projections for when guys, what if it's just wrong? And so we're kind of just going to do,

again, shout out my friend Roe. I kind of just want to draft like Roe. And we're going to do like, what would it be like if you kind of just, I haven't really checked it on football since like 2019. Yeah,

yeah. We're going to draft like the friend in your league who doesn't really pay. attention and just showed up in like 2015 and was like Marshawn Lynch I used to love playing with him. I'll just drive him. And then everyone was like moron and then he'd have 1,200 yards and 10 touchdowns. Exactly.

It's like, yeah. So this is your, we're going to be your friends who gave up on fantasy football during their pandemic. It's their first year back and we're going to just go through. So we're going to just and we're going to go round by round two. So we're going to go like round one, round two like generally speaking, who are the old guys you can kind of get for crazy discounts. And we're going to start in the, obviously the first round is not a discount.

But we're going to start with old guys. So without further. Craig, will you bat us off here for now that you're almost 30? Shout up Burr Burnham. Burr Burnham? Burr, Burr. Well, there's a burr in the last name, so I went burr. I don't know. Just start to pick a player, man.

So basically all of the players in the first round are kind of getting older. Cooper Cup, Tyree Kill, Stefan Diggs, Devante Adams. All the receivers are nearing or already 30. But if I could take any of these guys, I'd be taking Cooper Cup, who has had a remarkable career. he tore his ACL in 2018 and then came back and set, I think was what the first guy in the last like 50 years to hold the triple crown receiving yards, touchdowns, catches. Yeah, one of the greatest fantasy seasons of all time, honestly. So what I like about Cooper Cup, one, if you read about him, he is just like what Camerra is doing, incredibly dedicated to his help, gets into the science of it all.

And what's good about him and why I think some old, some guys is they get older age better than others is Cooper Cup is not incredibly, he's not built on speed. Same with like Travis Kelsey. Like they're savvy, you know? They, they, Cooper Cup's whole thing is like option routes where during a play, he decides where he's going to go in the moment. Like, he is built on smarts and that age is better with time. So Cooper Cup to me, he had an ankle injury last year.

He seems to be progressing just fine. He always had a hamstring tweak. But like, I'm not letting that, I'm not letting that hold me down with Cooper. I think just because he's 30 years old and he's banged up. I'm not letting that hold me down. most of the guys on this list, I think, there's a few that aren't don't really fit this category, but most of the guys on this list are like the old dude at the Y

who could just, just like back you down to the, into the paint and like do a little hookshot. The hook shot. The hook shot. He's just going to come in and do a hook shot. You cannot guard a hook shot. Why is nobody like adopted the Kareem Skyhook?

That's the almost unstoppable move in basketball. Just Cooper Cup as a route runner is just the hook shot artist. He's not the fastest. He ran like a four, six, two. I believe he matched the same time as a punter. To your point about, like, in training, Cooper Cup actually is one of the handful of players that I can point to. He's actually fast.

He got faster because of the, like, he actually trained himself. Not only that, he wanted to put on weight, and he would make sure that every time he gained weight, he could still reach the same speed and wouldn't gain more weight until he was able to reach the same speed. Also, did we have to talk about this? That Julian Edelman, when he won the Super Bowl MVP, when the Patriots beat the Rams in the Super Bowl, Cooper Cup said he had a dream that night that, then he would then win Super Bowl MVP.

Oh, yes. Came back, towards ACL came back and then came back and then won the Super Bowl MVP with the Rams. But he dreamed that. And he said it, like he told multiple people that the next day. Like a guy like that who's as dedicated to the craft as he is, I actually, I don't care as much that he happens to be 30 years old. And he had an ankle injury last year. There's a million guys coming off injuries last year.

And him being 30 is not going to stop me. And while we're in round one, too, it's like, as Craig said, basically every guy in round one honestly is up there. like Echler, Austin Eucker for the Chargers, Christian McCaffrey for the 49ers. But still, I think the guy that I want to highlight, though, is also Travis Kelsey, tight end for the chiefs.

It's like death taxes, Travis Kelsey. He's Apple stock. It's like, you just keep thinking, wow, I should have got this and it's just going to keep going up and up. Warren Buffett's favorite player. Dude, yeah, he's like, Berkshire Kelsey way.

I wish I had a better pun. But like, that's how it feels. And again, the positional advantage of like Travis Kelsey, gap between one and two last year, bigger than the gap between two and 22. but also if you just look, just forget, forget tight ends. Put him with receivers. Last five years, Travis Kelsey, third most fantasy points behind Devante Adams and Tyree Kill.

Then is Travis Kelsey. And if you want to do like points per game where Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase coming to league, he's still top eight. But he's a tight end. And it's like the only argument against Travis Kelly, there's no target competition. He's 34. It's the only argument against him. He's 34 years old.

He hasn't missed a game to injury in 10 years. The chiefs don't seem to be too concerned about it because they're not exactly adding new receivers. to the squad. So if Andy Reed and the chiefs aren't upset about it, why am I going to freak out about it? I remember last year at this time, we were worried about the number of snaps he was playing

in like preseason games. I'm like, are they load managing him already? It's like, come on, man. When they get into the games, this guy's just going to do his thing every single time. Yeah, he is like the picture of consistency. And obviously, you know, when you're talking about positional advantages or just like the difference between him

and all the other tight ends, it's a massive, massive thing. And so honestly, if you decided to take him first overall, we've talked about this a lot. If you took him first of overall, I wouldn't even be that upset. So yeah, start your draft with Kelsey or Cup. So those are the easy ones. Yeah, it's like you could, again, Kelsey Cup digs, like all the old guys in round one. But then you'd be like, okay, what if we kept doing this in round two? Like, what have you just kept taking these discounted old guys?

Oh, gee, then you can take Derek Henry, who I have no idea why his ADP is going in the second round. There's literally zero reason why. He's old. Last year, he was the RB three. He was the third best running back in fantasy football. Like, what? Nothing changed. Like, yeah, right.

I guess he's 29 years old and he had 350 carries last year and played almost every game. Okay. Fantasy football is about volume. And they just keep feeding this man and he's not breaking down. He had one year with an injury and then he came back and he was fine again. I think the only thing that scares me with Henry is that like he hasn't had like those big explosive runs anymore. I don't know if he can quite get into that gear with the tight like any more. But he didn't last year and he was the number three running back.

That's the thing. And it's like, so what if he does? It doesn't matter. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. And it's like, again, Derek Henry, again, putting this in the context of Tom Brady, I think is really illuminating where it's like, oh, he's the outlaw.

You can't compare. But everyone's now trying to do that. It's like Federer. Again, Roger Federer winning tennis players used to be dust at 29. Federer and Adela and Djokovic all just were like number one in the world at 35, 36, five years after you were supposed to be declining. And I think the same way Tom. Obviously, Derek Henry's not going to play until 45.

But the same way we're like, oh, running backs of 27, they fall off. It's not crazy to think 10 years from now. We're like, oh, it's 30. Running back, because they know more about their bodies. It's 30. And then Derek Henry was a physical freak. It's like, why could Derek Henry not just maybe he's the outlier? And he's like the third oldest running back in the league, basically.

But I look at him and I'm like, he just seems different than everyone else. What if we just stop talking? Have you looked at him? He is different than everybody else. I mean, like twice the size is every other running back. he's always been the outlier of all outliers. And like, I don't know, the size advantage. He's so incredibly, incredibly explosive.

I know that he's probably not as explosive, like, overall as he was earlier in his career. But it's not like it's falling off that much. But, like, literally why is he a second rounder? I don't get it. Because he's old. Again, the team we can build. So we can have Travis Kelsey Cooper Cup and then you put him with Derek Henry. So then let's say, like, round three, D.K.

You're the, you're the old guy this pod. There are a couple incredible options in round three. And these guys, again, are discounted because they're not young. They're not young as young as some of the other guys in this area. But the first one I want to talk about is D'Andre Hopkins, who, you know, he changed teams. That's definitely a slight concern here. But going back to last year, in the nine games that he played, and I remember he was suspended for six weeks. So he played in nine games.

In those nine games, he averaged 10.7 targets, which was fourth most in the NFL. 10.7 targets against. And that's when he stopped doing steroids. Right. Sensibly not on steroids. He's probably still got some steroids in his bloodstream, which is good. You should really load up. Yeah.

The only receivers that had more targets per game than him. Jamar Chase, Cooper Cup and Justin Jefferson. Like, it's absurd. We're top five picks. And he can get him in the third round. Dude, you can get Hopkins in the four. There is, I mean, there are some places that have Hopkins ranked like in the 70s. I mean, if you go on, I think, a member service like Yahoo.

Like, you could get Yancho Hopkins as your fifth place. Like we said, another guy not built on speed. Right, exactly. I was going to say the exact same thing. It's basically, you know, he's the gym rat with the YMCA, just fundamentals. You know, he's got those huge hands. You can throw it anywhere in his, like, area. He's wearing basketball shorts down to his knees.

This is like this guy. This is the same guy. He's not very fast, you know, like 40 times coming out of the combine, but it just never mattered because he's all about body positioning and insane catch radius and really good hands. And so, especially with a vet. veteran quarterback like Ryan Tannahill, who he's another guy that I just think is incredibly underrated going this year. But like Ryan Tannahill, to me, feels like a guy who's going to trust it, trust Dandre Havkins to catch the ball and give him the rock. You know what I mean?

So everybody else on this team in terms of the receiving group is a big question mark. You got Trayland Berks, who's been pretty good in training camp, but like he's still coming into as just a second year, like Chigua, who knows what that's going to be all about. I think DeAndre Havkins is going to have a massive amount of targets. and I think he's still going to be a massive value where he's going. Despite the fact he's pushing 30, is he, is he 30 years old yet? He's whatever he is. He's close to that.

Yeah. 31 actually. Two of your first three picks are Titans. Hopkins is the epitome, though, of your friend who hasn't watched football in three years is clicking through and it's like, DeAndre Hopkins is still on the board? Fourth round, Google's, is he hurt? No. Wow.

That's weird. And they just take them. Can I do one more guy in this area? Please. If you can't get Hopkins, Keenan Allen. is going in around the same area. And again, he missed part of the year last year. So I think another guy ran like a four, six coming out.

Everyone's talking about how he's too slow. Turns out he can just route people up. He's so good at getting open. Incredible hands. You know, just a savvy veteran, knows how to get open. In the games that he played last year, in the games he was healthy and he played in, he was the overall wide receiver four and a half BPR.

The wide receiver four. And he's going in like the third or fourth round. He's attached to Justin Herbert, one of the best quarterbacks in the game. You know, he's definitely getting up there in age, but he's still just a target magnet in this offense. And I don't really see that changing, honestly. They got some other guys in this offense, that's fine.

But I think this is an offense that's going to be really good under Kellynne Moore. You know, Justin Herbert is going to trust his guy. And I think, you know, he's a huge, huge value where he is going right now just because he has top 10 potential. I think that Keenan Allen also says this weird thing where he's, you think he's kind of entry prone because last year, hit this hamstring injury that again, it did take forever from to come back. But, like, he also had injuries like earlier in his career.

Like, he had like a, he had like a lacerated organ, if I remember correctly, like, like, yeah, seven or eight years ago. But loki, like before last year, you didn't I want to miss two games in like six or five years? He's shaken the injury bug reputation, I think. It kind of, you know, last year wasn't perfect, but, you know, he's definitely not just like completely unreliable guy that I think a lot of people sort of started picturing him as you know, earlier in his career. And so, yeah, I mean,

this is another guy who averaged over 10 targets a game when he was healthy. 10.4 targets a game. If you're 31 and you're coming off a hamstring injury, you're for us. Welcome. Come on in. This is our market inefficiency right here, whatever. This is our edge.

Yeah, we're just like fantasy cougars. It's like dirty 30s. Yeah, dirty 30s. So, and again, I want to be clear here, this is an extremely attainable team. Like, I'm just going to randomly close. I'm just going to pick, like, Yahoo. for ADP right now, for average draft position where these guys are going.

Travis Kelsey is going ninth, right? Derek Henry is going on Yahoo, 15th. And then we've got Keenan Allen, who is not in the top 30. Keenan Allen is going 45th. And then we've got DeAndre Hopkins going 57th. And then, again, to wrap around at the beginning, the next round, Alvin Camara is going, Alvin Camara is going 83rd. So just to be clear,

it is extremely possible that you could have Derek Henry and Alvin Camarra's running backs and then like, let's say Cooper Cup, Keenan Allen, and DeAndre Hopkins as your resume. She just have five Hallfamers. Like, again, literally like all players who would go in like

the top 20, either three or four years ago, like just all first and second round picks. I love this. This is like you woke up from a coba and You're like, oh, I should draft a team. This is my team right here. Are we taking Alvin Camara round five, though? Yeah.

Yeah, sure. And we're reaching, depending on the site you're on. Obviously, it's not just an age thing with Camara because he's suspended for three games. But honestly, you can bake in three games missed for just about every running back in the NFL. So this feels to me like a great value as well. All right. So who do we want to go next tier, D.K. So in round six or seven-ish, a guy that I really like is Tyler Lockett from the Seahawks.

now continues to just every single year he's like a wide receiver two like overall like wide receiver 18 to 22 or so but no one ever is excited about this guy you know what i mean like he's just consistently consistently underrated if you go back to last four years wide receiver 15 wide receiver 14 wide receiver 12 and wide receiver 22 um in the last four seasons respectively and to me he's just a big play machine obviously he survived and thrived and thrived and a lot on Russell Wilson's deep ball over the years, but he proved last year again that he could do it in a totally different style

offense. He has good chemistry with Gino Smith, and he continues to just be the type of guy who can get these big plays out of nowhere. So he's highly, highly efficient. Even if he's not going to get a ton of targets in the Seahawks offense, obviously they have Jackson Smith and jig, but now, you know, D.K. Metcalf is there. He's probably not

going to be one of the top guys in terms of overall targets, but he's such a good deep threat that he can just, you know, he can create more with less. And he's also good at catching touchdowns. Over the last five years, he is fifth among all players in touchdowns. The only players in the NFL that have more touchdowns than Tyler Lockett over the last five years, Devante Adams, Tyree Kill, Mike Evans, and Travis Kelsey.

Wait, sorry, can you read that again? That's actually stunning. The only players that have more touchdown catches in the last five seasons, Devante Adams, Tyree Kill, Mike Evans, and Travis Kelsey. Tyler Lockett is fifth. And yet, when you draft him this year, nobody will say a peep. Oh, Tyler Locker. And you could also get Mike Evans in this round, too, for what it's first.

Guarantee you, the only thing anyone's going to say if you draft Tyler Lockett is, oh, but don't they have Jackson Smith? They get J-Bid now? And I'm like, yes. Fantasy drafters, people just love the shiny new thing. Nobody wants to draft the guy who's been in the league for seven, eight years, and it's just consistently a reliable wide receiver two or three. They want the Zayflowers. They want somebody who has this unattain, ooh, this fancy, sexy upside. It's like, Tyler Lockett, if Zayflowers did what Tyler Lockett did, you'd be over the moon.

So might as well just take Tyler Lockett. I also think there's, I've talked about this with Hayden Winks, who does great stuff at Underdog, that there are certain players in very small amount, but there are certain players that, for whatever reason, their skill set cannot be captured by statistics properly in a way to project them. Tyler Lockett is one of, I think you could count on one hand, or maybe like, I guess him and Derek Henry. the players who have been outperformed their average draft position for like six years in a row. Essentially, every single year, Tyler Lockett has started at receiver. Everyone has tried to forecast how he will perform.

And he's always beaten everybody every year. And at some point when everyone's wrong, you're like, okay, there is some type of statistical thing that isn't actually able to capture Tyler Lockett. And now he keeps falling every year. It's like, they, oh, they draft it. It's like he's lower down cheaper now that he's ever than. I thought you were saying he keeps falling on the field, which is absolutely true too. This is another reason I'm not too worried about this guy getting hurt is every time he catches the ball, he immediately, you know, stop, drop and roll.

And just to avoid any hits, he's looking for longevity. Like, I love that about him. It's hilarious to watch when it's on the field. He's not going to get a lot of yards after the catch. He's just making business decisions out there, you know? Well, he's a real estate agent. Live and serve real estate. Shadow Tyler Lockett.

If you, there's a couple highlight reels floating around on Twitter of him just like catching a ball and immediately going into a fetal position, which is, you know, it's football. So it's a little bit funny, but at the same time, it's like, again, if you really want a guy who's going to be 31 years older, whatever he is this year, I think he's 31, if you want him to last and have longevity in the league and keep going, like, this is what you should do, honestly. This is probably what he should be doing is not taking big hits over the middle.

And I subscribe to the idea that the lack of media coverage around these kind of like boring, consistent 30-year-old guys is why they are so deflated in ADP is because when you show up to your draft with all your buddies, everyone's been consuming content of Garrett Wilson and all these sexy Bejohn Robinson and guys who change teams. There is no coverage. There's no articles being written about Tyler Lockett. And I think that's why he's just around late in every draft. And we'll do another episode this year about the most boring players you can draft. But it's kind of in the same vein as this. We're just sticking with old guys. But like Tyler Lockett is boring because nobody talks about him, but that doesn't mean he's not good.

No, to your point, we're literally saying he's not a sexy player, like he was aversion until this year. And as Deke said, anyone who actually has the courage to... Oh, so you're saying he wasn't literally sexy. That's why he was a virgin. Yeah. Well, he probably was. Anyone who actually has the courage of their convictions to defy both social norms

and your own urges? Mentally tough guy. Speaking of a mentally tough guy, another guy, round six or seven, who's above 30, who's over the hill, as they say, Darren Waller, who's on the New York Giants who's a tight head. Yeah, baby. 31 years old. The reason why

Waller's great is, you know, he's coming off a couple banged up seasons. Although no major surgeries from Waller. It's all nicks and bruises. It's like hamstrings and ankles and things like that. But he's the only guy in the top 10, other than Travis Kelsey on tight-end rankings, that is in arguably the number one option on his team.

And we'll see the most targets on the team if he's healthy. No other guy you can really say that about. Maybe Mark Andrews. But there's still a chance you don't know with all the options going around there that the ball can be spread around a lot more. But man, Darren Waller, if he plays 17 games, is practically a lot to be a top five tight-in the league. He's had back-to-back 1100-yard seasons. He's a guy who has had the same amount of targets as Travis Kelsey before. He's actually the only guy in the last five years who's had

the same or more targets in Travis Kelsey in a season. So, wow, I love, I love Waller. If, to your point about if Darren Waller played 17 games, if I told you right now every tight end would play 17 games. Where would you draft him? Because I feel like it would be Travis Kelsey and then you would have Mark Andrews. He's probably third. He's probably my tight injury.

Yeah. Like I mean, if you knew Darren Lowe was playing, you'd take him ahead of George Kidd. And I'm talking like, I'd way above T.J. Hawkinson who people have ranked in the 40s. And I'm like,

dude, Darren Waller, you'd have before like a Mark Cooper. He's done it before. So not only does he have the precedent, like he's shown, I am a big time target earner in the NFL on

NFL field because a lot of these other guys it's like projection. Oh, he's going to be in this offense that's going to be really good this year. Like the last like the narrative you have to tell yourself with a lot of these guys, Darren Waller has done it before in the NFL and add in the fact that he's getting an incredible amount of hype in training camp. Like it seems like every single day you see Giants Be reporters talking about how good Darren Waller looks, the connection with Daniel Jones. Like Daniel Jones is looking to him on every single play. Yeah, there was a joke that they had to take him off the field because Daniel Jones is throwing to him too much. You can never underrate all coaching. And again, the reason Brian Daible got so much hype as Giants coached

the Giants made the freaking playoffs, even though the receivers were Isaiah Hodgins, who did they poach from the Bill's practice squad just because he knew the offense. Richie James, who was the punt returner. And then they had Dary Slayton, who the team wanted to cut as of like August 27th. They needed three injuries to the receiver court to keep Dary Slaten. And they go out in the off season. And they're like, DeAndre Hopkins is out there. They could get Odell, get Delt's visiting the building, all these. And they're like, you know what? We're going to flip the pick we got for Cadaristone.

We want Darren Waller. And it's like a good coach scheming up Waller. Like you cannot underrate the impact of that with a veteran guy. And so, yeah, it's like, I don't know how much he'll play. But like, holy crap, if you get you 85% of the way to Kelsey in the seventh round. Also, I don't know if this is a little bit of anti-lytics here, but he basically didn't start playing and starting until he was 27. He doesn't have the same amount of games under his belt that wear and tear-wise.

just from a snaps standpoint, snaps accrued as a lot of these other guys. Yeah, I think this is a phenomenal one. Speaking of people who haven't had snaps accrued, but for injury reasons. While we're talking about old guys, see again, again, this team that you could put together, just to reiterate,

talking about Derek Henry and Alvin Camara, DeAndre Hopkins, Keenan Allen, Cooper Cup, if you want, or Tyree Kill, Tyler Lockett, Mike Evans, all these older guys. At that point, you're a pretty freaking good team, right? And as you get later in a draft,

you want to take more risks. And then I start staring. I'm like, all right, we're outside the top 100 here. And I'm like, scrolling. I'm like, Damian Harris on the bills. Okay. Jamal Williams, the Saints, okay. Michael Thomas on the Saints.

And I'm like, at what point do you just say, okay, you know what? Maybe I should have the guy who set the record for catches in his season the last time he played football. You know what I mean? Like, again, I'm not saying rely on Michael Thomas. Don't rely, but you're not relying on anyone outside the top 100. Like Michael Thomas, just in case, you know, you are my friend Roe,

who hasn't caught up in sports in five years. 149 catches, 1,700 yards, led the NFL and everything, set the record. The last three years, ankle injuries, he's missed 40 games in three years. Don't rely on him. However, what I do know is he played two healthy games last year, and he caught three touchdowns in those two healthy games, and he got hurt in week three. I have a question.

Is he practicing yet? Like is he actually on the practice field? Don't, don't think about that. Don't think about that. Don't focus on that. Okay, okay. I think he might be practicing now. So that's a great sign.

No, he is actually practicing. He is running routes. He's there. Great. Against defenders. Like defenders are trying to match up with them. Well, that's not what I said. He might be in shorts on the sideline.

But he's running. He said he's not 100% yet, which just makes me, well, it makes me upset. But that's okay. Here's my question. First of all, We were talking about this conversation about Michael Thomas last year. I know he got hurt again.

Yeah, I love it. This was my whole pitch last year is what Hyva is just doing again. But it's 30 spots later. That was with Michael Thomas at like 65th overall. And that was like 105. And all I'm saying is when you go outside the top 100, you're like, all right, you're buying scratchoffs. You know what I mean? You're trying to like hit the lottery.

You're like someone, you're not trying to get Damian Harris who like, oh. He could be like. Yeah. Yeah. You're trying to like, you're trying to hit the lottery. And I'm looking around like, you know who's like around Michael Thomas? Jacobi Myers, Raiders. Like, how surprised would you be if Michael Thomas was a top 10 receiver the first month of the season versus Jacoby Myers?

Your first or last? You know? It's a Ricky Bobby pick, but I look at Michael Thomas and similarly also, if you don't, if that's the crazy few, Brandon Cooks, who's just on the Cowboys now. And somehow the youngest player we're talking about. Year in, year out, Brandon Cook delivers and nobody gives a shit. If you guys, like, had to bet your life that you could name all the teams he's been on and just do it like real fast right now, would you take that bet. Saints, Rams. What do I get at?

Saints Rams Eagles Patriots. Eagles? He was not all the Eagles. Saints Rams, Patriots, Texans, Cowboys? That sounds right. I don't know. Oh, yeah. Sorry, not the Eagles.

I said, because I always get confused because he was on the Patriots and then lost to the Eagles in the Super Bowl. Then he joined the Rams and then lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl. So he lost two Super Bowls back to back. Yeah, he got concussed in one of them, didn't he? honestly he would have won the game like they could have won the game like if they didn't as for this year though it's yeah brand of cooks it's yeah brand of cooks it sounds like he's tearing up training camp too like he's got a good connection with uh with deck prescott um this is

an offense that i still think is going to be pretty good even though mike mccarthy has taken the reins like obviously that's a big question mark going forward but um you know jack prescott's a professional quarterback i think he's going to feed the ball to brand cooks and you know cd lamb is going to get probably the majority of the snaps from the slot. But Brandon Cooks could absolutely dominate from the outside. He's a speed element they need. Also, I want to throw out. Last season, he didn't have a thousand yards, but like the Texans were literally

tanking to get a quarterback. And Brandon Cooks was like, can I go to a team? Can you trade with a team that wants to win football games? And they were like, no, and he was pissed. He could have. I mean, he had 700 yards if he plays four more. It's like 300 yards. He quiet. You're not so quiet quit. But however, I had, I read the stat to you guys last year and I want to read it again because

throwing out last year, pretending it's last year with the stat. But I can't believe this. Only three players have at a thousand receiving yards in six of the previous seven seasons. This was last year, but six of the previous seven seasons. Yeah, thousand yards. Mike Evans is one of them. Tyree Kill?

No. Is Lockett on there? No. No. All right. Andre Hopkins? No, actually. It's Kelsey. It's Travis Kelsey. Yeah. Mike Evans and Brandon Cooks. Those are the only guys. And then last year, it's like he didn't

do it. But all right, whatever. The point being like, he's consistent. So it's crazy. So if you want the consistency, but not the ceiling cooks, and if You want the ceiling, but like Michael Thomas, but that's like a Myers-Briggs like test. It's for yourself. But the point is, either one, you got it there. So at this point now, we probably need a quarterback. And here comes Hard Knocks as Aaron Rogers.

About to be 40 years old. A one-year removed from back-to-back MVP's where he threw for 37 plus touchdowns in each season in over 4,100 yards. He was the QB4 and the QB7 in those two years. And you can just get them now on a great team on the Jets. Last year, he had a broken thumb and no Devonti Adams, and the team was not good. But more than all that, you know what I love about the season out of Aaron Rogers? This is a spite season.

Oh, yeah. This is a Brady going to the Bucks year one. This is Aaron Rogers being like, I'm going to show what I can still do. I'm going to win a Super Bowl with the Jets. And yeah, I don't know. I love Rogers. Well, Rogers is the epitome of your friend who has not checked in on football in a couple of years. Right.

And they're like, that's weird. Like, you took Daniel Jones ahead of Aaron Rogers? He's like, yeah, well, he could run. And you're like, oh, well, you took Tua? Isn't that the guy who couldn't play because he had so many concussions last year? Like, yeah, well, you know, he's good. Like, didn't Rogers win the MVP like two years ago? And you're like, oh, yeah.

And he's got, he has one of the best young receivers in the NFL and Garrett Wilson. You know, they have a really good skill player group overall in general. Like, they have a couple good running backs. Some good role playing receivers past Garrett Wilson. You know, they brought over Alan Lazard. Corey Davis is still there. I'm forgetting probably a couple guys that are still there. Randall Cobb is on that team.

McColl Hardman. Oh, yeah, they signed McColl Hardman in the offseason. And apparently he's got some chemistry with Aaron Rogers this year. And so especially when you look at sort of the contrast of what this Jets offense was last year, you know, with the rotating cast of really terrible quarterbacks, like Zach Wilson, was unbelievably bad. Like, as bad as you can possibly imagine, he was worse than that. And so, you know, there's something in place here for Aaron Rogers to really.

go off. I've slowly started to get on the Aaron Rogers train in fantasy just because you guys are both into him. And essentially, like, when he's been healthy, he's been really good in fantasy every year just because he's that good of a pastor. He's not going to run much, but he's just that good of a pastor. He's so efficient.

My thing with Rogers is, if you just throw out the seasons, it got hurt, and I'm including last year because he had played through a broken thumb. Broken thumb is important. Yeah. Yeah, you're throwing it. Right now, if you hate Aaron Rogers, try to throw a freaking, this is DAC too. This is the for tag.

Try to throw football out your thumb. Right. Try to like brush your teeth without your thumb. It's hard. If you throw out like Rogers the numbers,

years he got hurt, it's basically never been in not, never not been like a top 10, 12 quarterback in fantasy. And he's like going as like the 17th guy. So it's like you're drafting him

at his floor now. It's all like like he can't unless barring injury, he can't actually be worse than the 17th quarterback or at least it would bar everything that we've seen from it. Yeah.

Rogers's interception numbers are crazy too. I was just like, I fell into a rabbit hole last night looking at his interception numbers. If you exclude last year when he was hurt, he's averaging less than seven picks a season in the last 10 years. Yeah.

Less than seven interceptions a season? In the last 10 years, excluding last year, he has 67 interceptions in the last 10 years. Josh Allen has 60 already. Andrew Luck had 83 in his cold career. And Aaron Rogers only has 67 in his last 10 seasons. The guy's like as safe as you can get with the ball in his hands. Adam Harsstead is a brilliant fantasy.

like legend fantasy football expert basically develop like a barstool stat that's like quarterbacks, there are archetypes to quarterbacks and basically there are guys who throw the ball away and have like, you know, lower completion percentages but like no interception rates. And then there are guys that

and then also how far are you throwing it downfield? And then there are guys that are Josh Allen who are throwing it way downfield and try to make plays. And Aaron Rogers is like in that level he's like one of the best protectors of the football, like literally ever. Yeah. Like it's like Dan Marino, Drew Brees, Rogers. Like that's why he throws away a lot of balls.

But he also never like that's those pinpoint throws he makes. Those are never intercepted. His career interception rate is 1.4%. 1.4% of his passes are intercepted. He led the NFL in interception percentage in terms of having the lowest one. In 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, last year it spiked up. But as we said, he was trying to throw with his full. it essentially.

But like going back, honestly, it's actually, you know, historic, like Hafeits is saying in terms of his ability to protect the football. So, yeah, I mean, think about how many interceptions have just ruined the Jets offense over the last, like, the entirety of

their history. Like, Aaron Rogers comes in and he's going to protect the football. Yeah, I don't know. I'm actually starting, you guys are talking me into this Aaron Rogers stuff. I just think it's like, it's, again, talking about old, like, changing our ideas of things. I just feel like I've seen this movie before.

I think there are so many like broad stroke parallels, but also specifically the people who think Rogers are done. And if you, look, I know people have opinions of, like, Rogers puts his foot in his mouth. He puts his foot on Zoom. Like I, like, I know that people might, but like, if we're talking about on the field, anyone who thinks Rogers is done,

I ask you this. There's no chance he looked more done than Tom Brady looked in December of 2019. Do you remember Tom Brady's last season as a Patriot playing the Steelers? like even Bill Sittles, like everyone was like Tom Brady's cooked. And then it came back when a Super Bowl at the Bucks at 43, came back again and then led the league in passing arts at 44. And it was like, look what a different spot did. Rogers does not look a fraction as cooked as even with the broken thumb that Brady did. And the idea that he can't return to some level of greatness is crazy to me.

He did the ayahuasca thing and all of a sudden he's winning MVP's. Like it changed his whole life. He's doing more ayahuasca. He's microdosing. Also, if you watch Hard Knocks, the entire team immediately loves him and thinks he's about that. Yeah, I missed it. How was it? The coolest guy in the room.

It was great. They all love Rogers. They're like, yeah, they're like, the media doesn't portray him proper. They're like, man, he's cool as fuck. Rogers is a fucking like a G. And I was like, oh, damn, all right. Yeah, I'm not saying Kai is Zach Wilson, but it's kind of like if like instead of Kai producing this episode, it was like Christopher Nolan.

Wow. You know what I mean? No, Kai is great. But I'm just like, geez. Well, Zach Wilson is still a great quarterback. He just happened to be bad at himself. Yeah. Okay.

That's fair. I see where you're going with that. He's not Chris Nolan. Okay. Was that offensive? No. No. Okay, good.

No, it's totally fine. That's why I didn't get invited at the wedding, though. That is true. Kai Fieri. Okay. This team is crazy that we're, Aaron Rogers. Do a quick recap here. Do a quick recap.

So the quarterback is Aaron Rogers. Yeah. Your running backs are Derek Kennedy and Alvin Camara. And then your receivers are, if you want to go to the first round, Cooper Cup, DeAndre Hopkins, Keenan Allen, Tyler Lockett, and or Mike Evans, Michael Thomas. And then if you want to switch around,

you can either have like Travis Kelsey or Darren Waller at tight end. Not bad. Wild Hogs, baby. This is the Wild Hogs team for a reference. People haven't seen Wild Hogs. It's a bunch of old guys who decide to get back on their motorcycles and tour around.

I haven't actually seen it. Craig, have you seen it? You've never seen Wildhogs? I don't know why I have, but for some reason that movie was on like TNT a lot. And I, for some reason, like, for TBS, it was just like on TNT. Yeah. On those Turner channels all the time. People email us at ringer fantasy football at Gmail.com, like random movies that you like have

kind of seen or whatever that used to just like the classic always on TBS. It's a loaded cast. It's Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, John Travolta, Bill Macy, Ray Leota, Marissa Tomey. Really? I love it. Anyway, continuing with the Wild Hogs storyline here, we got Odell Beckham in the 10th round. This is going to be a little bit of a Mia Culpah.

I mean, obviously, we haven't seen anything happen actually yet in the NFL, but High Fitz tried to convince me that Odell Beckham was a quote-unquote sexy player. On our fantasy football draft guide at the ringer.com, we have tags, and some of them are like sexy players, some of them are boring players, whatever.

Hyfitts tried to convince me, Odell Beckham is still a sexy player. And I was like, shut the hell up. Like, that is ridiculous. He's so old. He's so washed. We haven't seen him in, like, two years. It sounded like he might be back. Like, based on everything we're hearing about from Ravens camp,

he has been absolutely just dominating. He's been, like, on the same page as Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson was the one who lobbied really hard to get him signed. They gave him a lot of money. And I think he's got a lot to prove. Like, he's got that chip on his shoulder again. And so, I don't know, man. I'm kind of buying into this Odell Beckham,

resurgence already. And they're in this new offense. It's supposedly going to be like way more like up tempo, pass heavy. This could be a completely different looking Ravens offense. And Rashad Bateman's hurt. You know, they got Zay Flowers, who is a rookie. Like, Odo Beckham, it wouldn't surprise me if he was the receiver that actually had the most points or had the most fantasy points on this team just because, you know,

he's got that veteran ability and he's like looking to kind of like make a name for himself again because people sort of giving up on them, including me. I can I go even a step further DK I think obviously injuries with O'Dell was huge obviously and it's like if he's healthy enough to play is one question and on top of that though the biggest thing is like since we've seen him because we've barely seen O'Dell play since he like

was in the Super Bowl with the Rams I mean he's 30 years old he's had a kid and like he's talked a lot about how like having a child has like changed his life so he's like the opposite of Nicola Yokic did you ever see that quote you had a kid how is being a father affected the way you play basketball like how does it change the way you think about the game. He's like,

it doesn't. It has nothing to do with it. Dude, Yokic, we've been joking about like dad comments. I feel like Yokic is a dad. Like, Jokic is like all of our fathers. I love Yolkish. He's definitely sending thumbs up. If you're like, just had a baby, he's like thumbs up. He's the best.

That's interesting. I didn't know that. Heif. That's another big boost for him in my book. You know, obviously, having a kid changed my life, changed my whole outlook on life. Changed my whole perspective. Changed all my priorities. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of into this now. The Odell Beckham resurgence is on.

And you can get them in round 10. Like, you can get them probably past round 10. We're talking upside here. Yeah. It's like again, and I keep thinking of it, I think a very informative framework sometimes for when you think about upside is,

if I came from the future and I said, hey, it's week five, we're doing our quarter season superlatives. O'Dell Beckham is the number four receiver in fantasy football. Would you be surprised that he was good or surprised that he was healthy? Like, you wouldn't actually, would you be shocked?

Healthy, yeah. Like, Michael Thomas, would you really be stunned? Because right now, in our rankings, we have Odell 131st next to James and Williams, who's suspended for six games near Van Jefferson. If I told you Van Jefferson was a top four receiver through five weeks, you'd shit yourself. Yeah, right.

James and Williams, who has caught like three balls in the NFL. Yeah. Skymore, who had one job in the Super Bowl and ran up on the, like the lined up wrong with Cadarious. He did score a touchdown on that play for yeah. It should have been Tony. Yeah. Like, I just, I don't know. So I look at O'Dell and I'm like, O'Dell and Michael Thomas again, I think the difference is like, I really do want to differentiate them from like Keenan Allen and like guys where like I think they're good.

Odell and Michael Thomas are lottery tickets where you're kind of like, it's not overthinking. They're still actually good. And again, in this era of like injuries and stuff. I don't know. And then should we throw out some like deeper later round old sleepers? Yeah. Deep cuts. All right.

Who you got? I mean, Cortland Sutton's 28, going to be 28 this year. Yeah. Spring chicken. Everyone just doesn't care about him. And I'm like, there's only pretty much two receivers now. He's on the Broncos with Tim Patrick going down. And probably worth a dart throw.

Another guy I like who is very old, has been hurt a lot, much like Odell Beckham. Rahim Moster's just the starting running back on the dolphins. Love that one. And every time he's on the field, if Rahim Moster played 17 games, he's probably a top 10 running back in the league. And he's going around the 140 mark in our rankings. He had 900 yards last year. I was going to say he quietly had a lot of touches. Yes.

And for he moose starts healthy, he's top 15 running back. I want to thought about one more guy here in round 12, 11, whatever it is, like late ad here is. Adam Thielen, do you guys remember a little while ago on this show when I talked about Tyler Lockett and how he had, he was, he ranked fifth in the NFL over the last five years in touchdowns? The four guys ahead of them were Devante Adams, Tyree Kill, Mike Evans, and Travis Kelsey. I left out a little fact that Tyler Lockett is actually tied with Adam Thielen for the most touchdown catches in the last five years. Adam Thielen has the same amount of touchdown catches as Tyler Lockett in that stretch. I know that he's kind of old and kind of slow, but again, he's another guy that just gets by with technique, separation.

He's a little Cooper Cuppie in that way, just that he's a really good route runner, incredible hands, just a savvy ability to get open. I'm trying to stop short of calling him a Jim Rat coach's kid. type player, but like, that's really what he is. You know what I mean? He's, he's just, he's gritty. He's white and we don't know why he's good, so he's gritty. Yeah, he's gritty. He's got that grit factor. And like, there's nobody on the Panthers. Right, exactly.

I will say, I have written off Adam Thielin. I've written off Adam Thieling a lot this year because I broke all my rules. One, he was dust last year. Like, Bill Barnelot of great stat that Adam Thielen, the Kirk Cousins, if you look at quarterback rating, ESPN's like total quarterback rating, but if you don't look at it as like a quarterback, X stat. You look at it as like an offensive measurement

stat. Kirk Cousins' QBR was 20 points better with Adam Thielen off the field than he was with Adam Thielan on the field. And he just was bad in a bunch of yards per route run stats and everything that you look to. Having said that,

he does fit this exercise of like, you don't actually have to pay for Thielen like, Cortland Sutton. Like Cortland Sutton, I like that pick a lot, Craig, because it's like 50, 60 spots after Jerry Judy. And we're like, are we sure Sean Payton likes Jerry Judy more? Like, but Thielen, I will admit,

as much as I, he violates my rule of like, if a skill player, Travis Kells is the exception of the rule, if a skill player is putting one foot out the door into a media career, like they're done. But I will admit, D.K., like,

you're not paying anything for Adam Thielen. Like, would you be shocked if it's week four and he's like first in the league in touchdowns with six? So this is what I was going to say is if he scored like eight touchdowns this year, would you be at all surprised?

No, not at all. Especially Bryce Young, like having the scrambling ability and he finds stealing in the back, like feeling like being dust. but being smart enough to know where Bryce Young needs him. I could totally see that. I don't know.

He's a great value. Here's his touchdowns over the last five season. 6.10, 14, 6, 9. He's going to score eight touchdowns. He's in that Tyler Lockett, Derek Henry category of like, it's not actually quantifiable, but like he is disproportionately incredible catching touchdowns.

Any other wild hogs here? Throw out Zeke. Yeah, when Zeke signs, look, Zeckel Elliott, again, like Thielen, diminished, not the same player. Does all the little things coaches love? can block the shit out of like a pass rushing

could actually pancake a defensive end. And like, guess what? If he signs with the Chargers, I bet he has like 12 touchdowns this year. I mean, the Cowboys, they were willing to line him up at center. That's how good of a blocker he is. You know what I mean?

It's incredible. So I love this. I love Zeke. We don't know what TB's on, per se. Probably going to be the Cowboys. Let's be honest. You think?

Yeah. I don't know. I think he'll sign somewhere because he's like, if he wants to play football, I think a team will be like, yes, Zeke Lillite will improve a football team.

But I don't know. It's a perfect example of not drafted player. And it's like, we'll see where he signs, but probably going to be like weirdly useful. All right. And that's why you're, so again, the team, the, I haven't watched football since 2019, 19 team. Honestly, you don't even need it. We can even swap in Mahomes as the quarterback if you want just because really,

you can get Keenan Allen and guys later. But Aaron Rogers, Derek Henry, Alvin Camara, Keenan Allen, DeAndreya Hopkins, Travis Kelsey, Tyler Lockett, Michael Thomas, Brandon Cooks, Odell Beckham. This team was so good in 2018. My God. Not to mention the fact that like Mike Evans is out there. Darren Waller is out there. Like you could put your bench, Ezekiel Elliott, just have like two starting.

Like, Zeke could end up splitting with Pollard is the lesser end of the best offense, top five offense of the Cowboys. Jeff Wilson and Nostert splitting goal line stuff for the top five back for the Miami. I love this team. Dirty 30s, baby. You know, the hardest part is actually like you can support these guys. We talk about them on the podcast. The numbers make sense to you, everything.

But when it comes to draft time, it is still hard to hit that enter key. but to pencil this guy's name in because you're like, but he is 31. You got to get past that mental hurdle and I'm going to try this year. I got it. And again, we're not saying necessarily do this, but we want to get you thinking. However, you know what? I figured out, Craig, so much of its threshold bias where you get to like a big nice round number, 30, and you start thinking. So it's like, you know how American men want to be six feet tall?

But like, I don't think that that's not like a thing in like England where they have the metric system. We need a metric system for age. So that we're not like freaked out by the. the number 30. Well, I always thought about it, and if this makes no sense, I apologize, but like,

if your 20s were 15 years long, and like if every decade was 15 years instead of 10. So it's like Game of Thrones time. Yeah. Like from 20 to 29 plus five more years. The long winter. Yeah, yeah.

You still had a two in front of your age. People just would think of you differently. If 33 was somehow just like a longer extended version of your 20s and there was still a two in front of it, you wouldn't be, the 30th birthday wouldn't matter. It's all perception. I'm just as good

as ever as tennis and I'm 29. Going to get better. All right, you guys want to do some emails? Yeah, emails. This is from John.

Johnny. John. He says, I'm a 40-year-old geriatric millennial so I feel you, D.K. Yep.

John says, I'm the commissioner of a 20-year league with college friends. They're all Bears fans. I'm a Packers fan. And this year, I can keep Jamar Chase

in the third round, which is probably smart, or I could keep Justin Fields in the 10th round, which is really funny. Just one Packers fan keeps Justin Fields in the league of 10 years. And he said, I've had the great fortune of rooting for Aaron Rogers and Brett Farv, basically my entire life.

While my Bears fan friends have been stuck with Jay Cutler, Kyle Orton, Mitchell Chubisky, and Rex Grossman. And I find it hilarious that now that they finally have a quarterback worth rooting for, I will keep Justin Fields in the league for three years. So he says, I like, he says, I'm not worried about, he's like, I've won plenty. I'm like, I'm not worried about proving myself. Should I choose my keeper based on what's right or out of spite? Oh, I think you know the answer to this.

This was a rhetorical email. You know the answer already. You got to keep Fields. You cannot give your Bears fans friends, Justin Fields. It's still value, as Craig pointed out. It's not like you're sacrificing a whole bunch of value. Obviously, Jamar Chase. Make a funny Photoshop of him as your team logo.

Really like make a meal out of it. And the best part too is like Justin Fields could be great in fantasy and terrible in real life. And so they could be upset about him being a bad passer. but also you're like winning your league every week. Best case scenario, the Bears are five and 12 and 12 and 5. I love that. Yeah, that's the,

also you could argue Fields is better keeper than Chase anyway. All right. Also, we don't answer a ton of keeper questions, but the short answer is your really good player in the 11th round is usually always a better keeper than your great player in the second. So that's like fake fields. All right.

We are talking about how a couple episodes ago, D.K mentioned that you're in Washington, the state, And then older people in Washington say Washington. Washington. But like, yeah. But it's an accent or whatever, but the accent ends. There's a generational divide. People under the age of 40, I think, like around 40 don't say Washington.

Like, where's the R coming from? I'm so confused. I don't understand. Do you mention this? Yeah. We had 20 people contact us. 20 people. Worship.

Is this like these people came from the East Coast? Is there like a dialect thing here? Because you know how people say like, I saw it? Yeah. I saw it with my own eyes. Is it kind of like that? Like, is this derived from the Northeast and people move to Washington? We got people saying from Washington to, we got Washington to Indianapolis, people saying that this phenomenon they had noticed.

Do they say like I wash my car and stuff like that? Yes. Worse cloth. Can we get the, you know the guy that's on YouTube that talks about like the accent daddy? Yes. Accent Daddy. Yes. Accent Daddy.

sent daddy to talk about this or maybe he already has because I would be I sure you're going to know where this came from. Dude, that would be such a get if we got the accent guy. It feels Long Islandy. I saw it. It's like how Australian people say, Nor.

Dude, if you don't know him, accent, daddy, accent expert gives tour of U.S. accents from Wired. It's on YouTube. It's like actually one of the most incredible YouTube videos. Oh my gosh. It's so fun. I'd be very curious to know that exact like etymology of why people think W-A-S-H. Warsh says Warsh.

I don't like when people say milk. Yeah. It's like disgusted. My ink is people saying milk. Dude. Oh my God. There's a part of like Jersey meeting Pennsylvania. It's called the Delaware water gap, but everyone from that area says widder.

Water? They can't. Oh, yeah. No, there's no R. Like, it's like W-I-T-E-R. It's like one of my friends. The Unabomber. Yeah, the accent.

Wooder. Is that how? I don't know if that's actually true. I don't know if that's actually true. I think that that might be like a story they tell in that show that was on Netflix about how they essentially got like a linguist to come in and like figure out where exactly he was from and where he'd been studying in school. And then they extrapolated the different stuff from his big, the Unabomber.

transcript thing. What do you call it? His whole spiel. Manifesto. Manifesto is the word I was looking for. Big Bill Simmons property. Yeah, he had very specific mannerisms of his language and they used that to figure out exactly where he grew up and like blah, blah, blah. Anyway, that was a big part of how they found him, apparently.

That was great dad knowledge from DK. And on that, we have a lot of people emailed us to, they wanted to share that. We asked for people who had, your dad has like a name for something that's like, painfully outdated. I can't list everyone's name. Thank you to the literally 16 people who said my dad's, my dad still refers to everything.

Oh, let's map quest it. Yeah. It's the first thing that you could use that was not an actual map. Yeah. Tim, Sean, Aaron, Brian. I can't, there's 20 people, but I'm just going to read them all. My dad still refers to every video game as the Nintendo. Doesn't matter.

Xbox PlayStation doesn't matter. It's all the Nintendo. It's easier that way, you know. The MapQuest. Someone said, my dad calls Costco. He calls it Price Club. Sure. What is that?

I've never even heard of that. Someone said my dad calls HBO the Homebox. Well, HBO says for Homebox office. Yeah, he just calls, he's like, I was watching this documentary on Homebox the other day. Okay. And then a self-reflective dad emailed in to say, I live in New Jersey, which does not permit self-service at gas stations. You guys know this on the West Coast?

Jersey, it's illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey. Oregon, too, yeah. Oh, okay. Oregon, if you will. For all those Washington folks out there, Oregon. There's also, there's a Nevada-Nevada debate out there. Yeah. Do you know the two senators from Arkansas disagreed on how to pronounce it for like 20 years?

Arkansas. Yeah. John says my children pointed out to me that when I was filling up my car with gas, I always ask for regular unleaded. Oh, yeah. I remember this. They have not sold regular, they have not sold regular

leaded gas since 1996. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember this growing up too. I don't really know what this is about. I had not thought of that for probably about 20 years. So thank you for that, John. That was funny.

Like, I totally remember that asking for what type of gas. It's like the, I don't even know what the difference is really, but like it's like if you had to go and tell people not to put diesel in your car or something. Oh my God. And also we're talking about boomers

and using technology. Luke emails in. One of the funniest things older generations will do is sign off their name, like, on a comment, as if, like, they have no idea of it's from. Like, a boomer's, like, signs off on their Facebook comment with their name, literally above their comment saying, great picture, love seeing you so happy, Barb. Yeah, yeah. It's signing a text message, too.

It extends to text messages, too. It's like, dude, I know I have caller ID. Pete Carroll is the most, is one of the more boomery human beings I've ever been in contact with. What was it like setting up Pete Carroll's podcast equipment? What was that like? I'm not, I'm not kidding you. It took longer to have Pete send me the audio than it took to record the episode every week. I was on FaceTime with him for hours.

Again, nicest could be very, you know, down to like take the time to do this. I got onto screen share and I'd be, I'd be directing him. That's incredible. Well, so they're also like, low-key, like, inherited, like, the Mad Men generation where they're, like, they used to have, like, a secretary who would type for them. so they never learned to use computers. Like someone, Nick Saving didn't like know how to use email to like five years ago.

Yeah. Oh my God. That is so funny. Quentin Tarantino came into the ringer office. He had a flip phone. Stop it. Where do you even get those? Like eBay?

That's so fucking cool. The museum. Like when you're Quinn Tarantino, people got to figure out how to contact you. All right? It's your problem. Okay? I have a flip phone.

Figure it out. Oh my God. Wait, is he still texting? Is he like hitting numbers to text or he just calls? I did not text with him or anything. I just saw him pull out his phone and it was a flip phone. He listens to podcasts on his computer. Oh my gosh.

Literally because he has to. Craig, my dad listens to podcasts on like he pulls up the ringer.com and like we'll find our podcast webpage. Put some of my parents, too. Do they really? Yeah, some of my parents do. What? They can't go to Spotify or Apple or something.

They hit the little Spotify widget. It's like I set my dad up so it auto fills in Spotify and like followed the. My dad listens to this pod. so he's going to probably text me. He's going to text me some really terse text and then sign off with Dad. Yeah, he does that. Phil, your father will text you and say

dash, dad. Yeah. It's a generational thing. It's DNA level. It's like writing a letter. Yeah, you cannot take it. You can't take the boomer out of a boomer. No matter where technology goes.

I love that. It's incredible. All right, emails at ringer fantasy football at g-gitle.com. More like dad communication stuff. anything from the show. Thoughts on old guys. We got a hilarious tweet of somebody who had a baby and it was a group chat with a grandfather and they sent a photo of their baby into the group chat with their grandfather. And the grand, a brand new newborn baby and the grandfather was the first to respond and

they just said, okay. Which is worse than the thumbs up in my opinion. Because a thumbs up at least connotes like positivity. Okay is like indifference. Insanely neutral. Yeah. That's good information to have. That's not even good information to have.

It's just information that I now have. I possess this information now. Thank you for the data, I guess. The data. Okay. My family is not one person larger. It's good to know. I will add another placemat to the dinner table.

Thank you. Okay. Oh, my God. Okay. It's so funny. All right. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Craig.

Thank you, Kai, for producing this episode. Thank you, intern Jack. Thank you to many various people behind the scenes here. Thank you, Tucker. Thank you to dads everywhere. All to dads out there. I'm crying a little bit. Thank you, Lord.

Lauren. Thank you, Ying Gang Twins. Oh. Dude, you're... Sure. Wow. Dude, they were... They, like, did the college tours everywhere.

Madden, they had the songs for Madden, and then they used that, and they, like, just, I feel like they just did college events for, like, a decade. Sounds right. I'm trying to think of it. What's the most famous song,

Ying Gang, Twins? I think it's Salt Shaker. Salt Shaker? The Stone Temple Pilots, we had so many people reach out out to be like, wow, Craig and Dean. Oh, people were offended that you guys.

Dude, when Craig was like, so is it stone? Stone Temple Pilots. Craig was like Stone Temple Pilots or Stone Temple Pilots, and someone was like, that broke my soul. Well, I apologize. I can only be me. Did Yingang twins, dude, those Madden Soundtrack, emails at Ring Your Fantasy Football at Gmail.com,

those old Madden soundtrack songs that were incredible. The Yang-Jang Twins, that song I think of is the Whisper song. it's the which I will not try and make sure. Yeah, Madden had thunderstruck. Oh yeah. Can I make a confession?

I didn't really play Madden. I didn't really play Madden in like the early 90s. And then I haven't really played since. Honestly, that's fine. The original Madden, like when John Madden was on the cover. Yeah, legitimately, I remember playing in, I think it was like middle school or high school.

I grew up playing tech mobile. So there's another You're that old? This is another Bill Simmons played TechMobile. This is why the generational gap they made for millennials is wrong. Like we can't be the same generation

if you play Crefmobil. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, Craig, I've never thought it's for it. DK is exactly halfway between us and Bill. Bill's 52, 53.

The bridge. DK is 12 years younger than Bill and 12 years older than Bill. Bill played TechMobile. You played TechMobile? Oh, all the time. Yeah. I played Tecmoble, the original Nintendo, like, where you take it out and blow on it and put it back in.

Like, I could beat Mario, the original Mario Brothers in, like, four minutes because there was like this cheat code where you like port, tell port to the final boss level or whatever. I know, I respect Techmobile. Are you talking about the Nintendo 64 before that? No, the Nintendo. Whoa. The Nintendo. The Nintendo. Craig.

Okay. Just the Nintendo. Yeah. And I'm not trying to like make people, like, first I respect Techmopol. I respect the Bo Jackson of TechMobile. It's all right. You're not on trial here for anything slandering TechMobile. No, but Madden comes out next week, and I feel like a boomer when I turn on Madden

because it's all like Ultimate Team trading cards. And I'm like, who freaking is going through all this Madden Ultimate Team stuff to like, trying to like, oh, my best offensive linemen is Nick Gates. And you're like, you have like, just I was wondering franchise mode. Why do these kids don't just want you franchise mode? I've never even played that. I just like played my friends in Madden. You know, I don't know how any of this works.

Oh, I used to do like the custom team thing and just like do that all the time. I just pick the players I wanted. That's what the Cardinals are doing. They're kind of just simming the season. Yeah, we have the picks next year. The Cardinals are going to win nine games. Save it for the take first. Hot take.

Yeah, yeah. All right, goodbye, everyone.