The Ringer NFL Show - The Players That Nobody's Talking About Before Your Draft

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck highlight the most under-discussed fantasy players of the preseason—or, as we call them, the Steven Glansbergs—and determine how we feel about them (1:32). Finally, the guys close with emails (52:18). Check out our 2023 Ringer Fantasy Football Rankings here! Tee Higgins, Bengals WR (2:20) DK Metcalf, Seahawks WR (7:46) Aaron Jones, Packers RB (14:45) Travis Etienne Jr., Jaguars RB (19:27) Jaylen Waddle, Dolphins WR (25:29) Brandin Cooks, Cowboys WR (31:28) Dameon Pierce, Texans RB (36:32) Marquise Brown, Cardinals WR (41:43) Redacted vs. Redacted, TEs (46:23) 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. For Fantasy Football Show, my name is Danny Heifitz. And I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck. And today we are going through all the players. Nobody is talking about, aka the Stephen Glansberg. Craig, will you please explain what Stephen Glansberg or who Stephen Glansberg is? Stephen Glanzberg is a character in the movie Super Bad.

one of our favorite movies of all time, one of my favorite movies of all time. And there's a joke in the movie, there's a swear word in it that I won't say. Jonah Hill's character doesn't want to eat alone, and he references how he doesn't want to be like Stephen Glansberg, who eats alone every day at lunch at his table. And it's just a sad kid sitting there,

I think, like eating pudding. So that's what we're talking about on today's episode, is all the players that just nobody's mentioning during the entire run-up of the fantasy football season, and we're going to get into why, and if we like them or don't like them. It's just like 10 guys sitting there with a snack pack just sitting all alone at the table. And you know what?

Maybe Stephen Glansberg's a good dude. We don't know. He's a good hand. He's a good hand for the record. He's a lawyer. That is true. He's one of, uh, we've been trying to get him on the show. Was it Jonah Hill's friend or no, someone else's friend from half?

It was Seth Rogen and Lergan's friend from school. Yeah, we have actually emailed back and forth with the real Stephen Glansberg. Yes. We were going to get him on the show. And then he was like, I'm like a very busy attorney. I don't know about this. What am I going to say on this? Yeah.

We're like, that's. Pretty big show, dude. So it might help your practice if you come on. TK. Bat for us here. Give us someone that just everyone, including us, has just been totally ignoring

for the entire run-up to the season. Yeah. I want to talk about T. Higgins, wide receiver for the Bengals, who I feel like we haven't mentioned at all in the last month or so. Every year that Jamar Chase is on his team,

people will not talk about this man. And, I mean, if you look at the overall body of work when him and Jabbar Chase have been on the field, T. Higgins and Jammar Chase have been on the field together.

They're like the total targets, the total yards, and points are pretty close. However, I do feel like Jamar Chase pulled away from him a little bit last season in 12 games. So we played four fewer games than T. Higgins. Jamar Chase out-targeted him, out-caught him, had more touchdowns, more yards. And obviously, average way more fantasy points. He averaged 6.7, half PBR fantasy points per game. He was the Y-Receversever 5. That's Jamar Chase.

T. Higgins, 11 and a half points per game. You say 6.7 or 16.7? 16.7. He was the overall wide receiver 5 in points per game, which Mark Chase was. T. Higgins finished as the wide receiver 19. I think that's probably around what we can expect. But at the same time, you know,

there is a world where T. Higgins kind of gets back to what he was two seasons ago when he was healthy. He did battle an ankle injury. I think he had some hamstring issues this last season. There's a chance he wasn't even really that healthy. And of course, you want to be attached as much as possible to this Bengals offense. You want every piece of this offense. And this is an offense last year led by Joe Burrow. that finished seventh in points for game, fifth in points for drive, seventh in yards,

and fifth overall in pass rate. So there's going to be a ton of passing opportunity in this offense. And so it is a little bit strange to me that we're not talking about T. Higgins more. Where do you guys land on T. Higgins? I think the reason why he's not getting talked about is because we kind of know exactly what he is. And I think a lot of players on this list are, it's not that they're not sexy. They're just very predictable. They have kind of a tight window of where,

they could finish. You know, there's not really a scenario in which T. Higgins completely bombs and falls outside of the top 30. And it's also probably unlikely that he finishes as a top five guy with Jamar Chase. So I think it's just because we know what he is. So I think he's a perfectly fine pick at his value. And that's kind of all there is. Yeah, he's Andy in Toy Story when he just gets dropped for the new toy. And T. Higgins is like, yeah, wow. See this guy for like a whole three years already. Who cares about this dude? That's kind of the energy. But, But Deke, do you feel like T. Higgins was at full strength last year? No, it did feel like he was battling injuries for a big chunk of the season.

There was one game, I believe. He only played about 10 snaps. So that definitely lowers his bottom line in terms of his points per game and all that. I do think he's one of the better receivers in the NFL, though. He is very underrated in terms of his overall talent. Obviously, he's just getting overshadowed by Jemar Chase, who is all world, probably one of the best talents at receiver the NFL has seen. And so when you got a guy like T. Higgins, it's just easy to forget about him.

It's almost like the same thing we're seeing with like Tyler Lockin, D.K. Metcalf for the Seahawks, who obviously very different stylistically. But everyone's very enamored with D.K. Metcalf, people just kind of forget about Lockett. I think we're having the same effect here with T. Higgins. Well, we have T. Higgins' first overall. He's our wide receiver 15. Are you saying that T. Higgins is like a discounted Jermar Chase. So you don't have to take top five or are we kind of like, eh, math. You know, really good player, really cool. Not going to keep on living my life. More towards the ladder, honestly. I mean, it's not, I am not. sad if I get T. Higgins in a draft.

But I'm also just not super excited. He's not the type of guy I'm like, oh, this guy's going to win me my league, even though he is ranked pretty highly for us. What's nice about T. Higgins compared to other guys around him, like Amari Cooper or Calvin Ridley are good examples. T. Higgins has an upside. There is a possibility that Jemar Chase gets hurt, and T. Higgins would become the number one guy in the team and would significantly outperform his current projection.

There's nothing that could happen to the Browns with Amari Cooper or to the Jags with Calvin Ridley that would significantly change their projection. If guys below them got hurt, it probably doesn't change too much. So that's like one silver lining, I guess you could say is that because Teagans is a number two, that there is a possibility of injury and that he could become the guy, which would make him a top 10 player probably immediately. It's a great point. Among those guys, just more upside.

Craig, you made this joke a few weeks ago, but it's so true. Every time a player gets hurt in the NFL, all the fantasy people were like the Tim Robinson bit where it's like, we got to make money on this. Oh, so good. such a bummer anyway how could I extort this? We're Owen Wilson at Wedding Crashers with the tears. We're like, fine, just like... Yeah, right.

Oh, my God. Who mentioned DK Metcalf? I can't... Do you mention DK? You did. Okay. The difference is that D.K. Metcalfe is really cool and famous, and T. Higgins is frankly... Honestly, everyone, like you two, everyone listening. Close your eyes. Can you picture T. Higgins's face?

Yeah. Do you know anything about T. Higgins? That is a question I have. I have. I have no... idea how many only fans models T. Higgins has slept with. D.K. Medcalf, I think I have a ballpark. We have some documentation of that, in fact. Yes. I don't know anything about T. Higgins. I know more about D.K. Meckhap. I'll say that.

Maybe we should have brought, like, bios for all these guys and, like, kind of search their social media, you know, done a little dating profile for them. I'd love to get to know T. Higgins. What's he, what's he into? You know, what's her hobbies? Is his name T? What's his name? All right. Well, Craig, we have D.K. Metcalfe, 24th overall, and you had a Metcalf take. I'm going to find something out about T. Higgins.

Yeah, so I really wanted to talk about D.K. Metcalf, who I think this year is kind of a Glansberg, because once again, it feels like we know what he is. He's already kind of had his season. But, you know, looking into to D.K. Metcalfe, who is ranked above Tyler Lockett in every ranking you're going to look for. I'm not sure why. D.K. Metcalfe and Tyler Lockett might be too. characters in a rom-com. And D.K. Metcalf is the girl everybody wants. And she's the conventionally beautiful, popular girl that everybody's obsessed with. And then Tyler Lockett's the girl who sat next to you in algebra that you never notice until the end of the year at the dance. She walks onto the floor with her hair down in a dress and you realize she's actually the most beautiful girl in the school.

She's got glasses. She's wearing glasses. That's Tyler Lockett. We need this all to end. Putting D.K. Metcalfe above Tyler Lockett. It needs to end. Lockett should just be the guy. It doesn't make any sense. Why don't we consider him the 1A and D.K. The 1B. I went back and looked at these two. Over the last three seasons, Tyler Lockett has straight up outscored D.K. Metcalfe on a per game basis over the last three seasons.

It's a very narrow margin, but he is averaging more catches than him, more yards than him, and more touchdowns all on a per game basis. And he's not getting worse. Matt Harmon from Reception Perception basically said the advanced metrics show that Tyler Lockett may have had the best year of his career last year. And you want to know what's funny? Last year, Tyler Lockett finished as the wide receiver 15 and DK Metcalf as the wide receiver 27.

This year, Fantasy Pro's ADP has DK Metcalf as the wide receiver 15 and Tyler Lockett as the wide receiver 27. They are exactly flipped. What's going? What am I missing here? Have you seen DK Metcalf's eight pack? Like, come on. That's it.

That's all it is. It's because he's hot. It's DK Metcalf's hot. You know those studies that are like hotter people, like we assign competence to hotter people and like CEOs like you know

entertainment obviously but like just generally speaking we assume that hotter people have competence and the frankly D.K. Metcalf is probably a little more attractive of a man than Mr. Tyler Lockett So we're just blinded by DK's muscles year after year after year. I mean

look at the numbers last year. They were literally opposites in ADP. Lockett the 15th best wide receiver. Metcalfe, the 27th and the opposite is they're ranked right now. It doesn't make any sense. They're like, I'm taking crazy pills. I think the reason is he was,

DK McKF was like top two in like end zone targets. He was a ton of those. He was number one. He was number one. I said top two. That's still correct. The bright side for DK is, you're right. He led all wide receivers in end zone targets.

He had 22 and he only scored on five of them. And Locke had scored on six of his nine. But still, I mean, it's not just like last year is the only year that where DK McAff, you know, underperformed or had a high expected fantasy points. that he didn't cash in on. Lockett's outperformed him, three years. So I actually don't, if you're going to rank them,

and I'm going to do this the second we get off this podcast, I'm going to put them right next to them. Oh, man. They have to be right next to the thing, though. This is the, to tell you the truth, that one of the hardest parts of doing our rankings is, this sounds esoteric, aligning philosophically with, like, how you think players should go versus how you,

like where you would take them versus how you think they'll do, which sounds stupid, but, dude, You could, there are plenty of times where Tyler Lockett might be like the 70th pick in the draft. And so it's kind of, you can kind of just play coy and come back around and take them as like your eighth pick and get them later. So you're not actually going to take Tyler Lockett in 35th in the draft, are you? Because you could wait 20 more picks and still get them. Yeah. I mean, if you're in a vacuum, you're right.

But in terms of like how I want to rank them, how I want to let people know what I think about Tyler Lockett compared to D.K. McCaff, they should be much closer than where I currently have them. because looking into everything, he just outperforms him every year. And we don't seem to notice. Email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. If you have something else where one person thing, whatever, outperforms another every year. And we just never adjust our expectations.

I feel like we do this with a couple players every season, Craig. It's like you're trying to skate to where the puck is going to be, so I speak, where, you know, D.K. McCaff is not like 23. Like he's been around. It's not, you know what I mean? Yeah, I get that. Not that you.

The positive regression in the touchdown department in particular, I think is what people are looking at and what are they're excited about. They're also just excited about the fact, like I said, he runs a 4-3. He's 230 pounds, and he's got an 8-pack, and he's just massive and fun and cool, and people want a piece of that. It's like, it reminds me a little bit like C.D. Lamb. Like, C.D. Lamb is cool and fun. It's not hot, though.

But he, you know, it's just, he's just kind of. just like a slot receiver. Like he's good for sure. But does he have the type of upside that some of these other guys around him have? I don't know. So yeah, I think D.K. McCaff, I don't know. I'm still pretty excited about what he can do this here.

But you're absolutely right, I think, about Tyler Lockett being one of the massive values in this draft right now. I mean, you talk about the, oh, D.K. Meckheff has the touchdown upside. In the last three years, D.Ks had 28 touchdowns. Lockett's had 27 in two less games. Yeah. I don't know. I think they have the same touchdown upside.

Craig, here's the deal. If you look at everything D.K. McKaff has done over the first however many years he's been in the NFL now, four years. He's like top five in everything. He's just everything he's done. Important context here is that this is the most single most triggering topic in football for D.K. Because his father doesn't think D.K. Metcalf is very good. And there's no single issue that makes D.K. anger than people saying D.K. McC. is overrated. Put together massive, like, dossiers about why D.K. McCaff is good at football.

And your dad texts back okay. He's like, all right, well, then tell him to stop dropping it, you know. He's like, I like what I like. Exactly. So, yes, I actually had, I did this too with Hyfitz at one point just over text. Like, Hyfitz told, he texted me one time. He's like, I kind of feel like D.K. Metcalf is overrated. And I was like, stop.

I stopped everything I was doing. I spent like a half an hour. I'm podcasting with my father. Spent like a half an hour compiling all these stats that point about how amazing D.K. Metcalf has been throughout his career. I have a short career. Sorry, quick side note. I have a friend who thinks Stephen Spielberg is overrated.

And every time he brings it up, I just like freak out. And like, yeah, it just ruins my day. So I feel. Dude, I found the, I found a unicorn in my, my friends stepdad. Shout out to Tom, which is an older man in his 60s who said Michael Jordan was overrated, which I've honestly never encountered anyone other 40 in the wild saying that out loud. And I was like, well, who's the greatest basketball player? He's like, Kareem.

And I was like, wow, what a great. What a great day. Oh, wow. He didn't even go abroad. Okay. Yeah, he's like, well, the basketball hall of fame includes your whole career. Like, why is Kareem going, losing two games at UCLA, never talked about? Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

While we're on Glansbergs, I have a guy. I think this is the most Glansberg guy of the year, as in, even for our show, I don't think we've said his name while talking about him a single time. Aaron Jones, running back for the Packers. I don't even know the last time. three of us had a conversation about him. He's just Don Draper in the elevator. I don't think about you at all.

I love Aaron. He's like the best player I haven't thought about. And it's funny because since 2019, Aaron Jones among running backs and half BPR has finished second among running backs, fifth, 12th, ninth. And now he's like the 17th running back off the board. We have him 16th among running backs.

He's our 37th overall player. We're high on him. Still too low. I kind of keep coming back to that. At this point, we're almost like jumping the shark where all these older players were coming around on. I'm 28. Craig's 29. Aaron Jones is 28 going on 29 this season.

We're like, ah, he still got it. But he does, though. Aaron Jones is actually still good. Like, there hasn't been a decline. So he's getting to Caprio and Aaron Rogers obviously has gone. And then the main problem therein Jones is that AJ Dillon, the other running back to big bowling ball full of knives, as Dek would say, AJ Dillon kind of stole the goal line work last year. like agent don't have like I think 10 goal line carries

Aaron Jones had like two or something but I keep looking and I'm like you know what all that is factored in Aaron Rogers leaving the goal line work being gone like that's why he's the 17th running back what is not priced it is what if the Packers I know I keep sounding crazy to say this but what if the Packers offense with healthy Jordan Love running Matt Lafleur's system is better than Aaron Rogers running half his system

half Lefleur's system with a broken thumb on his throwing hand like the offense might get better yeah and the other thing I keep coming back to is Aaron Jones is so much better than A.J. Dillon, including actually in short yardage situations. Like, A.J. Dylan's bigger. Aaron Jones runs harder. And that sounds critical. I'm going to guess Packers fans listening right now and nodding. Aaron Jones is actually the better short yardish back. I don't think it's price that the Packers' coaches watch this season. Like, dude, Aaron Jones getting the ball at the goal line this season. Even it's 50-50. And I keep looking and I'm like, maybe I'm crazy. Maybe it's stupid to bet on a running back that's turning

29 this year, but I'm like, the margin between Aaron Jones going in the second round, you can get him in the fourth. And I'm like, I don't know. Are we just like missing this thing hiding in plain sight? We're just bored of him. We've just talked about it for years. And we have nothing else to say, apparently, about Aaron Jones. It's like, what else do you say? I mean, he's going to catch a lot of passes. He's explosive. He's highly efficient. He is basically, you know, he has been not anymore right now just because of what happened with Alvin Kumar. But he's a discount version of Alvin Camara, essentially, they have a similar style of play where, you know, they're not necessarily going to be a three-down guy, workhorse type player, but he's going to

catch a lot of passes, create explosive plays, make guys miss. And, you know, Hyfitz, I think your point about the goal line stuff is valid because A.J. Dillon did dominate in that area last year. But I don't think that is a big reason to really push him down just because he's going to be so involved in the passing game. He'll make up for his lack of, you know, goal line looks. On that note about the passing game, this is a situation that I don't know if there's quite the precedent ever in NFL history for the Packers offense where none of their quarterbacks have started. They combined all the quarterbacks in the roster of the Packers have started one game. Like Jordan Love has one start. None of the backups have.

I think it's probably the least experienced quarterback group ever outside of. Obviously, it's tied for second because they have one freaking start. You'd probably have to go back to like the replacement games when the NFL was on strike in the 80s to find something like that. But on top of it, what's weird, we haven't talked about this enough. All the Packers receivers in tight ends that are like going to play or in their first or second season. Like Christian Watson off his rookie year is like the oldest and most experienced receiver. Jaden Reed, the rookie's going to play. Luke Musgrave, the tight end's going to play.

Romeo Dobbs, Samari Tourette. Like these are all second year players. Aaron Jones is the most experienced receiver on the team. I know last year we talked a lot about, oh, maybe Aaron Jones will be the leading receiver. I'm not saying he's going to like be the, but he's the most like, I. keep wondering, like, is Aaron Jones going to be the third down option on this team with just no experienced players? So I'm not sure. Like, I keep looking. I'm like, I don't know. Aaron Jones, like the fact that you could, in theory, get like, you know, Cooper Cup,

like Amon Ross St. Brown in the second or Tony Pollard, if you want. And then, you know, Mark Andrews and the third or Jalen Hertz? You come back around to Aaron Jones could be like your first running back or your second. That's kind of incredible. Aaron Jones is just one of those like, you know the phrase like you can't go broke, making a profit? Just like, you can't, you're not going to lose your league drive. Nothing Aaron Jones. You know what I mean? I love that.

And the guy right in that range, another guy right in that range who I think is a Glansburg. We have him running back 1435 overall. Travis CTN for the Jaguars is another guy we just have not talked about at all in the same spot. To me, he's a type of guy who, another guy who's like, I just don't know what to say about him necessarily because his role is so uncertain. I think last year he definitely thrived because he got a ton of volume. And he looked good. He was explosive. He created a lot of explosive plays.

He's fast. You know, he can catch the full. a little bit, but that's still, I think, a big question mark with his game. He's got the Gatorchump, the Florida, the boom. He tries to clap at the football when it's in the air, which is not great technique. And the team went out and drafted a guy in the third round, Tank Bigby, who's gotten a lot of, you know, good publicity so far in training camp. A lot of people are pretty excited about him.

In the first preseason game, he came in and was doing some short yardage stuff. I presume he's going to be their goal line back, or at least he's going to get a good chunk of those goal line looks. And so ETN is one of these players who, even though he's exciting and we have him highly ranked and he's a good player, I think he's a very good player, you know, his role could really be limited to some of the least valuable touches in fantasy football in terms of just between the 20s, you know, carrying the football, not catching a lot of passes and not getting the goal line looks. And so I'm a little bit nervous about him. And he's another type of guy who I just, I haven't really been targeting him in drafts. and I don't really know what to say about him because I think his role is so uncertain right now.

I totally agree with you, D.K. I'm like kind of falling out of love with Travis E.N. And there's two things going on here. One, the name. If Aaron Jones and Travis Eton switched names, they'd be way better. Like, Aaron Jones is the player we kind of wanted Travis Eton to be, but Aaron Jones is a boring name and Travis Eton is a sick name. If we called him Travis Stephen, which is what E.N. means in French,

you wouldn't sound that cool. Number one. And two. Wow. French lesson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the flex speaks French, absolutely, which is a flex.

But the Jags, I agree, D.K., a guy we have not talked at all about is Tank Bigsby. I kind of think there's a take perj of me that Tank Bigsby might just be better than E.TN straight up in fantasy this year. I don't know if I actually believe that. But yeah, my only fear with E.T.N is like the Jagger's offense could be so good and he was so good in fantasy football down the stretch. But honestly, it was volume to tell you the truth. Like if you kind of just look at Travis E.T.N. down the stretch, he just got a lot of work. because the other guys on the team were just gone or traded or whatever. So he was getting like 22 carries 19. But the reality is the things ETN isn't elite at are receiving where he doesn't have great hands or feel.

And the short yardage work like that the nitty gritty, like between it, I don't think he's great at that. Dude, Tank Bigsby's good at those two things. They got him very purposefully. Doug Peterson is very much like this is like they're trying to win a Super Bowl for the Jaguars. I kind of just think you're exactly right. And that Bigsby vacuums up this stuff. And I kind of look at Travis Eten less with that group. of like Aaron Jones and Jemir Gibbs

and all these sexy running backs in the, you know, in like the top 40 like Briseau. I kind of look at Aaron Travis Eton closer to J.K. Dobbins and Miles Sanders. Exactly. And like these guys where it's just the, he's the sexiest version of a lot of volume, but I don't know

if he's basically leading a committee. Yeah, they're kind of the more like one trick ponies. They're like the two down guys, the two and a half down guys where it's like Kenneth Walker has the talent, but he might not be playing on third downs. J.K. Dobbins might not be playing on third down. Is Miles Sanders going to be playing on all three downs? They all have the talent to kind of put up the same numbers as the running backs in the top 10.

But the role is just too limited for me to feel confident. That's why I don't love, I'm kind of back in on this idea of the running back dead zone, because the more I really like hone in on the Travis E.D.N., Ken Walker, Damien Pierce, J.K. Dobbins, Miles Sanders. I'm like, are any of these guys going to have a role that can actually make them a league way? And I don't know if they do. Dude, I've been down on Ken Walker. I like even Ken Walker more than ETIN at this point because you know what it's like,

I think we were kind of sole division of ETIN being a really great, like receiver explosive player in the passing game. And you know what's like I have to imagine it's what women feel like when a guy says they're six feet tall and hinge and they show up and they're immediately like, no, he's not. I'm 511 in these heels and I'm looking down. You know what I mean? Like that's how I feel with ETIN, but we don't quite know that he's not six feet tall yet. You, when you said that Tank Bisbee, there's a chance he outscores ETN, I reeled at that.

That was my initial reaction was just like, come on. But then I think about what happened last year with Dandre Swift and Jabal Williams and just the touchdowns. Like the touchdowns matter in fantasy, obviously. Touchdowns matter for scoring fantasy points. And if he is their closer and if this offense is as good as we think it is and as good as it we think it can be, they take a big jump. You know, they're going to be scoring a lot of touchdowns. and I'm a big believer in, you know, Trevor Lawrence in this offense and Doug Peterson in general as a play caller and coach.

And so, you know, maybe put put a couple bucks on, on Tank Bigsby to lead NFL in Russian touchdowns. That's like your long shot right there. We have Biggsby 144th. He's our 54th running back. He's basically free. Honestly, I think we should move him up, like way up because I kind of the more and more I think about it as we get real close to the season. And I know some people have drafts, a lot of people are drafting up. I think Bigsby is like the epitome of a player that I.

I just want on all my teams and I'll reach around if I want because I think that as we get closer, that's the guy that I don't think there needs to be an injury for him to actually be put in your starting lineup maybe by like October where you're like, oh, I can play this guy and it's fine. If you ever hear a coach say that a player's role is going to be kind of a between the 20s guy, run for the hills. There's no worst phrase in fantasy football. If you hear that you're running back, it's going to be a between the 20s guy. Get out. 12 carries for 80 yards. Yep. No catches. No goal line of tests. It's the wire. It's the 40-degree day. Completely and utterly unremarkable. Craig, give us our next Glansberg. Someone we're just not talking about whatsoever.

Yeah, Jalen Waddle, the wide receiver on the Dolphins is somebody who I don't think we've brought up one time and is probably the most exciting player that we haven't discussed this season. I mean, Jalen Wadle is like truly electric and maybe he just gets outshadowed, overshadowed by Tyree Kill. But Jalen Wadle quietly had like a fantastic season last year. His first year in the league was weird because they treated him like Keenan Allen, and they just threw him eight-yard outrouts, and he had over 100 catches for barely 1,000 yards. I actually think there was a chance he was under 1,000 yards.

But last year, Jalen Wattle had 29 less catches than the year before, and 341 more yards. That's Mike McDaniel, everybody. Jalen Waddle went from 9 yards per catch to 18 yards per catch. He literally doubled his yards per catch with Mike McDaniel. and he was the 12th best wide receiver last year. And that entire offense is really boils down to just Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle. It's like the Italians from kicking and screaming.

Like the entire offense is just past the Italians, which is Waddle and Hill. And it's good. There's a chance it's even more concentrated this year because their tight end, Mike Kassiki is gone. He's in New England. And the, there's the wide receiver other than Waddle and Tyreek, who had the most yards is Trent Sherfield, who he's gone. So I wanted to do, if you're a new listener of the show during the season, we do two truths and a lie. It's been during the NFL draft show, which is what we do with draft coverage, we do two truths and a lie.

So I wanted to do two truths and a lie for Dolphins wide receivers with you two because it's bleak out there after Waddleyn Hill. So I'm going to give you three guys. One's fake. The other two are real. Ready? Yeah. Let's do it. Kion's sail.

River Craycraft. Robbie Chosen What? The first one. Two of those are real. I think that's the surprising part of all of this. Robbie Chosen is Robbie Anderson, and he changed his name. Isn't it Chosen Anderson?

Not according to the ESPN Miami Dolphin's depth chart. Okay. River Craycraft is a real person, because I remember thinking he sounded like a lead guitarist for an 80s band. Okay, congratulations. You're right. Those two, Robbie Chosen or Chosen Anner. But they are basically as relevant to the dolphins as all the other players in the kicking and screaming team. River Craigcraft. They have Braxton Barrios. They have, I mean, Chris Coleman. It's Kiki Kootie. There's nothing out there. It is a desolate wasteland. Can you guys name the Dolphins tight end?

I was going to ask the same question. I don't know where their tight ends are. Durham Smyth. I can do this only because I also have done the exercise of who are these people. You know what it's like? Durham Smyth. The people who work. It really is the past of the Italians. It's the Dolphins pass catchers who are not, and I just wrote the, I ranked the pass catchers for every team, which is how I know this. But the Dolphins players who are not Tyree Kil and Jalen Waddle, you know how all the tech companies put their taxes in Dublin so that they can headquarter there and pay like lower taxes? And they have to have like eight employees who don't do anything and they have to pretend as their global headquarters. That's honestly all these dolphins receivers showing up. I like work for the Miami Dolphins. And they're like, really?

River? They couldn't even get into a bar in Miami. like River Craig Craft, you're on the dolphins. Okay. Clearly a fake. Durham Smyth. You're the starting tight end for the dolphins. Cool, Durham.

Yeah, sure you are, bud. Sure you are. How many catches you have last year? Eight? Sure. This is so along these lines, Craig, this is why I'm excited about one of their running backs. I just want to draft all their running backs at some point in a draft because I think one of the running backs is probably going to be third on the team in targets and catches. And most likely, Jeff Wilson.

Jeff Wilson. The coaches love Jeff Wilson. The rookie Devon. chain. Like all these guys I'm excited about, you know, seeing in this offense. Yeah. You know, and I think they're probably going to be ranked third on the team and targets most likely based on, you know, just the way this offense is going to run. And by the way, with Waddle and Tyree Kill kind of spreading the field and getting vertical, that could, you know, create some cushion underneath for these guys to get in space. So, and they all have speed.

They all have a ton of speed. So I don't know. I'm just kind of excited about drafting, you know, mixed in each one of these running backs to some drafts late in the, they're a Madden team. And they play like a Madden team. You just draft the fastest guys in the league, and then you either throw it deep or check down to your Redingback. That's it. They're Miami as hell, too, because they have their all speed. They're all cigarette boats.

And then left, their only good line in Toronto, Armstead is, you know, he's their left tackle, very injury prone, went down today. We don't know exactly what happened. He did have some kind of surgical repair of his knee this season. It's like Thursday afternoon. We don't know what actually happened to Toronto Armstead.

But I look at them in the Jets for the AFCs, similarly of like, dude, these paper thin out of old lines, they're already going. I keep thinking about, for all the AFC East talk, it's like the AFC West last show. I'm like, it's just going to be the bills. And that's my only concern. But to your point, it doesn't matter because they can get the Tyreek and waddle the ball wherever.

And it's so funny to me that we're like Mike McDaniel, offensive genius. And meanwhile, in Mike McDaniel's head, he's like, so I have two of the four fastest players in the league. What if I just gave it to them all the time? I want them to really lean into their like Miami vibe. I wish Mike McDaniel dressed like Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice. He'd be sick if he was out there in a white suit every day. He was wearing some sick, yellow. sunglasses, like, you know, like the, I don't even know what they're called Blue Bockers or whatever.

In the first preseason game, like big old huge yellow sunglasses, they were pretty dope. Toss on a white suit, like a teal dress shirt, some Esper drills, like really lean into it. Yeah. We can all agree on this. I think the single best uniform thing any pro team has done in, probably in my lifetime, is the Miami heat doing them, like leaning all the way into the Miami Vice colors. Yep. It's incredible.

Yeah, the pink, like, teal. Yeah, it's awesome. It's unreal. The core, fantastic. But yeah, the dolphins just built their team that way. Okay.

While we're on guys, that we're not talking about, this is the opposite because this is neither a sexy player nor someone we talk about. At least Waddle's, like, pretty cool.

This man is the king of the Stephen Glansburg group every year. Every year. I think this is, I'm pretty sure we invented the Stephen Glansburg thing for this person,

the bit, which is Brandon Cooks, who, if you don't know, I'm going to say it last, but I'm going to let people, if you don't know, guess what team he's on.

He's the wide receiver 37 on our rankings. He's the 86 player overall. Brandon Cooks is a Dallas Cowboy now, which I think is extra hilarious because they're the biggest team in America. And I don't know how many people listening know that Brandon Cooks is on the Cowboys. Again, when was the last time you guys thought about Brandy Cooks? Do you even remember? No. No.

So honestly, no. Yeah. Again, last year we'd throw it out. Davis Mills was the quarterback. The Texans were tanking for a top pick of quarterback. Brandon Cooks was like trade me to a contender. They didn't. He quit.

He was mad. So, like, he didn't, honestly, he was fine until then. And then I'm also going to throw out 2019 because he had a really bad concussion, um, had like a third of the way through the season and he just played through it and, you know, was very obviously off. Take out those two years. Here's how Brandon Cooks has finished in fantasy football among wide receivers in total points every season of his career outside of those two.

2015. 14th among all wide receivers. Solid. Ninth, 12th. 13th, 15th, 16th. Literally every single season of his career, he was between 9th and 16th. This year he's 37th.

We have him 37th. Here's my, this is what I'm just starting telling people. If anybody says, hey, who should I draft? I'm going to say Tyler Lockett and Brandon Cooks and then move on. They're kind of the same player. Yeah. Fading hype. Fate, like, you know what we should do?

Maybe there's something to be said about either SEO and we just invert the chart and the players who aren't being Googled. We just draft those guys. Yeah. And then also the guy, like, even Patrick Mahomes. How much has we said about Patrick Mahomes? Like, probably just take him. If you make a list of guys that are getting hype in the preseason,

that to me, if I've done this before in the past, I don't have it off the top of my head. But like, if you look back on that list, it's a just absolute graveyard of guys who busted. It's all empty clickbait. Yeah. It's a bunch of bad players. Do you think this is how Warren Buffett figured out stocks?

He's like, you know what? no one talks about Coca-Cola. Yeah, he's like Wrigley bubble God. Yeah. Brandon Cook says a moat. He's also play with a good quarterback again. You know what I mean? Like this is an important part of it because he had been playing on some,

obviously last year with the Texans, like that offense was a complete cluster. And so, yeah, he's with a good quarterback. He's probably going to feed him. He's going to play a very prominent role on this offense. You know, I really don't know why we've got him so low. I guess it's just because he's old and we forgot about him. People are afraid of Michael Gallup, and I think that's wrong for two reasons. One, they functionally are different players.

Michael Gallup is, I think, more of a technically refined receiver, and he was a different player, frankly. I think, like, four years ago, like 2019, when Michael Gallup was healthy, I'll be the first one to tell you. I thought Michael Gallup was the most underrated player in the league. Michael Gallup was incredible. He really has not been healthy for like three years in a row, but it's one of those where there's so many buildup. I kind of sadly don't really know if Michael Gallup will ever be that guy again. Brandon Cooks is the speed element

that this team just has not had for like way too long. Brandon Cooks is going to be the same thing that was with the Rams and the Patriots like this deep guy that also can do other things. But I just, they're going to have all three of them on the field at the same time. And if someone comes up,

comes off the field, I don't think it's Michael, I don't think it's Brandon Cooks. I think Gallup's going to come off the field before Cooks does. So again, we're basically saying Brandon Cooks will have his worst season ever of his career that he was healthy. But even that would be like just 20th.

Like we're saying the 37th is saying the season's a freaking disaster. There's essentially zero upside built into this whatever. And I get that because it's youth and the guys going around him are like cooler and like Zay Flowers from the Ravens is way more fun to talk about and like draft and they probably have higher ceilings. But if you still want like an actual contributor that will be bankable when you play them, like Brandon Cook's best quarterback he's had in three years. The other thing to add to this is I think a lot of people are afraid that the Cowboys are going to be go back to the Stone Age in terms of the way that they play offense, you know, run heavy, just not wanting to pass the football, not wanting to push it vertical, to protect the football, all that stuff because of Mike McCarthy getting rid of Callum Moore this offseason.

But when you're looking at what they did last year, they weren't that pass heavy. You know, they ranked 19th in past attempts per game. I think there's room for uncertainty about what exactly Mike McCarthy is going to bring. And I think we're depressing some of these Cowboys players because the assumption is that they're going to pass less. But I think they could pass more this year than they did last year. It could end up just sort of happening that way. They may have to do that.

You know what I mean? And so I think there's this big assumption that we just want to stay away from the Cowboys passing game because of Mike McCarthy. But that maybe doesn't make sense. All right, Craig, give us another guy that we're not talking about. Yeah, Damien Pierce. We mentioned him earlier, running back, second year guy on the Texans. And there was a stretch last year where Damien,

Pearson Pierce was probably the most valuable player off the waiver wire or that you drafted in the last three rounds. From weeks two to nine, he was on fire. He became the starter in week two. And up until week nine, he was fourth in rushing yards in the entire league. And that's despite facing some of the seven to most seven plus man fronts in the league. So they're basically stacking the box because the Texans sucked and couldn't throw. And despite that, he was still fourth in league in rushing.

He was bottom 10 in yards before contact per rush, which essentially means every time he got the ball. People were ready to hit him. And despite that, he was top 10 in yards after contact. I mean, the guy is just straight up awesome. I was going back and watching some of his highlights from his rookie year. And he's just, he looks like one of the best running backs in the league. He's a little bowling ball. He's bouncing off everybody. He's got great balance. He was fantastic. I had him in a league and there was no better player to have. And then he fell off a little bit. They played a couple really good defenses. They got behind really early. He had some really low-scoring games. And then he had an ankle injury and he missed the last four-ish games of the

season. And now everything's new in Houston. They have a new coach, Domingo Ryan's. They have a new O.C. Bobby Sloick from San Francisco. They signed Devin Singletary, which is a little bit of a worry. The biggest knock on Pierce is that he was a terrible pass blocker, which is just the bane of fantasy's existence. Every time you have a running back, you like, it always turns out they suck at pass blocking, and he's not going to play on third downs, despite being a decent receiver. So I think the reason why we're not talking about Pierce a lot is just because we know he's a good runner, but once again, like Travis E.TN, is he only going to play on first and second down in Devin Singletary because he's a competent pass blocker. Is he going to be the guy protecting C.J. Stroud on third down

and taking up a lot of those lucrative, you know, third and longs and passing down opportunities. So I like Damien Pierce, but he's in a dead zone for me. Dickey, you love Damien Pierce coming out of the draft. Yeah, he was one of my favorite players. For all the reasons that Craig talked about, he's just an absolutely tenacious runner who will not go down at first contact. very, it almost brings back images of Marshawn Lynch. I'm not saying he's beast mode, but that's the style of runner he is where he's just,

you can't bring him down with first contact. It takes multiple guys to tackle him. He's just really fun to watch. And by the way, he's actually, I think he's better in the passing game than he's been given credit for. He at least has the potential to get pretty good. He's just not a good blocker.

I think the Devon Singletary signing is more of just like an insurance for Damien Pierce's health. And Craig, can you name any of the other running backs on this team? They have Dari Agumbo Wale, right? Yeah, and he's probably going to be their third down guy. And so to me, the door is open for Pierce to, like, beat Ogunbo Wale out for that job. You know, I don't think Singletary is really a pass catching back. He's not really been that in his career.

And I don't think, based on the way that they use these guys in the first preseason game, it seemed more like Devin Singletary was spelling on early downs. And they were using Ogumbo Wale as, like, the third down guy. And so, I don't know. to me, there's not a lot of resistance for him getting a bigger role than we're expecting. He could really go off in terms of what he's going to do in the passing game this year. You know, the Bobby Sloick factor where he's coming from a team in San Francisco that has one of the most exciting and difficult to defend run games in the NFL.

Like maybe that that will even open up things for him more. And also, by the way, they have a rookie quarterback who they're probably going to want to lean on that run game. So, you know, he could see his volume increase too. a lot comes down to like whether they can extend drives and keep drives going. I'm a little bit worried about their overall offense. But this is also a team, by the way, that has invested a lot in their offensive line. They traded for Shaft Mason.

They have Laramine Tunsell at left tackle. Kenyon Green at left guard, who was a first round pick last year. Titus Howard, who was a first round pick a couple years ago, they've got some guys on this offensive line. So this is a team who maybe could get better. Titus Howard's out four to six weeks because he just broke his hand. Now, how many games is he really going to miss at that point? But the thing with the Texans, I wish I had it in front of me, but JJ Zachary's

and who does great stuff, he's a website called, I think, at labordowne.com, which is really good. I forget the exact stat, but basically his point was running backs on teams with rookie quarterbacks very rarely overperform significantly where they're drafted from. Like they don't break out in the sense of like, oh, top 10 season. And that just kind of matches the eye test of every time a team's going into a game. and the offensive court, sorry, offensive coordinator is going a game with their rookie quarterback. They're like, all right, how do we freaking protect this guy's ass? And the defensive coordinators all know that there's only so much items on the menu that the

offense is going to serve because the quarterback's a rookie. And so it's hard to, I, that's my issue is the rookiness because otherwise, Damien Pierce is sick. And again, great name. Because if John Wick ever stopped, like if Keanu Reese that wanted to stop doing John Wick and they needed a spinoff, Damien Pierce could totally just be like an assassin movie. franchise. Great name. Great player. Fun to watch. Good line. But like the rookie quarterback on a team with like Dalton Schultz is their best pass catcher, that freaks me out. Well said.

All right. While, uh, while we're here, other, DK, give us another guy. No one's talking about. I don't know why we're not talking about this guy because he was a player that I talked about every year for about three years before he got traded to the Cardinals. And that's Marquis Brown, who is our receiver 29, the 64th overall player. If you go back to last year, he got traded at the draft. I think during the draft last year, went to a team with his old college QB and Keller Murray, and through the first six weeks of the season, he was the wide receiver six in half PVR.

He was absolutely going crazy. 14.6 points per game. He broke his foot, and it was sideline him for the next five games, which I think that is the main worry when it comes to Marquis Brown. It's just like he's tiny and he is going to get hurt. That's definitely a valid. Does that matter with the foot?

I don't know. A serious question. Like being small, does that matter with your footbreaking? I think anytime you have a foot injury that is worrisome for a guy who's very, like, known for his speed and exposed to this. I see what you're saying, though. You're saying it's not as big a deal because he's small. Like if it's a, if it's a heavy foot injury, you're a bit more scared. Checks out.

Yeah. Well, maybe it's just a bigger target. It's kind of like Justin Herbert where like rib injury that won't happen again. I'm like, but there's so many ribs with Justin Herbert. He should get some of them removed. He has more ribs than the average person because he's tall. New dream. Get Herbert on his plot and ask him if he would ever get a rib removed. Maryland Maness's style.

Anyway, back to Marquis Brown note. So he missed five games with the broken foot and they came back and then Kyler Murray tore his ACL after one more game. And then from there, Marquis Brown's season basically fell apart. And he finished as the wide receiver 32. Very, like, nondescript guy. Obviously not a lot of hype. We haven't talked about him a lot for, I think, legitimate reasons. And now we don't know who the quarterback is going to be in Arizona.

but I think at that spot in the draft, you can get legitimately like a potential top five, top 10 receiver once Kyler Murray gets back. And he's obviously contingent upon when Kyler Murray gets back. But I'm kind of just going into the season a little more bullish on, on him returning earlier that people are kind of expecting. Some people think he's not going to come back at all. I think at the beginning of the season.

Why do you think he'll come back? What does early mean? When do you think he's going to give me a month? There is an assumption, a widespread. assumption, I think, that he's going to miss at least half and maybe the whole year. So people are just not talking about Kyler Murray as even a variable for the, for the Cardinals, in part because they're viewed as a team that is tanking, which, you know, they kind of are, but they still have a top-tier quarterback in Kyler Murray.

And so I think if Kyler Murray comes back, again, this is his old college teammate, trust him. What we've seen with them both on the field at the same time last year was electric. And by the way, D'Andre Hopkins is now gone. Marquise Brown is the clear cut number one on this offense. And you know what I mean? Like he's going to be a focal point of the passing game once Kyler comes back. And so this is a bet that Kyler comes back early.

And I think I did that math, I believe. Kyler by week one will be 10 months removed from his ACL tear. And so that puts him pretty close to getting back on the field, I feel like. I think week one will be eight months and 29 days. Not that I have it exact, but I do. Eight months and 29 days for surgery. And it's about nine months is about the return window. Something to note, on November 10th, 20203,

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 comes out. It's kind of a highly anticipated release. That's a small window for value between Kyler's return and November 10th. Okay, I take everything I said back. Yeah. I'm out. Craig, for people that don't understand that joke, can you please explain it? People should understand that joke.

People know what's going on with Carla Murray. He's basically addicted to video games and the front office wanted him to practice more and watch more tape. So they literally stipulated in his contract that he needs to watch tape and prepare for his job as a professional quarterback instead of play video games. And people like random people from like across the world would be like, I think I'm playing Call of Duty right now with Kyler Murray. Like I think this is his actual gamer tag and it was. Oh boy. Not great.

All right. I think that's a really good one, D.K. Marquise Brown. We have him 64th, right receiver 29. You're right. That's pretty good if you're like the Arizona passing crew. They have Marquis Brown. They have Rondell Moore, who's like 5-2. They have Greg Dorch.

And then after that, can you name who else they have after Rondon? They're 5-7, but they actually are 5-7. They have that rookie Michael Wilson, who I like. Andre Bechellia, the opera singer. Not really. They have Andre Bechelli. They have Zach Pascall. Remember him from the cult?

Zach Wilson quotes. Definition of a jack. Definitely real person, Zach Pascall. Definitely not made up industry plant, Zach Pascall. Zach Pascall. All right. My last guy here. Redacted.

Tight end for redacted because I'm going to play a game. Oh. Player A, player B. Tight ends. They're both tight ends. They're both tight ends. That's your hint. Player A had averaged four catches for 46 yards per game last year.

Player B averaged four catches for 51 yards per game last year. Essentially the same shit, right? Not that big of a difference. Four catches, 46 versus 51 yards a game. And also their expected fantasy points, per game almost essentially the same. They both expect to have around 10 expected points per game. So before you even guess, the larger point here is they're essentially the same player

and the only thing that's going to matter is how many touchdowns this score, right? Yep. Do you want to guess who these players are? I think player B. I think one of them is Tyler Higbee. Ooh, that's good. I think one of them is George Kittle. DK is right.

Player A. So again, the same thing. Four catches, 46 yards a game. Player A is Pat, Pat, Firemuth, player B is George Kittle. And I say that because George Kittle had 11 touchdowns last year and Pat Friamuth had two. And what that translates to is George Kittle caught a touchdown every eight times he was

thrown the ball. Like one out of eight times they threw the ball to Kettle. He caught a touchdown. Pat Friarmooth got a touchdown one out of every 50 times he got thrown the ball. And generally speaking, that's not how it works either way. George Kittle in his career before that caught the touchdown like one out of every 21 times. He was throwing the ball, which is very normal. And so what's funny is they're same player, not the same player, but four catches, 50 yards a game.

They're basically the same shit. But George Kittle is a touchdown dependent guy. And like last year, he just like ran pure, as they would say. It's like if you're playing poker or black check, whatever, you're getting all the perfect cards at the right time. And George Kittle just dropped all these touchdowns right in playoff time and we're like drunk off of it. And the reality is, yes, there's a small chain Sprock Party targets Kittle. But the reality is George Kittle is just. basically the rich man's pat fryermooth shout out to rich rebar at sharp football for pointing this

out to me but the pat friarmouth we have george kittle ring 45th sorry an average draft position george kittles 45th overall pat friarmooth's 85th it's a 40 spot difference we have george kill at fantasy football dot the ringer dot com 65 pat friarmooth 96 better but still a 30 spot gap yeah and i look at pat friar moose and i'm like we keep talking about the steelers offense getting better, taking the bumpers off the bowling lane for Kenny Pickett, letting him actually do stuff. And we talk about that through the lens of George Pickens, Deontay Johnson. Pat Friam is still going to get the goal end.

He had seven touchdowns as a rookie tight end. Generally speaking, if you do that, you do tend to remain relevant and he was still the guy. Just honestly, bad luck. It's a small sample. But I was so much rather bet on Pat Friamuth and George Kittle meeting in the middle this season of somewhere between 11 and 2 and they each get six touchdowns. Pat Farramuth, I can get 40 spots later. So that's the guy.

We never talk about Pat Friarmouth. It's super boring. Tough name to me is like, tough name. But I look at Pat Farramuth as like, you know, your ninth, tenth round pick. And it's like, that's the exact kind of guy. You can take them. You don't have to do prey that you can find a tight end. You can still pay up and get a guy who's going to be there every week.

But he's just discount George Kittle, man. Quietly 98 targets last year, which was fifth tied for fifth. More than George Kittle. More than George Kittle. Yeah. I mean, he was second on the team in catches. It wasn't George Pickens. It was Patty Fries.

You know what, though? I got a bone to pick with everybody gassing up the Steelers. Everyone's like, Deontay Johnson, oh, six in the league in targets, but zero touchdowns. Like, that's going to bounce back. Like, great value. George Pickens, all-time talent. Like, he's going to have a huge year. We love George Pickens this year.

And then it's like, Prattie Fry is the most underrated tight end in the league. Like, he's going to have a big year. I'm like, who's thrown in this guy then? Can anybody say they actually believe in Kenny Pickett then? Because if all these guys are going to have the years, everybody expects, Kenny Pickett's got to be pretty damn solid. You believe in him? No, he doesn't.

That's what everybody secretly thinks. No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. And honestly, I'm going to tell you right now. No, no. You're like the guy who's reading the texts from a girl. And you're like, oh, she like wants to, like, there's like some romantic. You're like, no, that's not what she thinks.

You're totally wrong. No one thinks Kenny Pickett's good. I kind of think he's good. Everyone is like, I like the Steelers' offense this year. They're going to regress in a podcast. in a positive way. Great talent. I could see a lot of touchdowns out of this offense.

It didn't scrimony last year. I'm like, someone's got to be throwing the football. So you must believe in Kenny Pickett a little bit. Craig, guess how many touchdowns total the Steelers had last year? Like 21?

29, which was tied for second fewest. Same as the Texans, same as the Broncos. Yeah, and it was all by running the ball. I mean, I think they had like over 50% of their touchdowns are running the ball, which is like, archaic stat that they had in

2022, which is why everybody, I mean, Kenny Pickett threw seven touchdowns last year. That's so tough. To me, frankly, it's not the only context that matters, but kind of. The Kenny Pickett, like his first six games in the NFL, like Mike Tomlin throws a rookie quarterback

into the fire. Threw him into the ocean with sharks. Step on my head when I'm drowning. First six games were against the Jets defense, the Bills defense, the Bucs defense, the dolphins, Eagles, Saints, Bengals,

those are, I mean, that's basically six of the best 10 defenses. So brutal. And that time he threw two touchdowns. So again,

I can't even pick it will be better, but better than a horrific quarterback. So he'll be, I think his ceiling is like mildly above average. He could be Kirk Cousins.

13th. He could be Kirk Cousins. And I would love it if he was Kirk Couss. The Viking scored 50 touchdowns last year, Craig. There we go. We'll just double us.

I see it. All right. Those are the Glansburgs. Let's do some emails. Emails. Some very important things to get to. Last episode, we did wedding crashes. If you guys weren't listening, we had wedding crashes.

We did, you know, season as told by wedding crashes. And John emails and John. John. Johnny. I, like most older millennials, was absolutely shocked when High Fitz didn't know who Rod Stewart was. And I was yelling at my car radio like a ghost, because if you're listening to a podcast, it's basically like a. ghost when you yell. And I was yelling out,

Rod Stewart sings the song at the end of Wedding Crashers. So leave this to say, I have never felt more scene than when you guys ended up doing wedding what song? I can't even picture the song now, even though we just watched this movie. Well, on that note, he continues. Also, we were talking about Otis Day and the Knights. That was a fake band created for Animal House that became a real band because they were really good. Didn't know that. Someone pointed out on Twitter as well. Yeah. That could only happen in the same. 70s, you know what I mean?

Isn't that insane? I guess that's the origin of shout. When did animal house? 1978. 78. Wow. Isn't that insane that like a shout came from a fictional band that they were like, this band's really good?

No, no, no, no, no. Hold on. I think the song was real. Yes. Oh, shit. The song was by the Highly Brothers or whatever. Well, now I look stupid again. Was it, well, no, it's not dumb.

It's real question. Was it famous before and the band covered it? Or did the song show is from like the 50s or something? I think. The Eylee brothers are old, old. But was Shout a famous song before the movie? I don't feel dumb asking this question. I feel like that's a very real question. It was 20 years before I was born with the movie. I don't know if it was famous in the 60s. I have no idea. The shout by the Ily Brothers was a popular song written and recorded in 1959. And yes, it was. But the part that's played at weddings. Who's playing the one at the version of the wedding version that everyone dances to?

Is that the original? I think yes, it is. It's Isley Brothers. I believe is the one that people play at weddings. Like that is the, I will put on the Isley Brother version when I want to hear shout on Spotify. Okay. We just got confused because we, I wasn't able to listen to the song at the time. I was like, I don't know who did it first, but then I also just didn't know that Otis Day and the Nice was a fake band.

It's like the monkeys. You guys remember the monkeys? That was way before your time. I know of the monkeys. Didn't they become the Shrek song guys, the Smashmouth or something? They covered it. The Smash Mouth covered the monkeys in the Shrek soundtrack? I don't know.

The monkeys were sort of like a fake version of the Beatles. They had a TV show when I was growing up. It took me a long time to realize that the Beatles was spelled B-E-A-T. Yeah. And if I just blew someone's mind, if I just blew anyone's mind listening, email us. It's a pun. Yeah. It's a pun.

It's kind of lame. It goes from a good name of one of the all-time bands to like the worst pun you've ever seen in your life. Yeah. Like you think about it for three seconds and you're like, that's it. actually is pretty stupid. It's terrible. Do you guys not remember the show last year where Craig said, yeah, the Beatles, the beat, and I actually didn't know that and I found out on air. Yeah, I do remember that. Oh, that's right. Maybe that's why I was thinking that. Just remember when you're taking advice from me. Just keep that in mind. But I also, I Google,

I'm a believer, is a monkey's song. And then it was covered for Shrek, which is the best soundtrack ever. It's so funny, because I thought that was a Beatles song. It's like, I, my memory is just like is all mixed up going back to that era. Also, the monkeys are a fake band, you're saying? It was a band created for a show. And then I don't know if they like tour or anything like that. They did make albums, I'm pretty sure. But it was essentially created to be a show.

These guys sound like the dolphins are serious. Mickey Dallens, Peter Tork. River Craigcraft. Wow. He's a member. Durham Smyth. Wow, wild. Says they were conceived in 1965 as a fictional band for the sitcom The Monkeys.

Yeah. They did release an LP. One more email here. Very important. Imitation crab, as Craig was told on imitation crack. This is crazy. Some Anthony. Hey, Craig.

Anthony, Tony. Tony. Tony tones. Hey, Craig, I hate to break it you, but there are a ton of imitation foods out there. They're just not as honest about it as imitation crab. The industry is. Okay. That is why food scientists exist is so they can create cheap versions of real foods in a lab

and for companies to mass produce it. And they disclose the ingredients as like natural flavorings. But for example, I can't believe this is real. Asterisk on this, however, other examples, fake vanilla extract includes beaver anal gland juice. Oh, for crying out loud. How are they getting that? Seems like that would be harder to get than real vanilla. just grow vanilla

It's like Who's the first person Do you're doing a beaver bladder What are we doing here? Or a beaver Collinus Yeah Anus

Jesus Look here's the thing I'm well aware That the meat industry Isn't exactly a transparent organization Right And that there's a lot of like

Ambiguous lunch meat That we've eaten You know I don't know What the hell is in those luncheon And the fish you buy is always mislabel Right. My issue is more that it is just straight up called imitation crab and then advertised as that and people accepted it. That's the broad name. Yeah, yeah.

So someone told me that it helps people who are kosher be able to eat sushi. However, having said that, it's still, just call it something else. There's no crab at it. Why does that allow you to eat sushi? It's still fish. Well, no, you can't eat shellfish if you're Jewish, but that's what's weird is like, why would you call it a shellfish? like it's just call it like it's not shellfish just call it a weird mixture of fish guts maybe they're just weirdly honest like yeah they were just like trailblazed back in the day and it didn't catch on

they're like what if we were honest about what we were serving people and then Tyson chicken nuggets walked in and was like fuck that that's funny also there's I don't know how true this is and how widespread it is

but there's at least apocry that some places serve Kalamari but it's actually pig rectum because they're the same show. No. The extra chewy ones, I bet. Mm-hmm. People make fun of me a lot that I don't like fish.

But this to me just all confirms why people shouldn't like fish. Well, you'll eat a hot dog, but you won't eat freaking... I don't know. Hot dogs are gross too, honestly. You go to Taco Bell 2 in the morning? Yeah, I will. Okay, cool. Let's say I'm super discerting.

I'm just saying my take that fish is not very good is like pre-sound. I just think it's... Oh, so you know what it gets that it's, like, gross, and you don't know where it's coming from. You just don't think it's very good. Yeah. Like, I can eat. I do like sushi.

That's, like, the one fish thing I eat, but, like, any cooked, like, scallops to me, it's, like, really a fishy smell. So you'll go with the raw fish rather than cooked? You prefer raw? Yeah. Well, in some cases, yeah. That's rare.

I don't feel like many people go that way. Literally. You know? Anything that tastes remotely fishy. I don't like crab either. I'm just like, it's disgusting. Why do you eat that? Like imitation crab?

No, obviously not. It smells terrible. Salmon's all right. I'd rather just eat chicken. You're not cut, even Kai eat shrimp. Kai hasn't even looked at a fish. Kai Fieri over here.

Kai Fieri just like out here just like, who knows what you guys doing. You have to douse shrimp in cocktail sauce or something, some kind of butter to make it any good. Yeah, lobster and crab is better than lobster, in my opinion. What's crazy to me about lobster, aside from the fact

that you have to, like, put it in the work. And it's like, oh, it's fun to do it. No, it's like, you're paying that much. Now you've got to, like, work for it. But it's what's crazy is the idea that you can pay, like, market price, whatever the hell that is for lobster. I'm like, all right, it's great. Just dip it in liquefied butter. You know what's good in liquefied butter?

Everything. The only thing that should come with liquid butter is the cheapest thing on the menu. Liquid butter should come with freaking, like, hush puppies. Hush puppies should come to liquid butter. Bread. I know. bread's free. It's insane that the most expensive thing in the menu is best indulge with liquid.

It's one of the best marketing ploys that we've ever seen in American history is that the lobster should be some high-end decadent meal when in reality it's the same shit as crab. It's just shellfish meat that you dip in butter and you eat and it's fine. Jim Gaffigan has a whole bit about this, how it's just a sea bug. And they were like, what did we just say this was like fancy food and sold it for $40 a pound? It's like Greg Goose Vodka where they rebranded and they chart, they like just doubled the price and it started selling better. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Just okay, cool. I don't know. I've just been taking shit for my whole life for not liking seafood. And I'm fighting back now. Well, you live, how far do you live from the coast in Washington and you didn't try oysters until you went to Indianapolis? Yeah. Oysters are like objectively disgusting.

What are we doing here? I agree with that. I agree with that. I think so, too. You have to literally. Literally, dip them in hot sauce so you can't taste them.

You have to douse it in lemon, soy sauce, Tabasco, whatever the hell you have, just to like mask the salty, briny mucus that you have to swallow. It is mucus and it's great.

There's a trillion things include that you elevate by adding butter. Sorry, lemon, but like butter, just liquid butter is crazy. But no,

oysters are great. Get them nice and briny. I think oysters and olives. Nice and briny. Really, oysters and martini are two things that I was disgusted by, viscerally to the point of like wanting to throw up

and then one day I was like I like him now. Oysters don't even like the oyster meat doesn't even want to be eaten. It's like the like gunk is stuck to the shell and you have to like scrape it off just to get it into your mouth. It's like you're like that's not as bad to me is like well no defying nature to me

is when like my grandfather insisted on this the boiling lobsters alive that fucking is that's crazy. Oh my God. Have you guys gone crabbing by the way? No. Crabs are disgusting creatures. I've been in a kitchen when somebody boiled the lobster alive and I was not a fan of it. It's horrific.

Dude, crabs make the grossest noise. They're like, look, they like click at you. They're making all these crazy noise and they can like chop off your finger with their fucking claw. Roger Sherman wrote an incredible article. Dude, Roger Sherman wrote an incredible article for the ringer last week about all the college football conferences. And he wrote about his opening line in the stories, evolution turns everything into crabs. And it's about how, like, this is real, where crabs are this very weird species where they're not like, oh, this one thing became this. It's actually all these very disparate different types of species all came up with the same, all ended up sorted into the same bunch because the crab of like protective and pointy and being able to move weird is actually very successful biologically.

And so they could live on land and water. Yeah, all these other random species all independently became crabs. and his point was that college football just it became a pro league like they're going to have 30 teams that matter but crabs crazy good design all terrain crabs are creepy little creatures I don't like them all right email

fantasy football gmail dot com spiders your thoughts they are they are spiders hardshot spiders lobsters are fantasy football dottherrrr.com we have all our rankings if you do want more football and less lobster crab talk fantasyfobble dot the rea dot com

get our rankings there thank you to dK Thank you to Craig. Thank you to Kai. Thank you, Tucker. Thank you, intern Jack. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren. I think the monkeys, man. Check out the show.

That's something I grew up on. I can't remember literally anything about it, but I definitely watched it all the time. What was the show? Was the show called the monkeys? If my memory serves, which it's not super reliable, it was like they're pretend Beatles. Like, they're kind of like the Beatles or whatever and making it in. What was the big?

I don't know. Dude, it was 30-something years ago. I don't remember. They don't have a pun though in monkeys, unfortunately. Well, no, they do. The keys. K-E-E-E-E-S. What is that fun?

I don't know. They'd have to keep the Y for it to be the pun. Yeah, you're right. It should have been like the M-S-Dash keys or something. All right, goodbye, everyone.