Transcript of Players We’re Embarrassed to Love + Jeanty Madness! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/24

Hey, this is Patrick Mahomes, quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast.

Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Welcome in. I thought in honor of that intro, you were going to give us a like, ah, welcome in.

It's me, Patrick.

Yeah. Look, I get it. It's old. It's tired, but it's still funny to me.

It's not easy recovering from an ACL.

That's pretty good.

That is actually very good.

That's a pretty good Patrick Mahomes.

Welcome into the podcast. Mike, the fantasy hitman, is here. Jason Moore, present, accounted for. I'm Andy Holloway, and we are back. And it is an exciting time in the world of fantasy.

Oh man. If you were on social medias yesterday, holy crap.

Well, yeah, we can—

what a ride.

Talk about the Gente situation. The news that we've gotten since the red alert has been positive for Ashton Ginty. However, I don't know what situation— I mean, there were so many people in the middle of drafts.

Yeah.

Or that had drafted and had regrets with Ginty that were drafting and didn't know where to take Ginty or Mike Washington.

I mean, we should at least set it up if we're going to talk about it. Some people who probably don't know what it is.

Okay, well, I'll press pause and then we'll talk all the way through it. Lots going on, almost too much, almost too much going on, but we do have a UDK for Life giveaway today. We will be live on YouTube, youtube.com/thefantasyfootballers for a live stream. Yeah.

Yes, Jason.

That's right. Yeah. Make sure you join us.

6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific, giving away a signed Jamar Chase jersey as well as the UDK for Life and maybe we'll do some other stuff. We'll see. But we'll be answering your questions. So you've got drafts coming up. I did a little poll this weekend and it looked like above 75% of people still had their main drafts in the future, although a lot of people did do some drafts this weekend. A lot of you are in lots of leagues, so they're probably all over the place. I have one right now for the FFT Open that I am in the middle of doing. I took Puka Nacua at the 6th spot.

I mean, that's great getting him at 6 if he plays, you know.

So, but we'll be live today and give away the UDK for life. The way you are eligible to win that is to have purchased the UDK, the Ultimate Draft Kit, our number one draft day tool with all of our tiered rankings and 100+ player profile videos. We've got tools for inside the draft, marking players, sleepers, breakouts, busts, and values that we all agree on. And probably like—

Injury stuff.

Yeah.

Look, injuries are an important thing to know. We got our our dude, certified PT Matthew Betz. He gives his thoughts on what's going on with certain injuries.

No, we were all over that Ginty situation too. We were updating that as it was happening.

Best we could.

Yeah, I was like, what do we do? How do we, you know, the team took a knee, said prayers, had like a big—

Yeah, successful prayers.

Right.

Yeah. Thank goodness they did. Imagine if he didn't.

But again, leg amputation. Make sure you get the UDK before the live stream. Ultimate Foot Clan members also eligible. And if you've bought it in the past since February, you're eligible to win as well. We have the Megalobowl going on right now. Drafts are happening for the Megalobowl.

No!

And this, it's much more stormy this year. The Megalobowl is stormier than previous years. The weather, the El Niño coming in, bringing the storms.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't remember there being storms in the previous.

It looks, it looks. Awesome.

Yeah.

But it's also like, yeah, why? Sharks are pretty scary.

Yeah. Sharks.

You don't need lightning and stuff, but it's like doubling down.

But I think it was in the ocean. I'm scared of sharks. It is way more terrifying if it's lightning and storm.

Okay.

Now I'm like, I just, maybe I'm wanting the shark now.

The footballs in the background are a wonderful flotation device though. If you are lost out there, there's no way your arms can grab one of those gigantic footballs. But over 9,000 of you have joined up so far. We had over 21,000 last year.

Or those are teeny tiny sharks.

You can go to megalobull.com to pick a draft time and draft with us. I told you there's a lot going on, guys. And then on Friday, Friday, we have our, our live show out here in Phoenix. And that will be the Saturday bonus episode of the show. So you'll be able to watch that. We'll be live at the Van Buren in Phoenix on Friday night with 800 strong. Mighty Foot Clan members in attendance.

And I'm willing to bet right now someone is listening to this. They saved this episode. They're listening on their drive to Phoenix to see us at the live show. All right.

Soon before we get into the quick question, quick shout out to Sleeper, by the way, for hosting the—

Yes.

Hosting the Megaloball.

So that same place it's been.

Yeah, it just makes it so—

Makes it easier.

All right. Any takeaways or reactions from Week 2 of the preseason? I had 4 things that I wrote down and I'll just go through them really quickly. I wrote Titans defense down. I think it might be the number 1 team to play against your players against.

Oh man. I was like, so is Andy.

So they stood out more than the Titans offense, huh?

I have Ward and Tate written down.

Ward?

Maybe. Ward is playing that way. Cam Ward.

Ward is the worst, like JLo style, or I mean, what was the Ben Affleck and JLo nickname?

Oh, when you combine them.

Yeah, the combo names.

What were they called? I can't think of any of them. When they mash the two names together.

I wasn't listening. I'm sorry.

JLo and Affleck. What was their name?

Bennifer?

Yeah.

Thank you, Kyle.

Well, Wart sucks. Wart is not a good one. But Ward and Tate, I mean, hope he's all right. Tate hasn't caught any passes in the preseason.

So he's had targets.

I have to give Ian Harditz a shout out because He posted the season-long projection for Carnell Tate based off of— and it was like 125 targets, 0 catches, 0 receptions.

Spirit Ian being so good at Twitter.

He's funny.

I wrote Stribling down. Obviously, he's had a great preseason. We talked about both of his games. And then I just wrote Cleveland down as a word. I just put the word Cleveland down. I mean, brother, I don't know.

This guy stinks.

Dog Pound.

It's worse than Arizona.

It's worse than Arizona. It is absolutely worse than Arizona.

At least they have Miles Garrett.

Oh, you might be able to— I'm not even saying football. Like football, you might win more games than the Cardinals. I hope you do as a Cardinals fan. But that situation, I mean, what a— some franchises, man. What a joke.

When they were saying Dog Pound, I'm sure they were like, you know, it's the real— we're aggressive. We're dogs. They didn't like think through that sad part that happens at the pound. Yeah. They are the dogs.

Oh crap.

Yeah.

Not all the dogs go to a happy home.

Yeah. Okay.

My, my takeaways from preseason were you had some of the backups who've been injured forever. Jonathan Brooks, Marshawn Lloyd actually start and play and do things. And it's like, oh, that's exciting. You had, you got to see Waddle and Bo Nix.

Oh, that was cool.

That was fun.

Yeah. That made me, I'm going to be honest with you. We say don't overreact to the preseason. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

When that play happened, I went and made a trade offer for Jalen Waddle. Dude, I'm not even kidding.

Welcome aboard.

Yeah. Been hot and unbothered that.

I mean, we're all— we're all about Waddle.

It's exactly what— when I said in the offseason where it was like I was watching Bo Nix deep throws and I was like, man, he needs Waddle. And then that play happens. It's like, that's exactly what they needed. They knew it. They went out and they got him. We saw the Bucky Irving, Kenneth Gainwell split.

That is a split.

Something might be. And I think the Christian Watson, Matthew Golden clearly confirmed two wide receiver sets, right? Watson looked great. Golden looked good.

Yeah, I tell Chelsertan to knock it off. Calm down, man.

One more Titans bit was Pollard getting 8 of 8 opportunities.

Oh man.

So go ahead. But don't.

There's more news from me.

Big news to talk about.

News and notes from around the league.

So the whole overview of the Ashton Gentry situation was mid-Sunday. We were, you know, we were just having a nice day. Preseason was happening. You know, I was trying to relax and then you get this news that Ashton Gentry has gone down at practice and that he had to be helped off the field, couldn't put weight on one of his legs. And the team had gathered to like stop practice and have a moment and literally they stopped the music.

To the practice. This was what was reported. The team took a break, took a knee.

They started playing Taps, right?

Yeah. And it was like, when you have that, I mean, you see that, you see it all the time when something happens, an injury that's really bad. Yeah. Where the team has to take a knee.

Yeah.

And you go out of respect, you know what's going on, whether— and so we just assumed we were waiting for the ACL news.

Yeah. This could be significant.

Yeah. Season ending.

The headline was like, some people pulled instantly, some other sites pulled Gente instantly from their rankings. People's drafts were going on. We were actively talking in the moment. Like my instant plan for Gente was like, we don't know how bad this injury is. It seems, do we pull him? Do we not? I just took him down a little bit.

Me too.

And I moved his risk rating all the way up and we had, we updated the blurb and we kind of informed you in the middle of your draft. But like if you go, if you swing the pendulum all the way to he's out for the year without any confirmation, This guy's off the draft boards. Mike Washington is going in the fourth or something.

And then, so check this out. Kent Weirich, a former writer of ours, tweeted this. Here's some trades that happened in this little tiny window in Dynasty.

Oh boy.

Mike Washington for Blake Corum. You got, you got the, yeah.

I mean, I, if you thought Washington is a starter, I guess.

Mike Washington and a first for Jalen Waddle. Oh, someone got Mike Washington for, they got a 2027 second for Mike Washington straight up. How about this one? Straight up Mike Washington for Brian Thomas. Brian Thomas Jr., a super young wide receiver who was the wide receiver 7 2 years ago.

Somehow those all, I can kind of see them happening in the panic. I can feel it.

And you've got Mike Washington in our dynasty league, right?

Yeah.

You should have been out first shot.

Did you even know that? I didn't. I don't think I brought that up during the whole situation.

Someone may have mentioned it.

But listen, here's the news if you're just coming around to it. Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport co-reporting that Gente is believed to have sprained his ankle and it is not considered a long-term injury. So he Paul Pierce'd it. He went out. He went down in a heap, got lifted off the field.

Paul Pierce pooped his pants. Gente.

I mean, we all know it.

He knows it.

I don't believe that.

No, no. I think he's just, you know, he definitely pooped his pants. Remember he got a wheelchair out and then came back because of the poopy pants. All right. Well, I can't walk. So that's, that's your news. This could be high ankle. This could be running into the beginning of the season. That's, we still don't know. We don't have a diagnostic from the team or an announcement from the team. We just have reports from reporters because like if it's a low ankle sprain, I'm sorry for saying his name on the show.

Low. Thank you. If it's a low ankle sprain, it's like, okay, well, that's no big deal. Maybe he misses the— like, they'll just hold him out, you know, let him recover and he should be good to go week 1. If he has a high ankle sprain, that's like a 4 to 6 week injury. And we know that there is— you aren't full go right when you come back from that injury. So if you're drafting soon before that information comes out, it's still— it's the risk that you have to either accept or pass on based on this little information that we have.

We have news that Deshaun Watson has been named the starter despite the preseason games played.

I had seen— are you talking Watson, Mike? Are you trying to react?

There's both.

There's both. Well, let's just finish.

Yeah, I was reacting to Watson of the His quotes going on social media of the, he was not happy with what he felt was very disrespectful of fans booing him, even though he's been horrifically bad on the field the last time we saw him.

So it was, it was like, it's not performance. It's personal. But it could be, it could be both. It could be both.

It can 100% be both.

Somebody gave me a hard time. I posted, the idea came from Matt. He said, is Deshaun Watson a better player than a person or a better person than a player?

I said neither.

And then, well, it was meant to trap.

Yes.

Because you'd have to say one or the other and you don't want to.

No.

But the point, somebody responded, why are you giving him such a hard time? Other players have made mistakes. We've all got our own opinion, but here's my answer. Humility.

Yeah.

Apology. That's admitting you did wrong. In this press conference, he literally said he regrets nothing in his life. Like the way you approach these things, I have, you have a right to say what you want to say and I have a right to have an opinion based on what you say. That's called like we all judge people that way. It doesn't mean that look, I don't know. I haven't had a conversation with Deshaun Watson nor shall I. But at the end of the day, this guy faced up to nothing has been a $200 million disaster.

Yeah.

For the, yeah, the whole timeline is, hey, you did something wrong. Obviously you admitted and apologized for nothing. You were given $200 million. You rewarded the franchise that gave you that money with the worst play on the field possible. And then you came back and said you don't like the fan base. And I'll admit, like, when they were— when there were cheers by fans when he hurt himself, that crosses a line too. But you also— you could have had that press conference and said, you know what? It's been a long road. That was disappointing to hear. But at the same time, I got to be better. I want to be better. And I want to— I want to make this fan base It's not hard.

Well, you know, what blew my mind is in that press conference when he's saying correctly, he's like, it's not, they're not just upset. We know that it's not just a play on the field. It goes beyond that. It's off-field stuff. You know, it's like, yes, that's correct. And then he goes, so that's pretty hurtful. It was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought he was going to say like, so I understand, you know, that that's what the fans have to go through and I got to get the play up. Instead, he's like, that's so mean of you guys.

It's not. Like, I mean, fantasy-wise, Casey Concepcion, great player, great opportunity. Harold Fannin, great player, great opportunity. Denzel Boston's been flashing. None of these guys, I mean, it is very fair to say none of them are going to be players that you can 100% guarantee are going to be great today because Watson is not playing good football. Shadur was playing better than Watson. If you look at the preseason splits, much higher completion percentage, otherwise not that different. And neither one of them is elite or even mid-tier in terms of production. So, you know, Fannin, the volume probably safe. Concepcion, the upside might be nerfed. And they might want the first pick to turn the page officially.

The last two times.

Why did you draft Dylan Gabriel? Can I just say that? A third round pick last year. You drafted him. He wasn't even a part of the worst quarterback competition in the history of football.

Stefanski tried to make him. He gave him the first shot over Shadour.

He—

it wasn't good enough.

Yeah. Okay.

But so the last two times that Watson has played for the Cleveland Browns, which would have been '23 and '24, you know, completing about 62% of his passes. That's not bad, except at 6.5 yards per attempt and 5.3 yards per attempt. While fumbling 5 times.

Pro Bowler. Should do a sandwich.

In 6 games and 7 games. Like Watson is just—

Go, I mean, fan and—

The play on the field for Watson is not acceptable for a franchise quarterback. That's so that you can remove literally everything and say you're not even good enough to— You shouldn't be on an NFL team.

Well, the news we got while we were talking.

Yeah. Breaking news.

Did you even see this, Jason? I did not.

Travion Henderson left practice early Monday after slipping during a cut.

Of course.

Got his right ankle and foot and leg looked at.

Was this Vrabel buttering up the field?

Dude, this is, this is, well, I thought he had missed practice yesterday or on Saturday for unknown reasons. And then this is saying early Monday. So after another, maybe he's dealing with something because he slipped on a cut. I'm going to, I'm going to spoil something real quick and just take it. Like my, we're doing players we're embarrassed to love today and we're going to give you a name that we're very embarrassed to publicly state that we are fans of. And then we're going to throw in like a Sean Watson. No, it isn't.

That's good though.

That would have been a great setup for me during the event. Unbelievable. But then we're going to throw just another name out there that is also a name we're embarrassed to love. And Ramondre is the name for today for me.

Brother, it's great. All of my, all of my pro Trevo takes and belief and hope does not in any way, shape or form say that I think Ramondre is a fantastic pick where he's going right now.

I mean, he is two rounds behind Travion Henderson and I had no clue that this injury was happening. But one of the things I was going to say was that we all say like if Ramondre goes down, Travion's a monster. Well, it goes the other way too. And I was going to bring that up, but we had comments before the injury. From the two of the biggest beat writers in New England this past 3 days. So Greg Bedard and Andrew Callahan, Boston Globe, Boston Sports Journal. Bedard said, not even a discussion. Ramondre is way better back at everything. That's the quote. Andrew Callahan, Stevenson is clearly the RB1 and doesn't want to, and he didn't want to hear about 50-50 splits.

Yeah.

And so you take the, now that you got an injury, like I don't, I don't say with pride that I want to take Ramondre, but I did something I've never done before in my life. This past weekend. And I opened up a trade window. I opened up a trade window before this news to try to pick up— now it's ruined because Trevion Spurts—

now I can't get Ramondre. Okay.

All right.

Do you hear yourself?

Maybe I can. Maybe it's not ruined. But hey, in the 7th round, in the 6th round, there's a chance that Ramondre comes out now. I mean, I don't know what this injury is. But either way, you should have a viable starter on a really good team.

Yeah. Good offense. You want pieces of good offenses.

So that's crazy news though. And we'll monitor that. I mean, that is up in the air right now. George Kittle activated off the PUP. Christian McCaffrey after tightness for a long time finally returned to practice, said that taking time off in camp was part of the plan.

That was so good to hear.

Yeah. No injury.

Two different reasons. One, no injury. And two, that they are like literally worried about it and keeping him fresh because they're doing it because they want to give him the ball a ton.

De'Jawn Stribling was practicing.

You can't not just say something. Like your coach is having to field questions. Well, I, can you like just be like, hey, this is part of the plan.

That McCaffrey work though, right? Like you can, can you just mark them down as like rest day? In training camp or do you have to mark it?

You probably have to mark something.

And that's what tightness was. I feel like they get in trouble if they don't say it after or something. I don't know. Dajon Stribling, non-contact jersey, had a minor shoulder injury. Parker Washington returned to practice, but Jacoby Myers was seen in a brace on his right hand in Friday's preseason game. I hate to say it, but I'm like, you know, one piece removed from the Jacksonville wide receiver room. And things start to become a lot easier to project. We'll see what Jacoby Myers' health is like. Michael Pinnock Jr. cleared for 11 on 11.

It's been a pretty good offseason for Pinnock. I mean, as he's done nothing, as he's done nothing, he has not been able to show his skill, which is great news for him. And Tua at the same time has been awful. So like, you can't imagine a better setup for Pinnock. You didn't. I mean, it's perfect.

Yeah, you look great and you didn't have to do anything. Exactly.

Well played, Michael.

There have been conversations.

I would stay out a little bit longer.

Yeah, about one more week.

You're going to walk right into the starting job.

Yeah, just hang out a little bit longer. Woody Marks had a great preseason game. That's something we should have brought up. And the news out of Houston Chronicle, at least one beat writer says the workload might not be 50-50, but will be close between Montgomery and Woody Marks.

You do not like hearing that if you're a like the entire argument for Montgomery is he is everything for that backfield.

If, if Woody Marks, Jason was right though on the last show about like not seeing Monty at all is saying something about that situation.

Yeah, he's the starter. He's not, I mean, they trade for him. They give him money. He's, he's the locked in starter and you need to, but people have to play. So They have Woody Marks out there. It's just what, what is the percent? That's the entire, the bet on David Montgomery. If Woody Marks is like 30%, all right, you're, you're probably fine.

But you're totally fine if he's 30%.

But if you're looking at 40 to 45%, then you have a big problem for David Montgomery.

Chris Bell. This is exciting. Dolphins wide receiver. If you don't know who he is, rookie wide receiver. He is practicing without a non-contact jersey. I saw a clip of Chris Bell running some routes, looked explosive. We did the leader of the pack segment last week on the Dolphins wideouts. We all admitted that like if Chris Bell was the healthiest, we probably would all be in that camp.

He was certainly the most highly touted coming out of college, if not for his knee injury. He was a borderline first round pick and they got him at a discount because he was coming off of the ACL. So it's exciting because this is a team that needs someone to step up. The reason I think we landed on Caleb Douglas is because You know, you hope that someone in a nebulous situation is able to say, hey, I'm a special player. We know that that's not Tutu Atwell. Maybe Malik Washington steps forward, but we've seen him a long time. I don't think it's him. But Chris Bell and Caleb Douglas now have opportunities.

The Chargers officially placed their newly signed center Tyler Biadiszcz on injured reserve, ending his season.

Oh my gosh, the people hate it.

It's terrible. It's the worst.

Preloaded excuse for Herbert. All set.

You got to have them in the barrel.

Yeah. The thing about Bjadesz was weird because he was cut. You know what I mean?

It's in the barrel.

It should have been in the chamber.

Yeah. If it's in the barrel.

Yeah.

I don't— I think it's just loose rattling around in there.

Did he load 6 or 7 in the barrel?

What if you— I'm curious about this. If you've got one in the barrel. And then you shoot one from the chamber.

You don't want to do that.

Is that a boom boom?

You don't want to do that.

That's one of those cartoon guns where they peel back all four sides of the gun.

I think like when they knot it.

Yeah. Like something bad's going to happen to your hand.

Okay. Get it out of the barrel.

But look, this is not good. Chargers. Rachaun Slater's back at practice. I'll say that.

Okay.

That's good news.

And then this really stinks for the Chargers.

We also have news from the Panthers head coach Dave Canales. He said if Chuba is good to go, if Chuba is good to go, it will be running back by committee in week one.

I feel like Canales is hard to trust when it comes to how he talks about his running backs.

To me, this is, this is a step up from if Chuba's good to go, he's our guy. It's a step up from if Chuba's good to go, he's been our starter. He's been our tried and true guy. We're going to lean on him.

I mean, it's also a step up one. It's not just a step up to saying, hey, it's going to be a 50-50, you know, they're going to share committee.

Sure.

A committee. But also It's more if he's ready week one, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a fair point.

This is, I mean, if he comes back, you're not going to have Chuba. Like, I can't imagine if you draft Chuba right now, you can't start him week one, right?

There's no world where you can start Chuba Hubbard and try to tell people, I think Chuba is just, you're taking one of your picks and just setting it on fire.

I am very pro Jonathan Brooks big time. One quick reminder on the Travion news. If more like recovery news comes out, they are the first game of the season. That's the Wednesday, September 9th game.

Oh boy.

So we'll see if Ramondre or Travion are together or not. Oh boy. That's a lot of news. We got so much going on. Anything else? Anything else? Anybody else twist to something? How are the groins doing these days? Are we butterfly stretching?

I think more butterfly stretching has been taking place.

We're getting the word out.

Yeah. We're trying our best. But yeah, fewer— the groins are—

Can you patent like a move and no one else can use the move without paying you?

Your stretch?

Like a stretch?

Hmm, I'm going to look into that.

Like you catch somebody doing it and you're like, that's $5.

I would like to patent the butterfly stretch.

Yeah.

All right. Well, we'll take a break. We'll come back with players we're embarrassed to love.

Players we're embarrassed to love.

I hear something embarrassing.

I forgot.

Papa Josh says he can butterfly stretch the knees to the ground on both sides.

Wow. That is embarrassing.

That's too flexible for me.

Yeah. I mean, says an unflexible person. I mean, do you— Inflexible. But can you do the splits? Get wrecked. I can't recover after that. I'm sorry. Can you do the splits? That's one of those like really cool things that feels like a shameful thing. Like I'm embarrassed. This is the— I'm embarrassed to love. Yeah. I would be embarrassed to be like, watch me do these splits.

I'd feel that way too.

I would be like Jean-Claude out there. I'd be like, any excuse to do the splits. I'd be like, You need that light turned on.

Let me, let me put it, let me ask you this way.

Oh, I see your counters are close together. Splits.

If we were walking out into the lobby for lunch and Matt Pingree, the Falcon, just drops into his dead splits, just drops on the floor splits.

Well, that's embarrassing.

Yeah.

You have to, you have to have a fake reason to do it. Okay. All right.

Because he wouldn't, he'd just drop, he'd just drop.

Maybe he dropped his wallet.

What if he did it on purpose though? Whoops.

Well, yeah, I would do that. Like I said, any excuse.

All right, players we're embarrassed to love. We've each got a name or two. It's time to go public.

All right. I mean, I feel like mine and Jason's people already kind of know about it, but yours is.

Yeah, I mean, I can, I can start.

You could still, you could pivot. I already told you Ramondre, but This, no, you could, you can change it now and no one would be none the wiser.

No one would know.

No, let me say this.

We know, but this was the pivot. Wait, it was worse than this?

This was the pivot.

It was Watson.

I knew it.

No, it wasn't.

I knew it.

No, this was the pivot for Kyle Pitts. He was placed in a couple other spots more significant than being on the Players I'm Embarrassed to Love show. This was—

he's not your MVP or my guy.

This was a my guy and an MVP candidate. Oh, and you guys said the same thing in the office. You don't have to do this. And so he found a home on this show and it's Kyle Pitts, tight end for the Atlanta Falcons.

You were loving that Michael Pennix news.

Gross. I am obviously embarrassed. To say that I love Kyle Pitts this year, but I should, but I do. I do love Kyle Pitts this year. He will be on so many of my teams because of the draft cost, because he will be a 7th round, late 6th round pick last year. You know, the fantasy finish, what was he, 2 tight end, 2? I know he had the insane game, but look, the capacity to have a game like that signs the 3-year, $36 million guaranteed extension. The 2 left-handed mediocre quarterbacks that he has, especially the one that's going to start the season, is so inept and, uh, what do you call it when you're like in the pocket, gun-shy, like just absolutely afraid of pressure and throws the ball short all over the place. I think Kyle Pitts Look, I have more confidence that he has a season worth being proud of than I do right now about like the Drake London having the Jefferson style year. He led the Falcons in routes, targets, receptions, receiving yards last year. Only McBride did that in the NFL. Tua's area of the field is low ADOT. We know this.

80 or sorry, 63% of his attempts under 10 yards. The one preseason game we saw them together. It was like 4 out of 5 plays Kyle Pitts caught a pass. I think the PPR value of Kyle Pitts is going to be through the roof. Kevin Stefanski is coming in as the head coach.

This is the one that can— I mean, it doesn't sway me, but if anything was going to do it, it'd be this one.

Kevin Stefanski, his target share for the tight end position. That's a routinely targeted position for Stefanski in 2025 last year, 32% of the targets, but it's like 26% or higher for the last 6 years as a head coach. And so to me, this one is a, this is an easy button at tight end, which Pitts has never been. He has been drafted now in 6 consecutive years. This is the second lowest draft price that you've ever gotten on, on Kyle Pitts. And so basically here's what the fantasy community did. He was drafted in the 10th round last year, basically the 11th. He had a tight end 2 season. He won people fantasy playoff games and then they're like, we'll move you to the mid-7th round. So nobody's bought into the degree. They're burnt more than they're bought in. And so to me, this one is an obvious, look, I don't like it. I'm not proud of it, but I'm there. And Kyle Pitts will be on a ton of my teams. What are you guys with Kyle Pitts?

He'll be on none of my teams, but that isn't because I'm anti-Kyle Pitts. I think that where I mean, I've talked about this a lot, whether you like Laporta for you guys, you love Kraft, obviously, if his injury is totally gone, I get that. But all those middle round tight ends, you're sacrificing running backs and wide receivers that I think are more valuable shots to take. So I won't have him. If he was in, you know, if he drops to the 10th round like he should, I would pull the trigger on him. I do think that there is a Enough talent there. They paid the man. There's enough opportunity there. Really, I mean, let me, let me bring up, sorry, go ahead and finish. I was just saying, you know, we were talking up Zachariah Branch, a late round draft pick who weighs, you know, £100 at wide receiver because someone else has to catch the ball there.

A lot of people want to point to the 3 touchdown, 166 yard game in week 15 as, you know, being the old only reason that Kyle Pitts had a good fantasy season. It kind of— he turned it on from Week 13 on. And I know Drake London, the injury, but you saw the ability. 82 yards, 90 yards, 166, 57, 58 yards. It was a good end of the season. They paid him the money. He was going to have suitors. I'm in. Yeah, I'm trying to do the thing we said, wipe the slate clean and look at it objectively. And to me, like, let me give you an example. My league of record team, is going to need a tight end. I mean, but that's it really.

And it's a, it is the strongest roster in the whatever, the 20 years, strongest roster going into season.

That's a lot of pressure.

Oh, it's factual information.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you want me to read it? Yeah, I will. Josh Allen, please. Jameer Gibbs.

Okay.

Kenneth Walker, Davon Achane, CeeDee Lamb, Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Right. In a 3-keeper.

Yeah, 3-keeper league. I have 6 keepers.

You have managed to take everyone's keepers.

Yes. Everyone asked me when I posted that this morning, they go, how do you have 6 keepers in a 3-keeper league? After our keeper deadline, you can trade picks for players. I had a lot of picks. I traded for some of the players.

If you don't win, what an embarrassment.

I know we're setting this season up this way. I want to just get it out of the way. Terrifying. You've had a super team before. It lost a lot of games.

It started poorly.

Jason, let me ask you a question.

Poorly.

Super teams don't win, man.

Super team over here. The superest of— It is the superest of super teams that the League of Record has ever seen before.

Yes.

Week 1. I would be going for a repeat. Which of those—

Who am I rooting for?

Which would you prefer to not happen?

I want Andy to win 100 times more.

All right. So you are on team super team.

Mike going Just for the record, that is like the question of is John Watson a better— you said you're telling me two terrible options, two terrible options.

But you love the Dodgers, right? That's what you're saying.

Jason does love super teams.

Like when Kevin Durant joined the Warriors, that's what I'm saying.

I will say this. I want the Dodgers to break baseball so that they fix it. I want them to—

this was a Kyle Pitts—

not lose another game until you— until you—

all I'm saying is it's like Kyle Pitts is one of the targets for me late in the draft depending on where he dropped.

I have a—

I was going to say, if you want to take him from me, I dare you.

Like, I already have Kyle Pitts projected under market, so he's not a player that will be a target for me.

Okay.

Well, Jason, we'll move on to a player that I am embarrassed to love because it just seems like old busted for a young third-year wide receiver. Old busted Roma Dunze. Nobody likes him. It's Colson Loveland. It's Luther Burden. You look at the ADP right now. Luther Burden is— everyone is in love. You watch the film, I'm in love, but also we're projecting him to have to usurp Luther or Rome Odunze in targets in a way that he didn't do last year. You know, you look at last year, Rome led the team in first read targets, led the team in first read target share when Caleb was pressured. Like that was the guy that he looked to. Now maybe that whole thing flips fine. But what if it doesn't? Because one of these guys is sitting in the sixth round. And Roma Dunze, here's the thing that the embarrassing thing for me to say. I think he's good. And I feel like that's embarrassing. Yeah. See, like Mike, you talk crap about Rome. You know, oh, I can't separate, you know, he's slow. Now you got the foot problem. I'm embarrassed.

You're embarrassed in— you must have Rome above Burden. Otherwise it wouldn't be embarrassing.

I have Rome and Burden basically back to back in my rankings. I have Rome in almost every draft. We just did a mock draft. You know, Friday, our last episode, I took Rome in that.

You have consistently been on the Rome side.

Yeah. And just as a reminder, I brought this up in the early offseason, but to remind you, or if you're back for the first time, Roma Dunze in year 2, as a top 10 NFL draft pick in year 2, broke out. He was awesome. The first month of the season, he was the wide receiver 3 in fantasy. He got injured leading into the week 9 game. That's when he popped up on the injury report with the foot issue. So that's a big chunk of the first half of the season. He was a wide receiver 1 going into week 9. That 7-game stretch, he was on pace for 136 targets, 75 receptions, 1,150 yards, and 12 touchdowns. He had 27 in-zone targets in his first 2 years, 7th most among wide receivers. He's a good player. Then he got, then he got his foot injured. Couldn't really play well the next few games. He was on pace that next stretch for 44 receptions, 639 yards. Like, he was, he was bad. So they shelved him and he had to deal with the foot injury. Now we're into the next season, year 3. It used to be the year 2 breakout for wide receivers.

That was like, for fantasy, you just always draft year 2 wide receivers. Then all of a sudden, year 1 wide receivers were so good that year 2, they kind of took steps back, like Lad McConkie and Brian Thomas Jr. The year 3 for some of these guys, JSN had that year 3 breakout. I love Roma Dunze, Marvin Harrison Jr. And I'm embarrassed to admit that because it's gross. They suck in there, but they're in the exact same situation. I want the Bears player with Caleb and Ben Johnson in that situation. But I, I look, I love Roma Dunze in drafts and maybe it's, maybe it's a mistake, but I will, I will be the one making it.

I think, I think part of what people have trouble with is saying they love Roma Dunze means that they love him more than those other two guys.

Yeah, the idea that Rome leads this team in targets, I think to most people is like, that's not going to happen. And for me, I go, it is possible. That's, that's, it is possible. I have him, I basically have him and Loveland as almost near the same in targets, both equally leading this team.

Well, speaking of the Chicago Bears, I'm right here with you.

Wait, did you both pick Bears?

Yeah. Am I embarrassed about this all summer?

I don't even know if you're embarrassed anymore.

Did we pick this just because it's embarrassed?

Okay. Mike.

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't get my swish out. Dadgummit. That's on me.

I couldn't tell if I loved it or hated it.

Is it embarrassing?

If I had said swish.

Is it embarrassing to like Bears?

No, but in the name, but here, this is just because this is a personal one for me. It's DeAndre Swift. If you have been a listener of the Fantasy Footballers podcast for any stretch of time, you have basically heard me say only negative things about DeAndre Swift.

I have, it's been part of your platform.

I have relished every opportunity I could to dunk on DeAndre Swift. I don't know if he probably wasn't an embarrassed to love, but it's like, Last year coming into the season, I kind of liked a 7th round rookie running back in Kyle Munungai because I disliked DeAndre Swift so much. I'm like, give me anyone on this team who can play running back because Swift, tremendous top tier athlete. His skills at the running back position I think have been lackluster. But now at this point, it doesn't matter. And why it's embarrassing. DeAndre Swift is going as a running back 24 ADP over on Sleeper in the 5th round. I have him as a fringe running back 1. I am— my chips are so in on DeAndre Swift. The situation is fantastic. Last year he set career highs in rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, rush success rate, yards from scrimmage because he is athletic. We saw, you know, we saw his success on the Eagles. When he had a good offensive line, he's so fast, he can make things happen. The Chicago offensive line plus the Ben Johnson scheme. So last, what the Bears were able to accomplish with Ben Johnson, they went from 21st to 3rd in rush success rate.

And this is a team that had Swift on 2024. Yards before contact went from 26th to 6th. Their PFF run block ranked from 14th to 3rd. This is a strong offensive line. It's an offensive guru. And DeAndre Swift is the main guy. And now Kyle Munungai is dealing with his own—

what's going on with him?

He's dealing with an injury. It was like this weird, mysterious thing. He will be back. But the point is, you can get a hot start here from a player who's barely being drafted as a running back 24. They're favored in, what, 5 of their first 6 games— Carolina, Minnesota, Philly. The Jets, that's the first 4 matchups for DeAndre Swift. I don't think his ADP makes sense. It's disgusting. I'm having to swallow my pride on this one and just say that DeAndre Swift is, I think he's one of the best picks in the draft right now.

Yeah, you've been pretty consistent with that. And then the Manungai injury news is just compounding it. It almost feels like they became resigned to the reality that Swift works in this offense and they're going to use him.

Yeah, the last I see about the Manungai news, he hyperextended his knee. He's going to miss multiple weeks. It is not known what his status will be for week 1.

We're making memes about DeAndre Swift over here. It's just happening.

What are the other 2? You guys have a couple. I mentioned Ramondre. Do you have a couple other?

I can give my players because it is just good. It's the 3. Well, what happened was I did the 3-headed dragon and I put Romeo Dunze on there and now the I know the producers are running away.

He did the three-headed dragon where it was Rome.

Well, no, it was Loveland and Burton are the serious ones. And then there's Dunis on the edge and it's Roma Dunze. I'll throw out the name because this one is, it's wild, but it is, I'm throwing it out. Marshawn Lloyd.

You love him.

I am just. I'm fading Josh Jacobs for better or for worse for this season. Like all that, there are reasons why Josh Jacobs makes complete sense as a fantasy pick and everything should just be full status quo. He was an absolute touchdown machine. You know, they just dealt with the, the efficiency he had last year. They just dealt with it. I mean, partly because Marshawn Lloyd can't stay on the field, but I'm just, I'm at the point now where I'm not drafting Josh Jacobs and it's the, well, let's take some shots at this Green Bay. I like Green Bay's offense and maybe Marshawn Lloyd will end up being the player that they drafted in the third round a couple of years ago. So I'm just, it's kind of like that hedge. If you're going to fade one player, take a shot on the other one who's Marshawn Lloyd is completely free in drafts and maybe he gets more work than you are anticipating right now.

Yeah, maybe a, maybe a late last second suspension for Jacobs doesn't seem like it's going to happen. But if you draft Lloyd and then all of a sudden there's suspension and then there's just, like I said, his, the efficiency, great on the goal line, but in between, I will say in support of yours, there has been more very similar to my argument for Mason. There's been more wide zone runs, which definitely does not fit Jacobs and does fit Marshawn Lloyd. I am not fading Jacobs. I think he's going to be fantastic this year because great offense. Like you said, you want a good piece of that. I think Jacobs plays the season and is great and scores, you know, 12-plus touchdowns. But if you're fading him, that's a good pick. I'll throw one name out there. I'm embarrassed to love Dalton Kincaid because I've been in and gotten burned on him before. You know, it's like his sophomore year, I was very bullish. I thought he was going to break out. He has hurt his knee from that point forward and never been healthy. But this camp, People have talked about he's more involved in every facet.

He's been at every single practice. His knee is healthy for the first time in years. And if you look at like targets per route run, yards per route run, those type— he's 2.73 yards per route run. Best of all tight ends in the league. He's just playing 30% of snaps.

If he plays 70% of snaps for the Bills, if these trends continue, yeah, I mean, I will have 2,000 yards.

So I'm just saying if he gets more opportunities for a great quarterback that could use him. It'd be good for a late round tight end.

I'll throw another name out there since I spoiled Ramondre earlier. I'll just say Malik Willis has been in that camp for me all off season.

Oh, I'm with it.

So I think Malik Willis. I think the Dolphins in general, like I made a trade for Achan and I gave up Hampton and I gave up more to get—

Well, you got Josh Allen back too.

No, I know, but I mean, just on paper—

But the bet is on Achan.

Yeah, I mean, even when I was negotiating with the Achan manager, they wanted a lot more than Hampton. And it's like, I'm still willing to do it because my belief in Achan is there.

This is Devon Achan.

Yes. Not the junior.

Yeah. Just because you were talking about trying to trade for the other.

Yeah. With you.

Second.

Yeah. I want all the, anybody named Achan, I'm kind of into that. But Trevor's still out there. But yeah, I think Malik Willis and the Dolphins could be a little bit interesting in general. So let's go ahead and take a break and do some mailbag. Oh man, I almost hit the embarrassed to love drop again. I would have been embarrassed.

That drop's pretty good. Mailbag. Mailbag.

All right. Okay, here we go. Evan in North Carolina. By the way, if you have a question for the show, we are here to help you win your league. Go to the website, thefantasyfootballers.com. Click that submit a question button or Jason, they can dial the voicemail hotline. Just don't mess up. 302-464-TFFB.

Or please mess up.

If you mess up, we will hear it. Brooks will and then he'll laugh. Evan in North Carolina, have you ever taken a first round keeper? I'm trying to decide between CMC as a late first or Kyle Pitts in the 10th.

That's an easy CMC.

I would do CMC.

And that's coming from the guy that just is embarrassed to love Kyle Pitts. What you got to do is ask yourself at the end of the draft, which player you want to see on your team. Yeah, taking a first round pick on a keeper is normal if it is a high-end guy or you don't have any better options.

Jonathan in Los Angeles, Sub Ballers. Knowing that the substation requires NFL human sacrifices and Christian McCaffrey seems to be quietly in danger, who do you like for the 49ers backup job? Kalem Black, Jordan James, who is hurt but I think returned to practice.

Yeah, it's, it's been Caelum Black by default. I came into this offseason definitely on the Jordan James side and it seemed like Jordan James was the correct backup, but then he's been injured the whole camp. So to be honest, right now I'm not really in on either of them. Like in the draft, drafting insurance backs is fine if you have complete, like, you know, Blake Corum will be that guy who gets the role should the starter be injured. You don't know here. So this is more of a situation I'll pick up off of the waiver wire. And I will say the substation human sacrifice portion of this, I think I'm starting to realize that's why they brought Mike Evans in. They brought him in because he can keep getting injured over and over and over. They are, they are over one. Whoa, that one got me. Yeah, me too, man. That went straight to the spine.

That's what that's like.

That was pretty scary. But I liked it when there was no sound.

Yeah, the, uh, uh, the pieces of Mike Evans' body are slowly being disassembled to sacrifice for Christian McCaffrey is what it seems like, which is such a shame. I wanted Mike Evans. He's such a perfect fit. If he's healthy, he's going to be great any week that he's out there, which will be at least 3.

On the other hand, though, he's the worst fit to go to San Francisco ever. A team that just deals with injuries. I mean, I, I'll tell you this right now. I've got some stats for you on that, on their injury history coming up on the live show. It's going to blow your mind. Andre in Rhode Island, Jason keeps mentioning his Felix model. What exactly is the Felix model?

The Felix model is kind of a machine learning. I have tens of thousands of different data pieces that from college production, physical traits, attributes, all of that.

And draft capital.

Yeah, draft capital once that's, once that's figured out. And then it's a specific position by position scoring that models based on what has happened in the past to try to find successful predictive analytics. And so essentially it puts players in a percentile score within their position of hopeful future success. And so This is the first year I've had it, but we backtest the data and it looks great going backwards. So I'm excited to see how it goes for this year's prospects.

This is mostly dynasty stuff.

Yeah, it's definitely a— it's a score to project incoming players who have not played a snap in the NFL and what their likelihood of success is based on all the analytics. And you can— my Felix model is in the UDK.

So if you've got the Ultimate Draft Kit, which you should get in the dynasty pass.

Yeah. So take a, take a look there.

YouTube question from B4. Where can you find fun competitive leagues to play in? You mentioned a platform once. I cannot remember it. Thank you.

Our suggestion would be footclanleagues.com, which really just puts you into our Discord.

Yeah. And that will connect you with all sorts of great people that you can find leagues with. However, right now, if you're looking for a great league, I don't know, man. Maybe, maybe get to the Megaloball. Megaloball.com. We're all playing in it. And you get a chance to win a listener league spot next year if you win.

And an Ultimate Foot Clan membership for life. So that is going to do it for today's episode of the show. Please join us this afternoon, 6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific. Head over to YouTube and click the bell so you're alerted when we're live. YouTube.com/NFL. The Fantasy Footballers. Lots of great shows coming up this week. My Guys coming this week. That's right. The official My Guys episode Wednesday. It's going to be awesome. We've got an ADP Risers episode, Underrated Stacks, Mailbag, lots of stuff going on. And let's all just, whatever the Raiders guys, that prayer, let's just harness it for all of the other training camp injuries for this week. I really, I don't want to talk about more injured players. I don't at all.

So knees to the ground. We'll see you on YouTube this evening.

Take care, everybody.

Goodbye.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter @TheFFBallers.