Transcript of The 2026 “My Guys” Episode! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/26

This is Hall of Famer Marshall Falk and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers.

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

Ah, welcome in. Wednesday, August 26th, the My Guys episode. Trademark. Trademark My Guys. Yes. I like what you did on that post yesterday, Mike.

I mean, I just posted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The My Guys trademark episode, the Fantasy Footballers My Guys episode. I know people have been eager for our My Guys and it is a balance deciding when we're going to reveal them because people want to know for their drafts, but there's still preseason and training camp and injuries. And I mean, half of our comments yesterday were all aimed directly at Jason Moore.

They were?

Yes. What'd I do?

Oh, was this the shirt?

No, this is not.

I saw a lot of my shirt looks like I'm naked.

Oh, was it? Were you wearing another salmon colored shirt?

Yeah, it was a skin colored shirt.

It's, uh, what color is that? It's flesh.

Flesh colored. Uh, no, that wasn't it, Jason. It was the fact that you made another one of your famous proclamations on the show that there would be no more injuries. And then immediately we had Ken Walker and Jamar Chase have some scares.

That's Mike's fault. But also they're totally fine.

They're fine.

Yeah. I mean, it was a little scary to see the replay of Ja'Marr Chase hyperextending his knee.

It was.

He went from there totally fine to—

Oh, no, no, no. I know he's fine. I'm just saying it was a terrifying, like, because that's no contact or non-contact. Like, that's— you've seen ACLs.

When you saw the— so he, after the play, he was like, oh my gosh, Ja'Marr Chase, you know, limps off knee injury. And you're like worried. He says he's fine. You look at him in the, you know, the, the, whatever, the locker room. He's talking to people. He's like, I'm fine. I could have gone out and played more if I had to. It was fine. It's just I hyperextended a little bit. But then later the video comes out and you go, I've seen that exact thing before. And it is, ligaments can be hurt.

The way he went down was like, no. But yeah, I think that he's perfectly fine. And Ken Walker.

I mean, I guess a little low ankle.

Well, they're just, they're saying foot, but I think they're just resting him. Like, no, no, like, I mean, I, I'm saying like the video of him, he was at practice. He's in sneakers and he's just walking around. It didn't look like a guy who was favoring a foot.

No, he's going to have so much work. They need to keep him healthy. So, so much going on. Our live show is Friday. So we're so excited to see you guys there. If you're in the Phoenix area and you want to attend, there are a few tickets left. BallersLive.com should be about 800 strong in the Van Buren hosted by GMC and PetSmart. It's going to be sponsored by GMC and PetSmart. It's going to be awesome.

And named after Martin Van Buren.

Of course, our favorite. Well, I don't want to say that because I don't know what he did. I don't know what he did. I'm afraid.

But I mean, President Jason, you know, he had a sweet number.

Did he have like a crazy hairstyle?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh yeah. He was president.

He has big chops. President number 2.

26. Oh, you're a little, little which way?

I'm thinking earlier. I'm thinking earlier.

Yeah, like 16 or earlier.

12 or earlier.

Really?

8?

8?

Oh, I knew it.

Look at Marty.

We know history.

You should dress up as Marty Van Buren for Halloween.

But Andy, you did know, like, because he has the—

Yeah, he got them chops or something, right?

He has the Costanza.

Yeah.

Or actually, no, I'll call it the Bozo the Clown.

Yeah.

Where it's, he's bald on the top sides are coming out, but then it comes down into the chops. It's a, it's a look.

Yeah. I mean, that's what he's known for. My goodness, man, man. That's a, that is an extreme Larry David-esque.

Oh, Marty Van Buren.

Wow.

MVB.

MVB. Well, this has been a detour. It is the My Guy Show. We got a quick question. We got news to catch you up on. Luckily nothing catastrophic right now. The quick question of the day.

How was there any— Hey, there's Marty.

There's Marty Van Buren on the back wall.

Looking good, Marty.

He, boy, he did a lot, right? I mean, you could tell from the eye bags how much he did.

I mean, you're telling— when was A Christmas Carol written?

That is 100% written about— That's Ebenezer right there.

That is Ebenezer Van Buren.

That, that incredible, that dude's stealing turkeys.

Quick question of the day. Which NFL fan bases are you the most jealous of? This one came in.

How is there any answer other than the Patriots?

Yeah. I mean, the Patriots are the clear answer.

Oh, not to me.

So I mean, the rationale to me is bajillions of Super Bowls in my lifetime. Not like all time. Oh, the history of my team before I was born. In my lifetime, they've won the most Super Bowls by gargantuan margins. Then after it was like, well, you lost Belichick and Brady, you're done. Welcome to the doldrums for all. Wait, wait, what? You got 2 years, 2 bad years, and now you've got a young superstar runner-up MVP candidate. You were in the Super Bowl last year. That's not fair.

I am going with the Packers. The history of the team, they have 4 Super Bowl titles, not 6, but 4. They have this long history from Lombardi to You know, Bart Starr to Favre to Aaron Rodgers, but it's about the city. It's about the Lambeau Field in the middle of a neighborhood being owned by the actual fans. Like the team doesn't have—

Dude. Guys.

Yeah.

Are you kidding me? Martin Van Buren served as the 8th president from 1837 to 1841. In 1843, A Christmas Carol is written. I knew it. It's not a joke. Dickens was written about President Van Buren.

Charles Bob.

Oh, Charles Humbug Charles. Dude, now I know more about Van Buren. He was a grumpy grouch.

The Van Burens need to go after the Dickens estate.

There's not time for Christmas when you've got to lead the country at a time like the 1830s.

That was more recent.

I mean, that man has outlived the average life expectancy by over 20 years in this picture.

Yeah. Oh man.

By sheer anger.

Yeah, so for me, I'm going Packers. I think the storied history. History versus the—

that's funny.

When I grew up, actually, you guys maybe picked up football a few years later than I did. When I grew up, it was the Patriots were the garbage team of the NFL with the Cardinals because they would be the 4-12 teams every year.

Yeah. Yeah.

But anyways, yeah, I mean, that—

I don't really count old Super Bowls.

Yeah.

I don't either. It's about the history, man.

Yeah.

But I know that's an Al Borland— I know Al Borland's happy about that.

Oh, look what we have in due respect. The biggest loser.

We do have a fourth who lost to me in the—

I want you to remember that you lost to me in the listener league championship and that's why you came in with a shirt. I did. And of course you did.

Biggest loser on it.

Yeah. So that's not a name tag. That is printed on the shirt.

At the live show, there will be no mistaking who.

I always knew without the shirt.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't need that, dude.

Yeah.

Everyone can just look at the aura.

Your face is its own name tag.

Hey, but good news. You are our Deucer of the Day.

Deucer of the Day.

Yeah. Congratulations.

Now we can craft all over you.

Brian, if you listen to the show, you would know what that means.

Yeah. Oh, what's it say on the back? He's pitching his own Twitter handle.

All right.

I'm going off of that camera.

Blacked out.

All right. Let's talk some news. By the way, the Megalobowl hosted by Sleeper, over 20,000 Foot Clan players. You can go there right now, sign up, play with us. It is the largest fantasy football competition in the world. Megalobowl.com.

Everyone needs a good new league. If you haven't played in it before, it is so fun. It's a ton of fun. It's Foot Clan members. It's great rules. And you get a chance if you win to get a Foot Clan ultimate subscription forever. And more importantly, play with us next year in the listener league. Megalobowl.com. Come play with us. I'm in. I'm in one.

Yeah. I mean, there's drafts from the 4th through the 9th. 8th rather, and the kickoff's the 9th. So megalobull.com for that. Let's talk news.

News and notes from around the league.

Biggest loser back there holding up an affiliate code for something, you know. We've got the Raiders head coach Clint Kubiak saying Ashanti is quote on the mend and he's quote not going to get into injuries. And I'm quote annoyed by that and quote curious about his availability for week 1, unquote.

I believe it is Saturday. Don't— I don't guarantee it, but I'm pretty confident that Saturday is the day that the actual official injury reports have to happen. So we will know more on these injuries for all these guys, you know, at least a little bit more come Saturday at— it's like 5 PM.

Did you see that Martin Van Buren was the same height as you?

Oh, he's 5'11".

6'. Oh, 5'6".

Oh, come on.

Bengals wide receiver Jamar Chase left with a knee injury. Spoke to reporters, says he's fine. Could have played if there was— he said he tried to go back out there and the coaches wouldn't let him. Sam Laporta returned to practice on Tuesday. That's big. We weren't sure if he would get back before the regular season began.

That is big because I think there was in the back of my mind as a Laporta, you know, long time supporter. In the back of my mind, this was a fearful re-aggravation of what he had surgery for. So if he's, if he's there week 1, then hopefully it was just basically a contact contusion.

Ken Walker did not practice Tuesday, minor foot injury. This is not great because it's the second time in a week. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it's the first time. But Josh Downs, calf injury. He called it very minor, believes he will resume practicing soon, but we have a lot of injuries in Indianapolis among the pass catchers. Pearson Downs and Warren's groin and that's why they got Keenan.

I mean, I really do think Keenan in the first month of the season in a PPR league will be like top 20 wide receiver every week. I don't even know that I want to draft him knowing that.

Yeah.

But if I am in a deeper league, I mean, like let's say you're, I mean, the listener league. That we will be announcing next week, the people that get in. So if you submitted and haven't heard back, that means nothing so far.

Yeah, we haven't replied to anybody yet.

That's a 14-team league. You're reviewing. It's a little deeper. And so, you know, later on in drafts, grabbing a Keenan and throwing them in the first week in a double flex or something.

Brian Thomas Jr. returned to practice, was wearing a non-contact jersey after the shoulder injury. Zay Flowers isn't practicing Wednesday, working on the side. Also didn't practice on Monday.

I don't care for this particular news.

This is the one of all the news that I'm the most concerned about just because we have no— I mean, it could be nothing, but you've missed 2 days of practice and it hasn't been disclosed to anybody what's going on. But working on the side is better than not being there at all. Save flowers. Get well soon for Mike's sake.

Yeah.

Ja'Cory Crosby, man.

Okay, cool.

Not practicing.

Everybody I like in the news today.

Yeah, Mike is—

why isn't he practicing? He doesn't know the butterflies sounded a little bit. Yours was. Yeah.

That's a grade 7. Josh Jacobs off the bone. This is big. Packers general manager came out and said when asked about a potential Josh Jacobs suspension, the team is preparing for that in case it happens.

Yeah.

I don't pretty confident we can sustain it. He said that does not mean that we wouldn't claim a running back, but we'll deal with that when the time comes. We're obviously been preparing for that. They don't— this wasn't like new information in terms of like—

that's what I want.

Yeah, they have— they don't have a new inclination that it's happening. It's just that it is, as has been stated, a possibility for both him and Puka right now because they haven't been through the NFL's investigations. Therefore, maybe Marshawn Lloyd ends up with an opportunity.

Marshawn Lloyd definitely should be one of your last round picks at this point, just in case, because I— he's just— he's been a laughingstock because of injury. Like, you don't—

we have—

that's right. We have nothing to evaluate him really on an NFL field. So you have to go back to your prior, which was like a long time ago.

People are all in on Jonathan Brooks, who's, you know, right, slightly higher draft, but not that much higher drafted than Marshawn Lloyd. And we haven't seen anything from him. So it's, it's interesting. He definitely has gotten to the tier of player like Tank Bigsby and Blake Corum where I am very interested.

I think the follow-up question from the listenership on this would be, how do you actually approach drafts this weekend, next weekend when it comes to Josh Jacobs? Yes. That is the ultimate like deflation is taking a player that you have to take in the top 3 rounds that you could find out. Look, the way that the general manager worded it, it was like, well, it could happen midseason. You know what I mean? It might not be at the jump. It could happen at any time. And I just don't like that hanging over. I mean, Mike's already been out on Jacobs, but I don't know how much this is factored into it. Just having that extra variable.

It's just a piece of it.

But yeah, I raised his risk rating in the UDK this morning. I think it's a more dangerous pick. I still think he is going to be very good when on the field and has a spot where I wouldn't pass up on him. But you know, if I take him there, I'd probably take Marshawn Lloyd late in the draft to protect myself.

Yeah, I'd say I think that's, I think that's actually smart way to do that. So that's the way you should handle it. Like if you draft Jacobs, I would force Lloyd onto my, on my bench.

I made a trade yesterday for Davante Adams in our league of record.

Yes.

Then I proceeded to post Jerry Rice's age 33 season as inspiration to him.

Was he actually at age 33?

He was okay. 1,800 yards, 18 touchdowns.

How?

What?

I mean, he's Jerry Rice. He's the best wide receiver.

I understand that, but I looked at some other guys too, and there were some pretty dang impressive year 33 seasons. All that being said, like, one thing we haven't talked about with Puka's rumored potential suspension is like, if he misses time, sure, they don't have— Tutu Atwell's not even there to take anything.

It's Terrence Ferguson. Terrence Ferguson is their wide receiver 3.

I don't, I don't think I'm there, Jake.

That's fine. But just be quick on the waiver wire.

I don't know if I'm there because it's— I know they're going to run a bunch of 3 tight end. That's the— I mean, that's what they're going to run a ton of.

I mean, he said he's been— he said he never expected to have to learn the X, the Y, the Z. He's learning every wide receiver position.

I know. I know. And maybe you're right. Maybe you're right.

That's a lot of information.

Yeah. Which is why it's taken him 2 years to get totally in.

Are we sure they're not just going to snap the ball and he'll just be vibrating? My problem with them is that— I don't know where to go.

I just don't know that he ends up being the highest fantasy scoring tight end on the team. That's the part that's really hard. I think they have a lot of talent.

Crowded room.

But we're going to jump into a break here and then it's time. It's time for the My Guys. One reminder here with big time draft weekends coming up. Don't forget that the Ultimate Draft Kit is available right now. All of our tier-based rankings. I mean, I saw mid-show. Here's an update for you. I saw some of Jason's rankings updates go through mid-show. That's how often this thing is, you know, this isn't the magazine that you buy that's just permanently 3 months behind. Every bit of news information, depth chart news, training camp, 53-man roster, roster changes, those are all updated with our tier-based rankings. All of our player projections, sleepers, breakouts, busts, and values that we've all agreed on, which do get updated. 100+ player profiles, we're doing some updates to those. The new mock draft tool, tons of resources. So those of you that have had it, you know the resource it is for you on draft day. You can mark players, do all that stuff. That's ultimatedraftkit.com. We're going to go ahead and jump into a break and then it's time, guys. My guys. Now I'd be remiss before we start the segment to not give you guys any opportunity.

Every year I think it's my responsibility to give you a Pettis, a Dante Pettis moment. So like right before we reveal, I'm just saying it's going to— throw production into a complete catastrophe over there. Beautiful. But we don't really pay much attention to that. So are there anybody, is there anybody you need to pet us right now? Like withdraw a my guy from.

I'm feeling it's, yeah, I'm feeling real good.

No, it's just Mike's feeling good.

Yeah, I am too, but I'm going to, I'm going to pet us Andy.

You know, wait, me? Like I don't even have my guys now.

Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to say your second one.

Oh, you're petting one of my picks.

Yeah. Well, you are the pet us. It was you. You are the original and the only. You are the Pettis Pivot.

I could misdirect or something. Here we go.

Nothing you can take and tear me away from my guy.

I am so happy that BKet is here.

That's what I was going to say. That animation that you forget every year only to—

He's just done so much work redoing animations that I just thought—

Why didn't you update? This is an important show. Why didn't you How do you fix that?

Never, never change it.

It does say biggest loser on his shirt.

What a loser.

The problem with that graphic rules.

It's terrible.

I know.

That's why it rules.

If that's the first thing that people saw from us, it's the last thing they ever saw from us. It's time to get into my guys 2026. My guys always, look, this is hard because our goal with the my guys, just to state it. And you guys can add to it. The goal is not to take a player that is obvious. That is the layup. That is the simple way to do it.

I'll take Jameer Gibbs, please.

I mean, that is not the goal of the My Guys. The My Guys is to find and plant the flag on 3 players each that we feel represent tremendous upside. I mean, we did a show yesterday. We were talking about some players are like, which players in the NFL have bust to, you know, league-winning range. And there's not a lot of guys like that. That's not necessarily the my guy, but just somebody with high upside and comes in at a draft value. A lot of the times during the offseason, our discussion around my guys is like, if this guy's at this ADP on this date, he's going to be my guy.

Right.

And so they fluctuated a little bit. I mean, before we get into it, you know, Alec Pierce for a long time, I really wanted him as a my guy.

This entire season he was locked as a my guy until the last month.

Not enough progress. You know, there were some other players like Kyle Pitts that were in consideration.

Oh, you didn't have to say that.

Now I gotta end up with my guy.

Yeah, you could. That's— we have inside thoughts for a reason.

I'm going to let you guys go first. One of you guys go first.

All right. I will jump in. I'm going to start things off last week.

I mean, you've got the button, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm just making sure you know what you're doing.

I got it. The fearless podcast host of the Fantasy Footballers blessed everyone on the UDK. We released a little sneak peek. So I'm going to start with that one.

Colston Loveland.

Oh, Mr. Loveland.

Oh, cats to dogland.

Mr. Loveland.

I am all in.

Unsurprised. I am all in.

You look, you're going to be very unsurprised by my, my guy picks here. Colson Loveland, my chips are all in. He's going in the fourth round. I have no problem with that ADP at all because of what I think he can become. So it's remembering the story of last year, 10th overall pick. He led the team in receiving yards as a 21-year-old rookie. Tight end. He's the first rookie tight end to achieve this feat for the franchise since Mike Ditka. No, Mike Ditka. Look, it was a—

who would win in a fight? Colston Loveland or Mike Ditka?

Oh, Ditka. It took some time, you know, training camp. We missed some of it last year, but by the end of the season, he was the centerpiece of the offense. Look, the final 4 games for the Chicago Bears, so that's week 17, 18, and 2 playoff games. Like, you know, we talk about, um, Ramondre of like when they got in the playoffs, they went to their—

you knew who you believed in.

They went to their guy and that ended up being Colston Loveland for the Chicago Bears over that time period. 49 targets, double-digit targets, 4 straight weeks, including a wildcard game against Green Bay where he caught 8 passes for 137 yards and a touchdown. In those 4 games, targeted on 35% of his routes were these empty targets as well. No, 7 of the 49 were in the red zone and they're lining them up all over. This isn't just an inline player. Like they're putting him in the slot. They're putting him out wide. He is the guy and you have the quote from your head coach that says Colston Loveland is the sun of the Bears solar system. You know, we've spent the offseason debating, is it, do you like Luther Burden? Do you like Roma Dunze? The answer is Colston Loveland. That is one of those, one of the wide receivers can absolutely pay off. Maybe both of them are pretty good. Coleston Loveland is 100% the answer for me. I want Chicago Bears on my team. And the fact that it is a positional advantage in the fourth round of your draft, who in my opinion, like the reason he's a my guy is because I think that he can finish as the tight end one, which is a blasphemous thing to say when Brock Bowers is out there.

I think that Coleston can easily surpass McBride this year. And I think that he can contend with Brock Bowers, who's a second round pick. But you're getting him in the fourth round.

Yeah, the thing about trying to pick the Bears, we love the offense. You know, I would agree with you, Mike. They love using their top 10 picks on offense. But whether it's Rome or whether it's Luther Burden, maybe, maybe one of those two leads the team in targets over Loveland. But because he's a tight end, he doesn't have the bar as high as those two wide receivers to be able to have to be a top 3 at the position. So I will say we're not sure exactly where it goes there, but it's hard to imagine him being a bad pick. It's what he showed in his rookie season was pretty amazing.

You have him being the guy. You have Ben Johnson wanting to run up the score, which, you know, he's making fun hyperbolic statements, but I think there is a bit of truth to that.

I don't think there was any— any hyperbolic— I don't think there was an ounce of him being exaggerating. I think he genuinely is saying his goal is to set the new scoring record.

Even better. Yeah, even better. If you have the number one guy for a team that one of their goals is to be the highest scoring offense of all time at a position that gives you a huge advantage over the rest of the league.

I feel like last year people's arguments would have been, but can you count on Caleb Williams? And I don't feel like that's been a part of any discussion this year. Even though we didn't love the completion percentage, you know, that's not a number that is, you know, well, we'll talk. We'll talk about him.

Yeah, but it's just 10 targets, 13 targets, 16 targets, 10 targets, like, which was, that was when the team was finally firing on all cylinders. They're not trying to figure things out. They're like, this is what's going to work for us in the big games that we have to win. I'm all in. Give me Mr. Loveland.

Mr. Loveland.

Well, Jason, I'll let you go next.

Okay.

All right.

For my first My Guy of 2026, I'm going with Garrett Wilson.

Yeah, baby.

Yes. Not Geno Smith. I know everyone thought I was going to go Geno Smith. Not Geno Smith.

Kind of feels like you went Geno Smith.

He's going to make a big impact here. In a way you did. In a way, Garrett Wilson is 4 years into his career and I think that there is a lot of stank on the Jets. Stank on his name is being a little overblown. He has played with and on one of, if not the worst team in his entire career. Except here's the thing, in those stinky years with the stinky Jets, he is still only one of 5 players to ever begin their career with 380 catch 1,000 yard seasons. Seasons and he did it catching passes from 8 different bad quarterbacks. Zach Wilson, old Flacco, Mike White, Simeon, Boyle, Strevler, old man Rodgers and Tyrod Taylor like—

and Martin Van Buren.

I mean, might as well throw him in the ghost of. He has been an outstanding wide receiver, even for fantasy. You forget he's already been a top 10 fantasy wide receiver on this bad Jets team. And then last year, the most recent example going into year 4, he had to deal with the literal worst passing offense, not like just of the year, which it was. I mean, I want you to understand how bad the Jets passing offense was last year. They were the only team— there's only one other team in the last decade who threw for fewer yards per game. They didn't hit 2,800 passing yards as a team. The second worst team last year, the pitiful Browns, they threw for 400 more yards. And how did Garrett Wilson do on that putrid team? He was the wide receiver 5 before he went down to injury. You don't remember how good he was. And it was not just touchdown luck. I've heard that like, oh, you got it. You got touchdowns. He did have touchdowns. But if you take those out, he was on pace for 112 receptions at 1,300 yards on the literal worst passing environment that has been out there in the last decade.

It will be better with Geno. It will. There's no way.

I got a quote for you this morning just moments ago. Jets offensive coordinator Frank Reich said he is quote, been so impressed with Geno Smith's play.

There's also a quote this morning talking about OC saying, Belkow. Yeah, he's a Belkow. He's talking about, he gets a question about Omar Cooper Jr. And then at the end of that, he's like, yeah, Garrett Wilson is our Belkow.

Yeah. Breece Belkow, Garrett Wilson Belkow. Consolidated offense, best players play.

It just reminded me because people ask us, what do we listen to in coach speak time during training camp?

The Bee Gees. Oh, sorry.

It's a great band. Go on.

If you—

Bee Gees.

If you— if you're listening to a coach and he brings up a name unprompted, like you're— you know, he's— he tried to judo throw an Omar Cooper Jr. Well, what I love about Omar is Garrett Wilson. Like, those are things to pay attention to.

Yeah, he had 4 top 15 finishes in the first 5 weeks before he went down to injury. Only JSN, Amon-Ra, and Puka accomplished that feat. And I know what you're saying. You're saying like, ah, those are great stats, Jason. You're so handsome and funny. And you know, I love you. You inspire me to be a better person. But all those stats of Garrett Wilson, not even bald, are from the past. What about 2026? What about that?

Look, upcoming.

I'm glad you asked. And I'm glad you asked like that and phrased it like that. Target share for wide receivers is the stickiest stat per year, and it is a predictive stat for future success. Through 4 seasons, Wilson is averaging 28% target share. Last year was 30% in 7 games. If you sort your platform ADP by target share, you will see one player who is not anywhere near the others. All of the top 12 guys that anyone that had a 27% target share, they're all being drafted in the top 12. And then there's Garrett Wilson, who's being drafted around wide receiver 20. This is the list. It would go JSN, then Garrett Wilson, then Ja'Marr Chase, Puka, Amon-Ra, Jefferson, Drake London, Zay Flowers, AJ Brown, and Chris Olave. That's your top 12 because that stat repeats every year.

And Jason barely had enough breath for that.

And the final, my final thought is I want to show you like the comparison here. Shake. Go on. What was it? Wait, what was the head shake?

Crap.

He tried to catch me yawning again. This live show is taking it out of me, fellas. Yeah.

Listen.

Yeah. You are putting in work.

He's putting in work.

In that time.

Sleeping on the job.

If you look at those other players who had a 27% market share or better, they are drafted so high in every fantasy draft you're in. And yeah, it makes sense for a lot of them, right? JSN, Jamar, Puka. What about Drake London? Drake London has a bad quarterback. He has a bad offense. Who's better? Puka, which is what I'm now calling Penix and Tua.

Oh yeah.

It's a benefer.

Yes, exactly.

It's not as good.

Yeah, but it's Puka. Oh, but who's better? Puka or Geno Smith? Let's say Puka is better, but it's, or not. It's, it's like, one of these guys is going in the second round and the other is in the fourth or fifth round on Yahoo right now for Garrett Wilson. And you go, well, but we saw it last year. We saw it last year with Drake London with bad quarterback play. You— what are you talking about? Garrett Wilson outscored last year on a— when in games they played, Garrett Wilson had a point more on average with his bad quarterback play. So to me, Garrett Wilson in the fourth, in the 5th, I love grabbing him. I'm so confident that he is being drafted at his floor. He's being drafted around wide receiver 20 to 22. He's not finishing lower than that. And he has to me the potential to be a top 10 wide receiver this year.

Did you see this was yesterday? There was an Ian Rapoport quote came out. He believes that Tua's play has made the plan to make him the starter at the beginning of the season. Quote, Impossible.

That's yes. Yes, it has.

Like, holy crap. He's a, he's just a man on the NFL Network is saying this dude is so bad. It's impossible.

And we thought it was impossible for him not to get the job because of how bad Pannikin was last year. And this is take Drake London in the second if you want or take Garrett Wilson in the fourth.

Yeah. One of the top trending names on Sleeper Dynasty leagues right now is the Falcons third string quarterback.

Damn it.

Do I remember what his name is?

No, it doesn't matter.

It's not Pua. All right. My first My Guy.

Trey the Endless.

You did it again.

What?

You did it again. After all that.

You've been talking about Ramondre.

You're crazy. This was all a hoodwink. Dude, I didn't know he was that much in on handling. I get the apology now. I get the apology now.

And it still worked.

You ever seen Austin Powers 2?

Gosh dang it. It's hilarious.

All right.

So tell us why.

It's not Trevo. It's not Trevo. Now I don't know what button to push to get my real My Guy.

De'Jawn Stribling.

How did I not see it coming?

I don't know, man.

De'Jawn Stribling, wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, is the official My Guy. You've taken the air out of that sale. Here's the deal. I want to take shots at rookie wide receivers in fantasy. That's what I want to do since 2019. We've had at least 4 rookie wide receivers finish inside the top 36 every single year. Last year was an exception. We had 2 of them in that category. Things kind of didn't work out. But Dajon struggling right now. We talked about this weeks ago. I actually told Jason yesterday, I feel like he's sort of ruining the my guy here by playing too well in the preseason and getting everybody's attention. But the fact is there's just not enough time between now and the draft. Now in draft days or 2 weeks ago in draft days for his ADP to move up to a place that I would be uncomfortable taking Dajon Stribling. This is the 33rd overall pick in the NFL draft. There are some things hanging over Dajon Stribling in terms of why people have been slow to buy in and believe. One of them is the propensity for the 49ers to overdraft players that don't work out.

We've seen it with Trey Sermon. We've seen it. I mean, you could go to Dante Pettis. You can go to any of these other guys. It's really difficult to trust them taking a player that not everybody projected to be drafted this high. Dajon Stribling, the actual player, is somebody that you're going to fall in love with week after week after week for the 49ers. Not to, you know, not even saying anything about the fact Mike Evans is barely on the field right now. Ricky Pearsall has been knocked out. George Kittle's coming back from an Achilles at an older age. Christian Kirk's already been hurt. Like they don't have other options in the receiving game, but it's not just, hey, Strickland is going to succeed because he's the last man left. Strickland is going to succeed because he is a dynamic, great NFL wide receiver. He's 6'2", 207. You've watched the— if you haven't gone back and watched collegiate film, you've probably seen some highlights from the preseason. This is a huge catch radius guy. This is the best friend of quarterbacks. Great hands, elite ball tracking skills. And really, if you see him with the ball in his hands, above average yak for a big guy.

Great acceleration, ran a 4.36 at the combine. And when you look at what he did on the collegiate level, a lot of the big performances came right up until the final college playoffs. He had huge— he averaged 84 yards a game over his last 5 games. But what I love to see He put up huge games against Georgia, right? One of the best teams in college football, 3 for 94 and a touchdown, 7 for 122. The fact that they believe in this rookie wide receiver on this level, that Kyle Shanahan has put so much trust in him. We got to remember it was Dante Pettis in the doghouse forever. It was Brandon Aiyuk could not get the kind of playing time. And really what I like, a focal point of the offense, right? Shanahan draws up. We've looked at this in years past. We've talked to Juszczyk. Like he draws up plays for players. He designs offenses for the strengths of their players. To me, the camp buzz combined with what we saw in the preseason, the draft capital, the availability of other players. Shanahan came out and said to, said that Stripling was picking up things in a hurry in his presser, continues to look like if healthy, he could have a fairly extensive role early on.

He's broken every record in terms of preseason target share for rookies. Brock Purdy said he's a really smart dude. He's been a guy that's come in and shows that he understands everything. To me, this is actually the strangest situation for fantasy, which is a safe rookie wide receiver. That's what I think De'Jawn Stribling is. That is right now. What's his ADP? 13th round on ESPN. Maybe that's a little delayed. 11th round in Sleeper. 10th round in Yahoo. Let's, let's call him a 10th round pick. 10.01. I'd take him ahead of that. Yeah, I'd take him way ahead of that.

I'm with you of this is a shot worth taking of maybe, maybe you got to jump in early and you're like, I'm going to take him in the 8th. Okay, great.

That's, that's an 8th round pick.

What, like the, the true upside options in the 8th round, like in the 8th round, you're like, I hope I get a guy who's going to be in my flex all year. Take some shots here. I love it. The, like you said, Andy, Shanahan makes game plans around single players.

It's been Kittle before.

Yeah. Deebo. Deebo's the guy to me that like, I don't think if Deebo was drafted for the Jets would have been a sensational superstar. I don't think it, his skill set was very unique to him. He was a tackle breaker, yards after catch guy. This is the type of player that Shanahan is going to get the ball in his hands in space. Like, I think if he had gotten a Luther Burden or a Stribling, it's just a, it's a match made in heaven. So I, I do love that.

And there's been some talk. I think it was Malik Turner, another guy on the wide receiver depth chart, was taking snaps above Deebo, who is on this team.

Yeah, I think Deebo's very good.

But like Deebo's involvement in this offense is just not something that's going to impact Stribling. All right, Mike, let's go back to you.

All right.

You blew us away with the fact that you like Colston Loveland.

Colston Loveland. There's another guy that I have just been waiting, waiting for him to finally be allowed. Mike could be in this show.

Mike could not resist it.

It's time, I guess.

It has to be.

Kenneth Walker. Yeah, baby. This time, Ken Bone Walker.

There it is.

We had to put Kenneth Walker because there's some people new to the show.

That's so respectful. Kenneth Walker. That's like you got a diploma on the front of the stage. Kenneth Walker.

Yeah, but then he walked off and flashed people right there.

AKA Ken Bone Walker, one of my favorite running backs of the modern era. Why do I like him?

Well, a year of Mike continues.

He's going in the middle of the second round. I think Kenneth Walker should be in the first round in terms of what he's going to provide for fantasy football teams. He just got paid a 3-year deal worth up to $45 million. It's the 5th highest fully guaranteed running back contract in the league. The Kansas City Chiefs immediately went out and said, we need to fix things. And how are we going to fix it? We're going to fix it with Kenneth Walker. Last year, Kansas City was dead last as a team in explosive rush rate. One 20-plus-yard run. Kenneth Walker had 10 by himself. 15% of his rush attempts went for 10 or more yards. Third best among running backs last year. The Kansas City Chiefs, the entire team was just, they were not explosive. They had 4 offensive plays of 20 or more yards that resulted in a touchdown. The Kansas City Chiefs, the big play high-flying Patrick Mahomes Chiefs could not score from, from outside of the 20. They were tied for the fewest in the NFL. Kansas City, dead last in forced missed tackle rate at the— who's number one at the running back position?

Oh, Ken Bone Walker.

Kenneth Walker, number one in forced missed tackle rate because he is always there. There. He is always there. And now he's going to get his opportunity. Speaking of opportunity, the playoffs over the 3 games in the playoffs, Kenneth Walker, 74 touches, 417 scrimmage yards. So that's 20, that's almost 25 touches a game in those games, guys. He was averaging, if you were playing fantasy, 23.4 points, the playoffs, the best of the best. And he's averaging over 20 points a game. Like the depth chart of Kansas City, there is nothing there in terms of challenge, truly challenging Kenneth Walker. Yeah. Like, yes. Look, DiMarcato is there. He seemed like the de facto to maybe it's Emmitt now. Maybe it's Emmitt Johnson. Mahomes is coming off of a major injury. They know that they have to figure this out through the running back position. The accolades, the talk of Kenneth Walker has been absolutely outrageous coming out of Kansas City of saying he's a full package player. He's going to do everything. We didn't bring him in just to carry the ball. We're going to get him. We're going to throw him the ball as well.

Let me put you on the spot. Let me interrupt. I know you have the stats backup. Ken Bone Walker. But I'm going to put you on the spot with the my guy because he's a second round pick. Can Kenneth Walker finish as high as RB?

How high can he finish?

I just feel like the my guy is saying, you said he's a first round pick.

Yeah.

I feel like first round picks, we always look at it and we say, can they be number one?

If Jameer Gibbs stays healthy all year, Kenneth Walker can't pass him. But if Kenneth Walker stays healthy, he can be the running back too.

Okay. I think he can be. I wanted that. Soundbite.

Do you like opportunities? Okay. Andy Reid. It's been an absolute dumpster fire for the last, what, 6 or 7 years since really since Kareem Hunt was able to do anything. But from 2004 to 2018, Andy Reid's running back 1 averaged 22 opportunities per game, 110 total yards per game, almost 20 PPR points per game. And there, look, This is not a bad team. This— we want running backs on great teams. What do— what do lead backs on teams with 10.5 win totals do on average? Over 1,250 total yards, 10.5 total touchdowns. Like, and look, the beginning of the season, the Chiefs are very favored. They're— in fact, they have the bye week in Week 5, but through their first 5 games, they're favored in all of them. And Kenneth, the— This is, this, it feels like Christian McCaffrey of last year, whereas how does Christian McCaffrey fail? He gets hurt. That's it. If you want to bet that Kenneth Walker is going to get hurt, okay, he's missed some games in his past. But when you have a player where the only path for failure is just getting hurt, I think that's a, like, that's a player you want to be all in on because literally any player can get hurt.

But it's like Bijan. Bijan's the consensus number 2 and I'm not going to argue it. Things could go bad. Like you mean with Pua? Yes. I mean like the team environment of the Atlanta Falcons. Bijan is an amazing player because it wasn't great last year, but things could go wrong for Bijan that are not in his control.

It seems like games this year could be started by Jack Strand. Or Cooper Rush on the Falcons.

Yes.

Which is terrifying.

Yeah. Give me Patrick Mahomes.

Ken Bone Walker.

Yeah. Not a surprise. We'll take a break. Come back with 5 more My Guys for 2026. All right. We're back. Colston Loveland. Ken Bone Walker for Mike so far. Jason with Garrett Wilson. I've got Dajon Stribling. And Jason, you're back up. It is time to reveal your second My Guy.

I've got Garrett Wilson, who I think is a value in fantasy football. I'm going with another value at wide receiver a couple rounds later. It's a rookie. Carnell Tate.

Davion Henderson.

You wish.

Carnell Tate. I can't believe it worked again.

Yeah, baby.

I didn't even think about it. Now I'm going to think about it.

Yeah.

You should question everything.

You don't even know if that next one was a mistake.

I don't. I don't know what the next one is.

Did you say coup me twice?

No, I think you should— Shame on me.

Who knows?

Fool me twice.

Fool me twice.

There you go.

I was going to compliment you on—

Listen, that's my—

That's a funny phrase.

I might have said a horrible curse word. I don't have any idea.

That's why you won't remember next year and we will get you again.

Yeah, my memory.

We will. Carnell Tate, wide receiver for the Tennessee Titans, drafted number 4 overall. I mean, this is a super highly drafted potential superstar wide receiver who is not being drafted that way. And we know why he's not being drafted that way. It's worries about Cam Ward and the offense. You know, you've got Wondale Robinson and a new coordinator, all that. But here's the thing. When you're drafted in the top 10, you are guaranteed 100 targets. You're really good. And here's it. I mean, he's really good. That is the lead here is do not forget what a sensational superstar Carnell Tate is. He was a 5-star recruit coming out of high school. He led the nation in passer rating when targeted, 5 touchdowns of 40-plus yards or more. He shared the field with Jeremiah Smith, who is one of those generational wide receivers.

Oh man, I wish they had the first pick next year.

He's sharing the field with Jeremiah Smith. He missed 3 games and yet he still put up 875 yards with 9 touchdowns and 5 of those over 40 yards. Caught 12 of 14 contested catches. He never dropped a pass. Like, this is a great wide receiver. Early in camp, everything was how he was dominating. And then the preseason hits.

Preseason domination.

5 targets, 0 receptions. He's done. He sucks. Cam Ward can't possibly hit him with this vanilla offense. I just want to remind people, Ja'Marr Chase preseason, 1 reception on 5 targets. Drake London, one catch on one target. AJ Brown, one catch on three targets.

You're using a 100% catch rate in there, Jay.

I heard it. Sure. Sure. My point is the preseason. I mean, we remember when Ja'Marr Chase couldn't catch a football because the college ball had stripes and the NFL— like, these are great wide receivers. He is a great wide receiver who is the clear best wide receiver on his team, drafted number 4. So that means he will be playing, you know, near 100% snaps from week 1 right out the gate. And he's not being drafted where these other highly drafted rookies have been drafted recently. You look at rookies wide, wide, wide, which— whoa, whoa, whoa. Rookie wide receivers drafted this high. I mean, you had to take Marvin Harrison in the second round. You had to take Malik Nabers in the third. Amari Cooper in the fourth. Even last year, Teteroa was a fifth round pick and he had a bad quarterback play. You, you now have Carnell Tate coming into a team and I just want to remind you, 2 years ago, not long ago, 2 years ago, we had an offense that took a wide receiver number six overall that had Brian Dayball running the show and the wide receiver two was Wandale Robinson.

It's literally the same offensive coordinator. With the same human at wide receiver 2 drafting their potential superstar, you know, top 5 in the NFL draft. And Wandale had a ton of targets. That's the thing about Dayball targets his wide receiver 1 like crazy. Diggs both years in Buffalo. Neighbors, his wide receiver 1 is targeted. And I know the quarterback play is the issue, but I mean, look, I mean, Tommy DeVito, Drew Locke, Tim Boyle, are they really that much worse or better than Cam Ward? That was who Malik Nabers was averaging like 180 targets. This is a good pick. He's being drafted at his floor. He's 7th round in ESPN and Yahoo. He has the potential to be a top 15 wide receiver year one, and he can't possibly be worse than where he's drafted right now, like wide receiver 29 or 30. Get out of here.

All right. Mike's my guy. Carnell Tate, my next my guy.

Mike's Caleb Williams. What did he say?

He did.

Can we get that?

Yeah, I got you.

What did he say? Jason's my guy. Carnell Tate. Caleb Williams is my my guy number 2 for the 2026 combo season. Yeah, I didn't know how long to wait to reveal the Caleb Williams with your Colston Loveland, but I like it. Here we go. 8th round pick on ESPN, 7th round pick on Sleeper. And there's, there's a number of things I want to talk about with Caleb. Obviously you touched on what this offense wants to do with Ben Johnson, what his expectations are. I mean, you saw a massive uptick in performance from the Bears last year in year one of learning this system with Ben Johnson. And the only real negative thing we point at which by the way, his ADP is the quarterback 7 off the board. That's what he was last year. So that's the, that's where he's being drafted. You've got rushing upside with Caleb Williams. You've got 3 elite receiving talents that we believe in, in Burden, Loveland, and Odunze. He has, you know, his tendency is to give you valuable for fantasy passes, 4th most end zone pass attempts in the league. And I expect a huge level up from him this year.

And one of the things that people point out, the biggest thing is the completion percentage. And they worked on his intermediate throws last year. Ben Johnson did. There's a great chart put out by Ryan Heath of Fantasy Points that looks at, I mean, literally like 100 pieces of data in terms of what things correlate in terms of quarterback statistics with the following season's fantasy points per game. Completion percentage is one of the lowest correlations to fantasy points per game for that quarterback the next year.

Thanks, Josh Allen.

It's way down the list. You know, things like avoided sacks is a mat— is 3 times as valuable in correlation to fantasy points per game for that next season than completion percentage. What have the Bears committed themselves to? Putting Caleb Williams in the position where he is not being sacked like he was as a rookie, which almost broke the records or broke the record last year. They repaired this offensive line pressure to sack ratio. That's another high correlation. The things that they have fixed on this offense, they jumped from 28th in points per game to 9th in points per game last year. This is the scoring environment you want for fantasy.

That's one year of Ben Johnson.

One year of Ben Johnson. And so I think you see a huge step forward. You can go look at first round quarterbacks who finished top 10 in year 2 and then say, hey, how was year 3 for those guys? Well, 60% of them were up over that 20 fantasy points per game. You've got a long history of these guys that have made the jump. It's just something where I'm looking at this team and if you wipe out a little bit of the just like the Bears can't pass, they'll never get 4,000 yards. Look, I think they figure it out this year. I think that You know, both of us believe, or maybe all of us believe, that the Bears are making a step forward on the offense. What's wild is you're going to have two of the best offenses in football in the same division with Detroit and the Bears. But you've got weapons, offensive line, play caller, pass catching, running back, rushing upside for Caleb Williams. He's dropped £15. I am just—

I love that part.

I'm so excited about Caleb this year and Bears fans can Finally, believe me when I say I've never been against you. I've just been subject to the realities of the NFL. And sometimes that looks like you don't like a team or a player. We are water. We are subject to what's changing.

Yeah. Caleb losing £15 is such a big deal to me because there's a player that you want to know takes it serious. You know, he does. That's like one of the knocks is maybe he's not as focused as you'd want your quarterback one to be, but he is.

Kyler Murray.

Yeah. If Kyler Murray could have taken one of those offseasons like, I put on 2 inches, that would have been so cool. You know, they each have their roles to play, but Caleb, Caleb dropped £15. He's taking it serious. We love the Bears offense and all of those things go back to Caleb. I will say this, my counterargument, and I think it's decently compelling, the case against Caleb Williams. I don't know, Andy, if you have seen this picture.

There's the picture.

I don't think the irony is where you're seated.

Oh, where I'm seated, I feel very— The picture is fine, man.

You know what that is?

It's all three screens there. That's Zoom. I feel—

But I don't think the picture's wild. Here's the truth.

Oh, what about now? What about now, Andy?

I don't know.

It's too sultry. It's too sultry.

If you ever have them wearing these uniforms where they have those light-colored, like the light-colored pants and the dark socks. These guys always look a little different.

Look, this is the first time I'll say it this year. No butterfly stretch. No butterfly stretch. Not in those pants.

He's actually kind of cringing.

I'm— well, I'm like—

this was your bit.

I'm in the fire. I didn't realize.

And you are his bit. All right, Mike. The next my guy. The last one. One more each.

All right. It's— this is my Alec Pierce because this was a player that I statted out the UDK. I was going through all the doing the projections, you know, looking at the top level and then filtering things down of how I think it's going to shake out for that team. A player really popped like a— when I went and saw where his ranking was, I went, oh, that's spicy. And it didn't work out for you with Alec Pierce of the injury stuff, but the news just kept getting—

I wanted Alec Pierce to be the guy.

It just kept getting better and better. And here we are.

Christian Watson.

Christian Watson, wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers. We are entering year 5. They just gave him a fresh set of cash with a 4-year extension. The problem for Christian Watson has never ever been talent on the field. Here, wide receivers since the year 2000 to average 17 or more yards per reception and catch 20 touchdowns through their first 4 years. Deshaun Jackson, Mike Wallace, Christian Watson. He can hit the big play. Absolutely. The problem has been volume for Christian Watson. Hey, I was going to say, if there's ever a player you've needed hamstring insurance on the show. Absolutely. That one, I—

that's your biggest risk.

Ken Walker, I'll fight people on the health argument. Christian Watson, They're winning. Yeah. If you want to come at me with the health argument, I'll say, yeah, you're probably right. But truly, volume also was an issue because the Green Bay Packers were rotating all of their guys. You had Romeo Dobbs, who was kind of their de facto possession number one wide receiver. Dontavian Wicks would come in and just, he would rotate players off the field because Wicks is a capable pass catcher. Those guys are gone. It is now consolidated. It's Christian Watson and Matthew Golden as the two starters and then Jaden Reed's the slot player. But last year, recovering from yet another injury from an ACL tear, but from week 11 on, he was the wide receiver 11 in fantasy football. He was giving you huge, huge spike weeks. During that time, the per route metrics were elite. Second in yards per route run behind only Luther Burden. He was tied with JSN for third in targets per route run. And then a metric that we know is fairly predictive for next year. Over that time period, he was first in— this one's a mouthful— but first in the NFL in first downs per route run.

So like, they're going to him. They're going to him early.

When you look at the 9 My Guys, and I know a couple haven't been revealed yet, I think Christian Watson has the potential to impact fantasy teams. In the most significant way of almost all the names because of where you're drafting him and what he represents for your team, which is a right now on Sleeper, a late round 6th round pick, late round 6th round.

Yeah. Late, sorry, late 6th round pick on ESPN. I don't know what clown show business is going on over there because he's in the 9th round. Maybe just weird mock drafts, but late 6th round. For a player who can do what I think Watson's going to do this year. It's exciting. It's absolutely outrageous.

Why don't we like Jordan Love? If we— because we can make this— you can make this exact same argument for liking Matthew Golden, the consolidation.

Yeah.

You can make it for Tucker Craft, the consolidation. We like Jaden Reed, like whether his role— like for Jordan Love, he's great. I mean, even if Jaden Reed's not reliable week to week. So you got 4 names that are pretty interesting. And I feel like maybe Jordan Love's been just like, I haven't heard—

Thank you for bringing up Jordan Love because that's why we're here today. The reason why people wouldn't love Jordan rates because the Packers were 28th in pass rate last year.

Yeah.

However, Jordan Love was efficient among 38 qualifying running or quarterbacks with 200 or more dropbacks. First in EPA with a clean pocket, 6th in passer rating, 7th in completion percentage over expectation, and 4th in pressure to sack ratio. Andy, some of the stuff you were talking about for, for Caleb. And this year there's talk of stuff being a little bit different.

More balanced.

They're playing under center more with more play action than, than we have seen the Green Bay Packers in recent history. Watson's going to play the Z receiver role. So he's going to move. He's going to be in motion. The stuff that we love for fantasy football. He's being— you can draft him easily as your wide receiver 3. And I think before the end of the year, he's your wide receiver 2, maybe even a wide receiver 1 type of a player. They changed.

This is interesting.

This is per Josh Norris. Look, Christian Watson's out routes from 2022 to 24. Just 7.7% where he's breaking horizontally, which that's— we need those routes. We can't have you just being the sacrificial X running a fly route.

As long as he doesn't break horizontally or vertically, I'd be happy.

But so he went from 7.7% to 35% last year. They were using him truly in a different fashion. And with the consolidation, with what I think is going on with Josh Jacobs, not just the suspension stuff with the efficiency of, of, I think that LaFleur is seeing that I got to start trusting Jordan Love more and changing this offense. Christian Watson going in the 6th is an absolute smash pick for me.

If you had ever removed him from the board the last 6 months, I think he would have been somebody strongly considered for a My Guy on My— I just, I totally believe in the value. I think he's, he's the perfect target for fantasy because the talent is there, but the fatigue is, is high.

The injury history is why he's low. I mean, if he had played a full season last year or even the year prior, or ever, or ever, he'd be drafted higher.

If he had ever played a season.

Yeah.

I mean, and that is genuinely still the worry. Like when I think about drafting Christian Watson, I'm still a little gun-shy because of like the injury history. He's just never been able to stay healthy.

But if you're getting him at like the 6-7 turn, that upside.

Absolutely. The injury risk is baked in.

I walked into that one.

He grew up.

All right. Well, I'm going to take a guy who was injured last year. Omarion Hampton. I am in love with Omarion Hampton. I— all offseason, this has been the guy that I haven't really pivoted from. Everything is set up for him to dominate. I loved him coming out of college. I think he is a phenomenal 3-down fantasy football running back. What he does is perfect for fantasy football. He is the goal line back. He had 80% of the goal line carries last year, which would have been 4th in the NFL. He is a pass-catching running back with a pass-catching, uh, pass running back check-down quarterback. I mean, remember Austin Ekeler with Justin Herbert in his, you know, in this short rookie season that Hampton had, he averaged 19 routes per game, 3.6 receptions per game. And he started out as that dude the first 5 weeks before the injury. He led all running backs in avoided tackles per carry. Now the change of everything around him is positive, positive, positive. I know that their new free agent center got injured. That, that does stink, but their offensive line is still significantly better. I mean, they have two superstar tackles in Joe Alt, Rashaun Slater.

They didn't have either of them last year. They're both back now. They're both on the field and they're going to dominate and mow these guys down. They brought Alec Ingold in the fullback. Where did he come from? Oh, he came from Mike McDaniel's team that runs this outside zone to great success with a fullback, getting guys out, pulling and breaking away opportunities for Davon Achane. Davon Achane was the second highest yards per route run on those outside zone schemes. You know who was third? Omari Hampton. So you've got this team that I think is going to win a ton of games. They've got a good defense. They're projected to win a lot of games. You have an offensive line that is better. You have proof from his rookie season of how good he was. You have an offensive mastermind joining the fray who gets his guys the ball. Yeah, I know he says, oh, it's, we're going to go hot hand. They're going to go hot handton is what they're going to do.

Okay.

Because he's going to get this guy out of here. I got it. I got it in. That was a swish.

I had to swipe pages.

I couldn't get to the booth. Yeah.

Hot Hampton.

Uh, he's going to get the rock.

Repeating it is always good for him.

Oh, I'll repeat it all season long because he's going to be running with the Hot Hamton. Rookie, the thing is, is when you draft a running back in the first round, year 2, it pretty much always crushes in fantasy football. 12 of the 15 players in that situation, they average 18 or more opportunities per game. Those players average 10.3 touchdowns per game. I just think everything is set up. He's on a great offense. He is fairly alone. I don't worry about Keaton Mitchell being, you know, the goal line back or, or silky smooth. The regular Vidal Sassoon is going to be a backup. He's going to touch the ball enough. He's going to catch the ball enough. He's going to be around the goal line enough. And when I look at year 2 running, it's like I would I would definitely take him over Gente. The situation is so much better for Hampton. I don't see how he's not—

I thought you said your two guys are awesome.

Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying. Gente is awesome and I would take Hampton over him. That's why he's a my guy.

All right. I didn't realize I timed this up so poorly. Same team.

Lad McConkey.

Lad McConkey.

Bears and Chargers, baby.

I guess so. I didn't even think about it when we had those two guys up on the board.

Offenses.

For me, Lad McConkie has been the name that has been as the most locked.

Yes.

On the board for the most amount of time. To me, this is, you know, Jason's talked a little bit about the context for the offense in Los Angeles. This is a team favored to win the division. It's got Mike McDaniel. You know, Mike McDaniel himself came out and said, essentially, I think it's reasonable as an expectation to exceed whatever career highs the wide receiver room has had. Ladd across the board. There's untapped potential. We've seen great things from Ladd McConkie, but to me, he jumps off the page this year as sort of the JSN story that we got from last year. JSN was not, if you remember, he was not drafted anywhere near where he was finished or where he finished. And like Ladd had a very disappointing sophomore season. And you look at the numbers and I'm, it's like 6 fewer targets. Year to year. What actually happened was the catch rate plummeted because Justin Herbert was under fire all the time and they had different injuries and struggles throughout this team, including Herbert's, you know, is Herbert elite? You know, that's a question that we need answered. But the situation there with the offensive line improvements, you know, Ladd is one of 7 wide receivers over the last decade with 200+ targets, 1,900 receiving yards, 13 touchdowns through 2 seasons.

The other names Michael Thomas, Justin Jefferson, Waddle, Chase, good company. And all of those players, anybody that's ever done that in the history of the league were all top 24 picks the next year. Well, that's not the, you know, that, that's a tough situation where you're like, hey, Lad McConkie has the potential to do what JSN does. There were doubts about JSN being able to play outside. There's no more Keenan Allen soaking up that league. I mean, he was the team's leading receiver last year, is gone. And Lad McConkie, I don't think any of us has had doubt about his talent and ability. But, you know, last year Keenan Allen cost Lad a ton of numbers, a ton of production. This team has a lot of potential. And the biggest problem with the Chargers is just what will go wrong narrative. What's going to happen? I mean, that's the same thing I think about with Hampton. It's like, I traded Hampton. Do I want to? Not really. I think we loved him coming out of college. But I'm afraid of what's going to go wrong on this team. Lad McConkie is more than a slot receiver.

His horizontal breaking routes, that's the bread and butter, but he can go deep. Last year, best yards per route run on go routes. Puka, Jaden Reed, AJ Brown, Lad McConkie. He was number 4. And the draft cost is a round discount from last year. Yes, he was overdrafted last year. People expected that rookie season to continue and him to finish as a top 12 guy again. Didn't happen, but now you get a discount. So for me, I think this is one of those ones that seems really obvious. Mike McDaniel, Justin Herbert, a loss of their leading receiver last year. You're not going to have volume production out of Trey Harris. You're not going to have volume production out of Quentin Johnston. You're going to have Lad McConkie be the key cog in the receiving game. So that's why he's my guy.

Lad McConkie is going to crush this year. He is going to be so Good. Keenan Allen was the wide receiver 8 a couple years ago. Keenan being gone, Ladd being the clear best wide— I mean, I like Trey Harris. You know, there's a place for, for Cuje down the field. The ball is moving through Ladd and Hampton on a great offense.

I mean, they move Tyreek and Waddle around all the time under Mike McDaniel. They're going to move Ladd around. He's not just going to play in the slot. He's going to be outside. He's going to be moved around and focused on. And he wins. He wins down the field.

My concerns early in the offseason, again, it's never been talent. It was, man, how do you have the rookie season that McConkie had? And then you bring in Keenan Allen and you're just like, feels like you've replaced a second-year player who looks like he was about to be a superstar. Like that felt really bad.

It was weird.

It took some time to get over that of, of are they going to do the right thing? What of our opinion? Would they do the right thing and make sure that Lad McConkie is the focal piece of the passing offense? And over the offseason, my concerns have lowered with—

Yeah, McDaniel will do that.

Yes. And it feels— it's always funky and funny when you get to like the end result and you're like, I can't believe I had some concerns about it. But last year was like, that was so weird. But we're washing that away. Just like they washed away G-Ro and then they bring in Mike McDaniel.

So far, I mean, my read on Ladd, rookie year, I was all in. That was great. Sophomore year, I was out. I was out of his draft. I am so in and so jealous that Andy got Ladd. He's going to, he's so good at football. Did you guys see the latest breaking news? Really smart.

Do I need to hit a button?

No, it's not that important, but it's just really, really smart work from Michael Penix. He will not play in preseason week 3. So I can only assume he will be the starter. He's going to let Tua give him the job.

Is that like skipping a political debate?

Yeah.

Yeah. And then if you know that your opponents are going to fail on that stage, let them do work.

We did it. Just a quick blurb. Luther Burden returned to practice.

That seems good for my guy. Yeah.

We love it.

Yeah, we love it. We do need those weapons there. Thursday, mock draft episode. Friday, fantasy time machine. Friday night, we will be live at the Van Buren for our Megalashow bold predictions episode. That means everybody out there listening, watching that isn't going to be there. Gets a bonus episode of the show released on Saturday, which is super exciting. You get an extra episode this week. The Ultimate Draft Kit for the weekend, ultimatedraftkit.com. If you want to play in the Megalobowl, that's megalobowl.com. And we are saying goodbye, but only till tomorrow, folks. Hopefully you'll share your comments with us. I'm sure you will for all of those My Guys, whether you're surprised, ashamed. We'll see what happens.

Goodbye. Bye.

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.