Late-Round Perspectives: Mike Wright

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Mike Wright is a host and founder of the Fantasy Footballers podcast, one of the most decorated sports shows on the planet.

00:00:06
Speaker 2: He used to be on Team Man Bun.

00:00:08
Speaker 1: He loves both Antonio Gibson and a goofy movie, and he's a serious, serious sneakerhead. These are his late Round perspectives. You know, I didn't have this on the uh in the show sheet, but I do have to talk about Antonio Gibson. Isn't that like, my God, Isn't it Isn't it? Isn't it just like a like any show that you do, you just have to talk about Antonio Gibson. Because look, here's the thing, man, I like Antonio Gibson as a player too, like I'm borderline Truther status. And then Week one happens and I think, look, this is a take that I threw out there on the Mailbag episode, but I think that Antonio Gibson might be like a super super by I low right now. And I say that because in Week one, the carry split between Robinson and Gibson before that fumble was four to three. Things were trending the way that we basically thought that that backfield might trend. But are you Are you done? Are you just over Antonio Gibson At this point.

00:01:19
Speaker 3: I'm I can't be done because that's impossible. It's impossible for me to quit Antonio Gibson. But that was it was a brutal start. And who I quit? I quit Ron Rivera, That's who I quit. Stop suboptimally using your players? Yeah, like what and the if you the for people who didn't see the Brian Robinson touchdown the catch, I don't know that that target was going to Brian Robinson. It looks like he did. The ball was kind of in his vicinity, so it wasn't a great pass, yeah, because there's two people on the same spot and Robinson took it to his credit and then he scored. But it's just it's been so frustrating, even when Antonio Gibson has been great, it's been like you just want to rip your hair out.

00:02:05
Speaker 2: Of why why did you draft this player in the third to use him like this? Like it? Yeah, it's so frustrating. I feel you.

00:02:14
Speaker 1: I feel you one hundred percent. I think he's more talented than others do, and clearly the coaching staff does. And look the coaching staff even last year with like Sam Howe and the way that they didn't get him reps, and he's clearly a better option than a Taylor Heineke. I mean, you know, I I do have to question, like, like I think there's a low key chance that this is where I just fire off my hot takes on on late round perspectives. But let's go, baby, I think there's a low key chance that he's going to be on the hot seat.

00:02:41
Speaker 2: Like like halfway through the year, I had talked about, like preseason, I've had mentioned several times about like, well, don't worry about next year because Revera's not going to be here. Yeah.

00:02:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about week one. It just happened, right, all right. Uh, it's very easy to overreact based on what happened week one. You know, we go all off season studying and researching this stuff, and then it's sort of like week one is our first test of the season, right, Like we're where we're finally hitting that like finals week, and then it's just boom, you got your first test done.

00:03:12
Speaker 2: And week one.

00:03:13
Speaker 1: You know, for me, it was kind of average, maybe a little bit below average. Didn't feel great with some of these players, especially like a Drake London and folks like that. But clearly there's a small sample size that we're working with here. Right it's week one, So I want to ask you what's your sort of philosophy here? Are you someone who Do you think that you overreact more than other analysts, more than other players do? Or do you think that you underreact versus what other people do?

00:03:37
Speaker 2: Hmmm, I'd say personally, I I've evolved where back?

00:03:46
Speaker 3: I mean, many many years ago, I would have reacted very heavily and swiftly and immediately. But now you know, I'm more open to ideas of not just targets, you know, the targets per route run, all all of those types of things factor stronger into my analysis now. So I can look at someone not not like the targets per route run were terrible, But I can look at like sky Moore and people are ready to you know, Anchorman Baxter punt this guy off of a bridge.

00:04:21
Speaker 2: And I mean which I feel it?

00:04:24
Speaker 3: I mean I I played him week one like I drafted him. I wasn't like super into sky Moore, but it's a second year wide receiver in a great situation. Oh crap, I took the bait like I put my hand in the trap because Travis Kelcey was out and it's well, let's let's see what we can do on opening week. On opening night, this is gonna be super fun. It was not super fun. If you put sky Moore into your lineup, it was really awesome, like the first six plays and you're just you see him on the field non stop. You go, it's gonna work out, It's gonna work out.

00:04:57
Speaker 2: And then it just never did.

00:04:59
Speaker 3: So I'm willing to have patients with that situation at least one more week. If we have another cardio king sky Moore is out there, I will not be making that Well, he was on the field for seventy five percent of the snaps, Like, if he's not getting targets, I'm gonna move on because MVS is the exact same thing for the Chiefs, Like he was the guy who was out there all the time last year, but he wasn't the one who ended up with the production. So I'm trying not to overreact to that situation. Like Drake London, same thing. It will That one.

00:05:34
Speaker 2: Felt really really bad.

00:05:37
Speaker 3: I mean, the draft pick was a much higher investment than sky Moore, right, and oh my freaking Arthur coming out with just yeah, I mean he just dumped a whole bunch of salt into the wounds that he's put onto our bodies. Yeah, it's like, shut up fantasy players, Which is.

00:05:57
Speaker 2: It? It?

00:05:58
Speaker 3: It gets me, man, it does, because yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

00:06:02
Speaker 2: No, I was just gonna say.

00:06:03
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say the fact that he's sitting there saying that Drake London doesn't care about fantasy football.

00:06:08
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a bull crowd that.

00:06:11
Speaker 1: He Sorry, Drake Lennon might not care about fantasy football, but Drake Lennon cares if he's getting the ball. He's an Alpha wide receiver in the NFL.

00:06:18
Speaker 2: Of course he cares.

00:06:20
Speaker 3: Yes, And you're, you know who should also care your fan base? You're the Atlanta the Atlanta Falcons fan base. Great, you got the w sure week one, that feels really really good against a situation you should.

00:06:34
Speaker 2: Have easily won the game.

00:06:35
Speaker 3: Right, But you've now spent two top ten picks. Well, London was eight, is that right?

00:06:42
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:06:42
Speaker 3: Yep, and then Pitts was three or four. Yeah, You've spent insane draft capital on these players, and you're like, no, I don't.

00:06:52
Speaker 2: Use them, Like why did.

00:06:56
Speaker 3: What is the dysfunction between you and the general manager of bringing these guys in like this is you could have had a killer defensive peace right at least an option. So that's so it either the win covers. A win is a sound for almost everything. But under the surface, you if I'm an Atlanta fan and they've done this, I would be furious.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's the thing that's really unfortunate too, with someone like London who look London on. I mean, if you watch him last year, you know, our buddy Matt Harmon with reception perception, he charts these guys and he saw studliness from Drake London. You know, every metric imaginable showed studliness from Drake London last year. Everything pointed in the right direction. And so my outlook on London was regardless of situation, I want to bet on good players period. Like what you know the Falcons offense. If that Falcons offense just had a little bit more passing I'm talking like a fifty two percent pass right instead of a forty five percent one or even a fifty percent one, then all of a sudden, he can easily outplay his adp right because if he is as good as everything indicated in year one, and then goes out in week one. Obviously they go very run heavy once again in a positive game script, or at least a fairly good game script for them.

00:08:13
Speaker 2: He gets one target.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: And then now in week two you're sitting there and you know, I have a lot of Drake London and I'm like, I can't start him.

00:08:19
Speaker 2: I can't play Drake London. This week he gets j R.

00:08:21
Speaker 1: Alexander, you know all these and so if the if the bat outing happens this week again, right, and we can pinpoint the matchup a little bit more for Drake London this week if the if the numbers don't show, and then it's week three and week three and four, he's got good matchups like they're there, but then all of a sudden in week three, you know you don't have, you know, the confidence to be able to throw him in your lineup because he didn't do well in week two, even if the matchup had to do something to do with that. And so basically what I'm getting at is, hopefully Drake London can put together like a like a four for sixty line this weekend, right, like please, it doesn't have to be remarkable because we know that it's going to be a tough matchup. Doesn't have to be amazing, but we just need a sign of life because then in week three, you know, it's either Seattle or Detroit. But they get those two teams in week three and week four. But in those matchups then you can you can more confidently play them in those those potential negative game scripts.

00:09:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, if we see.

00:09:18
Speaker 3: If we see like four or fewer targets this week, you're gonna yeah, you're all right, it is Detroit in week three and then Jacksonville.

00:09:27
Speaker 2: Oh, Jacksonville. That's what it was. I mean you.

00:09:31
Speaker 3: It's such a brutal situation because it that's one of the things that I've that where my process has shifted is the is the situation versus talent and the situation still one hundred not it still matters, right, like it still should factor into everything. But I mean, you miss out on We've missed out on I can say I I've missed on on so many good players because I'm what their situation is just garbage. It's like AJ Brown when he was coming in the league. So excited for AJ Brown to get in the draft.

00:10:08
Speaker 2: Tennessee Titans.

00:10:09
Speaker 3: Okay, well he's toast, and then of course he's not toast because he's a great player and they figured out how to use him. So I bet I bet on the tone of Drake Lennon in quite a few spots as well. So just give us five targets, man, Yeah, you give me five targets. Then I'll put him into the Detroit matchup and we'll go from there.

00:10:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:10:27
Speaker 1: I totally agree. That's gonna be our line. If he hits five targets, were victory lapping this weekend?

00:10:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are really Yeah, but he was only one for twenty four. Like, I don't care. I got my five targets exactly, exactly, all right.

00:10:41
Speaker 1: So moving on from more situation based stuff to more player focused stuff. One of the biggest stories that came out of Week one, probably the biggest story in fantasy football because he was usually the number one waiver AD was Pookinakua. So where do you stand with him moving forward? Do you think that that was just a blip. Is he going to become a relevant if and when Cooper Cupper turned or do you think that people should have sort of gone nuts and spent a lot of fob on them.

00:11:05
Speaker 3: The situation that we find ourselves in for week two is extremely difficult because in Week one, when a rookie in their first game fifteen targets, I think it was something.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: It was just ridiculous. You have to go after that. You have to chase it.

00:11:22
Speaker 3: This is not Ogletree caught two touchdowns on four targets or whatever, where the production's there but there's nothing behind it. This was holy crap. This rookie is a revelation. Is this the new Robert Woods for Sean McVay and that offense? Like can he fill into that role? Who knows when Cooper Cup is going to be back? That it's a you still have to say if if Cooper Cup is back this year, we just it could be week five, it could be never. So you have to play like you have like Cooper Cup is not there, so go after Pooka. And yet you find him against the San Francisco forty nine ers, who will be able to put far more pressure on to Matthew Stafford. The Seattle Seahawks, I mean they were generating nothing. Stafford looked so good just watching the game. I mean, he was sharp. The passes were exactly where they needed to be, and he had a player in Puka who could fulfill when those opportunities were given. So I think we can say that, yeah, Puka is a good player, but I'm very, very worried about the rubber band going snapping completely the other direction in this matchup, and then all hell is going to break loose when Puka is is two for twenty eight this week on six targets and people are like, well, I dumped all the fab and then maybe then it's an opportunity for to be opportunistic and go scoop up Pooka for far cheaper than they did. But season long, it's hard to not be in on what you saw week one, and the game could have been so much bigger. I mean, you had at least the one route I can think of where Pooka laid out and Stafford overthrew him by like a half a foot. If that passes just slightly better, Puka scores again. You know, It's like, so I'm in on Pooka, but I am very concerned.

00:13:25
Speaker 2: I didn't. I missed out on him.

00:13:27
Speaker 3: Everywhere my because I had to bid on stupid running backs. Of course, Uh so I didn't. I didn't have the fab for for Puka, but I'm I'm concerned for the people that dumped heavily into week two because if you did, you have to play him right, Like, you can't spend twenty plus percent of your season fab and then be like sweet, go on my bench there, guy, and we'll see what happens.

00:13:51
Speaker 1: You know, you plug him right in, right, and you're gonna play him after he sees fifteen targets the week prior.

00:13:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.

00:13:56
Speaker 1: That's the other thing is that you just can't let that sit on your bench. You're gonna you're gonna want to in there at least is like your wide receiver three or your flex you know, I'm in on Nakua. I agree with you that when you see younger players really break out and have games like this, especially when they have you know, I talked about this in the mailbag too, but especially when they have a backbone the way that you know, like Zay Flowers for instance, is a lot easier to say, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna be in We're gonna talk about him in a little bit. But you know, Zay Flower is a lot easier to say Oh yeah. I mean he's a stud because he was a first round pick. He had this great production, you know, YadA YadA. Yeah, everything looked good for him in the draft as a prospect.

00:14:34
Speaker 2: All that.

00:14:34
Speaker 1: Nikua fallows he's a Day three guy. And realistically, if you look at history of Day three players who did what he did week one. I looked at guys who had a twenty five percent target share better since twenty eleven in Week one as rookies, and it's not great. I mean the best comp honestly, if you just strictly look at Day three, right, I'm not talking about like that, because there were a lot of Day one guys, a handful of them in Day two that did find But uh, Green was one. I think he was Day three, but he was one back in Jacksonville, and he saw thirteen targets his first every NFL game he saw thirteen targets. He maxed out the rest of his career. He never saw a game with more than four after that. And so you know, you have you have a little bit of that going where you're like, I'm a little fearful that it could go that direction. But you know, I wasn't prospecting the way that I am now. When Rashad Green was a rookie, I was like twenty fifteen or something like that, and I liked Nakula enough as a prospect to say. And then and then you combine that with, you know, all the hype that was going on out of RAMS camp. I mean, there are certain teams that beat writers are pretty on point with, and there are certain teams where they're not as on point with. And there are certain beat writers that are very on point.

00:15:44
Speaker 2: Of course.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: And I got to give Jordan Rodrieg from the Athletic a ton of props for two calls with the Rams this year. She was hyping up Poka Nakua, talking about how the team really liked him a lot, and and et cetera, you know, during the summer and in July and such. And then the other thing that she talked about was Kien Williams, where she said that Kien Williams was was gonna dig into cam Akers role. And that really changed my mind in the way. You know, I wasn't really aggressive aggressively drafting Acres, but I actually ended up making Acres a fade because of that report and because of the way that we saw some of that usage playing out. And then you look at Karen Williams in week one, he was there RB one. You know, I know that Acres ended up seeing more touches, but Williams out snapped Acres twenty six to four. In the first half. He saw dramatically more routes run than Acres. Do you think that that is for real?

00:16:34
Speaker 2: Do you think?

00:16:35
Speaker 1: I mean, look, we saw to be fair, we saw this with the Rams even last year with Daryl Henderson, right, yeah, And so do you think this is for real?

00:16:41
Speaker 2: Are you buying heavily into Kien Williams.

00:16:43
Speaker 1: Are you just saying I'll see if I can get him off the waiver wire and kind of go from there, or are you gonna take the contrarian route and go the cam Akers way.

00:16:51
Speaker 3: I will not go to the camp Akers route. The I will bind to kyn being the guy. And that's just that's Having followed though the entire story of cam Akers Cameron as we call him on The Footballers Podcast, We've we've made him more formal, but like the tale of last year was.

00:17:15
Speaker 2: So wild of the fact.

00:17:17
Speaker 3: That he was even back from the Achilles injury, which is like at least in the we haven't we don't have a ton of guys with the Achilles injury, right, But it's just it's kind of been the end, or at least the end for multiple years.

00:17:30
Speaker 2: So he's back.

00:17:33
Speaker 3: That's already fascinating, and but then you get I don't remember, like a month, maybe six weeks in, and then we have the whole explosion over social media, the reports. The coaching staff says that Acres is not going to take another snap for this team, and we are going to trade him. He's inactive. They're really so they're actually trying to get rid of him. Shockingly, nobody wants a running back coming off with an achilles tear where you don't know for sure that he's back, I mean, the shocking stuff. And so then they the Rams, to their credit, kind of tucktail, but I mean kind of at this point, their season was already toast because because Cups shut down, Matthew Stafford is shut down. It's we just got to put somebody out there. And it turns into Acres having this huge role and then he's fantastic with it, not against the toughest of competition, but it's still you can only play the team moves in front of you, and he was great. And so then the question that we had to wrestle with all off season is is he that good? And do the rams because I don't know where you were on Acres coming into the league.

00:18:48
Speaker 2: He was a very exciting process.

00:18:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the draft capital that everything pointed to Acres is going to have a good career for fantasy football for us. So you had to balance all that with everything that had gone on, so it's not shocking.

00:19:06
Speaker 2: And on top of that, we also had the the the vague reports week after week one where Kyra Williams got hurt on special teams and that's where we saw a whole bunch of Acres and it.

00:19:16
Speaker 3: Was like well, or like what what what are we doing here? And it was well, the report was actually Kyra Williams was supposed to be this guy. That was their plan all along, which I get it. Some Beat reporters they talk about like they're not allowed to share certain things, right, which is I don't know, that's it's just this weird agreement that they have with teams.

00:19:37
Speaker 2: But you had to at least hold on to that too. Of well, that's strange.

00:19:42
Speaker 3: They wanted to feature Kyraen Williams, but he got a I think a high ankle sprain right at the beginning of the year, and a high ankle sprain for a running back it can derail the whole season, which it basically did that to Kyrin, So that information is all still there. So it's it's not shocking it what happened in week one. It's not shocking that player that that Nick Veigh was like, I don't want you on my team, and then they just had to give him all the work and it was And now you look back and go were they were they featuring him to maybe trade him? Were they punishing? Were they They're like, hey, Acres, why don't you go take some more snaps, buddy?

00:20:18
Speaker 2: These games are worthless. Go get beat up.

00:20:21
Speaker 3: Like there's just so many human elements that we don't have access to. But anyway, that's a really long winded way of me saying it. It should not be surprising that Kyron Williams has ended up being the preferred running back for Sean mcvah and co. Now does that translate into actual fantasy value. It's the same thing as I'm terrified of Puka for week two. Kyron against the forty nine ers, Like with what not that the Steelers, you were hoping they had fixed the offensive line at least a little bit. But Nagy and Warren, I mean, there's nothing, absolute nothingness. You think that the Rams are gonna be able to get I have no confidence in that.

00:21:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I feel I think the other thing too with Kyrone is I didn't like he was fine as a prospect, but he didn't have the explosiveness. He had a horrible, horrible speed scorer.

00:21:10
Speaker 3: I mean like the combine, Like the combine destroyed him because he was When we always start our scouting process around January, when the regular season ends, these people that can.

00:21:24
Speaker 2: Do college and the pros shout out to you.

00:21:27
Speaker 3: I do not have the mental bandwidth or energy in my old man body to handle that. So I start scouting guys in January pretty fresh, and like I don't keep up with college. I don't know what's going on. So it's everything is pretty fresh to me. I just kind of see who's trending to be drafted, like or you know, in always the combined invite list gives you a really good indicator. But Kyrone's tape was so freaking impressive of him at Notre Dame. I mean, like just he was smaller, but I mean he's breaking tackles all over the place. He didn't look slow in the college tape, but then the old combine came through and you were hoping it was okay, this is a Dalvin Cook situation. This is I watched Dalvin Cook. I watched him play in college. He was incredible. He tanked the combine. They took him in the second round. He was fantastic.

00:22:21
Speaker 2: Nope, the draft said we do not care about.

00:22:23
Speaker 1: This player, right right, exactly like the other like his speed score was so bad, which is way to justin forty times for those who are totally unaware.

00:22:31
Speaker 2: But his speed score was.

00:22:32
Speaker 1: So bad that the players that have been successful with his low of speed score, because speed score alone is not incredibly predictive, but when you look at it with certain thresholds, it can be at least kind of throw guys out and say you don't really need to go after this player necessarily unless other things and part of his profile can really elevate.

00:22:52
Speaker 2: You know that low speed score.

00:22:53
Speaker 1: You know, Kyvin Willis is a great pass catcher, which is something that I always look for I know you do too great pass catcher coming out, but that speed score just tanked him. And all the players who even had a little bit higher speed score compared to Kyron have not been successful in the NFL.

00:23:07
Speaker 2: And that that, to me.

00:23:08
Speaker 1: Is one of the biggest things with Williams and what differentiated at least for me Puka to Kyroen in terms of adding guys off the waiver wire at least recommending, you know, to folks about guys off the waiver wire, is I just don't know if Kien Williams is a great running back, Like I think that he could be solid. I think a lot, But I just think a lot of running backs can be solid, you know, Like like it's there's people that are talking junk on Rashad White right now, for instance, and how inefficient he was, which I.

00:23:35
Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, I am, yeah, yeah, totally understand that.

00:23:39
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, there's only to me, instead of looking at the running back position from the perspective of you know, there's all these different tiers and layers.

00:23:47
Speaker 2: To me, it's literally just are you a true difference maker? Are you?

00:23:50
Speaker 1: Derrick Henry Breese Hall, These rushers that. I mean, like Breece hall on this past week just showed us all like how elite he actually is.

00:23:58
Speaker 2: Right, and so are you that kind of player? Oh you're not? Okay?

00:24:02
Speaker 1: Well then we're just gonna cross our fingers and hope that your team gives you a lot of volume, right like that? That's yeah, and hopefully you're a pass catcher, which is exactly what we went for fantasy right, which is which is my argument sort of like with like a Rashad White right now, where it's like, yeah, I don't know if he's gonna be that electric as a runner. I don't think he will be that electric as a runner, but if you look at all the peripherals week one, you know, his top ten and route participation in his top five and snapshare, if that continues period, he could be trash and still be okay in fantasy football, you know. And I kind of see that with the Kien Williams. I don't think Karen Wons is trash. I don't think Rashad White's trash. But I'm just saying, like with a player like Williams, you know, it's hard to go so so hard with him because I don't know if the talent, you know, the talent's obviously not Breece Hall esque, but this coaching staff seems to favor him, so you should at least be looking at him off the waiver wire.

00:24:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have.

00:24:52
Speaker 3: You have to care about who the coach cares about, because it's not like there's not three running backs on the field at the same time, there's just the one. And I understand week one, that's a big win for LA, that's a big win for the Rams. But and maybe we're all maybe the whole world of football is wrong about the Rams. Maybe, but this was one of the teams that is favored to get the number one overall picked, like they're already like a lot of LA fans are already drafting Williams as their starting quarterback of the future. Maybe not anymore. That you won Week one, which Arizona, we appreciate that, thank you for winning that game, LA, But it's like, is that was that just a are we all wrong? Or is that like a or is that a trend? Like the Rams are just gonna be one of those teams that surprise us, and they're way better than they are because they they will have to be. They will have to be way better than you thought they were going to be for Kyron to actually pay off.

00:25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. All right, So speak of Breese Hall, right, just brought up Breesaw. This is what we call a transition, a segue in the business.

00:26:06
Speaker 2: Very professional, Yeah, very very good.

00:26:08
Speaker 1: Uh, Breese Hall's teammate is Garrett Wilson, and Garrett Wilson no longer.

00:26:14
Speaker 2: You know.

00:26:14
Speaker 1: I opened the show saying that Puka and Akua is probably the biggest story, which he probably is in fantasy, but from a real football standpoint, it's obviously Aaron Rodgers Rogers out for the year. You go to Zach Wilson. It sounds like it's gonna be Zach Wilson, and you know, look, it's sounds like there's like these obvious answers at quarterback out there for New York to just go out and get. You know, we'll see what ends up happening, you know, by the end of the season, but right now, Zack Wilson's the guy. So you go from Garrett Wilson with Aaron Rodgers, where he was looking like he was gonna be a bona fide stud wide receiver in fantasy now he's got Zack Wilson, where is the wide receiver line for him? For you right what's the worst wide receiver right now that you would take over Garrett Wilson?

00:26:57
Speaker 2: Oh man, I mean this.

00:26:59
Speaker 3: In this we're right back to talent versus opportunity because while he was the offensive rookie of the year, his there is a direct correlation. Last year, there was a direct correlation between games that were Zach Wilson in games that were not, And Garrett Wilson was much much better in the games that Zack Wilson was not the starting quarterback. Maybe maybe he picked up enough from Aaron Rodgers. I won't completely rule that out. Like when you get someone in with that vast amount of knowledge that is willing to share that knowledge with you, you can elevate. I mean, over over a couple months of training camp. I'm sure that Aaron Rodgers has improved Zack Wilson tremendously, like way more than just throwing him out there for a few years that he would learn on his own. So that part is I'll leave I'll leave room for that. But like we had, we yet we fielded a question that was actually thankfully it was easy was do I trade. I have an offer right now. I can trade Garrett Wilson for T Higgins and we're like, yeah, you you smashed that button. I hope I hope they didn't get retracted and you can go get that offer done right now.

00:28:14
Speaker 2: I mean worst.

00:28:17
Speaker 3: I'm so I'm trying to look through the rankings for this week, and I'm going pretty far down and I'm saying, yes, mentally, maybe uh Amari Cooper might be a line I would draw the I I have been pretty firmly on the outside of of the Cleveland Browns offense and not being in on on Deshaun Watson, which all the arguments of like, well Watson was good just a couple of years ago, those are all very valid to me. But I also I can't throw out last year like it was.

00:28:56
Speaker 2: It was so atrocious. You know, well the guy hadn't played football in two years.

00:29:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I see guys off the street one up better games than Deshaun Watson was putting up and we Unfortunately, I can't take anything from Week one right because it was in the rain. Watson had terrible throws, he had good throws. Joe Burrow had only terrible throws, and it's like, I'm not I have I'm not changing my opinion on Joe Burrow being bad in the rain, so I'm not letting that change how I think about Deshaun Watson. But I have strong concerns about does Watson actually have that? And Amari Cooper's snapshare was that completely the injury, like like the little tweak that he got in week one, the fact that that Elijah Moore is there and got a bunch of targets, he's looking good and and People's Jones has his role. So I think Amari Cooper might be that line where I'm not sure who I'd prefer. It's probably Cooper, but that that that's like right about there at least. I'm looking at this week's ranking, Yeah, which I guess I have some guys ranked under that, like Locket I would take even I'm worried about Seattle, which you in your very professional uh uh.

00:30:11
Speaker 2: Outline you sent me they had a letterhead on it.

00:30:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do it. I got it big here, I do it big with the kind.

00:30:17
Speaker 2: Of big time stuff you got. The got this graphic with the lasers going everywhere. Yeah, this is this is incredible work. This is incredible work for one person. Thank you.

00:30:26
Speaker 3: But it's like I would I'd trade for lock A Flowers. Yeah, I would, I'd buy you. But that was because that's week one, just confirmed all my priors on Z Flowers. So I'm victory lapping that.

00:30:38
Speaker 2: Man. Would you would you trade Michael Pittman? Would you trade Garrett Wilson for Michael Pittman?

00:30:45
Speaker 1: I take, I take Garrett Wilson Michael Pittman.

00:30:47
Speaker 2: Okay, I would, I would too, But that's like I understand.

00:30:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, it's so much what you're getting at is that it's alarming and it's frightening, right, because I do think that we could see a scenario where he's still a high end wide receiver too, like it's still in his range of outcomes, because Zach Wilson might be.

00:31:06
Speaker 2: So sad to say like, yeah, if he peaks this season, he might be a wide receiver too. Right, Oh my god, this guy was like a we were drafting him going top five as possible.

00:31:18
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, exactly, And so I do think to another like really interesting sort of comparison to make here is earlier the off season. I know you're a Chris A Lave guy. I'm a chrisal Lave guy. Yes, and and earlier the off season, even last year when when Garrett Wilson deserved to win Offensive Rookie of the Year. I'm not taking that away at all. He's a stud. He's an unbelievable wide receiver. I just think that Chris A. Lave is also an unbelievable wide receiver. And if you break down their numbers, and you look at their per game numbers, you look at their efficiency metrics, Chris A. Lave was literally better than Garrett Wilson last year at every single level, right within those metrics. I'm not saying he's a better wide receiver. I'm not saying, but I do think that they're at least very very close from a talent personive and from an ability perspective. And what really separated Garrett Wilson from Chris A. Lave is Wilson's entering a season with Rogers and a lack of competition in that offense. You know, Alan Lazard being the two. Whereas you know I liked Rashid Shaheed. I thought Michael Thomas. You know, Michael Thomas was commanding a lot of targets last season before he got hurt, you know, and so there was at least reason to not be as bullish on a Lave as Garrett Wilson. And so if the difference is really situation right between those two in the short term, you know, long term whatever, but in the short term, and you know, to me, it was also sort of a differentiator from a dynasty perspective to put Wilson over a Lave. But I was still higher than the market basically on both of those guys. But now Aaron Rodgers is out of the picture. You absolutely cannot look at those two players and say I'm gonna take Garrett Wilson over a Chris Alave. I just you know, from strictly a logic perspective. So you kind of you kind of have to use that perspective, that logic, that process when going down these wide receiver rankings and see where you would place Wilson. When I initially did my rest of season rankings, it was basically Monday night and into Tuesday morning, so I didn't really sit down and think about it and ruminate on it.

00:33:09
Speaker 2: Enough to react.

00:33:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was still sort of like a high end, two mid range two. But I'm gonna be updating that basically today and it's gonna be dropping because I've you know, thought about it more, looked at the splits a little bit more with Zach Wilson, and it's scary, not only in that man, they get Dallas this week and that yes, that offense could get destroyed this week, and then you're gonna be able to have more of a if you really want to, more of a by Low, even a by Lower moment with Garrett Wilson. Now, I don't always like to use use the matchups to dictate that, because if Garret Wilson comes out and balls out, then you're just not gonna get Garrett Wilson, you know, because he does well in a tough matchup and then people are like, oh, he won't. Yeah, But I don't feel overly confident given the way Dallas' defense played week one and what we know about Zach Wilson, that this Jets offense is just gonna all of a sudden dominate and they're probably gonna be, you know, pretty run heavy overall. I'm still here's the thing though, I'm still.

00:34:01
Speaker 2: In on Breeze Hall I I oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Like.

00:34:05
Speaker 1: I am not concerned about Breeshall, given the way he looked weak one. I think Dalvin Cook to me looked slow, did not look explosive. Maybe it's just because we're we're looking at him in comparison to Breese Hall is insane. But I you know, I just think the workload is going to grow, grow, grow, and I could see him easily being in RB one, low end RB one, especially when it matters most during the second half of the year.

00:34:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're they're it's back to last year's New York Jets, which is defense and run the ball and and try to have Zach Wilson not lose us the game. I know the coaching staff they're doing, They're saying all the right things, and this is a it's a much different situation.

00:34:47
Speaker 2: We talked about this on our show.

00:34:48
Speaker 3: Is like the world is rooting for Zach Wilson now, Yeah, like you know, like the public sentiment is completely changed. So really hope that Zach Wilson does not waste this opportunity because last year it was the entire public sentiment is let's tune into the Jets and watch Zach Wilson fall in his face. Because it's really really funny and you know what's gonna happen.

00:35:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, this year it's it's.

00:35:15
Speaker 3: So it's just it's wild how that stuff happens. But they will, they'll try and hide Zach. It's gonna be a lower passing volume, the targets to the running back will go up as especially as Breese Hall continues to get healthy.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm not worried about Bressee Hall.

00:35:29
Speaker 3: You're a little bit bummed out in that, Like, once Breese is healthy, if Rogers were the quarterback of this team and this offense is going like we had all projected, brist Hall over the second half of the season could be like a league winning running back. And not that he can't do that as he rips off of eighty yard scamper on like seventy percent of a leg or something like that, but the probability of him hitting that top three huge for the second half it goes down.

00:36:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:36:03
Speaker 1: And the fact that he is you know, I what I talked about earlier, He's one of those like I actually think a differentiator on the ground where you just don't have many differentiators on the ground. That means that not only is he kind of probably see a decent enough target share, but that means that his rushes are going to be more valuable than what a typical running back rush is going to look like, because we know that he can do what he did, you know on that Monday night game and break out those those huge runs. Let's just talk about Zay Flowers and gush over him a little bit.

00:36:31
Speaker 2: Does that sound good? Yeah?

00:36:33
Speaker 1: If you were drafting right now today, how high and I can throw out some names to some some wide receivers if you would, if you would draft over uh, draft him over them? But how high do you think? Like round or pick what have you?

00:36:47
Speaker 2: Uh?

00:36:47
Speaker 1: Where would you be drafting Zay Flowers?

00:36:50
Speaker 3: So I didn't go back and look at ADP. The fifth was what kind of stood out to me because we're all the ZAI backers. We're all doing the I told you so right now, but you have to factor and Mark Andrews did not play in this game, and Isaiah likely was not the not the replacement tight end that people had hoped for. Yeah, with his one catch, Mark Andrews will come in and immediately command the target share that Mark Andrews demands that like Jay Flowers.

00:37:24
Speaker 2: I think I think you just book it.

00:37:26
Speaker 3: Jay Flowers is the wide receiver one for this team. Yeah, but that's the wide receiver one. That's not the number one pass catcher for this team. So I can see the targets going down from where they were. He's still going to be a great player. But you can't because it wasn't the full power of the Ravens offense. I don't think you can say for sure we know what the ceiling will be for Jay Flowers, or maybe Mark Andrews comes in gets his share, but the offense is so much better that now we have a bunch of more scoring opportunities for Jay Flowers, or it takes pressure off and now Jay Flowers has like easy catches, you know what I mean, where it doesn't all have to be completely manufactured. It's let the defense key on on Mark Andrews in the middle of the field and then all Jay Flowers slips, he's on the outside of the number something like that. Yeah, so I wouldn't go absolutely insane, you know, fifth round, maybe maybe he would sneak into the fourth.

00:38:22
Speaker 2: I'm I can't sure. You can share some names and we'll play the game.

00:38:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, let'slet's play the game. Okay, I'll start, I'll start lower.

00:38:28
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll go. We'll start.

00:38:29
Speaker 1: We'll start with Johan Dotson Terry McLaurin. We'll just group those two together. Flowers flowers over them. Okay, yeah, now we're gonna go. We're gonna go Jordan Addison, who maybe you have in the same tier as those guys, but I have him a little bit.

00:38:42
Speaker 2: Ahead of those two. He's he's pretty close if the stupid Vikings would What are we doing here?

00:38:49
Speaker 1: Like I know, and I by the way, for the record, we're recording this before the Thursday night game, so I want to throw that out there. I did this with Hard It's too last week when we were talking about the Lions, and he actually kind of nailed it with the Lions.

00:39:02
Speaker 2: He thought that they might not be as good offensively and whatever.

00:39:05
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, hopefully, let's let's let's throw this out there into the universe. Hopefully he runs the second most routes in that team tonight.

00:39:12
Speaker 2: Yes, stop it like it's it's so frustrating when you can you can know halfway through the game, I like, oh, yeah, that guy should probably be our number two. What wide receiver.

00:39:26
Speaker 3: Make the change. Yeah, do it right now, Like stop with the veteran. We gotta give them their their due. No, you're trying to win a football game, and I'm trying to win my fantasy football game, and I don't have kJ Osborne.

00:39:40
Speaker 2: So put Addison out there. Yeah, just do the right thing. Come on.

00:39:43
Speaker 1: So, so Addison, you're you're going Flowers over Addison right now?

00:39:46
Speaker 2: Again? Uh, you realize whatever you say here.

00:39:48
Speaker 1: If you say Flowers over Addison, that means Addison's gonna have a three touchdown game tonight. If you go Addison over Flowers and he's gonna have zero points.

00:39:55
Speaker 3: That's a that's a win win for me, JJ because I got them both in my two important spots, just in the opposite direction.

00:40:00
Speaker 2: So I will take that. I think, I think I would.

00:40:05
Speaker 3: I mean, oh gosh, PPR hey, Yeah, scoring format to the rescue PPR all goes Flowers.

00:40:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the that's the biggest cop out in fantasy analysis. What's what's your scoring format? Yeah?

00:40:23
Speaker 1: Okay, such a cop out? All right, that's that's fair though, that's fair. I have I have Zay ahead of Jordandison right now. Rest of the season. Oh, but they're they're close enough. I mean they're probably like five spots in overall rank, not even wide receiver rank. Let's go, this is the hard I think this is a hard one, Okay, Deebo, Samuel.

00:40:43
Speaker 2: Oh, I think I'll still keep Debo. Yeah, I have Deebo one spot ahead of Zay.

00:40:50
Speaker 1: I think Deebo is kind of the line because i've Jay right now wide receiver twenty ish and and and Deebo like wide receiver.

00:40:56
Speaker 2: You know, they're both like mid range wide receiver twos. You know. I I just.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: I know Brandon Ayuke dominated, and I have Brandon Ayuk straight up over Debo moving forward. And you know he was to me, he was the better value in drafts and such this offseason. But regardless of that, Deebo, I still think this offense is going to just take advantage of whatever the defense is giving and whatever type of defense their opponent's playing. And Week one really favored Brandon Ayuk. We're just gonna see this rotation as we knew going into the season, right like that, like we knew this was the case to some degree. I mean, maybe not as lopsided from a production standpoint as what we saw Week one with Ayuk, but you know, I still think Debo is gonna be fine enough.

00:41:35
Speaker 3: And I had I don't remember where I heard it, but I feel like there's splits of and and uh the gins or you can tell me if this is true of I've heard that in man like secondaries that favor man defense.

00:41:52
Speaker 2: That's that's when you.

00:41:53
Speaker 3: See Ayuk going yep, and and and secondaries that favor a zone defense.

00:41:57
Speaker 2: That's when you see Debo go off. Right.

00:41:59
Speaker 3: So, I mean I don't know enough about which makes sense what they're doing. I mean they got I mean, how are you joining my boy?

00:42:07
Speaker 1: My boy Patrick, your boy Patrick? Oh, Patrick Peterson?

00:42:13
Speaker 2: Patrick?

00:42:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that like one of the questions that I get, Like I get the question all the time, who is your team?

00:42:20
Speaker 2: Like, people don't know what team I root for? What? Like what teams? Yeah, they don't know what. But here's the they.

00:42:26
Speaker 3: Listen to any of your content. You won't stop talking about the freaking steel.

00:42:30
Speaker 2: That's all I talk about. How much I love the Steelers.

00:42:34
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean you know it because we hung out so much, and you know my background and where I'm from and all of that.

00:42:40
Speaker 2: But yeah, look the Steelers.

00:42:42
Speaker 1: The Steelers defense is rough man, So I I do think that, uh, you know, when you get these technicians as route runners going up against them, which is why historically we've seen slock guys really destroy the Steelers. It's part of the problem, part of the reason we remember like Keenan Allen played against them, just will destroy them, right. I could see that with like Elijah Moore this week, and so you know that's why Brandon Ayuk I think, had the game that he had. The worry for me going into that game was we just didn't know what brock Perdy was gonna like, We had no idea what that was like. And so you know, he ended up looking great. So that's why I think Debo I can safely put above Zay. Maybe not safely, but I feel okay putting him above Zay. But that's where I'm at man, Like I am, I am very I think when you get a situation like this, when a when a good and this is a little bit different from Puka because we have that backbone, like I was talking about earlier, we know that Jay Flowers, or at least we have a better idea than Jay Flowers is a very, very good player. Given everything that we look at production, you know, whether you're looking at film, how other people viewed him, it was a consensus for the most part, this guy's good. There's gonna be some people that look through analytics and prospect through analytics that said, no, he's not an early declare I don't want him, but you know, we we need to get past that. You know, it's an input, but it's definitely not everything, not even close to everything.

00:43:55
Speaker 3: Sure, And you have to love that this wasn't just the ball like some guys are like, oh, the ball finds.

00:44:03
Speaker 2: Them, like they just you know, they're they're just a magnet for it was. This was the opposite. This was the.

00:44:09
Speaker 3: Baltimore Ravens are like, we need to get the ball to day Flowers and we need to do it NonStop for the entirety of the game.

00:44:18
Speaker 2: And then I had shared this one.

00:44:21
Speaker 3: Someone had tweeted a one of this one of the screen passes and they put then they did this really cool slow mo cut of it, so you can find that on my Twitter.

00:44:30
Speaker 2: But it was just.

00:44:32
Speaker 3: The nastiest moves of making professional defenders look foolish in his first ever NFL games. You gotta be really excited for Jay Flowers moving forward.

00:44:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna take the aggressive side when it comes to these younger players. I'm gonna I'm gonna go after them on the waiver wire. I'm gonna buy more often than sell. There are very few instances where I wouldn't go that route. Speaking of a wide receiver who I think we both been on at times throughout his career and like as a player, Michael Pittman Man, how about Michael, Yeah, Pitty City coming through with a big Week one. You know, he's someone who I had as a fade early in the offseason because I was worried about the offensive situation and you know, having a mobile rookie quarterback, and then his ADP just kept falling and falling and falling, and he ended up on some of my teams as a result because his ADP was falling. I talked about that a bit before the season started. Do you think, though, based on Week one, they threw the ball thirty seven times Anthony Richardson had thirty seven pass or maybe it was a combination of him in Minshew or I think Richardson had the thirty seven attempts. But regardless, they threw the ball a lot more than any of us expected. Game script plays a role in that, obviously, But do you think that Michael Pittman, with a twenty eight percent target share the clear number one in this offense? You know, I did some research on RPOs and it showed that RPO heavy offenses will target and really fixate on these top wide outs. That was stuff that Ben Gretch had introduced into my brain, and I just kind of researched a little bit more. I mean, is he really an obvious cell candidate or is he someone that you're holding or is he someone that you're actually buying.

00:46:12
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know that i'd be buying. I have him in my most important league, and it was one of the saddest, most regrettable draft picks I had to make. Yeah, where it's like, guys, look at the board right right, like who who is left? I know that Michael Pittman is a good player, I know it, but his situation and talent verse situation. In Week one, talent has won out and maybe situation has changed. Because I agree with you that it was it was Richardson threw the ball thirty seven times sixty five percent completion rate over two hundred yards. That was I think that was pretty surprising to me as I was I've kind of been of our show the most vocal of how you take that that Anthony Richardson that I watched in college and say, yeah, we're super confident that this is going to work out as a pro Like I've I've seen this arch type before and it does not work, but so far through week when it does, the thirty seven pass attempts is extremely exciting. Now, perhaps this was a situation of they saw what the Jags were doing on offense with Calvin Ridley back from the grave to be write right into being like, oh gosh, dang it, Calvin Riley's really that good. So perhaps they looked at that and said we have to keep pace. And now in week two versus Houston, it's going to be more of a more of a nasty slow slow the game down a little bit.

00:47:48
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't buy, but I wouldn't sell, Like if I drafted Michael Pittman, I'm gonna I'm gonna ride this thing out a little bit more and and hope that I had a value instead of trying to just quick capitalize and ship him out.

00:48:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because here's the thing too, is that in spots that I have him, it was in a league where people clearly didn't like him, right, similar to your situation, and you have to think about the psychology of your league mates, and if he did follow in your draft. It's not like all of a sudden your league mates are gonna be like, oh, I need to get Michael Pittman. I need a trade for Michael Pittman. If they didn't like him that much in the preseason. It's one game I would hold if I had him, almost regardless of situations. I just don't think that people are buying him, you know, after that performance, you know, I just I.

00:48:28
Speaker 2: Don't think I have him, And I'm like, I don't know, yeah, right right right.

00:48:33
Speaker 1: I think he's like like he was one of those players where, you know, every every Sunday night and into Monday, I'm looking at guys who I can feature in the fifteen Transaction Show and on my fifteen Transactions list, and he was one, honestly that I immediately looked at and was like, oh, this is a cell candidate. And then I thought about it more. I'm like, I don't think so I don't think he's a sell. I think he's more of a hold right now. Just given that situation, let it play out a little bit and kind of see what happens, because we know that the talent's there and we know that versus you know, I wasn't a big, big Alec Pierce fan coming out.

00:49:01
Speaker 2: I did like Josh.

00:49:01
Speaker 1: Downs though a lot, and Down's played Sure, played a decent bit and had a decent enough target share in his and his debut, but even still, you know, he's the most talented player in the offense from a from a receiving standpoint. You know, maybe they get more run heavy when Jonathan, if Jonathan Taylor comes back and plays for them, but yeah, you know, it's probably more of a hold.

00:49:18
Speaker 2: Like to illustrate where we were before, or let's.

00:49:23
Speaker 3: Just go last Wednesday, Yeah, Travis Kelce is not gonna play, and I go.

00:49:29
Speaker 2: I can't play Michael Pittman. I've got sky Moore, baby, this is just oh yeah, oh yeah.

00:49:36
Speaker 3: So so sky Moore went in for my flex position instead of Michael Pittman this week.

00:49:42
Speaker 2: It did not work. Yeah, that's rough, that's rough.

00:49:45
Speaker 1: I mean, to be fair, I dropped pooka akua in a league because I said to myself, oh no, I said to myself, I got a lot of pooka akua across my leagues. Sure I'm gonna you know, I'll diversify a little bit. And I picked up because I have a team with bad tight ends. I picked up Isaiah Likely for oh yeah, locked in yeah, top ten option. It's like, there's no way that Niku is going to have this amazing opening day, right, yeah.

00:50:06
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, of course. Oh man.

00:50:09
Speaker 1: So after week one, you know, we were just talking about buy candidates and such, you think there are any like under the radar by candidates that you know aren't because a lot of people say the same guys like Jamior Gibbs is you know, I even featured Gibbs on fifteen transactions. This is a pretty easy by candidate. But you know, do you think that there are any that after week seventeen, you know, we're going to look back and see that that these guys we we really kind of understated what happened in week one.

00:50:38
Speaker 3: I would say it's it can't be a Mike JJ collab without talking about Khalil Herbert here. It is starting running back of the Chicago Bears people starting running back. Look Roshawn Johnson, Maybe I don't. Maybe I understand he had all those recepts and stuff. It was all at the end of the game. Khalil Herbert and Deonta Foreman were already done. They had already pulled them out of the game, and they're just letting the rookie.

00:51:10
Speaker 2: Let's see what we have. But Khalil Herbert is good. He is a tremendous player. He was he wasn't even getting targets. So I mean there, I think the concerns that the Chicago Bears screwed up their offense yet again, I think that those are real concerns. I'm going to.

00:51:28
Speaker 3: Choose to believe that they'll figure it out over the next couple of weeks because they figured it out last year. I mean, two design runs for Justin Fields is like, that's a fireball offense. If I'm a general manager that your quarterback has a superpower and you don't want to use it, that's ridiculous. But to me, it will be in RBBC. So this isn't like Khalil Herbert's going to be a top ten running back, No, but he's the starter. I think this offense is going to get better if you if before the year you bought into the Bear offense, give it more than one week, and Khalil Herbert should be the biggest benefactor to meet for running backs for the Chicago Bears. I just I think that the talent is there. I know that there's not a lot of investment, the draft capital's not there for Khalil Herbert. But they let David Montgomery walk and they were heading into the most of the offseason saying we are comfortable with this, and then Roshawn Johnson was I think a fourth round pick. So what's the difference between a fourth and a sixth round pick? Really not a ton when we're looking at actual fantasy analysis of running backs that hit from that area. So I'm still in on Khalil Herbert ending up being a great value from draft day.

00:52:42
Speaker 2: And then the other player.

00:52:43
Speaker 3: Who is a by low from your waiver wire, like the guy's probably on the waiver wire.

00:52:50
Speaker 2: It's it's fur delicious.

00:52:51
Speaker 3: Jake Ferguson from the Dallas Cowboys throw Week one into the garbage like there is no nothing to extract from what happened anything offensively for the Dallas Cowboys other than Tony Pollard. You were JJ, you were on the you were a guest spot on the Footballer as you get Tony Pollard is your fantasy MVP, you and Ann Reeves, and I was in lockstep with you guys of like, I don't know, I don't know how you leave the second without Tony Pollard if he's there for you. And it was the only thing that made it hard for me is like I love Garrett Wilson, and depending on where I was in the second, like I don't know that if I don't take Olave right here, I'm not going to get him, and that like that hurt my soul. So that it was, but that was the only conundrum for me in the second is how do I leave without like Olave Wilson or Pollard. And Pollard is going to destroy for fantasy football, but back so but Ferguson, I mean seven targets. It turned into absolutely nothing. He didn't play particularly well, but it was the that was just a Sunday night massacre of epic proportions that just don't worry about it. I mean, if you want to look at the behind the scenes, I think I think we had said he ran like fourteen.

00:54:11
Speaker 2: Routes or something, so I was like, well, his target per round run is fifty percent, like I mean, which is just it's ridiculous to even go to that. But the point is he is still the starter. Dak Prescott has always utilized the tight end position. He makes He made Dalton Schultz.

00:54:29
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess he didn't make a bunch of money, but he made him like a household name for a little bit and then he gets the contract.

00:54:35
Speaker 2: But even the.

00:54:37
Speaker 3: Cowboys, I think that said a lot that the Cowboys said, we don't we're not we don't need to resign Schultz. We'll just have whoever and Dak Prescott will make them relevant. We had a broken down Jason Witten giving us valuable Fantasy points. With Dak Prescott, he just l that's his tendency. He utilizes that position right in the middle of the field. And Ferguson got he either didn't get drafted or he got picked up, and then he got dropped like he's on waiver wires everywhere, and I would be really quick to scoop him up.

00:55:11
Speaker 2: So two things.

00:55:11
Speaker 1: Number one, the Khalil Herbert call out was was Mike has been on the show once before. When we that's right, we looked at running backs prospects as I bring on guests whenever I talk running backs, wide receivers and quarterbacks each year during during draft season, and Mike and I were talking about Khalil Herbert on that show, and you were you were hyping him up quite a bit. You've been a y, been a truther from the start with Herbert, and he looked good in my mind to him. Yeah, it's taken some time, but I think we're there. I think we got there. The Jake Ferguson call outs great though. I mean I I thought that he was a really interesting profile entering this year where he was like top ten and rookie yards per route run and targets per route run, you know since twenty eleven, you know, limited routes obviously, and then Week one, you know, I saw that Mike Leoni from established the run and tweeted that in Week one he had the most expected fantasy points of any tight end Jake Ferguson did. Now, that's that's at the tight end position, which doesn't take much to be first in expected points at that position. But that's still I mean, that's still something, especially when you compare that to what his production was. I'm really really glad that you called him out because I didn't talk about him enough this week on the show.

00:56:17
Speaker 2: So it was a really good call up. Yeah, pick him up.

00:56:20
Speaker 1: Lastly, well, a couple Moore things really quick. If there's however long you want to go, man, Yeah, we're gonna well, we're gonna do this for four hours. I hope you guys are ready. This is this is a Rogan special. So we saw some really disappointing performances from offenses.

00:56:35
Speaker 2: In Week one.

00:56:36
Speaker 1: It almost felt like a continuation of what we saw in twenty twenty two, where there were just some offenses, just a handful of them that were great for fantasy football, like Miami, like the Chargers, and then you know, obviously that game environment was good, but then there was just so many offenses that just were so bad and just so worthless from a fantasy perspective. There's a little fear that's going to continue throughout the season like it did last year. You know, you get a lot of these shorter, average up the target throws and it's just not as fun to watch. Not as many downfield throws, et cetera. You had the Bengals really underperform in that rain. You had the Seahawks really underperform, and they didn't have weather to blame. I mean, the Seahawks to me was more surprising than Cincinnati and Week one. But after watching Week one, after analyzing Week one, which offense do you think might end up just disappointing the season versus the way that we sort of viewed that offense entering the fantasy season.

00:57:30
Speaker 3: So the big concern for me is Seattle, like Joe Burrow with the with his tiny hands, he can't handle the rain. Yeah, we get that. But Seattle was okay in the first half. The yardage split, I can't remember exactly what it was, but Gino had over one hundred yards maybe like one ten. Not great, not catastrophic by any means. And then in the second half they lost two offensive linemen. Yeah, and everything just went down the toilet and those like if you're tracking the reports right now, Pete Carroll is not optimistic about either of those linemen returning. They gave us a front office, they spoke with their actions. They brought in forty one year old Jason Peters, to hopefully come and play offensive line for them. I mean, that's a that's a panic alarm if I've ever heard one. And they're talking about, well, we're going to bring up some people from the practice squad.

00:58:28
Speaker 2: It's like this is this is a disaster.

00:58:32
Speaker 3: And now that now that team in Week two with a busted o line gets to go match up with Aiden Hutchinson and crew. And while we're all crossing our fingers, I'm super hopeful that we get just a duplicate shootout that we got last year. I am very concerned for Seattle this week, and then if the offensive line can't get fixed, then you're going to have a massive problem just all year long for the Seahawks. So that's who I'm worried about. And it's not that I think Gino's good. I like, I still believe in everybody on that team, But if you don't have an offensive line, yeah, there's just nothing you can't compete in the NFL.

00:59:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a contrarian defense this week is Detroit based.

00:59:18
Speaker 2: On the offensive line. So don't I do not hate that? Yeah?

00:59:20
Speaker 1: I mean, look, the game last year almost scored like a hundred points, right, and then you look at the fandal sportsbook opening line and where it's at right now.

00:59:27
Speaker 2: It's not that high.

00:59:29
Speaker 1: Like I think it's still like forty six to forty seven points, and so maybe maybe forty seven and a half. But regardless, it's not nearly as high I think as what maybe a football watcher would have assumed based on what happened last year. I think a lot of that comes back to that offensive line and what Detroit was was semi able to do, you know, against the Chiefs in Week ones. That's definitely a concern moving forward. Now, Mike, the last thing I want to talk to you about this is more. This is more not really a football analysis related question, but you guys in the fantasy football are your audience has become massive, right.

01:00:03
Speaker 2: I always say that there's.

01:00:04
Speaker 1: Supermassive, but yeah, yeah, right right, and so so I always when I when I talk to folks about doing fantasy analysis and stuff and talk to patrons or listeners what have you, it's really difficult sometimes to speak to an audience just in general, whether it's as big as you guys, whether it's my show, whatever, whatever the audience is when you have hundreds of people, thousands of people, whatever, that number is it's really hard to sort of make your content fit everyone's league type.

01:00:36
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, is that the.

01:00:38
Speaker 1: Hardest thing that you probably come across, you know, as a as an analyst in the space with the audience that you guys have, or is it is there something else that makes what you do difficult? Now I say what we do difficult. Let's let's take a step back and realize that I'm not saying that our jobs are difficult. We have the best jobs on the planet. But of course, within the context, what is it that makes it difficult?

01:01:00
Speaker 2: So the the it's funny, it's really funny you bring up league type because the superflex people would have you believe that they are the overwhelming vast majority of fantasy football leagues. And I honestly, I have no problem with the super flex league type. I think it's it's it's fun to bring more importance into the quarterback position or if you like where it's it's really devalued in single quarterback. But you're not. You're just I I hate to tell you this, I hate to burst that bubble of yours.

01:01:38
Speaker 3: You are very small in comparison to just how humongous fantasy football is. And it's there are so many more casual people then you can even realize. Yeah, I mean even we have like I I will have an issue sometimes of like when you when you get in the flow of the conversation and you just you, you know, you like you just throw out the name of this player who's like the running back three on a team, and you're just you forget to stop and be like, okay, Kendra Miller, New Orleans Saints rookie running back because dude, there's so many people who they don't know who that is. You need you need to bring them in, Like that's that's kind of what you want to do. You want to educate people. So you you catch yourself or you catch yourself like not repeating the name, you know what I mean. Like, there's there's certain tricks that you have to go with. Because you can mention a player's name, you end up in a five minute analysis riff and then someone's like, I don't know who you were talking about, and I don't want to rewind and go figure out who you're talking about.

01:02:49
Speaker 2: So there's that.

01:02:50
Speaker 3: It's you know, trying to make sure that everyone feels appreciated because you don't want to leave the super flex people out. They they're very passionate clearly because they I mean they they they let you know that they're in super flex leagues and that you're not doing enough super flex contents.

01:03:06
Speaker 1: Yeah right right, so like they're like cross they're like CrossFit people.

01:03:10
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I was gonna make the joke, but but I pulled my punch.

01:03:15
Speaker 2: Because there's there's a it's the Venn diagram. It's a completely okay.

01:03:18
Speaker 1: How about this, how about this, I'll make fun of myself. They're like peloton people.

01:03:21
Speaker 3: Okay, oh yeah, yeah, but we're we're peloton people. How big are your quads at this point?

01:03:26
Speaker 2: You're getting big? Man?

01:03:27
Speaker 3: Can you buy pants at the at the mall?

01:03:32
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm coming after A J Dillon. You know last year I I I ended up. I was playing against him in the Sleeper Bowl and I beat him and uh I I therefore won the uh the.

01:03:43
Speaker 2: The you took the quad award? Yeah, I have the quad award now, Yeah, exactly. They're big man. Yeah, I mean I like, I like riding the peloton. Man.

01:03:52
Speaker 1: It's it's been a it's been a good, uh good piece of my life.

01:03:56
Speaker 3: Oh it's great, But I just I don't I don't understand what you in humans are doing on this machine.

01:04:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we haven't seen We also haven't seen each other in probably like five years at this point, do you know?

01:04:07
Speaker 3: And at this at this point, I imagine you're gonna look like you walked in, like you're gonna be all bow legged because the bone structure of your legs has just gone full distorted.

01:04:17
Speaker 1: This is what for For the record, this is the most off the rails of the late Round perspectives has gotten since I started the show. This is what what did you think say, show fitting, fitting fitting that that you're the one on the on the show that's making it go off the rails. I want to add one thing about about what we were just talking about with super Flex people Peloton, Yeah, yeah about Peloton, Sam Yo, No, I'm just kidding.

01:04:40
Speaker 2: Uh also sounds great.

01:04:41
Speaker 1: Sam's great though, Yeah, Ben's also good.

01:04:44
Speaker 2: Uh.

01:04:44
Speaker 1: But with the with the uh, the fantasy advice and giving this advice based on these different league types of stuff.

01:04:50
Speaker 2: I actually went on.

01:04:51
Speaker 1: A little rant on the Q and A that I did for patrons on Tuesday. We do a waiver wire Q and A and I went on this little rant because everyone's asking what percent of you free agent budget you should spend on these players, And I feel like it's just not talked about enough in the fantasy space that it depends on the kind of league that you're in, It depends on how deep your benches are, what's out on the waiver wire, that the league size, all of that kind of stuff. It's no different than in an auction draft. If you're walking in and you're in a sixteen team league and everyone has one hundred dollars, that means that are two hundred dollars. That means that there's thirty two hundred dollars being spent on these guys, so all the players are more expensive. If you're in a ten team league, then that's two thousand dollars in your little auction economy, and players are going to be cheaper. It's no different with free agent budgets. And I feel like it's a little bit frustrating when you know we are putting, you know, we have to to some degree, we have to throw the caveat this is a twelve team league, you know standard scoring, whatever, you know, regular scoring, and this is how we would spend from a percentage standpoint, But there's so many caveats in fantasy football when we're giving this advice that I think is really hard to capture.

01:05:57
Speaker 3: Sometimes it absolutely is you. We do that, we speak in percentages. I feel like that that can close some of the gap for people. But our first piece of advice is always know your league, Like you go, are you in Are you a seasoned veteran and you're in a league full of a lot of newbies?

01:06:19
Speaker 2: Week one?

01:06:20
Speaker 3: Get after it because I know, at least in our experience, when we first got into FAB, everyone was so nervous to spend and it takes a few years to really figure out at what point of the year you want to have a surplus, what type of arc type of player are you willing to just go and make sure I get them? So, like, if you're in a league with newer people, you can extract value. I mean the same way that you, unfortunately might fleece somebody into trade because they don't exactly know what they're doing. I don't advise doing that, but like there's things like that or just knowing are is this a running back heavy league?

01:07:03
Speaker 2: You know? Like we have.

01:07:05
Speaker 3: We host a gigantic tournament where it's a whole bunch of twices. It's very much like the Fishbowl, but we call it it. It's our meg Leable and it's a tournament like and your whole point is you're trying to outscore twenty thousand people. So when someone becomes available on the waiver wire, you you better go and get them because you've got to take your shot. You can't just well, I'll put eleven here and hope that I get somebody of use. It's like, no, you've got to be real, real aggressive. So that yeah, it it's very difficult to give actual percentage advice. We frequently will refer to like our league and we'll like talk about our waivers and react of which can. It ends up being a lot of fun sometimes because the like basically when we're hitting record, our waivers are rolling.

01:07:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're we're all live, fine out who did what?

01:08:02
Speaker 3: And we had a just Jason hates Zach Moss more than I saw.

01:08:08
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, tell tell the story. Tell the story.

01:08:10
Speaker 2: Though. This is great.

01:08:10
Speaker 3: So Jason, since since he was drafted, was just he was not on team Zach Moss. Now I don't I don't know how much the the girls from ball Blast because they were like they loved Zach Moss and so like they got you know, very fun spirited just Twitter debates and over Zach Moss. But he's he's he's maintained the bit that he hates Zach Moss and somehow he bid the most on Zach Mass in our league. And the show opens with this. So it was it wasn't. It was such a tremendous moment to realize we've done that, We've all drafted the player you I don't want to draft this guy, and then you do and then they suck and it's even worse because you didn't want him. You just other people were telling you that player.

01:09:00
Speaker 2: So that's that's great.

01:09:03
Speaker 3: I did I did remember an actual answer because you asked, like, what is the toughest part for the job?

01:09:08
Speaker 2: Uh? And it is.

01:09:11
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, it's the it's one of the episodes that is like people wait for this episode. It's the my Guys episode where you are you are stating, these are three players that I am trying to get in every single league, and then you have social media is a tough place, but you then almost.

01:09:31
Speaker 2: Get judged on just those three players and you're like, I give you so much advice about these other guys that I love, Like, so it's it's now like scary to be like to look at your my guys. You're looking at the You're breaking down early season schedule because you're like, I can't declare someone who is my guy knowing that the early season schedule is gonna be bad because I'm going to get just three thousand Reddit for thread about how oh I didn't get my my guys right this year. So that that's the like in terms of content, that's the most frustrating but also exciting because you're saying, these are my guys, yeah, and I'm waiting we'll see Tyler Lockett's one of my guys and the week one was real bad. Yeah.

01:10:19
Speaker 1: You know, I agree with you, man, because I've said it a lot where your fantasy season as an analyst really hinges on particular players, and really you can meet people online in just a brief moment and they take some piece of advice from you, and no matter how that advice goes, is gonna dictate how that person views you as an analyst forever. Right, Like you could sit there and say yes, start Elijah Moore this week and if he tanks, then that person.

01:10:49
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of people are rational.

01:10:51
Speaker 1: To be fair, I'm not just gonna generalize, but if there are gonna be a lot of people who have that advice and hear that advice, and if you're wrong with that advice, they're like, oh, man, he's he's a bad analyst. And then they'll you know, go on Reddit and say oh he's a bad analyst without really much of a backing and stuff like that, and it's you know, it's part of the gig. But at the same time, I do think that that reaction as a human right, it only makes you feel a little bit more worried about putting yourself out there more and and potentially and being vulnerable with with the way that you're analyzing this stuff.

01:11:21
Speaker 2: That's just a that's a human nature.

01:11:23
Speaker 1: Thing, right, That is not a flaw or anything. It's just a way that that folks are, you know, And so I agree, like I I think, you know, obviously, you know, you brand it in a way where it's your guys, and so anytime you put yourself out there in a big way, people are gonna come back in a big way.

01:11:40
Speaker 2: But it doesn't make it any more difficult, right, yep. Yeah, the I still have not escaped with the shadow of Blake Jarwin.

01:11:49
Speaker 3: Somehow it was my fault he went down to season ending interest.

01:11:54
Speaker 2: Is this is Jake ferguson Blake Jarmin Part two? Is that what we're saying here? I can't I can't stop. I can stop myself with Dallas Cowboys tight ends. You know, I have a sickness. But it was, uh, the process was correct. Yeah, trust trusting the process of Blake Jarwin. It he just happened to turn into Dalton Schultz and if like it was very correct. Yeah, it was very correct. I stand by it. Those are fine processes.

01:12:22
Speaker 1: Like last week, how I said, I said, Uh, Gus Edwards was the play in the as a deep sleeper last week. And then Justice Hill was one who scored the fantasy points. But you know, I threw out there, maybe even on the show, I threw out there, maybe Todd Munkin's gonna like Justice Hill a little bit more because they are rumblings of that, you know, throughout the preseason and stuff. And then obviously it was Justice Hill who scores the two touchdowns, so I had to not put that check mark next to Gus Edwards and I could have easily said Justice Hill on that podcast. But yeah, process man, it's the process.

01:12:51
Speaker 2: Got a look.

01:12:51
Speaker 1: Yeah anyway, Mike, great to catch up, Great to talk to you as always. Can you let everyone know, I mean they know where you are, maybe not physically, but at least where all of your continent is. But let everyone know where they can find you.

01:13:04
Speaker 3: So the hub is the Fantasy Footballers dot Com or on on social media's at ff Hitman pretty much. I think MAT's my handle everywhere, even Peloton. So if you want to, if you want to come ride with me or I mean you, I mean, it's not JJ numbers, but my numbers are respectable.

01:13:22
Speaker 2: They're strong, they're good, they're good. I'm on Twitter.

01:13:24
Speaker 3: Actually I get over two hundred and twenty minutes. I feel okay about that.

01:13:28
Speaker 2: That's strong. That's wrong.

01:13:29
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not it's not the my it's not my my pr of three fifty in twenty minutes.

01:13:33
Speaker 2: But it's no big deal.

01:13:34
Speaker 1: You did a three fifty in twenty I had I had a three fifty one and twenty minutes earlier in the summer.

01:13:40
Speaker 2: What were you doing? I took some steroids before before. No no, no, no, no, people do not care about this, but it does not matter what like what is your cadence in your resistance?

01:13:51
Speaker 1: It was a climb, So anytime you get more, you know you can you can get more, you can get Yeah.

01:13:54
Speaker 2: But what were you at like eighty the whole time?

01:13:57
Speaker 1: No, I was I was at I'm sure a lot of people are.

01:14:00
Speaker 2: I'll be loving the ending of this episode. The Peloton people are are there strong with us right now. JJ.

01:14:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's about there's about a point zero five percent of the audience still listening.

01:14:10
Speaker 2: Uh no, my I don't know my my resist my average? I can.

01:14:13
Speaker 1: I had a screenshot that I posted the Twitter whenever it happened because I finished the ride, and I was like, oh my god, Like I did that thing after I finished it because I was trying to get three fifty for a while. Uh, resistance average was probably in the seventies though.

01:14:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's unbelievable. Man.

01:14:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, the quads are strong, man, The quads are there. It look Zacharyeson's. They might not have have the smartest brains, but they got some big quads.

01:14:38
Speaker 2: It runs into the lineage like no watermelon stands a chance. Yeah. Oh yeah, man.

01:14:42
Speaker 1: My dad was a runner growing up, like when I was growing up and stuff, and he's a beast. You know, I got I there's there's a strong Zacharyice and quad game going on and that that definitely helps me in the peloton world for sure.

01:14:54
Speaker 2: Well I have bird legs, so I've got that going on.

01:14:57
Speaker 1: There we go, there we go. Next time we see each other, we'll will compare legs.

01:15:00
Speaker 2: It'll be super no, we will. Yeah, I'll put mine two together tier one anyway. Anyway, you can find me on Twitter at Late Round QB.

01:15:11
Speaker 1: All my stuff over on lateround dot com, and then I have an Instagram now that I started a couple of weeks ago. At Late Round FF Mike is putting out good pictures man, Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm actually making all the graphics too. It's all on me.

01:15:23
Speaker 2: No, you're not, I am I have I have that background a little bit. Yeah. Oh that's yeah, that's right. Your nerd. I am a nerd.

01:15:30
Speaker 1: I'm a huge nerd as always. There everyone, thanks for tuning in.