Fantasy Football - Top 10 Things to Remember for 2026 - Podcast for 3/5

14:18Jason Moore:I think it makes complete sense. the franchise pretty much had to move on for fans are sick and tired of it. But honestly, this episode is 10 things to remember. One of the things that we could very well have had as our, you know, an 11th thing to remember is that good players drafted well to bad franchises can turn it around when given another opportunity. You just mentioned Baker and Darnold and these guys who were top picks in the NFL draft and they, they flamed out. They didn't, they didn't succeed the way that they had hoped when they were drafted. But then you look at like, okay, it didn't work out for the jets.

14:57Jason Moore:It didn't work out for the Browns. It didn't work out for the Cardinals. It's like always those franchises. And then lo and behold, you go to the Buccaneers, you get a team around you and there's MVP chance. You go to the Seahawks and you have a team and a franchise around you, you win the Superbowl. It's like that Kyler could go somewhere and be really important for fantasy next year. Not just himself but also the weapons i mean justin jefferson yeah heck yeah um or or wherever he

15:23Mike Wright:goes or he could end up on the jets he could be on the jets yes come on jets do it the jets are the best hope for the cardinals to get offset money because i feel like for him to go to the

15:34Andy Holloway:jets he may he may get more than a year and if we i don't want to speak for you guys but i feel like if he goes the jets you'd be like well yeah no i good luck new york movie before we see

15:47Mike Wright:saw justin fields in the jets right i mean we that wasn't the reclamation project that we hoped it would be so um speaking of the jets they franchised had grease hall yep i mean these

16:00Andy Holloway:um this is i had told i told jason in the in the office i was like here's what i need the cardinals to do this was and this was before the kyla murray news broke broke i'm like i need the Cardinals to cut Kyler Murray. I need them to give Malik Willis a bag of money. Huge. And then I need them to draft Jeremiah Love with the third overall pick. So then I could just I will wipe my hands and I will be completely removed as an Arizona Cardinal fan. You'll be rooting for Jeremiah Love. Oh, for fantasy? 100%. You'll be a fan. You don't know Andy. When the Cardinals are a top five pick again in the draft, I'll say you don't know where Mike and I are right now

16:44Jason Moore:I told Mike after he said that I was like dude I had a daydream I literally was daydreaming about this and Andy this will make you big mad I had a daydream about using this show and this platform look my son is jacking newsies right now to show that you can leave a team that's small potatoes Andy to lead a revolution to tell people across this great country that you do not have to be holden to stupid idiot managers because of where you live or were born. Why do I owe Bidwell jack-freaking-squat? He's stupid. I don't know. All I know about him is he's a bad owner and manager. I should not be loyal to him.

17:33Jason Moore:He has done nothing to earn it. Okay. And I don't want to leave the Cardinals. I want all of us to leave the Cardinals. I want tens of thousands of people around here to just say we're done. We're done.

17:48Mike Wright:This is why you're a big Brazil fan in the World Cup. Huh? Huh? Yeah. You leave the USA and you go for Brazil, right? I have reasons to ruin the USA. You can't go to country. I have reasons. Why can't you go to country? Because he's a man. This is why you're loyal.

18:02Jason Moore:Bidwell. Bill. Billwell. All the Bidwells, but Michael Bidwell is the owner of the Cardinals. We don't want you. It's not even the city or the state where I live. That's not ours. It's not theirs.

18:16Mike Wright:Get out. And when they're good one time in the next 30 years, you don't get to celebrate. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

18:22Jason Moore:You know what I'll do? I don't know. 15 times in the next 30 years.

18:24Mike Wright:Mike, didn't you go to the Super Bowl in Tampa when the Cardinals were there?

18:27Jason Moore:Yeah.

18:27Mike Wright:Okay, why?

18:29Jason Moore:Because they had earned it. We are Cardinals fans. I'm just saying. They're not going to have this discussion. I'm just saying the whole thing where I was born here or I was raised here, and so therefore I have to give my allegiance to a bad king. You know what I mean? That's what it is.

18:44Mike Wright:You don't have to give your allegiance to Bidwell. People are fans of their home team while hating a lot of the parts of it. You just want them to succeed because they're your home team. That's all. But we know. There are very few franchises where you're proud of every piece of the management. They're very few. All teams make mistakes. And you can't just like, so what are you going to do? Are you going to go root for another winner? Just pick a winner?

19:07Andy Holloway:No, I'll just play fantasy. I'll just play fantasy.

19:10Mike Wright:So you're leaving all allegiance to NFL.

19:12Andy Holloway:To fandom, yes. This is what you feel like you have to do to send a message to Michael Bauer. I think I would do a case.

19:18Mike Wright:I'm not going to get in your way of sending a message. You do what you want to do.

19:21Jason Moore:That's where I'm at. I'm still a Cardinals fan, but I'm Mike. But we also know that you don't know what rooting is.

19:25Mike Wright:You don't know what rooting is. Good point. So I'm not really worried about you.

19:29Jason Moore:But what does it say when, you know, it's like, oh, I got one foot out the door, right? I got two feet out the door, so I'm not sure where I'm at anymore. You're not even in the room. I'm not in the room. You can't be in the room with both feet out the door. My hand is still holding the door. You can be in the room with two feet out the door. Oh, you're playing a little of a. Like, my hand's on the door sill. You know, I'm like leaning on the door. I'm standing outside.

19:49Mike Wright:What does Michael Bidwell have to do to like bring you. Sell the team. That's what he has to do. Okay. Somebody needs to hear any more of this. Breeze Hall. Oh, people are loving it. Brees Hall to the Jets. This is a situation where they open the door for Brees Hall, and they're like, get on out of here. And then he tries to walk, and they've chained him to the room. I mean, they hate this guy, and he's like, can't you let me leave? They say they're working on a long-term deal. Okay, this is not good for Braylon Allen Dynasty managers.

20:17Jason Moore:No, they put the version of it where he can technically go out and try to get a contract for someone else. Wait, they did the transition tag?

20:24Mike Wright:I thought it was a franchise tag.

20:25Jason Moore:I mean, that is a franchise tag. No, but they're different.

20:28Mike Wright:specifically say the the you cannot do that with a franchise tag you can only do that with a specific yeah with what they gave Daniel Jones right transition tag right I'm just saying you you

20:37Jason Moore:have like a basically a hierarchy of options for who you franchise and how you franchise them I don't know if it's technically called a franchise tag but the transition if you transition tag someone that is using your your franchise tag on that player but that would require another team not only signing Brees but then sending two first round picks so he's not going anywhere for sure he is a jet and that is unfair to him um he came out and said i hey i don't mind betting on myself so hey the good news for fantasy that's just like he's in a contract year show me the money yeah

21:06Mike Wright:a transition tag for daniel jones it comes in at six million cheaper than the quarterback franchise tag so the transition tag is going to save them some money jones can go out and get an offer sheet uh the colts would have a right to match but it seems like daniel jones will be there you talk about dominoes falling daniel jones not being on the free open market is a significant deal. And then we got two more pieces of news. One of them... One's breaking right now. Yeah, one of them is big news yesterday. The Bears, I mean, Drew Dahlman, Pro Bowl center for the Bears' incredible offensive line at 27 years old, who signed an extension last offseason.

21:41Mike Wright:He's retiring.

21:42Jason Moore:Bears' Twitter spent the entire morning thinking that was the day they were getting Max Crosby. All the betting odds were like, we're the favorite. Something's coming down, you know, and then they're like so excited and then it's like, boom, you lost your young center.

21:57Mike Wright:That was awful. Star center. So that's huge. And I think there was reports, I don't know the name, but they're already like bringing in other centers to talk to right now. Also, I guess this is breaking news. It is. As of right now.

22:14Jason Moore:Breaking news.

22:15Mike Wright:Huge trade. The Rams have traded a first round pick in this draft, 29, a fifth, a sixth, and a 2027 third. which is a lot of their picks. They, you know, Les Snead is always, I don't care about them picks.

22:30Jason Moore:He's the you and Brooks of dynasty managers. They're like, let me go get a vet. I don't want picks.

22:35Mike Wright:He traded all those picks to the Chiefs for all-pro cornerback Trent McDuffie. They were apparently one Trent McDuffie short last year from, and they might have been. Yeah. They might have been a Trent McDuffie short.

22:48Jason Moore:I mean, they were able to score on the Seahawks no problem, but they couldn't stop them.

22:52Mike Wright:Yeah.

22:52Jason Moore:Yeah, that's a big trade. It was probably a great trade for both teams.

22:55Mike Wright:Chiefs are going to end up with another first-round pick here.

22:57Jason Moore:It really probably is because the Chiefs let go their offensive tackle that played like start of the whole season. So they have to replace a tackle in the draft. They've got the ninth pick. A lot of people are saying, oh, if Jeremiah Love is there, they would grab him. Hard to imagine that. More flexibility. Yeah, exactly. It allows them to fill other needs. And they, I mean, they're at the point where they have to just do the rebuild so that they can go for three more.

23:26Andy Holloway:Yes. Where, like, don't just. For the Chiefs. Yes. Like, don't be splotchy and, like, hey, we're sort of good. Like, no, man. Like, rip it down real quick so you can do a real quick rebuild because you have, you got Mahomes. Yeah. So, like. You can still tread water with Mahomes. You can rebuild really, really fast. So trading a great player, but into all of those options, that's, man.

23:52Mike Wright:Yeah. All right. We're going to take a break, and we'll jump into 10 things to remember.

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26:10Mike Wright:All right, it's time. Big episode, 10 things to remember from 2025. Let's get into it.

26:20Jason Moore:Don't forget to remember these things.

26:26Mike Wright:All right, it looks like I am going to kick us off with number 10. All right, number 10. It is titled, My Players Are Going to Get Hurt, a.k.a. Draft like a general manager, not like a fan. Look, injuries, these are a foregone conclusion in fantasy football. You have to embrace it, in spite of what Mike and CMC managed to pull off this year.

26:56Andy Holloway:Sometimes there's magic.

26:58Mike Wright:Yeah, sometimes Mike can turn on the dark magic mike turns on the setting and madden the injuries are now off but historically that's not the case look 98 of all nfl players show up on an injury report every year so you're talking about everybody um it doesn't mean that being fortunate with injuries is not going to determine success for fantasy football obviously it does mike yeah i mean he stayed healthy you won a championship the the nfl i didn't stay healthy but mccaffrey no no know McCaffrey did um but in the NFL it's the same way the final four teams in the NFL that made it to you know the final four Seattle Los Angeles Chicago San Francisco and the NFC 25 players combined on the injured reserve the Cardinals had 22 alone on their team so injuries make a big difference in the NFL as well um but when you look at fantasy football I just want to give you some context on average three of the top 10 players drafted every year in fantasy miss four plus games this year if you look at we got a little bit more lucky with the top 10 this year but look at the second and third round when you go beyond or outside the top 10 basically malik neighbors 13 games miss nico 2 jacobs 2 puka 1 brian thomas 3 hn 1 drake london 5 bucky irving 7 aj brown 2 Brock Bowers, five.

28:17Mike Wright:Lamar Jackson, four. It keeps going. Hampton, eight. Daniels, 10. Tyreek, 13. Kittle, six. Those are the sequential picks in the second and third round. You need to start building your fantasy football team like a general manager does in the NFL. They are building their rosters not based on perfect health. It looks the best, right? We love it when we put the perfect starting lineup together. and what you'd love to be able to do on paper is build the perfect starting lineup that looks amazing lock them in and then spend your entire bench on upside right not a player that's already established and guaranteed production but a bunch of upside players but general managers in the nfl they build their teams on attrition they understand that they're going to miss players now maybe not 22 like arizona you can't build a team strong enough to withstand 22 injuries on arizona or are on injured reserve.

29:10Mike Wright:But it is obviously Bidwell. He and Nancy Kerrigan them.

29:15Jason Moore:Have you seen the grades for our training facilities?

29:17Mike Wright:The training facilities may play a role as well. We didn't put them next to a power plant, but it's not good. But look, don't over-stack your bench with all upside stashes at the expense of playable depth. I feel like Mike has been pretty gifted in this department for years where he builds rosters that I look at. And what I actually, I think the most actionable thing here is let's say you put, you make good picks later in the draft and you put some nice bench assets, free agency, or, uh, you know, you go onto the waiver wire, you add some pieces and they perform. That's my moment generally where you flip them into, I flip them.

29:56Mike Wright:I take a starter and a bench player that's performing and I try to turn them into somebody better. And I do it all the way through the bench. Then I use the bench to fill up on more waiver wire pickups. I think that for me my thing to remember is I need to adjust that a little bit and really keep some solid startable assets not look at them all as trade chips and trade bait and really plan on those injuries to happen so that I can survive Mike talks about another thing in in years past you know kind of getting through the season in different phases right there's different parts of the season that you need to get through players are going to get hurt survive every window of the season to make the playoffs if you want to consolidate right around the trade deadline a little bit if that makes sense you've survived a bunch of weeks sure but don't just stack your bench with upside stashes and then all of a sudden you got to put a player in that has no potential to play it's a rookie that hasn't started you need to be able to step in those guys are going to get hurt it's a guarantee yeah i mean mike had like jalen warren and

30:53Jason Moore:charbonnet just kind of resting out there i'm like why isn't he trading these guys it's the

31:00Andy Holloway:you know like if you hear people talk about the zero rb build like it's anti-fragile yeah yeah exactly that's what it is it's going on the the philosophy of that these players will get stronger as the the year goes on because i know that the guys drafted in the first round or they they're gonna miss time uh so it's being being aware of that i think the you know combining that tip andy with the understanding the nuances and the differences of the time of year, what your team needs through the first four weeks, and then what you need through the next four. It all holistically plays a part in creating your best chance at winning a championship.

31:43Mike Wright:No, it makes sense, and I'm just looking from picks 111 through 406. So I think that's 28 picks. Six of the 28 didn't miss a game. so you're going to miss time so remember it and plan accordingly all right time to move on

32:02Andy Holloway:number nine so be willing to stand your ground on your rookie takes this is a chance to do no it's actually i have a couple different uh ways i want to talk about this because it's rookies are it's such a wild and like it's not a straightforward path for rookies in fantasy football and yet if you've been playing you know for at least five years or so you understand that rookies are often a humongous part of fantasy football success now because rookies get better as time goes on and then like the guys who are making impact, impact players over the second half and in the playoffs, a lot of time we see that it's a rookie, but it can take time.

32:56Andy Holloway:And this is where it's difficult because to get those players on your team, if you want to draft them, you got to draft them early, but you're drafting them early, knowing that there's a chance that this might, may not start working at least for like two months into the season. But Travion Henderson was, through the first month of the season, it was an absolute disaster. And then through the first two months, a catastrophe. He was on our show docs week six. We bring up drop candidates. People wanted to drop Travion Henderson. And it was, I don't really have a, I can't convince you not to drop this player who's not getting any opportunity.

33:39Andy Holloway:it's all Ramondre all this and then of course Ramondre misses some time and then you have the magic they're right in the middle of the season where Travion Henderson is winning weeks by himself you know uh the from week nine on he was the running back nine averaging almost 17 fantasy points uh per game and then that span week nine through 12 with no Ramondre I mean it was it was ludicrous the the points he was putting up Ted Aroa McMillan it was a slower start for him and then he ends up being the offensive rookie of the year it started out slow but the target share was there in fact he was one of six rookie wide receivers over the last decade to finish with a 26 or 26 plus percent of the targets and it just it can take time so that's why I say when you draft those rookies it's hard because you got to draft them early but you know that you're drafting them for a certain time of the season of course you want them to hit right away which does happen sometimes but you got to be ready and then I also wanted to talk about this from the the standpoint of dynasty rookie drafts are coming up you do not have to be beholden to this is how You're like, I'm the 105.

34:55Andy Holloway:I'm slotted for this player. It's okay. It's okay to take chances on the guys that you prefer because it's fantasy football. It's wild, man. Stuff goes sideways. It goes haywire all the time. And you're looking at the – like, oh, well, this wide receiver got drafted in the top of the second. I had the 108, so I couldn't possibly take him. Just do it. You're like, because you know what? If I draft that player, everyone's going to make fun of me.

35:25Mike Wright:Yeah, you ever looked at the –

35:26Andy Holloway:They're going to mock my pick. Ever looked at rookie drafts? And they're going to hurt my feelings, and I'm going to feel real ashamed that I did that. I'm going to take Royce Freeman because they told me to. Right. No, man. If you don't want to take that guy, don't take him. Take someone else. It's okay to withstand the peer pressure of you have to take this guy right here. You ever seen the NFL draft?

35:49Jason Moore:And there is a really important distinction here because I think it is important that we say it is totally acceptable and good to mock and make fun of people picking something that is against the grain. That's what you want to do. Now, if you're the person getting mocked, you have to ask yourself one of two questions. One, was this a player I believed in and I like this pick and I'm getting mocked and so I don't care? Great. or why am I getting mocked? Oh, I had no clue. I didn't know. Then it's like, look at yourself.

36:24Andy Holloway:I'm saying, don't Raiders this thing and draft a kicker in the first round. That's not what I'm saying.

36:30Jason Moore:I thought you were going with, wasn't it the Raiders who just drafted two years ago? They drafted the wrong human being. They called the guy with the same name that wasn't the one they wanted to draft in the third round.

36:45Andy Holloway:Am I going your bucket of bad franchises to do bad things? Yes! So I'm saying rookies can take some time, but also specifically for your rookie draft, man, pick the players you want. It's okay because maybe you're wrong. Maybe you're wrong on that player, but follow your own path. Don't let the peer pressure and consensus bully you into taking a pick you don't want to make.

37:11Mike Wright:It's extremely painful if you don't take the player you have conviction about. You take somebody else due to consensus, and then that player turns out to be something great because you didn't stand on it. So it makes sense.

37:24Jason Moore:Number eight. This one is a question on trends in the NFL. My question is, is the famous sophomore leap for wide receivers actually dead? This is what I was talking about at the beginning of the show where in 2021, I wrote an article. It was basically a cheat code. You looked at the previous five and ten years, and that year two wide receiver was like, just draft them. Even if you're not sure, even if you don't believe, the year two is when most of these guys are really breaking out. Now, what we've seen over this last five years and the last decade is that more and more frequent is it that wide receiver ones break out in year one.

38:08Jason Moore:The alphas come out, and they get the opportunity from day one to just be on the field at all times. And it has had a reciprocal effect on the year two breakout. I was noticing this trend over the last couple years, but this last year really put a nail in the coffin. So in 2021, you look at the wide receivers that were drafted in the first eight rounds, five of six of them improved in their sophomore year. That's great. 83 % fires. Like, yeah. Sophomore bump. Yeah, the sophomore bump. The article was right. But then as time has gone on, 2022, only three of six improved. And some of those, like Jahan Dotson, he was the hotness from his rookie year.

38:47Jason Moore:He went hardcore the other way. He went hardcore the other way. Christian Watson went down. Garrett Wilson, who was the number one drafted there, he had a down year. Didn't even score 10 fantasy points per game that season. The following year, the 2023 class, two of five improved. So now we're sub-50 % actually being better than they were their rookie season. Surely it rebounded last year. It certainly did. It rebounded all the way to zero of the top five improved in the 2024 class.

39:18Mike Wright:So Malik neighbors, BTJ, McConkie, Marv, Worthy. And Xavier Worthy.

39:23Jason Moore:This one was brutal. They burned too bright. And so that is part of it, right? You can't just be like, here's a trend. It's like, here's a trend. Why? Part of it is they dominated rookie years. Larry McConkie, BTJ, and Malik Neighbors were all fantasy wide receiver ones. They were top 12 in their rookie season. So it makes sense that it's harder for them to take that step up and go. But it's happening more and more frequently. Now you look at this year. And I guess what this is to me, what I want to remember, is that I have gone into old drafts three years ago, four years ago, where even if I really didn't believe in a player, if he's a year two wide receiver at a place where I'm just pulling the trigger.

40:11Jason Moore:I'm just shooting on probabilities. This year you got Igbuka, who was the hotness this year coming into year two. Is he going to get better? Mike Evans might leave. There's going to be a lot of reasons. I'll bet if Mike Evans leaves, he's going to shoot up draft boards. People will forgive him and be in. Matthew Golden sucked this rookie year, had all the opportunity, but he's still a first-round wide receiver on a good offense, year two wide receiver. Go all in. Luther Burden was the hotness at the end of the season. It was like, wow. How many guys can be the hotness? Well, there's different parts of the season.

40:43Jason Moore:It's like if you're in Arizona or if you're in New York, there's summer and there's winter. Right. That's what I'm saying.

40:50Mike Wright:There's summer here, though.

40:51Jason Moore:So I don't think it is quite the guarantee. I wanted this to be a little shorter and have this be a question and a conversation piece on whether or not we should stop just automatically assuming that in year two these players take a leap forward that doesn't necessarily always happen however the data is starting to say year three which is it has been more and more frequent that was jsn that was um zay flowers after a down year two got got better in in year three um some of these guys are starting to um you know even even somehow puka was significantly better in year three even though he was great already but I'm not sold on just saying that in year two they're always going to

41:32Mike Wright:get better as a wide receiver I mean unfortunately and it's a it's a cop-out to a degree but I mean trends are based on context you talked about how insane the numbers were last year for those guys you weren't Malik neighbors hurt or not was probably not beating 14 six points per game or it was going to be tough to do it Brian Thomas Jr. certainly I mean those numbers lad McConkie all alone there it was going to be really really hard and there so there's going to be nuance there's going to be what does it what do you define improving as right and and how much does that matter um in the in the equation so you know there are players that you know you talked about luther burden it's like that's not a difficult one to see him having a better sophomore year because he barely got it rolling it's slow start i mean he really didn't ever get it cooking for you know consecutive weeks so that one's an easy one to see now Now, you know, Obuka, a lot of variables in the equation.

42:25Mike Wright:Matthew Golden, he better improve or he's in the UFL. So it's good to look over a long period of time and see what the trends are so you don't just lock into a strategy that is eventually going to burn you.

42:39Jason Moore:Yeah, Tedderola McMillan was really good as a rookie. And so he's the one. And you look and it's like, well, he's going to take that leap forward. And he's being drafted almost as a wide receiver one. Right now, it's too early to know. But he's the wide receiver 13. It reminds me a lot of his comp for me was Drake London. He showed. And it was like year two? It took year three before he really did.

43:02Mike Wright:It's a perfect transition to the next one. All right. Number seven. Which is bad teams ruin good players. Yeah.

43:10Jason Moore:And bad owners ruin good franchises.

43:12Mike Wright:Yeah, bad teams ruin good players. Ask yourself, if I remove the player's name and just describe their situation, right? Like a new quarterback, an uncertain offense, a transition year. You got to ask yourself, would I draft that player in the first two rounds or at their ADP? And usually you would say no if you remove the player's name from the situation. So I'm going to describe a couple situations to you and you tell me how in you are. All right. First one, a wide receiver on an offense with the fifth starting, different starting quarterback in five years with an offensive coordinator that you openly hate.

43:46Mike Wright:on a team who has fewer scoring opportunities inside the red zone than anybody in the entire league. Does that sound like they're worth the risk of a top two round pick?

43:58Jason Moore:No, that sounds like a bad bet.

44:02Mike Wright:That bad bet we made for years with Garrett Wilson. Garrett Wilson was that bad bet. We did it in 2023. He was drafted as the wide receiver nine. It was Aaron Rodgers. It was Nathaniel Hackett. That combination, we still win in. on him at ADP.

44:17Jason Moore:Where's Hackett now?

44:19Mike Wright:Yeah, I know. Yeah, he's here. In 2024, we did it again with Garrett Wilson. Wide receiver seven off the board. Aaron Rodgers was the quarterback. We didn't have a lot of confidence in that. Last year, you finally got an adjustment in the ADP. We wisened up a little bit. How bad were the Jets? The Jets, over the last three years, dead last in those red zone plays. Tied or trailing on 93 % of offensive snaps. You have to pay attention to the context these guys get drafted into. Let me do one from this here. Older quarterback who was cast off from his former team. New head coach, born before the invention of the transistor radio.

44:55Mike Wright:Offensive coordinator who hasn't been in the NFL in more than a decade. Oh, wait. We drafted two players this year in the first two rounds of fantasy. Obviously, that was Ashton Gentry and Brock Bowers. Did not work out for fantasy managers in the, you know. Bowers did, other than the injury. yeah I mean second half he was very good yeah I mean I think there were still some underwhelming vibes with uh some of what he was able to do you know you started the year before the injury and maybe that was you know playing through it and stuff like that but it was it was tough it was tough when you have to look at all of these risk factors quarterback transitions and changes coaches offensive coordinators lack of faith in a coach and then say to yourself well it's all just going to work out because this player has talent we did this we did this game with a lot of players that we liked over the years we did it with uh terry mccloren we did it with dj moore we did it you know if you don't have all those externals you have a lot more to overcome and you just need to factor that in and ask yourself whether the risk outweighs the draft cost yes um is the team environment so completely disgusting and gross that it can ruin a great player and it is very possible to do that and so you need to be careful i need to be careful and when the draft happens and these sexy players start going to teams that we don't have confidence in you need to make sure

46:22Jason Moore:that those situations are not going to destroy them this is where the transition from ted row and mcmillan as a year two watch i love you really i love ted i think he is great yes i think he is Garrett Wilson, I love. But it's a good point. He's going into year two. It's not a guaranteed leap forward. He's on a team that you don't expect to be great. They were better than we thought for sure, but the quarterback is not prolific. At the very least, we can all agree on that. Correct. Yeah, so it puts a little pause in there. Obviously, the Jets project to be bad. Who are the other teams that you think about?

46:52Mike Wright:I mean, Cleveland on offense right now. Oh, okay. Yeah, you draft somebody. Cleveland on offense. Arizona on offense without a quarterback. The nice thing about the... Minnesota, if it's J.J. and no one else.

47:00Jason Moore:The nice thing about the Browns is they've done us a service and they have no one really worth drafting. You know what I mean? They're like, let's not have Judkins. Yeah, depending on the injury and his timeline back, yeah.

47:12Andy Holloway:How dare you? Harold Fannin. Yeah.

47:14Jason Moore:You are Mr. Fannin. I do. Apparently you used to be. I do like Fannin over the other guys, but we'll talk about whether I'm Mr. Fannin or not in a minute.

47:22Mike Wright:That's actually why we have Fannin lower than the other two of the sophomore tight ends. But let's take a break and we'll keep going.

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48:46Jason Moore:Fantasy football has a lot of waiting. Waiting for a waiver to clear, waiting for your quarterbacks and your tight ends, waiting for that rookie breakout. You shouldn't have to also wait on your Uncrustables to thaw. You've got tons of ways to thaw them. You put them on your dash. You put them in your pocket. You sit on it if you've got to sit on it. I ain't golfing without my Uncrustables. Throw one on my golf cart in Arizona. He's ready to go. Here's some good news. Now, Uncrustables are ready to eat straight from your fridge, which means you can satisfy your PB &J snack craving whenever you want to.

49:20Jason Moore:No wait time. You can get to that pillowy soft snack faster and go back to getting beaten by your friends every Sunday. All right, we're back in the 10 things to remember.

49:33Andy Holloway:Here we go. Number six. So speaking of philosophies that change over the course of time is I am now firmly in this area. You know, we have dabbled, talked about this strategy. I don't know just how rubber-stamped I would have said that this strategy was. When we started this show, you don't do this. And now I'm like, you know what? When you leave your draft in a single quarterback league and you draft two quarterbacks, I think that's okay. I think it's not only is it okay, I think there are situations where it is, in fact, a very smart thing to do. You're increasing your odds of finding a difference maker for that single quarterback position.

50:23Andy Holloway:The opportunity cost is like, okay, do I hit on one of these sleeper wide receivers who is fourth on his depth chart? Or it's the RB3 on a team where we've seen great returns for that. It's a game of probability. Just always remember that for fantasy football. There is no binary black or white. Everything is great. Everything is probability. And the way that things have gone lately, hitting on a later round quarterback where that guy becomes a potential difference maker for you, the odds keep going up every single year where it used to be, these are the quarterbacks who will be good. We've nailed it.

51:06Andy Holloway:We know they're going to be great. But it's like this past year, you know, you had going late Dak. Dak just always goes late. Dak always goes late, and you should just always be grabbing Dak as a second quarterback. But Caleb Williams made the jump. Drake May, you know, almost a league MVP, was going in the 12th round as about the 18th quarterback or so. So it's a strategy where it felt like a misuse of your resources. But now I think that it can be really the move that you need to go to. And I'm not talking when you've drafted Josh Allen, when you've invested heavily one of your very, very high lucrative draft picks on a quarterback.

51:53Andy Holloway:We're talking a guy in the middle. Why not take a player late? because so many times now we're seeing those are the quarterbacks who are taking the jump and they're becoming the player that it's a week-to-week thing.

52:06Mike Wright:It does fold into the all-your-players-get-hurt situation. Yeah. I mean, that does happen at the quarterback position. They're not immune from it, obviously. But saying that that's okay, that is a transition from where we used to be.

52:18Andy Holloway:Yes, it is. For sure.

52:20Mike Wright:Number five.

52:21Jason Moore:All right. This one will affect Fannin a little bit. the tight end dead zone is deader than ever it's all of them it's just the whole position people there isn't a dead zone there's some studs and then there's and then there's death i don't know

52:39Mike Wright:if everybody listening would understand what you mean by a dead zone when you talk we've talked

52:44Jason Moore:about rb dead zones maybe we should so the tight end dead zone has at times you know changes based on the year but you know the fifth sixth round tight ends historically have always been just terrible bets just awful waste of picks and you're you're ruining opportunities to draft relevant players at other positions but what i'm calling the tight end dead zone especially this last year is if you're not trey mcbride i mean you could throw george Kittle in there, but he got injured and Bowers in there who got injured. Everyone else sucked. The difference between the tight end two, this is fantasy finish at the end of the year, tight end two and tight end 12 was 1.3 points per game.

53:33Jason Moore:It's irrelevant, people. That's the tightest spread in six years. Fannin was good down the stretch. He was on the waiver wire. End of the year, Loveland was like, oh, hey, he's breaking out. Waiver wire pickup. He was drafted and then he was a waiver wire pickup because he was averaging like 2.3 fantasy points per game. Kyle Pitts, the number two tight end, waiver wire. Dallas Goddard was a waiver wire pick. And here's the thing. So basically, my strategy is this. What I'm going to remember is I would love to draft Trey McBride. I would love to draft Brock Bowers. And then I'm checking out. I'm not going to fall victim to, oh, this player's good, that player's good.

54:12Jason Moore:I like this name. I like that name. I'm going to let everyone else go. Here's why. Laporta was the tight end four drafted last year. He was drafted over wide receivers and running backs like Jameson Williams and DeAndre Swift. They made differences. Kelsey and Hawkinson were the next tight ends drafted a round later. They were drafted over Chris Olave and Jalen Warren. They made impacts on fantasy football. Mark Andrews was next. Drafted over Travis Etienne and Emeka Ibuka. Evan Ingram was next. Drafted over Judkins and Javante Williams. Like, we didn't love Javante Williams. There's a reason he was in the ninth, tenth round.

54:49Jason Moore:But there's opportunity. There's lots of misses in those rounds. But I want to take shots at these guys who actually could make an impact. These tight ends in the middle and late rounds, they're not making an impact. Njoku drafted over Skadaboo and Pittman, who were looking good. So, for me, give me Trey McBride and Brock Bowers, and then I'll see you on the waiver wire. I'm going to keep taking shots at all the running backs and wide receivers I can. Stock up. Maybe I'll grab that second quarterback like Mike's saying. And it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay because the gap, the difference between these guys, they're really not all that crazy.

55:24Mike Wright:Never forget David Njoku, TJ Hawkinson, back-to-back in our league of record fifth round. Wasted picks. Just delete them from the earth.

55:31Jason Moore:Take a shot on someone that could actually break out. These tight ends aren't going to be it. And I know Tyler Warren had looked great before the Daniel Jones injury. That's great. He was 10.7 fantasy points a game. that would have been yeah that would have pretty good i would have counted that's a that's 0.4 points more than what dallas goddard scored yeah yeah no no you can find value yeah so

55:51Mike Wright:number four well i'll keep it short i'll make it simple here but this is uh number four thing to remember a good waiver pickup is a good waiver pickup sometimes we sometimes we ignore players on the waiver wire because we think we have those positions figured out on the team. This goes into the staying water. This goes into the acknowledging that injuries are going to happen. Player performances, the rookies that Mike talked about, their performances change over time. There were a lot of players that performed really, really well last year. They were sitting on the waiver wire and you might've thought to yourself, I don't need that guy because I have this guy.

56:27Mike Wright:Harold Fannin was rostered on 6 % of teams in week two on the waiver wire. If you had Brock Bowers, you were going to pass on the opportunity to pick up Harold Fannin because you had the position figured out. Well, an injury happened and you didn't, and that would have been a big, big difference because he was the tight end five for the rest of the season. Same thing went with, remember how hot Baker Mayfield started? This goes to your point with two quarterbacks. If you had Baker Mayfield at the beginning of the season, if you had Bo Nix because you invested draft capital in him, you're like, I got my position figured out.

56:56Mike Wright:Well, Drake May was a streamer in week two. Like, I know he got drafted in a lot of leagues, not every league. Right. And maybe he got dropped after they lost in week one. there are opportunities on the waiver wire and you might pass on a guy because you think you have the position figured out this is a way of saying like nfl gms they go into the draft and they draft position over neat or over um best on the board you need to go best on the board sometimes on the waiver wire even when you have a player that is doing the job in that position this week because things change too much you might have thought you had plenty of wide receivers and you passed on parker washington or alec pierce in week 10 waivers where they were on less than 30 % of teams, both of those guys were basically wide receiver ones from week 10 on for your roster.

57:41Mike Wright:If they're good, if you believe in them, just because you got it figured out, sign them anyway.

57:47Jason Moore:It's funny because we do this elsewhere. Rookie drafts. We have learned lessons over the years of just take the best player. Take the best player available. Yeah, you need running back, but that's, you know, he's just not, it's not as good a pick, you know, at that point in the draft, this wide receiver versus that running back. Just take the best player. Because it turns out it's going to help you the most, even if it's not the position you think you need.

58:08Mike Wright:Yeah, if you have two amazing tight ends, that's fine. You can figure out what you want to do with that at that point. There's good problems to have and bad problems to have.

58:18Andy Holloway:Agreed. Number three. Targets still have to be earned. And I want to bring this one up because we talk about young breakout, hopeful wide receivers, draft capital. opportunity on a on a good nfl team so this is it almost is a you know it's just a an inverse of what you were talking about andy of of bad teams can ruin good players well bad players going to good teams doesn't automatically turn that bad player into a good player uh and i i promise you i'm talking into a mirror right now so of uh when we're talking specifically about straight to me but whatever no well i mean people say we look like brothers okay there's that whole thing uh when you this is also believing in your rookie takes keon coleman right keon coleman goes what 33rd in the in the nfl draft right the beginning of the second round keon coleman wasn't a player that i particularly liked my process uh didn't love him but he went in the top of the second round to josh allen and that i allowed that to completely sway where i was willing to drive keon coleman because of course this makes sense he is a they need a wide receiver they have josh how was this they a plus b yeah like stefan diggs is is gone we need someone to soak up targets here Well, did Keon Coleman earn targets in college?

59:54Andy Holloway:No. No, he didn't. No, but Mahomes will fix it. But now it will definitely work. You're like, well, like his final college season talking to Keon Coleman. Targets per round run, 23%, which that is in the 22nd percentile mark among day two wide receivers, as in he was not earning targets for a second round wide receiver. and look where Keon Coleman's career has gone. It's been a complete disaster. Matthew Golden, first-round wide receiver, team that desperately needs a wide receiver, team that they don't draft. They don't draft guys in the first round, and they went in on Matthew Golden. Well, Matthew Golden certainly earned targets as a prospect, right?

1:00:39Andy Holloway:No. His final season targets per run, 17.7. That is the lowest of any first-round wide receiver over the last decade. shocker it has not worked he had he wasn't able to earn targets in college he's not earning targets now as a professional Xavier Worthy Kansas City Chiefs holy crap same exact thing I did the same exact thing with Keon Coleman that I did with Worthy I didn't like this player as a prospect like the the production profile I don't I'm just I'm not seeing it I'm not seeing it working and yet Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes gets a first round wide receiver of course it's going to work because of course he's first round wide receiver right he's earning targets in college no 37th percentile mark for round one wide receivers that's where xavier worthy was and it just it hasn't worked out so draft capital is incredibly important incredibly important

1:01:33Jason Moore:i'm so sorry mike i'm so sorry i'm sure you had a good point i don't know i don't know we've just been playing around with the book i don't know what's going on the bookshelf light behind you

1:01:43Mike Wright:Apparently the bookshelf was lit at one point, but it's been a while. And then I guess it turned off. And so he turned it on while you were like talking. He fixed it right in mid-talk. He fixed it and he walked back to his seat. And the second he sat down, it just turned off.

1:01:55Jason Moore:It was just. Our set is a work in progress right now, people.

1:01:58Mike Wright:Yeah, no, they're working during the show. But good points, good points, good points. Good answer, good answer. We did this with Tyreek Hill in Kansas City as well.

1:02:06Andy Holloway:We'll do this. We'll do the TLDR right here. if guys aren't earning targets in college just because they go to the best quarterback or the second best quarterback in the league does not automatically mean that player will start earning targets they just you you need proof you need proof i don't care about your athletic i think

1:02:29Mike Wright:i think what is just to um i i agree completely it's something to remember i think what is difficult for fantasy players and managers is the team's confidence in that player is persuasive oh yeah so when they spend draft capital to bring a player into an obvious need position it is very difficult to not find a way in your brain to make that work i mean to some degree that was the case with clyde odors a layer not looking in the target department but just looking in the running back department you're like oh maybe i didn't love the film you know you guys I don't think loved it as much. But then it was like, well, he went to Kansas City.

1:03:06Mike Wright:It's got to work.

1:03:07Andy Holloway:It swayed me. I had the first pick in our rookie draft that year. I freaking loved Jonathan Taylor. I was like, this is the guy. And then Edward Zolaire goes to the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round. And how do you not automatically make that guy the first pick? It would be foolish. So, I mean, everything today is just really working in a – Symbiotic? Yeah, symbiotic way of all these things need to be taken into account. We're just finishing each other's sandwiches.

1:03:38Jason Moore:Thank you. And it goes into this next one, too. Number two. Draft class projections are real. They really are. We've learned this lesson over the last few years, but this last year showed me. So we do NFL and fantasy football. When we're going through the NFL season, we don't have time to just grind college film. I don't, at least. I don't know if— In the season? Yeah, in the season. So our attention turns to prospecting right now. We just don't have time during the season. But we always hear the rumors, the whispers, the projections of a whole draft class. In 2024, it was supposed to be this great wide receiver draft class year.

1:04:24Jason Moore:Oh, and then it was. I know Marvin Harrison Jr. was disappointing as a rookie, still not bad, historically speaking, as a rookie. Malik Nabors was a breakout. Brian Thomas Jr., Ladd McConkie, just an amazing draft class. Seven first-round wide receivers, most over the last decade. That was what we heard about it. That came out to be true. Last year, we were told this is a running back draft class that's loaded and a bad wide receiver draft class. That's what we knew going into, like, I'm going to go start looking. We were told it's a running back and tight end draft class, and it really, really was.

1:04:58Jason Moore:You had Gentry, Hampton, Judkins, Henderson, Harvey, the second most total touches and yards from scrimmage for rookies over the last decade, despite major injuries to Hampton and Judkins and Scadaboo. If they had stayed healthy, it would have been the craziest rookie running back season ever. And wide receivers last year, we were told, it's kind of a down year for wide receivers. And it really kind of was. There wasn't a lot of massive production. You know, we just talked about Tet was okay. Ibuka looked like a big stud breakout and then disappeared. It just wasn't great. So what is this year?

1:05:40Jason Moore:I'm going to buy into the paintbrush that's painted by the entire draft community, which is... Some are stronger here, some are stronger there. Yes, it's different every year, and this is what this year is. This year is overall a weaker draft class in general, top to bottom, but its strength is in wide receivers. It's a very weak running back draft class and a pretty deep wide receiver draft class. And why this matters is because if you look at last year, last year was a really strong running back draft class and very deep. If you took shots on those rookies, it really did pay off. And even the late round picks, the guys that weren't the studs, but they were just in a loaded running back draft class, Cam Scadaboo, Woody Marks had an impact at one point.

1:06:26Jason Moore:Kyle Mononga at the end of the season was startable. Bill Krosky mattered because it was just a really... That was the strength of that class. and then the tight ends and you had the three rookie tight ends.

1:06:39Mike Wright:Are you going to remove Makai Lemon because he's so creepy?

1:06:43Jason Moore:No, no. I do think that once the interviews are – I'm a snake, man. It was very serpentine. It was so creepy. His interviews were crazy.

1:06:55Andy Holloway:Because that was kind of the overall thought of. Lemon's interview, it was unique. It was an interesting, you think you're looking cool talking like this situation? Go check the tape, man. I don't think you looked as cool as you thought you were going to look. However, we want wide receivers thinking they are that.

1:07:21Jason Moore:At Divatown? Oh, yeah. Terrell Owens? Come on down to my team. Antonio Brown, you're welcome as my starting wide receiver. Yeah, you could be crazy.

1:07:28Andy Holloway:I didn't interpret that as bad because I'm like, that's a guy who when he gets in the huddle, is going to say throw me the ball throw me the ball I'm open I'm always open yeah so don't pick

1:07:40Jason Moore:up my kids from school I'm going to tease something here that this has been what I've been working on the entire offseason it is we're going to be rolling it out to the dynasty pass at some point in time the Felix model is a I mean this is I'm so excited about this I'm going to put out an article detailing it and information to come. But this is more data than I've ever had access to in my entire life. Machine learning, backdate tested, an incredible prospecting model to try to project fantasy football success at the next level. Backdating it, looking at last year, it's looking really, it would have had Jackson Dart as a 90th percentile player.

1:08:26Jason Moore:Cam Ward down a little bit lower. Last year, I wish I had it. Look, Caleb Johnson, he was a 26th percentile Felix score. Maybe I wish I had this last year. Okay. It's getting things right in a way that is genuinely impressing me. And when I look at just that Felix score projection, and these aren't locked in yet because we don't have, the NFL draft hasn't happened. These are projected draft capital, which is everything will change. But just to give you an idea of the lay of the land for this coming draft class. 90-plus graded Felix score athletes from last year at wide receiver, there were two of them.

1:09:01Jason Moore:This year there are five wide receivers graded in the 90th percentile or better. 80 to 90, which is still good. Last year there were five of those players in last year's draft class. There's 12. So this is a loaded 17 players in this wide receiver draft class right now pre-NFL draft. so it will change. This is where the depth is, so later in my drafts this year, I'm going to be focusing on rookie wide receivers in my rookie drafts. Yeah, you're buying in there.

1:09:32Andy Holloway:I think this draft class is deep. I think we're just going to be getting, though, some strong twos. Yeah, I think it's depth more than studs. I don't know that we don't have a Jamar. Well, I mean, people like Tate. I think Tyson. there's a handful of guys who could I just think that the depth is more of a you're going to be a short you'll be able to shore up that bench and have players who can go into your flex spots

1:09:58Mike Wright:alright there's one more number one I'm not reading that first one because that's not I mean that's for you Mike oh but number one is to

1:10:09Andy Holloway:we always want to remind people get your league right this is the time of year to get it going don't wait until August and be like, ah, crap, we didn't fix this. We're in the same situation. I guess we'll think about it again next year. We've still got kickers. Like, if you've got issues in your league.

1:10:28Jason Moore:We've still got Week 18 championships.

1:10:30Andy Holloway:Take care of it right now. And the note for me, if you're the champ, start plotting. Know what you're going to do on draft day. I've got my ideas floating around. I have applied for another mortgage so that I can. Yeah, no, no, no. so that I can fund the championship party.

1:10:50Mike Wright:I'm looking forward to the draft. I'm so not.

1:10:54Andy Holloway:My bank account is not looking forward to it. So I got to figure it out. Me and Kyle were working on some things. Some ideas are floating around, but now is the time to start thinking about that.

1:11:06Mike Wright:Flush the turds in your league. If there's a bad manager in your league that just doesn't add anything, isn't active, it's better to be a great 10-person league than a bad 12-person league with two turds, okay? Get rid of the bad managers. Make the changes you need to do. Do it all right now. New rules, new scoring settings. Set up a new way to communicate. Whatever you need to do, get it done. Make your league the best. It's the one repeatable thing to remember we bring up each and every year. So that is going to do it for today's episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. You can find the Dynasty Pass, the aforementioned Dynasty Pass, at ultimatedraftkit.com.

1:11:44Mike Wright:You weren't talking about the feline model, right? No. Mason Taylor was 100th percentile.

1:11:50Jason Moore:No.

1:11:51Mike Wright:Is it different? The feelings.

1:11:54Jason Moore:Goodbye.

1:11:57Jason Moore: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 at the FFBallers.

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