Wildcard Players! Breakout or Bust? | Fantasy Football 2024 - Ep. 1580

Intro Oh, it's good to be back! We have an awesome show today. We're talking about the fantasy wild cards, those guys that can be great or could be busts and we're gonna debate them on today's episode. So don't miss a minute and make sure you subscribe! Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright. Welcome in! The Fantasy Footballers Podcast Tuesday, May 28. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Good morning, afternoon, good evening everyone. Hope you had a tremendous Memorial Day. Yeah, it's a fun holiday. Jason, how are you doing? Welcome back. It's good to be back. The boys are back in town and we're all together. I'm excited. Are you burgers or dogs on Memorial Day? What's the... Nice try! Not today, Satan. I'm both. Okay, I was gonna say you can't say both. Pick one. Pick one. If I have to pick? Oh man. Burgers. This is the hardest decision you've ever made. It brings me joy like how much Jason loves hot dogs. Why do you love them so much? Because they're great! They're so good. You know, a good hot dog is real. You can get crappy circle K dogs. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a nice big jumbo dog with a good crust on it. Are you a ballpark man? What are we talking about? Probably go Hebrew National. I don't want to exclude any of the brands here. All are welcome sponsors. I'm a hot dog man. Glad to have you back. We are talking fantasy wildcars today. NFL News. It's a mailbag if we have time. And yeah, long weekend. Glad to be with you. Four days! Four days until the ultimate draft kit is here. Four days and counting. That was your contribution? Yeah, it was. Letting us know that time moves. Did you not know that? No, I'm now... But you gotta count it. That's his point. Yeah, no. So the ultimate draft kit on Saturday this year. So make your plans. Take care of those things you gotta do on Friday. Yes. And then spend the weekend with the UDK. That's what I would do. UltimateDraftKit.com. NFL News Four days left to get the pre-order pricing over there. You can follow us over on AXE at theFFBallers, at Andy Holloway, at Jason FFL, at FFHitman. And no quick question today. We're going to jump right into the news. News and Notes from Around the League. Took care of all the quick question material with the hot dog debate from earlier. Sure did. It wasn't a debate. Okay. I have a weird relationship with hot dogs. A lot of people do. That's... Okay, let's unfold here, man. There's a lot to dig into. I mean, there's really not that much. I just feel like the percentage of times that I have for whatever reason. And I don't know what's in a hot dog. I'll be honest. No one does. No one does. For some reason, the handful of times in my life that I have had to give my food back to the world. Ah. Where I've had to vomit. Oh, we're talking up to top. Okay. Yeah. I mean, my food returns to the earth every time. I know you give your food back the other direction, Jay. But listen, I'm just saying like of the percentage of times I've vomited in my life, there's a high percentage of them that have been hot dogs for some reason. For some reason? We can't figure out why. Look, there's a reason they say you don't want to know how the sausage is made. We're all trying to figure out who did this. But this is not a surprise. No, it's not. It's not a surprise. Have you thrown on some hot dogs? I'm sure I have. I've had a lot of hot dogs. You know? But sometimes it's no pain, no gain. It's funny because it colors my perception of what I would choose. Like, I actually love hot dogs. I just don't eat them anymore because I don't want to throw up. It's fair. It's fair. And I think part of it is like they do the movie theater hot dogs. That was one of them. Yeah, that's not. You don't want to do that move. I had a Disneyland hot dog situation once. Oh. Hot dogs? I don't know, man. Of course. Yeah. Well, they have the giant corn dogs. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jay's been taking issues. Like, I know everywhere hot dogs are. And I will never the Disneyland corn dogs are. They're fantastic, but that's not a hot dog. I was a small child. I don't know if they sold Disney dogs back then or something. They must not have. You've got a bad memory. Doug Peterson said during OTAs, by the way, this is the random news part of the year where we can talk about whether you even care about some of these things. But he said, once again, Doug Peterson did his off season OTA discussion about leaning on Travis E.T. in less during the 2024 campaign in order to keep him healthy. They want to make sure Tink Bigsby gets opportunities to go out there and take some of the pounding off of Travis, which last year, 340 opportunities for Travis E.T. in third most among all running backs. Bigsby had 50. 50 total carries had the lowest rush success rate among all running backs. And what's crazy is his reception success rate was that's not something that's like measured, but it's worse because his targets turned into just what do you call it when you when you're in volleyball? You bump then you set bump set spike. Yeah, he did the setting on all of his targets and the spikes were interceptions. That's correct. Yes. No, I it was a really disappointing year for Tink Bigsby. The biggest reaction to this is most teams want this for their offense. Most teams want that, you know, the Rams, they don't want Kyren to have the workload he had last year. If you're not Christian McCaffrey, every other team wants balance so that you're you're running back as fresh and they they are more efficient and they don't get hurt. But Tink Bigsby was the worst running back in football last year. He so by that by that measure. And when push comes to shove, I just don't have a lot of fear of ETN being, you know, underutilized to the point of not being a top tier guy. This is just things that get said and they get set every year and you're 100% right. Of course they want to give him fewer carries. It's wise to do that. Push comes to shove eventually and you got to have your best players on the field. So it's it's really a matter of can't Tink Bigsby take a step forward and develop as a player because who's a good college prospect. I like this tape and then they're a day to pick has the capital and I'm sure they want him to spell ETN more. But also don't be afraid of those things because we've seen it so many times. So many times where high volume can just turn into less efficiency, lower volume. You know, you see the very efficient lower volume players and you think, oh, if they get the chance to be high volume, they'll just crush. And then they get the chance, Tony Pollard and it's like, you know, Lamar Miller, it doesn't always work that way. So if they if they take some away from ETN next year, that doesn't mean that his fantasy productions going away. Yeah, I am on the side of I like it's all it is. It's all up to Tank. Can he be good enough to get on the field? As we had Doug Peterson up in Philadelphia and there was not workhorse usage. I'm trying to quickly go back through through through everything here. It looks like so Miles Sanders year he had 179 carries. That seems to be the highest I can find. I remember having debates back then. Well, of the Doug Peterson back. Yes. And whether we felt like there were players that were even capable of being the workhorse, you know, it's a chicken or egg thing to a degree. Sure. But it's like five years in Philadelphia didn't have an ETN type of output from the Browningback position. And I don't know. I 267 carries last year. 340 opportunities was what I do. I do believe you mean ETN. I'm sorry. Yes. I do believe that they this isn't just talking about like they really want to do this. They really will try to do it. Can they? That's the question. But I think they will try to do it. I think if they wanted to do it, they would have signed a running back. That's my opinion. Yeah, I agree. No, I they are hoping the tank big develops and is better this year. If that doesn't happen, then it's same old same old. Testing on Christian Watson's hamstrings revealed an asymmetrical stride. Never want that. That was the cause of his persistent hamstring injury. You want it symmetrical. Yeah. Okay. Been hurt a lot. Lot of soft tissue issues went to a specialist. Well, that's the hope here. The hope is that they were trying to figure out like why do you outrun your hamstrings? Why do you do that all the time? And then, you know, they found the asymmetrical. There's a pabble in one of the shoes. This happened to was Alvin Camara, who some of a couple years ago had this going on and they were able to fix the process. Fix the stride. How do you really learn to run? It's basically it's not it's not your you're changing your stride. It's a muscle imbalance between your right and your left leg that are that's the discrepancy is too large. So I think it's a matter of working out, you know, you don't want to be JK one leg. You want to be JK two legs. And so hopefully this is I don't know. Maybe it's nonsense, but I mean, this is scientific, you know, doctoring towards. Wait, wait, what? Yeah, doctor. What? You know, when a doctor does sound like you're doctoring the whole message. Doctoring is usually for like fraudulent. Yeah. Just okay. That's the best. You want to start it over. This is actionable work being taken towards hopefully a healthy season because Christian Watson's biggest knock has obviously been his ability to stay on the field. Matthew Betts came out and you know, he just reminds us that the number one predictor of future hamstring injury is past hamstring injury and he's a fan of him working on this, but he's still a great arrest compared to other players. Yeah, great arrest. But Jason's overall point thing is something is being done. It's not a, well, we hope that he won't happen again. Give him a little rest. Yeah. No, they're doctoring this thing up, you know. Did you find an old quote there, Al? Yeah, about Camara having some muscle asymmetry in his legs that he worked with a new trainer to get fixed. You were correct, Jay. Well, sort of. You're saying it didn't work? Yeah, I mean, that's the part where it's like the tweet from Nick Underhill last offseason was that he didn't have all of his burst the year before, got with a new trainer, fixed the asymmetry. Oh wait, this was last year? Yeah. Oh, it didn't work. No, it didn't. It slowed him down. The reason he was so fast is because one of his legs was lighter. All they did is they didn't beef up the other leg. They just brought the one muscle so much easier to just go. They atrophied one of the legs down. The lowest common denominator you got to. Well, this was August 6th last year, Nick Underhill. He looks more explosive and the Saints have the data to prove it. Well, you know. Okay. So there you go. D'Amico Ryan's. I want your reaction. Texans head coach D'Amico Ryan says he thinks of Joe Mixon and Damian Pierce as a one-two punch. He has praised Pierce's work ethic this offseason, changed his body, has everything it takes to be a really good back. He's 24 years old, Mixon is 27, going on 28. This one's harder to believe in. Well, we've seen Pierce be great. We didn't see that with Bigsby before. You know what I mean? When you talk about the desire to have a one-two punch, Pierce was like visibly incredible for his entire rookie season. That is fair. And last year, it was atrocious. Don't watch. But he was hurt. I mean, he missed time in the beginning of the year. So maybe things got away from him. Maybe he went a little, what was Josh Jacobs again? Fatthor? Maybe. And they said he changed his body. I'm not predicting anything special for Damian Pierce. But Joe Mixon is an older running back. Older running backs deal with injuries. And Damian Pierce is younger running backs. So to hear, I always thought D'Amico Ryan's really like Damian Pierce. And I think it really hurt to have him take him off the field last year. But this one though, like if this one happens where, let me back up. If Travis Etienne's workload does go down, he will still be great for fantasy football. If Joe Mixon finds himself in a full timeshare, he will be bad for fantasy football. Yeah. I agree completely. The hard part is this one seems harder, a harder pill for me to swallow because last year was the first year with Damico Ryan's with Damian Pierce and they tried to use him in the beginning and then they're like, you're not fitting the system. It doesn't work well. Yeah, that's not true. That's not what happened. Well, at the end of the year. What happened was they started to try to use him. He got hurt. He missed a bunch of time. Singletary proved himself and you're right. At that point, they had made the choice. But it wasn't like it was a performance only situation. But he sucked up until the injury. No, I know. I mean, until the injury. He was at three yards. He forced Singletary onto the bench is all I'm saying. So seven games and your average over that time is three yards in attempt. Yeah, he was an abomination on the field. He was really, really, really bad. And that's averaging 15 carries a game. And then once he came back and was healthy, he was basically not used. He was trash. He was trash. I agree with that. I mean, and like you said, it was the first time we've seen what he's doing there. And yet they didn't bring Singletary back, obviously. And they went out and they traded for mixing. They signed them to a new extension. The actions of the team are what make me think of this as more coach speak. Like, you're going to talk up your players. Oh, it's a great one to punch Damien's in the best shape of his life. Blah, blah, blah, blah, nonsense. I mean, maybe it's true, but it's not. It's weird. Damien Pierce is weird because year one was different than year two in a very, very big way. Yes. New system, though. We talked about the line, right? The line was terrible, but Singletary succeeded over the back half of the year. It's just weird. Last year, I mean, he was one of the biggest misses. He was a 4.3 at Kerry as a rookie on 220 attempts. Yeah, that's crazy. And then last year was like, I mean, he's like, Tang Bigsby for the roster. Lamar Jackson dropped weight in an effort to become more agile. Oh, okay. As did Tua. Yeah. Oh, hmm. What? I don't know. I feel like Tua is- You want him to bulk up? Yeah, I mean, you know, when I- You want him to be doing neck exercises. Yeah, oh, for sure. For sure, neck exercises. I mean, Tua still- Neck exercises. Tua still scares me from a neck- I didn't want to say it, and you took it. You took the bait. Boston. If road, you think I didn't think of that immediately? I bet if you check the tape, you can hear like a hitch in my giddy episode saying neck exercises. Yeah. It's like, oh, that'd be too dumb to put those together. I was trying to say quietly while you were talking. Neck exercises. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I still worry a little bit about the big injury risk of Tua. You know, I- I mean, isn't an injury risk for Lamar to lose weight? Yeah, I'm just saying we've seen like the scare on the field of Tua from the concussions of the head injuries where it's like- I don't know. I want him to bulk up, be strong, be big. I mean, we've seen it with Lamar Jackson. We've seen injuries. Yeah. It's like, is there any concern with- like are you excited or not excited about the news? He played 12 games in 2021, 12 games in 2022, 16 last year. I'm- You don't care? I don't care. All right. That's part of the offseason, figuring out what you don't care about. Source. Okay. Just one note for Lamar. He needs 851 rushing yards to break the career QB rushing. That's not the note I'm looking at. No. You see the- No. You see the source for the final bit of news here? Somebody put something- Oh, yes. Reports from camp are that the fantasy footballers could also drop weight this summer. Oh, man. It's a big- It's in the range of outcomes. The word could is doing some real heavy lifting in that sense. It's like a wild card. This is the wild card episode. And listen, the opportunity is there. Right? I mean, we've got great opportunity. We have weight to lose. Yes. There's always opportunity to lose it. But most likely, you know, we've got- Coach speak. We've got a decade of history to fall back on here and make our bets. So- Are you a better podcaster if you cut weight now? Seize a more agile with your words? I don't think so, man. You get that big boy voice. You know what I mean? Boke up. Get that neck- We've talked about the fact, Jason, that your voice has changed over the years. Yeah. I've changed. So do you want me to- Wait a minute. Which one? Just tell me what you want. Video or audio? This is- You don't want me to say video? No, I don't. I want you to say audio. That is not a joke at all. No. We just heard one of the- The early episodes of the show. And Jason's voice- Hi, guys. Jason's voice was noticeably higher. Yes. Yeah, and then I started bulk season for a decade. And listen to this- And you got a man voice. Yeah, I did. You can't lose weight. No, no chance, man. I had Chipotle for lunch. Don't you worry about it. Oh, my gosh. I hadn't connected the- I know. Just wait to see how low I can get my voice cut. I'm gonna be very white by the time we retire. All right, we're gonna take a break. Fantasy Wildcards Let's talk with some wild card players. All right, let's jump in. No, I'm saying- No, brakes! Guys, why are the brakes working? Because I cut the brakes! Wild card! Yee-haw! We have selected two players each that are tough to rank, wide range of outcomes, players George Pickens that we could see making a really big impact positively or negatively in fantasy football, depending on how things go. So, I'm going to begin with George Pickens of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I like it. I love it. Okay. I want some more of it. Just saying, I've- Your emotions are better. I'm very in on Pickens right now. George Pickens is- Well, it's very interesting because there's hype around several of the other year three players, right? Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson. Yeah. And, well, let's do this. Oh, my! I want to play the game. Because I want the world to awaken a little bit to George Pickens. And so we'll do the- Wait, so you're thinking, are you more bullish? We're gonna find out. Okay, we're gonna find out. I'm more bearish, so- Yeah, I- This is a perfect wildcard because I could see both, but I convinced me here. Play a game. Well, look, through two years, let's look at George Pickens and Chris Olave. And those other guys? Chris Olave specifically. Oh, man. So- So this game is Pickens versus Olave. Yeah. This brought Kyle so much pain. I- You know, I think that Kyle and Betsy are pretty in on George Pickens. Okay. All right, let's go. All right, let's go receptions. More- Who has more? Yeah, who's got more? Olave. Yeah, yeah, buy a lot. Chris Olave, okay. Yeah, he's 159 to 115. Yards per reception. Oh, we're going per numbers. I'm gonna switch over- Yeah, we're going all over the place. Okay, I'll go Pickens. Per, I'll go Pickens. Pickens is at 16.9. Olave's at 13.6. Yeah. Total receiving yards. 16.9 times 115. Oh, yeah, you could do that, couldn't you? How was it? I'm gonna say Olave. Uh, it's very close. Olave has him beat 21.65 to 1941. Okay, that's close. Receiving touchdowns over two years. Oh, man. That might be- Yeah, I'm gonna go Pickens. Pickens. They're tied at nine. Oh. Top 12 weeks. Pickens. Pickens. Pickens. Seven. Olave, five. 20 plus yard receptions at the NFL level. Pickens. Yeah. 27 for Pickens, 15 for Olave. So those numbers are- My game was easy. They're fairly close. Did you get 100? I got 100. They're fairly close. And here's the biggest change that you saw in George Pickens' game. In 2022, his rookie season, you were like, this is a deep play guy. And you were kind of right. 35% of his routes were deep routes. Um, and he was making big plays down the field. Uh, and that's kind of what you thought of him as, a jump ball type of player. Last year, it was a big difference. He had 39% of his routes were intermediate routes, and another 36% were short routes. So you're talking about 80% of his routes were shorter intermediate. He had 21% deep routes. So this was not the same player that you saw as a rookie. In fact, he had one more intermediate route. This is crazy to me in 2023 than Garrett Wilson had. And you think about what Garrett Wilson was running in that offense. Um, yeah, sorry, intermediate reception. Yes. So he had improved across the board in terms of the types of routes he can run. You lose Deontay Johnson. He's a go to, and the team, you know, it says something to me, that the team was willing to go in with what we view as a thin wide receiver room. I mean, you pick up Roman Wilson or rookie, you don't bring them in to depend on him on day one. And then Pat Freimuth has dealt with injuries. He's going to be a part of the, like, this is Pickens wide receiver room. Yeah, we got, uh, what, Van Jefferson, currently the other projected starter. This is Pickens wide receiver room. Like I said, yeah, I mean, and to put up numbers that you look at what Olavi, there's a lot of expectation last year and then this year for Olavi to break out. Do you, do you like, do you guys love Derek Carr? No, no. Okay. So like, it's not like the quarterback is the fundamental reason we're in love with Chris Olavi. It's the talent and we don't love Russell Wilson, but he's an upgrade on what they had last year and George Pickens had his moments and ran a lot more rounds. And so I think it's very interesting when you look at this season, he's the wide receiver, 26, he was very inconsistent with no quarterback play. But I think he could take a step forward this year and the value you're going to get on Pickens, it's a lot better than what you would get on Olavi. He had 1140 yards, which I think would surprise a lot of people. The issue here is you still kind of expect inconsistency if for no other reason than Russell Wilson. This is not a quarterback, you know, solution. This is hopefully an upgrade, but we're certainly not even sure about that. We had success with Coralyn Sutton last year with Russell Wilson. Not really. I mean, I know what you're saying. He had 10 touchdowns, which is, I mean, that's a massive number, but Sutton, where did he finish with 10 touchdowns? Was he even a top 24? I don't think so. 35. He was wide receiver 35. Yeah, we'll see what it's like without Deontay Johnson. My point isn't to necessarily argue for George Pickens, but bring up both sides of the equation. I mean, obviously the Wilson coming in dependency on Pickens is going to be interesting. How run heavy will they be with Arthur Smith? They should be in two wide receiver sets more often, which is something that Pickens has been good at. But, you know, we've only seen him play, I think, four games without Deontay Johnson. He was great, but we'll find out this year. I think Pickens is a huge gamble with really high upside for fantasy players. No, and I like it where he's going in drafts right now is, like, I think it's, you're in a sweet spot for risk reward where there's... Where's he going right now? So, you have it up? Sixth round? Yeah, it looks like... Let me see if I can pull it up here. ...on sleeper going about the middle of the fifth and underdog towards the back of the ninth. But I mean, so... No, back of the fourth. Or fourth, yeah, four-oh-nine. Which speaks to his perception. And it's like, he's right around, you know, Zay Flowers, T. Higgins, Amari Cooper, Keenan Allen, like Christian Kirk. You just named... There's some safer players there, but they're not going to... I don't think they have the same ceiling as Pickens this year. Cooper's only one that you named is...that's the primary target, right? Of those other names? Well, yeah. Like, Pickens should be the one. Flowers is the wide receiver one, but he may not be the number one target. Josh Jacobs Right. You would look at Andrews. Andrews, yeah. All right. I'm going to hop in here with a player that...it terrifies me. Wild car. Wild car. Terrifies me to be wrong, because I can...I'm pretty out, but I can easily see the clear-cut path for the most glorious fantasy season. So I'm going to talk about both sides of the coin of Josh Jacobs. New running back for the Green Bay Packers. He has...you know, he has to be great, because you're taking him as an RB1 right now. He can't just be good. He needs to be great. Here's the pros. The Green Bay offense is the biggest pro overall. There's sixth in yards per play, eighth in points per game, second in red zone plays per game, and that's really, really, really where Josh Jacobs could thrive, because last year, the Packers, they had four total rushing touchdowns on 368 total attempts. Dylan and Jones had two apiece, that is so bad, with backfields with more than 350 attempts. That's the fewest rushing touchdowns since 2016. So they let Aaron Jones walk. They bring in Josh Jacobs, a guy who just the year before last led the entire league in rushing. So it's like this is...he's coming into a situation where they have opportunity to score touchdowns. They're on a great offense. We've seen Aaron Jones for years be successful here. This could easily be a top five running back this season in fantasy football, and I've seen some people who are drafting him like that, that are drafting him essentially very confident that he is going to be great. I'm on the other side. I'm a little skirted because, you know, efficiency wise, he might have either had a bad season or be trending to the new normal. Last year was terrible. His yards per carry were 56th out of 69 running backs. His forced midst tackle rate was 51st out of 69. His explosive rush rate was 54th out of 69. Also, he's coming into year... Years six and seven are the largest percentage of fantasy point declines for running backs. So he's already...he's at that point...he's not at the age cliff, but he's at the season where you see a huge decline coming off super inefficient running where he didn't look good. And then you go, well, he was in a bad situation. You know, he was playing for the Raiders, bad team, bad offensive line. Well, the last four weeks, you had Samir Wright, White running 4.7 a carry, looked just fine. So they gave him a contract, but it's a one-year contract. They go out and they sign or they draft Marshawn Lloyd with a day two draft capital. And so if he is ineffective, inefficient, he'll be in a timeshare. I don't think he's just going to get thrown to the curb, but he'll be in potentially a three-way timeshare now. Point of clarity. I know what you meant, but for those listening, it was a four-year deal that he signed with the Green Bay Pact. It's not a one-year deal. You said he signed a one-year contract. I said that with my words. He did. Incredible. Yes, he signed a four-year contract where it's all front-loaded, the guaranteed money, the dead cap, essentially. If he stinks this season, they'll cut him and move on. And so they have their out. It's a brilliant... There's a pretty big cap hit next year. It's still movable. It's where you're able to get out. So I'm just worried that Josh Jacobs is going to be in a timeshare. You've seen LaFleur talk about, like, when he drafted Marshall Lloyd. He was talking about how he uses multiple backs. He's always used multiple backs. He believes in a multiple-back system. And so we've seen Aaron Jones with success in it, but we've also seen Aaron Jones not get a lot of volume. If Josh Jacobs does not get a lot of volume and is not... I mean, Aaron Jones is as efficient as any running mech we've seen in the last decade. That's not really been Josh Jacobs' game, is pure efficiency. Certainly not this last year. What makes him a wild card to me is the fact that you have this year of taking over the league that predated it. Like, Josh Jacobs was the best running back 1653 yards the year before the struggle year, which is crazy. Like, if you just took that year out of his career art, you'd say, well, he really wasn't that different than what he had been for a carry 3.9 a carry the previous two years. But you had this one year where he jumped up to, you know, he had the big plays, right? Like the Seattle game and these huge long runs, 86 yard touchdowns, and he's 4.9 a carry. And was it...was that year the outlier? I mean, it seems like it right now. Yeah, it does. So... If you draft him, I hope that was the outlier. I mean, we called...we...Mike called him Fat Thor going in because, you know, holding out deep into camp, maybe that was the issue. Well, I...sorry. Go ahead. I'm just saying, if that was the cause of the inefficiency and, you know, he wasn't in the shape he was used to being in, I don't necessarily buy that. I don't think he was sitting at home doing nothing. You know, I think he was still working out trying to stay in shape, but... Yeah, a lot of tumult that year. Right now, where he's going in drafts, he's going to be an option for people that draft one of the top wide receivers. Because if you end up Lam Hill, Chase Jefferson Brown, who are, by the way, ADP 2 through 6 right now, 5 wide outs, when your turn comes back around at that...was a 2-3 turn, that's about where Jacobs is going. So either you took McCaffrey and he's your RB2 there, or you took a wide out potentially, and you're coming back around and deciding if you want to go with Jacobs as your RB1, Antonio Gibson which would make him...it's a wild card RB1, because there's potential great upside, and there's also that stink from last year that is emanating. Yeah, it's massive risk for his ADP. All right, the first guy I want to talk about, could we be back? I do not know yet, but it is Mr. Antonio Gibson, new running back for the New England Patriots, who currently is a complete afterthought in drafts. I am seeing right now an ADP of RB50 on Sleeper and RB51 on Underdog. So this player is not being sought after at all, and here's kind of both sides of the case. He turns 26, entering year 5, kind of similar stuff with Josh Jacobs, so he hasn't aged out just yet. He is actually younger than the incumbent under Ramon de Stevenson, so the age between the two of them, you can't really argue it, and it was a three-year deal, with 5 million guaranteed for Antonio Gibson. That's not a ton of cash, but it was also one of those, if you're trying to read the tea leaves of the actions, it was immediate. The Patriots went and signed him, or got an agreement from him right off of the, in the tampering period. And the pros are, the offensive system we are told that's going to be launched in New England, you know, the Alex Van Pelt Cleveland system, so it's a lot of outside zone runs, where Antonio Gibson has far more experience with that as the rushing scheme than Ramon de Stevenson, and that stuff does matter. There's some running backs that they excel in power schemes in man, and then there's some guys who are just great in zone. So Gibson, he might have an upper hand there between the competition of, oh, I already know how to do this. And then on top of that, while Antonio Gibson for fantasy football last year, it was really just a couple of spot weeks here or there, when he's filling in, but in terms of efficiency, second in yards created per touch, fourth in yards per touch, sixth in fantasy points per opportunity, ninth in PFF's elusive rating. Like he still had juice on the field. He just, he had lost his spot as the starter. And where I've started to be thinking more and more lately is, like, could Antonio Gibson actually just take the job? Take the job from Ramon de Stevenson. And I think there is a world that exists. Antonio Gibson is a far more electric pass catcher for his career. You know, he's at 7.2 yards per catch, and over the past couple of years, Ramon de is just barely over six. So Antonio is better there. Last year was atrocious on the ground for Ramon de Stevenson. Let me ask the question. Please do. Do you think that Mike is the only one that thinks that in this game? I think that Mike is the only one. If you're including Kyle's on the line, Brooks is here, the doosers are here, I would hope that Mike is the only one. I am definitely not going to be the only one. Oh, because of Kyle? Yeah. Yeah. Kyle is in on this? Yeah. Dude, when you said back, I was trying to, when you said he might be back, I was like, what do you mean? Ricky Year. No, no, no, I'm not saying, I'm not saying. It is crazy to think you had 257 rush attempts as a sophomore. I'm not saying top 12 running back, but I'm saying a guy who's being drafted in the 50s, who in my opinion, this is an ambiguous backfile. That's where he's being drafted? Yeah. RB 50. Oh, okay. You said the 50s. I thought you meant like pick 50. Yeah, yeah, the 50 of his position. Like this is a guy who's not even really being drafted. And so that's like, that's the positive case for him. Of course, the negative is, right now the New England Patriots are the favorite to be the worst. And over the last six years, the team with the worst record, they're running back fantasy points are 30th, 31st, 31st. This feels like another way of insulting Ramon Ray though. Like you don't like what Ramon Ray brings to the table. I thought Ramon Ray was terrible last year. And the fact that they immediately went out and got Antonio Gibson, the fact that he is a better pass catcher, more dynamic, can make things happen should, like sometimes you need a, sometimes your offense works. Sometimes you need a player and you say, please go do something for me. And Antonio Gibson can do that where Ramon Ray can't. So I'm saying over the course of the year, there are a bunch of running backs that are being drafted that probably Gibson should go ahead of as flyers. Like Chase Brown and Gibson, Brown's going to go in the 11th round. Gibson's probably undrafted, right? Which one are you saying you would rather have? I'd rather have Gibson. No, I'm just saying that Gibson is equal in my mind in terms of upside to Chase Brown. Chase Brown does nothing. He's not, he can't pass protect. He can't, he's barely involved in the offense. Like to me, that's a, that's a misprice. Yeah. That's a huge part of the argument is the ADP because Jay, you, you're over here. I can, your vibes and your words are, I'm out. You are OUT on Antonio Gibson. That is great. And yet compared to his ADP, you are soups in. Well, yes or no. I mean, it's kind of like what Andy's saying. When you're drafting someone, you know, at running back 50, I'm looking for something that can really explode and become a high end, you know, some rookie backup that just needs an injury ahead of him and he can, he could go. I presume that the New England Patriots' offense is going to be bad. Yeah. I also think that Antonio Gibson was immediately gone after in free age because this is replacing Zeke, not Ramondray. This is, you know, Drawn Mayo is part of this team. Ramondray was the guy. This isn't a new, I mean, it's a new coaching staff, but it's not like an entirely new regime that, that was not part of the human beings there. I'm shocked that you want to have this conversation, Mike. I really am. I feel like just, it might have been better for your, better for your emotional health to just set him out to see. You know what I mean? He's been there. He's been on a life raft just chilling out in the ocean. Push him back out. Maybe we will. You know what I mean? Like if you're on the boat and you're like, you have a choice. You'll be like, come on, I'll save you. Or next, next man gets him. I would pull him in so that my arrow that is on fire could hit the back. Oh, you're going Viking. I'm just, but I'm so straight down. I'm not like aiming this thing out into the water. I just don't think, I think Gibson is a low odds waiver wire guy that if Ramon Ray gets hurt. Yeah. That's, that's how I see it. But the range of, I mean, that's the thing. We're talking about wild cards here. We're talking about, we're not talking about players who have a clear and obvious path to success or are obviously going to suck. These are guys where it's like, there is a very large range of outcomes, but I think for him to hit his higher end range of outcomes, it has to either be an inch. I see it as an injury to Ramon Ray, or he has to completely overtake him, become the guy and make Ramon Ray pretty irrelevant. And I don't see, I don't see that one happening. That's where it's like, That's where I'm leaving the door open for that. Yeah. All right. Quick break back with three more. All right. I feel like I'm going to be a little bit more aggressive. Zack Moss I'm going to be a little bit more aggressive. I'm going to be a little bit more aggressive. All right. I feel really guilty taking this second wild card option because yeah, it's Jason's dude. He's always been Jason's dude. Thank you. He's loved him from what? High school, college, through the NFL. Great school. Zach Moss. I mean, Jason's. My dude. Jason's guy, Zach Moss, instantly replaces Joe Mixon in the Cincinnati offense. Was a usage monster when Jonathan Taylor wasn't available. But it was really fun on the show because we'd come here every week and Zach Moss had done more stuff. Yeah. And it was like, how is this happening? 22 opportunities a game. Did you say steroids? They did. I would never have steroids. For your allegations, they did. They never caught him. So maybe he's just really good at that. It was impressive what he was able to do. And you talk about, you know, You have to imagine he was tested too. Cause of course he was. They all get tested. Yeah. But some guys you go, wait a minute. Wait, are we going to test that dude? Well, you would have tested. Oh, I would have tested him every day. I mean, I would have watched. Look at the off season for Cincinnati and the wild card that Zach Moss is. I don't have him ranked super high, but I do see a range of outcomes for him that is pretty good. I mean, Joe Mixon, while looking bad, produced great fantasy numbers in Cincinnati for the last two years. By great, do you mean like he was the running back five last year? I do mean that. Yeah. Cause that's absurd, but it's true. And so Zach Moss is a direct one to one replacement for Joe Mixon. I just brought up Chase Brown. He's never used in passing situations. He was asked to pass block eight times. Zach Moss can do that. He can catch the football. They basically identified a cheaper Joe Mixon that they could bring in that doesn't have the pedigree and the attention, but produced. I mean, he was a good producer in Indianapolis when he had an opportunity to do it. And they run out of the shotgun a ton. This is one of the things Kyle was looking up. But when you took it, when you look at the running back leaders in rushing yardage in shotgun, Zach Moss was number three last year. So they obviously saw a fit like that. That is one thing that we identified in the off season. They basically said, all right, we're done with Joe Mixon. He's vacating 257 carries. So much opportunity for targets and we're going to draft nobody. We're not going to draft anybody. We're just going to bring in Zach Moss, pay him not a lot, have him one to one replace Joe Mixon, run a bunch of shotgun, let Joe Burrow be our offense and Zach Moss will be out there all the time. And so, you know, I think it's going to be one of those things that comes down to how often he gets into the end zone and how much he's used in the passing game. But I think he's a huge wild card just like Xamir White is. Like he's not on our. Yeah, he could be on the show. He could easily be on the show, but those two guys are the, they're a match made in heaven. I hate how in I am on Zach Moss right now. It bothers you? Yeah. Welcome aboard brother. Because you have him just outside your RB one territory. Yeah. And that ranking I'm sure will fluctuate over the off season. We have RB 20 as a group. But it's just my overall thoughts on the Bengals backfield, like the previous one of I don't think that Joe Mixon is a great running back. I think he's fine. I think he is just an average running back. And so you put then the argument of talent that Zach Moss has to replicate to me, the barrier of entries, just be an average running back and you will be good for fantasy football on the Bengals. And they liked those because they used some GPRine all those years. They sure did. And I don't, I know there's, Chase Brown has his, has his high. I just, I just, I don't, I don't think he's anything more than a, a role player who will like, he'll get a couple of receptions, a game and, and impact things. But, but looking at the workload, I don't see how it's not what Joe Mixon had cut a couple of percentage points off of that and just give it to Zach Moss. And so Jason, all running backs was 60 plus pass blocks. Zach Moss was the number one. Dude. Inefficiency. Yeah. You think they want to keep Joe Burrow upright? Why even put Brown on the field and third down? Just keep Zach Moss up there. No, Travion Williams played ahead of Brown on third down last year. So this is Zach Moss's backfield. So look, it could all collapse. Like the Zach Moss prophecies. Yes. Jason held so dear to his heart before last year could all return to form. And so he carries inside the 10 last year amongst running backs, Joe Mixon. Yeah. Usually when you bet on those mid round running backs, yes, who are getting a lot of opportunity handed to them, but they have not been successful. They have not been the guy they've been averaged to below average running backs for their career. Those are bad bets. That's that. That's the dead zone. That's chock full of the running back dead zone. Like when Peyton Barber was that. Yeah. Yeah. Or Alex and Madison. This is a scary pick, the range of outcomes. You could see how it doesn't work. But at the same time, those players are often not on great offenses. And this is an offense that you would expect with Joe Burrow. There should be very good. I'm just so happy to stay in on Zach Moss. Jameson Williams As you always have been. Yeah. All right. Who's Jason's up? Jason's up. All right. So, the hard pick is a man who has barely done anything in his two years in the NFL, but his opportunity is talent. His pedigree should be excellent. It is Jameson Williams. Wide receiver for the Detroit Lions. Jameson Williams was my number two wide receiver in his draft class pre NFL draft. His talent that he showed in Alabama was unbelievable. There's a reason why he was drafted as a first round pick. His speed is world class. It's, you know, one of the top fastest wide receivers currently in the NFL. He's playing on a high powered offense. They lost Josh Reynolds, the de facto wide receiver two from last year. They did not replace him. They did not draft anybody to replace him. The, the verbiage on Jameson Williams has been better and better. They've been over Jameson Williams career. Kyle's been tweeting this out for years. It's so funny. They have bad mouthed him. They have said positive quotes that are like laughably negative. Yeah. Backhanded compliments. However, the recent quotes, and this is what's nice, the trajectory of, you know that this coaching staff will talk crap about Jameson Williams. We've seen him do it. We've seen him say, well, some guys just take longer. You know, he's, you know, he's got to prove himself. He's got to be reliable, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, now they're saying that he is a man on a mission. And so that's what you want to hear. You want to hear that he's just completely motivated, working his tail off and he's got the opportunity ahead of him. He should be pretty much a full time wide receiver for the Detroit Lions. Like we have had seasons of Cleif Raymond relevance of Josh Reynolds relevance, like with the talent that we saw in the league. This should be Jameson Williams year. Absolutely. And this should, it really should like, like, there's not good. It should. Yes. This should be something that later on when people didn't draft him, we're all looking at and we say, yeah, that was obvious. Yeah, it was obvious. But nobody did it. The first round wide receiver with exceptional speed for a team that needs a deep threat who's now on the field all the time should. Well, he made big plays behind the line of scrimmage too. Yeah. But. Yeah. There's the other side of the coin is not pretty through two years. He's done virtually nothing here is a list of first round wide receivers who have never had a 14 point fantasy game through two years. Okay. Just buckle up. Buckle up. Here's a list. There's six of them. Jameson Williams is one TBD will say TBD. John Ross. Laquan Treadwell. Philip Dorsett. Nelson Aguilar. And Kevin White. Disaboo. Barf. That is a list of busts of wide receivers who never became a first round. Yeah. Pay off. So it's like I don't blame anyone for bypassing Jameson Williams and saying, look, I've seen him not get it done on the NFL field for two years. The list is so bad. And and also is the highlight. Oh yeah. I mean, he still plays super. He shows that chart to other people as like, look how much the biggest what I overcame the biggest problem that I have is that we say, okay, the opportunity is here for Jameson Williams. The problem is the opportunity has been here for Jameson Williams. We just talked about Josh Reynolds left. The opportunity was just beat Josh Reynolds. Just be better than Josh Reynolds. He couldn't do it. Also, he was on the field when he played, he was on the field for more than 50% of the snaps already. He did Jack squat. So it's like, okay, he's it's not, it can't just be opportunity. You can't just say, well, now if he plays 77 or 85% of the snaps, he's going to be great for fantasy. No, he's got to take a step forward as well because he hasn't been good enough. That's, that's a little of the, like Quinton Johnston had to do with the opportunity and snaps. Exactly. Like to the 70 and 80 to 90% and did nothing for fantasy. So yeah, that is, and Jameson Williams. Risky business is let's say he accomplishes the goal here. I want to make sure I get the quote right because it right before the NFL combine. Yeah. Coach Campbell talking about Jameson Williams. He's going to push to be a full time starter. So that's that's where we were before the. Jared Goff, who do you want to throw it to you? Amon Ross, St. Brown or Jameson Williams? That was going to be the point of this guy who's going to push to be a starter net. Should he accomplish that lofty goal of a first round wide receiver, just being a starter. He's, you have Jameer Gibbs, Amon Ross and Sam Laporta. Yeah. And that's the truth. Now, luckily, Jameson Williams can score from 80 yards out. But, but no, that is, that's what makes him so wild. I'm talking through this. I think I'm out. Like, I thought I was more. I thought I was pro. You're the highest rancor right now. Well, that's what I'm saying. I thought I really thought it could happen. But those realities though about being a starter, they were true for, you know, Josh Reynolds and he had games. You know what I mean? Like they were true. It's not that those other, like there's a lot to go around in Detroit. That's all I'm saying. I am, I've been out on Jameson Williams for the last two. So nice being in though. The last two years. So that's felt nice, warm and comfy. But where he's wide receiver 49 on sleeper 48 on underdog. What round is that? Do you know? 10th round. Man, double good. Double good. I will say this. I'm back it. Because here's the thing. When you're in the double digit rounds, you're looking for upside. You're looking for someone who can become elite. Gus Edwards And there's not a lot of people that are, should be a full time starter with crazy speed on a great offense in the 10th round. Mike, you got to finish this up. Another wild card. Speaking of players going late in the draft and having no idea what to do with them. Gus Edwards of the Los Angeles Chargers, the Gus bus. I'm looking. There it is. Thank you. I was speaking in a cadence. No, I know. I don't know where it is. The drop. I got no idea to happen. Are you hitting it again? Are you still looking? I'm still looking. Oh, yeah. So here's the. What just happened? I just, I just saw the booties. Okay. You wanted to want to, I wanted to bring it back for a second. So on the positive side for Gus Edwards are right now, he's the starting running back for the Los Angeles Chargers. It's a good starting point. Yeah. He has a starting job. He is playing for an offensive coordinator who he has played many years for in the past was productive in those years. He was not the starter. He was the backup. We're talking about Greg Roman, AKA G row who has such a bad nign. It's not ours. It just, no, I know. Remember everyone that we didn't do that. J. Har, but we're going to know that's hard dog. We did that one. I know. That's a good one. Yeah. That's a great one. Hard dogs. Good. So the past for G row and his offenses, they run the ball so, so much and they're the past attempts are frequently dead last or second to last in the league. Like volume should be there and then talk about success. The rushing touchdown output for Greg Romans, running back rooms for talking a 10 year sample size and average of nearly 14 rushing touchdowns per year. That's a lot of opportunity for scoring for, for Gus Edwards. Now the bad side. You may have heard us talk about Gus Edwards on this podcast for a long time cause he's 29 years old entering year seven. His deal is, it's a two year, basically $3 million guaranteed. So this is a salary of nothing. Bro, I remember. You want to jump in? Just for a second. Cause I remember, you're mentioning his age reminded me that I remember trading James Robinson in our dynasty league. Oh yeah. So Gus Edwards, so excited for the opportunity and then Gus Tora's ACL and yeah, yeah, that was, but that was three years ago now. It's, he's been in the league a long time. Last year he's still with, with rushing touchdowns from week seven through 11, he was the overall running back one in fantasy football. He's trying to be most when he went on an absolute tear and he had eight rushing touchdowns in that span, but he's 29 like this. All data says this should not work because Gus Edwards isn't an Adrian Peterson, a prolific first ballot hall of fame superstar where you're, where you can accept that at the age of 20, like Christian McCaffrey at 29 will say, yeah, that's fine. And yet these two guys who want to run the football, they didn't go out and sign Zach Moss. Correct. They didn't go out and sign Josh Jacobs. No, even make a trade for a young guy. Even worse, even worse, their backup plan was they brought in JK two legs who's back down to JK one leg and then they saw, then they drafted a rookie in the sixth round of Kamani Vidal Sassoon. I'm not going to leave you out there. And it, so the running back room says who's overtaking Gus Edwards here for especially goal line work, but third downs. It'll be a nothing for Gus Edwards. So the wild card nature of Gus is he's being, people aren't hot and bothered for Gus Edwards. And yet he's a starting running back for a team that has an offensive system that has shown year after year after year that they have success running the ball. But I don't even know if I want him. Yeah. No, that's the definition of a wild card right there. Man. Are you in on the Gus bus, Jason? It's going to be a ticket. It's going to be a draft day value and whether he fits my team. I don't feel like I will be able to bank on consistency enough for him to kill B primarily a goal line guy. He's never been in a guy that catches the ball a ton. And he was someone that was known for his hyper efficiency. You know, when you look at, once you've had several hundred carries in your career, who's up near the league leaders. He was always over five a carry this last year, you know, 4.1 granted when, you know, half your carries give you one yard to the goal line. Yeah. It's not that bad. He might, they must have seen something in him. He was with this system, right? He was with G row in Baltimore. So, but he is not going to catch passes. No, he's not going to catch pass. So it's going to be a touchdown. I think he has 10 touchdowns, which is awesome. You tell me a fantasy running back gets to be in, but I also think he does so little outside of that that in the games where you don't get a touchdown, you're going to be unhappy. So it's going to be inconsistent. He should be a flex option to me. But he's like, I mean, if it's a VP holds, he's a zero running back target. And it just is like, should he be that? Should he be more? All right. Kyle sharing this stat, his finish last year at RB 20 is the fourth worst among 80 running backs that have ever hit 13 plus rushing touchdown. Yeah, that makes sense. So to your point, Jason. Yeah, more of the same. All right. I think we did it. The wild cards episode is over. Wild card. Thank you. Thank you, Jason. You're welcome. We'll let Jason go have a hot dog. Deep in his voice a little bit. Yeah. And you can head over to ultimate draft kid.com. Can you write those off as like a tax expense for your job? Yeah. Now I can. Oh my God. See how many hot dogs. Your tax guy is like 30 Ks. So hot dog. No, I was voice lessons. The same difference. Ultimate draft kid.com right now. Four days left. Comes out on Saturday. Go get it. Until next time. Andy Mike and Jason, the fantasy footballer saying goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the fantasy footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join the foot.com and follow us on Twitter at the CFF ballers.