Sleepers + Undrafted Gems, MEGALABOWL! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/20
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Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. You sounded a little old-timey gangster over there. Yeah, the start was a little weird. See?

Welcome in one and all, Tuesday, August 20th, the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. It is prime time. It is draft season. It is our job to get you ready to go for your drafts, and they are coming soon. I am in the middle of two drafts, two slow drafts right now, one for our family league and then one for a point-per-first-down league with some of the industry's best, and that's been a wild draft. It's been fun.

To finally kind of put your money where your mouth is. I forgot. You're on the clock right now? Yeah. I think you've been on the clock in our family league for a little while. I got the notification last night, and I meant to talk to the boy because we're co-managing that team. That's right. And then it just slipped my mind. We have a fun show for you today. We've got sleepers, our individual sleeper picks on today's episode. We've got undrafted gyms on today's episode. We've got news that we've got to talk about.

But I guess we have a very large, aggressive, prehistoric announcement to make.

Go for it. The Megaloball. It can only be contained for so long. Yeah. This is like two minutes I had to wait for this. The Megaloball. It's a lot like indigestion. Here it is going to give you acid reflux. It is open. The Megaloball is the

the largest fantasy football league in the known universe. It is for the Foot Clan. It is awesome. Listen, we just talked about yesterday that we had all these submissions for our listener league, which is awesome, wonderful. Thank you. And almost all of you did not make it.

But if you win the Megalobowl, you are in the 2025 Listener League. What is the Megalobowl? It is our fantasy league. We're all playing in them. We have the entire Foot Clan playing in these leagues. It is 12 team leagues. Our scoring format that we use in the League of Record

It is better than ever this year. In the past, I don't know why, probably because I'm stupid, we've had like the top three teams from each one of these leagues make it into the playoffs to the big, you know, journey at the end.

And what that does is it's like, I don't know, I feel like early in the season, you kind of know if you're going to be one of those top three. But in all of our leagues we're in, you know, our league of record, the top six make it in. So we're doing that. Half of your league's getting in the playoffs this year. Last year, for the sake of our commissioners, because, you know, we got 20,000 plus people in these leagues now.

We didn't have trading. And you want to know what that did? Made people sad. Yeah, it sucked. It's like, we want this to be the most fun league out there in the world. Trades are back on. The waiver wire is on. This is an awesome regular league, except this is with the Foot Clan. These are with your people, with our people. People have made lifelong friends in the Megaloball. And this year, in addition to making the winner...

receive an automatic entry into next year's Listener League, we are giving away a UDK for life to the winner too. If you win the Megalobowl, you're just stamped. You are in. So Megalobowl.com is the easiest way or you go to the Fantasy Footballers and just go to the Foot Clan tab and you can see the Megalobowl there.

All the rules, all the details, everything about the Megalobowl is at Megalobowl.com. But we want you in. We want you playing with us. The drafts are going to be held from August 31st through September 4th on the Sleeper platform. So go to Megalobowl.com and sign up and join a league. I'm not telling you which league time slot I'm in, which draft slot I'm in, because I haven't signed up yet.

I am signed up. Oh, yeah? I tested the system. Nice. I made sure. I did not. But I'm not telling you either. We'll all be in it. I already drafted. No, you did not. No, you didn't. August 31st through September 4th are the draft times. Go get your spot. People have asked about whether the Megalo Bowl is back and how they get in for the last couple of weeks because they are eager and ready to go. We mentioned it on the footcast for our supporters. But megalobowl.com.

Head over there. Every single member of the Foot Clan gets a free entry into the Megaloball, one entry per person, and it's an opportunity to compete in the largest, most fun league imaginable with some really cool prizes, upgrades this year. Now,

I said you get a free entry if you are a member of the Foot Clan. The Foot Clan is our, they are our people that gets you access to the Footcast, an extra episode every week that is a way to support the show, gets you all of our in-season tools and resources, something we've been upgrading over many years.

And for a long period of time, in fact, the entire duration of the Foot Clan, that has been hosted via Patreon. Many of you are familiar with that. If you're a supporter of the show, that's the platform you've used to become a Foot Clan supporter. This year, we have made some very big changes to our Foot Clan membership. Yes, yes. Worthy of a horn.

That seemed twice as loud. Okay, all right. I thought it seemed really loud. That was twice as loud as normal. You can't edit that in post now. You got to leave because that was so loud. I'm sorry if you went careening off the freeway. But here's the deal. For many years, we've been hosted over on Patreon with the membership. And if you're over there right now, all of your...

membership will still work. We're super thankful for you having supported this podcast and all of your access to the footcast and everything. It works. Now, what we've done is we've had the request for many, many years to, well,

Make things easier. Make things simpler. A lot of people want to support the show. They want to access all the premium features, but they just want like one way to do that. Like I don't want to buy the UDK over here and then like pledge to support the Foot Clan and have two memberships. So we have not only brought the entire Foot Clan membership in-house, our own system, this year at jointhefoot.com.

But we have added the ultimate Foot Clan subscription for the very first time. This is the first time we've announced it on the show. And so you can pledge to become a member over at jointhefoot.com. Or if you would like, everything in one subscription, one time a year that you pay for it, making everything easy and getting access to 100% of everything we do. But Andy! The voice of public opinion. I already got the UDK, so...

What do I do? Well, we did consider all of you amazing UDK purchasers out there. If you would like to become an Ultimate Foot Clan member, which means you get access to the UDK every single year,

DFS pass, Dynasty pass, a brand new tool we're building out this year called the Ultimate Dashboard, which will be an in-season tool to import your roster, optimize your lineup, find spot starts, custom to your league, waiver wire, team news. So an in-season tool. We've never had this. That's also a part of it. We'll credit you.

Dollar for dollar for what you paid for the UDK. So if you just want to transition that right into an ultimate membership, jointhefoot.com is where you do that. And that credit's automatic. We know if you got the UDK. So just when you go, you'll see it taken off. We want to make sure that the Foot Clan, you're our people. We want this to be seamless, smooth, awesome. We've been working on this for years. Our in-season app is getting a giant renovation. We're really, really excited about this. This is just the way it should have always been built.

But, you know, we started as three dudes in a bedroom upstairs and needed to use an off-site third-party resource. And now we're making this the right way. So I hope everyone's as excited about this as we are. Yep. So, and again, all members, whether you're an Ultimate member, Premier, regular member, you get a free entry into the Megalobo. So these things kind of run part and parcel. They're connected. And you can sign up at jointhefoot.com. And if you bought a UDK, you'll see those credits in there.

If you're an existing patron and you want to switch over to become an Ultimate member, you can do that as well. We will give you that credit, and our team is ready to help you out with that. So jointhefoot.com to become a member, get access to everything, and get into the Megalobowl, and megalobowl.com is where you find that link to join. I think we did it. I think we got through all of that. Very excited. Let's jump into the waiver wire.

Welcome to the Waver Wire, presented by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. Now, before we jump into the Waver Wire, just for a moment, I just want people to understand that there is a debate going on actively in the studio between...

The premium deucer over there, Al Borland. Oh, wait, what? Who named him premium? I think Andy just did. Well, Mike, you can take that away. The premium deucer? And our premium audio guy, Mike. Yes. And they're in an active debate about whether or not

See, that sounded quieter. Totally different. That was a totally different sound on that horn. About whether it was louder the first time. Now, Al, you're an honest man, a man of God. Yes, I am. Did you adjust the dBs between those two button pushes? I did not.

Dude, that first button push was louder. Something happened. In Slack, I was saying it was no louder, the decibels were the same, and no, no way. They said back there gaslighting us like it didn't happen. Interesting. I would not lie to you. No way. No. That's fine. But just accept that it was louder. All right. For today's Waver Wire segment, we are looking- Premium deucer my butt. I'm sorry. I was being very complimentary. Undrafted gyms. We're going to each pick-

Jason's head flies back into the air. I just saw Andy's. Oh. Yeah. Okay. We are each picking a player that we don't believe will be drafted that you should pay attention to and maybe pick up. For week one, you're going to be maybe regretting not having this guy on the roster. Sometimes you pick somebody at the very end of your draft on speculation, and then you go into week one, and you're like, well, maybe I don't want this guy on my roster. Yeah.

These are some undrafted players we think you might want to pick up that will feel a little bit better after week one gets done. But I'm not going to go first. Mike, I was in the studio with you. You were watching the film on this guy. Indeed I was. So let's bring up this name. Darnell Mooney, wide receiver, now of the Atlanta Falcons, previously of the Chicago Bears. He's been one of the – we've talked about – there's these invisible players who –

Just maybe there's a blind spot to it. There's fatigue. I don't know. You just, you don't really want to either talk about them, buy into them, realize that, oh, maybe this player will have some fantasy value. And Darnell Mooney has kind of just been one of those guys as I'm looking later at ADP and I thought, I'm going to go check this out. I'm going to go watch every single target that Darnell Mooney got last year. And

Dude, he's still Darnell Mooney. I'm not saying he's – Wait, is that good? That is good. That's good. Yes, it is good. I'm not saying he's a superstar wide receiver, but he is a good player, and he has true afterburners, and he can make really tough catches. And watching the film – Oh, buddy. The thing that stood out the most about watching Darnell Mooney was, holy crap, the Chicago Bears quarterback play last year was –

Dude, you could go six targets in a row for Darnell Moody and go, the man was wide open. What is going on here? Someone give him the ball. He was open short. He was open intermediate. He was open down the field. I rolled over when Mike was in the middle of going through every target for Darnell Moody. I watched six consecutive plays. There were zero catches. It gave me a new appreciation for Justin Fields' struggles. Yeah.

Reading a defense? Some of them were the secret pageant man as well. It just shows you how hard it is to qualify a player

simply by the statistics. What you saw on film was Justin Fields not able to read a defense and let go of the ball at the right time. Mooney would be breaking open, and there was no anticipation in the throws. So Mooney just kind of got deleted. I was sitting next to Mike. He's watching this film, and I hear just a hearty, real, genuine laugh. I'm like, what? And I roll over, and he's like, check this out. It was a Tyler Bajent throw.

Beautiful play design. Darnell Mooney wide open. No one within five yards, and he's in the end zone. And both Bajent and Mooney rolling to the right, just in sync. Just a layup throw. And Bajent throws into the stands. Like, that's not a joke. I think the ball went into the stands. I'm like, what happened? So Mooney's still Mooney is your message. Yeah, point being, Darnell Mooney, in my opinion, in my study that I just did,

I think he is still a good, capable player. And so did the Atlanta Falcons. They gave him a three-year, $39 million contract, 26 of that guaranteed over the next two years. And it's just, what do you believe about the Atlanta Falcons? They're going to be running three wide all the time. And if Kirk Cousins is back to health,

You can get sustained production, not just a couple spike weeks. Darnell Mooney might be a player that goes into your flex or your double flex, and you're content with the production you're getting, and he is going extremely late in drafts, most often not even drafted. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I think that's a great name to pick up. And the point of these waiver wire pickups is if you're done with your draft, look at who you grabbed at the end. And you might want to just consider dropping that dude and picking one of these guys up at least.

Mine and Mike's. We'll get to Andy's last. My pickup is who I drafted with the last pick in our last mock draft. It's Dontavian Wicks, second-year wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers. He has had a lot of buzz. If you're not on the Twitter sphere of...

fantasy football. I'm not familiar with Twitter, but whatever. The X sphere of fantasy football. That sounds like fear of the letter X. Well, yeah. I mean, it's pretty. Wix has got popularity among the

D-Gins. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's a really good football player. He passes the eyeball test. He also passes a ton of the metric test. If you look at – there's only 26 wide receivers since 2011 who have hit a two yards per route run as a rookie with at least 200 routes.

And Wicks is in that group. You look at how he's performed when given the opportunity, it's been really, really good. Now, he was a rookie last year behind a crowded backfield. Dobbs was good. You had the breakout of Jaden Reed. You know, Christian Watson is supposed to be their wide receiver number one. And all those people are still in front of him, which is why Wicks is undrafted. But if you listen to the coaching staff and Jordan Love talk about Wicks and the talent and the capability and the work ethic,

I think he's got a chance to come in here and really, really surprise. You want to attack ambiguous cores from good offenses. We've talked about this in the context of drafting Jaden Reed. And so I think Wicks, you saw it in the first preseason game, right? Like Jordan Love just...

Drops back, rolls around, and there's Wicks wide open for a bomb touchdown. So I would take a shot on them because the tip to remember on our top 10 tips and tricks episode was take dumps now, not later.

You want guys you can cut after week one. If Dontavian Wicks comes out week one and he's 40% snaps, whatever. Get rid of him. But if he comes out week one and all of a sudden he's really involved, he's going to be very, very good for fantasy. My turn? Your turn. Hey, everybody. What? Who's that? It's me, Adam. What?

Get out of town. I went into this show doc today to put in my undrafted gym as Adam Thielen, aged 100 reception wide receiver of the Carolina Panthers.

And lo and behold, I find out that Adam Thielen was my undrafted gym on this episode last season. Okay, so hold up. Also, home run on that. Yeah, that was a home run. I mean, you want to talk about starting the season on fire. He helped your dynasty team in immense ways. You're welcome. But what?

I thought for sure you came into the show, Doc, saw that this was your pick last year and went, oh, you know what? He's okay this year as well. You came in to put him in? I came in independent of that knowledge to put Adam Thielen in. And found that out. Now listen, Thielen, I understand. He's old. He's also one of the only 33 and older wide receivers in history to go over the 100 reception mark.

When you look at the offense and Bryce Young and Dave Canales and what they're doing, and you look at the options that they have, I'm just going to bring it up. Like you could...

Players of this age, when Fitzgerald was this age, Hinesward, they started the season pretty strong. He's also the one that has the rapport with Bryce Young. And if you trust Dave Canales to put his quarterback into a situation where he doesn't make mistakes, you rely on the most reliable player. And this is also not just – this is not blind. This is also including the fact that Deontay Johnson missed a bunch of time with a groin injury, just came back –

limped off the field again. Now he's kind of back out of practice, but he has a couple of injuries already in camp. Xavier Leggett is brand new, right? Like this is a player I would expect to make an impact over time.

But Adam Thielen, he didn't play in the last preseason game alongside the starters. Thielen is still there, still reliable, and 100% undrafted. Nobody wants to touch that, even though he was the wide receiver 25 in fantasy last year. When you look at buying a couple of weeks, maybe buying six to eight weeks in a deep wide receiver league,

Somewhere you need reliable – like you just mentioned Mooney. You might be able to just all of a sudden just flex him. Like Thielen could give you some temporary support. And I'm sorry that you're such an ageist. I just – you know, reliable hands. I'm about to die. Really reliable around the goal line. Let me sleep. He's not sleeping yet, Mike. He's going to be 34, man. Yeah, he's napping right now. You know that.

I just want, look, when do you, it feels like you began the Adam Thielen voice at a time that you should be dishing it out to Keenan Allen then. Like, if Thielen gets this voice, then Keenan Allen. Keenan's not old. Keenan's fat. Keep up. Oh, come on. Keenan's the age that Thielen was last year when you were mocking him. Oh. What?

Is that your attempt at Keenan? It's a little deep. It had to be different. It has to be. No, that was great. That was great. All right. So those are our three names that we wanted to bring to light. Thanks again to NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. By the way, I just saw they have the multi-view this year. They're updating the multi-view, and they announced a fantasy view. Watch every game every Sunday when you bundle NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. Sign up today at youtube.com slash fantasyfootballers.

Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games. Excludes digital-only games. Device and content restrictions apply. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Whether you're throwing the ultimate Halloween bash, I can't believe it's right around the corner, entertaining family for the holidays, or just having a watch party on Sunday with the boys, you need to make sure your home is ready for hosting. And the best way to do that, well, it is Wayfair. I just got a bunch of Wayfair gear for our

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This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Every good athlete has something in common. They're always constantly looking for ways to improve. But it's not just athletes that should be doing this. It's always a good idea to try and do better. Like when it comes to hiring, I know how much of a struggle the hiring process can be for everyone. So make it better with Indeed. It's a hiring platform that receives millions of visitors a month.

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News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Jason, put on your biggest surprise face, okay? The commanders have announced, shocking, Jane Daniels will be the team's starting quarterback. What? He did it. You know how embarrassed I'd be?

If it hadn't have been him after I made him a my guy? Have the Bears announced yet anything about Caleb Williams being the starter? I thought they did that to start. Yeah, I mean, this is what... To be fair, the number three overall pick I don't think has been announced as the starter. Unless I missed something about Drake May. No. He's got a shot now. He does have a shot. It was looking like only Jacoby, and now it looks wide open. I'm glad they named him as a starter. I mean, they should have done this...

a long time ago. Everyone knew it a long time ago, but you, you kind of, you have a feel for which rookie quarterbacks, even when they're drafted are drafted to start week one or draft, you know, like, like JJ McCarthy and Drake may, they were drafted to compete and learn and maybe redshirt for a while or a couple of weeks. But like Bo Nix, you knew, like I was talking about this forever ago when Bo Nix was third on the depth chart on the first, uh,

Broncos official depth chart was like, he's your starter and you know it. Well, yeah, Peyton sucks, so he's doing this thing. Yeah, I mean, it's just when these quarterbacks, like both Jaden Daniels and Bo Nix, they played so much college ball. I mean, they played way more than most of these other quarterbacks, you know, five seasons. And if you play five seasons of college ball and you're not starting week one in today's NFL, you shouldn't have been drafted in the first.

Also, if Jacoby Brissett was still on the Commanders, that would make a difference in the competition. If you have somebody that can actually compete, not Jared Stidham. The Manders literally kicked out Sam Howell. They drafted him and said, no, we don't want a competition here. And Brissett too, right? Yeah. Yeah, both. Well, I don't like this news. Curtis Samuel, turf toe, week to week.

He missed the game last year with a toe injury. He had an ankle fracture in surgery in 2017. Part of the Curtis Samuel story,

has always been injury. It has always been injury. It's been a problem making him a reliable fantasy option because he's in and out of your lineup. This is significant. It changes how I would view the dart throw at the end of drafts on a Bills-wide receiver. If you're deciding if you're a Shakir or Keon Coleman or Curtis Emil, at this point, week-to-week is pretty ambiguous. From what I looked at, these turf toes, based on their grade, determines...

Two, three weeks or can be prolonged. We've seen Joe Brady and Curtis Samuel or Curtis Samuel in the Joe Brady system before. He is more of a manufactured, short yardage type of player. And that leads me to believe that should he miss time, I was already bullish on your my guy, Mike James Cook and Dalton Kincaid as quality assets. But that's the that's the area of the field that I would expect them to

step up to a little bit more. I don't know. It's good for all the other ancillary pieces, but those are the guys that are being drafted right now that I just have even more confidence in. Mark Andrews missing practice was, quote, a very minor thing. We believe this stems from the car accident last week that he was mostly unharmed in. That was from John Harbaugh. Justin Herbert returned to practice on Monday. That's exciting news for the Los Angeles Chargers, who

I believe they're leading the way in the preseason in yards before contact from the running backs. Before contact? If you want any evidence that the system is already starting to work. Wow. G-Row. Vidal Sassoon already had a pretty nice game back out on the field. That's not really a news blurb, but that is a takeaway of...

where last week it was all gloom and doom about Kamani Vidal, Sassoon, a day three rookie running back for the Chargers, not even making the team, goes out, has a very strong preseason performance, and now the tune is changing a bit. Yeah. Mike Williams, Jets wide receiver, planning to take team reps in practice next week. He's one of those players that at some point in the season is going to end up on the waiver wire list.

I don't think he's being drafted anywhere. But if you know that he's going to – like they don't have great competition. They brought him in to be part of this offense. So I'd imagine at some point someone's taking a flyer. You guys probably wouldn't spend the last pick just to throw him on IR or something. No, I'd be looking to pick him up. That's the – you want to be a week early or so of when you think – when you project that he'll actually start getting things going.

It wouldn't be surprising to me if he missed a couple games. Even if he starts active, it's going to take some weeks before he's really acclimated. And then one other situation to monitor. At this morning's practice, Tyreek Hill was wearing a protective brace on his right hand, did some off-field work.

You know, maybe it's just getting used to Tyreek. He seems to have a brace here or a brace there, and then he's back the next day. But it did come through the wire this morning. Yeah, it's a developing story, so pay attention. That was today's News & Notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. ♪♪♪ Sleepers. ♪♪♪

All right, we're moving on to the sleepers episode, and all of our consensus picks for this category are in the UDK at ultimatedraftkit.com. We define sleepers as players who are drafted later that you might not know about that are primed to emerge, and the truth is is that you don't generally have a sleeper, especially in today, like at this era of fantasy football, that doesn't have sleepers.

reasons why they are being underdrafted in our minds, right? Like there are always a lack of excitement. It could be an injury. It could be a team change. There's, you know, if there's unanimous opinion about a player, they're not a sleeper, right? They're not sitting at the back of the draft. So I'll go first today just because it kind of piggybacks with our news, which this player was in here before we got word that Curtis Samuel was banged up.

And that is rookie wide receiver Keon Coleman of the Buffalo Bills. I saw somebody comment on X tagging us saying, you know, you talk about Brian Thomas and you talk about Ladd McConkie and you talk about all of these other rookies and you don't mention Keon Coleman very often. I talk about good players. So there you go.

There you go. Keon Coleman has tremendous opportunity. The vacated targets in Buffalo, outrageous. Just Diggs and Davis vacated 241 targets. This was a player I just want to stress. The Bills have been a competitive, well-run organization for a number of years.

This was their pick at the wide receiver position. They had the chance to draft Ladd McConkie or Jalen Polk or Adonai Mitchell or Jermaine Burton, other guys that went behind Keon Coleman in the draft. They knew they were missing their alpha in Stephon Diggs. They knew they were missing their deep threat in Gabe Davis. They made the choice. And so give that whatever weight you want. That was their decision. He was highly drafted. You have Curtis Samuel banged up. You have options available.

that are very unproven. And, you know, Mack Hollins, this is a guy that makes a splash play here or there and ends up with 200 to 300 yards.

That's kind of what he does. Sometimes with shoes on, sometimes without. Curtis Samuel... Never eating soup, though. Samuel is and has been defined by the head coach, a player that they use in a bunch of different kind of ways. He's not a traditional outside route running on every play. They're going to use him in the screen game and the underneath game and the handoff game. Those are things that are going to happen with Curtis Samuel. Don Kincaid, we know what he's got. The team went out and said, Keon Coleman's our guy.

So from a sleeper perspective, rookie with opportunity with a top five quarterback in the NFL. To me, he's locked in based on the preseason in the X role. He's had 100% route participation with the starters. And now you've got another injury. So to me, you know, for some reason, like Keon Coleman feels bland because what he does and brings to the table as a wide receiver is

It's not like Brian Thomas. There's like the explosive plays and the big over the top, like highlight reel plays. Right. And Keon Coleman just kind of is well-rounded like his best pro profile to me of what he looks like on the field and what he's capable of doing is Alan Robinson.

at his peak. He's an Allen Robinson type of player. And so to me, the opportunity is there. I do think it'll take him a little bit more time to settle in. Okay. But from a sleeper perspective, that's okay. I like taking shots. Brian Thomas, Keon Coleman, you know, Ladd McConkey, finding value late in the draft.

that have opportunities like this. Coleman's sitting out there and I look, Coleman could have two touchdowns in week one. He's a big bodied wide receiver. He's a competitive catch wide receiver. And then they obviously, they, they went to him a little bit in the preseason. I showing him on one side and saying, go beat the guy. All Alan Robinson. And so I just think he's being undervalued. I liked this film tremendously. He didn't test well in the 40.

He was great in the – what's the drill? The gauntlet? Great in the gauntlet. Made an impression on Buffalo. They went out and got him over those other guys. So –

I don't mind it. If people like Mike around you constantly say the guy sucks, that's why he's where he's being drafted. No, I do not mind the draft price at all. Keon Coleman is, like, he is to me a rookie that had he been, if he was being drafted up in, like, that Malik neighbor's range, because it's one of the things that could have happened. You know, people overreact to the landing destination. Then it would have been, like, absolutely not. There's no way I'm ever drafting Keon Coleman.

He is directly next to Brian Thomas. Yeah, he's going wide receiver 43. He's two rounds later than Xavier Worthy, and he is about five or six picks later than McConkie. The difference to me of Keon Coleman versus Brian Thomas is, like, if things work for Brian Thomas –

I think he can replace that Calvin Ridley role for the Jaguars where it's a heavy target volume. My concern with Keon Coleman is when I was watching him as a prospect, if you just watch Keon Coleman highlights from college,

He is an absolute dominator, but his production didn't match with the highlights to me. And so it was the fear of, well, if he's just Gabe Davis on this team, maybe he's a better Gabe Davis. But it's just, so that's about, it's about upside between the two of them. But

Going in the 40s of the wide receiver core as a rookie, this is a player who should be on your target list. I agree. He's a great player to take a shot on. I mean, all the things that historically line up well are there for him, and you've got to take shots at the end of your draft for explosive upside. Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of us like Jermaine Burton, right? But there are some massive...

Even if you like the talent more, there are so many roadblocks in the way from Burton's impact. Burton has no possible shot of being the number one target on his team. That's actually an outcome that could happen for Keon Coleman, even if it's unlikely. You could see the path for it. I always wondered, too, what kind of impact...

Josh Allen's preferences might have made in taking that pick. I mean, this is a guy who's had Gabe Davis and Stefan Diggs for years. Like I'd be shocked if this team didn't say, Hey, do you have, do you have a player that you like and that you've seen in college? So speculation there, but just, you know, opportunity to be a number one target. I'll jump in here. Mine is

More of a cryogenic type of a sleeper. Like we are, we're deep freeze. Oh, okay. We would have to thaw out, but it's a name that people need to pay attention to. Oh, I don't like this. What? I don't like your name. I just saw it. He doesn't like it because of the implications. Also, I don't know what that accent or what that was. Yeah, I mean, okay. Go on, man. It's Jalen Wright, rookie running back for the Miami Dolphins. Is this a last name thing?

Maybe. Oh, man, maybe. It's a good name. Now that you point it out, now that it's right in front of me, maybe that's what happened. He is a bigger running back, but he is an absolute speed freak. This dude is really fast. We've been talking about how fast the players on the Miami Dolphins are, and Jalen Wright is one of those guys.

Already seen him come through with some explosive playmaking. He's looked good in the preseason. 10 carries for 55 yards and a tutty. He ran a 4-3-8. And then you had Mike McDaniel talking about – McDaniel, coach of the Dolphins, Jason. Thank you. Yeah, you might be thinking Ronald McDonald. Yeah, not a franchisee.

Head coach of the Miami Dolphins. He was asked about who are the starters, and he said, who says we have to stop at two running backs? Maybe we can just have four. And talking about how much confidence he has in Jalen Wright. Look, it is for sure. It is A-chan.

At least, I say for sure, that's how I'm projecting it. A-Chan and Raheem Mostert are in front of Jalen Wright. But why you need to know this name is maybe you're in a deeper league and you need to find really high upside players that you've got to draft. You're in a 14-teamer and you need someone who's on the bench. Jalen Wright has multiple paths because of A-Chan and Mostert.

Mostert is, for a running back, like I like to make fun of Adam Thielen, Mostert should be getting the oldest man voice because he's a running back and he's old. A-Chan is smaller and we've only seen him for one season and we've seen him get hurt multiple times. Raheem Mostert has been on the injured list or injury report 14 times in his career.

and Devon Achan was three stints last year? Yeah. Preseason, midseason, later? Multiple games missed. The point being, if one of those guys were to unfortunately miss time, Jalen Wright would be the hottest pickup of the week, like a huge fab dump for Jalen Wright, depending on the amount of time that those guys are going to miss. It's investing in the Miami backfield. It's investing in a player who I think

He's a rookie, so it's going to take time for him to learn. But if it's down to A-Chan and Jalen Wright, dude, Jalen Wright's going to get so much work, and he's explosive and can hit those home runs for you. So it's a name that you need to be aware of. Maybe you're not drafting him in 12 teams. Maybe your bench is big, so you are. Yeah, it's such a good name. I mean, it really is. I don't like...

bringing up Jalen Wright because I hope that Devon Achan has an awesome season. Yeah, you know what it means for him to be relevant. Right, if Jalen Wright is good this year, that means Devon Achan probably got injured or was in too big of a committee or yada yada. But the pathways for Jalen Wright, we just talked about how historically there are always multiple rookie running backs who end up in that RB1 territory. This year going into the season, you don't know who it is. It's going to be one of these guys that is –

the benefactor of an injury in front of them. And so Jalen Wright has two different guys

who have very clear paths towards being off the field. Why, if one went down? That's what I mean. If just one went down. Yeah, you have a fork in the road. It's not just reliant on one player, the superstar going down. And our note here on Raheem Mostert is the injury history. It's a CVS receipt. Oh. Which we all know what that means. Yeah, it's not a small amount of paper. No. That's a tree. Many trees. That's a tree, yeah.

All right, I've got another running back for my sleeper pick. This one? No, no. I'm in. I'm in. Look, I had – this is full disclosure. I had gone in, and I put this guy in with real tiny font into my sleeper, and I was like, no, I can't do it. I'm a coward. And then I didn't know that. No, you didn't. And then I came and put this guy in as my sleeper because I ain't no coward.

I'm talking about JK one leg, JK Dobbins running back for the Los Angeles chargers, or as they really should be known the Baltimore Ravens West because G row and Harbaugh are rebuilding that type of a franchise. They brought over Gus Edwards and JK Dobbins. Gus Edwards has had a lot of

discussion over this offseason. The touchdown opportunities. He was a double-digit touchdown guy last year. He was so good. Yeah, and this is a team that wants to run the ball. I didn't even know the whole thing you brought up in the news section about in the preseason how well this offensive line is working. They're just going to be able to run, man. They're going to be able to run. And this is a one-two punch that has been a one-two punch before.

for years together, J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards. And it was always that way. It was J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards. It was not Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins. J.K. Dobbins was the second round pick. He was the guy who came in in his rookie season, was a running back two for fantasy and looked great at the end of the year. And it was like, okay, we're all in. And then he's been injured since then. Now he feels like older than Raheem Mostert.

He's coming off of an Achilles injury that, you know, usually for running backs, that just means you wash your hands of them and you just say, I'm fine being wrong. Yeah, this is – sleepers are cracking the door open for the possibility that these guys burst through it, right? Like there's a chance –

However improbable that you have great value in these names. He got injured in week one last year. So he's had a long time. If you have to get injured last year, you hope it's early in the season. Week one is the longest time you can have for recovery to this point.

People are saying he's looking healthy. He looks healthy. I watched a mic. How many legs does it appear that he has? One and a half. I think he's got one and a half legs, which we have seen him be fine with one strong leg. He talked about that a couple of years ago. Well, no, no, no. Yes. No, he was. He really was. I know, but it did come to bear. Well, right. I'm not saying that he's going to.

be healthy and not get re-injured and all of that, but all of that's baked in already. He's in the 12th round. This is not an expensive pick. I cannot... When you talk about JK two legs, or one leg, sorry, I cannot...

not think about the classic M. Night Shyamalan Lady in the Water. Yeah, the water strong arm? The guy that had one giant arm and one tiny arm. Yeah. Shout out to the four people that saw that movie with me. Because that's what it looked like in... That's what it looked like in camp, dude. In 2022 when he...

He plays four games, he gets hurt, and he misses six weeks. He comes back, and he's... It's the Adrian Peterson hitch run, but it is so exaggerated. He's dragging one of his legs. Half of him is so fast, and the other one was dragging. It was unbelievable. One of his legs doesn't want to play in the NFL, and the rest of them does, and they're at war. Yeah, so in Greg Roman's offense in Baltimore...

Just as a reminder, Dobbins averaged 5.9 yards per carry, and that includes the season when he was recovering from the ACL, and we coined him JK One Leg. The positive game scripts should be there for the Chargers. They have the second easiest strength of schedule, according to Warren Sharp. They've made massive offensive line improvements, and we talk a lot about

You want a guy you can cut after week one if he's not. I mean, you're going to know week one. Is he the first man up in this offense? Is he playing ahead of Gus Edwards between the 20s? I know when they get to the goal line, they're going to give it to Gus Edwards. But if J.K. Dobbins is healthy and looks good, he's going to be the starting running back for what will be a good offense that will score a lot of points. That will never abandon the run. That wants to run the ball, and you get him for free late in drafts. And I know he feels old.

But he is not. Who's older? Him or Ramondre Stevenson? That's a joke. Ramondre. That's a joke. Who's older? Him or... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's true. I got a better one for you. Who's older? Him or Jalen Warren? Jalen Warren is a year younger than Ramondre Stevenson. Are we sure that the one leg isn't older at least? Well, one of those legs is 42 years old. Yeah, does it have cadaver parts in there? He is 25 years old. That's... If he's healthy...

Which he says he is. He looks out through the camps. Well, he said that last year. We're leaving that alone. I'm just saying. Let everyone else say it. In the 12th round, he might be one of the steals of the draft. The Romandre one is insane. Yeah. Romandre looks like a player in Dynasty. You'd be like, that's a nice pickup. Yeah. That's a player I'm going to have for a while. So, yeah, it's an interesting name. Let's take a break and jump into some mailbag.

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Now, an ordinary podcast would move on at this point from the sleeper section. I've hit the drop. We're moving into the mailbag. But we're not an ordinary podcast. And sometimes when you are scrolling the show, Doc, and you notice that Jason has a bonus sleeper pick, and me and Mike didn't throw any in there, but Jason's bonus sleeper pick is from the very same team in which his sleeper pick came from. I'll tell you what.

You can throw to me right now. Off the top of my head, I can give you a bajillion better sleepers than this guy. So, Jason, I'm reading in here, this does not...

I don't know if this is a typo. It does say Quentin Johnston. It does say Quentin Johnston. Remember me talking about how... Don't do this to yourself. Remember me talking about how... What a huge decision. You want to be able to drop a guy in week one? I mean, Quentin Johnston, we don't know for sure where he is on the pecking order. He might not be a starter.

However, he was a first-round rookie last year who's coming into year two and could still be the number one wide receiver for this team. Yep. So I'm just saying that's the type of pick that – Are you drafting Keon Coleman or Quinton Johnston? Oh, Keon Coleman. I mean, Quinton Johnston is basically an undrafted gym. I haven't seen him drafted in any of the leagues I'm in that aren't super deep like best ball leagues. And so –

Yeah, I mean, he's either a starter. He's going behind Ladd and Palmer. Oh, I would take Ladd ahead of him. I would take all those guys ahead of him. Here's the ADP, though, Jay. Dontavian Wicks, Quentin Johnston, Darnell Moody, Adam Thielen. Oh, really? All those guys? Yeah. Get out of here. Wow. Huge is the worst of those, but he still profiles as someone that could do something. He's something. All right, we're moving on.

Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mailag. Mail

You know, I think, I think he's so excited. I traded that guy. Yeah. He's got rid of it. I got rid of him. So we don't have to hype him up. Wasn't he part of the big dynasty acquisition you made when you sold for the future for a little while. And then you moved him. What'd you move him for? I don't remember something way better. Yeah. It doesn't matter. A second and a third and Terry McLaurin, Terry McLaurin. Oh, okay. You guys co-manage this team. Don't you over there? Yeah, we do.

That's a pretty good trade. If you've traded Quentin Johnston and Dynasty, you won the trade. Oh, man. Oh, man. Why did I ask? Yeah, the compensation doesn't matter. Oh, all right. Let's jump in. Will in North Carolina. By the way, if you have a question for the show, you can go to the website, thefantasyfootballers.com. Click that submit a question button. You can also dial our voicemail hotline, 302-464-TFFB. Leave us a voicemail question.

Will in North Carolina says, would you rather have in a 16-team PPR league? Okay. So this is a thinned out league. A.J. Brown and James Cook. So that combination. Okay. Or Jonathan Taylor and Marvin Harrison Jr. This is an easy A.J. Brown and James Cook for me. Really? Yeah. I'm...

very, very, very bullish and confident on both of those players. I do lean that direction. I think the consensus opinion would be you're getting much more of a guarantee with Taylor than Cook, and then you can debate the Brown-Harrison situation. But I agree. I'm on that side. That's where I go to. Andrew in Wisconsin says, Hello, Ballers. Long-time listener. My question is, is Devon A. Chan worth a first-round pick in a dynasty format? Nope. Nope.

I'm the my guy and I love him. But I mean, if I'm drafting a running back in the first round of a dynasty startup, which I don't almost ever do that, that running back is going to be named B Jean or breeze. Otherwise I'm getting a wide receiver. I just, we, you know, if you're newer to dynasty or you haven't played in a long enough, that running back turnover is just insane. And

some of these young, studly wide receivers, they're going to play twice as long. So I'm usually going into my fourth round, my fifth round, before I often grab a running back in startup drafts just because I'm building a foundation for the future. And then I'll collect the old men at the end of the draft to help me this year, like the Raheem Mosterts that no one wants in a dynasty league. So that's just the way that

I personally play. If I'm in the back of the first and I really, really want a running back, it'd be you're looking at Gibbs because I would take Gibbs over A-Champ. Who, little update, is expected to practice next week. All right, let's go. Which is delightful. All right, let's go here. Larson in Alaska.

What's up, Ballers? What's up? I hear you guys talk about the, quote, zero RB strategy on the podcast. What exactly does that mean to you guys, and what running backs are you targeting for that type of strategy? Thanks, guys, and also hashtag TeamBigShimmyForLife. So, yeah, absolutely, zero running back. It was a strategy that started to gain momentum, I don't know, about,

Eight years ago, maybe even 10, but Sean Siegel, shout out to him. Just incredible fantasy football mind. He's the one who got that idea out there. And the whole – the concept of Zero Running Back is –

Running backs are more likely to get hurt, so they're fragile for spending high draft capital. Meanwhile, wide receivers are more likely to not get hurt, more likely to hit. And if you can load up on those types of players and also including elite tight ends, which...

There's more options now for elite tight end, but back then it was one or maybe two guys, and if you can secure them, you're trying to get as many top 24 wide receivers as you possibly can. So that's the whole idea of it. And then that running backs you draft later, because the players in

in front of them are going to get hurt. They gain value over the course of a football season as opposed to lose value. And there's tons and tons of options this year. It doesn't mean you draft zero running backs. It means you're starting your draft

With zero rebounds. Gus Bust, Jerome Ford, some of these later round opportunities. The Cowboys. Yeah, the Cowboys backfield. Yeah, you'll start so heavy elsewhere. You're not going to get your first running back until at least the sixth round, usually seventh or later.

And then the end of your draft, you're just going to load up on a ton of those guys. So you can get a couple of either the old guys, if you're in the eighth round of Mosterts there, what a great starter. Or Jerome Ford is great because he's going to start the season well. And then you want to have a couple of those insurance backs as well. Grab those rookies. Grab the Blake Corums and the Trey Bensons and the guys that

An injury in front of them will make a mad dash for the waiver wire because they'll be great. Yeah, but you already have them. And you already have them, and now your team gets stronger while you've got loaded up studs at L. And one big hit on any of those changes the dynamics of your team for the whole season. Yes, yes. Another team gets...

Like, they lose, right? Like, they're out of the running out, and you are an even stronger contender. And also, we're throwing it. Like, this is – it's more focused on if you're in a PPR and you're playing – you're starting, like, three wide receivers and a flex because you're just – you're loading up on guys who are going to get cheap points. All right. I do want to circle back before we close the show down to the announcement we made at the very tippy top. Magalov.

Very frightened, always. The Megalobol, you can join it right now. It's a free entry for every Foot Clan supporter. And you can go to megalobol.com for that information. And if you would like all of the details on our new ultimate tier of the Foot Clan membership, you can go to jointhefoot.com. So very excited about both of those things.

We've got busts and values on tomorrow's episode. We're debuting the take swap on Thursday and a mock draft on Friday. Jason. Yes. Have you reconsidered your bust pick?

Please, please. No, I'm going to stick to it. But I have reconsidered my Quentin Johnson sleeper. Oh, okay. All right. He's off the board. He's off the board. There's just too many other guys. All right. That is going to do it. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back tomorrow. See you later. Goodbye.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers.