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

Right now, a guide dog puppy is taking her very first steps. One day, she'll help someone with sight loss live a full and independent life. Find the crossing best. Good girl. When you sponsor a puppy with guide dogs, you're there for it all. Her wobbly walks, her first harness, the life-changing partnership. It's more than a donation. It's the start of a life-changing story. Search, sponsor a guide dog puppy, and be part of a story you'll be proud to share. Guide dogs. What a scream. We installed telephone wires across rural Britain over a century ago, and you're still paying to use them for your broadband today. Ha ha ha. If it ain't broke, what? Stop! Your days of selling phone age broadband are over. Blast! I've spilled the beans. Upgrade to 100% full fiber. Gigaclear, faster broadband for rural Britain from only 19 pounds a month. Price may rise during contract. T's and C's apply. Check availability at gigaclear.com. Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your hosts Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Thursday, March 5th. Very special episode for you today. Excited to have you with us. Andy, Mike, and Jason, the Fantasy Footballers. Back with you Al Borland, Papa Josh, the Falcon, over there in Deuces Alley, hanging out with us as well. 10 things to remember episode today. It's a big episode. We've been doing this one for quite a while, and the season is long. The Fantasy Football World, the NFL, it all is changing and transforming, and trends are emerging. It's always teaching. Yeah, we're always learning. I mean, there are now at least 120 things to remember over the last 12 years. I will say that you can't go back to the things to remember from previous episodes and have it be relevant. That's the point of why we're trying to remember what happened in the latest year, because things change. Some of what I'm talking about today are like, these are new trends. These are different than what we have, what I would have said five years ago. I wrote an article on pretty much the opposite of one of these things about five years ago. It's just changed. It's just as the data changes. Oh man, you look so dumb in that article now. You know what I mean? Everyone should pull it up. Sure. I mean, the data was great then. Now, you've got to change your opinion. That's a big part of the show, is we always talk about staying water and adjusting your opinion. Even like a bonus thing to remember for us is, don't get take lock in February, March, and April, because a lot of the situations, you fall in love with players, and you fall in love with, you know, where somebody signs and then the draft changes, the way that their projection looks, and spring training, all of a sudden, or spring training, yeah. I got the baseball cap on today. Yo, come on, man. Training camp. Now, I think I'm getting cheers out there. The people are at the spring training. Yeah, there's a dozen people listening that are like, yeah. And no, when training camp starts, all of a sudden you're like, wow, they don't believe in that guy, the way that I did three months ago. And we have to remember this, you know, July, August, September, so. But it's a big show. We got 10 things to remember for 2025, lessons learned. A couple other reminders. The combine just happened, and so we have our update to the Dynasty Pass. I don't think it is the post-combine update live yet, Mike. It's probably moments away. Yeah, it is very close. There's a chance that when you're hearing this, there's a chance that it is up, but it is being worked on. Yeah, talk to the people about the Dynasty Pass and some of the upgrades and features coming out right now. So with all this new information, we have risers and fallers. So, you know, that article is, or not really article, you know, just blurbs on players who's trending in certain directions of a new three-round mock draft, which Jason, I think you guys also did a rookie mock draft on the Dynasty Pod this week, if you want even more access to that information. And then brand new this year. So this is an announcement, brand new for the Dynasty Pass. We are adding some scouting reports of, like the bigger players, you know, so a specific blurb about that guy, some strengths, some weaknesses. So the Dynasty Pass is always getting better, but look for round two to be dropping very, very soon. Yeah, and all that stuff will be there, essentially today or tomorrow. I mean, it will be there. And then we have some other stuff in store that I am super excited about. Always cooking, but that's coming a little bit later. Yeah, quite a few things in that category of excited about future launches. We're always adding things to the Ultimate Draft Kit. And a reminder too, if you picked up the Ultimate Draft Kit, maybe you participated in the promo during the month of February and you were trying to get into the Listener League and you got the UDK. From basically the moment you buy it until kickoff, if you want, you can expand that purchase into an Ultimate subscription as well. And we give you a prorated credit for what you purchased. So join the foot.com as a community if you want to do that over there. No quick question today. We got news to talk about. We got the news. We got the 10 things to remember to talk about. Let's do it. News and Notes from Around the League. Well, the Cardinals have, they've informed Kyla Murray that they intend to release him on the first day of the league year next Wednesday. Boo! He put a post out. This is a big domino that changes everything. For free agency? It just, it changes everything. Like we did, you know, free agent predictions. And I had talked about, we're like, hey, Malik Willis, what's going to happen with him? I had thought, I had thought the correct thing for the Cardinals to do would be keep, just keep Kyla Murray for one more year and then go, reevaluate and go from there. Obviously that is not what happened. I got that one wrong. But I was saying, like, well, Malik Willis, I think there's two teams that are real serious, you know, that he could go to. Now I think it's like, oh, Malik Willis, we'll go to the Cardinals. I genuinely think. I think the Cardinals... And it will be dumb. You see, I'm not in that camp. Dumb. I'm not in that camp. I believe that there's not going to be, and we've talked about this a lot before, if we play the Fantasy Football Manager, the Dynasty League Manager, we look at Arizona and we say, we're going to plan for 2027, 2028. That's how we would build it out. Accumulate picks for those years, maybe tank and get a quarterback. That's a Fantasy Football Manager. But there is really no patience in the NFL for almost any franchise. The coaching staffs, the players on the team, there just isn't. You know, you bring in a new head coach, and I talked to you about this. We debated it. To me, it was like Michael Bidwell saying, look, we're bringing this new coach in here. I'm not going to let Kyler be a detriment to a third head coach. Yeah, you were very correct on that. They were going to move on. It was close. It was Gann. And now they want a fresh, clean slate for LaFleur. I think I'm predicting it now. I believe Arizona will make three splashes this offseason. I think one will be the quarterback at an amount of money you guys don't like, but I like Malik Willis. I think he's a good quarterback. Is he better than Kyler Murray? I think so. By a wide margin. No, not by a wide margin. That's where it's a... I do not think the let go of J. W. Berset. Berset will be there as a mentor slash backup. I think they will sign Travis Etienne or a splash running back, but he seems to be the one that I'm focused on. And I think that they will make some significant move on the defensive side of the football via trade. Like, I don't know if it's Max Crosby. I don't know if it's somebody like Trey Hendrickson coming in. I think the Cardinals will make three splashes. None of this is me saying it will work. It is just what I... The vibe I'm getting out of Arizona, we live here. I think there is an impatience. I think there's a focus on competing this year with LaFleur. None of that will work, but I think that is what they will do via their actions. I don't... I know he hates the press, that he's the worst president in the land. Well, he is. He is. He will continue to be by swinging the pendulum in the public eye and trying to make a splash. That's what I believe we'll have. One of the issues with them, thinking that the patience has run out and that, you know, they're going to go hardcore this year to just try to rectify things, is they did cut Kyler early. So they are taking the most of the cap hit this year, which I think is smart. It's like, this is not a team that's going to win this year, be competing for a Super Bowl. I think that's the only thing that's going to make that money on now. The issue that I have and why I booed this is because you could have traded him for a pick. The issue... I don't think you could. No, no, no. It was absolutely out there reported that basically the reason that we didn't have a suitor is because we were trying to trade the contract. Not the price. We were trying to get another team to pay the money. And that's why we couldn't trade him. So what ends up happening now is Kyler's a free agent. The only money that he's going to be paid is 100% from the Cardinals now. And what happens is he's going to go play on a minimum contract because offset language in the contract would say like the only way that he would make more money next year. Like if another team comes out and says, I'm going to pay you 10 million, it's irrelevant. All that does is mean the Cardinals don't have to pay 10 million of it. Kyler doesn't get any more money. So he's just going to go to wherever he thinks is the best destination and that team is going to get a smoking deal, which is why people didn't want to trade picks. I just wish that they weren't so stupid as a Cardinal fan. I mean, this is why this happens all the time. Not just the Cardinals. This happens every year, three or four times to players that were like, oh my gosh, why did they cut that guy instead of trade him? It happens all the time. Yes, it does. It really does. And it's usually the same franchises. And so we're not alone in being a poorly run franchise. The way that the structure of the money works, we weren't going to be able to make a deal where we take some of it on and then work a deal for an eighth round. I mean, that just wasn't going to happen. Yeah, I agree. We would never get an eighth round. But now... Yeah, I always bring the eighth up because it's the invisible pick. But now that Kyler will be a free agent, it's like, okay, the rumor mill... Vikings. The Vikings is the easiest one to go to. And well, I mean, we definitely shall see. But it's like, that would be very, very interesting. The Kevin O'Connell magic that has worked seemingly on every quarterback, not named J.J. McCarthy, to the tune of Great Success. If Kyler goes there, it changes... This one's saying of this particular domino. You know the meme where it's like the guy puts down the tiny domino and you're like, you end up somewhere that seems completely unrelated. Except no, it was. It was Kyler get released. Now this did this, this did this, this did this. So it will be a very fascinating butterfly effect that will have really, really large implications for the NFL and for fantasy. We just talked about it on Tuesday. We brought up Kyler's name in Minnesota and how much different we'd feel about the Minnesota offensive weapons of Kyler was the quarterback. For sure. We talked about J.J. McCarthy being the guy that got the audition that doesn't sing very well. And everyone knows that he probably shouldn't play that role and they may give him a shot. And I mean, I don't see them cutting or trading him. I think it will be a camp competition. I think it will probably be obvious that Kyler wins it if he was there or whoever else they sign. You've got to give, you've got to give your Vikings fans hope. Even if you give J.J. another shot, you've got to give them hope that you can make a pivot quickly in the year and fix your season. Now McCarthy did, to his credit, win five consecutive games in the year. And his final four games, which were not complete games because part of the, part of the knock, you're like, dude, McCarthy just keeps getting hurt over and over and over. Maybe that was very, very bad luck for one season or I guess two, because he lost his entire rookie season to Maniscus. Like, but that is a factor. McCarthy did play better over those final four games, but I would, I get it. I get if the Minnesota Vikings are like, that was not enough and we're going to go with Kyler Murray, which is, these situations are so wild of Arizona is like, no, Kyler Murray, you are not good enough. Get out of here. You know what we're going to do? We are going to eat a substantial amount of money that we will continue to pay you because you're so bad for us. And then they're like, then they get to free agency and all the teams like, oh man, Kyler Murray is available. He's better than your, he's better than just the bottom half quarterbacks in the league. He is clearly better. If you look at the Arizona Cardinals record, I don't have it pulled up in front of me, but it's, he's almost 500 in games where he started on the Cardinals. And when he has missed those games were like four wins and 30. One and nine with Jacobi Rousset. I mean, Baker Mayfield, Daniel Jones, Sam Darno. Yep. And then, you know, teams, you know, it's a matter of running out of, like I told my son, I go, you hear we cut Kyler or we're going to cut Kyler. He goes, oh, thank goodness. I go, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, it didn't work the last five years. Why do we keep trying to do it? And that's exactly why he's cut. Yeah. It's like sunk cost fallacy. You're going to keep them for two more years and fail two more times with a couple more bags of L's. I mean, I don't, I think it's moving on. I think it's complete since the franchise pretty much had to move on for fans are sick and tired of it. But honestly, this episode is 10 things to remember. One of the things that we could very well have had as our, you know, an 11th thing to remember is that good players drafted well to bad franchises can turn it around when given another opportunity. You just mentioned Baker and Darnold and these guys who were top picks and NFL draft and they, they flamed out. They didn't, they didn't succeed the way that they had hoped when they were drafted. But then you look at like, okay, it didn't work out for the Jets. It didn't work out for the Browns. It didn't work out for the Cardinals. It's like always those franchises. And then lo and behold, you go to the Buccaneers, you get a team around you and there's MVP chance. You go to the Seahawks and you have a team and a franchise around you. You win the Super Bowl. It's like that Kyler could go somewhere and be really important for fantasy next year, not just himself, but also the weapons. I mean, Justin Jefferson, heck yeah, or wherever he goes. Or he could end up on the Jets. He could be on the Jets. Yes, come on Jets, do it. The Jets are the best hope for the Cardinals to get offset money because I feel like for him to go to the Jets, he may, he may get more than a year. And if I don't want to speak for you guys, but I feel like if he goes to the Jets, you'd be like, well, yeah, no, good luck. Yeah, we've seen the movie before. We saw Justin Fields in the Jets. Right. I mean, we that wasn't the reclamation project that we hoped it would be. So speaking of the Jets, they franchise Ted Gries Hall. Yep, they do. These franchises. I had told Jason in the office. I was like, here's what I need the Cardinals to do. This was before the Kyla Murray News broke. I'm like, I need the Cardinals to cut Kyla Murray. I need them to give Malik Willis a bag of money. Huge, like 30 million a year. And then I need them to draft Jeremiah Love with the third overall pick. So then I could just, I will wipe my hands and I will be completely removed as an Arizona Cardinal fan. I'll be rooting for Jeremiah Love, you know. Oh, for fantasy, 100% if they will be a fan. You don't know when the Cardinals are a top five pick again in the draft. I'll say, you don't know where Mike and I are right now. I told Mike after he said that, I was like, dude, I had a daydream. I literally was daydreaming about this. And Andy, this will make you big mad. I had a daydream about using this show and this platform. Look, my son is Jack in Newsy's. To show that you can leave a team? No, no, no, no. To, that's small potatoes, Andy. To lead a revolution to tell people across this great country that you do not have to behold into stupid idiot managers because of where you live or were born. Why do I owe Bidwell Jack freaking squat? He's stupid. I don't know. All I know about him is he's a bad owner and manager. I should not be loyal to him. He has done nothing to earn it. Okay. And I want, I don't want to leave the Cardinals. I want all of us to leave the Cardinals. I want tens of thousands of people around here to just say we're done. We're done. This is why you're a big Brazil fan in the World Cup. Huh? Huh? Yeah. You leave the USA and you go for Brazil, right? I have reasons to leave the USA. I have reasons to go to countries. Why can't you go to countries? Because you are a man. You can't go to the USA. This is why you're loyal. Bidwell. Bill with Michael. Bill well. All the Bidwells, but Michael Bidwell is the owner of the Cardinals. It's fine. You can leave. We don't want you. It's like, it's not even the city or the state where I live. That's not ours. It's not theirs. Get out. Get out. And when they're good one time in the next 30 years, you don't get to celebrate. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. You know what I'll do. Mike, didn't you go to the Super Bowl in Tampa when the Cardinals were there? Yeah. Okay. Why? Because they are. We are Cardinals fans. I'm just saying, I'm just saying the whole thing where I was born here or I was raised here and so therefore I have to give my allegiance to a bad king. You know what I mean? Like that's what it is. If you, yeah, you don't have to give your allegiance to Bidwell. People are fans of their home team while hating a lot of the parts of it. You just want them to succeed because they're your home team. That's all. But we know there are very few franchises where you're proud of them, the every piece of the management. Of course. They're very few. All teams make mistakes. And you can't just like, so what are you going to do? You're going to go root for like another winner? Just pick a winner? No, I'll just play fantasy. I'll just play fantasy. You're leaving all of the agents to NFL. To fandom. Yeah. This is what you feel like you have to do to send a message to Michael. I think I would do a case. I'm not going to get in your way of sending a message. Yeah. You do what you want to do. That's right. I'm not a fan, but I'm like, but we also know that you don't know what you don't know what you don't know what you're really worried about. But what does it say when you know, it's like, oh, I got one foot out the door, right? I got two feet out the door. So I'm not sure. You're not even in the room. I'm not in the room. I'm not in the room with holding the door. You can be in the room with two feet out. Oh, are you doing? You're playing a little like my hands on the on the door sill. You know, I'm like leaning on the stand and I'll have to do to like bring you sell the team. That's what he has to do. Okay. I nobody needs to hear anymore of this. Breeze Hall. Oh, people are loving it. Breeze Hall to the Jets. This is a situation where they open the door for Breeze Hall and they're like, get on out of here and then he tries to walk and they've chained him to the room. I mean, they hate this guy and he's like, can't you let me leave? They say they're working on a long-term deal. Okay. They put the rail and Allen dynasty managers. No, they put the version of it where he can technically go out and try to. Get a contract with someone else. They did the transition tag. I thought it was a franchise tag. I mean, that is a franchise tag. But you specifically say the, you cannot do that with a franchise tag. You can only do that with a specific, with what they gave Daniel Jones, right? Transition tag. Right. I'm just saying you have like a basically a hierarchy of options for who you franchise and how you franchise them. I don't know if it's technically called a franchise tag, but the transition, if you transition tag someone that is using your franchise tag on that player, but that would require another team, not only signing breeze, but then sending two first round picks. So he's not going anywhere for sure. He is a jet and that is unfair to him. He came out and said, I, hey, I don't mind betting on myself. So hey, the good news for fantasy. That's just like he's in a contract year. Show me the money. Yeah. A transition tag for Daniel Jones. It comes in at 6 million cheaper than the quarterback franchise tag. So the transition tag is going to save them some money. Jones can go out and get an offer sheet. The Colts would have a right to match, but it seems like Daniel Jones will be there. We talk about Domino's falling. Daniel Jones not being on the free open market is a significant deal. And then we got, we got two more pieces of news. One of them, one's breaking right now. One of them is big news yesterday. The Bears, I mean, Drew Dalman, Pro Bowl center for the bear's incredible offensive line at 27 years old who signed an extension last off season. He's retiring. Bears Twitter spent the entire morning thinking that was the day they were getting Max Crosby. All the betting odds were like, we're the favorite. Something's coming down, you know, and then they're like so excited. And it's like, boom, you lost your bro. Young center. That was awful. Star center. So that's huge. And I think there was reports. I don't know the name, but they're already like bringing in other centers to talk to right now. Also, I guess this is breaking news. It is as of right now. Breaking news. Huge trade. The Rams have traded a first round pick in this draft, 29, a fifth, a sixth and a 2027 third, which is a lot of their picks. They, you know, less need is always, I don't care about them picks. Yeah. He's like you and Brooks of dynasty managers. They're like, let me go get a vet. I don't want picks. He traded all those picks to the chiefs for all pro cornerback Trent McDuffie. They were apparently one Trent McDuffie short last year from. And they might have been. Yeah. They might have been a very well done be short. I mean, they were able to score on the Seahawks. No problem that they couldn't stop them. Yeah. That's a big trade. This is probably a great trade for both teams. Chiefs are going to end up with another first round pick here. It really probably is because they, the chiefs let go their office of tackle that played like started the whole season. So they have to replace a tackle in the draft. They've got the ninth pick. A lot of people are saying, Oh, if Jeremiah love is there, they would grab them. Hard to imagine that when they more flexibility. Yeah. Exactly. They have to fill other needs. And they, I mean, they're, they're at the point where they have to just like do the rebuild so that they can go for three more. Yes. Where like, don't for the chiefs. Yeah. Yes. Like don't be, don't be splotchy and like, Hey, we're sort of good. Like, no, man. Like rip it down real quick. So you could do a real quick rebuild because you have, you got my homes. So like you can still tread water with my home. Build really, really fast. So trading want a great player, but into all of those options. That's man. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a break and we'll jump into 10 things to remember. If you've ever run a business with a bloated CRM, you know how painful it is digging through useless menus and features while deals slip through the cracks. It's time to switch to a new CRM. That's where pipe drive comes in and easy to use intelligent CRM loved by growing sales teams. Pipe drive unites everything on one visual pipeline that shows every deal, what stage it's in and what needs to happen next. It's so intuitive. Your team can jump in and use it from day one. Pipe drive keeps everyone aligned on task and moving toward the close. It's powerful enough to grow with your business, but simple enough that your team will actually love using it. Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using pipe drive. Head to pipedrive.com forward slash audio for a 30 day free trial with no credit card or payment required. That's pipedrive.com forward slash audio. When life gets hectic, energy ups and downs are all you need. If you're seeking energy reassurance, Eonnex can help. I'm regularly updating our tariffs to get you our best value. It's a smart tech that helps you take control of your energy future. We're here for whatever's next. Just one of the reasons why we're rated excellent on TrustPilot by our customers. Find out more about how we can help at eonnex.com. Eligibility and T's and C's apply. TrustPilot February, 2026. All right, it's time. Big episode. 10 things to remember from 2025. Let's get into it. Don't forget to remember these things. All right, it looks like I am going to kick us off with number 10. All right, number 10. It is titled My Players are going to get hurt. Look, injuries, these are a foregone conclusion in fantasy football. You have to embrace it in spite of what Mike and CMC managed to pull off this year. Sometimes there's magic. Sometimes Mike can turn on the madden. Mike turns on the setting and madden. The injuries are now off. But historically that's not the case. 98% of all NFL players show up on an injury report every year. So you're talking about everybody. It doesn't mean that being fortunate with injuries is not going to determine success for fantasy football. Obviously it does. Mike, I mean, he stayed healthy. You won a championship. Oh, I didn't stay healthy, but McCaffrey did. No, no, McCaffrey did. But in the NFL, it's the same way. The final four teams in the NFL that made it to the final four, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and the NFC, 25 players combined on the injured reserve. The Cardinals had 22 alone on their team. So injuries make a big difference in the NFL as well. But when you look at fantasy football, I just want to give you some context. On average, three of the top 10 players drafted every year in fantasy Miss 4 Plus games. This year, if you look at, we got a little bit more lucky with the top 10 this year. But look at the second and third round. When you go beyond or outside the top 10, basically, Malik neighbors, 13 games, Miss, Nico, two, Jacobs, two, Puka one, Brian Thomas, three, HN one, Drake London, five, Buck, Irving, seven, AJ Brown, two, Brock Bowers, five, Lamar Jackson, four, it keeps going, Hampton, eight, Daniels, 10, Tyreek, 13, Kittle, six. Those are the like sequential picks in the second and third round. You need to start building your fantasy football team like a general manager does in the NFL. They are building their rosters not based on perfect health. It looks the best, right? We love it when we put the perfect starting lineup together. And what you'd love to be able to do on paper is build the perfect starting lineup that looks amazing. Lock them in and then spend your entire bench on upside, right? Not a player that's already established and guaranteed production, but a bunch of upside players. But general managers in the NFL, they build their teams on attrition. They understand that they're going to miss players. Now, maybe not 22 like Arizona. You can't build a team strong enough to withstand 22 injuries on Arizona or on injured reserve. But it is obviously Bidwell. He needs to care again. Have you seen the grades for our training facilities? The training facilities may play a role as well. We didn't put them next to a power plant, but it's not good. But look, don't over stack your bench with all upside stashes at the expense of playable depth. He's been pretty, pretty gifted in this department for years where he builds rosters. I look at and what I actually, I think the most actionable thing here is let's say you put, you make good picks later in the draft and you put some nice bench assets, free agency or, you know, you go onto the waiver wire, you add some pieces and they perform. That's my moment generally where you flip them into I flip them. I take a starter and a bench player that's performing and I try to turn them into somebody better and I do it all the way through the bench. Then I use the bench to fill up on more waiver wire pickups. I think that for me, my thing to remember is I need to adjust that a little bit and really keep some solid startable assets, not look at them all as trade chips and trade bait and really plan on those injuries to happen so that I can survive. Mike talks about another thing in years past, you know, kind of getting through the season in different phases, right? There's different parts of the season that you need to get through. Players are going to get hurt, survive every window of the season to make the playoffs. If you want to consolidate right around the trade deadline a little bit, if that makes sense, you've survived a bunch of weeks, sure. But don't just stack your bench with upside stashes and then all of a sudden you've got to put a player in that has no potential to play. It's a rookie that hasn't started. You need to be able to step in. Those guys are going to get hurt. It's a guarantee. Yeah. I mean, Mike had like Jalen Warren and Sharpenay just kind of rest in line. It's just out there. I'm like, why isn't he trading these guys? It's the, you know, like if you hear people talk about the zero RB build, like it's... Anti-fragile. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what it is. It's going on the philosophy of that these players will get stronger as the year goes on because I know that the guys drafted in the first round or they're going to miss time. So it's being, being aware of that. I think the, you know, combining that tip, Andy, with the understanding the nuances and the differences of the time of year, what your team needs through the first four weeks and then what you need through the next four, it all holistically plays a part in creating your best chance at winning a championship. No, it makes sense. And I'm just looking from picks 111 through 406. So I think that's 28 picks. Six of the 28 didn't miss a game. So you're going to miss time. So remember it and plan accordingly. All right, time to move on. Number nine. So be willing to stand your ground on your rookie takes. This is a chance to... Dude, dude. No, it's actually, I have a couple of different ways I want to talk about this because it's... Rookies are, it's such a wild and like it's not a straightforward path for rookies in fantasy football. And yet if you've been playing, you know, for at least five years or so, you understand that rookies are often a humongous part of fantasy football success. Now because rookies get better as time goes on and then like the guys who are making impact, players over the second half and in the playoffs, a lot of time we see that it's a rookie, but it can take time. And this is where it's difficult because to get those players on your team, if you want to draft them, you got to draft them early. But you're drafting them early knowing that there's a chance that this might may not start working at least for you like two months into the season. The Travion Henderson was it, you know, through the first month of the season, it was an absolute disaster. And then through the net, through the first two months, a catastrophe. You know, he was on our show docs a week six. We bring up like drop candidates. People wanted to drop Travion Henderson and it was, I don't really have a... Like I can't convince you not to drop this player who's not getting any opportunity. It's all Ramandre, all this. And then of course, Ramandre misses some time and then you have the magic. They're right in the middle of the season where Travion Henderson is winning weeks by himself. You know, from week nine on, he was the running back nine, averaging almost 17 fantasy points per game. And then that span week nine through 12 with no Ramandre. I mean, it was ludicrous, the points he was putting up. Ted Arowa McMillan, it was a slower start for him. And then he ends up being the offensive rookie of the year. It started out slow, but the target share was there. And in fact, he was one of six rookie wide receivers over the last decade to finish with a 26 or a 26 plus percent of the targets. And it just, it can take time. So that's why I say when you draft those rookies, it's hard because you got to draft them early, but you know that you're drafting them for a certain time of the season. Of course you want him to hit right away, which does happen sometimes, but you got to be ready. And then I also wanted to talk about this from the standpoint of dynasty rookie drafts are coming up. You do not have to be beholden to this is how you're like, I'm the one oh five, I'm slotted for this player. Like it's okay. You know, it's okay to, to take chances on the guys that you prefer because we, it's fantasy football. It's wild man. Stuff goes sideways. It goes haywire all the time. And you're looking at the, like, oh, well this wide receiver got drafted in the, in the top of the second. I had the one oh eight. So I couldn't possibly take him. Just do it. You're like, cause you know what? If I draft that player, everyone's going to make fun of me. Yeah. You ever looked at the, they're going to mock my rookie draft and I'm going to, they're going to hurt my feelings and I'm going to feel real ashamed that I did that. And there's, I'm going to take Royce Freeman because they told me to write. You just, no, man, if you don't want to take that guy, don't take him. Take someone else. It, it's, it's okay to withstand the, the, the peer pressure of you have to take this guy right here. You ever seen the NFL draft? And there, there is a really important distinction here because I think it is important that we say it is totally acceptable and good to mock and make fun of people. Oh, of course. Picking something that is against the game. Against the game. Grain. That's what you want to do. Now if you're the person getting mocked, you have to ask yourself one of two questions. One, was this a player I believed in and I liked this pick and I'm getting mocked and so I don't care. Great. Or why am I getting mocked? Oh, I didn't, I had no clue. I didn't know, you know, then it's like, look at yourself. I'm saying, yeah, don't Raiders this thing and draft a kicker in the first round. That's not what I'm saying. I thought you were going with, wasn't it the Raiders who, who just drafted, you're just drafted the wrong human being. They called the guy with the same name that wasn't the one they wanted to draft. That might go in your bucket of bad franchises. Too bad. Yes. So I'm saying rookies can take some time, but also specifically for your rookie draft, man, pick the players you want. It's okay because you maybe you're wrong. You're wrong on that player, but follow your own path. Don't let the, don't let the peer pressure and consensus bully you into taking a pick. You don't want to make. It's extremely painful. If you don't take the player you have conviction about, you take somebody else due to consensus and then that player turns out to be something great because, you know, you didn't stand on it. So it makes sense. Number eight. This one is a question on trends and NFL. The question is, is the famous sophomore leap for wide receivers actually dead? This is over the, this is what I was talking about at the beginning of the show where in 2021 I wrote an article. It was basically a cheat code. You looked at the, the, the previous five and 10 years and that year two wide receiver was like just draft them. Even if you're not sure, even if you don't believe the, the year two is when most of these guys are really breaking out. Now what we've seen over this last five years and the last decade is that more and more frequent is it that wide receiver ones breakout in year one, the alphas come out and they get the opportunity from day one to just be on the field at all times. And it has had a reciprocal effect on the year two breakout. I was, I was noticing this trend over the last couple of years, but this, this last year really put a, put a nail in the coffin. So in 2021, the, you look at the wide receivers that were drafted in the first eight rounds, five of six of them improved in their sophomore year. That's great. 83% fires like yeah. Softmore bump. Yeah. The sophomore bump. The article was right. But then as time has gone on, 2022, only three of six improved and some of those like Johan Dotson, he was the hotness from his rookie year. He went hardcore the other way. He went hardcore the other way. Christian Watson went down. Garrett Wilson, who was the number one drafted there. He had a down year. Didn't even score 10 fantasy points per game that season. The following year, the 2023 class, two of five improved. So now we're sub 50% actually being better than they were their rookie season. You know, certainly it rebounded last year. It certainly did. It rebounded all the way to zero of the top five improved in the 2024 class. So Malik neighbors, BTJ, Mcconkey, Marv and this one. They all, I mean, they burns too bright. And so that is part of it, right? You can't just be like, here's a trend. It's like, here's a trend. Why? Part of it is they dominated rookie years. Lad Mcconkey, BTJ and the leaders were all fantasy wide receiver ones. They were top 12 in their rookie season. So it makes sense that it's harder for them to take that step up and go. But it's happening more and more frequently. Now you look at this year and I guess what this is to me, what I want to remember is that I have gone into old the drafts, you know, three years ago, four years ago, where even if I really didn't believe in a player, if he's a year or two wide receiver at a place where, you know, I'm just pulling the trigger. I'm just shooting on probabilities. This year you got, you know, Ibuka, who was the hotness this year coming into year two is he going to get better? Mike Evans might leave. There's going to be a lot of reasons. I'll bet if Mike Evans leaves, he's going to shoot up draft boards. People will forgive him and be in Matthew Golden sucked this rookie year, had all the opportunity, but he's still a first round wide receiver on a good offense. Year two wide receiver go all in, you know, try to, Luther Burton was the hotness at the end of the season. It was like, wow. How many guys can be the hot? Well, there's different parts of the season. You know, it's like, if you're in Arizona or if you're in New York, there's summer and there's winter. Right. I'm saying, but just summer here though. So I don't think it is quite the guarantee and I don't, I wanted this to be a little shorter and have this be a question and a conversation piece on whether or not we should stop just automatically assuming that in year two, these players take a leap forward. That doesn't necessarily always happen. However, the data is starting to say year three, which is it has been more and more frequent. That was JSN. That was, um, Zay flowers after a down year two got better in year three. Some of these guys are starting to, um, you know, even, even somehow Puka was significantly better in year three, even though he was great already, but I'm not sold on just saying that in year two, they're always going to get better as a wider. I mean, unfortunately, and it's a, it's a cop out to a degree, but I mean trends are based on context. You talked about how insane the numbers were last year for those guys. You weren't my league neighbors hurt or not was probably not beating 14, six points per game or was going to be tough to do it. Brian Thomas Jr. Certainly. I mean, those numbers, lad McConkey all alone there, it was going to be really, really hard. And there, so there's going to be nuance. There's going to be what does it, what do you define improving as right? And how much does that matter? Um, in the, in the equation. So, you know, there are players that you know, you talked about it, Luther Burton. It's like, that's not a difficult one to see him having a better sophomore year because he barely got it rolling. It's slow start. I mean, he really didn't ever get it cooking for, you know, consecutive weeks. So that one's an easy one to see. Now, you know, a book a lot of variables in the equation, Matthew Golden, he better improve or he's in the UFL. So it's good to look over a long period of time and see what the trends are. So you don't just lock into a strategy that is eventually going to Yeah. Teter, Teter, and McMillan was really good as a rookie. And so he's the one. When you look and it's like, well, he's going to take that, that leap forward. And he's being drafted almost as a Widershover one. He's right now it's too early to know. But he's the Widershover 13. It reminds me a lot of his comp for me was Drake London. Well, he showed and it was like year two. Yeah, it took year three before he really is a perfect transition to the next one. All right. Number seven, which is bad teams ruin good players. Yeah. And bad owners ruin good franchises. Yeah. Bad teams ruin good players. Ask yourself if I remove the players name and just describe their situation, right, like a new quarterback, an uncertain offense, a transition year, you got to ask yourself, would I draft that player in the first two rounds? Or at their ADP? And usually you would say no, if you remove the players name from the situation. So I'm going to describe a couple of situations to you and you tell me how in you are. All right. First one, a wide receiver on an offense with the fifth starting different starting quarterback in five years with an offensive coordinator that you openly hate on a team who has fewer scoring opportunities inside the red zone than anybody in the entire league. Does that sound like I'm out? There weren't the risk of a top two second or a top two round pit. No, that sounds like a bad bet. That bad bet we made for years with Garrett Wilson. Garrett Wilson was that bad bet. We did it in 2023. He was drafted as the wide receiver nine. It was Aaron Rodgers. It was Nathaniel Hackett. That combination. We still went in on him at ADP. Where's Hackett now? Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah, he's here. In 2024, we did it again with Garrett Wilson. Wide receiver seven off the board. Aaron Rodgers was the quarterback. We didn't have a lot of confidence in that. Last year, you finally got an adjustment in the ADP. We wisened up a little bit. How bad were the jets? The jets over the last three years, dead last in those red zone plays, tied or trailing on 93% of offensive snaps. You have to pay attention to the context these guys get drafted into. Let me do one from this year. Older quarterback who was cast off from his former team. New head coach born before the invention of the transistor radio. Offensive coordinator who hasn't been in the NFL in more than a decade. Oh, wait, we drafted two players this year in the first two rounds of fantasy. Obviously, that was Ashton Gentie and Brock Bowers did not work out for fantasy managers in the, you know, Bowers did other than the injury. Yeah. I mean, second half, he was very good. Yeah. I mean, I think there was still some underwhelming vibes with some of what he was able to do. You know, you started the year before the injury and maybe that was playing through it and stuff like that. But it was, it was tough. It was tough when you have to look at all of these risk factors, quarterback transitions and changes, offensive coordinators, lack of faith in a coach and then say to yourself, well, it's all just going to work out because this player is talent. We did this. We did this game with a lot of players that we liked over the years. We did it with Terry McClaren. We did it with DJ Maher. We did it, you know, if you don't have all those externals, you have a lot more to overcome and you just need to factor that in and ask yourself whether the risk outweighs the draft cost. Yes. Is the team environment so completely disgusting and gross that it can ruin a great player? And it is very possible to do that. And so you need to be careful. I need to be careful. And when the draft happens and these sexy players start going to teams that we don't have confidence in, you need to make sure that those situations are not going to destroy them. This is where the transition from Ted Aroma McMillan has a year or two. Correct. I love that. I love Ted. I think he is great. Yes. I think he is. Gary Wilson, I love. Yeah. But it's a good point. He's going into year two. It's not a guaranteed leap forward. He's on a team that you don't expect to be great. They were better than we thought for sure. But the quarterback is not prolific at the very least. We can all agree on that. Correct. Yeah. So it puts a little pause in there. Obviously the Jets project to be bad. Who are the other teams that like you think about? Cleveland on offense right now. Oh, OK. Yeah, you drive somebody. Cleveland on offense. Arizona on offense without a quarterback. The nice thing about the Minnesota, if it's JJ and no one else. The nice thing about the Browns is they've done us a service and they have no one really worth drafting. You know what I mean? They're like let's not have Judkins. Yeah, depending on the injury and his timeline back. How dare you. Harold Fanon. You are Mr. Fanon. I do. Apparently he used to be. I do like Fanon over the other guys. But we'll talk about whether I'm Mr. Fanon or not. That's actually why we have Fanon lower than the other two of the sophomore tight ends. Yeah. Let's take a break and we'll keep going. If you've ever run a business with a bloated CRM, you know how painful it is. Digging through useless menus and features while deals slip through the cracks. It's time to switch to a new CRM. That's where Pipedrive comes in. An easy to use, intelligent CRM loved by growing sales teams. Pipedrive unites everything on one visual pipeline that shows every deal, what stage it's in and what needs to happen next. It's so intuitive your team can jump in and use it from day one. Pipedrive keeps everyone aligned on task and moving toward the close. It's powerful enough to grow with your business, but simple enough that your team will actually love using it. Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipedrive. Head to pipedrive.com forward slash audio for a 30 day free trial with no credit card or payment required. That's pipedrive.com forward slash audio. When life gets hectic, energy ups and downs are all you need. If you're seeking energy reassurance, Eonnext can help. From smart tech that helps you take control of your energy future to always staying below the price cap with Nex Pledge. We're here for whatevils next. Just one of the reasons why we're rated excellent on TrustPilot by our customers. Find out more at eonnext.com. Next Pledge variable rates are always below the option price cap. 25 pounds exit fee per fuel applies. Eligibility and season fees apply. TrustPilot February 2026. All right, we're back in the 10 things to remember. Here we go. Number six. So speaking of philosophies that change over the course of time is I am now firmly in this area. I, you know, we have dabbled talked about this strategy. I don't know just how like rubber stamped I would have said that this strategy was, you know, to be when we started this show, you don't do this. No. And now I'm like, you know what, when you leave your draft in a single quarterback league and you draft two quarterbacks, I think that's okay. I think it's not only is it okay. I think it there are situations where it is in fact a very smart thing to do. You know, just you're, you're increasing your odds of, of finding a difference maker for that single quarterback position. The opportunity cost is like, okay, do I hit on one of these sleeper wide receivers who is these fourth on his depth chart or it's the, it's the RB three on a team, you know, where we've seen great returns for that. It's a game of probability. Just always remember that for fantasy football. There is no, there is no binary black or white. Everything is great. Everything is probability. And the way that things have gone lately, hitting on a later round quarterback, where that guy becomes a potential difference maker for you, it is the odds keep going up every single year where it used to be, these are the quarterbacks who will be good. We've nailed it. We know they're going to be great. But it's like this past year, you know, you had going late Dak, who Dak just always goes, Dak always goes late and you should just always be grabbing Dak as, as a second quarterback. But Caleb Williams made the jump. Drake may know almost the league MVP was going in the, in the 12th round as about the 18th quarterback or so. It's a, it's a strategy where it felt like a misuse of your resources. But now I think that it can be really the, the move that you need to go to of, and I'm not talking when you, you've drafted Josh Allen, when you've invested heavily, one of your very, very high lucrative draft picks on a quarterback. We're talking, if you're getting a guy in the middle, why not, why not take a player late? Because so many times now we're seeing those are the quarterbacks who are taking the jump and they're becoming the player that it's a week to week thing. It's a week to week thing. It does fold into the, all your players get hurt situation. Yeah. I mean, that does happen at the quarterback position. They're not immune from it, obviously. So, but, but saying that that's okay, that is a transition from where we used to be. Yes, it is. For sure. Number five. All right. This one will affect Fannin a little bit. The tight end dead zone is deader than ever. It's all of them. It's just the whole position people. There isn't a dead zone. There's some studs and then there's, and then there's death. I don't know if everybody listening would understand what you mean by a dead zone when you talk, we've talked about RV dead zones. Maybe we should talk through that. So the tight end dead zone has, at times, you know, changes based on the year, but you know, the fifth, sixth round tight ends historically have always been just terrible, Ben. Yes. It's just awful. Wastes of picks and you're, you're ruining opportunities to draft relevant players at other positions. But what I'm calling the tight end dead zone, especially this last year, is if you're not Trey McBride, I mean, you could throw George Kittle in there, but he got injured and Bowers in there who got injured. Everyone else sucked. The difference between the tight end two, this is fantasy finish at the end of the year. Tight end two and tight end 12 was 1.3 points per game. It's irrelevant people. It is completely, that's the tightest spread in six years. Fanon was good down the stretch. He was on the waiver wire end of the year. Loveland was like, Oh, hey, he's breaking out waiver wire pickup. He was drafted and then he was a waiver wire pickup because he was averaging like 2.3 fantasy points per game. Kyle Pitts, the number two tight end waiver wire. Dallas Goddard was a waiver wire pick. And here's the thing, all the eight. So basically my strategy is this, what I'm going to remember is I am, I would love to draft Trey McBride. I would love to draft Brock Bowers. And then I'm checking out. I'm not going to fall victim to, Oh, this player is good. That player is good. I like this name. I like that name. I'm going to let everyone else go. Here's why. Laporta was the tight end four drafted last year. He was drafted over wide receivers and running backs like Jameson Williams, and DeAndre Swift. They made differences. Kelsey and Hawkinson were the next tight ends drafted a round later. They were drafted over Chris Olave and Jalen Warren. They made impacts on fantasy football. Mark Andrews was next drafted over Travis Etienne and Emeka Ibuka. Mark, Evan Ingram was next drafted over Judkins and Javante Williams. Like we didn't love Javante Williams. There's a reason he was in the ninth, 10th round, but there's opportunity. There's lots of misses in those rounds, but I want to take shots at these guys who actually could make an impact. These tight ends in the middle and late rounds, they're not making an impact. Najoku drafted over Scatiboo and Pittman who were looking good. So for me, give me Trey McBride and Brock Bowers, and then I'll see you on the waiver wire. I'm going to keep taking shots at all the running backs and wide receivers I can stock up. Maybe I'll grab that second quarterback like Mike saying, and it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay because the gap, the difference between these guys, they're really not all that crazy. Never forget David Najoku, T.J. Hawkinson back to back on our league of record fifth round. Wasted picks. Just to lead them from the earth. Take a shot on someone that could actually break out these tight ends, aren't going to be it. And I know Tyler Warren had looked great before the Daniel Jones injury. That's great. He was 10.7 fantasy points a game. That would have been pretty good. That would have counted. That's 0.4 points more than what Dallas Goddard scored. Yeah. No, you can find value there. Number four. Well, I'll keep it short. I'll make it simple here, but this is a number four thing to remember. A good waiver pickup is a good waiver pickup. Sometimes we ignore players on the waiver wire because we think we have those positions figured out on the team. This goes into the staying water. This goes into the acknowledging that injuries are going to happen. Player performances, the rookies that Mike talked about. Their performances change over time. There were a lot of players that performed really, really well last year that were sitting on the waiver wire and you might have thought to yourself, I don't need that guy because I have this guy. Harold Fannin was rostered on 6% of teams in week two on the waiver wire. If you had Brock Bowers, you were going to pass on the opportunity to pick up Harold Fannin because you had the position figured out. Well, an injury happened and you didn't. And that would have been a big, big difference because he was the tight end five for the rest of the season. Same thing went with, remember how hot Baker Mayfield started? This goes to your point with two quarterbacks. If you had Baker Mayfield at the beginning of the season, if you had Bo Nix because you invested draft capital in him, you're like, I got my position figured out. Well, Drake May was a streamer in week two. Like, I know he got drafted in a lot of leagues, not every league. Right. And maybe he got dropped after they lost in week one. There are opportunities on the waiver wire and you might pass on a guy because you think you have the position figured out. This is a way of saying like NFL GMs, they go into the draft and they draft position over neat or over best on the board. You need to go best on the board sometimes on the waiver wire, even when you have a player that is doing the job in that position this week, because things change too much. You might have thought you had plenty of wide receivers and you passed on Parker Washington or Alec Pierce in week 10 waivers where they were on less than 30% of teams. Both of those guys were basically wide receiver ones from week 10 on. For your roster, if they're good, if you believe in them, just because you got it figured out, sign them anyway. It's funny because we do this elsewhere. Rookie drafts, we have learned lessons over the years of just take the best player, take the best player available. Yeah, you need running back, but that's, you know, he's just not, it's not as good a pick, you know, at that point in the draft, this wide receiver versus that running back, just take the best player because it turns out it's going to help you the most, even if it's not the position you think. Yeah, you can, you can, if you have two amazing tight ends, that's fine. You can figure out what you want to do with that at that point. There's good problems to having bad problems to have. Yeah, agree. Number three, targets still have to be earned. And I want to bring this one up because we talk about young breakout, hopeful wide receivers, you know, draft capital opportunity on a good NFL team. So this is, it almost is a, you know, it's just an inverse of what you were talking about, Andy, of bad teams can ruin good players. Well, bad players going to good teams doesn't automatically turn that bad player into a good player. And I promise you, I'm talking into a mirror right now. So of when we're talking specifically about straight to me, but whatever. No, well, I mean, people say we don't look like brothers. Okay. There's that whole thing. When you, this is also believing in your rookie takes Keon Coleman, right? Keon Coleman goes what 33rd in the NFL draft, right the beginning of the second round. Keon Coleman wasn't a player that I particularly liked my process. Didn't love him, but he went in the top of the second round to Josh Allen. And that I allowed that to completely sway where I was willing to draft Keon Coleman. Cause of course this makes sense. He is a, they need a wide receiver. They have Josh Allen. How was this? They A plus B. Yeah. Like Stefan Diggs is gone. We need someone to soak up targets here. Well, did Keon Coleman earn targets in college? No, no, he didn't. No, but now we'll fix it. But now it was definitely working. Like his final college season talking to Keon Coleman, targets per round run 23%, which that is, that is the, in the 22nd percentile mark among day two wide receivers as in he was not earning targets for a second round wide receiver. And look where Keon Coleman's career has gone. It's been a complete disaster. Matthew Golden, first round wide receiver team that desperately needs a wide receiver team. They don't draft. They don't draft guys in the first round and they went in on Matthew Golden. Well, Matthew Golden certainly earned targets as a prospect, right? No. His final season targets per run 17.7. That is the lowest of any first round wide receiver over the last decade. Shocker. It has not worked. He had, he wasn't able to earn targets in college. He's not earning targets now as a professional. Xavier Worthy, Kansas city chiefs. Holy crap. Same exact thing. I did the same exact thing with Keon Coleman that I did with Worthy. I didn't like this player as a prospect, like the, the production profile. I don't, I'm just, I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it working. And yet Kansas city chiefs, Patrick Mahomes gets a first round wide receiver. Of course it's going to work because of course it's first round wide receiver. I use earning targets in college. No, 37th percentile mark for round one wide receivers. That's where Xavier Worthy was. And it just, it hasn't worked out. So draft capital is incredibly important, incredibly important. I'm so sorry, Mike. I'm so sorry. I'm sure you had a good point. I don't know. I don't know. We've just been playing around with the bookshelf. I don't know what's going on. The bookshelf like behind you. Apparently the bookshelf was lit at one point, but it's been a while and then I guess it turned off. And so he turned it on while you were like talking. He fixed it right. He fixed it and he walked back to his seat and the second he sat down and just turned off. It was just. Our set is a work in progress right now. Yeah. No, they're working during the show. But good points, good points, good points. Good answer. Good answer. Good answer. We did this with Tyree Kill in Kansas City as well. We'll do this. We'll do the, the TLDR right here. If guys aren't earning targets in college just because they go to the best quarterback or the second best quarterback in the league does not automatically mean that player will start earning targets. They just, you need proof. You need proof. I don't care about your athletic traits. I think what is just, I agree completely. It's something to remember. I think what is difficult for fantasy players and managers is the team's confidence in that player is persuasive. Oh yes. So when they spin draft capital to bring a player into an obvious need position, it is very difficult to not find a way in your brain to make that work. I mean, to some degree that was the case with Clyde O'Driscollair not looking in the target department, but just looking in the running back department. You're like, oh, maybe I didn't love the film. You know, you guys don't think loved it as much. But then it was like, well, he went to Kansas City. Yeah. Yeah. It's gotta work. It, it swayed me. I had the first pick in our rookie draft that year. I freaking loved Jonathan Taylor. I was like, this is the guy. And then Edwards O'Lair goes to the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round. And how do you not automatically make that guy the first pick? It would be foolish. So, I mean, everything today is just really working in a symbiotic way of all of these things need to be taken into account. We're just finishing each other's sandwiches. Thank you. We, and it goes into this next one too. Number two. Draft class projections are real. They really are. We've learned this lesson over the last few years, but this last year showed me. So, we do NFL and fantasy football. When we're going through the NFL season, we don't have time to just grind college film. I don't, at least. I don't know if. In the season? Yeah. In season. So, we're not, we're, our attention turns to prox prospecting right now. You know, we just don't have time during the season, but we always hear the rumors, the whispers, the, the projections of a whole draft class, right? In 2024, it was supposed to be this great wide receiver draft class year. Oh, and then it was. I know Marvin Harrison, Jr. was disappointing as a rookie, still not bad historically speaking as a rookie. Malik Neighbors was a breakout. Brian Thomas, Jr. Ladd McConkey, just an amazing draft class, seven first round wide receivers, most over the last decade. That was what we heard about it. That came out to be true. Last year, we were told this is a running back draft class that's loaded and a bad wide receiver draft class. That's what we knew going into like, I'm going to go start looking. We were told it's a running back and tight end draft class. And it really, really was. You had Genty, Hampton, Judkins, Henderson, Harvey, the second most total touches and yards from scrimmage for rookies over the last decade, despite major injuries to Hampton and Judkins and Scataboo. If they'd stayed healthy, it would have been the craziest rookie running back season ever. And wide receivers last year, we were told it's kind of a down year for wide receivers. And it really kind of was. There wasn't a lot of massive production. We just talked about Tet was okay. Ibuka looked like a big stud breakout and then disappeared. It just wasn't great. So what is this here? I'm going to buy into the paintbrush that's painted by the entire draft community, which is some are stronger here, some are stronger there. Yes. It's different every year. And this is what this year is. This year is overall a weaker draft class in general top to bottom, but its strength is in wide receivers is a very weak running back draft class and a pretty deep wide receiver draft class. And why this matters is because if you look at last year, last year is a really strong running back draft class and very deep. If you took shots on those rookies, it really did pay off. And even the late round picks, the guys that weren't the studs, but they were just in a loaded running back draft class, Camp Scataboo, Woody Marx had an impact at one point. Kyle Mononga at the end of the season was startable. Bill Krosky matter because it was just a really. That was the strength of that class. And then, and then the tight ends and you had the three rookie tight ends. Are you, are you going to remove Mackay Lemon because he's so creepy? No, no, I do think that once the interviews are, yeah, I'm a snake man. It was, it was very serpentine. It was so creepy. His interview is crazy. But let me, so, because that was kind of the overall, you know, thought of the lemons interview. It was unique. It was, it was an interesting, you think you're looking cool talking like this situation. Go check the tape, man. I don't think you looked as cool as you thought you were going to look. However, we, we want wide receivers thinking they are that deep a town. Oh yeah. Terrell Owens. I come on down to my team. Antonio Brown, you're welcome as my starting wide receiver. Yeah, you could be crazy. I didn't, I didn't interpret that as bad because I'm like, that's a guy who when he gets in the hud, he's going to say, throw me the ball. Throw me the ball. I'm open. I'm always open. So, so don't pick up my kids from school. I'm going to tease something here that this has been what I've been working on the entire off season. It is, we're going to be rolling it out to the dynasty pass at some point in time. The Felix model is a, I mean, this is, I'm so excited about this. I'm going to put out an article detailing it and information to come. But this is more data than I've ever had access to in my entire life. Machine learning, back date tested, an incredible prospecting model to try to project fantasy football success at the next level. Backdating it, looking at last year, it's looking really, it would have had Jackson Dart as a 90th percentile player, Cam Ward down a little bit lower. Last year, I wish I had it. Look, Caleb Johnson, he was a 26th percentile Felix score. Maybe I wish I had this last year. Okay. It's, it's, it's getting things right in a way that is genuinely impressing me. And when I look at just that Felix score projection and, and these aren't locked in yet because we don't have the NFL draft hasn't happened. These are projected draft capital, which is everything will change. But just to give you an idea of the lay of the land for this coming draft class, 90 plus graded Felix score athletes from last year at wide receiver, there were two of them. This year, there are five wide receivers graded in the 90th percentile or better. 80 to 90, which is still good. Last year, there were five of those players in last year's draft class. There's 12. So this is a loaded 17 players in this wide receiver draft class right now, pre NFL drafts. So that it will change. Our, our, this is where the depth is. So later in my drafts this year, I'm going to be focusing on rookie wide receivers in my rookie drafts. I think that's also, this draft class is deep. I think we're just going to be getting though, like some strong twos. Yeah. I think it's depth more than we're, we don't have. A Jamar, well, I mean, people like Tyson. There's, there's a handful of guys who could. I just think that the, the depth is more of a, you're going to be a sure you'll be able to shore up that bench and have players who can go into your flex spots. All right. There's one more. Number one. I'm not reading that first one because that's not, I mean, that's for you, Mike. Oh, but number one is to, we always want to remind people, get your league right. This is the time of year to get it going. Don't wait until August and be like, ah, crap. We're, we, we didn't fix this. We're in the same situation. I guess we'll think about it again next year. We still got kickers. Like if you got issues in your league. You still got weak 18 championships. Take care of it right now. And the note for me, if you're the champ, start plotting. Know what you're going to do on draft day. I've got my ideas floating around. I have, I've applied for another mortgage so that I can fund the championship party. I'm looking forward to the draft. I'm so not my bank account is not looking forward to it. Man, I got, I got a thing. So I got to figure it out. Me and Kyle were working on some things. Some, some ideas are floating around, but now is the time to start thinking about flush the turds in your league. If there's a bad manager in your league that just doesn't add anything, isn't active, it's better to be a great 10 person league than a bad 12 person league with two turds. Okay. Get rid of the bad managers. Make the changes you need to do. Do it all right now. New rules, new scoring settings, set up a new way to communicate. Whatever you need to do, get it done. Make your league the best. It's the, it's the one repeatable thing to remember. We bring up each and every year. So that is going to do it for today's episode of the fantasy footballers podcast. You can find the dynasty pass, the aforementioned dynasty pass at ultimate draft kit.com. You weren't talking about the feline model, right? Cause Mason, Mason Taylor was a hundred percentile. This is different. The feelings. Good. 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 FF ballers. If you've ever run a business with a bloated CRM, you know how painful it is digging through useless menus and features while deals slip through the cracks. It's time to switch to a new CRM. That's where pipe drive comes in and easy to use intelligent CRM loved by growing sales teams. Pipe drive unites everything on one visual pipeline that shows every deal, what stage it's in and what needs to happen next. It's so intuitive. Your team can jump in and use it from day one. Pipe drive keeps everyone aligned on task and moving toward the close. It's powerful enough to grow with your business, but simple enough that your team will actually love using it. Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for sales people and join the over 100,000 companies already using pipe drive. Head to pipedrive.com forward slash audio for a 30 day free trial with no credit card or payment required. That's pipedrive.com forward slash audio. When life gets hectic, energy ups and downs are all you need. If you're seeking energy reassurance, Eonnex can help. From smart tech that helps you take control of your energy future to always staying below the price cap with Nex Pledge. We're here for whatevils next. Just one of the reasons why we're rated excellent on TrustPilot by our customers. Find out more at eonnex.com. Next pledge variable rates are always below the option price cap. 25 pounds exit fee per fuel applies. Eligibility and season fees apply. TrustPilot February 2026.