Summer Fantasy Rankings 1.0 and Chode v. Taint I. Plus, Jordan Ritter Conn on Fantasy Football, Masturbation, and His New Book, 'American Men'!

哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎 our rankings, there'll be up soon at fantasy football dot through. We don't know exactly when there's a small thing. It'll be fine. They're going to be up soon. And we submitted each other's rankings and we have literally not talked to each other about them yet. And we're going to argue about them. But Craig, Craig can't wait. Craig, are you literally chomping at the bit? Are you having a sandwich as we speak? Yeah. Big sandwich right there. You're eating a sandwich. What's on that thing? Turkey, Swiss lettuce, tomato, avocado. Did you make it? No, no, I didn't. I went to a local deli. Oh, OK. But yes, I just, it's May and I don't care. I love speculating about fantasy rankings. It's arguably more fun than actually playing fantasy football is talking about the rankings in my opinion. I love it. We're going to get to that if you're being serious or not. No, I do love the like May to July when you're just like thinking about who you should pick and how you should make your tears. I love it. I've never felt more confident than I did just like sitting here and like early May being like, this is all very easy. I know. Actually, the less you think about it, I think I should just keep these rankings as they are. I never changed them. And I have thought about it. They were kind of blind rankings for the record, too. Like we kind of just went in vibes at first. I did not look at anyone else's rankings. No, I. We're going to. We also have a lot of emails weighing in on. The revelation that DK and men of a certain age in Pacific Northwest think that, you know, they have a different definition for showed showed versus showed. Yeah. Like what does it mean? We have a lot of emails on that and also the pronunciation of Jeremy. And we're going to have Jordan Ritter-Con on at the end of this. Our ringer colleague, he he wrote a book and he's we're going to talk to him about fantasy leagues. And yeah, so after emails, we're going to have Jordan on. So that is that that is also very fun. So but with that said, let's just do the rankings. Let's just get into it. So we did our rankings and we all submitted them. And I have our sheet. We have not talked about any of these. This is like a classics one quarterback, half PPR, top 200. This is kind of like your standard rankings. So with that said, and as Craig said, half point per reception, the number one pick this year, basically, everyone's going to come down to it. Just Jamir Gibbs, the running back of the lines, your B-gen Robins, the running back of the Falcons, like the one A1B this year. And Craig and I put Gibbs one and B-gen two and DK, you put B-gen one and Gibbs two. Yeah. DK age before beauty. Why did you put B-gen and do you actually care or did you did you just have to choose? Like truthfully, it was just like he's bigger. What's kind of like my thinking? You mean like like his height and weight? He's a bigger man than Jamir Gibbs. No, no, that's not true. That's not actually why I want to. I think it was just basically last year, if you look at the touches, total touches that B-gen Robinson had and the total targets that he had, he had 103 total targets in the passing game, which is second only to Christian McCaffrey. He had 21 and a half touches per game. He led the NFL by a long shot in scrimmage yards, and he was basically just a usage. The usage was better. Gibbs scores more touchdowns. Gibbs is probably going to continue to score more touchdowns, but I feel like that's a little more high variance than just we're going to give this guy 22 touches a game. He is the engine of our offense. Let's go. However, as I was looking at it, I think I can see Gibbs winning the tiebreaker here just because he's in a way of our offense. I think there's a couple of things going on here that are interesting. One, I think the receiving work is weirdly closer than you think. Like, Jameer Gibbs caught 77 passes last year. B-gen Robinson caught 79. But both of these guys have lost their counterpart. Like Tyler O'Jarre has gone out of Atlanta. David Montgomery has gone out of Detroit. And they've replaced them with guys like Atlanta now has Brian Robinson. So now B-Robinson are on the same literal team, which is unbelievable. You're going to see B-Robinson atl in your draft. There's probably going to be thousands of incorrect selections because of that. And then even if you have the second letter with the B.R., you're like, that kind of looks like an eye. You really need the whole number each time. Yeah. And then, you know, I say up a check goes there in Detroit. But the reason why I went with Gibbs, D.K. is because the man just doesn't stop scoring fucking touchdowns. Jameer Gibbs and his three seasons has 11 touchdowns, 20 touchdowns and 18. And B-John has eight, 15 and 11. So it's basically like the high end of what B-John has done from a touchdown perspective is like the low end of what Jameer Gibbs has done. And now David Montgomery is gone. And I know maybe the offense won't be as good, but like I can no longer sit idly and watch the fucking Lions just run the ball into the end zone over and over and over without ranking Jameer Gibbs number one. You have like a visceral reaction every time they score a touchdown. It's a guarantee inside the 10. I'm like, they will try their fucking hardest to run the ball into the end zone. Yeah. But I yeah. And that's the thing is, look, I don't think any buddy you get any fantasy advice this year is going to be like, you're an idiot if you put B-John first, you're an idiot to put Gibbs. No, no, no. Everyone's. No clear number one this year. No, everyone's going to caveat every single time with like, well, they're both good. And that's true. Like, honestly, if you told me B-John Robinson had a top five fantasy season ever for running back this season, I wouldn't be like, that's insane. Having said that, I put Gibbs first for one very simple reason. I know who Jameer Gibbs's quarterback will be this season. It will be Jared Goff. I don't know who B-John Robinson's quarterback will be this season. I would argue that maybe the two most injury prone quarterbacks in the NFL are the two Falcons quarterbacks. You have Michael Penix Jr. coming off his third ACL surgery and Tua, who is the face of concussions in the modern NFL. And so who is the, who is the quarterback for these teams in December? Because I feel like for Detroit, it'll be Jared Goff. And I feel like in Atlanta, there's a zero, there's a non zero chance. It's like Taylor Heineke. It's like Taylor Heineke. And that's the kind of stuff we don't really talk. That's like fantasy brain in August is going to talk about how B-John Robinson with like Kevin Stefansky's offense and look at Stefansky and all this stuff. And, and like, you know, you could argue, oh, Jameer Gibbs will get more goal line with Isaiah Pacheco. Like he won't get it. But during the season, you're like, holy shit, this offense with the Falcons, with Taylor Heineke sucks because like Tua is concussed and then Michael Penix hurt his knee. And I'm like, I don't know. I just kind of have more confidence that like the like I feel like the odds that Gibbs has a terrible season or the Lions have a terrible offense is so much lower, whereas Atlanta, I'm like, it's not very hard to envision Atlanta just dropping. I think you could you could say this. Maybe this is the real tie rick or is I think Gibbs in the range of possibilities. Legendary season all time. One of like, we'll look back in five years and we look at the 2026 seasons. Like that was the year Gibbs scored 28 touchdowns or whatever. Like that is in the realm of possibility. I don't know if I can get there with Pijon, even though he's like an awesome player, I'm not sure he's ever going to score. I don't like legitimately could he score 15 touchdowns? I'd be shocked in this offense. Well, he was the best player in the fantasy playoffs. Pijon was like he was pretty incredible. He had like, I mean, that money, I mean, that money in football game against the Rams, he basically won a lot. I mean, he had 195 yards plus like receive like he was incredible. But I also think I think Brian Robinson, the back running back for Atlanta, it's a lot better than Pacheco in Detroit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing that's interesting about these two guys, both have new offensive coordinators. So Drew Petzing is the new offensive coordinator for the Lions, which is random and kind of weird. And then obviously, you know, we got the Stefansky slash Reese offense in Atlanta, which I guess we just don't know exactly how. Tommy Reese is a person. He's the um, yeah. Yeah. So that is like another variable here is that both of these guys have new offensive coordinators. And in the case of the Falcons, a brand new head coach. They're both pretty incredible players, though. And this is a pretty incredible year to have the top two picks. So then I want to get. So that's the tier one, basically. We agree. Is there any would you would you actually take a different player first than Jimmy or Gibson Robinson? I would consider Jamar Chase or Jonathan Taylor. Not Christian McCaffrey. Actually consider it, though. Would you actually do it? Yeah, I would. And it's May 5th. I would do it. Did I stutter? So I had tier one. It was like you could take them with the first pick in 2026 and have tier two is like we all had them as unanimous, no question, first round players that you have to consider with the third pick. And I you can quibble. I have Jamar Chase at the top of the next tier. I have him as the number one receiver. I think we all had him as the number one receiver. And I think he's just going to be on an absolute war path this year in Cincinnati. And I just think he's the best player. Yeah, it's an even year. So we know the Bengals are going to be good. So yeah, I agree with that. This is what we do in fantasy. Yeah, it's an even year. So the fourth player we have here is Jackson Smith and Jigba. We have him as the number two receiver for the CIOC. He had the eighth most receiving yards ever last season, but also he's they brought back the entire receiving core and O line and same donor quarterback. But they have a different coordinator, Clint Kubiak, left to take the Reiner's job. So on one hand, he literally had the eighth most receiving yards ever. But literally, Clint Kubiak is not there. So DK, how how confident are you of JSN at number two? Like, I feel like obviously Jamar Chase has been doing it a lot longer at number two in the receiving rankings. I mean, I got fourth overall in our second. We have JSN above not only running backs, we have him above Pukinakua, Monro St. Brown, CD lamp, Justin Jefferson. I think the JSN thing is interesting. Obviously, I think he's an awesome player, an elite player, and he really showed that last year. But it's one of those things where you look at that season. What are the odds he's going to put up almost 1,800 yards again? Probably not like that good. So and especially with the Seahawks, you know, potentially trying to get Rashid Shahid more involved, they're going to have spread the ball around a little bit. Like he said, the offensive coordinator is going to be different. So that's a whole different variable. I just think like the odds of JSN having this legendary season again, it's probably not not super high. That means you're fourth overall player. So this is a bad pitch so far. No, no, no, I'm saying like the floor is really high with him. And I still feel fine putting him at four, but putting him any higher than that. I don't I think it's like you're you're kind of wish casting based on what happened last year, especially, I mean, kind of his numbers definitely trailed off as the year went on and the Seahawks offense kind of changed. They got their tight ends more involved. There was a couple of games where he was not even really involved in the offense as teams started to be able to take him away. So this is what happens when you go year over year. Teams start to adjust. Defenses start to adjust. And I think the CFL have to adjust. And again, we don't know what the Brian, the Brian Flurry offense is going to look like. I can't tell if I'm overthinking it or underthinking it, but. I get nervous when the guru, office of coordinator leaves and this breakout guy is now left to some new scheme. And I do wonder if I mean, I love J.S. and so much he was like integral in my homelink last year. I like fell in love with him during the season. But I do wonder now if the sticker price of him is going to be so high just because of how cool he is, his name, they won the Super Bowl, all this stuff. And he will slot into a more reasonable situation. He'll be good, but he's not going to be like the odds of him putting up a Jammar chase like season, maybe not. But then if you if you look at the guys, he's around though, Puka, who's had one hell of an offseason. Well, I was going to say, if Puka Naku was not having the offseason he was having, I think I would probably have him as in this spot with alongside Jammar Chase. And I actually maybe you could talk me into the top tier is Jameer Gibbs and Pijon Robinson and Jammar Chase and Puka Naku and any of those guys could be the top pick. And because that's a good Puka is. And the only is your staff forgets her to Puka. It's her. Now it's like, I mean, Puka, I mean, the list of things that have happened, you almost forget, like, you know, he had to go to, you know, he went to rehab, he was seeking treatment. Like, I forgot that over New Year's Eve, he was accused of biting a woman and his lawyer came out and was like, it was horse play. But they didn't even deny it. It's just like, that's horse play. I'm like, I realized like Puka established the run to borrow line from established the run who borrowed a line from Bill Simmons. Puka is in the Tyson zone. Ah, like Puka is in the Tyson zone, which is this what Bill you say about Mike Tyson. But it's you could tell me anything about Puka Naku when I would believe it. Yeah. Did you hear Puka took a shit in the middle of the Met Gala? That like, it's all seems reasonable right now. And like, we always say you can't win your league in your first round, but you you might lose it. And I feel like Puka is trying to win your league in the first round. But like, if he sucks and just goes off the rails on a personal level, you're going to be like, oh, yeah, right. That's it's weird that I took him with my first pick. But also he could easily Puka Naku could have 2000 yards this season. And he was the water seeper one last year and he could easily be like the second pick off the board. But you're right. I think because of all that uncertainty, he's like a mid first rounder, maybe mid, you know, mid to early late first rounder. I bumped Puka down from I. But if he wasn't having the offices and he was having, I would have Puka as basically the third or fourth player. Like, but I bumped it down to like seven because I basically was like, oh, it's some point. It's funny. I have him right next to a man, rest in brown, because I feel like a man, Ra is the exact opposite of Puka where a man was boring, money in the bank, somehow underrated every year. And I have no questions about his off field. I'm on. He'll get you 1400 yards and 10 touchdowns every fucking year. And he's definitely just catching passes on a jokes machine on Friday and Saturday nights. I have like no doubts about what he's doing in his off season. And hosting a podcast. Right. He's he's prepping his podcast. So what do you what would you guys rather have in the first round, though, if like those are the two guys off the board, like they're, let's say, of the sixth pick and Puka and Amon Ra there. And Puka has like more of the maybe the two that like the single Stephen receiving record is in Puka's reach. But he also has either injuries to himself because he has no sense of self preservation or Stafford's back or just off field stuff. Or like Amon Ra, just like this money in the bank, Bert in the hand, which would you guys actually take? Probably going Puka. I think so too, because you're trying to win your league. You know what I mean? There's no reward for fifth. And it's probably really nice and not stressful to have Amon Ra. But the difference between Amon Ra last year and Puka was four fantasy points a game like Puka was the wide receiver one and Amon Ra was the wide receiver four, but they were four points apart. Like that is a lot. That's like 20 percent more points. Puka was scoring every single day. So yeah, is it more of a risk? Yes. But like you're trying to win the damn league. Are you looking at that list right now? What's the gap between four? How far do you have to go down to get another four points? Down to wide receiver like 14. Yeah, one to four and four to 14. You know, it's funny. You say there's no reward for fifth, but there is a punishment for last. But so I skipped a couple of guys, though. So we have again Gibbs first and Bijan second. And then we have Chase third and JSN fourth. And then we have Krishnamdakafrey fifth. We have some different. I mean, you know, we all have them roughly the same range. I feel like we can finally. I think Krishnamdakafrey is officially the most boomer, bus fantasy player of all time. I don't think it's even a question. Like we talk about boom, bust is a weekly thing. Krishnamdakafrey is single-handedly ruined your season three of the last seven years. But the other four years, Krishnamdakafrey was basically the best player in fantasy every single week, the entire season. She ain't first year, last. Snip, snap. It was like, where do you take that guy? I still it's still great. Just like thinking of the conversations that we were having about Krishnamdakafrey prior to the season last year. And then he because this is coming off of the bilateral Achilles tendon injury that kept him on the sidelines for most of the 2024 spreading. It was like gangrene. It was gangrenous. And it was and then coming into the league or coming into the season, he gets he's on the injury report. And we start freaking out because he goes on the injury report with. I can't remember if it was an Achilles or a calf either way. Very worrisome. And then he just goes out and Shane Han just says, fuck it. We're fucking we ball. He's just going to give him incredible amount of volume. He averaged 24 touches a game, three more than any other play any other player in the NFL, three more touches per game than any other player in the NFL. Do you think drafting the calfery again this year is like testing fate and that if you did it last year, you you you did it. You got away with it and you won. Congrats. Don't do it again. Or are you now because I think you're a little bit more confident, at least last year you were big on him. Like, is he now in Derek Henry range where you're like, he'll be underpriced every year and I'll keep betting on him? Or is it like, man, I got away with one last year, never doing that again? Like, are we playing Russian roulette? It's the latter. I feel like you pull the trigger once and you're kind of like, put the gun down. Yeah, no, I I do feel. Yeah, take your money off the table with them. I it depends on for you. False last year, like the initial set of like where people kind of had him was like outside the like the end of the first round. And I'm like, this is fucking crazy. Like, he had bilateral Achilles tendonitis. But everyone keeps saying that no one knows what it means. That doesn't tend to exactly. Gary is fuck. Well, I was betting against that. That's the point. It's like you bet again. You take him when everyone's afraid of shit. Now, if people aren't afraid of it, then I'm like, all right, you guys deal with it. And that's all it is. It's just like everyone's fear was unfounded. And I like that just that was really the strategy. And like, I think this has happened before, like everyone underrated, say, when we came back and then everyone overrated, I don't know, it's the snap all the time. I it isn't say he Christian Caffrey was probably the most important player to win your league in 2019, ruins your season, 2020, ruin 2021. Pretty much incredible in 2022. Got traded the Niners, the literal offensive player of the year, 2023, destroyed your 2024, probably got you to the finals in 2025. And so this year, I do. I think he's totally worth it, but I agree that like it's it's riskier this year to be like he's going to go through with all these touches to use in a row. I but Christian, Christian McCaffrey reminds me a little bit of this. This says Instagram's algorithm. I don't know if you guys have noticed this. It changes extremely rapidly. Like if you watch one video for a long time, then like all of your videos are of this thing that like for the next week. And for some reason right now, my algorithm is people off-roading with trucks and absolutely fucking destroying their vehicles. Like there's there's one in particular account. It's like these Russian guys that just go fucking ham. I can't even describe it. They put like he has like an off-road Hilux or whatever the Toyota and they put like a minivan on the back of that, like on in the truck and then drive around in like Siberia or something and just wreck the shit out of it. This is how I feel that Kyle Shanahan treats Christian McCaffrey. He's just fucking sending it every time. Oh, I don't know what I don't know whether I'm going to see someone. When I watch these videos, I don't know if I'm going to see the coolest thing ever or if we're going to see someone get decapitated. I'm not really sure. You know what I mean? So like that's kind of how I feel in going into the fantasy season with Christian McCaffrey. Who fucking knows? Maybe he's going to. Yeah, so that to me, just the Kyle Shanahan element of the Christian McCaffrey question is what really makes this hard to parse because Kyle Shanahan, he's nihilistic. He doesn't give a fuck. He's just going to run this thing into the ground until the wheels fall off, literally. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to do with Christian McCaffrey. What's what's the spot Craig? Are you where? Where would you take him? Like what's what spot in the draft are you taking him? Made first round, I think is reasonable. However, when I see his name come up, I will likely pass. Yeah. I think I'm going to take him. I get it. Yeah. I think yeah. So we'll speak in which this is how that's how I feel about this next guy. So we have the other person who's sixth overall, but I think is one of the hardest players to rank this year is Jonathan Taylor running back for the Colts. He's our number four running back. This is the first real mini discrepancy. I have him as my eighth player, D.K. Asm ninth, Craig asm third. I can't argue with it. It's just like a Rorschach test. It's like, what do you see when you look? What do you see when you look into the flames? And I think the first 10 weeks, Jonathan Taylor was averaging almost 30 points per game in half PPR. Like he was like the best second best ever, I think, through 10 weeks. And then afterward from week 11 on Daniel Jones, Teres, Zakeli's, people get hurt. Jonathan Taylor was the 24th best running back last year after week 11 outscored by Blake Corum and Tony Pollard and Tyrone Tracy, the final two months of the season. And so, Craig, what when you put Jonathan Taylor third, is that like a well, I had to make rankings in May and whatever. But like when you you're on the clock at three, are you actually taking Jonathan Taylor? I think so. Like, what do I see through the flames? I see what you just said, 26 fantasy points a game for the first 10 weeks. He had 17 touchdowns. He was having the best fantasy season since Lydani and Tomlinson in 2006. And I'm kind of and he's 27 years old. He just turned 27. And I think talent wise, he is one of the best running backs in the NFL. And I'm like, OK, yeah, Daniel Jones is coming back from an Achilles. And that is very scary and all that. But I'm kind of like, I think I I think I somewhat believe in the Indianapolis offense, I don't know if they're going to be like eight and one. But I think they are a productive, capable offense as much so as like Atlanta with Bijan and whoever's playing quarterback. So I'm like, yeah, I'll take the guy who had 17 touchdowns in 10 games, who's in the middle of his prime on a good offense in a consistent scheme that we know has worked with him in the. Yeah, why would I? I'll do that. Also, for him, I don't think I realized how bare the running back depth chart is in Indianapolis. Going going back and looking at obviously Jonathan Taylor. And then after him, DJ Giddens, who was a fifth rounder last year, Seth McGowan, who was a seventh rounder this year. And then after that, you got four undrafted free agents. Tell me if you guys have heard of any of these people. Eulissius Bentley, the fourth. Yes, but only because his name is Eulissius. Anderson Castle. That's a made up name. Lincoln Parry or. Some like old war heroes. Yeah, these are civil war players. Anderson Castle. These are people. Eulissius. These are people that were involved in the conspiracy to murder Abraham Lincoln. No. The Eulissius Bentley, Anderson Castle, Lincoln Parry or Pear and then Jordan Vaughn. I've never heard of those four people. So it's Seth McGowan, DJ Giddens and Jonathan Taylor. I have no confidence that DJ Giddens is going to steal meaningful volume from Jonathan Taylor as long as Taylor is healthy. But no one stole his volume last year. And he was again, he was significantly outscored by Kenneth Gainwoldt down the final two months. Right. I think. But my point is basically like some of these other players that we talk about have like legit people backing them up. And I don't think that's a problem. I'm also just like, sure, any team starting quarterback gets hurt. The offense isn't going to be as good. Like if if Michael Penex gets hurt and it's Tua and that's a disaster, like I would feel much worse if Jared Goff, Torey's ACL, I would feel worse about your game. OK, but so it's a question about the quarterback thing. And I think we've talked for years now where it's like the thing we don't. I have joked that with all these guys, first-run guys, you should have to say the quarterback and the playcaller's name every time. And it's like it's your drafting, Jonathan Taylor and Daniel Jones. Now, obviously, Phillip Rivers came in and that was terrible. But like say the name of the offensive coordinator. Yes, it's it's John Bob Jones and Jim Bob. Jim Bob. Jim Bob. That's kind of really Shane Steichen. It's a referendum on how you feel about Daniel Jones coming off of Achilles injury. And I just think he's younger than Kirk Cousins was, but he tore Achilles in December. And I still think Daniel, I don't know. It's like I I have no idea how Daniel Jones. Do you feel good of Michael Penex coming off his nine injuries, including the one last year? Like, no, that's why I put Gibbs first. Why do you have Bijan confidently five, six spots ahead of Jonathan Taylor? If it's just about quarterback fears. Because Bijan, I just I just think that Bijan, I'm more confident in the offense. I think we saw Jonathan Taylor go from like he was like, this incredible pace and Daniel Jones got hurt. And then like he was like, John and Taylor kind of he still outscored Bijan. Even with the shitty end of the season, John or the Taylor on average scored more points than Bijan Robinson. Still. Yes. But down the stretch, Bijan Robinson, this but that week, 11 on Bijan Robinson and Derek Henry, the two best running backs. And I just basically like if you're trying to say by that logic, it should be John Lower, we can talk about it. At least there's two guys there. Now, I'm the Falcons. I'm fascinated by his penics and two. It's like they're both lefty, but they're not like overlapping skill sets. I don't really see it. But I I just feel like he deserves to be in this tier, Jonathan Taylor. Like, I don't know why he's not if we're worried about McCaffrey's age and this and that and Bijan Robinson's quarterback situation. It's like, why isn't Jonathan Taylor, the guy who was having the best year in 20 years at the running back position and the team is exactly the same? Albeit a guy coming up. It's not exactly the same. It's but that's my point is it's not exactly the same. It's like Jonathan Taylor, Daniel Jones is coming off of torn Achilles. We don't know how it's going to go. And the right tackle swapped out, which, you know, you can make it that way. You wish. But. But is it Michael Penix coming off a torn ligament in his knee? And I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I guess I don't really see a huge difference there. Do I am I don't think it? What do you think? I mean, I can see you're lower than me. I know, I can see your point, Craig. I think that's fair. I probably should have him a little bit higher. I think Jonathan Taylor is boring and I don't know why. And I think it's maybe it's he maybe he needs to consult us at name brand. But I'm like, I think Jonathan Taylor is going to come and go in drafts. And I'm going to happily draft him. But just to be clear, though, I don't have Jonathan Taylor as the second round or the people I have above Jonathan Taylor. I have Gibbs, Bijan Robinson, Jamar Chase, Christian McCaffrey, Jackson Smith and Jigba, which I think you could maybe say that's the biggest one you want to quibble with, because if the coordinator comes this season, then I have Christian McCaffrey and I have Puka and then I am on Rob because and you could quibble with those guys. But I'm like, I have Jonathan Taylor, eighth. And I don't know what to do with him. You could convince me to take him higher. I just, I don't know. When I look at it, I'm like, if Jonathan Taylor, if the Colts offense comes out flat, you're like, oh, yeah, that was two months. That was like a two month stretch. But like otherwise, the previous three years, he hadn't really done it since 2022. I guess I just don't think the risk, whatever risk you think Jonathan Taylor possesses. I do not believe that is that much stronger than the risk that comes with Puka, McCaffrey, JSN. Oh, none of those. I think it's I don't think Jonathan Taylor is riskier than any of those guys. Did you have him last year? I had to like, you know, I know. And I think that the actual it's like a bunch of. Fill-in-a-rivers. I saw him fill. quarterback. What are we talking about? I had to watch it. Damn. I know, but like, what are we? He's not. If it continues, I'm like, fuck, I knew this wasn't going to work. I just, I don't know. I almost think you might just be too blinded by him ruining the end of your season. I also just think it's look, maybe I'm doing too much like, oh, the quarterback could get hurt thing. But I'm like, it's not like Daniel Jones has one injury. Daniel Jones has never been healthy. Daniel Jones has had one healthy season last seven years. Who's the quarterback for the Falcons and who's the backup? That's the first thing I led with. I'm like, yeah, it's Pat, Pippenix and two. I totally agree. But you have him second and you have Jonathan Taylor eight. Isn't it the same fucking thing? Well, because if they have to both get hurt. OK. Craig really does like arguing about rankings. This is great. I'm just saying. Daniel Jones, I Daniel Jones has played more than 13 games in a season once since COVID, basically. I'm I'm just I'm in shock that that's the argument you're making in support of Tuatonga Vila and Michael Penix. I'm not. What do you say? I have Bijan second. Does anyone in the world have Bijan third? My point is, is that these two guys, as we saw last year, have similar projections. Jonathan Taylor and Bishon Robinson. And you could argue that Jonathan Taylor's is higher, because, like I said, basically the best season of the twenty four century for the first one, the team was healthy. Bishon Robinson, when the team was healthy, ebbs and flows and can be good. But I would argue that if you knew both teams are going to be healthy and operating at full force, you would pick Jonathan Taylor. Right. Yeah. If you could give me if you could give me the 17 games, I'm very dubious, the cults are ever going to recapture the match. And no, to be clear, just because Daniel Jones is back does not mean he's a mobile quarterback. Like I do not think the Daniel Jones, when he came back from his ACL injury, was ran out of town and then you guys made fun of him at every possible stop. Like Daniel Jones. That's my ability to turn this on us. Don't turn this on me. Talking about, I'm just saying it's like Sam Darnold. I'm supporting the cults right now. I am supporting them. And I'm saying I just this idea that Daniel Jones is magically going to be as good as he was in September, nine months. He killed his injury. Is like, that's a question. It's not an answer. No one fucking knows. I think Craig is making some good points about Taylor being very similar in a lot of ways to Bishon Robinson. I think the bottom line is Bishon Robinson is a sexy player. And Jonathan Taylor is a boring player. Correct. And the way that they finished the season. Was Taylor Taylor was not able to weather the storm of his team being bad. Whereas Bishon, I think, was much more even keeled throughout the year. He's also get he also catches a lot more passes, which maybe is you. Rejects floor a little bit. But I think ultimately Craig, you make some good points that I probably I'm feeling right now that I probably have Jonathan Taylor way too low, because I think I had him the lowest of the three of us. Maybe that was just a vibes based thing because of the way the season ended. I think that's a good point. Make some good points in terms of the similarities between the Falcons, the similarities between the Falcons and the Colts. They're closer than you think, you know, I think the Colts are boring. Daniel Jones is boring. Jonathan Taylor, for some reason, is boring. And I think the Falcons are sexy and they have Drake London and B. John Robinson and even Kyle Pitts is like interesting and and Penex is interesting. They have a new coach, even like the name Falcons and the way they look. They're just like a cool. I still think of them as like Julio Jones and Michael. They're cool uniforms. I think common sense, the more I look at it is to your point, Craig, if I would move Taylor up, I would swap him with JSN because I think the part that does resonate with me is even though everything stays the same, it's this new offensive coordinator in Seattle has to you still have to call the place. And let's say he has two thirds of a chance. That's still quite the risk for JSN, whereas Kubiak's been doing it. And like, you know, his dad admitted this shit. And so I would I would be open to just kind of putting Taylor top. I still would take you more chase over Jonathan Taylor, because I don't feel like Chase is fine. I have no problem with the Bengals offense. Like, all right, let's do this for every single player. Who are you? Marjays? I can't argue. I would love to have him every year. I don't care. He's the fucking best. OK, so with that said, you guys are at midseason farm right now. So this is just where it comes out that Craig and I have older brothers and we like arguing and DK actually just as a middle child, just like, I don't know, man, I put him on. He's like, it's May. Relax. It's soccer, Greg. It's soccer. It's soccer. Oh, sorry. I can't believe it. I don't know. I have to say one more thing. Oh, Christ. Do you believe in the curse of three seventy, which is this 20 year old fantasy thing about the curse of three hundred seventy touches when you get three hundred seventy touches in a season, the hit rate on guys repeating what they did is like there's a 10 percent success rate. Ninety percent of them just crater if you've got three hundred seventy touches. Do you believe? I believe that it makes your odds of having heavy volume the next year lower. Yes. I don't know if I don't know if I believe that it will automatically mean he craters this year. So what if I told you that Jonathan Taylor did not have three hundred and seventy touches last year? What if I told you Jonathan Taylor had three hundred and sixty nine? Oh, yeah, then we're fine. He's fine. That's great. Yeah. No, they're worried about. Great. All right. How many McAfrey have last year? Four hundred and ten. A lot. It's fucking. He's just that's really the argument. I think he's just destroying his truck on the back roads. They're trying to get into the river. McAfrey only have three thirty nine, but I think you have to include the playoffs. I mean, sorry. No, wrong. I'm sorry. Four hundred and thirteen. OK. One to thirteen regular season. Yeah, that's a lot. Plus playoffs. Yeah. That's that's all right. Craig, if you want to make the case to Swat McAfrey and Jonathan Taylor, that that's not the craziest thing. OK, so then we have Puka seventh, which I talked about. I just I'm the lowest on Puka, I think. And it's solely because it's like at some point risk reward. It's just like your appetite. If anything, it's like you could take Puka third. I wouldn't say anything. And then I have a monitor. We have a monitor, St. Brown is his last guy in this tier of like the the definite unanimous first rounders. He's like a glass of water. Yeah, we don't talk about him hardly at all. He just does this thing. He's he's the S&P 500. This episode is brought to you by Amazon. Life's full of little surprises, like spilling coffee everywhere, five minutes before a meeting or reaching for a diaper and realizing the bag is empty. Kind of like draft night. You think you know the plan, then everything changes. Look, life can be unpredictable, but every day shopping doesn't have to be with great savings on essentials. Amazon helps you cover the basics and the surprises because when life throws a curveball, it's nice knowing there's a place you can count on. Amazon save on essentials, save the everyday. The next tier here, which I have is basically the ninth player overall to like 50 or 16, which I think this is one of the most talented groups of like, basically there's like four guys. If you're in a 12 team league, there's four guys left in the first round. I think eight you could be pulling from. And I'm going to read all the names. You guys are like still in their prime and used to be like top four picks. Dude, it's really crazy. I mean, first of. So we have back to back, we have CDLAM and Justin Jefferson. Obviously, CDs on Dallas, Justin Jefferson's and the Vikings. One, I think this is really strange. Just to give you an idea of how torn we are. DK has CDLAM fifth. Craig, you have CDLAM fourteenth overall. Yeah, I was surprised. I had him fifth. I have a jim 10th. Maybe he should be a little higher than 14th, but I do think he is like a guy at the turn. And I think, I don't know, this is probably dumb because I think my logic for it is immediately contradicted by the Bengals. But I'm like the pickings thing like CDLAM last year had three touchdowns and George Pickens had nine. And I'm kind of like, that's it. But then you can also look at Jamar chasing T Higgins and Jamar Chase is able to have these huge seasons with T Higgins. But I think I'm just like worried that CDLAM ceiling is just a little bit capped if Pickens is there. That's all. Yeah. I think that's fair. I think I probably came out a little hot with CDLAM. He probably does deserve to be right in that like eight, nine, 10 range. I think that's probably fair. But the one thing to remember with CDLAM and I think this did fly under the radar a little bit is he had a high ankle sprain, high ankle sprain last year, which and we've I mean, now as more more of these things happen and we kind of getting better data on it, like I feel like high ankle sprains are really bad injuries. They can be career roles for skill for skill player. Really like if your player gets a high ankle sprain, arguably that is kind of the season for them. Not not technically that's not like an ACL where they're not playing. But when they get when they get back to that, when they come back from that injury, it can really sap the explosiveness, the twitch, the speed. And it's there's such fine lines in the NFL. And so basically like, look, what happened with CDLAM last year was in the first two games, he had over a hundred yards. Third game, he suffered a high ankle sprain. He missed two games after that and he came back and he just wasn't himself for the rest of the year. I don't think. So I guess maybe I'm like projecting a little bit too far with like the the bounce back year where he goes back to being this super high volume, you know, 30 percent target rate, the number one receiver on it. Like, you know, I think there is going to be more between him and pick ins where it's maybe one one guy will have a big game, one game in the next next game it'll be CD, blah, blah, blah. But I do think we're underrating the fact that he was hurt for most of last season. And these high ankle sprains really fucking suck. High ankle sprains. Yeah. Oh, Del Beckham's career is never the same after he had a high ankle sprain. I mean, take one high ankle sprain. It's like his 50. He basically went years without being like the big, long explosive runs. Bill Barnwell is great columns on this about high ankle sprains from years ago where it's like it's the most underrated injury because it just sounds like a low ankle sprain, which is something regular people get and you can be. I know low ankle sprain is like, oh, he'll be fine. Tape it up and get back out there. High ankle sprain is the. It needs to be rebranded. Yeah, it does. Well, we're going to do that over the summer. We're going to we're going to name it like turf toe and I got yeah, hamstring pole. Yeah. So we have CD ninth and I you could give it to me higher or lower. Justin Jefferson, same thing. We have him 10th. I'm like, look, Kyler. We don't have to go into how bad Jefferson was last year. He's probably pound for pound the single worst pick in fantasy just because he played every week. We never wanted to tell you yet bench Justin Jefferson, but then JJ McCarthy ruined him. And then I mean, Jefferson was like, he we finished as the number 37 receiver. He was worse than that because he was like you were starting him for stretches where he was outside the top 60 each week. Expectations versus reality, too, man, because you expect so much from him. He had 141 targets and only 84 catches. Think about just like how many airmailed passes over just like nothing. That's like a Deontay Johnson ass. It is brutal. And so I think where you rank, Jefferson just kind of depends on your confidence and Kyler Murray to know where his brain is but. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You guys have him late first. I have him early second. I'm just still slightly on like, we'll see. We'll see. I want to see it first, I guess, with with Minnesota. The number 11 guy that you could convince me to put above Jefferson and see or at least above Jefferson is James Cook, who the running back from Buffalo. We have his fifth running back. Well, we all have him 11th. The only player in the entire set that we gave the same number. I think he's the Amon Ross St. Brown of running backs. Yes. Yes. This was to me, the James the story of James Cook is he had 18 or sorry, he had 18 touchdowns in whatever it was his third season. And then we were all like, there's no way he could do that again. That was a total anomaly. He didn't do it the first couple of years in the league. Josh, Josh Allen was stealing all the rushing touchdowns and this offense, blah, blah, blah and Josh Allen runs around. So he's not really all that involved in the passing game either. And then James Cook just goes out and scores a fuck ton of touchdowns again. He had 14 touchdowns last year, 18 touchdowns year before that. He quietly led the NFL in rushing. I don't know if we talked about that very much. He had 1600 over 1600 yards rushing led the NFL. He had 14 total touchdowns, including 12 rushing. He had a lengthy contract holdout before the season, too. We weren't sure if the bills were even going to sign or do a deal. And I think quietly he's one of the most talented runners. You know, just the way he weaves through traffic, the way the style, which he runs is very kind of unique. And, you know, he averaged eight to eight over. He averaged over 18 rushes per game, which was third only to Jonathan Taylor and Christian McCaffrey. He was just quietly fantastic all year and is going to be one of the least sexy players you can take in the first round. Nobody will say a word and he'll probably be super good once again. Yeah. Again, they don't have it really. Anyone behind him, Ty Johnson, Ray Davis, Frank Gore, Jr. Those are the guys that are sitting behind him on the Dev Charities. It's going to be the James Cook show again. I don't know where there is a teardrop, but. I almost as I'm looking at these rankings are probably wrong. And I'm just going to read the next three people we have in a row. We have Ash and Gentie, Seguin, Barkley and the Derek Henry. Oh, yeah. Probably switch those three. Should we switch Seguin and Ash and Gentie? I don't know. Yeah. Just flip flop it. I'm like, we're just projecting with Gentie. I don't know. Would we really take Gentie over Seguin? I know. I feel like we wouldn't. You want to skate to where the puck is going, but also it's like freaking Barkley and Henry. Jeff, it's outlining. The Eagles offensive line legendary coach is going on the Kelsys podcast and saying it's not that simple, call the right plays into the right looks. And and and then he left and he's out now. And it's like he literally is like, I don't want the title of run game coordinator. So I don't know what to do with the Seguin Eagles. You could I mean, you could say everything. Honestly, everything Craig said about Jonathan Taylor could apply to Seguin, Barkley. I do. I have Seguin ninth in high for him, 19th. I I think there is a by the dip with Seguin here. And I think we're underestimating what Kevin Petulo not being on the Eagles is going to do, even if Stoutland's gone. I don't know. Maybe Sean Mannion is going to also suck. But I'm kind of just banking on the fact that Seguin is fucking awesome. And Kevin Petulo is not there. Seguin should be a first rounder. And that's kind of it. I also think that the offensive line injuries thing with the Eagles, if they just are healthy, which obviously that's a big question mark with any team is how healthy can they stay? But just looking at the so last year, go go back to 2024, Seguin Barkley ranked first in the NFL. Seguin Barkley had the best blocking. He had more yards before he was contacted than any other running back. Can you imagine giving that to Seguin Barkley? Like what he can do with that? He averaged 2.6 yards per. I don't have to imagine. Oh, yeah, you saw it. Just it was incredible what he was able to do with the blocking on that team and the scheme and how they were able to open up late rush lanes for him. And he was absolutely able to take advantage to go to last year. He was 23rd in the same metric, 1.36 yards yards before contact. So basically how big of opportunities opportunities are is he given on each rush? The other thing is when you think of 2024, ripping off 60 yard touchdown runs left and right, like every time you look up, he's ripping off this huge run. And that was what that was a huge part of the Eagles offense. He had 17 rushes of 20 plus yards in 2024. This last year, four. And we think trading A.J. Brown's going to help us. I don't know about that, but I think the offensive line health is was a really big factor here. I agree. I just think, I don't know, it's it's they could get healthier. They could get less healthy because I agree. I mean, I still think Lane Johnson and the oh, no, no, no, God damn it. I'm going to read you guys a funny email in another episode about what just happened to me, the guard, Landon Dickerson. I am Landon Dickerson and Lane Johnson. I'm convinced hurt themselves running into each other on the first play of the first game or sorry, the first game of the season. And they played through the whole year and I really think it changed your entire season. But the the sake one thing I probably should move higher. He should be a you have Chase Brown ahead of him. Oh, that's stupid. He's protecting his emotions. That's dumb. Yeah. I just kind of was like, man, the Eagles are a mess. But I'm like, the more I think I made these rankings right as I was listening to Stoutland on and I just listed a stat. I was like, I had him like 12th. I was like, lower, lower. You know why? Jeff Stoutland went on the Eagles thing. You know, I was a big stat. By the way, what did what do you say about all that? He thanked a lot of people. You know, his name didn't come up one time. Nick Siriani. Oh, that's weird. Said one time. Stoutland had some great quotes, dude. First of all, thick New York accent. He is the absolute man. He had a couple of gems. But did you just go off screen to take a bite? You took a bite of the sandwich? Yeah, he did. You sick. Well, I think he's just going to tell us about Stoutland. No, he sees the opportunity. No, I want to know. Generally. Yeah. Well, one of the things where I'm like, I know I talk about him a lot and but I mentioned to you guys one the other day that Jordan Milotta didn't know what a quarterback was when they when they wanted him to be left tackle. You know, you didn't know what a quarterback was. And they basically just Stoutland just made him a top six lift tackle, but over five years of like painstaking work together. And it was really just hearing about that that blew my mind. I had a other ones. The hungry dogs run faster is the one that Jason Kelsey says is the saying that changes life. But it just reminded me like, man, contract year guys is such a real thing. I want to talk about that more this year. There are a lot of great ones. He just made I feel like great teachers can make it really simple. And he's a reminder. He just sounds like the coolest teacher you ever could have had, but he's like a football coach. I still can't believe they they alienated him for the point. He just decided to fucking leave. They have to believe that it's insane. And it's an idiot. I in the way. And it's one of those you're like, maybe we're overrating it. Then you hear the way all the offensive line guys talked about him. You're like, oh, my God. So Jason Kelsey, the Eagles fans trade him straight up for Sirianni at this point. I I want the Giants to hire Stoutland next year. It's still in so Stoutland's under contract for this year, so he can't work anywhere. What's the deal? Yeah, he's just sitting out and he's afraid. And I want to take it in. No, next year. Yeah. Dude, they asked him, like, what's the hardest rusher you ever went to get to coach against? Like the was the worst defensive player. And he talked about having to face Dwight Freeney in college. Like he had he was coaching offensive line and this left tackle had to do with Dwight Freeney. And Dwight Freeney was like just the fastest player ever. And he could do like the bend kind of before is the thing. And he was listening with the left tackle is telling him during the game and basically left tackle couldn't get out there fast enough. And he was like, close your eyes. Tackles like what? He's like, just close your eyes. Kick. He's like, close your eyes, kick three times and open them. And it worked. The guy handle Freeney for the second. And it's like straight out of a movie. That's like the dumbest thing. They were like, just goes like, why did you tell him that? And he's like, because I could tell his problem was that he was trying to track him visually and he couldn't process how fast he was. And he's like, close your eyes and get there as fast as humanly possible. Then he'll be there. But he was like, the problem was he couldn't believe he was like straight out of like karate kids. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it was insane. He was like, trust yourself. That your eyes. I know. It's like dodgeball at the blindfold. So I was like, man, what a Yoda. But he told the tackle of close his fucking eyes. He should be the top prospect in free agency next year. Just out. Dude, we underrated sometimes the biggest transaction in any season is the. I mean, the biggest thing that happened a couple of years ago was Vic Fanchi went to the Eagles. That was the single biggest move anybody made, probably along with sake one. I mean, so anyway, I have a question real quick before we move on. Craig, do you think Ash and Gentys are by the dip guy too? Yeah, I have him also pretty high. I have him 10th. I'm just going to rely on the quarterback should be a lot better, whether it's Kirk Cousins or Fernando Mendoza and it's Clint Kubiak. And I'm like, what in the office of line got better? You know, like they they brought in Linderbaum and like I'm just kind of and I'm betting on the talent of Ash and Gentys, who I still think is extremely good. And in moments last year looked as advertised. And I think the Raiders, I'm we do this all the time where we like go all in on a team, the team crashes and burns, and then you just bail. And I'm not doing that. And I'm going to stay on for one more for one more go. I I contend that I continue to support. If you if we just like turned on the runs where Ash and Gentys was allowed to get past the line of scrimmage, awesome, he would have looked like a fucking all pro because but he got hit. So he was dead last among all running backs. So there's 49 running backs that had 100 rushes last year. He was dead last in rushes of zero or negative yards. So basically getting stuffed. He was dead last in the percentage of runs that ended almost over a quarter of those runs ended with that. And who was the offensive line coach? Pete Carroll's son. And I also know as your minds as they had to keep taking meetings without them to get anything done. Also, Pete Carroll's other son was the assistant quarterback scooch. So yeah, I agree. I will say, though, relatedly, I have four or five guys as they did. This jumped out of me as my by the dip guys. And I've never I've they just leapt out at me this year. And the other one is not Ash and Genty. My number one, I think maybe my favorite player entering fantasy this year is Brock Bowers. Oh, yeah. Brock Bowers is JSN, but he's that tight end. Like Clint Kubiak, the same way he made Jackson Smith and Jigba, the focal point centerpiece of the C.O.X. offense, the Brock Bowers is going to be the focal point centerpiece. Get the number one option on every play, move them everywhere to get on the ball, manipulating the defense and everything to get. He is the point of every place to get the ball to Brock Bowers. Everyone's going to have Trey McBride is the number one tight end because of how he passes, he got in front of the touchdowns and the cars that throw in the ball. But Brock Bowers, he had this PCL injury in his knee, which affects the stability of the knee, which is a CD lamb thing. Yeah, exactly. It's like you can play through it, but you're not really you, dude. Brock Bowers, I would not blink if he had 1400 yards. The season had the most yards of any tight end ever. Like I I really I really Brock Bowers is like some people haven't ranked like 25th people of the bat, taste their mouth from last year. I'm like, he is to me. I I am. Yeah, I think he's like my co favorite player with somebody else that you guys had very low for this season. Yeah, I had Bowers as one of my, I think, favorite players like last year and that didn't work out so great. It's the same thing with the McCaffrey thing where everyone's like bilateral tendinitis, everyone's gonna be like, but that doesn't matter. He actually had a year off to rest that it's going to be better. The Bowers one is big. The other I agree completely. I love that. Yeah. The other guy I love and I'm kind of looking, I made my rankings. Then I wanted to look at how does everyone else have this? And the other person I think I'm gonna get every fucking league is Derek Henry. People are still worried about the age, I think, right? I mean, it's ridiculous at this point. It's ridiculous. I just watched LeBron James play catch with his son during an NBA playoff game as he waxed the fucking rockets at 41 or whatever. And I'm going to have to hear people talk about Derek Henry being 33. Clearly he's built this and it doesn't matter. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I mean, look, they also got two new guards. They got John Simpson and Yawane, the Penn State Guard in the first round, which is I can only assume very good for Derek Henry, hopefully, in terms of opening up Rushlands for him. And yeah, they also just don't have a ton of competition there. It's it's Derek Henry and a bunch of shrimps. And so he's just going to get the vast majority of the goal line touches or the inside the 20 yard line touches. I probably have them too low. I think I'm guilty of this. I need to move them up. Derek Henry, I the experience of him being on your fantasy team during the playoffs is like a 11 out of 10. You feel like you can't die. I I would say like to have a gun. He had. He's like having two cocks. Dude, that's in the championship of that dynasty league. We were talking about in the last episode, Derek Henry got me two hundred and sixteen rushing yards and four touchdowns in week 70. Yeah, man, it's a joke. He's the best. I have him 12. What you were saying earlier, Hife, it's like the end of the first round this year. You can get Derek Henry, Seyquan, Barclay, Seedy, Lamb, Justin Jefferson, Ashton, Gentie. It's fucking crazy. It's insane. Like it's so and also even if you want to say that the end of the first will have Seedy, Jefferson, Seyquan, like, yeah, you can get I mean, Rishi Rice for the Chiefs. Like you're going to have there's crazy players out there that you can get. The other the other thing that's interesting about the Derek Henry thing is the Declan Doyle hire for the Ravens is fascinating because he is he comes ostensibly from the Ben Johnson Tree of coaches. I don't know, like, if that's the thing yet, really. But and and think about what Ben Johnson has done with the run games of the teams he's been on. Obviously, Detroit last year with the the Bears, the run game was much more, you know, versatile and varied than I think people thought Deandre Swift. It turned Deandre Swift and Kyle Mononga into fantasy relevant things. And so the idea that he could bring in this really creative run game. I mean, obviously the Ravens have always had that. But I don't know with with what he can do with Lamar in terms of holding the defensive end and helping create room for for the running back. I'm just so fascinated to see how this goes. It could be I mean, it could be an all time year for Henry if you can keep doing what he's doing. No, just all time. He's going to be around for all of time. I don't know if there's any other players you guys want to mention. The other player that I just leapt out at me as maybe the biggest ranking discrepancy we've ever had. I had a G Brown 14th. Craig had him 50 54th. We had 40 spot. So I have a G Brown as like maybe the first pick of the second round. And Craig, how many is the fifth round pick? DK, you're exactly in the middle of 36. Now, having said that, part of me is like, I just kind of assumed he was a patriot. And Craig, if you're kind of like, yeah, he's an eagle and like until he gets traded, I think that's probably fair. Yeah, I to be honest, I'm just kind of like waiting and seeing what happens to him before I officially decide how upset with him I am. That's I know it was out of hatred, but let's just assume he gets traded the Patriots and like that it happens. Then where are we putting a G Brown? Because I think once he's a new. Pats. I don't know. Early 30s, late 20s to me. I don't know. Why does he have a 10? I think you could take him 12th and I wouldn't give. I'd be sure. Fine. I won't do that. I just won't do it. I don't think I'll have to do it. I think you can get him to, I think, but this, DK, what do you think? You're the adult. You're the mature one. I look at ageing brown. I'm like, this is the easiest by the dip I've ever seen. Like he's clearly amazing. And he was just like not mentally locked in. He wasn't finishing rounds. He was pissed. That's I think you saying it's the easiest by the dip you've ever seen when we just talked about a couple other guys that I think are much better by the dip options. But to me, it's just like, where is he at mentally? Like, because he just kind of checks out and he, you know, he's like famously reading a book on the fucking sidelines. Where is he at in terms of locked in ready to go? If you get traded in New England. Yes. I don't know. I'm like, I'm going to be very locked in. Deva receivers or divas? Well, you never know what to expect from these guys. I don't know what to expect from day J Brown. I think obviously the best case scenario, he could be a top 10 overall fantasy player with Drake may at quarterback. Craig, just getting in another bite. Um, I don't know why. Why are you spoiling this for the listeners at home? You know, that is a little Easter egg for the video. You laugh. Um, if he's on the Patriots, I will completely reconsider, but right now he's on the Eagles and I can't unsee that. That's fair. I just feel like he's going to get traded to the Patriots. And I, I think when that happens and after what June, I'll, I'll change it. I know. Right. I think he should be. When it happens though, I'm saying when it happens, like let's say he's on New England, I think the 2022 season, AJ Brown had 88 catches, 1500 yards and 11 touchdowns. I'm like, yeah, he could beat that. I think AJ Brown actually, I think he's going to be the focal point of the offense drink base, like the best deep hole throw in the NFL right now. Maybe. Um, yeah, I don't really have a problem with any of that. I just want to make sure he's off the goddamn Eagles. Fair enough. But it was interesting as it was going through it. Okay. Speaking of the Eagles, did you see they extended the contract for both Big Dom and also assistant GM, John Ferrari? John Ferrari. John Ferrari and Big Dom got extended. Also Big Dom's title, senior advisor to the GM, comma, chief security officer, comma, and game day coaching operations. That's the big Dom's title. Big Dom and John Ferrari sound like, like backup names for entourage characters. Yes. Like it was going to be Johnny, drama, and turtle or John Ferrari and Big Dom. Hi Fitz, do you think, and I'm asking this seriously, do you think Big Dom or Nick Siriani is more important to the success of the Eagles? Yeah, I think who's more important? I think it's big, I think that plays with unraveling that. Also, how about this? I don't think Nick Siriani could exist without Big Dom. Right. Who's going to keep him off the field? Nick Siriani's going to run on and get tackled. Sure. We don't talk enough about how these coaches need fucking get back guys. Yeah. I feel like I feel like for some of them, it's performative. But it's the fact that for some, it's performative and for some, it's no, I actually am unable to control myself and not walk under the field. I got to tell you, also watching the NBA playoffs. And I feel this way about my own teams do it. I am the amount of times the coaches, they just wander on the court and it's fine, always bothers me. Stay off the fucking court. Wander. It bothers me so much that NBA coaches can just wander on it. Like, there's no really a rule, but it's like, so it's like when you're on the other end and the actions on the other side, it's whatever. But when you're kind of on the court and the players are on that side of the court, it drives me fucking nuts. Give them a big get back guy. I mean, the biggest perpetrator of this is fucking Danny Hurley, who is like. Yes. Who's like basically like on the three point line when you kind of has the ball directing traffic. He's like stepping at other players on the course. Like it's. It's insane. It's like they're coaches. Their whole thing is telling players what to do. It's like there's a giant line right there. Like just you should have to stay behind the line. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that outside just didn't play very much. OK. Can I say, can I talk about one more guy who I'm going to be in love with this year? And I'll probably go way too hard on him, is I'm just going to be in on Omerion Hampton, the Chargers running back. I'm just good. I'm buying Mike McDaniel. I think Omerion Hampton, everybody was really excited about him. He was OK and then got hurt and everybody kind of forgot about him. I think similar to what DK was saying with Gentie, where like when you watched Hampton have space to run, I thought he looked awesome. And I will be I will be entrusting Mike McDaniel to do the right thing with Omerion Hampton. And I will pray that the offensive line for once in a million years is healthy. But I think he's a first round talent of a running back. And you know, I love my guy McDaniel and you know, I love the Chargers. So I just think I think it next year, Omerion Hampton could be like the eighth pick in drafts, complete. That's a good take. Completely agree with everything. Same thing, except I just feel it way about Ladd-McConkey, too. Sure. Oh, I know. That could be a good breakout. Crosses for fucking days. Yeah. And then by the dip. And if you cross this for, dude, I'm going to build my whole team out of like the dip of AJ Brown and McConkey, Brock Bowers, Derek Henry, all those people, people don't want. But to your point, the other one, it's Keet and Mitchell. So the Keet and Mitchell is like every time he's ever touched the football has been incredible for the Ravens. He the Ravens don't bring it back, basically, because he's I don't know, it's too I don't really know why the Rades did bring it back. And then the Chargers, who are just Ravens West, scooped him up. And so Keet and Mitchell in the Mike McDaniel offense, I'm like, that's like your. It's like Devon Hian vibes. I think I think Mike McDaniels, I think Omerion Hampton is like, I mean, he's not exactly a Ruhi Moster, but Hampton is like way younger, Mostered. And Keet and Mitchell is like not as fast as Hian. But like that is a hell of a thunderlighting combo for the Chargers. Like that is that often the Chargers are going to be so electric. We're so back. Like we're so fucking back. They're going to be so electric for three years. I will be drafting Herbert. I'm going to be doing all of it. I'm telling you right now, the Chargers season is 2027. We're going to be in on them this year, hardcore. They're going to break our hearts for the 20th year in a row. Everybody's going to be out on them. And the next year, they're going to win the Super Bowl in 2027. I will be in on them every year until they win the Super Bowl. 2027 is their year. I do. I do the Chargers this year, man. Mike Pite Daniel. OK. And any other players have caught your eye before I want to read. We got to get into the Chodes. Now, we could talk. Well, maybe we should call the players that we didn't mention the Chodes. Oh, yeah. I would say the biggest name we didn't mention is probably Jeremiah Love. Yeah. Where do you slot him in? Who we all we all are pretty consistent about him. We have Jeremiah Love in the late late early 20s. Or sorry, early 20s. We all have him around 21st, which is so basically end of the second round, which I do think is right. And maybe we're all kind of low on him. But there are other running backs on this team. I don't like the situation. I don't know how much he's going to be exactly used. Is he going to be 20? Touchdowns. He carries a game. Yeah. How many touchdowns? Scoring. I think late second round. I doubt he'll drop lower as we get closer to August. But I do think he is a second rounder. How many times do we have to? I mean, this run, the rookie running back thing, guys drafted high, usually have pretty good careers, but doesn't mean they have a good rookie season. You know what I mean? It's also like the Cardinals. I also don't think the Cardinals are going to be like, yeah, this is the year we're going to put like 400 touches in Jeremiah Love's plate. Like, why would you do that? Like the Cardinals obviously are doing well. Crazy rebuild. I feel like I put anything past the Cardinals. No, I know. I'm just I've come to my level out to Christian and Kafe. He, Christian and Kafe got 117 carries his first season in NFL. Yeah, I play every game. It is crazy how unsexy Jeremiah Love became because he was drafted by the Cardinals. Like I am already forgetting how unbelievably gifted he is because he's on the Cardinals. And yeah, and also we're just all like Gentie last year was like over overdrafted. Omerian Hampton was overdrafted. All the RJ Harvey was overdrafted. Trevon Henderson. Honestly, if he was good for you last year, you probably drafted. People drafted Henderson, probably caught him. And then he was good for someone else. Like all like the rookie running back thing. I think everyone's got a bad taste in their mouth. And then OK, so we're going to have so fantasy football, Dr. Raddakam will have our rankings at some point soon. And we yeah, as we get into July and August, we're going to have a lot more fantasy. But with that said, we have to get to the important stuff. The journalism. Hmm. Hmm. Now is now it's sandwich time. There you go. How much sandwiches left at some point? Your sandwich left is a joke. Not met. Not my. Can we see it? I'm almost done. Can we see it? Can we see it? Fine, a little bit. Yeah, there. Get there with your little chode, which please don't call it that. Anyway, so again, the revelation on the last episode that D.K. casually was like, I just thought showed meant taint. No, I didn't. I didn't say I think it meant taint. It means taint to me and to many of my generation. So I didn't realize that I meant something else. My other people think it means something else. Well, my reaction was well summed up by someone, Charlie, who texted me actually. And he's he said, he said, Chuck said that D.K. thinking showed means taint is worse than the entire Mbop fiasco. No, it's just which is I am saying instant reaction. I think Craig, like that's like crazy to me. It was inconceivable. And I think to a lot of people of age, having said that, I want to read a bunch of emails here. Thank you to everyone. I think this is one of our most email topics of all time. OK, it's nice that we can make an impact every once in a while. Exactly. Yeah. Bettering lives. This emails from Nick and Bone. Nicky, I live a few hours south of Mr. Kelly. I'm 48. I'm a man and I grew up believing it showed meant taint. I only learned about alternate meanings by watching your podcast. Same. Also organs, three syllables. Sorry, D.K. I texted my friends who live in Portland and they said to so we're going to keep running back to that. He can suck it. Tony says I grew up in, I don't know how to say this, Puyola. I'm going to drive for my brother right now. Puyola. Tony says I grew up in Washington when I was in high school in 2005, the showed was the taint. He says D.K. Organist, two syllables. Kevin, 40 years old, showed equals taint. Everything else is news to me. John, a group of small town outside Spokane. We grew up calling each other shows meaning taint. It's over and over this thing. John actually is 30. Otherwise, though, I could keep going down the line. All these people are from the the the West Coast over 38 is 100 percent showed means taint. It is 100 percent unanimous. It does extend. We discovered the great generational divide. It is showed. Showed versus showed. There is a regional element. So there's we have so Ben says shows taint Southern California male 42. We also have Lisa, a woman, one of the seven emailed in. And 43, one of the seven women said, Validating Danny Kelly on 43 from Southern California showed means taint. So West Coast feels good to know that I'm midwest making this up. Yeah. So the some the East Coast. I didn't get unless I missed something, not a single person from the East Coast of any age said showed was taint. It is a unanimity that in the East Coast showed has always meant a pancake dick or whatever. And somewhere like a fuck in the Midwest and then West, it changed. And the dividing line seems to be the Rocky Mountains. No, I was going to say give or take 37, 37 years old. OK, seems to be about because other than one guy from Washington, everyone of every age, everywhere under or sorry, every location under 37 thinks it means, you know, pancake dick. But we did get like, D.K. got 30 people coming in. So you guys changed it at some point. Well, I mean, I don't know how it that's what I want to know. I want to know how it's changed. It's an interesting dynamic here. But I think the word show just sounds like a short fat penis as opposed to your your perinea perineum. I mean, I could see. Yeah, yeah, there's a little bit of that. I could see it's a. Oh, what a show is a short fat dick. Right. It's really worded. Taint is a taint is kind of the perfect word for it. Well, what about Gooch? Gooch is OK. I think taint is the perfect word for Tain. So here's Craig, what do you call it in the wild? The taint is like a you know exactly what you're getting with a taint. I would call it taint taint in the wild. Taint in the wild. And I do frequently. So it's like top ten used words. Taint, your autocorrect just knows. So we have a couple of theories here. But I actually want to brand in so many people. I know these stories all kind of sound the same. But Brandon Wrakes, I'm a New Englander, now lives in the Midwest, 43 in New England, showed is indeed a dick fatter than long, the only definition of my whole life. But then I moved to the Midwest. I heard the secondary definition. I got very confused. And he says later I realized and he says mostly it's a substitute for taint out in the Midwest. But then Brandon says as an aside, when my son was four, we joke that he had no taint, but that it would grow in time. What? And just recently, my son turned five and my son proudly told us and proclaimed that he finally grown his taint and we celebrated with ice cream. OK. So congratulations. Brandon's son. Yeah, that's interesting. So going through these, I was just kind of blown away where someone could be 20 minutes from where D. K. grew up and someone said Lucas basically wrote Cup of espresso, toast of cheese and butter. Lucas wrote he thinks he played basketball against you in high school. And he has no idea what the fuck you're talking about with three syllables or two syllables in Oregon or the taint thing. And like this person went to like arrival high school. But then other people. Where did they go? Who is who is this person? I'm not I don't know. I'm not doxxing Lucas. OK, did you did he say what high school he went to? You can don't say his last name. He said he punched you in basketball. No, I'm kidding. I did say he's in lockstep with everything usually say, but he's shocked by this taint thing. And that's the part I don't get about the Chewood Oregon or also the Oregon thing, where I don't know how these people don't know that this is an existing dynamic. But I don't know. That's interesting that he doesn't think showed that he's around my age and in from my area and he thought showed meant something different than taint because every like legitimately everybody. I've had like 30 people reach out to me the last like week. And they all agree that it was that it's a taint. How old are they? Like people that I know. So my generation ish. That's that it changed somewhere in 37. I have a no, but I'm saying this guy says he played me in basketball. So he's roughly my generation. I don't know how the fuck he thought it was anything else. Because I felt like everybody I talked to, it was like unanimous that it was a taint. I'm doing some research about why the meaning of showed changed over time. Oh, yeah. The Internet doesn't have a great idea of it. There is one thing I never watched Beavis and Butthead. Yes, that is that is something. It was a thing for my generation. But apparently the word showed was a widely used and popularized by that show. But I don't know how I'm assuming it was just used to mean like idiot or something. But maybe it had something to do with that. This isn't my research. I guess Beavis and Butthead would use the term showed smoker. And so it was referring to a blow job. So I do think Beavis and Butthead may have turned the tides in some ways. Yeah. I don't totally know. If you watch Beavis and Butthead, let me know. The other one I have a good theory here about Joe. This is a little bit more about the Tango. Oh, yeah. Joe says, I can't tell you how excited I am to have a platform. So none of these people ate breakfast, huh? That's crazy. Joe's just going wrong, man. All these fuckers didn't eat breakfast. OK. We'll let it slide. I love the person who was like, no breakfast. That's for children. And then just kind of went in. Joe wrote, first of all, I believe that the difference is 100 percent age related, not regional, although I do think it is regional. It's both probably. Yeah. Joe wrote, I grew up in Minnesota with one brother who's six years older than me. And my brother is basically the same age as Danny Kelly. And he has always been the opinion that it showed as a taint. I have this long held belief that anyone who went to high school before the first Jackass movie came out would refer to the taint as a chode. And anyone who went to high school post Jackass calls it a gooch because Johnny Knoxville in the movie says gooch and it caught on like wildfire. But it showed is such a good word that for a tuna campiness, that it was just too good of a word to toss aside. And then Gooch took its rightful seat on the throne. DK, when were you in high school? Ninety six to 2001. Yeah, the Jackass movie was a two. Yeah, that makes sense. I could see that. Also, Vince Vaughn in. Fuck, what movie was it? It was dodgeball, I think, says no grundle. His dogs like licking his taint and he says no grundle. To his dog. So grundle also caught on there for a while. Grundle is maybe the grossest version of it for some reason. I don't know why. Grundle was like before grundle. Grundle sounds like it's sweaty. Yeah, grundle is like something that happens. Grundle is like a grimy. Yeah, it's a state. It's a state of being. I mean, chode isn't like the best either. But yeah, this is fascinating. I think what's crazy, too, is both generations are equally shocked at each other. Like, and here's the thing, as much as I'm trying to support you and be like, you're not crazy, you got dozens of people to agree with you. But under I mean this under 35, it was 99.9 percent. We got one person under 35 and well over 100 saying it was a dick. So it's like, yeah, kind of like that doesn't make any fucking sense to me. Nobody's wrong here. It is simply your lived experience. My lived experience chode was a taint. And, you know, it's funny that I found this out. Literally, the reason this came up is someone on on Blue Sky added me and was like, I don't know if you realize this, but you accidentally said chode when you meant to say taint. And I'm like, buddy, this I do what I was saying. You're talking to Danny Kelly here. I know my chodes, you know. But but it's so fascinating because I literally had no fucking idea that that was a thing. But let me ask you this. Do you think the the word chode, as you knew it, was a popular term growing up? Or was it just a word that you used to describe that area? Was it like a funny slang term that kids were using? Because I think chode for my generation was like widely used and became very. Yeah, we used it a lot. I feel like why are you talking about it that much? Because obviously you would understand why a kid would be joking about like a short dick in high school, but why why was the taint area? You just said taint is one of your highest used words. I was talking about taint so much, Craig. I don't know. It was like that. That's dude, the high school aged men like to talk about fucking gross private parts. I don't know. Everyone says, though, that every generation, whatever it has in common is it was like, yeah, guys being a chode, you call them a chode. Yes. And in our context, that was the taint region. We should try to come up with a new word that just like sounds like it like an insult. Yeah, like if you're being a chode, that sounds bad. We should just come up with our own. Like they're coming up like they have all these drug drug names that they focus group, we should focus group a new word. Yeah, I want to know what if there's any other slang terms that have totally different meanings for different generations and reasons. So many emails in saying they thought dork meant a whale penis. Yeah, that's like that was something that people would say back in the day where it's like, do you know the actual scientific definition of a dork is is like a whale's penis, but like no one. Marilyn Manson had a rib. I got no friends. Then we shovel metal locker. I mean, there are phrases that have culturally expired, like, you know, our parents saying like when something was bad, that meant cool. Like nobody says that anymore. There's things like that. You know, yeah, if I say so, if I say tight, you guys, you guys look at when I say tight, I feel like you guys look at me funny. Now, we said that growing up or I did always. I know what you mean, but if I said it, I'd feel cringe. And now I think that's like now it's like for Gen Z, like if we said epic, you know, twenty three, we mean, but that's like fucking lame. Epic is like very millennial, cheesy, chuggy, chuggy, chuggy. The other thing that I think I don't know if it was just my specific friend group or if it was a wider area and Pacific Northwest, we call things cron a lot like chronic. That album came out before I was born. Yeah, so I don't know if that's something that anyone else did, but that was like. I mean, there were all these phrases we used to say in high school briefly, like when you wanted to leave, you would say let's dip. Did you ever say that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I never said that, but I've heard that before. Yeah. The other Craig, you this is this just reminds me. One time we were walking around in Seattle and I was like, you were like, what's down there? I was like, oh, it's pretty dicky over there. And you're like, dicky. I'm like, who's pretty dicky? And that was like another slang term from like my arrow is like we call things dicky if it was like really shitty or something. It's like, oh, it's really dicky over there. I could come back. Yeah. OK, it's still say sick. Like that's that was fucking Calvin says sick. Yeah, that was sick. It's because he's watching because stupid YouTube videos. Probably know what one of the words that start from ill and then you go from ill to sick. Probably. But you know, one of the words that I think has stayed forever is cool. Yeah, cool is cool is like the Derek Henry of slang. I think cool is like 70s. Do you guys say rad? No, I'd rather die. Yeah, I say rad sometimes. I actually think I think it's charming when you say it, though. It's when you say it's cool. Like if I had said rad at my bachelor party this week, and I think everyone would rather die. Tubular. I don't say that. That's too far. That's like that's like that's like somebody with a Mohawk. In the late 80s. Yeah. So. To the Oregon thing. To button this up. We have an answer and Lucas, who again, this is the guy who went to school 20 miles south of you and thinks he played basketball against you. He he made a point. He says I am also kind of lazy with the way I pronounce it. The syllables like Oregon. But he says, but he made the best point of all, which is like, even as D.K. saying Oregon is three syllables, you're saying we're going to two syllables. Lucas was like, even as D.K. saying it, he's kind of saying it with three syllables. It's like two and a half. Oregon blew my mind. So that point to some more. Mike from Greenville. You got to round down. Mike from Greenville included his breakfast and has the answer. OK. Mike's email is for breakfast. I had three scrambled eggs with cheese, peppers and tomatoes with sourdough, toast and tea, pretty great breakfast. Mike says that the Jeremy Dilemma, Oregon Dilemma is the same thing. Name should have half syllables. Yeah. Jeremy is two and a half syllables. Charles is one and a half syllables. That's the new standard. I think Mike is 100 percent accurate. I agree. Charles is one and a half. Charles. It's like Charles. It like rolls like rolls off the back of the truck. Yeah. Charles. Yeah. Like I said, 10, 10 is one syllable. Charles is it's not two, but it's not one. Yeah. I mean, I think like if we're if we were going to get scientific about this whole fucking argument, because I heard I heard 100 percent of the people that I talked to agreed with the chode thing. But like it was like 50 50 with Oregon. Like how Skippy says Oregon with three. She says it's three syllables. A sensible woman. Yeah. But then I talked to like several people who live in Portland right now. They both said are they multiple people said that is two syllables. So it's really just I think it's really like 2.3. Two and a half. Yeah. And also just depends how lazy you are. Same with the Jereby thing. I like I just say I just say it really quickly. So it loses sort of the middle syllable. But like if if if you were. Trying to communicate to an alien and your name was Jeremy and you have to say it really slowly to them. Would you be like my name is Jere me. Or would you be like Jere me. Right. What would you do. The latter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we're not talking to fucking aliens. We're talking to each other. You know. Glad we got there. I'm glad. I'm glad. At least several Jeremes agree with me. I'm more open to that one being wrong. But we also learned that Jereme Bernard's mother said his name is pronounced Jereme. Now, that was that was a that was fake. That's a parody account. Fuck, was it? Yeah. I got clanked. You got clanked, pal. Damn. Damn, I got clanked. Dude, a lot of people did, though. A lot of people got got by that. We I feel like we were tagged by maybe 50 people, but it's like fake. I mean, look down the rest of this fricking accounts tweets. It's horrific. I'm not doing that. I got clanked. I thought Trevor Lawrence cut his hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone said that to me and I freaked out. Wait, why did we call it getting clanked? Because clankers is clankers. It's not robots who made it. It's like fake, though. It's all in the same category of like the Internet becoming something that you cannot rely on. Right. D.K., what's that book you love the title of? Your joke is factually incorrect. The guide to tying alone. Yeah, yeah. I can't wait for that internet theory to take over. Well, when it's just clankers talking to clankers and we can get the fuck off. They think you're getting us. We're leaving you with all this shit. That's right. Have fun with Instagram. I'm going to go on a walk with my friend. Oh, I sent you guys video of people jumping off of Walkham Falls. This is a place in Bellingham where it's these two big cliffs around like a waterfall and people ever since I was a little kid, people jump off that do ripping ganners. Just fucking awesome. There was a famous video recently that went viral. I sent this to you guys also. It was a guy who like he he inhaled a cigarette and chugged a beer and then did a gator off of it. Do you guys see that? Remember that? Yeah, I was on fire and he lit himself on fire and jumped into a waterfall. And you're like, this is where I live. This is Bellingham right here. So anyways, my point was that's really living that like doing a gator off of a cliff at Walkham Falls. Hear that, kids? Stop scrolling. Like yourself on fire and jump into a waterfall. That's really living right there out there and live. All right, kids. Have some experiences. Oh, man. All right, I guess we'll go to our Jordan Ritter Khan interview on. Yeah, no, see, this is what the whole books about that Jordan wrote is like, you know, if all the children could like actually fire and jump into bodies of water, everything would be OK. We're going to go to run over to Jordan and then we'll say goodbye. All right, now we are joined for a special segment by the ringers. Very own Jordan Ritter Khan, our colleague, one of the smartest writers alive coming on the world's dumbest podcast. Jordan, you wrote a book. It's called American Men. It's out now from Ringer Books. I want to get to the book in a second, but I want to actually start with you for I'm not going to fawn and be like you're a great writer, but like you are a really good writer and I won't embarrass you. But like even going back to Grant Lane, you've written some of the best stories at the Ringer and it's amazing. But I want to go back to the only moment in my life I've ever felt like you were humbled by me. And you basically were telling me a couple of months ago on the phone and I want to pick up where we left off that you were saying that you hated fantasy sports when you were young and you since come to see the light. Yeah, young and extremely pretentious. You know, I think like all of us we get into sports media kind of coming from different different angles. I came at it from the most pretentious imaginable angle of I wanted to be one of these literary sports writers. I wanted to be like a Wright Thompson, Gary Smith, those types. And, you know, that meant that I came up with this this take that became part of my identity in my mid 20s of I hate fantasy sports. And the reason why I said I hated it, I want to be clear, I've come to regret this deeply. It's had had horrible, horrible impact on my life. But was that I what I said was that it flattened so much of what I argued we should love about sports, which is a connection between a team and a city. These individual athletes who are kind of at the culmination of their entire lives and careers. Human frailty, beauty, accomplishment, all of this pretentious bullshit. And and because of that, I dropped out of the fantasy leagues that I was in. I turned down some invitations to be in other fantasy leagues. And now I am a middle aged man who does not play fantasy sports and who has cut off from one of kind of the the, you know, great kind of connective tissues in American life. And, you know, I have some regrets. I fits how many how many times had you won prior to quitting the leagues you're in? Oh, exactly. Zero exactly. Zero. OK. You had won three rings. You would you would have fucking loved it. Yeah. A lot of intellectuals have wrapped around rage. Yeah. Yeah. Just just finding ways to kind of to justify my shame. Yeah, it just takes one win. And then you're like, I think this is the greatest thing in the world. Well, so I like the idea that you're you're probably right about all this stuff. But then you check and you have no group chats to gloat about it. And you're like, oh, yeah. I mean, like, you know, I don't know. Those those arguments, like they're still a part of me that can be like, I see what younger, more pretentious Jordan was kind of getting at there. But also, like, who cares? Sports are supposed to be fun. And what, you know, we were talking about in that conversation, Hyphens, is just the ways in which fantasy can be, you know, just this thing that keeps you in touch with your friends or this thing that in some people's cases, like makes helps people make new friendships, like this thing that kind of takes on a life of its own. And like, I feel like every every time I hear about somebody else's fantasy, I'm one of those people who actually will listen to you talk about your fantasy team because I don't have any of my own to compare it to. But I feel like every league kind of has its own, you know, its own history, its own lore, its own dumb jokes. And I've been isolated for that for years and it's it's terrible. I mean, you're in twenty twenty five fantasy leagues, which means you have like 200 male friends. Do you know how many fricking group chats I have to keep up with? And I try and read every every text. The I was thinking this whole time we were talking about how over the weekend we had a rookie draft in our dynasty league and part of the tradition for our dynasty league is we send each other videos of ourselves making the picks and like the more ridiculous, the better. So like Bic, our friend, he'll he'll put on a suit and like pretend he's like legitimately a GM of a team and do do this whole spiel. And I'm like, this is sort of like the elder, millennial, whatever, high fits in Craigard. Are you guys Gen Z? I can't remember. We're we're young millennials, sponge, millennials, your geriatric. I never got to do Snapchat. I that's not that passed me by none of my friends. You can't. Snapchat. This is my. How old are you? Yeah, I'm also a geriatric millennial. I'm forty one. OK, so saved by the bell was on when you came up. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Zach and Kelly. That's old. Yeah, but I think like, I don't know. You're so we're getting at something to, you know, to make some of this, like actually add like a legitimate like framework to it. Like there is men do kind of rely on some sort of external thing to like keep us in touch with each other. And like historically, that's been things like an in person workplace, or it's been, you know, a labor union, or it's been a church or a synagogue or mosque, or it's been even like a social club. And so much of that stuff has been in decline for a long, long time for decades now. And so kind of what what has to happen is you've got to kind of almost invent your own institutions and something that can be like you can be in college with your buddies and just be like, hey, we should start a fantasy league together. And then all of a sudden a decade goes by and that league has like become an institution. And maybe some other people have filtered in that weren't a part of it at the beginning. You know, somebody's brother-in-law or just some guy that you met on a weekend and ended up like being friends with and like it develops its own kind of history. It develops its own like there's like a mechanism for you being in touch with each other. It's just like, you know, we're going to be talking about certain rituals, like the annual ritual of the draft, but even just the weekly ritual of kind of whatever happened in the league in a given week. Like and you have this kind of built in excuse because often, you know, we kind of need that. We need some built in excuse to kind of be in touch with each other because that's a lot easier than just saying to somebody like, hey, man, like I kind of miss you. No, men would never do that. It's very true because I'm sure you guys all have experienced this, but like, you know, when you're hanging out with friends or you're on like a trip or you're somewhere and you go, man, we got to do this again. Like or we like you're at dinner with friends and you're like, we should not take a trip sometime. It's like, yeah, yeah, let's do that. And then you all go home. Nobody ever follows up. Nobody plans it. Never. But a fantasy draft being set in stone once a year in August, having that reason where everybody who lives on the same side of the country can get together in the same city once a year, it does make a huge difference. The fact that you kind of have to do it as opposed to just like, man, we really should take a trip one day and there's no way that'll ever happen. So fantasy really does that ritual really does get you like in person with people who you would otherwise never see anymore. Yeah, I mean, we get we often just really bad at follow through. Like we're just really bad. Actually making the thing happen. And when there is this thing that's already set up, like we got to do it. Like, you know, whatever, whatever happened last year, whoever we've been talking shit about who lost the league, I'm imagining all of this because again, I don't play this stuff. But we've got it. We've got to make sure that we keep it going the next year. And, you know, I don't know, it works. It clearly works for many, many, many, many people. And and yeah, I think that's a huge part of the appeal of you guys's show is like you guys remind people of like their own friend groups and the own their own kind of conversations that they're having the way that they're giving each other shit. And, you know, it's a it's a genuinely meaningful, powerful thing. Is there something that surprised you right in the book about male loneliness that you didn't expect? Good question. So the book just to give the very quick spiel of the book, it's not really exactly. I didn't set out to write about male loneliness. Loneliness has kind of come up a lot because any time you're talking about men in 2026, that's a thing that people bring up pretty quickly. But it really is just it follows these four guys who are like very, very different from each other. And it's kind of about like their relationship to masculinity. It's about like the kind of ideas that we all kind of have starting from the time we're really, really young that kind of shape us over the course of our lives and how how they play out in the lives of these, you know, four guys who are extremely different from each other. In terms of what surprised me, you know, I think like the connective tissue is that you can be the you can be someone who kind of fits every single ideal that we have. One of these guys is a West Point graduate baseball star, six foot six, handsome, charismatic, smart. And eventually you're just still going to feel like kind of inadequate in some way. And you're not you're not going to know what to do with that. But you can also be somebody who doesn't fit any of those ideals and your feelings around that stuff like end up looking kind of the same. Like there's kind of more that connects that version of a guy to someone who is the kid that is getting bullied on the playground from the time he's five years old. And that's kind of the shape of his entire life. Like those two have more in common than we often would think. And then, you know, another thing just like kind of in my personal life, I would say it just made me like thinking about thinking about these four guys, thinking about, you know, again, loneliness does come up, even though that's not exactly what the book is about. I was just like, oh, shit, I can't be publishing a book that is like getting into all of this stuff and being the cliche of the 41 year old dad who all of a sudden doesn't have any friends. Right. I was going to ask about that. I was just a short note. You don't care. You know, I'm going through some shit. I have no friends. But yeah, he's like, I don't talk to anybody. Honestly, like over the course of the time I was working on this book, I had a kid. I was doing my job at the ringer. Like I did kind of let some of my friendships kind of start to slip away. And so over the last year, I've had to be like, have a lot of those conversations where it's just like, hey, man, like we haven't talked in a while. Like I'd love to just see how you're doing. Or, you know, you meet, you have that awkward thing with the dad at the playground and you're like, you know what? Of all the dads at the playground, this might be the one I can stomach, like actually 10 minutes of conversation with and then going for it. And being like, all right, you want to hang out sometime. You want to watch a game, whatever. So just trying to be more direct with some of that stuff. Like because like that part of your life does really, really matter. I think men tend to be really good at treating other parts of our lives like they matter, like our jobs, like, you know, romantic relationships, parenting, whatever else. But like you've got to treat that stuff like it really matters too. I feel like one of the secret sauces is just there's something about the rhythm in the schedule provides this framework for men to like participate in a way that requires zero thought. Because it's like you kind of hang out with people that you do stuff together with and whether you have kids and you can't see people in the other sort of town or people move. It's like if you're trying to make friends in a new place, you do a run club if you're horny or you just like, you know, you go do whatever. It's trying to meet new people. But if you want to stay connected to your, oh, come on, Craig, that's 100 percent accurate. All the run club people are super horny. Come on. I have no insight on that. I guess I'll take your word for it. Do you what are you basing that off of my friends and run clubs? It's the new it's the new dating apps. Oh, we were talking about the new dating. But if you want to keep in touch with your old friends, it's like the schedule of the NFL. It's like you're oh, like the 12 hour block on Sunday, you know, do you mean Monday night setting your lineups? Like I think that is the infrastructure guys need because for whatever reason, I swear to God that men talk shoulder to shoulder, but women talk face to face. Women will get lunch and ask each other how they're doing and answer it. And women will like go and get dinners with like four or six women and have a good time. And men will talk when men will like play golf and ride in a golf cart for five hours and come home and you're like, how is he doing? You're like, oh, that didn't come up. We've talked. I've talked about this a lot, like at least in my experience, like men don't get dinner. Like I'm never going to go to a bar and watch a game or something. Yes. You have to go watch something or do something. It's like, do you want to go play golf? Tennis, you want to go watch a game? I have never like just hit up like four friends and be like, you guys just want to get dinner on a Tuesday. We just don't do that. So there is the shoulder to shoulder thing, Hyphids is like, yeah, I don't know how legitimate this research is, but there is like some kind of there's some people out there who make the case, some like scholars who make the case that like because men evolved like being hunting together, they're shoulder to shoulder or like sitting around a fire, like often shoulder to shoulder and in other settings and going into battle. Shoulder to shoulder. Exactly. Like next to each other in a phalanx. And now it's called duty, modern warfare. It might all be like total, total bullshit. But, you know, like now, like our shoulder to shoulder is sitting at the bar watching a game. And I do think, you know, that there is something to the fact that like, you know, just having that extra thing that brings you together, having like those just little windows of like mostly we're going to be talking about this other thing, but maybe occasionally it'll be like, you know, hey, your dad has cancer, that kind of sucks or whatever else. And I think like we, you know, I have this friend who says that like the way that we say, like I'm having a good time, I'd like to keep hanging out with you is just like, do you want another round? Whether that's a beer or playing golf again or whatever else. And I don't know. It's just like, again, the shoulder to shoulder thing, it might be it might be bullshit, but there are like, you know, so-called experts out there who kind of argue that we have evolved in ways that make that more comfortable for us. And now evolution is just, do you guys have like 10 different friends where you actually have no words exchanged, but you've been sending each other memes with no one responded for like 10 years? Yeah, it's like, hey, I still care about you and love you. Here's a new, it's like a new age poke. Yeah. Check in like every two months with just the like crying emoji at one of the memes, just to just to let them know that you've seen it and then then go back to not talking to them for another couple of months. It's just weird because it's easier than ever to connect with somebody, but it also feels like it's harder than ever to connect with somebody. Do you find that now it's harder than ever for men or it's always been hard for men? And now it's more exacerbated just because of social media. It's a good question. I do think it's always been a little harder for me. I mean, you know, we just don't kind of learn these skills the same way that like girls do growing up, typically. You know, there are certainly exceptions, but I but I think social media is kind of making it harder for everybody. I think social media is kind of making everyone increasingly disconnected from one another. And so that's why, like, when there are you know, when there are ways through technology that we can actually have something that feels like meaningful connection to each other. And again, I do think not not everybody, but in a lot of cases, like fantasy sports does that for people because not only does it like have you instead of just consuming things on social media, like you're actively participating, you're actively going back and forth with people. But then also the fact that like sometimes it will like get you in person. Like that's I think that like the ritual of the draft when I was talking to people about for this story for the ringer came up just time and time again. That it's something like that that weekend is like kind of the sacred weekend for for so many guys that has blocked off a year in advance. Like it's non-negotiable. Like it's got to happen. And so yeah, while I think that social media is making everyone lonely, or like the when you can use it to like get you in the room with somebody as just a tool that keeps you connected to somebody it can be worthwhile. It's also just crazy how much social media has changed. Like from high school and college, like 10 to 15 years ago for me, social media actually helped you connect with your friends like in a very authentic way. It was like my Instagram feed was just photos of what my good pals did over the weekend and like what they had for dinner and where they were. And when they were at a baseball game and like on Twitter, it was just like thoughts of my friends who like I didn't live in the same town as. And it was a nice way to see like what was going on with them. You would comment, you would DM. And now it's it couldn't be more different where it's rare that when I log on to Instagram, I see like a photo posted by a friend I know. This is what I was going to say, Craig. It was it feels like fantasy sports are the early days of social media, where it's actually it's the antidote of what really social media is now. Where social media now feels like you're just trying to create like a status for yourself and project status or something. Whereas, you know, fantasy is just like actually keeping in touch with your friends, which was I think what social media originally was. So like the fact that most leagues, I would say most of my leagues have text chains rather than you're not you're not like necessarily I'm not on Yahoo in the chat room. You know, I don't know like if that even is a thing. But it does feel kind of like it's a way to tap back into the early days of social media and just like it's actually about communicating with your friends and hanging out and sending pictures and videos and shit like that. I really like that we were benefiting society by playing fantasy football. I love to tell myself. Yeah, we're the Jordan. She see you got young Jordan thought that we were the bane of sight. I really did. I just you guys. Crawling back all the way. And now I look at me. I'm pathetically asking to be on the ringer fantasy football show. So I can I can like unleash all of all of this angst. But but DK, what you're saying, like I think has a ton of truth to it. Like social media has basically become this place where you're either a consumer who's just scrolling and usually what you're scrolling through is stuff by people who you don't know or you're a performer. You're somebody who's just like performing for an audience. And the like enclosed structure of a league can be like one of the few ways in the digital world where you're actually interacting with human beings who you know and you know, in some capacity care about. Yeah, absolutely. So can we go back to before we hopped on, I have to tell us how you begin the book, an anecdote you tell. I was literally going to say the books called American Men. And I actually, Jordan, the great. Kill me. Can I read the first paragraph of the book? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. You're going to kill me. Go ahead. No. I mean, you started your book this way. I did. Fine. All right. Introduction. Got it. This is great. Every Saturday night when I was in high school, I sat in a room with half dozen teenage with a half dozen other teenage boys and I announced whether I'd made it through the week without masturbating. Usually the answer is no. That's pretty good. Weeks. Well, you the book are moutable. Yeah. Usually the answer was no. I was 17 and impossibly horny, but you were in a run club. But whenever I could say yes, I felt like I was the strongest man who'd ever lived. That is the beginning of the book. Yeah. I. I got to say, if you could make it through an entire week as a 17 year old, that's a huge accomplishment. That's pretty big. Can I give a little context, Typhus? I. Yeah, sure. I suppose that would probably help. So I grew up in a super like evangelical Christian world. And the way when you grow up in that world, the way that you were taught that a teenage boy can love Jesus is by not touching his dick for as long as he can possibly go. And so. And so that that was like part of the culture of that world was this Bible study that I was in, and we can basically confess our sins. And the sin number one that you had to show up with an answer for was, was did you jack it that week? And and, you know, it was this sort of thing that like led to a lot of shame, you know, understandably, obviously. But also really the. Still does. Well, yeah, yeah, just just holding on to this incredible angst when you can actually make it, which was was extremely rare. But also, you know, gets you in the habit of like actually talking about real shit, even though that real shit is kind of like, you know, through this framework that's that's super fucked up in a lot of ways. So anyway, yeah, that that that's how the book starts. Instead of instead of a fantasy league, I had I had a group of guys where we asked each other, so would you jack it this week? You're keeping stats. Yeah, it is kind of like exactly that. There's a leaderboard. There were fantasies. Exactly. It's all the same. I did notice that in the acknowledgements, you actually thanked all the friends from that that you would talk to about the stuff that you're still friends with. Well, I thought you were going to be somebody else. You were going to name them. Oh, that too. Yeah, probably. I don't know, Brooklyn Deck or something. But you were like, I won't go name by name because I've been told it's not cool. Good poll. I know. That wasn't 16 year old. I have this brain. Burden. Yeah. Bar FAL is just lasered in. Yeah, keep going. Yeah, let's hear more. Let's hear the whole sports. It's like I know it's like name a player from the early 2000s. Yeah. I could, which is a trend, which is bad. But no, I yeah, this is very cool book. So yeah, it's called American Men. You can buy it. I was going to say anywhere, but I don't think they have it at like 7 or 11 or anywhere to buy books. And yeah, ringer books or shout out to ringer books. One last thing before you go. This is important. So you're from Georgia, right? I am. Yeah. And you're 41, you said. If one of your friends said the word showed, what do you think that means? Excellent question. A penis that is wider than it is. Whoa. Yeah. So maybe it is geographical. A lot of the other we have a ton of emails we're going to have to get to. But this has been a revelation is that DK apparently for men of a certain age in the Pacific Northwest, they think that showed means your gooch or taint depending on your age and location and our shot. And we had like it's and but for everyone under 35, basically, it means what you just said. And then everyone above 35, it kind of depends where you grew up. That is fascinating. I'd never heard any other meaning for it whatsoever. And yeah, I'm I'm I'm a geriatric. Interesting, but from the south. So yeah. That's a win for the young millennials. It's we boom. Big. I think it is more geographical than generational then. Wow. We'll find out. Jordan, thank you so much for coming. Jordan, thank you so much for coming on. And we really appreciate it. Thank you guys for having me. This was a blast. I really appreciate it. Thank you to Jordan for coming on the show. Thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you, everyone. E-mailed in all. Honestly, I'm stunned by how many people really care. And I bet we'll have a bunch of younger people revolt about the show thing. But thank you to everyone. He emailed in should that should should that be the name? We don't have a name for our listeners. Should I like ghosts? You want to call the Chodes? The ghost is good. I like ghosts. The ghost is like this part of our lives. Ghosts. It's ghosts. It's like because the closest you come to being a ghost is listening to a podcast. Was it trying to think of an answer? Who is the the the radio host that called his listeners, drones? Do you remember this? I don't know. The what you called it a radio ones or something? I have no idea. No, it's a sports guy. I'm fucking blanking on his name. I don't know. It's Jim Rome, Jim Rome, Jim Rome. OK, so we're going with ghosts, not Chodes. Chodes is funnier. Ghost is more appropriate. Some. Yeah. You want people to come up and really have to be like, hey, what are the Chodes? That would be awesome. Yeah. That would be awesome. Easy. Thank you. Thank you to all the ghosts and our Chodes. Thank you to everyone for listening. Thank you to Cam. Thank you to Carlos. Thank you to Abu. Thank you to Austin. Thank you to Jordan again. Thank you, Lord. Lord, thank you to the zombies. Nice. Nice. Nice. They got some hits. What's your relationship? Yeah, with the zombies. Don't have a huge one, I would say. I started nodding because I was actually thinking of zombie by the cranberries. And I actually got confused. I actually did when they when they played zombie in the stadium when we're at the game and Dublin, that was pretty fucking cool. The whole the whole crowd. The season. It's the time. Oh, wow. I feel like that is one of the most put in a movie songs ever. Yeah, it's also been covered a lot. I don't know if they even made the original or not. When the love runs high. Is that right? Yeah. Craig, do you know what song has been put in like the most? Like, if you multiplied movie, like box office by tracks like what do you think movie what song do you think has been in the most movies, but also accounting for how many people saw the movie? I think there's a lot of credence, clearwater and in war movies. I think like Fortunate Sun has been in a fucking ton of war movies. Like every Vietnam movie. Yes, I think Rolling Stones. What's the one song that's in like every Scorsese movie? Why am I blanking on it? Gimme Shelter. It might be Oh, Gimme Shelter. That's in a ton of movies. And also any time in nature documentary, like there's a hurricane, man, it's Gimme Shelter time. Like like these gazelles got to run at David Attenborough's narrating like it's Gimme Shelter. Yeah, those are probably the two that come to mind. It's a good question, though. The most the most classical music, classical music, classical songs. Emails, if you think, you know, the most the most. What am I trying to title the most common needle drops? Yeah, the most common needle drop of all time. You ever think about how like. Gimme Shelter came out in 1969. Think about how long ago in 1969 was and the guy who's saying that song is just kind of still just living and performing. This is like the claim. This is why I want Derek Henry and fantasy. I can't believe it. Like all these Beatles songs came out in the 60s and Paul McCartney is like fine and just walking around. It's crazy. That was so long ago. That's the equivalent of now to 2083. How old is Mick Jagger, though? 80. Yeah, I don't know. He could run for president. He's 82. Like what would you say? How have you said that's 2083? Imagine that 2083. I'm still like like we're still doing the show in 1980 and 2083. That's the equivalent. Paul McCartney is the musical guest on the season finale of SNL this year. It's 2026. He was writing music in the late 50s and he was writing music 12 years before I started. Started in 75. I mean, it's crazy. Mick Jagger, years active, 1962 present. 15 years. That's crazy. Like the thing that he's seen, like the fact that he's just like sitting down firing up like his Apple TV and I'm like, you were just crazy. He had been touring for a decade when they landed on the moon. Yeah. Oh my God. He went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. 35 years ago. Oh my God. Oh, anyway. He. Shut up, Mick. Think about what he's seen. Yeah. Michael Phillips is alive. That's the upset of the century. He's also 82. These guys must be made out of something different. Well, it's funny. I feel like people like to say like, oh, man, you know, you can live that life and like maybe we're all too obsessed with health. Look at Keith Richards. And in reality, most people die very. Most people die. And the reason why Keith Richards is probably alive is because he's extremely rich. It's like paying for so many things that are keeping him alive right now. Yeah, they're the exception to the rule. Do you think we're going to be doing this show in 2083? Dude, I'll be like a hundred. I'll be a hundred one in 2083. Spring chicken. Is that right? Oh my God. Is that true? I bet we're not going to be doing the show in 2083. Think about how slow old people talk. We got to we really got to just do everything at 2.5 X, I think. I we should do we should do an over under pod for like impossible things to predict in the future. Yeah, like when do you think the last NFL game will be? If you had to set a line. Oh my God. What could topple the NFL? If I said like in 2090, is there NFL football or no? Not the version that we have right now. John Boy said, I'll think of this at SB Nation, when does football end? I think no, it'll outlast the country. Right. The country will topple. We'll still have a ball. So many milled us that because we were talking about how Al Gore is younger than Trump and Joe Biden. So many milled in said Dan Quayle, who was Ronald Reagan's vice president, is younger than Trump. Dan Quayle. Yeah, he is younger than Donald Trump. Damn, dude, that's crazy. He is, hold on, where the fuck? He was born in 47. What Ronald Reagan's vice president is younger than Donald Trump. That one blew my fucking mind. Dan Quayle was like a political figure when I was single digits. Like he, yeah. Political what? Like he was a big political name when I was like five. Like I just there was some trade article about how Jane Fonda is starring in some new movie based on a book or something like that. Jane Fonda was born in 1937. And she is in a deadline report of starring in a new movie in 2026. I just watched 1937. I just watched Mad Men. And one of them was like, dude, he dated Jane Fonda. They were like, whoa, that's mad. Dude, they met and they're listening to the Rolling Stones. They're like Don Draper's like, oh, man, times are changing. Dude, fuck. Oh, my God. Don be right now. He'd be like, would he be like a hunt? When was he born? The show starts in what 1960 and he's like. For five would have been like 40. He would have been like 1920. He's born in the press in the mid 40s. So probably like 25, 30. Yeah, it's born like 1925. Yeah. So he's he's super dead. Chris Pundit. He's super. He's either that or super fucking old. He I mean, he'd be 101. And I don't think Don Draper's living. Well, all those people turn a hundred like you just drink whiskey and smoked cigarettes every day. Love your wife. And I mean, yeah, he's two for three. All right. Oh, I did thank you. Yeah. OK. Goodbye, everyone.