Stack Attack! + High Risk Picks - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/25

Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast

The Fantasy Footballers Podcast covers key fantasy football updates for Week 1, including player performance climbers like Keenan Allen and

Key takeaways

• Keenan Allen's move to the Colts likely diminishes Josh Downs' fantasy value despite Allen's strong potential in PPR leagues.
• Jacoby Lane is emerging as a promising rookie wide receiver for the Ravens, especially with Zay Flowers and Mark Andrews facing limitations.

Main topics

• Keenan Allen's ADP rise and impact on Colts' WR depth
• Jacoby Lane as a rookie fantasy breakout candidate

Notable quotes

"Keenan Allen's going to be their number one wide receiver target right off the bat week one."

"If he gets 50 receptions, he moves behind Jerry Rice and Larry Fitzgerald as number three all time."

Conclusion

The episode emphasizes strategic late-round picks and stacking opportu

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Foot Clan, the time is now to get into the Megaloball for 2026. It is the largest fantasy football tournament on earth. Over 21,000 of you playing last year, a chance to win a spot in the 2027 Listener League, a chance to win an Ultimate Foot Clan subscription for life, and best of all, a chance to have won the largest league and have that pride and joy. It's a pretty big deal. It's a pretty big deal. So you can go over to Megaloball.com. Learn about how you can sign up for drafts that go from the 4th of September through the 8th of September. Come Speaker 3 (0:34) play with us. Come play with us on Sleeper. You will not regret it. Hey, this is Jonathan Taylor running back for the Indianapolis Colts, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Speaker 2 (1:04) Oh, welcome in. Speaker 2 (1:18) The Fantasy Footballers, Tuesday, August 25th. Welcome in to another wonderful show. We have... Speaker 2 (1:34) We got a lot going on today. We have a bunch of news to catch you up on. We have performance climbers on the show today. We're going to get into the mailbag, some of your voicemail questions. We're going to talk through a trade today and what we think about it, what it means to the Houston Texans acquiring another wide receiver. And, yeah, a lot going on. We're going to talk a little stack attack, talk through some underrated stacks in fantasy football. Speaker 2 (2:00) And as you heard at the top, the Megalobull is open right now. So you can go sign up, play in a league with us and see if you can win amongst 20,000 plus Foot Clan players. That's hosted on Sleeper and it is Megalobull.com. So that's going on. We just did our live stream yesterday, gave away a UDK for life. I put a little poll up on Twitter. Obviously, people are in a lot of different leagues, but it looked like about 75 % of people still had not drafted. That's great. That's smart. That's wise. Yeah, I mean, injuries are, they suck. Speaker 2 (2:38) It's been worse this Speaker 4 (2:39) year? Speaker 3 (2:40) No, it's actually been. Is Speaker 2 (2:41) it Speaker 3 (2:41) normal? It is normal, and I hate to say this out loud. Speaker 4 (2:45) So far. I got bad news for you, Jason. Jinxes aren't real? Yeah. What you say into the microphone right now will have no impact. Oh, really? Yeah, really. Speaker 3 (2:55) This year, the injuries have been absurdly lower than in recent history, and I'm so happy about that that there will be so few injuries for this offseason. Let's see. You think Speaker 2 (3:09) you got Speaker 3 (3:09) a Speaker 2 (3:09) lot of Speaker 3 (3:09) power? I'm going to find out this weekend. I hope I Speaker 2 (3:12) don't. Settle down, Truman. I am not joking. Mike Truman shows in my head. Yeah, so a lot's going on. Let's go ahead and jump right in. Speaker 3 (3:28) Performance Climbers, presented by GMC. Speaker 2 (3:33) All right. We're looking at players whose average draft position has arisen in recent, the last week or two. Speaker 2 (3:45) Keenan Allen. That one's kind of like, duh. I mean, Keenan Allen's ADP somewhere in the 14th round range. Speaker 2 (3:54) And what do we think? Keenan Allen, you hate it? I hate it so, so much. I Speaker 3 (3:59) realized as I've gone Speaker 2 (4:01) through. Speaker 3 (4:01) You hate Keenan Allen? I hate that Keenan Allen signed with the Colts. I love Keenan Allen. I really genuinely believe Keenan Allen's going to be their, like, number one wide receiver target right off the bat week one. And that's what I hate because I was pretty high on Josh Downs. And the more that I've really looked at who this affects the most. It's clearly Josh Downs. Like, Tyler Warren's going to get his. When Alec Pierce comes back, he's going to be on the outside. We know he's going to be on the outside. Keenan, while being a slot player through his career, he has been more of an outside guy the last couple of years with the Bears. He went and played actually 60-40 outside to inside. He can do it. And so my whole thing is like, I wanted to see Josh Downs in two wide receiver sets, and I don't think I'm going to. Speaker 4 (4:49) They Speaker 2 (4:50) didn't. Speaker 4 (4:50) They didn't want to. They did. They saw it. Speaker 3 (4:55) Yeah, maybe he wasn't good enough. That's the thing. It's a tough Speaker 2 (4:58) thing to ask a player to do that's been in the league for a long time that has that physical size to go and become reliable at a position you're not used to. I don't think it Speaker 3 (5:09) is solely an indictment on Josh Downs. They don't have depth. Alec Pierce is not back yet. They need another wide receiver, period. Yeah, they do. And Speaker 4 (5:19) the Speaker 3 (5:19) relationship here between Steichen and Jim Bob Cooter and Keenan Allen, like this was. Is there a chance it's still downs? I think there is a chance, but Keenan's going to get his. I mean, he's after this year, if he gets 50 receptions. At least 50 receptions. Book it. He moves behind Jerry Rice and Larry Fitzgerald as number three all time. That's crazy. So he'll get his. For fantasy, where do you draft him? What do you expect he's going to do? I think if I'm in a full PPR league, Keenan Allen's going to be a definite top 24 wide receiver for the first month. Speaker 2 (5:52) I don't know, man. Speaker 3 (5:53) I Speaker 2 (5:54) think that maybe that's the case. I don't look at Keenan Allen as Speaker 3 (5:59) a Speaker 2 (5:59) player I'm targeting in drafts personally. Me either. Because I don't target older PPR wide receivers in the super late rounds. I target... Young, rookie, upside, Concepcion, Lemon, you know, those Tyson. Tyson will be earlier. But just anybody in that later round, Jacoby Lane, who we're going to talk about in a second. I just want a shot at seeing if I can find gold. Like Keenan Allen, I mean, to your point, if he's good at the beginning, it will decrease with the return of Alec Pierce. Which we did just Speaker 4 (6:34) from Stephen Holder. Colts wide receiver Alec Pierce is expected to return to practice this week if all goes to plan. Speaker 2 (6:42) Well, Speaker 3 (6:42) that's great. Speaker 2 (6:43) It's funny because I saw something this morning that was an announcement that Alec Pierce won't practice today. Well, Speaker 4 (6:47) today. Speaker 2 (6:47) Both can be true. Yeah. It could still be this week. That's good, though. That's great. I mean, they paid that guy a lot of cheddar. Mike, do you see Keenan on any of your teams? Speaker 4 (6:58) Certain builds, I think there's definitely a point where. Especially like Jay said, when you're in PPR and you're just getting those free points. Yeah, we make the joke all the time of like he could be a boat. It's like he Speaker 3 (7:14) can't be a boat. Speaker 4 (7:16) Keenan now might be a rowboat at this point, which is Speaker 2 (7:19) like Speaker 4 (7:20) you aren't going to sink. Yeah, Speaker 2 (7:22) you're not plugging holes. You're Speaker 3 (7:23) not Speaker 2 (7:23) drowning. But it's going to be a workout. Keenan or Diggs. Speaker 4 (7:26) It's going to be a workout, too. I would take Stephon Diggs. That's Speaker 2 (7:29) how I lean, too, with the opportunity with Jaden Daniels. Jacoby Lane, aforementioned Jacoby Lane, rookie wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens. He has moved up about a round or two. He was a third-round pick, 6'4", 200. I watched a lot of Jacoby Lane film over the last month and a half. Why is that? He's on my Dynasty team. Don't act like your Kyle Williams excitement isn't fueled by your Dynasty rostering of Kyle Williams. Sir, I would never. Yeah, I know how this works. But, yeah, you pay a little extra close attention to players. Yeah, Speaker 4 (8:05) you Speaker 2 (8:05) do, of course. Especially on a team like mine where I'm like, do I have any players? But to me, it's just been really exciting to watch him work. His highlights, his collegiate highlights are awesome. Jacoby Lane, you know, so far been making plays. He's one of the few guys like Pat Bryant that has made headlines in camp. And you have a situation now with. Look, Zay Flowers got paid. Mark Andrews is older. Rashad Bateman not only has never really materialized into anything of value for fantasy, but now he's dealing with a domestic violence situation. From Speaker 4 (8:43) the Speaker 2 (8:43) summer. Yeah. Yep. Baltimore Speaker 4 (8:47) Beat Speaker 2 (8:47) reporters, what are you doing? This was Speaker 3 (8:49) out there. Speaker 4 (8:51) Well, okay. I Speaker 2 (8:53) think the most recent, I mean, I thought the news broke like a week ago. Speaker 4 (8:56) Yeah. If it were out, if it was out, look, I'm pretty much the lawnmower man here. I live on the internet, and I didn't see it. So they were not really getting the word out. Yeah, I mean, I literally had a claim in, because it was like, The day before that started going public, there was a report. It's like, hey, the Houston Texans are looking at trading for Kayshaun Booty or Rashad Bateman. Right. I had a waiver claim in in our Dynasty League for Rashad Bateman. And then you canceled it? And then it's like, oh, this is all of Speaker 2 (9:32) a Speaker 4 (9:32) sudden coming out. Yeah, the news that I'm reading here Speaker 2 (9:35) is Speaker 4 (9:35) that following Speaker 2 (9:35) reports on Friday of Ravens receiver Rashad Bateman's June arrest, the NFL started launching an investigation three days ago. So the club has been in contact with the league regarding the matter, which is under review in the personal conduct policy. He could be suspended unpaid six games. that may need to have the legal process complete for the NFL to do that. Speaker 4 (9:58) Yeah, he won't start suspended, but I'm curious, does it Speaker 2 (10:02) force Speaker 4 (10:04) Jacoby Lane onto the field sooner rather than later? Because he's a third-rounder. We know historically the trends are guys who are going that late. They don't play very many snaps at the beginning of the year. It's towards the second half. But if you are bracing that. Rashad Bateman isn't the future. He will have his own problems in the future. Maybe we get Jacoby on the field sooner. Speaker 2 (10:31) Great quotes from the team. Jameson Hensley came out on August 8th and said, In 27 years covering the Ravens, I've never seen a rookie have a training camp like Jacoby Lane's. Every day Lane produces a highlight-making catch, and today he has Derrick Henry leaping in the air in celebration. Declan Doyle, their offensive coordinator, what we thought about him, it just continues to show up. The guy I was around that has hands like his that he reminds me of is Michael Thomas. Speaker 3 (10:55) He's definitely got amazing hands. Let me ask this one. The hype train is going. We haven't really seen any wide receiver two with Lamar Jackson be very relevant. And obviously day three picks are. Well, we've Speaker 4 (11:13) seen Speaker 3 (11:13) a Speaker 4 (11:14) wide receiver and a tight end be relevant. So is there enough Speaker 3 (11:19) catchers? Yeah, for sure. And this is a new offense as well. With the data that we have of day two and day three wide receivers starting slow, after this trade for Keyshawn Booty, a veteran who's going to almost certainly be the wide receiver two on the field, would you rather draft Booty or would you rather draft Jacoby Lane? Speaker 2 (11:42) I saw some stuff this morning about Booty. The team might not even see him as a starter. And so I would take the shot on the younger Jacoby Lane establishing himself in a new offense with a new head coach and offensive coordinator and system that we don't really know what they're going to unveil, but we know that we trust Lamar Jackson more than we trust C.J. Stroud to make something out of Booty. I mean, Xavier Hutchinson could very well be the starter from day one in Houston. Booty, he's a last year of his deal, right? So do they use him? I don't know. It's also Speaker 4 (12:15) a pretty late transition to get things. into gear for good point for houston that's Speaker 2 (12:20) a Speaker 4 (12:20) good point Speaker 2 (12:21) yeah uh the last name in uh performance climbers mike washington jr what a week it was for mike washington jr and all the hype there i wish we had like real-time data of just like his draft spot yeah um here's here's what we'll start with with mike washington this is a rookie running back for las vegas uh mike you i think really liked what you saw on film from him Speaker 4 (12:43) no he was no it's more of the opposite of the his metrics and stuff didn't fully match what he should be doing. Like he's six, one 220. And he is like, he's the 1 % of the 1 % when it comes to athleticism. So you expected more out of, at least I expected more out of him. And we, you know, in, in the process it was, Oh boy. this guy just ran a 4-3-3. He's going to get real steamed up in the draft, and he didn't. So I think that that was the part that I liked of, okay, he's going to a spot where he doesn't have to be the guy right away because I don't think he's ready to be a full-time pro starter. Speaker 3 (13:28) It was funny when when he's in, though, yes, when he seemed like he went down, underdog put out like how low he went in some drafts and how high Mike Washington went in some drafts. And I believe Mike Washington was drafted at like thirty seven overall. Holy. Which. Yeah. What? Yeah. And it's it's what I want to. It's the combination of the exciting long speed play in the preseason with, oh, you're the only guy. You're the full-time Speaker 2 (13:58) starter somehow. Speaker 3 (13:59) But this is a very bad situation, a team that you don't expect to score a lot, and a day three running back without production. His profile isn't really good. Like A.J. Dillon, it reminds me of that a lot, where it's like A.J. Dillon had