VideoFrom Ron Stewart
How Ball Knowers Are Drafting the First 2 Rounds in 2026 Fantasy Football
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this video and kept the full transcript here for context.
56 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Jun 2, 2026
Published
Tue, June 2, 2026
20
Player insights
6
Players mentioned
Topics
A.J. BrownJeremiyah LoveDerrick HenryNico CollinsTrey McBrideJustin Herbert
Player analysis
Player insights
A.J. Brown
PositiveProjection0:48
A.J. Brown's trade to the Patriots is the best possible landing spot; he now has a reasonable outcome of being WR1 overall, with the Patriots projected for the 4th-6th most passing yards in the NFL.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:49
Brown has been capped by low-volume passing offenses on the Titans and Eagles; the Patriots' projected 4th-6th most passing yards would be a career high, unlocking his elite efficiency.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:50
Brown averages 2.55 yards per route run over his entire career (higher than Amon Ra St. Brown's 2.48 last year), demonstrating elite per-play efficiency even in down years.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:51
Brown is among an elite eight-player list (Jordy Nelson, Michael Irvin, Julio Jones, Justin Jefferson, DeSean Jackson, Jerry Rice, Tyreek Hill) with 400+ receptions and 9.7+ yards per target before age 30.
Insight pageNegativeProjection0:52
Brown is coming off a down year with his first season under 2 yards per route run, is entering his age 29 season, and suffered a knee injury last year, raising legitimate concerns about decline.
Insight pagePositiveBreakout0:52
This is a honeymoon season for Brown with Josh McDaniels (who had success with Davante Adams, Brandon Marshall, Randy Moss); the analyst compares it to Stefon Diggs in 2020 and Randy Moss in 2007.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:53
Brown is an emotional, dynamic player (Deebo-type) in a new environment with Mike Vrabel; the analyst expects one special year from him in the mid-to-late second round.
Insight pagePositiveMatchup0:53
The Patriots weren't a high-volume passing offense last year (only 5 more pass attempts than the Eagles), but they were efficient and sixth in pass rate in neutral situations.
Insight pageDerrick Henry
PositiveProjection0:44
Despite a down year for the Ravens, Henry still posted 1,600 rushing yards and was RB8 in points per game; with a healthy Lamar Jackson, the Ravens should bounce back.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:44
Henry showed his ceiling in 2024 as RB4 in points per game, nearly reaching 20+ points per game, demonstrating he can still produce at an elite level.
Insight pageNegativeProjection0:44
At age 32 with 2,850 career touches (most among active players), Henry is in the 2,000-touch club with McCaffrey, Kamara, Saquon, Mixon, and Josh Jacobs, raising concerns about father time catching up.
Insight pageJeremiyah Love
PositiveSleeper0:45
Love is the cheapest a no-doubter running back prospect has gone in a while, going as a 2-3 turn player despite being drafted third overall with elite receiving talent.
Insight pageNegativeMatchup0:45
The Cardinals are projected 31st in points scored by Vegas with a 4.5 win total (tied for worst with Miami), creating bad game scripts and negative game flow for Love.
Insight pageNegativeRole0:45
The Cardinals also signed Tyler Allgeier and still have James Conner and Trey Benson in the backfield, creating a crowded running back situation for Love.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:46
Love is a special talent drafted third overall with elite receiving ability; he could rack up 60+ catches, find efficiency on explosive plays, and become a playoff league winner.
Insight pageJustin Herbert
PositiveProjection0:41
With a healthy offensive line (ranked 6th) featuring Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt, Justin Herbert and Mike McDaniel's offense could contend for MVP consideration this year.
Insight pageNico Collins
NegativeInjury0:47
Collins has wasted another year to injury; his ability to stay healthy is a major concern for his fantasy production.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:47
Collins has elite yards per route run efficiency and the analyst believes in his talent; if he can stay healthy and C.J. Stroud bounces back to his rookie-year peak, Collins can smash.
Insight pageTrey McBride
NegativeProjection0:46
McBride is in a tough Cardinals offense situation; with a new play caller in LaFleur and uncertainty around Kyler Murray, he will likely come down from his 18+ points per game last year to around 15.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:47
Despite the decline from 18+ to 15 points per game, McBride will still likely outproduce other wide receivers in his range and represents a fine use of a late second-round pick.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00What's going on, man? Welcome back to the basement. I'm Ron, and today I'm going to rank my top 24 overall players
0:07for the 2026 fantasy football season.
0:10I'm excited to knock all the rust off.
0:12It is officially redraft season. We're on the main channel, the Ron Stewart channel. And I was thinking to myself, why not get really in the weeds on these
0:22top guys. You guys know, by the time we're into August, you guys have heard all that you need to hear on Jahmyr
0:27Gibbs, Bijan Robinson, Puka Nacua. No one wants to hear about those guys. You want the sleepers and the targets and the fades and all of that. But today, we
0:34are going to set the foundation and walk you through how the first two rounds of your fantasy football draft should go.
0:41Of course, the top 24. As always, if you enjoy, leave a like. Subscribe if you're new. And our first player here in S-tier
0:50is going to be Jahmyr Gibbs. He is my 101. You guys are going to see, as I rank these players, it's going to be in
0:56terms of their draft slots. I kind of just want to show you how the first two rounds of a draft should look through my
1:03lens. Now, of course, if you want access to the rankings, I already have up loadable Underdog rankings over on the patreon, patreon.com/ronstewart.
1:12I'll have that below in the description and the comment section below. Now, this is going to be PPR rankings, tiered.
1:20Within each tier, you can rank them however you please. I think that we have as many as six 101 candidates this year.
1:25There's not a clear answer. But to me, I'm going to go with Jahmyr Gibbs. This is kind of the day that we've been
1:31waiting for since we first drafted Jahmyr Gibbs in his rookie year in like, what was it? 2022? Where Or no, '23,
1:39'24, '25. So, 2023, where he's finally unleashed from David Montgomery. Uh, this is his six-game sample without David Montgomery over his entire career.
1:49No, I I don't think that he is going to average 25 half PPR points per game uh, this season. but it just illustrates
1:59his upside, right? He was on an 1,800 rushing yard, 600 receiving yard pace without David Montgomery, but I think it does
2:07outline his upside, right? When we're thinking about McCaffrey last year, McCaffrey in 2019, David Johnson 2016, these like massive monster years, Jahmyr
2:18Gibbs heading into year four without David Montgomery could be one of those monster years. Now, I will say last year, as we predicted,
2:27it was the widest split between him and Montgomery where in 2024, Montgomery averaged 80 total yards per game last year at 53 total
2:35yards per game, but I think that there's still room for Gibbs to take on even more of that workload. Now, we have
2:41Isaiah Pacheco coming in who's fine, but he's kind of the perfect meat shield running back is what I would call him where he is going to be used
2:50between the 20s. I think they'll still prefer Gibbs inside the red zone, on the goal line, in crucial passing situations, and Pacheco can just kind of
2:57give him breather snaps between the 20s as like a perfect, you know, take this like second and seven rush up the middle
3:06on the 50-yard line, and we saw, you know, Pacheco, he's fine. He he struggled to kind of beat off uh to beat out Kareem Hunt
3:16last season. And then we also see in terms of Gibbs' workload and kind of the ceiling that hasn't been cracked yet.
3:22You look at all these 20-plus point per game scorers in PPR over on Fantasy Life's Utilization Report. He is the only guy inside of the top five, the
3:29only running back last year with 20-plus points per game to have under a 75% snap share. On top of that, he had just 38.5%
3:36of the carries inside of the 5-yard line. I think we're going to see a snap go up to 75% plus. I think we'll see his
3:42inside the five carry rate go way up, and then all of a sudden, when you're talking about Gibbs and the pass-catching upside, right? 65-plus,
3:5070-plus receptions, you start to really talk yourself into a massive ceiling.
3:55And then kind of the cherry on top is last year, uh he hit career lows in yards per carry, yards after contact per
4:00attempt, rushes of 10 plus, rushes of 15 plus. And I think if we can get some rushing efficiency here, especially with
4:06new offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, where if we look at zone versus man gap concepts, essentially what's happening here from Zane over at Fantasy Points,
4:16Gibbs is much better in a man gap scheme. Drew Petzing is going to bring that over. And all of a sudden, if we
4:23can get 70 plus catches, top 10 offense in Detroit, Jahmyr Gibbs getting the most volume he's ever had along with the
4:30rushing efficiency on top of that, we're talking about somebody who could break fantasy. Now, somebody else who's kind of getting unleashed here is Bijan
4:38Robinson, right? Same draft class, same era, uh same I guess like generation of running backs. If you want to have Bijan
4:45101, you absolutely can, because like Jahmyr Gibbs, he is kind of I don't know, like shedding something that used to be very annoying for
4:55fantasy football, right? David Montgomery for Jahmyr Gibbs, Tyler Allgeier not the same kind of he he definitely had an impact on
5:04Bijan's scoring, but not as much as Montgomery has had over the last couple of years. But even still, last year you
5:08could see the inside the five rush attempt percentage, 48% for Tyler Allgeier last year. Uh Gibbs Bijan could have had an even better year than he did last
5:20year if it wasn't for Tyler Allgeier stealing some goal line rushes and some late game usage. But now we have Brian
5:27Robinson coming in who is just a fine player in the NFL. Like he was okay last year with McCaffrey, uh just kind of giving him a breather. I
5:35think that that's what he's going to be next to Bijan Robinson. Bijan is obviously an awesome player, second in yards after contact per attempt last
5:44year, first in missed tackles forced, next most was JT67.
5:48Bijan had 86, which is just monstrous. Uh and then he's awesome as a receiver. 79 receptions behind only McCaffrey last year. First in yards per
5:57hour alone among running backs. First among running backs with 26 missed tackles forced on his receptions. And then we have Noa Algeier, who gives
6:06Bijan even more touchdown upside heading into this season. Now, the reason why I have him behind Gibbs is because inherently the touchdown
6:16upside for Gibbs is much higher than Bijan just given their offenses. This is a great little cheat sheet I made from
6:24@ConnorAllenNFL over on Twitter. He's the guy every year that I follow who looks at the look-ahead lines by Vegas and pretty
6:32much reverse engineers it so that you can see what the average implied point totals for every team is so we can see which
6:39offenses Vegas think is going to score the most amount of points. Detroit obviously number three. And Atlanta is all the way down there at 23, right? So
6:47we're talking Michael Penix.
6:49We are talking and and I'll give him uh love on his original tweet as well where you can see he went through
6:56the incredible hassle uh that is like finding the implied lines for all of these games. And again, what that gives us is this little cheat sheet where we
7:05can see who's going to have the good teams, who's going to have the best offenses.
7:09And there's just a little bit more volatility here where again, like we don't know how Penix is going to look.
7:13Tua, you have Stefanski. Uh I don't think Stefanski is even going to be calling plays. I believe it's going to be Tommy Rees. So there's just a lot up
7:18in the air, but regardless, when we look at these two top guys, you can have them whoever you want.
7:24When we look at PPR points through a running back's first three seasons, it is LT, it is McCaffrey, it is Gibbs, it
7:30is Bijan. These guys are the best running backs of their generation, truly heading into their prime. Whoever you want at 101,
7:38uh you can have there. Now, Now, you want to put a wide receiver at 101, uh I wouldn't fault you either. We have a lot
7:44of good options this year. At 103, still in this S-tier, I have Ja'Marr Chase because when he's healthy next to Joe Burrow, we have a 25 game
7:53sample over the last 2 years of Ja'Marr Chase with Joe Burrow. He is averaging 22.5 points per game on a 129 catch
8:011,666 yard, 14 touchdown, 17 game pace. When Joe Burrow is healthy, this is an all-time talent when you look at kind of
8:11the pace and the trajectory he is on. He has the most PPR points for a wide receiver through their first 78 games,
8:17more than Jefferson, more than Rice, more than Julio, more than OBJ, more than Randy Moss, more than Tyreek Hill.
8:22And he also has this massive spike week potential where he has three games of 50+ PPR points. That is the most ever
8:31for a wide receiver. He has only played in 78 games. The only other wide receiver with 50+ PPR points more than
8:36once is Jerry Rice. He did it over a span of 300 games. Ja'Marr Chase can single-handedly win you a week. And as
8:43long as Joe Burrow is healthy and Ja'Marr Chase is healthy Ja'Marr Chase is going to be in the 20+ point per game area. Then we can talk
8:51about my 104. That'll be Puka, the guy who was actually the wide receiver one last year with 23.4 points per game. The
8:59season before, he was the wide receiver two overall at 18.8 points per game. As a rookie, he was the wide receiver six
9:04with 17.6 points per game. He is on a pretty crazy trajectory as well in tandem with Ja'Marr Chase. Now, I think
9:12he's a little bit more fragile than Ja'Marr Chase and why I have Chase ahead of him is just we have a long sample
9:18size of Chase being awesome, Chase being awesome next to Joe Burrow.
9:22Puka Nacua, it's a little bit more shaky and it's really not even Puka's fault.
9:25It's really more Matthew Stafford who look, I like Matthew Stafford. This offense is projected to score the most in the NFL
9:32but there is some risk, right? Stafford is going to his age 38 season. Last year he had 46 touchdowns and 4,700 passing
9:40yards, which is awesome.
9:42But, the two seasons before, right, so Puka's rookie year and his second year, Stafford's average was 3,800 yards, so about 1,000 yards less, and then 22
9:51touchdowns, so about half the touchdowns. If you look at it, he had 46 touchdowns in 2025 alone, Matthew Stafford. In 2023 and 2024 combined, he
10:01had 44 touchdowns.
10:04I'm not saying that we're going to see this massive regression from Matthew Stafford, but we could see some regression. We could see an age fall
10:10off. There's just a lot going on there.
10:12He had his back issues last summer.
10:14There's just a little bit more inherent risk with Puka than the other three, along with the fact that Puka has had his own injury issues. Last year
10:22there was a scare, but he ended up being all right. Year before that he misses about four or so games, and then even
10:27back to college, he like broke his foot, missed a ton of time.
10:30Uh and I also, I don't know, I don't want to like pile on with the Puka stuff. I'm not super concerned about this, but it's
10:37at least worth noting that he had the thing where he like went to rehab and he like bit somebody on like an Adin Ross
10:41stream or something. I'm not worried about that. I just think it's worth mentioning to you guys that I don't really care. It seems like he's going to
10:48be fine. Uh then at the 1.05, let's put JSN here, who was absolutely awesome last year.
10:57Arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL, wins Offensive Player of the Year.
11:02All of the perimetrics, he crushed. Uh he jumps up from like a mid wide receiver two to a 21.2 point per game.
11:10The I think that he was only outscored by Puka last year. He was genuinely awesome. He's just not as established as
11:16these other four names ahead of him, right? This was like JSN's first year, and then on top of that, there is some
11:21spooky stuff where we're now in a spot where JSN loses his offensive coordinator, right? He loses Kubiak, who goes to the Raiders. And
11:30last year you could see in one and two wide receiver sets, a big boost for JSN was these one wide receiver sets, these two
11:37wide receiver sets from Ryan Heath here with heavier personnel.
11:41I'm not super concerned just yet that things are going to change. Right now we have Brian Schottenheimer. It says don't expect Seahawks offense look very
11:47different in 2026. It should be a lot of the same.
11:51But we're nitpicking here, right? It could be a little bit different. On top of that, the reason why we care about
11:56the heavy personnel stuff and the two tight end groupings, the three tight end groupings, Adam Levitan walks through it here. Wide receiver yards per route run
12:02with two tight ends on the field goes from 1.56 to 1.92. The more tight ends there are on the field, the bigger
12:09efficiency boost you can expect for your wide receiver. And Kubiak used it so much last year that JSN really benefited from it. We shall see how things look in
12:182026 for JSN.
12:20Could Sam Darnold take a step back?
12:22Could we see a Seahawks hangover in a similar fashion to what we just saw with the Eagles in 2025? There's a lot that
12:28could go wrong, but again, we're nitpicking. He is my 1.05. And Vegas likes this offense as well. Vegas has the Seahawks projected for the eighth
12:36most points scored in 2026, which I think is pretty awesome for a team that just lost their offensive coordinator.
12:44Then at the 1.06, somebody who I think you can make a great case to be the 1.01. He outscored everybody already
12:50listed, McCaffrey. 24.5 points per game last year. Here is kind of like the, I guess, leaderboard from last year if you
12:57want to look at it. The flex players by PPR points per game. McCaffrey 24.5 points per game. A full, uh, like about
13:052 and 1/2 points per game better than the next running back, who was Bijan Robinson.
13:10If you want to put McCaffrey at 1.01, you can. It's just a matter of risk tolerance, right? We sort of do this
13:17song and dance every year. Uh, in 2023, he was the RB1, 24.5 points per game.
13:23Then in 2024, he plays four games. And then in 2025, he is the RB1 with 24.5 points per game.
13:33You just got to kind of decide, right?
13:35We're now in a spot where if you want to map out projections, he's probably going to project as the RB1 again.
13:41But, we are now heading into his age-30 season. He's racked up a lot of volume.
13:47We've seen he kind of has these like I don't know what you want to call them, not boomerang seasons, but you get what
13:52I'm saying, like RB1, and then he plays four games, and he's RB1.
13:56I don't want to pattern match too hard, but this could be the year where it's another, you know, he plays six games,
14:00and he ruins fantasy football teams, or you are kicking yourself because you passed on him.
14:08It's tough, right? He had a lot of touches last year.
14:11He had This is from Matt Harmon. He had 480 touches. We saw when Saquon had 494 touches on the Super Bowl run with the
14:18Eagles that he fell off the following season. I'm not saying that McCaffrey's going to fall off. I am just saying that
14:22106 here is really only me ranking him at 106 because of the risks of all these touches, him being older, right? We look
14:32at the best 30-plus age seasons. It's Priest Holmes, it's Tiki Barber, it's Charlie Garner, it's Walter Payton in terms of 20-plus points per game. Then
14:41you have some Curtis Martin, Walter Payton, Derrick Henry. So, it's not over, right? We could still get a good year.
14:47I do just wonder what the the range is, right? Does he still have 25 points per game in his in his bag? I think so.
14:53Could he scale back to more like a 19 points per game? Maybe. Could he get banged up, Father Time catches up,
15:01and it's a lost season in 2026? It wouldn't shock me either. So, I don't know. He has 100-plus reception upside.
15:06He is RB1 overall by two to three points per game gapping the field upside, and then he could also ruin your season. So, 106 is where I'm
15:15comfortable taking the risk personally.
15:17Now, we move on to the A tier.
15:20This is where I don't think you can make a case for any these guys to be the first overall pick, but these are all
15:24still strong mid to late first options.
15:27At 107, uh in PPR, I will be going Amon-Ra St.
15:31Brown, as we talked about earlier.
15:33Awesome offense, right? Detroit projected to score the third most points. I know that they brought in Drew Petzing. I think that Dan Campbell has
15:39his hand has more of his hand in the offense than you would think. We saw last year uh when he kind of stepped up to do the
15:45play calling duties, things got better, but they also sort of stayed the same in his image. Where no matter who's calling
15:51plays, it's still his blueprint of motion and the fun stuff, whether that's like Amon-Ra St. Brown pitching it to Jahmyr Gibbs and the trick plays and the
16:03the stumble player or whatever.
16:05I know that that was with Ben Johnson, but that is like the Dan Campbell DNA, and I kind of trust uh as long as Dan
16:10Campbell's there, as long as Jared Goff is there, that this team is going to score points. Uh and when we look at
16:15Amon-Ra St. Brown, that's what he does.
16:17He's been the wide receiver four in points per game for three straight seasons. He has missed one game over that span. At a certain point, you just
16:24have to sort of say if I can lock in an 18-plus point per game wide receiver in round one and then
16:29kind of figure everything else in round two on, I think that that is a really nice option at this point in your draft.
16:37Then we will talk about the 108. I have JT.
16:41JT's a tough one, man. JT was awesome last year. JT almost beat out McCaffrey, right? We just looked at McCaffrey with
16:4723.5 points per game. JT in 13 games with Daniel Jones actually beat that with 23.9 points per game. He was insane. 6.0 yards after contact per
16:57attempt last year. Second in missed tackles forced. Third in rushes of 10-plus yards. Tied for fifth in rushes of 15-plus yards.
17:05Career high 46 catches. He had a almost like a not a new role, but a better role uh with Shane Steichen, where he was a
17:13true bell cow. He wasn't getting pulled off the field in passing situations like in the past for Naim Hines or even there was like a
17:20stretch where it was like a mirror Abdallah or whatever. He was the passing down back. He was a true three down
17:26workhorse. If you can start flirting with 45 plus catches for JT, he has RB1 upside as we just saw. But none of my
17:32questions are with JT or the offensive line or Steichen. It's all Daniel Jones not JT.
17:40I know that Daniel Jones is going to be ready for week one, right? We have this from Deepak Chona up there likely
17:44cleared by week one but expect a major dip in mobility in year one. Achilles for a right-handed quarterback right side Achilles likely dip in throwing
17:50power push off strength. Data returns to favors return to baseline for 2027. So he is going to be ready, willing and
17:58able to play in week one, but will he be as effective as he was last year?
18:03Probably not and I think that is a big issue. We have from first things first here. I just think the graphic is good where you saw
18:11the environment that JT was playing in.
18:13First in team points per game, Daniel Jones sixth in completion percentage, fifth in yards per game, fifth in yards per pass attempt, eighth in touchdowns,
18:20ninth in passer rating. I would be shocked if Daniel Jones is even inside like the top 15 for a lot of those stats. So we now have a spot
18:30where we go from best offense in the NFL for that 13 game stretch to what Vegas has them as the 18th best
18:38offense with a 7.5 win total. So not as many leads for JT to kind of chew away, not as many points to be scored, not as
18:45many yards to be had or touchdowns to be scored and that puts JT kind of back to what he looked like last year which was
18:53a questionable offense. JT has the talent.
18:57Probably more of like a 18 point per game projection, 17 point per game projection which is still strong. It's just it's
19:06I don't want to say cuz I Daniel Jones is not as bad as JJ McCarthy but it's similar to last year where
19:11it was Jefferson is an awesome awesome player, but he's attached to J.J.
19:15McCarthy. J.T. Awesome awesome player, but he's attached to post year one Achilles tear, Daniel Jones. How is that going to look? Then at 109
19:24we have Justin Jefferson. We're going back to the well on J.J. Jeff.
19:29Brutal year last year after a historic start, right? We were talking wide receiver nine, wide receiver four, wide receiver two, wide receiver five, wide
19:35receiver three, and then wide receiver 28 in points per game with just two touchdowns scored.
19:41And a lot of that you can thank J.J.
19:43McCarthy for. His 17-game pace in 10 games with McCarthy is 75 catches, 913 yards, and three touchdowns in 84 games of Sam Darnold, Kirk Cousins, Josh
19:53Dobbs, Max Brosmer, Carson Wentz, whoever.
19:56His 17-game pace with those quarterbacks, 108 catches, 1,600 yards, eight touchdowns. That's like a set-it-and-forget-it 19-plus point per game wide receiver.
20:08And I think, say whatever you want about Kyler Murray, as long as Jefferson can get average quarterback play, he's going to be absolutely fine for fantasy. I
20:16think that's what we can expect from Ryan Heath here. Passer rating from KOC's quarterbacks since 2021.
20:21J.J. McCarthy down there at 17.6. Kyler Murray has never posted a QB rating lower than 87.2. Jefferson averages 19.9 points per game with the first four
20:30quarterbacks, or 18.9 points per game even if you exclude Darnold and Cousins from that list. Kyler should be able to give him
20:39again, we are just talking, can he just give average quarterback play, not bottom five in the NFL, and we're going to get Jefferson back to where he has
20:47been historically. And the last time we saw Kyler Murray fully fully healthy for a full season in 2024, he was 13th in
20:54EPA per play, he was eighth in success rate, ninth in QBR, 14th in passing yards per game. And again, that's all we are looking for.
21:01I'm not arguing that Kyler's going to win an MVP or a playoff game or whatever.
21:05But I feel pretty strongly that with Kyler can just be a league average quarterback and that is going to be just
21:11fine for Jefferson. Uh the three previous years before the JJ McCarthy season, Kevin O'Connell had top five and top six in passing yards and passing
21:21touchdowns. I think that we're going to get top 10 to 15 for this passing offense and if that happens, we are
21:26going to get Justin Jefferson back in the mix as a top six wide receiver in points per game. Then at the 110,
21:35we have another wide receiver. At this point after Lamb to me, there's a big tier break to the next wide receiver. At running back, I think
21:43that there's still some guys you can argue with and to me still a tier below JT. So, CeeDee Lamb is who I would take
21:49here, especially knowing that let's say you're on the clock at the 110. You take to me the last really good wide receiver
21:54in CeeDee Lamb and then there's like a group of I don't know, six running backs, whether that's like James Cook, JT, Saquon,
22:01uh if you like Achane, uh Kenneth Walker, whatever. Those guys will come back. To me, it gets a little bit more
22:05scarce at receiver uh after Lamb is off the board. So, I like him kind of for scarcity reasons at 110, but 2025 is definitely a year
22:14that you kind of have to throw out for CeeDee Lamb after a wide receiver seven, wide receiver one, wide receiver seven
22:18finish. Just three touchdowns last year, 14 games played. He had a high ankle sprain that he was working through. He recovered from that. Had bad touchdown
22:27luck. Uh and before injury, the first two games before he had the high ankle sprain, he had 100 plus receiving yards
22:33in both of those games. Now, Pickens was awesome and I think it's a little bit overstated that like Pickens is like alphaing CeeDee Lamb or
22:41like a reason why CeeDee Lamb can't perform. Pickens in the four games that CeeDee Lamb played less than 10 snaps from fantasy points data here, 24 points
22:47per game. In the 13 other games, 14.9.
22:50And then we have 12 games of them fully healthy together.
22:53Uh 16.6 points per game for CeeDee Lamb again on just three touchdowns. I think that that is going to go up. And then
22:58Pickens, wide receiver 10. So, still fine. I think that CeeDee Lamb still has the upside like he's had in the past of
23:03like a top six season even next to George Pickens.
23:07We look at this point scored. Dallas is up there at the fourth. And then also if you look at like the top
23:1310 teams in projected points, Dallas has one of the lowest win totals at 9.5. We could see some more shootouts. Of course they have the dome
23:20games in Dallas. Their defense is I guess improved, but it's still not awesome. So there's going to be some game script shootout stuff. I trust Dak
23:29Prescott attached to CD Lamb. I think that this year could be a good bounce back. Then we'll make it to the B tier.
23:36This is where we start to get into rocky water to me. Uh we start to get into like lesser wide receiver profiles and
23:41then with the running backs there's a lot of like optimism or like using your imagination.
23:47And I think at the 111 is where I will start to use my imagination here with Ashton Jeanty.
23:55He was the RB 15 in points per game last year in an all-time bad situation from Data Robot here. The 2025 Raiders had
24:02the fourth worst EPA per play offense over the last decade. EPA per play just being per play efficiency. It was brutal. Now
24:11we have them projected by Vegas to score the 28th most points in the NFL. This is where we're going to say Ron, like why
24:16do you have Jeanty ranked here if that's the case? Well, and this is where I think I'm going to lose some of you guys.
24:22I like to look at the Vegas projections.
24:23They're good. They're a good baseline, but I think projections and you know prospect models like I've had on the Dynasty channel and stuff, it's all just
24:31a compass where at a certain point you have to look at the map and kind of like blaze your own trail.
24:37This is going to be a spot where I disagree with Vegas, with the sports books. And I think that this offense
24:43with Kubiak, with the addition of Linderbaum at center, with the addition of Fernando and Mendoza, we are going to see
24:52a much improved offense here. Last year Seattle would have been in the same spot, projected as a bottom 10 offense, and they came out and they were awesome.
25:01I think Kubiak is going to exceed expectations again. Last year Kubiak had the eighth most yards, third most points, third most rush attempts, 10th
25:07most rushing yards, ninth most rushing touchdowns last year, along with winning a Super Bowl. I'm not expecting a top 10 offense, but I'm expecting a league
25:14average offense with rushing as the focal point. And we look here, this is the offensive line unit ranks over on ESPN, where you can see
25:25uh the Raiders aren't awful. They're not amazing, but they do have the 18th best projected offensive line. And then we're also getting quotes
25:33here, where I know people are going to be a little bit squeamish about Kubiak, right? Last year we had the Charbonnet
25:39and the Kenneth Walker split, but I just think that Jente is another tier of talent from those guys. Kubiak has already saying, uh we have to play the
25:46best running back as much as we can. And then just to kind of highlight still how bad a situation was last year from Ryan
25:51Heath, uh on plays he wasn't hit behind the line of scrimmage, he was the best of 45 qualifiers in yards after contact
25:58per attempt, third best missed tackles forced, and the eighth best stuff rate.
26:03When he was Jente wasn't hit behind the line on just 51.5% of his attempts, that was the fewest of 45 qualifiers. So, he
26:10was routinely hit behind the line of scrimmage. Now we have uh again, Linderbaum. We also have Kubiak who last year heading into the season,
26:19Zabel was kind of a huge revelation, but the Seahawks were also projected to have a bottom 10 offensive line. I'm not
26:25saying that Kubiak is some wizard, but we've seen the short stretch with the Saints before all of them got hurt in
26:292024. We saw with the Seahawks last year. I have high expectations for this team. Now, why I like Jente ahead of
26:37some of these other running backs is the receiving upside is just very clear.
26:40Last year, he had 55 receptions. If we look at the first round drafted running backs, since I want to say like since Edgerrin James,
26:47honestly, 1999, his 55 receptions are between Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs.
26:53He has the upside to catch 65 plus balls, 70 plus balls, own all of the inside the five attempts on this team,
26:59own all of the workload, and if we are operating in a league average offense, Jente has massive massive upside. Uh I
27:09can't get that game against the Houston Texans defense who we saw made the Patriots look awful in the playoffs. The defense who
27:17was dominant all season.
27:19Jente had 24 carries, 128 yards and a touchdown versus them along with a 60-yard touchdown catch against the elite Texans defense. Now, if you want
27:27to shoot a little bit more for floor, I think that James Cook is an awesome option who was my 112 here. Uh and
27:33here's the thing with running back is it's so situational.
27:36And if you just want to kind of blindly look at it, James Cook is in an amazing situation. We look at uh the
27:42offensive line rankings, the Bills have the fourth best offensive line here. We look at the uh projected points per game, the Bills have the second best
27:50projected points per per game. Uh James Cook is a good player on a good team, right? He led the NFL in rushing yards
27:57last year. He was second in rushing yards over expected per attempt, second in success rate, second in rushes of 10 plus, third in missed tackles forced,
28:02fifth in rushes of 15 plus. He was the RB6 in points per game last year with 14 total touchdowns and just 33 receptions.
28:10There is some upside here for Josh Allen's 14 rushing touchdowns to come down. I think eventually they're going to hit a wall with him where it's like,
28:17"Look, all we care about with Josh Allen is getting him to the playoffs happy and healthy. Let's stop with these 14 touchdown seasons." And then also, I
28:26have to believe James Cook, a guy out of Georgia who is known for his pass catching, and then had a season where he had like
28:3240 plus catches and was pretty solid at it. And as the Bills scramble to trade seconds for DJ Moore and throw draft
28:40picks like Kian Coleman at the position, at a certain point they're going to figure out that throwing the ball to James Cook is a good idea. And if we get
28:47things to kind of happen here, right? Like we can get some timelines to to line up. If they finally figure out, oh, let's actually give
28:56James Cook 50 receptions in a given season. And if he just hits a spike year in touchdowns, let's say he leads the
29:01NFL in touchdowns, which on the Bills offense, if Josh Allen was to stop being so aggressive inside the 10, all of a
29:08sudden we have James Cook leading the NFL in touchdowns and having 50-plus catches and being the RB1 overall in fantasy. That's really not that hard to
29:17envision. It just comes down to play caller tendency and kind of like random touchdown luck. Uh then at the 201, again, we're talking like optimism,
29:26imagination. Uh we start to talk about Saquon Barkley here.
29:31Eagles were bad last year. There's no way around it, right? We look at their uh yards and points scored with Sirianni
29:39over the last 5 years. Last year, career worst for Sirianni, 24th in yards and 19th in points, but the 3 years
29:46before that was top eight at worst in both categories. Saquon, awful year coming off the high volume in 2025. He finishes as the RB14 in points per game
29:57after being like probably the 102 or the 103 in your fantasy draft.
30:01But a bounce back isn't all that hard to see, right? Again, we look at the offensive lines. Saquon Barkley behind the Eagles. The Eagles have the second
30:11best offensive line per ESPN. And then they're probably not as washed or Saquon's not as washed as you think. If we look at Saquon's
30:21uh fastest ball carrier speeds last year, he hit 21-plus twice. He had the seventh and the 13th fastest recorded ball carrier speeds.
30:32That would at least tell us that he still has some juice left in the tank.
30:35It just kind of comes down to the Eagles bouncing back to being a good offense with a good offensive line and Saquon
30:42recapturing some of that efficiency from 2024, I don't think it would be that hard for him to do that. Then we have the C-tier.
30:50To me, this is the trickiest part of the second. Uh I don't feel super strongly, but I think I'm going to
30:56default to Drake London, right? Where again, these wide receivers after Lamb and then even after London, once you get to like Pickens, I think it's a little
31:04tricky to trust. Nico Collins is tricky to trust. Uh A.J. Brown is tricky to trust until we know where he's going to go. For now, I
31:10feel pretty strongly about Drake London.
31:13He said back-to-back years now of like 16.5 points per game. And before he got hurt in week 11, Drake London was
31:21awesome. Drake London was, through week 11, the wide receiver three behind only JSN and Puka Nacua.
31:29Then he gets hurt and things kind of go off the rails there. You can see, after week 11, he plays like sparingly in week
31:3516, and then it's week 17, and then it's week 18. Uh and those games after the injury, he just never really fully
31:42bounced back. Now, there is some concern here of like quarterback play, right? With Penix, he's been way better. This is a tweet
31:50from Ian Hartitz. We have Tua coming in, we have Stefanski coming in. Who knows what this offense is going to look like,
31:56but after Kyle Pitts, it's Zach Branch, Jahan Dotson, Olamide Zaccheaus. I think that Drake London is going to be the clear number one option on this offense,
32:02get a ton of targets. And with Stefanski and Tommy Rees, we could see some more heavier sets that then lead to
32:11a I I don't want to call Drake London the next JSN, but it wouldn't shock me to see him have like a 3-plus yards per
32:16out run season as the true focal point in the passing game for the Falcons.
32:22Then we're going to put Devon Achane at the 203. This is as low as I can put him responsibly. Uh you guys know I love
32:30Achane. I have been high on him, I feel like every year of his career, except for this one.
32:36This one I have a really tough time with, right? He's finished now as the RB5, the RB6, the RB5, but that was with
32:41Mike McDaniel and with Tua. And as someone who's drafted Achane I feel like every year, uh I know what it was like when Tua got
32:49hurt. In eight games without Tua, he has averaged 10.5 points per game. Say whatever you want about Tua, but he checks down, right? He had the fourth
32:57highest percentage of behind the line of scrimmage attempts last year.
33:01Uh Achane also had 67 catches and 78 receptions the last 2 years. Without Tua, you can see here that his reception
33:07pace over a 17-game season is 36. Now we have Malik Willis who scrambles a ton, doesn't pass the ball much. Uh 14, 19,
33:15and 21 pass attempts in his last three starts for the Packers. That would easily be dead last in the NFL. That
33:20should come up a little bit, but we're still going to get much less check-downs from Malik Willis.
33:27And say whatever you want about Mike McDaniel, but his offensive rushing game has been awesome. In 2025 they were ninth best in rush EPA per play, fifth
33:36best in 2023, sixth best in 2022. And that is what he's getting brought to the Chargers to do. So now we just have like
33:43passing volume's getting squeezed with Malik Willis.
33:47We have new coaching staff who we don't know is going to maximize the run game.
33:51And then this offensive line is one of the worst in the NFL. If you look here uh at the offensive line rankings, it is
33:57Texans for worst, then Bengals, then Dolphins. So bad offensive line and offense as well. If you want to see where they're projected at, Miami's
34:05projected to score the third least amount of points in the NFL. The offensive line is awful. So it's really just it's Achane, it's volume for
34:11Achane, and really what you're looking for is him to create his own efficiency.
34:18And we've kind of learned that running back efficiency is usually a product of the environment, right? A good offense that has touchdowns available and yards
34:25available, but Achane is a special enough player that he could create his own efficiency on explosive plays. We shall see. Then at the 204, we have
34:35Chase Brown.
34:36Where I had to look back at his season cuz it was so up and down. Where if you look at weeks 1 through 8, huge
34:42disappointment. RB 25 on RB 15 volume.
34:44Then P Ryan goes down. He's the RB 8 on RB 3 volume. Then P Ryan comes back.
34:48He's the RB 2 on RB 4 volume. Well, I've just seen people on the timeline say like P Ryan's a big issue. It's
34:53really not. Uh he scored again, when P Ryan returned, he scored 20 plus points per game last year. It was really more of the Bengals
35:00had a slow start with Joe Burrow and then Joe Burrow got hurt. But then the rest of the year, uh Chase Brown was awesome. Where if we
35:06look at weeks 1 through 4, the Bengals offense was 31st in EPA per play. From week 6 on, so that's Flacco and Joe
35:13Burrow, they were eighth best. And again, you look at the points of the season from week 9 on, he was in that 17 and all the way to like
35:2122 point per game area. And now we get presumably a healthy Joe Burrow.
35:28And then we get an easier schedule as well. This is the strength of schedule from Warren Sharp over at Sharp Football
35:35Analysis taking Vegas forecasted win totals and kind of seeing who has the easiest or hardest schedule. The Bengals have the third easiest. On top of that,
35:44they are projected by Vegas to score the fifth most points in the NFL. So we have a lighter schedule. We have a ton of
35:51points available. We have proof of concept from last year where Chase Brown with Joe Burrow was averaging like 20 plus points per game.
35:59The only thing that kind of stops me here is that the offensive line is brutal, right? When we look at that ESPN
36:03screenshot, we are talking about like the 31st best offensive line. But outside of that, the volume will be there, the receiving will be there, the
36:12red zone touches will be there. Uh I really like Chase Brown the more I look into what his 2025 actually was. Then,
36:21we can start to talk ourselves into some again, imagination, optimism. Uh is Kenneth Walker someone who was just the RB 28 in points per game last year
36:30because of the split with Charbonnet.
36:32We did see the upside in 2024 where he had the RB 12 in points per game despite missing six games due to injury and
36:40really having a stretch early in that year where he had like 20 plus points per game. And then he was just a monster
36:44for this playoff run with the Seahawks, right? 100 plus rushing yards in every playoff game for the Seahawks, Super Bowl MVP. He was second last season in
36:51explosive run rate. He was first in Missed Tackles Forced Per Attempt. He's a good player who is now going to become
36:56the RB1 for the Chiefs offense, which the Chiefs offense used to carry a lot of weight. The last few years it's been
37:02down, but now we get Eric Bieniemy back in for Matt Nagy, which I think is actually a big deal. With Bieniemy,
37:09they were first in EPA per play on offense and fifth in EPA per rush attempt. With Nagy, they were 11th in EPA per play, 14th in rush EPA per
37:19play. And that's just like the years that, you know, so that's like Mahomes like 2018 to like early 2020s. And then
37:25like 2023 to now has been Matt Nagy. So I think we're going to see some stuff with Eric Bieniemy. We're going to see a
37:31high pass rate offense as well, which means if Kenneth Walker does get pulled off the field on third down situations for, say, a Brevin Achane Smith or
37:39uh Emmett Johnson, we're going to have a situation where he should still see enough pass attempts on first and second down so that that's not a big deal. Kind
37:47of similar to who we just talked about, Chase Brown, where if he does get pulled off the field for Samaje Perine on third
37:51down situations, the Bengals offense passes the ball enough that on first and second down he still has plenty receiving upside. So, we'll see.
38:01My expectation for Kenneth Walker is back-end RB1. We do have to be a little bit concerned about Mahomes on the return of his torn ACL. It seems
38:09like he's going to be ready for week one, but it's similar to Daniel Jones where will he be as effective? I feel
38:14much more comfortable betting on Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes than I do Daniel Jones when it comes to that sort of thing. Then we have D-tier. This is
38:23the wild west to me, the the late second you can kind of take a pool of like 15 players.
38:29This is how I see it. We're going back to the well on Brock Bowers our first tight end at the 206.
38:36He could be similar to McBride last year where McBride was the flex 10 among non-quarterbacks in points per game, right? He was outscoring
38:44pretty much everybody besides like nine running backs and wide receivers. To me, I'm throwing out Bowers year last year.
38:49He gets an injury in week one and then he gets an all-time bad offense as we saw with Ashton Gentie. But, again, I
38:56want to bet on Kubiak and this offense with Mendoza, with Kirk Cousins, which yes, I say like Kirk Cousins, but I
39:02think Kirk Cousins at least raises the floor of this offense. Then Mendoza, if he comes in and there is some upside here for him as
39:08a passer to be very similar to almost like C.J. Stroud as a rookie or Justin Herbert as a rookie. Not saying that
39:13that's going to happen. I'm just saying that there is upside here, right? It's a little different than betting on a Jacoby Brissett offense or a Geno Smith
39:19offense like last year. There is a another level that a young quarterback can go in his rookie year.
39:27And if you look at the target competition for Bowers, it is Trey Tucker, it is Jaylen Nailor, and then Bowers is the slot wide receiver really
39:34with Michael Mayer in line, almost in the perfect JSN role for Kubiak. I think we're going to see more pass attempts
39:41than Kubiak would like just because this team is going to be a little bit worse than the Seahawks were last year, of
39:45course.
39:46And I think there's also some positional scarcity here. After Bowers, after McBride, there is a tie breaker for me two-level and I think you can get a real
39:54positional advantage with Brock Bowers.
39:57And again, after the kind of like sour taste in our mouth of last year, I think that we have probably lost sight of how special
40:03Bowers is. When we look at receptions through a player's first 29 career games, regardless of position, it is OBJ, it is Puka Nacua, it is Michael
40:13Thomas, it is Brock Bowers. To me, that is awesome. Brock Bowers has played 29 career games to this point. And you look
40:19at his stats next to Amon-Ra St. Brown, very similar on a per like target efficiency basis. They're both around the 175 receptions, both
40:28around 1,800 receiving yards, both around 12 touchdowns. So, if you can get a year three Amon-Ra St. Brown in your tight end spot, I think that you are
40:37really cooking in fantasy.
40:40Then at the 207, we will put Omari an Hampton. And this is another one, right? Like we're talking optimism, imagination.
40:50And we look at, again, like upside for running back, a lot of it is situation.
40:55It is offensive line, it is how good is your offense, it is can you get access to touchdowns. And we look at
41:01the Chargers.
41:05They're projected for the 12th most points scored in the NFL. I like them a little bit more than that with Mike
41:10McDaniel, where McDaniel, again, his rushing game 25th in EPA per play or ninth in EPA per play in 2025, then fifth in 23, sixth in 2022. On top of
41:19that, we have seen him bring Tua up almost into MVP consideration. This could be the year where the Chargers offense does really well. Justin Herbert
41:28contends for an MVP.
41:30It just comes down to can Hampton be the guy, right? We look at the offensive line. The offensive line is ranked
41:371 2 3 4 5 6th, right? We get a healthy Rashawn Slater, we get a healthy Joe Alt, and all of a sudden Justin Herbert,
41:44Mike McDaniel, and you can really talk yourself into this offense. Now, where you can get into trouble is drafting the situation and not the
41:53player. You need like a perfect marriage here. And this is where the wide range of Hampton comes in. We look at his
42:00similarity scores over on the RS grade database. This is my prospect model over on the Patreon. You can see his comps are great. He comps to Dalvin
42:08Cook, Travis Etienne, Breece Hall, Bijan Robinson. He is an awesome prospect.
42:12He's the ninth best running back ever graded in the RS grades dating back to 2017. So, it's essentially your legendary guys, right? Of like
42:20Bijan, JT, Fournette, McCaffrey, whatever, Saquon, and then you have like Jamyr Gibbs, and Travis Etienne, and then it's Amari Hampton. He is an
42:30awesome running back prospect. He also for a guy who's 221 lb, he had the seventh most receptions per game last year with 3.6. And then he also joined
42:39Derrick Henry and Josh Jacobs and Najee Harris and JT as the only running backs with 80% or more of their team's inside
42:45the five attempts. So, you got prospect pedigree, you have reception upside, and you have goal line roll upside. Now, on the other end of the spectrum,
42:55you have Keaontay Ingram Mitchell getting into that workload, uh the receiving workload, and then you have Keaontay Ingram who looked decent
43:01down the stretch last year eating into the rushing role. Uh and then also you have that uh that Hampton wasn't that
43:07good last year, right? Uh outside of facing the facing the worst rushing defense in the NFL as a rookie from Data
43:13Rama here via Fantasy Points, he was 37th in yards per carry, 30th in yards after contact per attempt, 20th in explosive run rates, 37th in success
43:20rate. It wasn't pretty. If you remember drafting him, it was frustrating.
43:26Everything went right, right? Najee gets hurt, but you did have the situation where Joe Alt goes down, Rashawn Slater goes down. It
43:35was a really tough situation for him to thrive in. Also, we have seen year one running back to year two running backs
43:42become better players, right? That is kind of the breakout spot, right? Where Bijan was a huge disappointment as a rookie, and then he was awesome in year
43:47two. Uh JT was at the RB1 overall in year two. You can even talk about another Chargers running back, Melvin Gordon was awful. He was awful as a
43:55rookie, and then year two he was a league winner. Uh it wouldn't be shocking to see Amari Hampton turn things around. So, this is about as high
44:02as I can put him. I know in early Underdog drafts and early drafts in general, like Hampton is going as high
44:07as like the 202, 203.
44:10It's a little high. I like these running backs better, but I I get it. I see the upside for Marvion Hampton. I fully
44:17understand what people are chasing.
44:19Then at the 208, proven commodity here with Derrick Henry. Down year for the Ravens, he still had almost 1,600 rushing yards. He was the
44:26RB8 in points per game. I think the Ravens bounce back with a healthy Lamar Jackson this year. We saw the ceiling
44:31for Derrick Henry in 2024 as the RB4 in points per game. Almost getting to 20-plus points per game. It just comes
44:37down to risk risk tolerance risk tolerance. It's very similar to McCaffrey from earlier, right? Where we are now entering age 32 season for
44:46Derrick Henry. He has 2,850 career touches, the most among active players. He is in the 2,000 touch club with McCaffrey, Kamara, Saquon, Mixon,
44:56and Josh Jacobs.
44:58It comes down to at a certain point father time will win. It is up to you to decide if that year is this year. The
45:05208 is where I'm comfortable rolling the dice on Derrick Henry.
45:10Then we have the 209. To me, this is probably the cheapest that a like no-doubter running back prospect has gone in a
45:17while, pretty much since like Leonard Fournette on the Jaguars. And I guess you could argue he wasn't quite no-doubter at the time. I think that he
45:22was highly regarded, but you have like Zeke on the Cowboys as a first-rounder, Saquon on the Giants as a first-rounder.
45:29Last year with Jente, he was like a 1-2 turn guy. Before that, you had Bijan who was like a late first in his rookie
45:34year. Jeremiah Love is just fully a 2-3 turn player. I have him as my 209. Now, I will say there is very good reason for
45:41this, right? We look at the projected points scored by Vegas, you have the Cardinals at 31st, right? And then you look at their
45:50win total here, 4.5. That is tied for the worst with Miami. So, bad game scripts, or I guess you know, they'll be coming from behind
45:57in a lot of these games. They also signed Tyler Allgeier. They still have James Conner. They still have Trey Benson. You have to Kobe Brissett who
46:03still isn't signed.
46:04It's tough. I will say the redeeming part is that this Cardinals offense on ESPN has the 15th best offensive line.
46:11And then Jeremiah Love is a special talent, right? He was drafted third overall for a reason. The receiving talent is through the roof. We could get
46:18a season where he racks up 60 plus catches, finds efficiency on explosive plays, and maybe down the stretch like fully gets unleashed as a playoff league
46:29winner. That's not hard to envision for Jeremiah Love. Or he could be very similar to Jente last year where he's frustrating on a bad offense. Then we
46:36will talk about the other Cardinal here.
46:38We will talk about Trey McBride.
46:42Similar situation. I just I have a hard time with this Cardinals offense until we get some clarity on the Kyler Murray situation and then even
46:50still this is going to be a bad team.
46:52They have a new play caller in LaFlor.
46:56Things are a little shaky for a tight end when that happens. He was at 18 plus points per game last year. He probably
47:00comes down to like 15, which is still fine.
47:03That's still probably out projecting the other wide receivers in this range and it's probably like a fine use of a late
47:10second round pick, but I do think that McBride is going to come back down to earth a little bit here in 2026. And
47:16then we have at the 211 Nico Collins. Another year kind of wasted to injury. Can he stay healthy?
47:23Can C.J. Stroud bounce back after a pretty brutal playoff stretch? I believe in the talent of Nico Collins, I always have. His yards per run is always
47:30amazing, but can his injury luck, can his touchdown luck, can C.J. Stroud kind of hit a peak season that we haven't
47:37seen since his rookie year? All of those stars need to align for Nico Collins to smash this year. Before we rank our last
47:43player, I will be honest with you guys. I filmed this a couple days ago and then we had the Josh Jacobs allegations happen, so
47:51he was going to be in the top 24. He's now no longer going to be in the top 24 until that gets resolved. And then on
47:56top of that, we knew the A.J. Brown trade was going to happen on June 1st.
48:01So, I decided let's push off this video for a couple days until that happens.
48:05And sure enough, A.J. Brown gets dealt to the Patriots for a 2028 first. I think another fifth-round pick is in there as well. And we have a long track
48:15history or track record of Josh McDaniels getting a new shiny toy and being awesome with them. Davante Adams on the Raiders in 2022, Brandon Marshall
48:24in '09, Randy Moss the famous year in '07. All of that is really, really exciting stuff for A.J. Brown. Now, before you say, "Well, Ron, you're
48:33double counting. A.J. Brown shouldn't get a boost for this. We've known he's going to go to the Patriots this entire time." Well,
48:40did we?
48:42Things like this happen all the time.
48:43We've seen trade buzz around a guy like Brian Thomas or even Breece Hall during the trade deadline. And then could a
48:49franchise tag and trade happen? And sometimes they just don't happen. We could have seen A.J. Brown on the Eagles. We could have seen him gone to
48:55the Rams to have to compete with Puka Nacua. He could have gone to the Jaguars to compete with their deep rotation of
49:01wide receivers. But instead, we get the best landing spot possible. He goes to the Patriots. I ended up moving him up
49:08in my rankings. I now have him as my official 209 in the top 24. So, that's what it is going to look like. Now, when
49:17we talk about A.J. Brown. This is the first time that I've been doing this where I feel like wide receiver one overall is in
49:27A.J. Brown's reasonable outcomes, right? He has been capped during his time on the Titans and the Eagles. His quarterbacks were Ryan
49:35Tannehill, they were Jalen Hurts. And these are very low-volume passing offenses, a lot of Derrick Henry touchdowns, a lot of Saquon Barkley rushing touchdowns, a lot
49:45of Jalen Hurts tush push touchdowns. And it's why A.J.
49:49Brown has kind of capped out around like seven or eight touchdowns the last five years on the Eagles. You look at his
49:53entire career, he has been on the 21st passing yards per game offense, 23rd, 24th, ninth. He had a good year in 2022,
50:00that's when he was also awesome. 2023, 16th, he was awesome that year. Then down to 29th, then then down to 23rd,
50:09and now he gets to go to a New England passing offense that by Mike Clay's projected for the sixth most passing
50:14yards in the NFL. Vegas has him projected for the fourth most passing yards in the NFL, and of course last year they were fourth in the NFL with
50:21250.5 passing yards per game. That would be a career high for A.J. Brown along with Drake Maye's touchdown numbers would have been a career high for A.J. Brown.
50:31Now, you might be wondering like, "Why are you bringing into account the team passing yards?" Well, the whole thing with A.J. Brown
50:38his entire career has been that he's been held back by his situation of low-volume passing offenses with low passing touchdown totals, and now he
50:49gets real upside here in an offense attached to Drake Maye. He is going to be the focal point of this offense, and
50:57this is somebody that I have been begging for this kind of opportunity his entire career. This is somebody who averages 2.48 yards per route run. Last year was
51:07the first year that he had under a 2.
51:10under a 2 yards per route run over an entire season. He still averages 2.55 over his entire career is what I meant
51:17to say. You can see from this tweet here, "Amon Ra St. Brown, awesome wide receiver, awesome season last year with 2.48 yards per route run, sixth best in
51:25the NFL. A.J. Brown over his entire career sample size, 2.55 yards per route run even with the down year last year. That is absurd. That is
51:35higher than some wide receivers' peaks in the NFL on a per play, per target, per route basis, A.J. Brown is a legitimate special
51:44talent. When you look at the wide receivers before turning 30 that have 400 plus receptions on 9.7 plus yards per target, yards per target by the way,
51:54there's no yards per out run on Pro Football Reference. It's just essentially a way to kind of control for that per route
52:01efficiency in yards per out run. Yards per target just means do good things happen when the ball comes your way. And
52:07he is among a crazy eight wide receiver list of Jordy Nelson, Michael Irvin, AJ Brown at three, Julio Jones, Justin Jefferson, DeSean Jackson, Jerry Rice,
52:16Tyreek Hill. Those are your wide receivers with again 400 plus receptions on 9.7 plus yards per target before their age 30 season. AJ Brown is
52:25going to be 29 this year. Now, of course, he's coming off a down year. It's his first year ever under two yards per out
52:30run. On top of that, he is now going to be age 29 season. Is he washed up? He also had a knee injury last year. Is he the
52:39same guy? All of these concerns are true and reasonable, but I think that at the 209 in the late second, I'm fine
52:47taking a swing.
52:49I don't know. I I think it's going to be a situation with AJ Brown where he's here for a good time, not a long time.
52:54I'm not saying that he's going to be dominant on the Patriots for the next four years. I think it's again going to
52:59be very similar. Uh I'm not going to say he's going to have 23 touchdowns like Randy Moss, but this is the honeymoon season, right?
53:06You're thinking Stefon Diggs in 2020 with Josh Allen. You are thinking Randy Moss '07.
53:16This is the honeymoon phase where AJ Brown is a very emotional player. He is definitely like a Deebo wide receiver.
53:23And I just think this new environment, he gets to come back to Mike Vrabel, and to me, it's just very exciting. Now, I will say the elephant
53:31in the room is that the Patriots weren't a high-volume passing offense last year.
53:35They were an efficient passing offense, which is still huge for AJ Brown. He's going to be in a situation that has
53:41likely career highs for him in team passing yards and team passing touchdowns, but they did have just five more pass attempts than the Eagles last
53:50year. So, they weren't in a high volume passing offense, but they did have the easiest schedule in the NFL last year,
53:56and they were sixth in pass rate in neutral situations. So, when it wasn't garbage time, when they weren't blowing teams out, they still were a pass-heavy
54:03team. I think this year we're going to see some of that come back down to Earth. So, for me, A.J. Brown, he is my
54:08209. I figured that you guys would have wanted me to hold off on this video until I gave you my A.J. Brown take. I
54:15will be all over A.J. Brown this year. I think that he's awesome in that mid to late second round area, uh and I get the concerns. I get the
54:23downside. I get that we start to think of uh Allen Robinson on the Rams. You can start to think of uh
54:30Who's the other one? You can start to think of like Julio Jones on the Titans, but I I don't think we're there yet.
54:35I think that we're going to get one special year from A.J. Brown here. I got to see it through. Uh so, he is my 209.
54:42Now, that is going to do it for us today. That is my entire top 24 as of June 2nd, and I have all of those
54:49rankings over on the Patreon, patreon.com/ronstewart.
54:52You can download them straight into Underdog, use them to draft there.
54:56Patreon.com/ronstewart. You can find it in the description and the comment section down below. But, as always, I'm excited to get back to posting on this
55:03channel. Redraft content's coming. It's finally June. It's summertime. Lock in, subscribe, leave a like, and I will see you guys in
55:11the next one.
55:14>> Oh, yeah.
55:16This [music] sounds like a >> [singing] >> Yeah.
55:22Yeah.
55:24Baby, I stunt.
55:25Like this [singing] frost.
55:27Ice cold. [music] Oh, oh.
55:30Ice all on my body like I'm frost.
