Rich Hribar's 5 Favorite Fantasy Football Picks
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
44 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
May 28, 2026
Published
Thu, May 28, 2026
12
Player insights
5
Players mentioned
Topics
Malik WillisChristian WatsonJustin HerbertTerry McLaurinIsaiah Likely
Player analysis
Player insights
Christian Watson
PositiveBreakout0:10
Christian Watson is a strong candidate for a breakout season, especially with increased route opportunities following the departures of key teammates, and he has shown impressive efficiency metrics in his limited time on the field.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:32
If Christian Watson can increase his route volume, he has the potential to significantly improve his fantasy points per game, possibly reaching a top 15 finish this season.
Insight pageIsaiah Likely
PositiveSleeper0:30
Isaiah Likely is a strong late-round tight end target, especially with the potential for increased targets if Malik Neighbors misses time.
Insight pageJustin Herbert
PositiveProjection0:22
Justin Herbert is poised for a breakout season under Mike McDaniel's offense, with the potential to score a high number of touchdowns and possibly win MVP this year.
Insight pagePositiveValue0:55
Justin Herbert is being undervalued in drafts, as he is set up to score a lot of fantasy points this season, especially with improvements expected in the offensive line and overall team health.
Insight pageMalik Willis
PositiveValue0:38
Malik Willis is currently being drafted lower than he should be, making him an appealing value pick, especially in best ball formats. His ADP is being negatively impacted by the stigma surrounding the Miami Dolphins, but he has the potential to deliver spike weeks due to his rushing ability.
Insight pagePositiveUsage0:39
Malik Willis has shown a willingness to throw downfield and has demonstrated comfort in the pocket, which could lead to increased passing production.
Insight pagePositiveRole0:40
With the new play caller Bobby Sloick, Malik Willis may have a better fit in the Dolphins offense compared to his rookie season, which could enhance his performance.
Insight pagePositiveProjection0:41
If Malik Willis can combine his rushing ability with improved passing, he could elevate the Dolphins offense and provide usable fantasy weeks.
Insight pagePositiveSleeper0:51
Malik Willis is a valuable late-round quarterback option with a high floor due to his rushing ability, making him a strong candidate to finish the year as a starter.
Insight pageTerry McLaurin
PositiveBreakout0:02
Terry McLaurin is positioned for a breakout season with a new offensive approach under David Blau, who is expected to increase his target share and utilize more motion and play action, enhancing McLaurin's opportunities for explosive plays.
Insight pagePositiveValue0:06
With an underdog projection of 949 receiving yards, Terry McLaurin is being undervalued as he is priced as the wide receiver 25 despite having the potential to finish much higher based on his usage and efficiency metrics.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best.
0:06Are you a festival fanatic, a deep-end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer?
0:10Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track.
0:14Red Bull Summer All Day Play. Red Bull gives you wings.
0:17Visit redbull.com slash brightsummer ahead to learn more. See ya this summer.
0:21So good, so good, so good. Everything you want for summer is at Nordstrom Rack Stores now and up to 60% off.
0:27Stock up and save on the brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Frame, and Free People.
0:31Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more.
0:35Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free.
0:39Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Oh yes, we are back.
0:42Your favorite series returns the five players I cannot stop drafting with a weekly guest.
0:47You all know him. You love him. You hear about him on the show, even when he's not on the show.
0:52It is Rich Rebar from a sharp football analysis, Lord Reeves.
0:55How you doing my friend? I'm doing excellent, guys.
0:58I appreciate you guys having me on. It's like a little Roto World reunion.
1:02I still miss the days of just, you know, coming into Connecticut and just throwing Josh's whole workday in the chaos and
1:08making him just not get any work done. I'll say that, Reeves, that I'm a very routine-oriented person when it comes to work.
1:14I try to space out my head of how much free time I can have and procrastination I can have in it.
1:20So you coming to the table and you coming to the desk certainly did throw me off during those periods of time.
1:26But, you know, I've done the same thing right back at you.
1:29I'm like, Josh, what if we just watched like 10 minutes of Josh Allen Dropbacks?
1:34It was all the soccer. Whenever I was there, everyone was just like watching soccer.
1:38I can't believe how people can actually write in a cubicle.
1:41It's crazy to me. I'll always say this. I didn't realize how little work people got done at work until I went to the NBC Sports' offices.
1:48Literally playing putt-putt for hours on end. Xbox, all that.
1:51So what a place. What a place. That's where we grew up.
1:54I mean, every single show you can go on, Reeves.
1:57There'll be some type of Roto World link. It's like the nine degrees of separation type stuff.
2:02That's what Roto World has brought to the table.
2:04Yeah, well, it's like the Shanahan coaching tree. Yes, that's what it is.
2:08That's 100%. Okay. Speaking of, I'm sure we'll talk about some coaching trees and coaching changes during this.
2:13As I noted, you brought five of the players you can't stop drafting this summer.
2:17Again, it's early on May 27th as we are recording this.
2:20But who's up first? Who's the name that you cannot stop drafting?
2:23Yeah, I'm going to start with Terry McLaurin from the Commanders.
2:26I think the Commanders in general are kind of an undervalued best ball team.
2:30I think they're kind of really built for best ball.
2:33You know, they got the ambiguous, you know, running backs, you know, JCM, Rashad White, even Katron Allen.
2:38Interesting, you know, late pick in these, especially an underdog.
2:41He's got that Kyle Mononga vibe from a year ago.
2:43You've got Chig and Antonio Williams as like some late round guys.
2:47And you can even, if you want to get cute, you know, mix in guys like Diggs and A.
2:52You can hope that maybe one of them end up on the team before the summer is over.
2:57But Terry McLaurin is kind of where I start with this team.
3:00He never really got on track last year. He missed, you know, nearly the entire summer due to that holdout.
3:06Then he had quad and core injuries very early in the season.
3:09Obviously, then, you know, the Commanders were just in dire straits, you know, with the quarterback situation up and down all year.
3:15He only ended up playing in 10 games. He only appeared on 41% of the offensive snaps and 46.5% of the team dropbacks.
3:21But when he did play, he remained a really effective player throughout the chaos of this offense.
3:26He had 2.2 yards per route run. That was 14th among all active receivers with 100 more yards or 100 more routes on the season.
3:33And when he was on the field, he had 31% of the team's targets and 46% of their air yards.
3:3855% of his targets resulted in a first-hour touchdown, which is actually third in the NFL.
3:43But what makes him interesting now, kind of moving forward here, is not just when you look at this depth chart and
3:49say, all right, it's Antonio Williams and some guys behind him.
3:52He's going to get a bunch of targets. Or David Blau kind of coming in and saying, like, we're going to give Terry McLaurin 10 targets a game.
4:00We want to just create explosives with him. It's that kind of top-down marriage of, you know, Blau and the opportunity he has.
4:06Because, you know, Blau comes from the Ben Johnson.
4:08It's our first Ben Johnson coaching tree hire, right?
4:11Yes. Like, is this like the new McVay coaching tree?
4:14Because everyone's, like, half the league now is, like, some iteration.
4:17They've come from Sean McVay, who comes from Shanahan.
4:19So I'm very interested to see how this works, especially playing with Jaden Daniels.
4:23Because he's already stated that they're going to feature more balanced offensive approach.
4:27They're going to have more packages with Jaden Daniels under center.
4:30And that's just something we haven't seen. Since Jaden Daniels has been in the NFL, he's been under shotgun for 93% of his dropbacks.
4:36It's 33 dropbacks from under center so far through a year and change, however you want to, you know, dissect the season last year.
4:43But being in shotgun so much has led to, you know, only a 45% pre-snap motion rate, which is 24th the past
4:49two years, and a 24.8% play action rate, which is 18th in the NFL.
4:53Those are going to go way up. When you look at Ben Johnson, what he did year one, you know, coming into
4:59Chicago and what he did with Caleb Williams, that completely flipped, right?
5:02I mean, those offenses in Detroit and Chicago, 66% motion rate, 88% play action rate when they were under center.
5:08So we're going to see Terry McLaurin get these kind of plays that just equal, like, fantasy, high cholesterol targets, right?
5:13Motion, pre-snap, or play action. Like, we just haven't seen that.
5:16Even when he was getting targets under Cliff Kingsbury, I mean, he was just stuck in that static role, lining up on
5:22the line of scrimmage for 85% of his snaps.
5:25He was at left wide receiver for 75% of his snaps out wide.
5:29We always joked about just winding up over there.
5:31He only ran 13 routes per game with pre-snap motion the past year.
5:35It was just wide receiver 60. So I look at Terry McLaurin.
5:38I look at the target opportunity and then the role change, him getting more, like, intermediate crossers.
5:43What I really want to see David Blau do in year one is what we saw Ben Johnson do, and that's he's
5:49able to create guys with horizontal spacing. And we haven't really got to see Terry McLaurin do a lot of that in
5:55the NFL, and I think he's completely capable of it.
5:57So I look at Terry McLaurin, and he's kind of where I start.
6:01Like, when I get, like, my second wide receiver, I'm just uber happy to grab him.
6:05Yes, look at the underdog projection lobby. Maybe he's at 949 receiving yards for the season.
6:10That's more than players that are going in the third round, like all throughout.
6:14Teddero and McMillan is in that category. So you're getting a discount versus the projections.
6:18And then just if you look at the sample size in the games with Jaden Daniels, he's the wide receiver 14 on wide receiver 26 usage.
6:25So he's being priced as the wide receiver 25.
6:27So you're getting a discount on that. So even if it's just like the same situation as it has been the last
6:33two seasons, and there's a chance that it's even better this year, this is a discount.
6:38So like, if we can kind of like parlay where it's all together, where Jaden Daniels stays healthy, he improves going into his third season.
6:45Blows an upgrade over Cliff Kingsbury, and the depth chart around him is worse, and the tackle play is better.
6:50Then all of a sudden, like, you can have like a wide receiver to run out for Terry McLaurin quite easily.
6:56Yeah, Reeves, I knew that you and Hayden would come with some amazing underlying metrics.
7:00So I went back to the tape and watched all of his targets from last season.
7:05Something like really stuck out to me was everything just looked really basic.
7:08And maybe this was going to, you know, Marcus Mariota and him coming into the lineup.
7:13There are just so many hitch and curl routes.
7:15And then I went back and like dug into just how many there were.
7:1937% of his targets last season in Terry McLaurin were hitches.
7:22That is drastically different than where it was in previous seasons and throughout the rest of his career.
7:27So those are just static routes without much crossing action, without much movement.
7:30And what we always talk about with Ben Johnson is, hey, I'm on Ross St.
7:35Brown on these crossing routes. Jamison Williams, get the ball in his hands, yards up the catch.
7:39We saw it with Luther Burton. We saw it with DJ Moore, Colson Loveland, all these guys like that is just going
7:45to be such a different use case for Terry McLaurin.
7:48That to me, with his athleticism, I understand it's going to be coming up on this age 31 season.
7:53But it's just so much better than these like catch and fall attempts in zone cup.
7:58Except for three, five speed. We don't think of them like that fast because we don't see the yards after the catch stuff recently.
8:04But like he could do all the Jameson Williams stuff that you're mentioning.
8:08Just to put a number to that, 37% again last season were hitches.
8:12That's compared to 15.2% for the rest of his career at Reeves.
8:15I guess I do have a question. David Blau didn't necessarily coach with Ben Johnson.
8:19It was just a player in the system that Ben Johnson was coaching.
8:23I do remember going back in press conferences and Ben Johnson noting that David Blau like drew up some plays that worked
8:29for the opposition on any given week. But that is something I do want to factor in here.
8:34And David Blau was actually on this commander's coaching staff last season.
8:37So it's not like, oh, this is the quarterback coach or passing game coordinator or so on and so forth directly from Ben.
8:43But I assure you that this is the direction they want to go in based on just the coach speak and the
8:49player speak that we've heard so far this offseason.
8:52Yeah, 100%. He was there when they were doing all that stuff in Detroit.
8:56You know, I'm assuming that he absorbed a lot of that and we're looking to see kind of what he pried away from Ben Johnson.
9:02Hopefully he proves to be as adaptable to as Ben Johnson was in his year one in Chicago.
9:07Hey, I know we just talked about Terry McLaurin versus Devante Adams on yesterday's show.
9:12You and I were both on the Terry McLaurin end of this.
9:15Reeves, would you be taking Terry over Devante Adams this year?
9:18I would, and it's only because of the, you know, the factoring in just the Devante Adams is in the same spot
9:24this year that Terry McLaurin was in last year where we knew like there was just inevitable regression coming like touchdown regression.
9:30And Devante Adams has made his whole career out of scoring touchdowns.
9:33I don't act like he's not going to score any touchdowns at the Rams next year.
9:38But when you just look at the opportunity at the most end zone targets since that date has been recorded, Matthew Stafford with a 7.7% touchdown rate.
9:45Like we know that those are coming back to the pack this year a little bit when you actually look at Adams's usage when he played.
9:52I mean, he was right around wide receiver 30 type of like production and like without the touchdowns like his yardage was
9:58amongst the lowest in over 10 years. So I do think when we remove some of the touchdowns from Devante Adams, we're
10:04going to start to see like some of that, you know, kind of pull away from him because Puka, as long as
10:10Puka's on the field, like Puka's getting the ball a lot.
10:14All right. Sending it back to you, Reeves. Second player.
10:16Who is it? I'm going to stay in that same kind of bucket of cluster because I do take these guys often
10:22the way I've been drafting, especially early on. I mean, we're recording this before June is, you know, I'm in the title
10:28wave of getting largely, you know, two to three running backs, you know, before round five.
10:33It was due to last year. So we're shopping for wide receivers and like this bucket, you know, of rounds, you know, five and six.
10:40Like, you know, I don't have a lot of teams where I'm like, oh, man, I'm looking at Basial, too.
10:45It is my RB, too. So this is where I'm grabbing a lot of receivers with upside.
10:50A lot of my draft approach last year was actually written about like the wide receiver dead zone and starting to grab guys like in round five plus.
10:58And in the same area, another guy that I usually piggyback off off of with Terry McLaurin, if I can get both
11:04or pivot, if I don't, is Christian Watson, who goes like a couple spots after him, like in that wide receiver, 28 wide receiver, 29, 29 range.
11:11He's a guy when you look at last year, you know, recovering from the ACL when he came back was another guy
11:17that was just really hyper efficient, you know, came back in the 10 games he was in at over 600 yards and
11:23six touchdowns from weeks eight through 17. So he didn't play in week 18.
11:27He was seventh among all wide receivers and yards per outrun.
11:30He was wide receiver 13 and area yard share.
11:33He's had three years on his rookie contract. He's been over two yards per outrun.
11:37He's the wide receiver 15 and yards per outrun since the NFL, the wide receiver 17 and fantasy points per outrun and
11:43the wide receiver 13 and fantasy points per target.
11:45Now you look at the Packers, Romeo Dobbs left during free agency.
11:49Dontavian Wicks traded away. Dubs was the only Packer wide receiver to run a route on over 50 percent of the dropbacks last season.
11:55He was at 75 percent. Jaden Reed is so far.
11:58We'll see if his role gets extended. He's only run eight career routes and one to two wide receiver sets.
12:03It's like one of my favorite stats. I keep using like eventually he starts playing in those places, which is like so
12:09when the Packers are playing their base offense, I expect Christian Watson to be on the field all the time.
12:15Now, this is the rub, right? And this is why I like him a little more, especially on a site like underdog.
12:21That's not full PPR. It's a little more explosive play driven.
12:24And you can kind of insulate yourself of not having to worry about maybe the injury factor as much as like paying
12:30the price in a redraft league, right? A managed league because the rub with Christian Watson.
12:34Again, he's missed multiple games every year of his career.
12:37He has like kind of that Jameson Williams, though, style of like upside paired with like volatility.
12:42And then we're recording this a day after the Josh Jacobs news.
12:45I don't know if that's going to have any impact on the season at all, but the Packers are pretty limited.
12:51If Josh Jacobs is going to miss any time this season and pivot options that they have right now in terms of
12:57free agency, maybe they pull off a trade. And if we get any type of situation where the Packers are just forced
13:03to throw more than they have these past three years, there's another, you know, domino kind of falling in his favor where
13:09we're just getting a lot more routes than we've seen Christian Watson have over his rookie contract.
13:14So last year he was the wider C or 40 in fancy points per game expected just based off his usage.
13:20Like how high, how high do you think that can climb to if he's going to, you know, run 25% more routes?
13:26Like because he's always going to be efficient. Just like Jordan loves too good.
13:30LaFleur is too good. Christian Watson is too good.
13:32So we always know he's going to have I'll produce like his usage.
13:36Like, do we have like the wider C for 25 in the expected points where he can get like all the way
13:42up into like a top 15 season? Like is that that crazy?
13:45I think you could look at just the last two years, like when Jamison Williams has run hot, like that type of player.
13:51Right. Yeah. You know, that kind of upside. And we have no idea.
13:55Like I said, are they going to play Jaden Reed in those one to two wide receiver sets?
14:00And we still don't know what we're going to get out of Matthew Golden.
14:04I don't mind even taking grabbing those other two guys.
14:06I prefer Golden just because of the underdog scoring format than Jaden Reed.
14:10But I don't mind getting either of those two guys either just because the and we don't also don't know when we're
14:16going to see Tucker Craft be Tucker Craft again.
14:19It could be earlier than expected, but we also have seen the, you know, we've all died on the injury hill, like the optimism hill.
14:25So it's like a lot just this lines up, I think, for Watson based on, you know, the format of this type
14:32of tournament and scoring on a site. I love this pick for many of the reasons that you said, but also if
14:38round five is typically when you grab one of your first two wide receivers, then you're giving us a name at the
14:44top of round three or excuse me, round five and Terry McClurin.
14:47And at the end of round five with Christian Watson and the 11th pick there as a wide receiver 29.
14:52I went back and just asked myself, okay, why was last year when he was on the field for those 10 games more consistent than in previous years?
15:00I mean, you know, the highest catch rate he's had in his career, the most yards per game at 61.
15:06And again, when I went back and watched a major part of it was that there were more gimmies and they're more
15:12outside breaking routes and then dug into the numbers.
15:14Again, here his out routes jumped from 7.7% of his targets in his first, what, three seasons up to 35% of his targets this past season.
15:21And those are also, you know, lower a dot plays.
15:24And it's just, we know how explosive he can be.
15:27We know how much of an ambitious thrower that Jordan love can be.
15:30And those plays do break models and the expected points.
15:33But if we also get the gimmies here of, hey, third and four, he's the player.
15:38He's the one in motion. He's the one that's getting the separation.
15:41And he's the one they're targeting underneath. Then that just adds like a baseline performance and baseline production, Hayden, to like a
15:47player who has struggled with that stuff and has kind of been a spiked week guy in previous season.
15:52I know one of the Packers wide receivers, if not two of them, are like severely underpriced.
15:57And I have the same read as you Reeves, where I know that Christian Watson's good.
16:01He's going to play a lot. I think there's a chance that Matthew Golden's going to be good and that he's going to play a lot.
16:08And then I think Jaden Reed, I know is pretty good, but I have my doubts he's going to play.
16:14So I'm kind of looking at Watson and Matthew Golden as the two Packers players that I'm like most intrigued by.
16:20And if you really like look at the projections of it all, Christian Watson's like not that dissimilar to, like you said, Jameson Williams, Luther Burden.
16:27And some of these players out there where like we're anticipating their roles to increase or that there's hyper efficient players.
16:33He's the one that just priced way after those guys.
16:35And it's like not next to like Colson Loveland, who I want to be drafting.
16:40So he's definitely the target out of this bunch.
16:42And we know it's because of the health, right?
16:45Like and you're injury prone, so you're not. And he's missed time every year.
16:48And that's what's kind of kept him in that at the bottom of, I think, that kind of tier.
16:54I think you can include Alec Pierce kind of in there, too.
16:57And then I think that's like the firewall. Then you start to get into some projection with some of the other guys.
17:03Like when you get to Marv, the rookies, what are we going to get out of BTJ?
17:08That's why I think he's at the bottom of that of that list.
17:11But if you just run into one season where he just stays on the field, we know we're getting fantasy points.
17:17And he's healthy right now. And he's 27 years old.
17:20So like it could have just been bad injury luck.
17:23And then for the next five years, he doesn't miss any time.
17:26Like that's just how it works sometimes. All right.
17:28You kick things off with Terry McLaurin and Christian Watson.
17:31By the way, Reeves has and is a part of one of the best draft guides and the draft kits in the business that's over at Sharp Football.
17:39He already has top 250 rankings, positional rankings, dynasty rookie rankings, all that type of stuff.
17:43So we'll definitely link that in the description down below for you all to check out.
17:48I know a lot of you did last summer.
17:50All right. Let's talk another position. Give us your third player that you brought to the table here today.
17:55Yeah. My third guy is my favorite guy. It's actually the player when I run my my rankings against ADP.
18:01It's the it's the guy is the largest gap and it's Justin Herbert.
18:04And you might say, well, just Herbert because this is a top 10 quarterback.
18:08Yeah. That's how aggressive I am on Justin Herbert this year.
18:11And I know that like a lot of people, he's like kind of like an eye rolling inducing player to many because
18:17they're like, oh, so he wins something. Right. This man.
18:20I care about I care about fantasy points. And Justin Herbert is literally set up to score a lot of fantasy points this season.
18:27I mean, we know we know what happened last year.
18:29Right. Like we don't really need to talk about like the complete rear we went through, but though we'll mention it.
18:35You know, starting the year without Rashawn Slater. Joe only appeared in six games.
18:39Justin Herbert was hit on 129 dropbacks last year while being ninth in the NFL in dropbacks, led the NFL kind of put some perspective on that.
18:47Bo Nix had 669 dropbacks. Most of the NFL.
18:49He was only hit 71 times. Yeah, it's just absolutely crazy.
18:52And we talk about the Chargers offensive line. Their most frequently used offensive line combination last year.
18:57And this is already accounting for Rashawn Slater. Not even starting the year was only in the field for 16 and a half percent of their offensive snaps.
19:04It was the lowest rate in the NFL. It wasn't just Joe all being injured.
19:09It wasn't just Rashawn Slater not starting the year.
19:11Bradley Bozeman and Zion Johnson are the only guys here in every game.
19:15Neither one of them is on team. That's derogatory, by the way.
19:18Yeah. Rebs, what blows my mind, though, is we always talked about the tackles being injured and bad.
19:23But that was the guard-center-guard combination that the Chargers wanted to start every single game.
19:27And they were brutal in terms of every single phase of pass protection.
19:31Yeah, Mekhi Becton didn't work out. And we've seen Justin Herbert operate at a high-level fantasy quarterback.
19:35Obviously, his second year in the league, he had the QB2 overall finish.
19:39He was the QB3 in overall points before Alts' injury last year without Rashawn Slater in some kind of moving parts.
19:45And he was the QB4 in expected points at that point.
19:48Then everything just fell off a cliff with this offense after Alts' injury.
19:51They were one of the worst teams in explosive plays.
19:54They actually fell to 27th in yards per play.
19:56He averaged 0.56 fantasy points per dropback with Alts on the field.
20:00Went to 0.43 without him. That was a difference between QB7 on the season and QB21.
20:04And now we're getting this kind of big boom with Mike McDaniel coming in.
20:08And I do think that this is a huge deal.
20:11Even bigger than I think. Everyone knows it's good.
20:13But think about this. If you just look at the Shanahan side of the coaching tree, the McShanahan side.
20:18Because I want to remove the McVay side for a little bit.
20:22Because McVay was the first kind of guy to alter it.
20:25His thing when he broke off the Shanahan coaching tree and created his own kind of branch.
20:29He's like, I'm getting rid of the fullback. I'm adding a slot receiver.
20:33We're going to start using our guys like Robert Woods and Cooper Cup.
20:37And now Pukunikua. We're going to get them on the move.
20:40Get them blocking on linebackers. And we want to be able to run against all this big nickel while we're in nickel.
20:46And then when we have to throw, while we're in 11.
20:49And then when we have to throw, we've got a fullback on the field.
20:53We've got a plus guy that can help us.
20:55And you know what's funny is last year now he's turning the tides and saying, we don't really have a good third wide receiver.
21:02What if we just get teams to go base and try to create explosive passing plays?
21:06But the Shanahan side where Mike McDaniel comes from, he's like more tried and true.
21:10He added more pre-snap motion than we usually see from the Shanahan side.
21:14But he's playing a fullback. They brought his guy over again too.
21:17He's like his, Al Gingold is his use check.
21:20Bringing him everywhere he goes. But we know we're going to see a lot more tighter splits.
21:24We'll get to some of that more pre-snap motion.
21:27But when you look at the Shanahan side of this coaching tree, this is a system that has had high-end efficiency from
21:33guys like Jimmy Garoppolo, Brian Greasy, Matt Schaub, Derek Carr, Sam Darnold last year.
21:37Even Nick Mullins, a big year from Kirk Cousins.
21:39Tua Tungleloa had a 4.8% touchdown rate every year with Mike McDaniel.
21:42To add some context to that, Patrick Mahomes has even had a 4.5% touchdown rate since 2022.
21:47Jordan Love, who is playing under the same iteration of this offense, is one of four quarterbacks that have a 5% touchdown
21:53rate or higher in each of the past three seasons.
21:56When you look at when this system has had an elite caliber quarterback, these guys have won MVPs.
22:01Aaron Rodgers, 2020, 2021, MVP, 48 touchdowns, 37 touchdowns.
22:03Matt Ryan in 2016, 38 touchdowns. That's it, really.
22:06You've got to go back to John Elway then to find another guy that played in this Mike Shanahan coaching system that was an elite talent.
22:13They have made water into wine out of a bunch of guys.
22:16And now we've got another elite talent. That guy has all the tools and we're putting him in this offense with good
22:22weaponry and improved offensive line just by proxy of having his two tackles back on the field.
22:27Man, I think Justin Herbert is a guy that you want to bet to win MVP this year.
22:32I think he's a guy that's going to score a ton of points.
22:36I think the sky's the limit for him. He also was running around a little bit more last year.
22:41Obviously, that was more out of necessity, but that's a good fallback plan that if everything kind of starts falling apart, he
22:47can run around a little bit more. Yeah, obviously, the talent's outrageous.
22:50He's kind of modern Elway-like, to be honest. Yeah, he's going to spin the football down the football field like that.
22:56My question to you, I'm totally sold on this.
22:58Which wide receivers and tight ends are you bringing along with him?
23:02Are you also really into Quinton Johnson? Is it Ladd McConkie all the way into round three?
23:06Is it Dadston? Is it all of them? I mean, if you're thinking you're calling your shot an MVP, it's probably going to be all of them.
23:14But am I off base just being like, hey, I want to draft Ladd McConkie as often as humanly possible this year?
23:20I mean, he's the fifth pick in the fourth round right now.
23:23Yeah, it's all these guys. I don't want to necessarily have to just force them.
23:27It's kind of, I think, dealers choice. I think we're going to see all these guys play a little bit with McConkie
23:33being the guy that is going to be probably more locked into the route participation stuff that's going to be fluid.
23:39But even Quinton Johnson, I know he's like a punching bag, but he's gotten better every year in the NFL.
23:45He creates explosives. You don't think Mike McDaniel is going to create explosives with Quinton Johnson?
23:49Then you have Trey Harris who factors in like he's good in the run game.
23:53Does he weasel his way in and playing in some of these tighter sluts?
23:57And I know a Rondé Gadson is a guy that I'm not going to want in redraft, but in this type of
24:03format, you should still want a Rondé Gadson because his per target stuff is going to look awesome.
24:08The thing that's going to hold him back is from a redraft stance is you're never going to know when to play
24:14him because you never know he's going to have a 40% route participation or like a 70% route participation.
24:19Then you have like all the injury stuff that could happen.
24:22But in he's fallen, I think he opened it like tight end nine, tight end 10.
24:27And I think he's dropped since the addition of David Njoku, who you can also throw in here too as a late
24:33round kind of guy to soak up maybe some touchdown production or some dominoes, a windfall through injuries or just them playing more too tight end stuff.
24:40I mean, yeah, I think all these guys are just in board on board to add here, but I think it's going to be a conglomeration.
24:48Like it's not going to be like a Julio Jones 2016, right?
24:51I think it's going to be just everyone kind of contributing.
24:54I think we're going to see Mike McDaniel really back in his bag this year with this with this just talent pool that he has.
25:01Yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple to make the case that you mentioned the offenses and just overall points that Mike McDaniel produced in Miami.
25:08And that was with a quarterback that defenses caught up to his physical limitations.
25:11You know, certainly there's areas of the field. He just could not attack extended plays just were not an option there with Justin Herbert.
25:18He doesn't have any of those limitations. And it's like there there is no ceiling to this in a crazy way.
25:24So, yeah, and you even mentioned Hayden. Some of the Russian performances, they were outstanding Russian performance.
25:29Yes, I mean 60, 62, 57 and a touchdown in 66 yards.
25:32I'm certain if I went back and watch those, a lot of those would be scrambles and running for his life.
25:38So hopefully he doesn't have to do that as often.
25:40But we know the athleticism is there if he has to in the team.
25:44Yeah, you had a career high scramble rate. It was 2% higher than his previous high.
25:49So there was a lot of I got to get the hell out of here.
25:53But he was so banged up. Like you said, all those quarterback.
25:56It's like when he was scrambling around, you can see how much pain he was in.
26:00He was still like going to war. So, yeah, this is this is a great call.
26:05This makes me want to do a lot more research on Quinton Johnson, because if we're going to get some like 35
26:11plus touchdown season out of Justin Herbert in this offense.
26:14I mean, Ladon McConkie is not going to score 15 touchdowns, most likely given his size.
26:18Like it's going to be somebody else in this offense.
26:21I want to make sure we're not overthinking Quinton Johnson right now.
26:24And the thing about this, this, this take, which I know is completely very bullish, is there are people that just don't want to deal with Justin Herbert.
26:32He's not really move. Yeah. Hayden and I have been going through the tight end conversation.
26:36And in previous years, Reeves, we've loved to, you know, build this Dr.
26:40Frankenstein late round tight end room. I think that's becoming more and more difficult because those tight ends that we drafted late
26:46last year are now being drafted earlier and earlier.
26:48So is there a tight end on the board that you can't stop drafting this year?
26:53Yeah, I've tried a bunch of approaches this year at tight end.
26:56And, you know, one of the things I keep getting hung up on is I love the top three from a talent perspective.
27:02There's a reason they're the top three, right? Like these are very good, diverse players, you know, in Trey McBride, Brock Bowers
27:09and Colson Loveland, who I would include in that, especially when you factor in like the way Colson Loveland ended his season.
27:15Like there's a lot of upside here. And again, with that Ben Johnson offense, Ben Johnson was kind of copying that McVay
27:21approach with way better personnel to end the year.
27:23Like when he saw Sean McVay running at 13 personnel, Sean McVay kind of like had to do it too.
27:29Like when you look at the, he couldn't run the old McVay offense with the player personnel he had.
27:34Ben Johnson kind of looked at him and was like, man, I've got better personnel to do this with.
27:39Cole Komet and Colson Loveland are way better than Colby Park.
27:42Who's a little bit underrated, but like, you know, you know, Davis Allen.
27:46And if Tyler Higbee is available, right. And Terrence Ferguson doesn't really count the 13 personnel.
27:50I refuse to acknowledge that he's allowed to count as a tight end because all he's too fast.
27:55All he did was run 25 yard go around.
27:58I loved it. I loved it. Yeah. He's also a fun guy too.
28:01They didn't make the cut here for me. But if you look at the tight end position in the past five years,
28:07like it's had a lot more correlation to just like raw opportunity.
28:10The last five tight end ones have just outright run the most routes at the position.
28:15And to me, that's a hangup for Loveland and Bowers completely nuking is that both of those teams are going to be playing with very run oriented philosophies.
28:23And maybe they just don't run the raw routes.
28:25And the McBride just has so many pulling factors of just natural regression.
28:29He ran 121 more routes than the next closest tight end last year.
28:32That's like four games. He basically played four extra games than the next closest tight.
28:36Cardinals were number one in neutral pass rate last year.
28:39No chance that repeats. And you have like the quarterback stuff, like the way the Cardinal schedule, if anyone is like really, you know, a week out.
28:47We're a week and a half out from the schedule stuff.
28:50The Cardinals got absolutely nuked. I really think their schedule, unless Jacoby Brissett absolutely wins this, whatever holdout he's doing that.
28:55We're going to see all three guys because there's no on quick on board for Carson Beck.
29:00I think it's going to be, they're getting rubbed and they're going to have to go from Brissett to Minshew, then to Beck.
29:06And we probably see all three at some point this year.
29:09So like, and then we paired with the natural aggression, like it's hard to just like go all in on McBride.
29:15And we know there's going to be a boy kid that he provided the highest positional leverage from tight end one to
29:21tight end two, in terms of tight end two scoring a percentage of the title ones points ever in the history of fantasy football.
29:28So like, that's just going to naturally make you want to go to the field and like, well, even loving Bowers and Loveland.
29:34And it's like, man, like, are they going to just get the raw routes in the offenses they're in?
29:39Maybe there's a chance, right? That the Raiders are that bad and you could get it.
29:44But we also have the rookie factor too. Whenever fan Fernando Mendoza starts, no, no tight ends ever been the tight end
29:50one overall attached to a rookie quarterback that started half the games or more.
29:54And we haven't seen, we've only seen three guys be a tight end three or higher in overall scoring.
29:59So there's a lot of like pulling factors. I've tried some teams where I grabbed Bowers and Loveland and I ended up
30:05still just like really loving the depth that's still tight end versus kind of the depth, the running back wide receiver.
30:11So I've found the teams I like the most so far.
30:14And I say like subjectively, it could, will you look at a 10,000 foot view come February and be like, oh yeah,
30:20you just needed that Kyle Pitts game, right? That you got in the playoffs last year.
30:24But I really like the later round guys. And one of my favorite later round guys is Isaiah Likely right now.
30:30So if you want to look for like tight end breakouts in terms of historical like ADP or just guys that hit,
30:36you want guys that can potentially be the lead target in their passing game or worse, the second target in their passing game.
30:42Since 2010, 65% of all tight end one scores were either the first or second pass catcher on their team.
30:48Only 19.1% of all tight ends selected after their team's wide receiver two finishes at tight end one that year.
30:53Likely goes after Neighbors, but ahead of the other guys.
30:56So he's right in this bucket of what we look for.
30:59We don't know when Neighbors is going to be back 100%.
31:02Like could he just lead the team in targets?
31:05It's in the range of outcomes, I believe. Because I think we're going to see some cannibalization from the wide receivers like Mooney, Malachi Fields and Darius Slayton.
31:12There's a lot overlap where those guys want to run routes.
31:16So like will those guys kind of eat each other like snap shares up?
31:19We know that there's a Matt Nagy like question here.
31:22But one thing Matt Nagy has done at all stops.
31:25He's another guy that likes to run a lot of two tight end stuff.
31:29Jackson Dart last year was right around the league rate in targeting tight ends.
31:33But here's the thing. He was the QBA and on target rate to tight end throws.
31:37But he was QB 27 and drop rate is why Theo.
31:40Yeah, it's like Theo for you. I like Theo too.
31:43I like Theo and I think he's a play in the two tight end stuff.
31:47But there's a reason they wanted to upgrade a pass catcher.
31:50Like he left a lot of plays on the field.
31:53And then the other thing is too is like I brought up the where Theo Johnson's going.
31:57Like look at some of the running backs and wide receivers, you know, going against him.
32:02Like you're taking him in a range where you're going to have to go in against like Tyrone Tracy and the Jonah Coleman's and Keaton Mitchell.
32:09Khalil Shakir, who's this is not the format for Khalil Shakir.
32:12Jalen Coker, who I do like like guys like Omar Cooper.
32:15Like I'm just way more comfortable shopping at the price range for the tight ends.
32:19And there's some other tight ends I like in this range, too.
32:22But I actually have a higher projection on likely than and I think he's underpriced.
32:27So I've been getting him the most out of that group.
32:30So for redraft, I think he's even a better pick because most likely we're assuming like neighbor is going to miss September.
32:36And there's tight ends who are being drafted ahead of him or right around him.
32:40And George Kittle and Tucker Craft, who we don't know about their early parts of their season coming off of injuries.
32:46I think in the redraft leagues, if you drafted Tucker Craft and then a couple of rounds later wanted to go Isaiah Likely.
32:52And maybe there's a chance you're just starting Isaiah Likely out of the jump while Malik Neighbors is banged up.
32:57And then afterwards, you can drop him, move on, find the next breakout guy if Isaiah Likely doesn't even pan out.
33:03So I hear your case in best ball. I think in this redraft leagues, I think when week one comes around, I
33:09think we're going to have a pretty sweet projection for for the new free agent.
33:13Reeves, that was an interesting pitch. Let me pitch you on something.
33:17How different of a profile is it with what you just said about Isaiah Likely target competition, top two target getter, all
33:23that type of stuff on the team? Then Chico Kwankwo, who goes about two rounds later at the eighth pick of the
33:2913th round as now a member of the Washington Commanders.
33:32And I do like Chig a lot, too. The one thing I worry about Chig is just like he is the worst
33:38run blocking tight end in the NFL. And it may not matter.
33:41It's like you want to be on a team like you want to have the Herald.
33:45Fan and run out of last year. If you're a terrible run blocker where your team just has to throw and you're
33:51high enough on the target packing order, you can score fantasy points.
33:55So I do think there is some like kind of a Conquo like Herald fan of adjacency that you could draw to.
34:01So it's not a big massive difference. I think Likely is going to play on a little more rundowns than a Conquo will.
34:07But I do like a Conquo as well. Like I led off with the commander's pitch.
34:11Yeah, I think he's my most drafted player at this point, which maybe says something about where I'm drafting in late May.
34:18Yeah, yeah. With Likely, I went back and watched some of the stuff.
34:21To me, some of his best plays were the off script extended play stuff.
34:25Yep. Like staying on a string with his quarterback.
34:27And Jackson Dart's going to do that. I mean, he's going to drop his eyes and, you know, pick up and create
34:33space and then look down the field. He did it last year as a rookie.
34:38And he'll do it also during his second season.
34:40All right. One more name, Rich Rebar. I know this is a Lord Reeves special.
34:44Hit us with it. Yeah. I mean, it's been so long since we had a little, you know, Konami that's available at cost, man.
34:51You got to hit him with a little up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, BA start.
34:56Malik Willis is my guy here, especially, man. And you talk about, like, this is, like, the format.
35:01You're telling me I could get a running quarterback that fits all builds.
35:04He can be your QB2 where you go powerhouse QB, you know, Josh Allen or spending on a Joe Burrow or anyone up top.
35:11He can be part of your QB3, you know, Frankenstein.
35:14And I never have to pick which week to start him, right?
35:17I just get to soak up the weeks to get him.
35:20Like, I can't think of a better kind of pick in, like, the QB20 range.
35:24We know he was able to kind of resurrect his career in Green Bay.
35:28I don't know, like, how much is real from the efficiency on the small sample because when you look at, like, fantasy
35:34points per snap, he's number one with a bullet the past two years.
35:38Like, 0.73 fantasy points per snap. For some context, Lamar Jackson, 0.62.
35:41Then Josh Allen, 0.61 or up next. He's not going to be that kind of player.
35:45Not on this Miami Dolphins team, which is definitely being priced in.
35:49It's really, to me, like, about, like, the cost at first because even guys like Justin Fields last year.
35:54And we didn't even know Justin Fields was going to be able to start.
35:58Like, that was, we knew he'd start the year, but we didn't know he'd survive the year.
36:02And he ended up not because we knew he was not a good quarterback to serve, like, in the NFL.
36:08Like, he was on his third stop or fourth team in four years.
36:12Or he's on his fourth team in four years now.
36:14And he didn't make it long enough. But, like, Malik Willis has a lot of runway here to at least finish the year as the starter.
36:21And he's being priced in as just, like, hey, he's a QB3.
36:25You can grab him at the end. But when you look at the game that we talked about before I got on
36:31here and you guys were going over most of the names, the game that kind of won me over a little bit
36:37was the last time we kind of saw him start against the Baltimore Ravens in that Saturday night game.
36:42I can't remember if it was a Christmas game or not, but Derrick Henry ran for, like, a zillion yards.
36:48But in that game, Green Bay had a 75% drop back rate in that game.
36:52It was the highest that Malik Willis has had in his career.
36:55Josh Jacobs didn't play. He left that game with an injury.
36:58And he was out there winging it and was playing well.
37:01We know he can run, right? Like, he had a 15% scramble rate at Green Bay.
37:05It was the highest rate in the NFL. Behind him, Jaden Daniels is second over the past two years.
37:11And he averages nine yards per scramble, which is fifth in the year.
37:14So the rushing production is at least going to insulate him for having, like, a high floor.
37:19He's the original throwback Konami guy. When I wrote that original article, which is 2013, date myself here, it was about Tim Tebow.
37:25It was about, you know, and it's about how these guys have a high floor.
37:29Remember when Taysom Hill started a couple years ago at quarterback?
37:32Having that high floor. Well, since 1990, there have been 47 quarterbacks that have run the ball 100 times or more in a season.
37:3941 of those 47 quarterbacks have been a top 12 quarterback in fantasy points per game.
37:4330 of them have been top six scores. I don't think we're going to get that.
37:48I'm like, well, it's not with this infrastructure. But the only guy that was even lower than QB 18 in points per game.
37:54Now, mind you, this guy's going QB 21, QB 20, right in that range, was Lamar Jackson in 2018.
37:59And he only has his production dinged because he only started seven games.
38:03It was like come in for like rushing plays.
38:06But when he took over as the weekly starter that season, he was the QB 11 in points per game.
38:11And we're talking about some bad QBs. We have that thousand yard rushing Justin Field season.
38:15We've got guys like Tebow, who I brought up to Rod Taylor.
38:19Like, I think format for best ball, he fits everything that you're looking for.
38:23That big stigma of the Miami Dolphins is glossed all over his ADP.
38:26So Malik Willis is kind of the throwback of the original brand.
38:29And I had a brand back. He's easily my highest drafted quarterback right now.
38:33Yeah, this is just like it's like the easiest call to me this year.
38:37I have him and Kyler Murray just like ranked way higher than where they're currently being drafted.
38:42Now, the issue is we've talked about there's like 17 quarterbacks I really like, and they're kind of hard to parse through.
38:48I like Justin Herbert is kind of the statue guy.
38:51And then Malik Willis is the last guy where I think there's maybe a tier drop to somebody else.
38:56Josh, in our little chat here, I want to show off this advanced stats page.
39:00If you can open up this link on the shared screen where Malik Willis is in EPA per drop back and then
39:06also in success rate or in completion percentage over expected.
39:09He is totally by himself. We're not talking about EPA per carry here.
39:12We're talking about EPA per drop back. So in this small sample size going back a couple of seasons now, he is completely by himself.
39:19So we're factoring in that he's most likely not a good quarterback, but there's a chance that he's actually a good quarterback who also runs a ton.
39:27So if that's the case, then you're going to like talk about all the stuff that Reeves is talking about, plus that
39:33he actually might just like carry this Dolphins offense to a level that most people can't expect right now.
39:38Yeah, I mean, I went back and watched all the 50 of his drop backs from last season.
39:43I thought there was a real rhythm to his game.
39:46Obviously there's athleticism when working outside of it and out of structure, either throwing on the move or straight up scrambling.
39:52But we talked about that Ravens contest. And again, I understand that everyone threw on the Ravens last year and their defense
39:58just wasn't as good as in some years past.
40:00But what really caught my attention was one, his willingness to throw down the seam outside the numbers, these big time vertical
40:06routes, some really tight window stuff too. But also there were chunk plays from under center and like some real comfort from under center too.
40:13And I think when they signed Miami Dolphins, Malik Willis, and I looked at who the new play caller is in Bobby
40:19Sloick in my brain, I instantly jumped to, okay, this is drastically different than rookie season.
40:23CJ Stroud. How is this going to work? This gave me a bit more optimism for it because, you know, he kind
40:30of took on the mannerisms of Jordan Love and really, I think, embedded himself in that Green Bay Packers offense.
40:35And with Bobby Sloick, some of his best stuff during that rookie season for CJ Stroud was going from under center, five,
40:41seven step drops, a protection plan around him and these big time vertical routes and these big time crossing routes.
40:47And so I actually think the fit is a lot better than I originally thought as soon as they signed Malik Willis.
40:53So I really liked this pick and Reeves, I love that.
40:56Like, you know, here we are and can make a pick in 2026 that in 20, 2016, it was easy to do.
41:02And it feels like over the last five years that everyone has caught up to, you know, the strategy.
41:07And finally we get the one chance to do it.
41:10And yet Malik was, is going, you know, after Baker Mayfield and Tyler shock and a bunch of other names.
41:15So this is pretty cool. Yeah. And it part partially was just the room got smarter.
41:20I mean, they saw, they saw the, the floor that these types of guys held and I think recent recency is kind
41:26of, you know, crept in some guys that maybe were overpriced based on their acumen, acumen of quarterback play.
41:31Obviously Justin Fields, like we already saw Justin Fields change teams twice and he was still getting drafted as like QB 11 last year.
41:38That's like, and then everyone's kind of burnt. And then the Anthony Richardson kind of fiasco.
41:42But I think that's kind of being over dinged here.
41:45And it's, it's actually insulating, especially like I said, in best ball because, and obviously the dolphins, right?
41:50Like everyone knows like the dolphins are, they like what 200 and dead cap like this year, they're openly like kind of retooling here.
41:56But it's, it's all priced in here. Like, like if he just runs around, he's going to give you weeks that are
42:02usable in no matter what builds you have. And then if like Hayden said, there's just a couple games where you get
42:08a two passing touchdown game with the rushing. He's going to, he's going to have a spike week and he's going to easily be in your lineup.
42:16Yeah. Last two notes, the dolphins, they have at least three quality offensive linemen.
42:20Their center might be the best in the league.
42:22Their left tackles emerging as well. They added Caden Proctor early on.
42:25So I think like keep the offensive line separate from the skill guys.
42:29And then second to that in best ball, everyone's so focused on stacking as we should.
42:33When quarterbacks don't have pass catchers who are ahead of them on the ADP board, there's no reason to be drafting those players.
42:40Everybody else is focused on the other quarterbacks. So in the rare circumstances, when we do have a quarterback where all of
42:46his pass catchers or just one of his pass catchers is going ahead of them.
42:50Those guys traditionally have been a little bit underpriced just because everybody else is so focused on drafting or stacking their quarterback
42:56with the guys that they had already drafted. So I think that if Malik Willis had one pass catcher going in round
43:02five, we would see him jump up a full round or so.
43:05It's just one of these weird scenarios because the pass catchers are so bad.
43:09And there's no reason to be bringing him up.
43:12So I think there is an arbitrage opportunity just based off of how people are drafting in best ball right now.
43:18Great, great points. Reeves, you said it all. Anything else you want to leave us with?
43:22How people can find your work? Yeah, you can go over to sharp football analysis dot com.
43:27You know, last year I had a fun promo.
43:29I'm going to do another one this year. It's going to be different at least.
43:33But if you do use promo code underdog, you can get $10 off of the bundle, which kind of gives you the draft kit for free.
43:40And it makes like the breakdown basically be $7 a week for in season stuff.
43:44So you can follow along with the worksheet stuff that Josh is quoting and Winks is rolling his eyes.
43:50Like, why are you bringing this up every week?
43:52No, it's so good. I mean, if he's not doing it, then I'll do it.
43:56I just leave it up to him. I know he's got my back.
44:00All right, Reeves. Thanks so much. Thanks to everyone for watching out there as well.
44:04I will have another episode for you tomorrow. So hit subscribe, watch along, and we'll see you there.
More episodes from Underdog Fantasy Football Show
These 8 WRs Will Decide Your Fantasy Season
Jul 27, 2026
Our 7 Favorite Fantasy Football RB Sleepers
Jul 6, 2026