Dynasty Underground - HALF-TAKES That Could Change The Way We Play Dynasty // Fantasy Football 2026
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 hr 39 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 10, 2026
Published
Thu, September 10, 2026
38
Player insights
29
Players mentioned
Topics
Chris GodwinColston LovelandJahmyr GibbsJameson WilliamsJared GoffJonathon BrooksMarShawn LloydSam DarnoldTrey McBrideAmon-Ra St. BrownBijan RobinsonBlake CorumBrenton StrangeBrock Bowers
Player analysis
Player insights
Amon-Ra St. Brown
PositiveUsage42:52
The source considers St. Brown a safe fantasy asset due to the Lions' thin wide receiver depth, which guarantees him high route volume regardless of offensive scheme changes.
Insight pageBijan Robinson
PositiveValue12:18
The source categorizes Bijan Robinson as a 'forever bag' asset, comparing him to high-value investments like NVIDIA or Bitcoin that should be held long-term rather than traded.
Insight pageBlake Corum
PositiveProjection30:27
After a disappointing rookie year that caused the source to question their evaluation, Corum has proven to be one of the most efficient running backs in the NFL, validating the source's initial belief in his talent.
Insight pageBrenton Strange
NegativeRole69:38
Brenton Strange is cited as an example of a 'scrub' tight end who has become startable in tight end premium formats due to the current meta, though the source acknowledges he is actually a decent player.
Insight pageBrock Bowers
PositiveProjection69:26
The source acknowledges Bowers' elite talent and potential to go 'nuclear,' though notes that his long-term outlook is slightly less insulated than Colston Loveland's due to team context.
Insight pageChris Bell
PositiveBreakout58:04
The source highlights Chris Bell as an intriguing wide receiver prospect for the Dolphins, noting he is on the 53-man roster and expected to play early in the season. Despite initial pre-draft skepticism, the source now views him as a potentially valuable fantasy asset if Malik Willis performs.
Insight pageChris Godwin
PositiveUsage19:17
The source expresses high confidence in Chris Godwin, consistently betting on his receptions and receiving yards.
Insight pagePositiveUsage67:36
The source consistently targets the over on Chris Godwin's receptions and receiving yards, identifying him as a reliable fantasy asset.
Insight pageChristian McCaffrey
NegativeValue17:03
The source criticizes a specific ranking of Christian McCaffrey as 'ludicrous,' implying the valuation is off-base.
Insight pageColston Loveland
PositiveValue16:28
The source acquired Colston Loveland in a trade last year, giving up Travis Kelce and a second-round pick, as part of a strategy to pivot away from win-now assets.
Insight pagePositiveBreakout72:11
Colston Loveland is viewed as a top-tier dynasty asset due to his wide receiver-like movement, blocking ability, and high-quality offense with a franchise quarterback.
Insight pageEli Raridon
PositiveValue77:07
Eli Raridon was acquired in a trade, with the source planning to start him as part of a rebuilding roster in a deep 12-team format.
Insight pageHarold Fannin
NegativeDepth Chart73:46
Harold Fannin is identified as a player who may be emerging behind the current depth chart, with the source suggesting he is 'in the chat' as a potential riser.
Insight pageJahmyr Gibbs
PositiveValue12:18
The source categorizes Jahmyr Gibbs as a 'forever bag' asset, comparing him to high-value investments like NVIDIA or Bitcoin that should be held long-term rather than traded.
Insight pageNegativeRole37:47
The source considers Gibbs 'fade proof' in the Lions offense, noting that he is exempt from concerns regarding coaching changes because his role and talent make him a locked-in fantasy asset.
Insight pageJake Ferguson
PositiveValue16:08
The source identifies Jake Ferguson as a player they prefer to keep in their 'forever bag' rather than trading, viewing him as a long-term cornerstone.
Insight pageJameson Williams
NegativeRole39:23
The source is concerned that Williams could suffer under new offensive coordinator Drew Petzing if the scheme fails to utilize motion and creative designs to get him open, though his high route volume keeps him relevant.
Insight pagePositiveUsage45:30
The source has become optimistic about Jameson Williams, citing the Detroit Lions' institutional belief in him and Dan Campbell's willingness to take over play-calling duties if the offensive coordinator fails to utilize him effectively.
Insight pageJared Goff
NegativeProjection43:58
The source views Goff as a volatile asset, noting that his fantasy output could swing significantly depending on the team's overall success, with potential for high yardage and touchdowns offset by high interception risk.
Insight pageNegativeProjection44:06
The source views Jared Goff as a volatile asset with a wide range of outcomes, noting he could finish with 4,900 yards and 35 touchdowns or regress to 3,900 yards and 22 touchdowns. While he is ranked around QB16, the source believes he lacks the reliability to be a consistent top-12 fantasy quarterback.
Insight pageJonathon Brooks
PositiveProjection30:14
The source expresses high optimism for Brooks heading into his third season, viewing his lack of early production as a result of injury rather than a lack of talent.
Insight pagePositiveValue77:07
Jonathan Brooks was acquired in a trade, with the source planning to start him as part of a rebuilding roster in a deep 12-team format.
Insight pageKenneth Walker III
PositiveProjection16:56
The source believes Kenneth Walker is going to have a big season and notes that he is worth a second-round startup pick, despite being sniped in some drafts.
Insight pageMalik Willis
PositiveValue56:00
The source identifies Malik Willis as a screaming buy in redraft leagues due to his rushing upside, noting that any quarterback who averages five carries per game historically finishes as a top-10 fantasy option. Despite concerns about the Miami Dolphins' team situation, the source argues his low cost makes him an asymmetrical bet with massive potential.
Insight pageMarShawn Lloyd
PositiveProjection30:24
Similar to Jonathan Brooks, the source remains high on Lloyd for his third season, attributing his slow start to injury issues.
Insight pagePositiveValue77:07
Marshawn Lloyd was acquired in a trade, with the source planning to start him as part of a rebuilding roster in a deep 12-team format.
Insight pageNajee Harris
PositiveUsage24:37
The source notes that while Harris lacks explosiveness, he is being utilized by teams for his veteran presence and institutional knowledge of pass protection, allowing him to keep the offense on schedule.
Insight pageParker Washington
NegativeBust14:25
The source regrets trading away Parker Washington during a hot streak last season, noting that while he wasn't in the 'forever bag,' the trade feels like a mistake in hindsight.
Insight pageSam Darnold
PositiveMatchup19:21
The source highlights Sam Darnold as a favorable pick for Week 1, noting he only needs one yard against New England to cash a pick.
Insight pagePositiveMatchup67:46
Sam Darnold is highlighted as a favorable play for Week 1 against New England, requiring only one yard to cash a PrizePicks entry.
Insight pageSam LaPorta
PositiveValue43:33
The source highlights LaPorta as a value in dynasty formats, noting that he has been relatively cheap compared to his production and role in the Lions' offense.
Insight pageTerrance Ferguson
PositiveValue77:07
Terrence Ferguson was acquired in a trade, with the source planning to start him as part of a rebuilding roster in a deep 12-team format.
Insight pageTravis Kelce
NegativeValue10:26
The source discusses the difficulty of valuing Travis Kelce in dynasty; in the offseason, he is often faded due to retirement concerns, but his in-season value spikes significantly if he produces early, making him a tradeable asset for win-now teams.
Insight pageTre Harris
PositiveValue77:07
Trey Harris was acquired in a trade, with the source expressing belief in his prospect profile.
Insight pageTrey McBride
NegativeValue73:47
While highly regarded, McBride faces concerns regarding his target volume sustainability and age (26) compared to younger tight ends like Loveland, Warren, and Bowers.
Insight pageNegativeValue76:33
The source traded away Trey McBride, along with depth pieces, to acquire a package of younger assets, citing a desire to exploit tight end premium value in a rebuilding scenario.
Insight pageTyler Warren
PositiveProjection72:25
Tyler Warren is projected for massive volume (140 targets) in the Colts offense, making him a high-value asset for the 2026 season, potentially rivaling Trey McBride in rankings.
Insight pageTyrone Tracy
NegativeUsage24:27
The source highlights Tracy as a player who struggles with pass protection due to his limited experience at the position, leading teams to favor more experienced veterans like Najee Harris to protect the quarterback.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
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1:03You know, outside of the elite, which would be maybe at most 10 quarterbacks, I think quarterbacks are losing value in super flex.
1:11That's a 69% take at least. Tight end premium is ruining Dynasty Fantasy Football.
1:16My point, and this is the actionable advice. If I'm right about this, we are buying those year two running backs.
1:23We are buying those year three running backs and we are taking advantage of the new meta in the NFL.
1:29That's where I was getting to as well. That's why I cut you off.
1:34I can let you steal my thunder. Thunder. I will poop on your thunder is what I'm going to do.
1:40Wow. Nobody wants shitty thunder. I didn't say shit.
1:43I said poop. Sights and sounds and edges found.
1:46You will now get down with the underground. Posted up on the OTC Fantasy YouTube channel and live on your favorite audio platforms.
1:54Dynasty Underground is back in your life, baby. I am Trav, hosting a West Coast, and as usual, the usual suspects are
2:01with me as well as we move closer and closer to the NFL season, boys.
2:06Jax Falcone, the wise man, how are you tonight?
2:09I'm doing great. Just updating my rankings. I almost missed what you were saying, but I'm doing good.
2:15Yeah, yeah. For feverishly updating the rankings behind the scenes.
2:18For no apparent, no reason, no reason. No, I wouldn't.
2:21Not like we're doing a podcast or anything like that.
2:25And of course, with the pristine melon hat on, we have one Joe Cuevius, Kubitakis.
2:30How are you doing, brother? It's almost here. I'm great, and I think they're making fun of me to the listener because
2:37I am literally, as Jax said that, I'm updating my rankings.
2:40This is like a tradition this time of year for me, and I just want to talk about this off the top.
2:48Trav, I'm just hijacking the show from the get-go because I think this is an important subject.
2:53I have long stated how much I hate rankings, and I've also long stated that I want two sets of rankings, and
3:00I actually kind of wanted to talk to Keegan about this just to see how we could actually pull this off on
3:08a website and not just confuse the hell out of our listeners and or audience.
3:13And I don't think we can actually pull it off without confusing them.
3:17So to you, dear listener who spends the time to hear what we have to say and get the context, I hope this is valuable to you.
3:26But I don't know about you guys, but the way I look at this game is in two different modes.
3:32There's off-season startup mode, and then there's in-season mode.
3:35And I would liken it to an investing portfolio where I've got one pile of money that is dedicated towards long-term investments.
3:43And that's how I look at the off-season. It's these long-term investments where I suspect that it's going to get to a
3:50certain price, and I just don't touch that. I make my investment when I make it, and then I just hold on to those assets.
3:58And then there's my trading bag as well. And once we get to the regular season, that's when I start to get super active with my trading bag.
4:07And that is how I treat my rankings. So think about it this way.
4:12It's two different lines, right? The two lines start and end at the same place, but one of them is just the average.
4:19And a good chunk of my portfolio is staying on that average line.
4:24And then the other one is fluctuating up and down, up and to the right, but with huge fluctuations.
4:30And that's what happens in season. Value changes week to week.
4:33And what happens in my rankings is it sort of shifts closer to what you see in, like, redraft.
4:40So I don't know how to put this into linear rankings, but I just want you guys to understand that that's how
4:47I play this game because we're playing long-term in Dynasty.
4:50But once the season starts, we're playing a win.
4:53Joe? Go ahead. Yeah, fire away. No, you can't make money unless the market is open.
4:58Yeah. You know, you can't make money unless the market is open.
5:02So you can't make money-making Insta deals unless there's games being played and unless the season is running its simulation so that
5:10you can make those types of moves. You can only, I mean, really make long-term vision moves in that offseason.
5:16And I do understand what you're saying. And when you mentioned this, and I'm going to sort of let the cat out of the bag a little bit.
5:25You did mention this to me off the air, and I was like, wow, this is like, this really spoke to me
5:33because we were having a conversation relatively spirited between the three of us because I don't think we quite understood what you were saying.
5:41And wait, you want two rankings? That's dumb. But it's not when you sort.
5:45No, it's true, right? So it's one of those things where, no, you have one dynasty ranking.
5:51Maybe it's rebuild. Maybe it's, you know, to win, which we all understand that difference.
5:56But there is another difference that Joe is mentioning here, which specifically spoke to me because I think I play like that.
6:03But without that explanation, without that lens, without that way of saying it, and I thought it was really cool, and I'm
6:10glad you brought it up because I see it, you know?
6:14And so you can continue. But, like, I just feel like, yeah, there's certain things that I'm doing that are long-term.
6:21But once you're in the season, those things change, and it certainly does change your rankings.
6:26Nobody wants, I'll bring him up, Travis Kelsey, let's say, on the offseason.
6:30And everybody's like, hmm, he might retire. What the hell am I going to spend a startup pick, you know, in February or March on Travis Kelsey?
6:39I don't even know if he's playing next year.
6:42But if he's three weeks in, and he's the tight end two, and he's got, you know, a 100-yard game and three
6:49touchdowns to his name over the first three weeks, hey, tell you what, man, he's worth something, ain't he?
6:55Because he's going to help you win the money with the market open.
7:00Yeah, and, like, you know, just to put this, and I hate to commoditize these guys, but that's really the game we're playing, all right?
7:08I know people are sensitive to this sort of thing, and I hate to do it, like, you know, because it dehumanizes them, right?
7:16But, like, you know, Bijon, Gibbs, they're like your NVIDIA, right?
7:19They're like your Bitcoin. It's like, no, I'm not fucking selling this shit, right?
7:24I'm just going to hang on to it and see what happens, right?
7:28But then there are other assets where it's like, yeah, I'm going to buy it, and I think it's going to go up.
7:36But if I see a spike in value, I will trade that shit tomorrow.
7:41I will trade that shit Monday morning if he goes off on Sunday, and all of a sudden people want to pay
7:48me double what I think it's ultimately going to be worth, right?
7:52And so that's what I'm talking about. And, you know, we do this all in the spirit of playing to win, right?
7:59So we have, like, your forever bag, and you have the movable assets, right?
8:04And that's just the lens that I play through and, you know, in-season calls for certain levels of aggression that, you know, you don't do in the offseason.
8:13And you can lose doing that as well, right?
8:16Like, you can have big spikes in value, and you could also just screw up royally.
8:21Like, last season, I traded Parker Washington when he started to get hot.
8:25I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe the price I'm getting for Parker Washington right now.
8:31And that feels really dumb right now, right? He wasn't in my forever bag.
8:36So, like, there's volatility and there's risk associated with trading in a volatile time.
8:40But I think you have to play that way in order to win.
8:45You can't always just play for the future. Eventually, you've got to win titles.
8:49Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. You mentioned it too, Jax.
8:52Like, we did have a bit of a spirited pre-show conversation because I wasn't quite putting it together in the context of rankings.
9:00But as we talked more, it started to come to light as you explained it that way, Joe.
9:06And as we've even spoken more on the show and you've explained it more, it's come to light more.
9:12So, like, there's the high end, right? You've got your Bichons.
9:16You might have those assets that you want to keep or I have some of those assets that are maybe, like, younger that I want to keep.
9:25Like, I think about my Terrence Ferguson bags, right?
9:28Like, he's one that I kind of want to keep sitting there as well.
9:32But you've got a lot of your in-betweens. And actually, I've talked about this trade a bunch on the show.
9:39I was on the flip side of that Travis Kelsey deal.
9:42I think it was last year, maybe the season before, where I paid Kelsey and the second to move to Colston Loveland
9:50because I wasn't in that position to win. It was last year.
9:54I remember. It was last year. It was last offseason right before the season started.
9:59Yeah. So, it was important that you came in and you mentioned kind of the sell case as well, Joe, because there is two sides of that.
10:07So, yeah, that definitely you find that. And actually, what you said gave me a very cool idea for a site feature that I texted you boys about.
10:17So, stay tuned for that for OTC. But I think it's kind of important to do that, right?
10:23Figure out your cornerstones as far as production. Figure out your cornerstones as far as future value.
10:28And then the stuff in between that is stuff that you can kind of play with.
10:33It's kind of what I'm picking up as you're saying this.
10:37But I don't know if that tracks for you, too, Joe.
10:41No. And, you know, I've seen it done different ways in different places.
10:45And, you know, if you're a rebuilder, you're looking at the long-term assets.
10:49You're looking at the forever bags. You're looking to build that side of your portfolio.
10:54That's the portfolio that keeps you safe. Right? So, but if you're in a win now mode, now you're very concerned about
11:01who's scoring points for me to get me into the playoffs, to get me that buy and to win me that title.
11:09And so, you could look at it as like win now, you should be looking at rankings as, you know, sort of startup rankings, right?
11:17Whereas, I'm sorry, win now, you should be looking at rankings sort of as redraft rankings.
11:22Yeah. And rebuild, you should be looking at as startup rankings.
11:26And so, there's no way to capture that in one set of rankings.
11:30And so, that's just the whole concept that I get frustrated with on the subject.
11:35And this isn't a ranking show, but it came up because as we were getting ready for the show, I was just
11:42literally adjusting my rankings to my in-season mode because it does change.
11:46And it's going to change every week, sometimes midweek, all the way through the end of the season.
11:52And then they're going to change drastically the day the Super Bowl is over.
11:57The day the regular season is over, right? And Joe, we were talking about Travis Kelsey for some stupid reason, but I
12:04had him at like tight end 16 or 17 or whatever.
12:07And you guys had him at 30 something. I'm like, that's bullshit.
12:11You guys don't have him there because you would certainly pick him ahead of that in a startup because you're like, oh,
12:19shoot, I can get Travis Kelsey's points and I'm in the 12th, 13th, 14th round.
12:24Yeah, screw it. And so, you know, and of course, that's what got us into, well, that's a startup.
12:30That's not trade value. And yeah, there's a lot of different ways to look at them.
12:35I think I had even mentioned that I have, you know, Stowers and Kelsey back to back in my rankings.
12:42Obviously, if I'm not competing, I want Stowers before I want Kelsey.
12:46What the hell am I going to do? I'm about to trade Kelsey to get something like Stowers, you know.
12:52So yeah, there's all these sort of micro, you know, things that come in that, you know, that come into play when
12:59you're evaluating this, even right down to roster size, league size, scoring settings.
13:04That's why rankings are effectively stupid, right? We all sort of agree with that.
13:08Now, I do my rankings and I sort of rank things.
13:12It's really hard because people say, well, are yours tight end premium?
13:16And I'm like, they're not, but I can't say that they're not influenced by tight end premium, right?
13:22I sort of have my tight ends higher just because it's like, well, you kind of want to know, you know what I mean?
13:30So are they tight end premium? Not really. They're tight end premium influence.
13:34You know, they're high on tight end premium. Um, so yeah, go ahead, Trav.
13:38Those, uh, those would be called tight end friendly rankings.
13:42Let's call them. Yeah. Um, and no, I, I don't hate that either though, because I think, especially with the tight end position.
13:49And I think like we are seeing a lot of youth come into that position.
13:54You have these pockets of upside, right? So you do have your top tier guys, but then I find in my specifically
14:01tight end rankings, I have some of these guys in that eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, who have that youth as well,
14:09who I think could be in that top tier within a year or so.
14:13I think for me, when I'm doing my dynasty ranking, something like I was almost kind of thinking about it, like mine,
14:21maybe not fully, but they're almost for like a year out.
14:24You know what I mean? I'm not necessarily ranking for a year out, but I'm, I'm maybe have a little bit more
14:31projection to future value involved in mind in that where, yeah, it's, it's such an interesting conversation because we all do them so differently.
14:39They're all so subjective. I mean, we've talked about for startups where when you have your tiers, they're not linear, they could
14:47be side by side depending on team needs. And so very, very specific to your team.
14:52But I think Joe, I think your point is very good about attacking it differently in season.
14:57And I think it's really good to start shifting our mindsets now because that time is almost here.
15:03By the time you're listening to this podcast, we're recording on the Friday before the season starts because, you know, game start
15:11on Wednesday for some reason now in Australia for some reason now.
15:14I'm just kidding. I know the reason it's money.
15:17Yeah. It is money. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we wanted to, we wanted to kind of shift into kind of that earlier
15:25week drop, especially being that the week has come in and yeah, we got games.
15:30So yeah, you, this should be, this will definitely be before the first games are played.
15:35But I did want to give a shameless plug because you guys were talking about those short-term rankings before we move into the rest of the show here.
15:44My 2026 rankings can be found on that website.
15:47So we do have some redraft rankings for that short-term.
15:50If you're looking among the dynasty rankings that the three of us provide among all of the other six stuff that you can find at otcffb.com.
15:59And I will say, I'll go ahead and plug them.
16:02There's a few spots where you and your, your cohort disagree a little bit.
16:07And some of them, I agree with you. And some of them, I agree with him.
16:12Like I disagree with your Kenneth Walker ranking, but that's okay.
16:16Because I, who is it that I disagree with?
16:19Oh, he has like, oh, his CMC ranking, I think is, is ludicrous.
16:23Yeah. You know, it's like, but there's something to be learned there too.
16:27Although, except there's nothing to be learned from your terrible Kenneth Walker ranking.
16:31Okay. Okay. Well, I, for full disclosure being Friday night, I am planning after the show to do a big update to those 2026 rankings before the weekend.
16:41So, okay. Well, maybe they're fixed by now, but I will say, you know, it's like, um, I was, uh, drafting for
16:48a friend on, uh, ESPN and Ken Walker was like, I think he's like in the third round.
16:54And I was like, bro, we're taking them in the second round for sure.
16:58And we got sniped. Someone brought them all the way up to like, whatever pick, you know, 13, 14, right at the
17:06beginning of the second round, which I'm a hundred percent with, uh, I think Ken Walker is gonna have a big season.
17:13So. Yeah. I do love that about Frank and I'm actually super excited to look at those rankings.
17:19Um, I do love that about Frank is he just ID a, what?
17:23Yeah. Yeah. He does not give. He will stand on business.
17:27Yeah, exactly. And you know what? That's, that's the way you play, baby.
17:31That's the way he's here. That's why he's here.
17:34That's exactly right. And the biggest thing I respect out of him is Twitter fucking makes him stand on business and he still stands on it.
17:42I know, I know. Fearless. Fearless. I love that guy.
17:46Yeah. We gotta get him to do some dynasty rankings.
17:49Yeah. Yeah. Get him on the underground for a, you know, a spot.
17:53That'd be fun. That would be fun for sure.
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20:00PrizePix. Run your game. Okay, boys. We're going to get into the rest of the show since, Joe, you hijacked, albeit with very valuable conversation.
20:08This show, we're going to give some half takes.
20:11So if you haven't heard us talk about half takes before, these are kind of things that we've been mulling over in our brains.
20:19Maybe it's something that we think is pretty contrarian or bold.
20:23You know, they do have a bold flavor, these half takes.
20:26But then there's some where maybe we're thinking about coming off of like seriously staunch priors that we had, and we're not sure if we should do that.
20:36And what we like to do here at The Underground is float them out to the group and talk about it with the boys.
20:43And so that's what we're going to do here.
20:46Half takes, Joe, I think it was your brainchild, I believe.
20:50So I would like for maybe you to give a couple of words on the concept and then give us your first half take.
20:58Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm going to, you know, I'm ripping this off of Bill Simmons who did a half-baked ideas, right?
21:05Which is a great bit. Yeah, it's a great bit.
21:08You know, it's just like, it's not a fully formed idea, but there's something there.
21:13And like if you work on a little bit more, you probably have something good.
21:18Half take is an embryo. Yeah. Half take is an embryo.
21:22Yeah. Yeah. Half take is the same thing, but we're just, you know, dialing this into, you know, Dynasty Fantasy Football.
21:29Right. It's just like, I don't know if I fully believe this, but I could be convinced that this thing is true.
21:36There's enough evidence there, you know, where I'll dig into the subject a little bit more and I'm open to being, you
21:43know, my mind could go either direction on this idea.
21:47So that's kind of the idea. Because, you know, what do we always say here, right?
21:52Be ready to be wrong. We're about to be wrong about so much.
21:56Week one's about to happen. We're about to be wrong about so much.
22:00And so, and so I actually, I was going to say me, but I just felt better.
22:06No, I love it. Yeah. And so I think it's just a good exercise to begin the season, just to open your
22:13mind to the different possibilities and get ready to just get absolutely rocked by the reality of whatever the new NFL is in 2026.
22:21Half take number one, Joe, is what? Tell us.
22:24I'm dying. Oh, okay. All right. Half take number one is this.
22:28Over the last couple of years, and you know, this almost came up in last week's show in things I was afraid
22:35to be wrong about, but then I decided to hold it back because it's more of a half take than it was
22:42things I'm afraid to be wrong about. I, you know, I was going to say, and I mentioned to you guys pre-show
22:50last week, but then I didn't bring it up on the air.
22:54I'm worried that this, you know, 2024 rookie RB class isn't as good as we thought it was.
23:00Right? And then I was like thinking about a little bit more.
23:04I was like, I don't know if that's really fair because I think it's really the half take.
23:09I think the way defenses have changed, running backs now have a lot more responsibilities than they did in the previous, I
23:17don't know, let's say decade, you know, from 2023 to, yeah, let's just say to 2015 to 2023 roughly, right?
23:23Where you'd see dope rookie running backs just right off the bat dominating.
23:27And we saw less of that. And like Travion Henderson is probably the poster boy for this, right?
23:33Where he was a famously awesome pass protector in college, gets to the NFL and he's clueless on this front.
23:40We're entering year two and he's still not a good pass protector by all accounts.
23:45And it's not because he's, you know, lack of willing to do so.
23:49So it's just, I think the complexity of the, you know, two high shells that the defenses are playing and the way
23:56defenses are masking things and masking blitzes in a way that we just haven't seen before.
24:02So running backs gotten almost like to tight end where it's like, ooh, this actually takes a while because you need to learn how to block.
24:10We know you can catch, we know you can run routes, but you really got to figure out this blocking part, right?
24:17And so I think the breakout of running backs has been delayed aside from like the can't miss superstars.
24:24And we're going to see more year two and year three running backs sort of take off.
24:29I'll give you another example. We talked about it recently and I just talked about it on Curdy's live stream the other
24:37day, but like Tyrone Tracy just got blown up on a very simple pass protection play and they brought in Najee Harris.
24:44We know Najee Harris lacks any semblance of explosiveness, but what does he have?
24:48Enough institutional knowledge, veteran presence to understand how to block and protect the quarterback.
24:53And so teams are willing to sacrifice explosiveness to, you know, just kind of keep the team on schedule, keep the quarterback protected.
25:01So sorry for the long-winded explanation of this, but I just think we need to change the way we look at running
25:08backs and expect the prospects that we like to break out in year two, in year three, and not late in year one, the way we used to.
25:17First of all, I want to say, I think you meant the 25 running back class, the Gentile, Omari, and Travion class.
25:24That's exactly what I meant. That's exactly what I meant.
25:27You said 24, but we knew you meant 25, but all the listener would have no way of knowing.
25:34I was actually like feverishly looking up the 24 class because I was thinking.
25:38No, no, 24 class was not that good. It was not that good.
25:43We talked about a couple of those guys, but it was not that good.
25:4725 class, sorry. I get confused. It's good, buddy.
25:50It's good. Just to help the listener not have to look it up, the 25 classes, Ashton Gentry, Omari and Hampton, Judkins,
25:57Travion, RJ Harvey, Caleb Johnson, Basial Tutankam, Scadabo, and then, you know, hold on, hold on.
26:03You got to give a Devin Neal. Devin Neal.
26:06There's a bunch of guys that are not on their team anymore after one year.
26:11Yeah. Are they dumb? Maybe. And I think, I think the other thing was, there was that depth of the class where
26:18it was Trevor Etienne, Woody Marks, Jarquez Hunter, Dylan Sampson, Jaden Blue, DJ Giddens, Ollie Gordon, Devin Neal, Taj Brooks, Damian Martinez,
26:25Bruchard Smith, you know, and so forth and so on.
26:28There was a lot of them. And so we, we felt like there was like, holy smokes.
26:34And we were right. But as prospects, they were good because they got drafted, set a record for most running backs, drafted,
26:41set a record for most running draft, you know, so record setting class, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's bringing home
26:48the bacon on the, on the scale of volatility during the season.
26:52I mean, I mean, I would say, oh, okay.
26:55Like Cam Scadaboo was an instant hit. Um, Quin Sean Judkins, surprisingly after the tumultuous rookie off season that he had was an instant hit.
27:03Yeah. Travion Henderson had his moments, but has disappointed.
27:06I think Ashton Janty, anybody who drafted him in redraft, like at 10 last year was pretty disappointed.
27:12He had his moments. Amorian hurt. Yeah. Like who, who broke out, who broke out from that class.
27:18Right. I mean, we're talking about tooting in year two.
27:22Right. But like, that's exactly my point. It's like, Ooh, that was supposed to be a really awesome class.
27:28And, you know, aside from the four glorious weeks of Cam Scadaboo that we got and, uh, you know, well, well, if
27:35you remember too, the, the two win now late first round picks win now, baby, RJ Harvey and Caleb Johnson.
27:42And I'm win now I'm win now mode. That's why I picked those guys.
27:46Remember? Yep. Oh yeah. Not so good. Yeah. So yeah, I think, I think a part of it is uncharted waters, right?
27:53So record number of running backs drafted. We've never really seen that large a pool to draft from.
27:59Right. And so, um, I wonder if maybe we got a little bit clouded with the talent and didn't think about the
28:07likelihood of that many guys really hitting. So I think maybe there is some validity, but I also think it's a product
28:14and I've been, kind of saying this, um, not like super loudly or anything.
28:18I think that fantasy gamers are too quick to write guys off.
28:22And I was talking about that with, I think I talked about that to you guys about the quarterback position, but I
28:30think maybe this is a little bit writ large, right?
28:33Because a guy doesn't break out in his first year and guys are ready to just bounce on them.
28:39And I think some of these coaching staffs, if they stay in place are ready to try and give these guys second and maybe third shots at times.
28:48Um, running back is, you know, a little bit more volatile than the other positions, but I think some of this talent
28:56can still break out in, in year two and year three, like Travion.
29:00I think they're going to give him every chance to not be in those situations where he's shitty and put him in situations where he is good.
29:09You know what I mean? I think RJ Harvey, I think he's going to get some situational target stuff.
29:15Maybe it doesn't necessarily come to fruition for fantasy, but I think for his team, he's going to be a good pass catcher as he was last year.
29:24Let me, let me, I know you're on a roll right now, but you're, you're, you're cutting to my actionable advice part
29:31without letting me make the full point. I just want to go back.
29:36I just want to go. I just want to go back to 2024.
29:40Four, Jonathan Brooks, Trey Benson, Blake Corum, Marshawn Lloyd, Jalen Wright, Bucky Irving, the rare exception.
29:45Awesome rookie year. Will Shipley, Ray Davis, Isaac Garendo, also pretty good rookie year for, you know, what he was and now he's dust.
29:53Braylon Allen, Audrick SMA, Rasheena Lee, Tyrone Tracy, you know, and oh, Kamani Vidal's on there.
29:58Didn't see anything from him as rookie year, but year two started to make some noise.
30:04You know, the list goes on. The rest of these guys really haven't done, anything yet.
30:09My point is this, like we're, we're pretty excited about Jonathan Brooks in year three.
30:14We're really excited about Marshawn Lloyd in year three.
30:17Granted, those were injury related. Blake Corum, nothing, nothing in his rookie year, a dude we loved.
30:22And God, he, he shook his rookie year shook me to the core.
30:27Right. I was like, if I'm wrong about Blake Corum in the NFL, I don't know if I know what I'm doing in this game.
30:35Right. And then last year we started to see it.
30:38It's like, oh shoot, this guy's one of the most efficient running backs in the NFL.
30:43I wasn't wrong. Thank God. My point is this, like it's a trend.
30:48And that's a right around the time we started to see the shift in defenses.
30:53And we started to see offenses change philosophies. That's also right around the time.
30:57We started to see teams paying better at running backs.
31:00You know what? Because now they saw the value of dudes that actually understood coverages and had been around the block a few times.
31:08Right. They're like, oh, you know what? That's actually super valuable.
31:12So I just think we need to change our perspective on rookie running backs and expect them to break out in year two or year three.
31:20My point, my point, and this is the actionable advice.
31:24If I'm right about this is that fantasy gamers, dynasty gamers, aren't that patient.
31:28We are, we have a long view on this, right?
31:32We are buying those year two running backs. We are buying those year three running backs and we are taking advantage of
31:39the new meta in the NFL, which means running back is kind of more like tight end and don't expect them to break out in year one.
31:48Yeah. That's where I was getting to as well.
31:51That's where I was getting to as well, Joe.
31:54I was just going to talk about that. I know.
31:57That's why I cut you off. That's why I cut you off.
32:01That's good. I'm glad. Let's just steal my thunder.
32:04I would never wish to Jax. I will. I will.
32:07I will poop on your thunder. This is what I'm going to do.
32:11Wow. Nobody wants shitty thunder. I didn't say shit.
32:14I said poop. Yeah, no. So, you know, these, these little gray beards, maybe even white beard is going to tell you I've been around a little while.
32:24And I will tell you that I, I remember my first dynasty startup.
32:28When I looked back at it just a few years later, I remember that Thomas Rawls went in like the second or third round.
32:36I don't even remember. It was like ridiculous. Seattle Seahawks running back that nobody even knows.
32:41There's guys right here going, I don't even know who Thomas Rawls is, but he was a running back that we thought was going to be good.
32:50And I remember like, that was the same draft that it was like Amari Cooper, Deandre Hopkins and Michael Thomas, like all
32:57these guys that lasted years and years and years on my roster.
33:01But Thomas Rawls was dead in year one, like dead.
33:04And in this 2024 class kind of reminds me of the 2020, 2018 draft class, which was headlined by Saquon Barkley.
33:11And you could say Saquon and gente or similar, whatever, but there was Saquon.
33:16Now I, I need to stress that there were seven first and second round running backs taken.
33:21And I will tell you that every single last one of them was like a first round rookie pick.
33:28Every last one of them was a hopeful guy that was going to change your team.
33:33If you got them, if you had multiple first round picks in rookie drafts, you were going to print money.
33:40I'm going to read you the names outside of Saquon.
33:43Who's obviously been a stud Rashad Penny. I was going to say Rashad Penny.
33:47Yeah. Rashad Penny. He had his moment. He had his moment.
33:51Sure. But Sony, Michelle, Ronald Jones, carry on Johnson, Darius Geis.
33:55There is Geis. Never even got a chance to play.
33:58I mean, off the field, whatever the case, the other one was Nick Chubb, who was awesome.
34:04So you got two awesome backs, but two out of seven is awful numbers for, for long lasting play.
34:10Another one that actually went in the first round of many rookie jobs, Royce Freeman went to Denver.
34:16Um, there was a number of other players that were drafted with value that are, there's nobody's I'll tell you, you know,
34:23Kalen Balazs, there were Kalen Balazs stands. Ito Smith.
34:26Was there ever, there were Kalen Balazs, John Kelly went to the Rams.
34:30There were people who loved him. Um, it went on, on both Scarborough or whatever.
34:35Look there, there were, those guys weren't the level of this class though.
34:39Like I think the top seven were the top seven were.
34:43Sonny. Michelle was a dude. He was, he was better than Nick Chubb in college.
34:48Yeah. Like the top seven was, was as good as the top seven.
34:52The depth wasn't as good, you know, as this depth in 24, but very similar classes in that we had a number
34:59of first round rookie picks that were going to change the fortunes of your team.
35:04And they didn't do that. And I would say, if you go back to a lot of running back classes, you see,
35:12like I always just say, take the running back class and the wide receiver class and look at him.
35:18You'll be like, all these wide receivers are still around.
35:21They're still making money. They're getting second contracts. Whereas those running backs are just being churned through.
35:27And there's a certain reality to all that, that, you know, that may be part of your half take.
35:33Take. I don't think you pooped on my parade though, because what I'm saying is now go buy those dudes that were
35:40going in the first and second round of your rookie drafts last year and are worth, you know, what a third or a fourth round pick now.
35:49Right. All I'm saying is by late on those guys.
35:52And maybe that's the way we play it because I, you know, my hypothesis, my half take is that due to the
36:00changing defensive meta, the position has gotten harder and more complicated to play.
36:04And it's not just this instinctual plug a rookie in who's athletic and hope for the best situation anymore.
36:10They won't do that anymore. It's gotten more complicated.
36:13And that's reflected by the running back contracts have all of a sudden gotten way bigger.
36:18Right. There's a number of things that go into that teams have to run more now because the big play has been
36:26taken away, but it's also defense got more complicated.
36:28And like clearly Najee Harris, you know, exhibit a teams will go pay a dusty dude to protect their quarterback more than
36:36they'll appreciate an explosive potential playmaker in Tyrone Tracy who doesn't understand the position because he converted to running back in his
36:43final year of college and just doesn't have enough experience at that position.
36:47I'm just going to, I'm just going to be real honest.
36:51Sounds like more of a full take than a half take.
36:54You feel like you've, you've sussed this out completely.
36:57I'm just saying. I've been thinking about it. Mine's a very happy.
37:01I've been thinking about it for a couple months and I've really like, I've really kind of, yeah, you're right.
37:08You're right. It's a, it's a, you you've got, you've got a good.
37:12It's a three quarters. It's a, it's a three quarter chub take.
37:16Yeah. What do you got? Trav let's hear yours.
37:19Do you want me to give you one? Yeah.
37:22This is totally like, this is might not even be a half take because I don't know if I'm ready for this
37:29yet, but I'm wondering if it might be time for us to start fading the Detroit lions offense a little bit.
37:36And I want to be clear here because I might speak, I might speak blasphemy later on the show.
37:42And I'm not speaking blasphemy here because Jameer Gibbs is exempt from this.
37:47I think Jameer Gibbs is kind of fade proof if he's healthy and he's taking carries.
37:52So maybe a little bit more in the passing game because like, this is not your older brothers, Detroit lands boys with Ben Johnson as the play caller.
38:01He brought that crazy efficiency that we, you know, hadn't ever seen before.
38:05And last year they had John Morton. That was so, so Dan Campbell called plays for half the season last year.
38:12And this year they do us dirty and they hired drew pets.
38:16Can I tell you, the offensive coordinator, please tell me.
38:20Can I tell you? Yes. I wrote a show sheet for me and Pat Fitzmaurice.
38:25Right. Yep. Reschedule. Yep. Couldn't, couldn't do the show, whatever.
38:28Yep. But I wrote a show sheet for me and Pat and that is on it.
38:33Drew Petsing. Yeah. I was like, wait a minute.
38:36Yeah. The drew Petsing. I'm not a coach analysis guy, but I was like, we didn't, we hate drew Petsing.
38:43Like everybody's like drew Petsing sucks, man. He's fucking, you know, just lines guys up, stays in the same spot, whatever the case.
38:50Right. There's a lot of just complaining about how bad he is.
38:54And then he goes to Detroit and I've heard nothing.
38:57Maybe I'm just in a bubble, but I was like, I've really heard anybody being like, now I would, I don't know,
39:05but I would think it's kind of hard to fuck up Jameer Gibbs.
39:09And I don't think he will. I agree with your point.
39:13I think it's really a little bit hard to fuck up.
39:16I'm on raw, although it could be not quite as good, but the outside guys and especially Jamison Williams, if he's not
39:23schemed up with some, with some things that actually are designed to get him free.
39:28And he's just sort of running wind sprints out there.
39:32Maybe that's the guy who suffers. I have no idea, but I love this take.
39:37And it's half take for me too. Cause I'm not a coach centric analysis guy, but I was going to ask Pat about it.
39:44And so maybe I still will, you know, but anyway.
39:48Yeah. Well, and it's interesting because they didn't even have a huge drop off necessarily last year with Campbell and Morton, because
39:552024, they had the most plays run highest points per drive.
39:59They were second in yards per attempt first in passing success rate last season.
40:03I'm not going to lay out the numbers or anything, but they were still in like the back of the top 10 for that.
40:11So they weren't, you know, top three team. They were still kind of back at the top 10, but I'm worried we're
40:18going to see, especially in plays run. Like drew passing is a slow paced offensive coordinator.
40:24Jamison Williams needs that motion. And I think job, Jared golf needs that kind of create creativity on offense.
40:30Cause he ain't creating shit himself. And I was looking on, I was looking on over the cap just to see what their O-line situation was looking like.
40:39Right now I'm seeing Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow as not having a contract for 2026.
40:44It says S S S F a beside them.
40:47I don't recognize what S F a stands for, to be honest with you boys, which feels like amateur hour.
40:54But if they have offensive line issues in front of Jared golf, along with that, I think that spells huge problems.
41:01And so I'm just wondering if there is maybe some peak value that we can try and capitalize on right now.
41:08Um, I think this is a good half take because I think you're halfway right.
41:12Here's my counter argument to the whole thesis. Do you know how many wide receivers made the lions?
41:1853, four, four wide receivers, Greg, like five running backs or something.
41:22Greg, George, Greg, George did not make the team.
41:25God was crazy to me. It's insane to me.
41:28Real quick. Who'd you say Glasgow retired or something?
41:31Who's the other one? I was wondering if Glasgow and Decker retired.
41:35Decker. Yeah, he retired. Those are those. That's money.
41:38All right. Yeah. Penny Sewell, uh, most important position, but anyways, they have four wide receivers on the roster.
41:44Um, what that means is that regardless of, uh, formation, Jameson and Amon raw are going to be on the field almost every play.
41:52So by hook or by crook, just by route, route volume, I think that they're pretty safe assets.
41:58I don't think like there's any threat to Jameer Gibbs.
42:01Like he, he literally just is going to come out when he needs a breather because like, I, I literally was talking
42:09about this with Curdy the other night on the live stream.
42:12I, I don't know anything about Jacob sailors and that's rare.
42:16That's rare for me. I looked into him a little bit.
42:20He's a sub 200 pound back that ran a four, six, nine.
42:23Um, I'm not worried about Jacob sailors. Uh, I'm still kind of, you know, your boy, your boy, keeping that candle lit
42:31for Sion Vakie, but they've got, but they've got four tight ends on that 53.
42:36Right? So what I think is maybe it will be slow paced.
42:40Maybe they'll run a lot of 12 personnel, but the dudes that are safe are James and Williams.
42:46I'm in Ross, St. Brown, Sam LaPorta and Jameer Gibbs.
42:49And guess what? Those are the only ones we care about for fantasy.
42:53Yeah. And they're all going to play assuming health, like 90 plus percent of the snaps.
42:58So while you may be right, Trav, it's not going to matter.
43:02The, the result, the product, the result is probably going to be the same, even if it's less efficient, slower paced, what
43:10have you, because it's going to be so concentrated.
43:12So it's like, it's can't miss as you can get unless like, unless I don't know if golf gets hurt, you know, then maybe all bets are off.
43:22Right. But I think when, when we talk about can't miss, I think at ADP too, really, you know, I think the,
43:29the, the saving grace is that somehow LaPorta has been kind of cheap.
43:33Although depends on where you see him. Sometimes he goes a little bit sooner than I'm comfortable with and, and redraft best ball everywhere.
43:41Right. Yeah. We're talking dynasty though, right? We're talking dynasty.
43:44We are talking dynasty. So I think Jameson is the one that at, at value could, could, could hurt in golf.
43:51I think, you know, I think those are the two, I don't know, but golf, I feel like could go either way.
43:58Like if you're telling me, if you tell me he has, it could be a bad season where there are seven and
44:06nine or whatever, you know, seven and 10 now, seven and 10.
44:10And he still has 4,900 yards and like 35 touchdown passes, but 20 interceptions.
44:14And like, it's just, it's a rough season playing from behind.
44:18They have a heart, whatever that's possible. You could also tell me it's like, you know, 3,900 yards and 22 touchdowns, you know?
44:25And I'd be like, I believe either of those two outcomes.
44:29So I think golf, whether they're good or bad as a football team could still either go either way.
44:35Does that make sense? It does. It absolutely does.
44:38You know? So I think there's some downside is I guess what I'm getting at.
44:43I don't, I don't, I don't actually view golf as a particularly good quarterback.
44:48I still have them ranked at like 16 because I just don't think, you know, he, he's going to have those spike
44:55weeks, but like, I just don't think he's reliable enough to make him a top 12 ever.
45:01That being said, I want to just touch on two more things on this subject, right?
45:06The two tight end sets, I think is going to be very relevant in this offense.
45:11And I think that is going to help some of the inexperience in the offensive line and some of the holes in the offensive line.
45:19And I think that's the reason for their roster distribution.
45:23They're telling us the truth about what they think of their team based on their roster distribution to Dan Campbell proved last year.
45:30If someone's not using Jameson Williams, he's going to take over play calling and use Jameson Williams.
45:36Right. So if Petsig isn't going to use him, then Dan Campbell will take that damn call sheet away from him and start moving things around.
45:44So like, I think he's sort of insulated. I've kind of come all the way around on Jameson Williams because of the
45:52institutional, you know, Detroit lions belief in Jameson Williams, that they're going to make him a thing.
45:57And Dan Campbell is the head coach. And I'll be damned.
46:01If he's going to be bullied by some offensive coordinator that may not know what they're doing, he'll give them a chance,
46:08but he will absolutely take charge when he needs to.
46:11He'll bite off their motherfucking kneecaps. That's right. That's right.
46:15Keep trusting that freaking bully ass nerd. Yeah. Jack's why don't you give us one.
46:19These are two intersecting ones I'd say. So this is truly a half take because I'm even going to say it.
46:26And then you guys are going to have to fill in the blanks because I'm not exactly sure.
46:32It's a, it's a thought flare. That's what it is.
46:36Okay. A thought flare. That's a, that's such a good metaphor.
46:39I love that. Fucking, that is deep, man. It's just out there, but I'm not even sure exactly.
46:45Where else can you get that? But on the underground, I mean, nowhere.
46:49I just made it up. So it's obviously just a flare is.
46:53Yeah, it's good. Yeah. I mean, like Rick flair.
46:56Yeah. Um, you know, outside of the elite, which would be maybe at most 10 quarterbacks.
47:02I think quarterbacks are losing value in super flex.
47:05I think that's pretty, pretty good little half take Jack's because if we look like it feels like there has been a
47:12rise in those eight to 12 point games from your quarterback to on your super flex roster.
47:17And I'm just saying this off the dome ski.
47:20You know what I mean? I haven't like, you know, looked into this cause you're just dropping this on us now, but
47:28it really feels like, you know, that mid mid end of quarterback isn't really there as much.
47:33It's either like stinkers on a team that hasn't figured out their situation yet, or there's those guys that we want, or
47:40then you get stuck in the middle with your like, you know, CJ Strouds and shit.
47:46Yeah. And I have some data. The other half take that goes along with this take is that the 2027 class, might
47:53be the greatest class we ever see. That's a thought bubble.
47:56I'm not sure. Quarterback position or overall? Everywhere, but also almost specifically quarterback.
48:01But when I think quarterback, I don't mean the best in terms of like, Oh, there'll be the best, but it's like the deepest.
48:09It's like crazy. Then they got me thinking, well, is that a one year thing or are actually the quarterbacks in college way better now?
48:17That's really now that where I'm going, that there's going to be just better and better quarterbacks replacing some of the old plays.
48:24So it's sort of two things. Quarterbacks are devalued, but then there's also this new breed.
48:30I'll share this. They also used to have more job security.
48:33Like we've seen two first round picks be sort of just moved off of and the contracts be eaten entirely by the team that is not employing them.
48:42And Kyler Murray into a tag of a little and JJ McCarthy.
48:46I mean, not contract eaten, not like completely discarded.
48:49Another one of those guys. Yeah. Yeah. Moved, moved off.
48:53They're moving off them. And so they just don't seem to care as much anymore about the value placed on these guys and the money they've spent.
49:02So it's no longer this thing where we're like, dude, he's got a contract.
49:06He's good. That's that did not help either of those two dudes like Kyler Murray to a, that was not the reason that we should be secure.
49:15In their value in dynasty was not their contract.
49:18That's not a good reason now. And so, you know, yeah.
49:22And on top of that, the rookie quarterback contract is the NFL's cheat code.
49:26That's the cheat code. If Drake may and all these guys, like if you have the rookie quarterback on a rookie quarterback contract, that's the NFL cheat code.
49:35So for all of those reasons combined, I would say that extends to wide receiver too, because wide receiver salaries have gotten
49:43so out of control that you see so many more wide receivers drafted in the first and second round now as well.
49:50And it's the same thing, right? It's just like, let's see if they're good.
49:54If they're good, we'll resign them. But if not, we're just going to keep cycling through these guys and take one of
50:02the first two rounds on repeat till we find dudes.
50:05Because, you know, this is a, this is an old Mike Lombardi thing, right?
50:10It's like, who's the most important player, the quarterback, right?
50:13And then who's the second most important player, the defensive end, because he's the one, the second, the quarterback, who's the third
50:20most important player, the wide receiver, because that's who the quarterback's throwing to.
50:24Who's the fourth most important player, the cornerback, because that's who's guarding the wide, the player, the quarterback's throwing to it.
50:31Right. And that's how pay has worked in the league.
50:35That's how it's worked out. So, uh, yeah, finding those guys, uh, is increasingly important.
50:39So yeah, it's two point. Trav, I'm sorry. I cut you off.
50:43No, you're, you're good, brother. I think, I think it's also a product of the amount of money that is just pumped
50:51into the NFL, especially by way of salary cap and how these GMs have been able to figure out how to work
50:58around the salary cap with their ability to be, um, so shrewd in trying to find that elite option.
51:04Right. Like, like you said, Jack's the contract doesn't really matter anymore.
51:08Like we're going to see, we're not going to necessarily see guys like Kirk cousins, maybe a burgeon, have these long careers
51:15being, you know, just above average guys because teams might not be able to get by with that above average stuff without looking for that elite guy.
51:24So I think that's super, super interesting. I think one caution on the 20, 27 class is almost similar to that 2025
51:31classes, running back class discussion is that we think there's going to be a lot of hits there, but we don't necessarily
51:39know that there's going to be a lot of hits.
51:42So we got to be a little bit careful.
51:45And I wonder as well, like you mentioned that the quarterbacks are going to be way better and we are seeing some
51:52of that, but I kind of wondered a little bit of maybe the opposite in that, like these are simple.
51:59Some of these offenses in college are so simplified, like some of the concerns about Jackson dart and his maybe inability to
52:06work in a pro offense with how easy it was at Ole Miss.
52:10I thought that was maybe an interesting factor that came in there.
52:14And I had, and I wonder too, being that like, is the idea of how good these quarterbacks are coming out of college kind of skewed?
52:23Like, do they like, are they either all better or maybe all not as polished to the point where that's kind of the new norm for us?
52:32You know what I mean? And so maybe that is kind of the new male class.
52:37I don't know how I'm trying to get to the point that I'm making, but I'm wondering if kind of that influx
52:44is changing the level of what's acceptable. Hmm. Maybe.
52:47I mean, you know, I just know that Drake may had a great season.
52:52Yeah, totally. Jaden Daniels in year one was great.
52:55Bo Nix has taken his team to the playoffs twice.
52:58Caleb Williams is there. Like there are these young quarterbacks are succeeding early.
53:02I mean, you know, we think, you know, Fernando Mendoza might be good.
53:06I have no idea. Like we'll, we'll remain to be seen what happens here, but like, you know, so far we've seen
53:14the younger quarterbacks of this generation of this sort of most modern, I think it comes down to the, the old 10,000 hours thing.
53:22Right. You know, it's like these guys are getting way more reps by the time they're in, you know, first of all, most of them play more.
53:30Like, I mean, you know, we've seen them go back to that a little bit where guys used to come out early
53:38and have, now they're like, no, no, we need to see you play a little bit in college.
53:44Number one, number two, they're playing, they're passing more.
53:47There's more pass attempts, you know, in college than there ever was on top of that.
53:52They were playing in high school. Um, you know, outside of those two structured events, they're playing a lot of other, you
53:59know, passing shell stuff, you know, uh, what's the AAU circuits and all, you know, they're just playing so much football flag
54:06and a million different opportunities to really run and throw routes.
54:10They're doing that at an incredible rate by the time they've gotten to the pros, man, they've seen it all.
54:16It's not like, well, I've only thrown 250 attempts in my career.
54:20I was handing off the Jerome Bettis in college.
54:23You know, there's that sort of change. The game has changed for sure.
54:28So totally. And, and I think what I was doing there as I was talking was maybe less so countering your point
54:35about them being better than as opposed to maybe rethinking my priors on the fact that simplified offense means less talent coming into the league.
54:43Right. So great conversation. Yeah. I agree. Completely got all the way there.
54:47Yeah. I like it. All right, Joe, you got one more for us?
54:52I do. Um, this one, this one feels dumb, but I'm good.
54:56Good. Yeah. That's why we do this. That's why we do this.
54:59Right. It's supposed to feel a little dumb almost.
55:02Yeah. Um, all right. The Miami dolphins are burning so much money, so much of their cap on Tua, on Tua.
55:09Right. They have like one of the worst cap situations I've ever seen.
55:14Trav, you said you were looking at over the cap.
55:17I would just love to know what they had in available cap space to nine of their, nine of their 11 highest
55:24paid players are not on the team. Yeah. Tyreek Hill and Tua, right?
55:28That's two, that's two guys right there. They're just like the two highest paid players on the team amongst others.
55:35There's yeah. Amongst others. Most of their money is paid to non players that are on their team.
55:41All right. All right. So that's why Joe stick right now, 6.69 million in team cap space currently.
55:47Yeah. But I mean, how much is going to, how much dead cap is there just between, let's just say players that are not on the team.
55:56If you want to just, I don't know how easy it is for you to find this, but just between Tua and
56:03Tyreek, it's well over, I want to say half of the salary cap, right?
56:08Like it's like, it's over. Yeah. So, okay. Tua is 55.4 million in dead cap just this season.
56:13Yep. Tyreek 28.2. There's more. There's more. Yeah. Jalen, Jalen Waddell, 23.2 and Jalen Ramsey still there, but he's 20 or no Jalen Ramsey, 20.8.
56:22Yeah. Okay. So, so just the top four, they are $120 million in dead cap easily.
56:27Right. So like this team is doomed by all, you know, economic metrics when you're looking at NFL teams.
56:33And it's kind of why we were like, so upset when Malik Willis signed here, because like, dude, what is he doing?
56:40What is his agent doing? Letting him go to this team.
56:44He is completely set up to fail. You dig into their offensive line a little bit though.
56:50And it's, it's kind of interesting, right? Like Paul Patrick left tackle and Caden Proctor, their rookie at left guard, not to
56:57mention, you know, there's a backup left guard and DJ Campbell that they drafted this year.
57:02Those are two rookies at left guard. Right. But between Patrick and excuse me, Patrick, Paul, excuse me.
57:08And Caden Proctor, those guys are each like six, six or six, seven at piece.
57:13And between 330 and 358 pounds, if I'm not mistaken, they've also got a great center.
57:18The left side of their line looks pretty damn good.
57:21And, you know, we were joking slash making fun of the wide receiver position because it was like Malik Washington, Jalen Tolbert,
57:29you know, Caleb Douglas has emerged now as one of their starters.
57:33Uh, Kevin Coleman, I actually kind of liked in the pre-draft process, but he was like a very vanilla, you know, prospect.
57:40Missionary. Yeah. Very, very missionary prospect, you know, slot receiver type.
57:44And, you know, I have Malik Washington. So it was like, there's just nothing excited.
57:48It doesn't even have a cool name. Right. Yeah, exactly.
57:52There was nothing exciting outside of HN, but with like the, and, and I don't want to get too over my skis
57:59here, but with like Chris bell, I had written off in the pre-draft process.
58:04Like he's not playing this year. If he plays, it'll be like the last six weeks.
58:09And it appears this dude's ready. He's on the 53, right?
58:12This guy's playing early in the season. He's back.
58:15Uh, and he's absolutely the most interesting. People said he would have been a first round pick.
58:21I don't even know about that. I think he probably would have been a, you know, second round pick, but the case still stands, right?
58:29It's like, that's actually a pretty good wide receiver prospect that they got on their team.
58:34So I like Malik Willis. I'm on record. I've been on this show, uh, have been the, the staunch defender of Malik Willis for a long time.
58:43So I like him. I like Chris bell, especially if he's back.
58:47I know he's probably not going to be anywhere near a hundred percent.
58:52You know, we like HN and the left side of this offensive line and the center position is pretty strong.
58:58I, I don't think they're going to win a lot of games because I think their defense is still going to suck,
59:05but I think they could be a very, very sneaky source of fantasy success this season.
59:11And I think they're being written off as like Malik Willis is going to take a million sacks.
59:17They have no wide receivers. He's going to get killed out there.
59:20It's going to be a catastrophe. And I'm looking at it just on paper.
59:25I actually don't see that. I see kind of a feisty ass team.
59:29So let me say something. I was listening to Scott and Shane on manic and chill.
59:35And Scott did the thing. He even said, I hate doing this, but I want to ask you who's the one player
59:42you wish you could see the final stat line for so that you could make some decision.
59:47It's a super fun game. First of all, he said he hated it.
59:52I was like, I fucking love it. So do it.
59:55And they did it. And Scott did his, and then they went to Shane.
60:00I was like, say Malik Willis, say Malik Willis.
60:03They didn't say Malik Willis, but he kind of got there because he said a bunch of guys, my guy is Malik Willis.
60:10The answer to that. I would want to know Malik Willis.
60:14Cause if you tell me that he plays 17 games, like if he has a dope line, then you can drive Chris bell.
60:21You could drive all these guys. You could drive all their players.
60:25But if he, if you see that it's like he plays 14 games, he has like 14 passing touchdowns, 20 interceptions.
60:32You're like, stay away from this train, the train wreck that you're saying.
60:36But what if he's got like 30 touchdown passes and like, eight rushing touchdowns or something?
60:42And you're like, yeah, what happened in Miami? You know, let's go.
60:46So, I mean, I could see both sides of this coin.
60:49And that was the reason for the, the answer of Malik Willis, because I think I'm agreeing with you to the half
60:56baked idea that they could be something. Yeah. And not only that, I mean, you said 30 touchdowns.
61:02If he has 20 passing touchdowns and like eight rushing touchdowns and somewhere around a thousand yards rushing, that's a QB one.
61:10Right. Like I'm not leaving a redraft league without Malik Willis.
61:13I just want that to be known. I'm taking Malik Willis.
61:17This is the late round QB. Like, you know, JJ Zacharyson famously, if you followed his work over the years, he wrote
61:24the late round prospect guide, the meta changed and he actually shifted it to, you know, Hey, listen, you actually should be
61:31looking at these quarterbacks in the middle rounds. Right.
61:34And now we're all the way back. But why?
61:37Because defensive meta has changed. And now it's like, we have this screaming opportunity to get a dude that produces rushing yards.
61:44And also is very safe with the football. So like, not a lot of turnovers and he's going like really, really cheap.
61:52Like, yes, it's the most screaming by in redraft I've ever seen.
61:56He's a scary dynasty asset because like, he's so set up to fail that this could go so wrong in so many ways longterm.
62:04But, but in redraft leagues, there's no way I'm not getting Malik Lewis.
62:08A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. I think that's fair.
62:11I think for me from the redraft leagues that I've been in, I think I like enough quarterbacks ahead of him that
62:19I'm probably going to have one ahead of him.
62:22And I'm not necessarily going to get that far back in court.
62:26Like if it's a one quarterback league or whatever, my, my mind that I just did, he was not drafted and incredible.
62:33Incredible. This is exactly my point. Just, just get running backs and wide receivers and get a dope tight end early, get
62:40running backs and wide receivers and just, just start Malik Willis and see what happens.
62:45I think these rose colored glasses are great. I think for me, the likelihood that the team crashes and burns because we've
62:52seen them be a shitty organization that crashes and burns is still very high to where I'm not.
62:58That's probably, probably about like a 20% take for me.
63:01Yeah. I would, I would go with a yin yang anyway.
63:05I would probably, you know, there's probably a Jared Goff.
63:08You know, me personally, I would probably be dart Willis.
63:12Yeah. Because dart also super cheap. And between the two of them, I mean, I know there neither is safe, but I
63:19mean, then I have two upside swings that are, because those are the two late round guys that could absolutely crush.
63:26And we heard it from, I think it was Andrew Cooper on my show who said there hasn't been a, a quarterback who's rushed five times a game.
63:35I think the number was like, it was super low.
63:38Five times, right? Five times 17 is how much?
63:41Oh, I remember. I remember. It was like 80 rushes, right?
63:4580 or 85 rushes. It was like five times a game who hasn't finished as a top 10 quarterback.
63:51Not even top 12, top 10. It does not happen.
63:54He's going to do that. He's going to run seven times.
63:58He's going, that's going to happen. So period, end of story that will happen.
64:03And so he's a top 10 quarterback, period. It's less the thing that you say, Trav, which is catastrophe, which actually makes it easy.
64:10Anyway, he's just going to drop them because he's done.
64:14Yeah. That's, that's totally the take. I'm on to the next plan.
64:18It is the most asymmetrical bet on the board at the quarterback position.
64:22Hands down. Like you just said, Trav when undrafted in a home league, right?
64:27Like nobody wants anything to do with them. Everybody thinks he sucks.
64:30They are anchoring to his fall in the NFL draft.
64:34And his failure in Tennessee and ignoring what he did in the great work he did as Green Bay Packer.
64:40And like, even though this is a situation that is, you know, more than likely doomed to fail, even if they fail,
64:48even if they lose 15 games, like, like it could be the defense's fault and he could just be out there competent.
64:55By the way, he could be out there down slinging the rock and running like crazy.
65:00Yeah, exactly. I mean, we just saw Jacoby Brissett fucking not win a game and like put up QB one week after QB one week.
65:08Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's things like in redraft, it's not dynasty, right?
65:13In redraft. And I know this is a dynasty show, but in, in redraft, I'm willing to ride so dirty at this
65:20position because there are no repercussions next year. Right.
65:23There's also no repercussions for Malik Willis's value in dynasty.
65:26Anyway, it's the same bet. Oh yeah. Because he's so cheap and people are definitely willing to get off.
65:33I, you know, I I'm, I'm rostering him in a number of dynasty leagues where I'm like, I have not selling because
65:40it's a lottery ticket and I'm trying to buy, but he's kind of a little bit hard to buy.
65:46Cause people are like, Oh, he wants Malik Willis.
65:49So I'm going to just ask for a fucking shit.
65:52You know, like, all right, bro. Well you come on.
65:56Yeah. So people are, you know, trying to be a little bit sneaky with, you know, over asking for Malik, but I'm with you a thousand percent.
66:04Nobody's giving you a first form. I haven't gotten it.
66:08I know it's happened, but nobody, I have not succeeded in getting a first form.
66:13So it's like, well then fuck you. I'm going to start him and score a shitload of points.
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68:23PrizePix. Run your game. Is it my turn? Yeah.
68:26Hit it. Tight end premium is ruining Dynasty Fantasy Football.
68:29Oh, tell us. Another thought for us. Yeah. I think that's interesting too because this isn't exactly the take, but one that
68:37I was thinking of bringing into this discussion was whether we are anchoring way too hard on the heavy tight end sets
68:44for that to maybe just be like a few years fad that happens for us.
68:49Right? And so that was something that I was thinking.
68:52And I think I've been thinking about that more for tight end premium because I've been investing in those secondary guys more in tight end premium.
69:01But Jax, why don't you lay that out for us to play it out?
69:05We're killing it. You know, I remember a day when you used to have to trade for wide receivers.
69:11Now you don't. You just have some scrub tight end.
69:15You throw him in the flex and he gets you 10, 12 points.
69:19It's not good. I'm okay with the, with, you know, Bowers going nuclear or whatever because everybody's got tight ends.
69:26It's not the high end that's ruining it. It's the low end.
69:30It's the fact that some shit bag tight end, you can just be like, yeah, whatever.
69:35I'm just going to put, sorry, Brenton strange in there.
69:38Sorry, Joe. Brenton strange is actually good. I know.
69:41I know. I know. But you don't, my, my point, like AJ Barner, you know, totally is like, I'll just play Why
69:48do I need Parker Washington or T Higgins? I've got AJ Barner.
69:52Yeah. It's crazy because it's so fucking true. That's stupid.
69:56As, as wide receiver has flattened, right? We talk about this all the time where it's just like after the wide receiver,
70:03I don't know, 12, if we even go that deep, it's just like, there's a second tier of like the big tier of wide receiver two.
70:11We'll just call it wide receiver nine to wide receiver 30 is wide receiver twos.
70:16Right. And then from 30 to six infinity is the same guy is the same guy.
70:22Yeah. Yeah. So they're worthless in dynasty. Yeah. It's tight and premium.
70:25Yeah. And so wide receiver has flattened. And as tight end begins to flatten, now it's just the same thing.
70:32Right. So yeah, it's not doing what it was intended to do when it was created.
70:37Right. Tight end premium was created for a specific reason.
70:41And the meta has changed in the NFL so that now that reason has actually become obsolete.
70:46But you know what? I'm going to abuse and take advantage of it.
70:50But you're not wrong. You're not wrong. You're not wrong at all.
70:54Yeah. Right. I mean, it's just one of those things where it's like, wait a minute.
71:00Is it? I don't want to admit it. That's a 69% take at least.
71:04Yeah. I like that. I like that. But yeah, don't you guys love it when you're in a draft and you can see the way that everyone's drafting?
71:13And if there's like a fat premium, you can tell that everybody doesn't quite understand what that fat premium means for these tight ends.
71:21That's kind of a fun feeling. And you're having them.
71:25I love that premium. Yeah. I know you do after that startup we did on the latest listener league, brother.
71:31Woo. 1.75 on that hoe. The best is the plus 0.1 for a completion minus 0.3 for an incompletion.
71:37Diabolical. Diabolical. I love it. I love it. Okay, boys.
71:41I'm coming in with one here. We're getting close to riding out.
71:45We're probably a little bit over a buck on this bad boy, but we're having a good time.
71:51So who's counting? Okay. This one. It's interesting because I talked about it.
71:55I talked about an example earlier being one, maybe the half take is one that you're starting to come off of one of your very staunch priors.
72:04I also mentioned that I might speak blasphemy on this here show.
72:08And boys, brace yourselves because it feels gross to come out of my mouth.
72:12Should we have maybe been a little bit less hasty?
72:16Well, maybe not less hasty on sending Colston Loveland to the moon, but maybe should we have been similarly as hasty on sending Tyler Warren to the moon?
72:25Because we've been talking about it a little bit and I've been thinking about the target ceiling for Colston Loveland.
72:31And I'm kind of relating it to, we talked about this, like the Jacksonville situation where there's all three of those guys
72:39who are great players to the point where the best guy's ceiling is probably capped a little bit.
72:44And I think that Colston Loveland can do a lot with whatever targets that he gets.
72:50But if we're thinking like, okay, maybe Colston Loveland, what do you think?
72:54Maybe like 110, 120 targets with that Bears offense this year.
72:58And we look at Tyler Warren and the depletion of wide receivers and the fact that he is probably looking at like 140 targets for that Colts offense.
73:07Like, should we be thinking about those guys in the same vein?
73:11And Jax, you even talked about Loveland over Trey McBride.
73:14I'm thinking that Tyler Warren is at least in that tier for me.
73:18If not, maybe I'm ready to start putting him above McBride like you did with Loveland.
73:24And I have Tyler Warren ahead of Trey McBride and Dynasty.
73:27You did it. Oh my God. All right, all right, all right.
73:31Just hold that one. This is good. Hold that one.
73:34I want to, let's put a pin in that real quick.
73:38I wanted to go first for a reason. Because Trav, I think you just walked straight in to my soliloquy at the beginning of this show.
73:47Ooh. Right? Colson Loveland is without a doubt, long-term, the better asset, right?
73:51Why? He plays the tight end position like a wide receiver.
73:55He moves like a wide receiver out there, but he can also block.
73:59He's in a good offense tied to a good quarterback.
74:02Like long-term, no doubt, Loveland is the better long-term asset.
74:05Like, I don't think there's any question about it.
74:08What you're saying is that Tyler Warren's 2026 outlook makes him more valuable right now.
74:13And that is exactly what I'm talking about in the in-season rankings versus the startup rankings.
74:18And that's why. That's a full circle moment right there.
74:22And that's why. But I'm talking about Dynasty 2, though.
74:25I know. I know. But you're using 2026 to justify.
74:28Yeah, yeah. But Loveland's situation isn't getting worse. He's got two dope wide receivers on his team.
74:34Like, what, are you going to get another dope wide receiver?
74:38He did it with three last year. We're just like, oh, wow.
74:42He's actually earning targets over all of them, right?
74:44It's not getting worse for Loveland. It's only getting better.
74:48Warren, I could make the case that it's never going to be better than the setup is this season.
74:54Right? The net, like, an injured Alec Pierce, an injured Jocked Downs, a very drunk Keenan Allen.
75:00Like, there's just nothing. There's nothing stopping Warren from just being the dude this year.
75:05But that could absolutely change next season, the season after that.
75:08Like, there's so many things that could happen. So this is one of those situations.
75:13And this is the forever bag versus the in-season bag, right?
75:17Where it's like, and they're both good assets. Like, Warren is going to be a top seven Dynasty tight end for a long time, I assume, right now.
75:26But Loveland is like a top three, worst case four tight end long term.
75:30And so the answer to your question is no, but welcome to my world.
75:35But I think, Jax, before we talk to yours, I think of Warren and like the type of player he is.
75:42And you look at Trey McBride and what he's done with that crazy target volume.
75:47He doesn't move like a wide receiver and he's been doing that.
75:51He also has had. He is a monster, though.
75:54Like, he is not as slender and smooth as Loveland.
75:57No, he is so good. His ball, his catch radius.
76:00For sure. He's a different kind of athlete than even Warren.
76:04Yeah. But still, like, what if Warren just alphas whoever comes in there?
76:08Like, Trey McBride has alpha'd whatever wide receivers they're bringing in there.
76:12Like, I'm just saying I'm keeping my mind open for that.
76:16And I'm not saying this isn't like a fade Colson Loveland take.
76:20It's more of a, like, be more steamy on Tyler Warren take so that we don't miss on another Trey McBride.
76:27Yeah, I agree with that because I'm more inclined to think that Colson Loveland could be the tight end one in Dynasty
76:34than he could be the tight end four in Dynasty.
76:37Like, he is one year younger than Brock Bowers, and there's no guarantee that he's going to not outperform him this year.
76:44If, in fact, Colson Loveland is the tight end one in 2026, why would he not be the tight end one in
76:52Dynasty come next offseason over Brock Bowers? There's no reason.
76:55There's no reason. And, yeah, Tyler Warren is also slated to have a big season, even if it's just voluminous and not efficient.
77:03I agree. Like, there's almost no possible way he's not going to get volume.
77:07I can't imagine a scenario where he sees under 100 targets.
77:11Like, that's actually funny. Unless he's hurt, he's going to see 100 plus.
77:15And you're right. Where does the ceiling go? 130, 140 or something, right?
77:19So even if it's inefficient somehow, somehow, some way, I feel like Tyler Warren's going to get there.
77:25I agree with you, Trav. But I think that when you say that these guys are all going to do this, now
77:32we don't know that, of course, but pretty solid projection, I think, on these guys are going to be involved in the passing game the entire season.
77:41And that's all of them, including Trey McBride. But if they all kind of hit their 80% to 90% outcomes, then I
77:49think Trey McBride falls behind all of them. You know, because – That's great.
77:53And he doesn't do it by underperforming. I fucking love Trey McBride, but he's 26.
77:58Yeah. Warren's 24. Bauer's 23. Loveland, 22. And I just – I'm with you.
78:03I think, you know, Trey McBride and Loveland move totally different than Warren.
78:07They're just incredible movers. I think Loveland probably the best among them.
78:11Again, he's 22 still, so, I mean, he's got those young legs.
78:15I mean, I remember when David Njoku used to move, you know, in a certain kind of way.
78:21They get older, things happen. McBride, as good as he is and as awesome as I think he'll be this season, I
78:28just don't see him getting – what was it, 160 targets or something like that.
78:33Yeah, he's got to come back down. 700 routes?
78:36Yeah. It's not going to happen. I mean, you know, look, if it happens, that's two outrageous outlier seasons back-to-back.
78:42Sure, it could have. Of course, it's possible. But we are not predicting that.
78:47And so, I think when it comes right down to it, they're all going to be in the same sort of bucket.
78:54And even Bowers last year, you think about it, we were all certain, and rightfully so because he's awesome, that he was
79:02tight end one and redraft in Dynasty going into last year.
79:05That didn't happen. He was hurt. He's nicked up.
79:08These tight ends will get hurt. Some of them – On a bad offense.
79:13Yeah. Stuff happens, man. And so, maybe that's the McBride season is he gets nicked up and he has a bad offense because who knows?
79:21I'm not – you know. So, all those things could happen.
79:25And so, for those reasons, I like the youth.
79:27I like the talent. And I'll wait until next year if something bad – I get a bad run out on McBride.
79:35I mean, excuse me, on Loveland because he's that good.
79:38So, a long-winded way of saying these guys are all in a bucket for me.
79:43The insulation that Loveland has that none of the other tight ends we just talked about has is a franchise quarterback.
79:50And Ben Johnson. And Ben Johnson. Right? So, the bad offense thing is what happened to Bowers last year.
79:56Yep. Right? Not only the injury but also the bad offense.
80:00The bad offense thing could so easily happen to Tyler Warren.
80:03We just assume Daniel Jones is the guy he was for the first nine games last year forever now.
80:10No way. Like, I would say the Colts are one of the best best to draft a quarterback next season except for
80:17they're such a dumb franchise that they traded away two first-round picks for a cornerback that is not good anymore.
80:23Terrible. So, like, they're alive for a quarterback in 2028.
80:27They got Daniel Jones and hope he's, like, the guy he was pre-Achilles injury and not, like, I don't know, the rest
80:34of his career except for that one time he duped the Giants for $40 million a year.
80:39Like, it's mind-blowing to me. Like, and, you know, I've had my doubts about Caleb Williams, but he proved enough to me last season.
80:47And Ben Johnson, I think, is a good enough conductor that I think this train is going to stay on the tracks.
80:55Like, I don't know. Loveland is arguably the safest because Bowers, I think, is no doubt the most talented.
81:01And they've now got a good offensive coordinator. And we hope to God Mendoza's good, me as a Raider fan speaking here.
81:08But it's nowhere near the setup that Loveland's is long-term.
81:11Like, we don't know yet on Mendoza. I've got one other question for you, too, Joe, when you're done.
81:18Ready? Yeah. Trap wanted to say, Trap wanted to come to you.
81:22Okay, go ahead. Well, you kind of answered it.
81:24You kind of answered it because, and you didn't give, well, the answer that I have.
81:30I was going to ask you guys who you think the most volatile of those guys is from a production standpoint.
81:37You know what I mean? From a producing consistently standpoint.
81:40So maybe a little bit of a floor conversation in there, too.
81:44I would say it's Warren. I think it might be Loveland.
81:48Oh, no. I was thinking maybe Loveland. I'd say it's Warren because he's got so many unknowns, right?
81:53Is his quarterback there long-term? Is this team good long-term?
81:57He also doesn't have the out of yak. He can't just be like one catch 80 yards or something.
82:03Yeah, pretty good after the catch, though. He's pretty good at yak, but not 80 yards.
82:08He's also not going to have the ADOT that Colton Loveland is going to have.
82:13Yeah, and all of that, we've seen McBride be good on bad teams many times.
82:18His whole career, McBride's been good on bad teams.
82:21That's what I'm saying about Warren, though. Yeah, but Warren was on a good team last year, right?
82:27They fumbled down the stretch, but they were the best offense in the league for nine weeks.
82:33While Daniel Jones was in there for the first half, yeah.
82:36Yeah, it's crazy. But he overcame the shitty situation down the stretch.
82:40And so all I'm saying is that doesn't preclude him from still being that target hog producer just because his team's in.
82:47It's really hard to argue floor with any of these guys.
82:51I'm just saying he's the most volatile because we haven't seen him in the doomsday scenario yet like we have with these
82:58other guys that have survived the doomsday scenario. I have a question for you guys.
83:03If you can tell me what this is, I'm just going to say two names.
83:08Just tell me what this is. Ready? Blake Whitehart and Carson Ryan.
83:12Do you know what that is? Those are a couple of fucking lunch pails right there if I ever heard them.
83:19Wow. Are those the tight ends? Don't look it up.
83:22Who are they behind? Which one of those guys are they behind?
83:26Just tell me who they are without looking it up.
83:29They're the backup tight ends to Tyler Warrant? No, because there's Mo Ali Cox.
83:34These are the backup tight ends to Tyler Warren.
83:37Can you say those names one more time? Can you say those names one more time, please?
83:43Blake Whitehart and Carson Ryan. That is directly behind Harold Fannin.
83:46So maybe Harold Fannin has joined the chat. I'm just saying, bro.
83:50He's in the chat. He's always been in the chat.
83:53He's always been in the chat. He's watching this conversation.
83:57Or Deshaun Watson and Shadir Sanders, unfortunately. I'm just saying, man.
84:00Yeah. That was so good, Jax. That was so good.
84:04That was awesome. All right. I want to just harken back to the McBride conversation that Jax was having, saying he had Warren.
84:11You said he had Warren over McBride? All three back to back.
84:15But philosophically, I'd put my head just for the- All right.
84:19So I don't think that I disagree with you.
84:22That's not reflected in my rankings. But the half take, I'm not arguing with you because I think that that's valid.
84:29I want to- It's close. Maybe we could just end with this.
84:33I just want to talk about a trade that I made.
84:36Jax, you're in this league, in the big game.
84:39This is a fairly decent buy-in with some real, real players in this league.
84:44I'm not going to name names, but just trust me, you'd be impressed by the roster of managers in this league.
84:51Killers. Killers. Just a bunch of killers. All right.
84:54Jax invited me to this league to take an orphan.
84:57He was like, hey, it's not that bad. Blah, blah, blah.
85:00You got the first pick. And I was like, all right, whatever.
85:04He asked me three times. And I was like, fine.
85:08I'll take this orphan. Every time I take an orphan, I regret it because it's like, God, it's so much work.
85:15Anyways, the team was a piece of shit. Right?
85:18It was a lot of work. It was a lot of work.
85:21This is a 12-team start 12. Pretty big tight end premium league.
85:25I had the 101. I traded that away. I got, you know, the 103 and the 104.
85:31I parlayed that into, I don't know, you know, two of the top three wide receivers in this year's draft.
85:38I can't remember who they were because it's just like, this is just process now.
85:43Right? It's like, this team has no chance to compete this year.
85:46It's just process. But I made a trade last night, which was, I don't know.
85:51I feel like kind of league moving. And I did it with your buddy CMFK.
85:56My kind of, I would say nemesis. He's definitely a nemesis.
86:00Yeah, I know. I know. But I want you guys to listen to this trade because I think if I were, I
86:07haven't put it on Twitter yet because I think Twitter will roast me.
86:11I do too, but they don't understand the context.
86:14They don't understand the context. I actually think what I did was a really smart fucking trade.
86:20I traded away. And grant you, grant you, this guy has Javante Williams and he's also a known Washington football team fan.
86:27So anyways, I traded away Trey McBride and Mari DiMarcato, Tori Horton, and Elijah Higgins, Trey McBride's backup.
86:33So effectively just McBride in a lot of ways.
86:36Effectively just McBride. I traded away McBride and there was some roster positioning throw-ins.
86:41And, you know, a quasi handcuff in DiMarcato because he's got Javante Williams, right?
86:45Yeah. For Marshawn. And my team, by the way, before and after this trade has no chance of making the playoffs, right?
86:53Like I'm probably doomed to bottom two to bottom four in this league no matter what.
86:58Just that's how bad this team is. But anyways, I traded away four.
87:02Marshawn Lloyd, Jonathan Brooks, Terrence Ferguson, Eli Raridon, Trey Harris, and a 20-28 second.
87:07Now, this is a super tight end premium league.
87:10And that's to just go back to Jackson's point earlier.
87:13Tight end premium is ruining this game. I exploited that concept in this trade.
87:18Because I'm sitting there looking at Ferguson and Raridon.
87:20I'm like, dude, my team's so bad. I can start both of these guys.
87:25Marshawn Lloyd and Jonathan Brooks, guess what? I'm starting both of those guys.
87:29It's a start 12. It's hard in a start 12, right?
87:33Trey Harris, I believe in the prospect enough. And a 20-28 second, I was just like, just so I can get close on value.
87:41Even on Dynasty Helper, our own website, I'm losing this deal, right?
87:45I was losing by four value points, for lack of a better term.
87:49But my thought process was this. McBride just had a 700 route season.
87:53His value's never going to be higher. You should probably, in a league like this, be able to achieve two to two
88:01and a half firsts for a Trey McBride. I couldn't get that.
88:05I tried all offseason. I couldn't get that. So what did I do?
88:09I pieced it together. I was like, okay, all right.
88:12Brooks and Ferguson, that's the equivalent of a first-round pick in this league.
88:16Lloyd and Raridon, given Lloyd's current situation, that's the equivalent of a first-round pick.
88:21That's basically like two second-round picks. You kind of push them up into like late first-round value.
88:27Then, you know, Trey Harris, he was a second-round pick a year ago and a 20-28 second.
88:32That's two more second-round picks. So I basically traded away a guy that's worth, you know, two to three firsts for six seconds effectively.
88:40That was the thought process that I went through in my mind.
88:44But the other part of this trade was like, again, value, right?
88:48It's like make brides at his highest value. And I just got four guys that in this league, any of them, Lloyd,
88:55Brooks, Terrence Ferguson, or Eli Raridon, could drastically jump in value a week from now.
89:00Yeah. A month from now. And if either of them just jump up 10 value points, right, I won this deal.
89:07If two of them do, I smash this deal.
89:10Like, and if they're all good, like, you know, that's probably not going to happen.
89:15But if they're all good, this is a fucking coup.
89:18I went from the second worst team in this league to now it's like I could possibly make the playoffs with this
89:25team that was dead four months ago when I adopted it.
89:29So anyways, the point of the point is this one is like McBride's at his highest value ever.
89:35So it's not a terrible time to trade him away in dynasty because he's not going to hit that target route run.
89:42It's like the Jerry Judy season, except McBride's actually good where he just ran the most routes and, you know, scored the
89:49most touchdowns and had the most yards of his career.
89:53We probably just saw his career year. So that's one thing that's to be taken into consideration here.
89:59But then the other components are like, this is start 12.
90:02You need bodies, right? Bet on four dudes that can go up in value drastically.
90:07And if like two of them tread water and three of them tread water and one goes up, you win the trade.
90:14So you lose on the trade calculator, but you're betting on ascending assets versus a descending asset.
90:20But I think sorry for the long. No, I think if you're competing, it's OK.
90:25Just what you got in some ways. But I think if you're flipping everything again, like if Marshawn Lloyd is the starter and in week one he has.
90:3485 yards and two touchdowns and he's the RB eight on the week or something.
90:39I mean, he doesn't have to go nuclear. He just has to be like, oh, look, he's the guy now.
90:46He's a starting running back for an awesome offense in the NFL.
90:50You can sell him for a late first a championship level.
90:53First round. That's right. We're always, you know, 28 first or 27, you know, late 27 first.
90:59Hey, just give me your 28 first. I know you don't want to get rid of your 27 first.
91:05Give me your 28 first. Fine for Lloyd. Here you go.
91:09And Jonathan Brooks, same thing. Like he, he, first of all, he's 21, 22 years old or whatever.
91:15Still 23 now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But yeah.
91:17Crazy. I keep saying, of course. Amari Cooper is 19.
91:21You know, Amari Cooper is still 27. It's crazy.
91:24I remember. Yeah. So, you know, but he's young.
91:27He, he, he actually has, you know, you could hold him and not be like, oh boy, this candle's burning fast.
91:34Um, but you could also sell him for a first potentially if he shows out to be the starter in Carolina.
91:40And of course, as I put in the notes, Eli Raritan, greater than sign, Trey McBride, obviously.
91:46So I think he won the trade to just one guy.
91:50Mm-hmm. I know it felt good, but I also like, I was, I was actually, when I made the trade, I was
91:57like, especially with the people that are in this league, I was like, I feel like I'm going to get roasted for this one.
92:05But I, like, like that, that was the only thing that slowed me down.
92:09I was like, I'm just, I'm, I'm doing this trade.
92:13I might get roasted. I don't even want to put this on Twitter because Twitter's not going to understand how fucking maybe
92:20smart of a mood this deal is. Like, I may have lost by a lot, by the way, just to be clear.
92:27But yeah, correct. There's a downside where you basically just gave away Trey McBride.
92:32Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I bet on four, you know, um, magic beans, but they've already started to sprout.
92:39It would have been nice if you could have flipped the 28 second into a 28 first second swap.
92:45I tried. I tried. I tried. This is where we landed.
92:49This is where we landed. I was trying to get that first and, uh, this is where we landed.
92:55And I was just like, you know what? It's still worth it.
92:59So it. Terrence Ferguson can win the trade on his own.
93:02Yeah. I know. Terrence. Yeah. That, that, that. Terrence Ferguson can win the trade on his own.
93:08Terrence Ferguson can win the trade on his own.
93:11Eli Reardon could win the trade on his own.
93:14And someone between Brooks and, uh, Lloyd could win the trade on their own.
93:18That's, that was my thought process. Reardon and Ferguson could make it so all of those other assets were free.
93:25You know what I mean? Like those two guys in themselves absolutely could.
93:29They could also be complete bums and nothing. That's right.
93:33Totally. And that's, that's what I was going to say.
93:36Right. Is like, that is a very high risk trade, but I think it's a really smart trade to make on that
93:43team because the team's not going anywhere. Trey McBride is not helping you at all.
93:48He's actually hindering that team. It's just dead. And so it's just dead point.
93:53Finding like either you're going to toil with him on your roster and get nothing for him, or you're going to try
94:00and get a bunch of shit for him. And maybe you continue to toil, but maybe you don't.
94:06So I actually really like the psychology of that trade and what it does for you, Joe, is you don't have this
94:13lingering thing on your team and you have like a new frontier to push forward.
94:18And I want, I want to make very clear to the listeners.
94:22I tried extracting firsts for him all off season.
94:25I adopted this team in like April, you know, right walking into the rookie draft.
94:30I was like, God, what a piece of crap.
94:33Damn you, Jax. Why did you do this to me?
94:36And anyway, so I turned in the rookie draft and I think I did as well as I could to extract value
94:43out of that, but I could not get the value I wanted on Trey McBride.
94:48And I tried all off season. So after not getting the value in draft picks, I was like, okay, fine.
94:55Let me just go buy some ascending assets instead.
94:58So this is like a whole journey of a, of a trade, not, not in my defense, in my defense.
95:04It's not the worst team ever. I mean, you've got Jalen hurts to a, you've got a Mecca, Buka, Jalen waddle.
95:11You've got some pieces, you know, you had the one-on-one, which you now, that was it.
95:16No, he just named them all. It's a Buka waddle.
95:20It hurts. You have Carnell Tate, Denzel Boston. Well, I, I, I manufactured Carnell Tate, Denzel Boston.
95:25I know. That's what I'm saying. And Mekhi Lemon.
95:28Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. No, yeah. Not Mekhi Lemon.
95:32You have Tyson in that one. I'm sorry. Jordan Tyson.
95:35Yeah. That's the other top four. Yeah. Yeah. Which also sucks, by the way.
95:39So I'm, this team is still dead, but. Yeah, yeah.
95:43But I created four verticals on this team that didn't exist before.
95:47Yeah. After exhausting all possible, you know, trades for firsts.
95:50So my point in bringing this up, in addition to just shitting on McBride, is we still love McBride here.
95:57Of course. He's awesome. Yeah, yeah. It's just that you, you can lose the trade on a trade calculator as long as
96:04you're buying ascending assets and it's close, right? Yeah.
96:07That's fine. You're okay. We love you. I've got outs.
96:10I've still got outs. I've still got outs. Totally you do.
96:14And I think, I think the outs are probably, probably your best case outcome, right?
96:19Like selling Marshawn Lloyd at peak is probably best case outcome.
96:22You know what I mean? And I think one thing that I took, one thing that, yes, you're always fucking busy.
96:29It's incredible. You got JK Dobbins on the team too, another sell, you know.
96:34One thing that I think you did there as well is you realized that the market was not that league's market when
96:41you couldn't get those firsts for trade McBride. So you got creative with it.
96:46And I think that's a really, really cool way because a lot of people would knock at a first and say, fuck that.
96:53I don't want to do it. And they would have trade McBride sitting there dying on their roster.
96:59So I think that was, and I'll just add that this is an accelerated rebuild, right?
97:04If you just took this team and played it by the book on a rebuild, it would take three years.
97:11And I'm trying to, I know I'm going to suck this year.
97:15I'm walking into my first game next week and, and having the seam, but I think by the 2027 season, I'm going
97:22to be a competitor in this league because of the moves that I've made.
97:27Yeah. Well, and you have young assets like, uh, you know, Colonel Tate, Mecca, Buka, Denzel Boston, like not all of them
97:34will hit, but when they hit, it will coincide.
97:37Yeah. Anyway. All right, boys, we, we got to get out of here because I'm going to go to OTCFFB.com and look
97:44at all my shit bag teams and see if I can find one of those trades so I can feel the dopamine
97:51hit that Joe felt while he was doing that.
97:54Uh, very fun episode guys. Next time you see us, there will be football in the books.
98:00We will be able to talk about some real things that happened on a football field and Jack's you'll be able to
98:07rejoice because Puka Nakua will be within the safe confines of an NFL football field and not on somebody's deck somewhere jumping through the sliding glass door.
98:16So rejoice everybody because it's here. Another season is in the books.
98:20It's fast. It's furious. But I promise if you stay with dynasty underground, we will not steer you wrong.
98:26So for the wise man, Jack's Falcone for Joe Quavius, Kuba Takis.
98:30I am Trav. We'll see you next week. Peace.
