0:00Good morning friends and enemies and everyone that is not a Cleveland Cavalier or a Cleveland Cavalier fan.
0:07That aside, today we're talking about 10 secrets that I found that Vegas is telling us by just looking at their books this early in the season, all
0:15right? Their projections are now live for the upcoming 2026 NFL season, which you could find at the link below. And what we're going to do today is dissect
0:24passing projections, rushing projections, and receiving projections and give you 10 takeaways that I got from these numbers. We're going to start
0:32with the passing yardage chart, and not every single player is live right now.
0:37There are not numbers and projections up for every single player, and those will start to populate more and more so as
0:43the summer progresses. But this is what we have right now, and I want to get my thoughts out on paper, on video
0:49immediately, all right? And the first thing that jumped out to me was Taysom Hill sitting there at 3,600, the same as Caleb Williams, the same as
0:56Justin Herbert, the same as Josh Allen, above guys like Jordan Love, Jayden Daniels. Obviously, this does not take into account any rushing numbers. This
1:04is just a pure passing projection number. But I think it's telling given the the the type of talent around him.
1:11And honestly, a lot of the times, like with these numbers that come out this early in the off season, they're doing
1:17it for the most engaging players, usually the highest ranked players because those are the players that people are, you know, wanting to know
1:23more about. So to throw Hill in this group of quarterbacks is a little bit telling in my opinion. And I think
1:30people are going to be quick to kind of like scoff at this number, him being in that group of names, on par with the
1:35Allens and the Herbs and the Calebs and those types of guys. But I would I would implore you to hesitate on that thought.
1:42Because of Kellen Moore's offense, they are very, very high-paced. They run so many plays. Hill is going to throw the ball an insane amount of time. So this
1:52number is not necessarily based off his talent level or his efficiency, but it's based off of the projected volume that the Saints offense is likely going to
2:01have in 2026. They add Jordan Tyson as a top-10 rookie pick who should be an explosive playmaker to add to this
2:07offense alongside their true bonafide number one in Chris Olave. They sign Travis Etienne, so any negatives they had in the rushing game should hopefully
2:15be dispelled this year with a true number one back there again. Overall, the offensive environment should be very, very strong. It's like a very,
2:21very good group of playmakers around Shuck right now. That's before even getting into the schedule. You know, they play the NFC South teams six times.
2:30They play in a dome. The majority of their games are going to be in very, very high-paced, fast-paced environments indoors without any sort of weather
2:38concerns when it comes to December. They play Green Bay at home in December, so it doesn't matter. They're at Carolina, probably relatively normal weather game
2:48there. Their next away game in December at Tampa Bay. Arizona at home. Atlanta in Atlanta. Like, the weather for December for them is non-existent. They
2:58play a fourth-place schedule going into the year, so again, I think when you just look at the raw number, it's going
3:04to be quick to be hesitant about Shuck and be like, "What do they know that I don't know?" Now you know, because I
3:10just told you what they know. The next number that jumps off, not just because of the color here being bright red, it
3:16is Fernando Mendoza, the number one overall pick this year going to the Raiders. Now, his projection is at 2450.
3:235. Basically, what that tells me is that they're projecting him to start around like 11 or 12 games. I think that's
3:32valid because we just don't really see a ton of highly drafted players sit very long anymore at the quarterback position regardless of how they want the future
3:41to go. I think he'll be out there sooner rather than later. They signed Kirk, but if you watched Kirk at all last year,
3:48like his it reminded me of late year Matt Ryan, late year Drew Brees, where there's just no pop left in that arm at
3:55all. So, I think we're going to see Kirk struggle out the gate and him just not being able to like really move an
4:00offense effectively. Like maybe he could game manage for a few of those games, but I think eventually you're going to want to see a little more upside. And
4:06that's where Fernando Mendoza comes into play, and I think this passing yardage projection is kind of telling of what they expect for him, and it is certainly
4:14not, you know, a six-game or a four-game rookie year out of him. It's much more in tune with the higher number of games,
4:20which I think is, you know, useful for superflex leagues, or if you're in best ball drafts right now and you're looking
4:25for a QB3, Mendoza can be a guy. I would also say just a very, very general rule of thumb for these numbers. It is
4:32extremely, extremely rare for you to go higher on projections in terms of putting your money down on them and be profitable, right? The majority of lines
4:42are simply asking like, does this guy play the full slate of games? If they miss two or three games, they're going
4:48to hit the under 85% of the time, and it's football. People are often hurt.
4:52So, what I think the most useful way to look at these numbers is not necessarily like the actual raw number themselves,
4:59but comparing them to other players, as well as looking at like, what are the odds that this guy leads the league in
5:05receiving yards, or leads the league in receiving touchdowns, cuz that starts to help factor in upside and and ceiling and floor and stuff like that. So, when
5:13you start to like pepper them in on top of each other, it becomes a lot more of a full picture here. But look at the
5:18numbers relative to other players around them, and I think that's a little bit more helpful to to to look at these
5:23numbers rather than just the raw number, cuz if you look at a guy and his receiving yardage total is like 750,
5:29that's obviously not a very, very strong case to be like a strong fantasy player, but there are other factors involved in
5:34in these types of numbers. The last quarterback line that I wanted to point out was Lamar Jackson. Uh his line looks
5:40really, really low. He's the second to last projection on this screen here.
5:44It's Mendoza, Lamar, and Lamar's underneath Jayden Daniels. And when Lamar stayed healthy, he's had a a pretty strong passing yardage line over
5:52the last like, you know, half decade or so. And he's typically hovering around this number. He's obviously dealt with injuries in each of the last few seasons
5:58that have kept him off the field and sometimes had him under this projection.
6:02But I do think it's super reasonable to ask yourselves what this offense looks like in a post-Todd Monken era. They improved, as did Lamar's passing, year
6:12after year after year in Todd Monken's system. More continuity, you're able to get more complex, you're able to get more creative in a scheme or a system in
6:21which you are, you know, stacking years on top of each other, which is not a common case in today's NFL anymore. Like
6:26if you have a good offensive coordinator, one, like they don't let them develop. If they're like bad in year one or year two, they're pretty
6:30much out the door. If they're good, they're also probably out the door cuz someone's hiring them as their head coach. So, it's kind of rare that we see
6:35a good offensive system kind of stay in place for, I think it was three or four years in a row, and we saw the continued
6:41progression of Lamar Jackson as a passer. Obviously dealt with some injuries last year that held him out, but I'm not concerned about those
6:45injuries going into the year. I just think it's more so uh a pattern of like, will he stay healthy, of course, but
6:51Todd Monken's offense is now in Cleveland. So, we're going to move to the rushing yards projection screen here. And the very first thing I look at
7:00is the number three overall pick, Jeremiah Love, near the bottom here at 900.5.
7:07Uh they resigned James Conner. They brought in Tyler Allgeier to a two-year, $12 million deal. They still have Trey Benson in the backfield, but as I've
7:15kind of been talking about for a few weeks now, that would not be a surprise to me at all if they ended up cutting
7:19Trey Benson at this point. Regardless, the backfield split is really, really messy here. But at the end of the day, this is a team whose win total is four
7:27and a half. How much running opportunity are we going to get here? They brought in Nathaniel Hackett to be their offense
7:32coordinator in the year of 2026. Like I think overall Love will be fine for fantasy football because he's an explosive playmaker that can pop off a
7:41big play, and he's very athletic and catch passes and things like that, but it won't be the result of a high volume
7:47carry total. So, you have to make sure he eats in the other aspects of the game. How many rushing opportunities for
7:52touchdowns do we get here? The quarterback situation's a little bit messy right now. Obviously, it'd be a good thing if Jacoby Brissett was there,
7:57but now he's kind of like holding out for a starter type of contract. They brought in Carson Beck, who I'm not a
8:02big fan of if he ends up playing, you know, more than four games this year. I think that's going to be a detriment to
8:06the entire offense overall. So, I would just say like there are not crazy expectations for Jeremiah Love from a rushing handle in in year one. I think
8:15you should be drafting accordingly. Like there's obviously the chance that he goes kind of Najee Harris rookie year, where it's almost like right place,
8:21right time, and you kind of back your way into 75 targets or just a huge PPR season because of it. But, um I think
8:28you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you're taking him, you know, around the 1-2 turn or the you know, early mid-second round there. I think he
8:36should drop a little bit in drafts. On the other side of the spectrum, the next thing you notice are obviously, you have
8:42a a bunch of like really, really pure rushers at the top there at 1250 with Jonathan Taylor, James Cook, Derrick Henry. But, Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan
8:49Robinson being right underneath them in terms of just a pure rushing projection is, in my opinion, why they are the clear, clear 1-2 punch and in the tier
9:00of their own for 2026 fantasy football drafts. They are projected for nearly the same rushing total as the top three guys above them, but they're both going
9:10to like two to three X the receiving work of the top three guys, which is insane. And you can kind of say the same
9:16thing for Christian McCaffrey, but you see that dip in Christian McCaffrey's rushing projection down there at the bottom tied with Ameer Abdullah and
9:22Hampton at 950.
9:23So, just another, you know, positive point, not that anyone else needs to be told about Gibbs and Bijan Robinson up there. But, yeah, they are the the clear
9:311-2 here. The third thing that I noticed is Javonte Williams here. Javonte Williams at 1050, kind of middle of the pack, but above a lot of very, very good
9:40talents.
9:41Um Javonte Williams to me is going to be a very boring pick, but he's probably going to be the right pick around like
9:49the three, four-ish turn. If you owned him last year, he was just like such a wonderful just RB2 to have in your
9:56lineup and not really worry about it.
9:58Set it and forget it. Like sure, some weeks he'd give you like nine points. He was horrendous in the receiving game
10:03last year, but there were other weeks where it's like, "Okay, you just kind of take that nine or 10 points." And then
10:08the next week he's going to give you two rushing scores. And I don't see a big difference between Javonte Williams and
10:13like Kyren Williams here. Like they're to me both guys who aren't going to catch a ton of passes, but are the goal
10:19line back in good offenses. And Kyren definitely has a lot more risk given the fact that we saw Blake Corum like play a
10:24lot of uh downs and snaps towards the second half of the season. They were almost like splitting drives par for par. Javonte Williams, I mean, you can
10:31make up a story in your head that Jaden Blue is going to be incredibly involved in the passing game this time around.
10:36And I do think it would give them a bit more explosion on third downs if they did, but like there was nothing from
10:41last year pointing towards Jaden Blue being a dude this year. So, given the makeup of the offense, given that very little has changed in the environment of
10:48the Dallas Cowboys offense, and Javonte Williams being, you know, the head honcho there. Again, boring, but probably the right pick in those middle
10:55rounds. And we're going to move down to the receiving yards projection. If you are enjoying the video thus far, all I
11:02ask is that you hit the button that looks like this. Subscribe to the channel if you're new. Obviously, we will be ramping up the fantasy content
11:08come June, come July, come August. Can't wait for y'all to see what we have in store for you this summer. Also putting
11:13out a ton of short-form content over on TikTok, Instagram, and on YouTube Shorts if you've seen it. So, you can go follow
11:19us on all those platforms. It's just BDGE Fantasy Football everywhere. So, the first thing that jumped off on this chart was DJ Moore. DJ Moore down there
11:27at 7:50, kind of sandwiched between some younger dudes, some very old dudes, some rookies. Just not a great place for him
11:35to be. You would think that Buffalo is a great place for him to be because he is the clear number one in Buffalo's
11:41offense. Vegas clearly not looking at him as any sort of alpha in the Buffalo offense. Now, do I think he has a higher
11:49ceiling than this projection leads you on to believe? Absolutely. I think DJ Moore for the most part has been a consistently good wide receiver. We saw
11:57him play that alpha role in Carolina for a very long time. Obviously, severe dip off in play in Chicago last year. Luther
12:02Burden emerged, Kolsen Loveland emerged, Romeo Doubs was better than DJ Moore for most of the year last year. It was just
12:09a messy situation. DJ Moore like it didn't feel like he fit very well in Ben Johnson's offense. And maybe that was
12:14one of the reasons why DJ Moore, you know, really struggled last year overall. But I would say like he's starting to get older in age and at this
12:21point it's fair to to ask yourselves like how good of a separator still is is DJ Moore. Are they going to use him
12:27around the line of scrimmage? Like what I felt like Josh Allen really needed in that offense is is a field stretcher to
12:32kind of take the top off of and DJ Moore is definitely not that guy anymore. So, a little bit of a weird fit, I get it.
12:38Just get Josh Allen some weapons there, but clearly not very enthused about it.
12:42Kelce, Kelce at 675. You might think that that's a very low number. It's actually not that weak for a tight end.
12:51Like you have Bowers at 850. They're obviously expecting a massive bounce back. Trey McBride, I don't think they had numbers out for him cuz they're
12:57still probably debating the quarterback situation there. Uh Trey McBride's probably going to be around 1,000, 1,050, something in that neighborhood.
13:04But Kelce resigned in KC. I feel like this number, despite it being low here, tells me that they do think he's still
13:12got a lot of juice left. Like he was still good for fantasy last year. Again, I still think it was a lot of like
13:18worthy stinks. Rashee Rice missed a lot of time. So, you do have factors that kind of like, you know, push themselves
13:23into Kelce seeing another uptick or a good year despite him like not playing that well. I think Kelse is a veteran
13:30that you can kind of rely on as a low-end tight end one this year if not like a pretty solid mid-tight end one.
13:35And then we're going to wrap up this video kind of talking about the uh the rookies here. Tate and Tyson, you have
13:40Carnell Tate who went to the Titans, obviously their top five pick, 775. You have Jordan Tyson, we've already spoke a little bit about him. We're talking
13:47about Tyler Shock also at 775, another top 10 pick. They were right around, if I remember correctly, I think Ted McMillen's projection was around last
13:55year, give or take maybe like 25 yards.
13:57But also Travis Hunter. So they're projecting, unsurprisingly, you know, the cream of the crop to be these guys, Carnell Tate, Jordan Tyson, cuz you have
14:04to go a little bit lower down the uh the list here to look at the other first-round receivers. You got Makai
14:09Lemon, Casey Conception, uh Omar Cooper, like those guys are significantly below the Tysons and the Carnell Tates of the world cuz Carnell Tate could definitely
14:18step into Tennessee as the clear alpha.
14:20Jordan Tyson should be in a really, really strong wide receiver two role in an offense that should throw the ball a
14:26ton and be very high-paced and fast-paced. And if you believe he's very, very good with the ball in his hands and can make plays and is
14:31explosive, etc., he'll have plenty of opportunity to do so. But I think it's just interesting looking at these where guys like Travis Hunter and Ted McMillen
14:39were around the same range last year and it is like the complete rookie versus floor case in a situation like this. To
14:45me it just goes to show like be conscious of where you're drafting guys like this, rookies. It's always fun to shoot for upside, but there's probably a
14:52lower floor than you anticipate. And I think with the rise of like rookies being popular in redraft, we see a lot
14:59of carryover from like the dynasty community cuz each year the dynasty community puts out more and more content. So more and more people are
15:05playing and more and more people are seeing content on guys like Carnell Tate or Makai Lemon or Jordan Tyson, etc. And
15:11then that starts to carry over into best ball immediately and a lot of people like to draft rookies high in best ball.
15:16And the earlier and earlier they go, the more risky that becomes because obviously the earlier you are in redraft rounds like the better players are
15:25available to you and and better can come in the form of higher upside but can also come in the form of higher floor
15:31and a more secure situation etc. So, I just think it's interesting to see them two just kind of thrown into the same
15:36number same way that Tank and Travis Hunter were last year. The way that it worked out last year for Tank and Travis
15:40Hunter could not have been more opposite obviously. It was a very risky situation going in and I just think um it it would
15:47be wise for redraft players a little bit to start pulling back from like the fourth round rookie wide receivers being in auto smash being like yeah, it works
15:55out for a guy like Tank and it can work out for some other players but I just think it's in everybody's best interest
16:00to just stay cognizant of the floor of rookies as well. Where in best ball you could draft them in the fourth and fifth
16:07round because if they don't play well you have replacements that automatically get put into your lineup. That is not the same with redraft. All right, so
16:13that is a quick look at the projections that I'm seeing very very early in the summer. We will do a lot more videos
16:18like this as the summer progresses and we get more interesting creative type of projections that do come out from the books. As always if you want to see them
16:26yourselves, you can follow the link down below to get to MGM. Otherwise, I'm out of here for today. Go Knickerbockers.
16:35Love you all. I'm out.
16:37>> [music]
