0:00Drafting from the second spot in your
0:01draft is not as easy as you think.
0:02Although, I did get given a gift here in
0:04this flockfantasy.com mock draft because
0:07I got given Jahmyr Gibbs at the 1.2
0:09instead of Bijan Robinson. In your
0:11league, you are very likely to actually
0:13be getting Bijan Robinson. However, when
0:15you get back to the 2-3 turn, a lot of
0:17the choices left for you are not going
0:18to be as strong as you might think.
0:20Again, a little bit of a gift here as we
0:22are given Brock Bowers. And I actually
0:23do know from looking at like CBS Sports
0:26and Yahoo that your second round pick,
0:28there's a good chance of you getting
0:30Brock Bowers. We are going to take with
0:32Jahmyr Gibbs and Brock Bowers. We are
0:34going to do Nico Collins, which gives us
0:36just an unbelievably good start to a
0:39fantasy football team. We have the
0:40running back one, could be Gibbs or
0:42could be Bijan. We have Brock Bowers who
0:44I think is going to basically be the
0:46story of the fantasy football season. We
0:48have Nico Collins who can clearly be you
0:51know, a top-five wide receiver. I don't
0:52think he can be the number one overall
0:54wide receiver one, but I think he is
0:56clearly a great pick. We have the
0:57ability here in the fourth round to take
1:00really any back we want. Could be
1:02Scataboo, could be Henderson, could be
1:03Montgomery. We are going to take
1:05Scataboo here. I think he could see like
1:07280 touches this season, average 15 and
1:10a half fantasy points per game last
1:12year. And instead of taking Terry
1:15McLaurin, Mike Evans, or these guys, we
1:18are actually going to take another
1:19running back here. We are going to take
1:20volume-dependent David Montgomery. Now,
1:23the format that I've set up for this
1:25league is one quarterback, two running
1:27backs, three wide receivers, and one
1:28flex. And you might be saying, "Davis,
1:30you're going to be so far behind at wide
1:31receiver. How are you possibly going to
1:33outscore your opponents?" Well, look at
1:35the wide receivers that available for us
1:37here. We have Mecole Hardman. We have
1:39Quinton Johnston. We have DK Metcalf. We
1:41have Jordan Addison. We're going to take
1:42Mecole Hardman to be our wide receiver
1:45two.
1:46Basically, the game that I am playing in
1:48fantasy football this year as we add in
1:51Let's add in DK Metcalf on this team is
1:53I do want to have one stud wide receiver
1:55on pretty much all my teams. I think it
1:57is much more important though to have a
1:59menu of options. You know, I want to
2:02have six or seven wide receivers I think
2:04are potentially startable in a given
2:07week. Uh, Parker Washington is available
2:09here. If we wanted to take a
2:10quarterback, we could in this range. We
2:12could take a Purdy. We could take a Dak
2:14Prescott. We could take a Bo Nix. We are
2:16going to add in I have Jayden Reed in my
2:18stuff ranked almost ahead of Parker. I
2:20just I'm not really a Parker Washington
2:22guy. You know, please please forgive me.
2:25This is right about in the quarterback
2:27window. So, that's what we're going to
2:29do. Well, you know what? Ninth round,
2:30we're actually going to wait again.
2:32We're going to add Ricky Pearsall. So,
2:34we now have four wide receivers that we
2:36can just kind of mix and match with Nico
2:38Collins. We know Nico Collins is
2:39starting every single week. Depending on
2:41projections, depending on the rankings
2:43that are here on flockfantasy.com, we
2:45could start Lemon, we could start
2:46Metcalf, we could start Reed, we could
2:48start Pearsall. Again, quarterback here
2:51totally fine in this situation. You
2:54know, Jared Goff is generally speaking,
2:56I mean, he finishes a top 10 scoring
2:57quarterback five times in his career.
3:00That's who we're going to take here. Do
3:01we have a stack? No. I don't love that.
3:04But, that is completely okay. And this
3:06is basically my general strategy towards
3:09drafting out of the second slot of a
3:11given draft, which is I almost always
3:14want to be starting with a running back
3:16from the left side of the board if that
3:18makes sense. You know, from the first
3:19slot, from the second slot. In best
3:22ball, I maybe I'm not as hip to taking
3:24Christian McCaffrey or Jonathan Taylor.
3:27But, when you have the opportunity to
3:29begin your drafts this way, I think it
3:30would be foolish. You know, I've gotten
3:32a couple questions in the YouTube
3:33comments and things about, you know,
3:35should I start with Ja'Marr Chase? You
3:37know, Ja'Marr Chase has been the number
3:39one wide receiver in fantasy football
3:40for the most recent two seasons. But,
3:42when you come back around and look at
3:44the second round options, I think the
3:45teams that you're going to find I mean,
3:47frankly, I like drafting from the right
3:49side of the board. The Sammy bot here
3:50has Justin Jefferson and Chase Brown.
3:53The domain bot has Achane and London,
3:56which I think is, you know, completely
3:58totally reasonable. However, the starts
4:00that I like the most are stud running
4:03back, stud wide receiver. Now, on this
4:05specific team, I did not take a stud
4:07wide receiver in round two. It would be
4:08very, very hard for me to come up with a
4:10convincing argument that you should take
4:12George Pickens, Nico Collins, Chris
4:14Olave, Tee Higgins, any of these guys
4:16over Brock Bowers. To me, Brock Bowers,
4:19if he replicates what he did in 2024, he
4:23is going to be, you know, basically one
4:24of the assets you have to have to win
4:26your league in fantasy football. If he
4:28is better than he was as a 21-year-old
4:30rookie, I mean, it's basically game over
4:33for everyone in fantasy football. I I
4:34think there's a chance that we could get
4:36an 18-19 fantasy points per game season
4:38out of Brock Bowers. I did a video on
4:40the channel, actually, about Brock
4:42Bowers being the story of the fantasy
4:44football season. At pick three,
4:47I I don't really see a reality where a
4:49game and it wouldn't have made sense for
4:51me to take Derrick Henry or Breece Hall
4:53here. Then, you were getting into a spot
4:54where you basically don't have a stud
4:56wide receiver at all.
4:58And wide receiver two production across
5:01the board has collapsed. You know, last
5:03year, wide receiver twos on average were
5:05garnering six receptions per game. They
5:08were scoring under 13 fantasy points per
5:10game. If you just look at the cadre of
5:12wide receiver 13 to wide receiver 24,
5:15scoring I mean, scoring just across the
5:17entire NFL is down. Yards per play is
5:19down. Yards per game is down, and points
5:21are down. Actually, points across the
5:23entire NFL are down. They're it's a
5:2510-year low. Teams have just stopped
5:27scoring to the same degree, which they
5:29used to be able to. I mean, we have some
5:31rule changes. We have some defensive
5:32schematics that have changed, but
5:34getting a stud wide receiver, which I
5:36would basically say Nico Collins is the
5:38cutoff in terms of thinking I had a
5:40stud, if you don't have that guy, it's
5:42going to be very hard to win your
5:4412-team league. And it's why, frankly,
5:46if I got to choose my draft slot, if I
5:49got to choose my draft slot in my home
5:51league this year, I would probably be
5:52tilting towards the 107, the 108, the
5:55109, the 110, because those are really
5:58the great starts. You get to take a stud
6:00wide receiver, and then you get to take
6:01one of Walker, Barkley, Hampton, Chase
6:04Brown, Gentry, James Cook. Those are
6:05basically my absolute favorite starts,
6:07but we have to deal with the hand that
6:09we are dealt. This 4-5 turn is a little
6:12bit of an interesting discussion as
6:14well. Could have made an argument at
6:16this spot that taking the double running
6:17backs was not particularly strong. We
6:19took Skatabu, and then we took
6:21Montgomery. I could have had Mike Evans,
6:23I could have had McLaurin, Carnell Tate,
6:25Jameson Williams. However, when you get
6:27deeper down the board, where are you
6:29finding running back points? When we
6:31took Makai Lemon, the best running back
6:33that we could have taken would have
6:34been, by my rankings, Tony Pollard or
6:36Jaylen Warren. And then when we came
6:38back up to take Jayden Reed and Ricky
6:40Pearsall, we're looking at guys like JK
6:42Dobbins, Jonathan Brooks, and Rico
6:44Dowdle. No disrespect to those guys.
6:46They certainly, you know, have their
6:47place in a 12-team league, but they're
6:49not guys that you want to be starting.
6:51When I think about running back
6:52production this season, I I think it
6:54falls off a cliff several times. I think
6:56Bijan and Jahmyr Gibbs are certainly
6:58their own cliff. I think there's an
7:00argument to be made that McCaffrey is in
7:01a tier of his own. And then Taylor,
7:04Etienne, Cook, Gentry, Chase Brown,
7:05Hampton, Barkley, and Ken Walker to me
7:08are their second group. Then you have
7:10the next tier of guys with Jeremiah
7:11Love, Henry Hall, Kyren, Javonte,
7:14Etienne, who are their own group. Then
7:17the final group basically goes to me
7:19from Jacobs to Price. And then once you
7:22get past Chuba Hubbard and Price, I
7:23basically think
7:25anyone goes there. You could tell me any
7:27story about Rhamondre Stevenson, and I
7:29would probably believe you. You could
7:31tell me any story about Tony Pollard,
7:32and I would probably believe you. And
7:34then guys like JK Dobbins, I mean,
7:36Dobbins had the role that we are
7:38envisioning for him last year. He was
7:41fine. JK Dobbins was fine in fantasy
7:44football last year. There's no chance
7:46that he's a league winner, not involved
7:48as a pass catcher at all. They add Jona
7:50Coleman into this backfield, which
7:51obfuscates things even further.
7:54No games over 15 and a half fantasy
7:56points for him last season. I'm just not
7:59in. Like, I do not want to start this
8:01guy. I think it's fine if you're doing
8:03kind of a hero running back or as your
8:05running back build, but just looking at
8:06the way my lineup is structured. And
8:08granted, this only went 10 rounds. A lot
8:10of your leagues are going to go deeper,
8:11and we're going to have plenty of
8:13fantasy football sleeper videos here on
8:15the channel. But, chances are I'm going
8:18to be able to garner pretty good wide
8:19receiver two production out of Mekhi
8:21Leven, DK Metcalf, Jayden Reed, Ricky
8:23Pearsall. Let's say that I'm right and
8:26Jayden Reed actually does become a
8:27full-time player for the first time in
8:29his career. Because if we look at the
8:30vast majority of his career, 38% of
8:34snaps, 48, 65, 66, 65. Let's go back to
8:372024, breakout season for him. Tops out
8:40at 79% of snaps and actually saw his
8:42snaps reduced down the stretch. His
8:44breakout rookie season, again, was
8:47really not a full-time player in any of
8:49these games. And because he has not been
8:51a full-time player, there's a huge
8:53discount for him. But, Jayden Reed could
8:55very easily be a full-time player this
8:57year. Dontayvion Wicks is gone, Romeo
8:59Doubs is gone. There's been an
9:00organizational commitment to commit to
9:03playing the same five guys in 11
9:05personnel. Jayden Reed has the
9:06opportunity to have like an 85% route
9:09share for basically the first time in
9:11his career. Jayden Reed has been very
9:13efficient on limited samples in his
9:14career. That's a bet I'm comfortable
9:16making. Ricky Pearsall, an insanely
9:18productive player when he has been on
9:21the field. He was fourth in the NFL in
9:22receiving yards before he got injured
9:24last year. The issue is, this guy has
9:26basically been injured every single year
9:27of his career. But, 1.97 and 1.94 yards
9:31per route run. I'm pretty convinced that
9:33Ricky Pearsall is good. So, I have two
9:35breakout bets I like right there. DK
9:37Metcalf is not a breakout bet. It is
9:39basically a bet that Aaron Rodgers is
9:41able to play a little bit better than he
9:43did last season, but even still, 12 and
9:451/2 fantasy points per game as your wide
9:47receiver three is not bad. And then,
9:49Khalil Lemon is a clear breakout bet. I
9:51really loved his prospect profile coming
9:53out of
9:54coming out of USC. Like, he is of this
9:56group of guys, Tyson, Tate, and Lemon,
9:59Lemon was the one that I kind of liked
10:00most relative to consensus, and I do not
10:03think that the Eagles without A.J. Brown
10:05are a bad landing spot, but I'm also
10:07more of a believer than the market in
10:10Jalen Hurts. So, the quarterback
10:12position this year,
10:14you guys are pretty smart. I I you know,
10:16I don't have to talk down to you guys,
10:17but just look at this bevy of options we
10:19would have had. You know, I could have
10:21taken Bo Nix or Dak or Purdy or Mahomes
10:23or Kyler Murray instead, but basically,
10:25there are like 18, 17, kind of depending
10:29how you feel about like Jordan Love and
10:30Kyler Murray, good fantasy football
10:32quarterbacks this year. I, particularly
10:34drafting from the spot that we drafted
10:36at, the 1.2, it just doesn't really make
10:38sense to take an elite quarterback. Had
10:40Lamar been available there at the 11th
10:43pick of the sixth round, have happily
10:44taken him. He, of course, went much
10:47earlier than that, because that's what
10:48happens. He went at the 5.9. It doesn't
10:50make any sense to me to take Lamar
10:52Jackson at the second pick in the fifth
10:54round. So, I think again, just more
10:56clear, concise fantasy football strategy
10:58here. You want to lock in your running
11:00back one. You have to have a high-end
11:03wide receiver, and then you have to give
11:04yourself backstop options while filling
11:07in your running back two, and giving
11:08yourself two bites at the apple with
11:10Scat Abu and David Montgomery. If you
11:12want my rankings, head on over to
11:13flockfantasy.com. We have a host, a bevy
11:16of fantasy football tools available to
11:17all users over there. Link to that is in
11:19the description and in the comments.
11:21Make sure you like the video. Leave me
11:22questions down below. Make sure you're
11:24subscribed to the Mattek Fantasy
11:25Football channel.
