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Cram Session: Yahoo fantasy experts share final pieces of draft advice

STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.

1 hr 30 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 4, 2026
Published
Fri, September 4, 2026
74
Player insights
60
Players mentioned
Topics
Terry McLaurinBreece HallBrock BowersColston LovelandD'Andre SwiftDrake LondonGarrett WilsonJared GoffJayden DanielsJosh AllenKalif RaymondKhalil ShakirKyle PittsAlvin Kamara
Player analysis

Player insights

74

Alvin Kamara

NegativeInjury10:28

Justin Boone notes that Alvin Kamara will be out for a bit, which impacts the Saints' backfield outlook.

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Baker Mayfield

PositiveValue66:44

Matt Harmon and Chris agree that Baker Mayfield is significantly undervalued in current ADP, often falling into the 20s. They cite his health, a strong offensive line, and familiarity with offensive concepts as reasons he could return to his previous high-level production.

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Bo Nix

PositiveValue19:37

Matt Harmon identifies Bo Nix as a viable late-round quarterback option, noting that drafters can find quality production in the 90s range rather than reaching for elite QBs.

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Breece Hall

PositiveValue10:13

Justin Boone likes Breece Hall in the third-round range, noting that his injury concerns do not appear to be a problem.

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NegativeValue21:48

Matt Harmon advises against drafting both Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson, suggesting that stacking players from the same team is not always advisable, specifically citing the Jets as a team to avoid in this context.

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Brian Robinson

NegativeValue26:53

Matt Harmon expresses diminished confidence in drafting Brian Robinson Jr. due to the disastrous state of the Commanders' offensive line.

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Brian Thomas Jr.

PositiveValue75:16

Matt Harmon believes the fantasy community has overcorrected on Brian Thomas Jr., noting that he is healthy and represents a good value in the sixth or seventh round.

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Brock Bowers

PositiveValue19:37

Matt Harmon suggests that pairing Brock Bowers with a later-round quarterback like Bo Nix is a superior draft strategy compared to taking an elite quarterback early.

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PositiveValue26:48

Josh Norris confirms he is still in on Brock Bowers despite the Raiders' poor offensive environment.

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Bucky Irving

PositiveValue71:31

Matt Harmon notes that he has changed his mind on Bucky Irving and now considers him a good value pick in drafts.

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Chase Brown

PositiveValue6:53

Justin Boone identifies Chase Brown as a target for drafters picking in the middle to late first round, noting he is part of a group of running backs available when coming back around in the draft.

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Colston Loveland

NegativeValue13:48

Josh Norris identifies Colston Loveland as a nice value at his 39th overall ADP, recommending him as a target to avoid punting the tight end position.

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PositiveUsage22:22

Matt Harmon identifies Colson Loveland as one of the primary focal points of the Bears' passing game, alongside Luther Burden and Rome Odunze.

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Courtland Sutton

NegativeValue19:28

Matt Harmon uses Courtland Sutton as a seventh-round comparison piece to illustrate that waiting on quarterback allows for better overall team construction than taking an elite QB early.

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D'Andre Swift

PositiveValue10:36

Justin Boone recommends D'Andre Swift as a target in the fourth or fifth rounds, noting his strong performance last year.

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PositiveBreakout64:31

Chris and Matt Harmon view DeAndre Swift as a potential breakout candidate similar to James Cook, noting he is a great fourth-round value. With Kyle Monongai dealing with a hyperextended knee, Swift is expected to command a significant share of early-down and goal-line work in a Ben Johnson-led offense.

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Dak Prescott

PositiveValue19:28

Matt Harmon highlights Dak Prescott as a preferred target when waiting on the quarterback position, suggesting he provides better overall roster value compared to early-round quarterback picks.

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Dalton Kincaid

PositiveValue19:52

Josh Norris views Dalton Kincaid as a viable late-round tight end target with upside, preferring him over other veteran names.

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Dawson Knox

NegativeUsage55:05

Chris Allen suggests Dawson Knox could be a deep-bench option in tight-end-needy formats, noting his usage in scoring positions and red-zone sets.

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De'Von Achane

PositiveValue6:53

Justin Boone lists Devon Achane as a target for drafters picking in the middle to late first round.

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DK Metcalf

NegativeProjection58:40

Matt Harmon and Chris view DK Metcalf as a stable but capped asset, comparing his role to an X receiver like Alec Pierce. While they doubt he returns to 1,200-1,300 yard seasons due to the Steelers' offensive environment, they believe a top-24 finish is within his range of outcomes if the offensive line improves.

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Drake London

NegativeValue21:46

Matt Harmon advises against drafting both Drake London and Kyle Pitts, suggesting that stacking players from the same team is not always advisable, specifically citing the Falcons as a team to avoid in this context.

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PositiveBreakout38:03

Matt Harmon argues that Drake London took his game to another level in his fourth NFL season, serving as a prime example of why analysts should remain open-minded about young receivers improving even if they weren't immediately productive.

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Garrett Wilson

NegativeValue21:48

Matt Harmon advises against drafting both Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson, suggesting that stacking players from the same team is not always advisable, specifically citing the Jets as a team to avoid in this context.

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PositiveProjection22:01

Josh Norris notes that Garrett Wilson was the WR11 in points per game before his injury last season, making him a usable asset despite the Jets' overall offensive struggles.

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George Pickens

PositiveValue23:01

Matt Harmon uses George Pickens as an example of a wide receiver two on a high-powered offense who is worth drafting ahead of other teams' wide receiver ones.

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Jakobi Meyers

PositiveValue72:21

Matt Harmon and Chris highlight Jakobi Meyers as an overlooked 'glue guy' who is consistently on the field and efficient. Despite his low ADP (WR67), they believe he is the best value among the Jaguars' pass catchers because he is a proven, reliable player.

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Jalen McMillan

NegativeBust67:00

Matt Harmon is skeptical of Jalen McMillan due to recurring injury issues (knee/calf soreness) and missed practice time. While he acknowledges McMillan's vertical ability, he prefers to avoid drafting him until he proves he can stay healthy, suggesting he is better suited for best-ball formats.

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Jared Goff

PositiveValue20:33

Matt Harmon highlights Jared Goff as a late-round quarterback value available around the 114th overall pick.

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PositiveValue47:48

Chris Allen and Matt Harmon argue that Jared Goff is undervalued at his QB16 ADP. They highlight his efficiency under pressure, his role in a high-explosive Lions offense, and his potential to reach a Stafford-esque ceiling in passing touchdowns.

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Javonte Williams

PositiveValue22:40

Matt Harmon suggests that drafting a Cowboys receiver alongside Javonte Williams is a viable and comfortable strategy given their respective ADPs.

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Jaxon Smith-Njigba

PositiveBreakout39:22

Matt Harmon cites Jaxon Smith-Njigba as a proof point for player development, noting that despite offseason concerns about him being limited to the slot, he took a massive leap in year three to become a fundamentally different player.

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Jayden Daniels

NegativeValue26:39

Matt Harmon is avoiding drafting Jayden Daniels because the Commanders' offensive line is in such poor condition that it creates a high risk of injury for the rookie quarterback.

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PositiveProjection49:01

Matt Harmon identifies Jayden Daniels as a target for his fantasy drafts, noting his high interest in the quarterback despite the need to update draft guide materials regarding the Commanders' offense.

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Jonathan Taylor

PositiveValue9:58

Justin Boone expresses a strong preference for Jonathan Taylor this season, advising against reaching for him in the top 3-4 picks but targeting him in the third round.

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Josh Allen

NegativeValue19:16

Matt Harmon advises against drafting Josh Allen with the eighth overall pick in the second round, arguing that waiting on quarterback provides better roster construction leverage; he prefers building depth at WR, RB, or TE over taking the first QB off the board.

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NegativeValue30:16

Josh Norris criticizes the ADP of Josh Allen, suggesting that drafters are overpaying by taking him in the second round.

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Josh Downs

NegativeProjection43:47

Josh Norris and Matt Harmon identify Josh Downs as a potential example of a player who may or may not take a step forward this year.

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Justin Herbert

NegativeProjection26:59

Matt Harmon believes the Chargers' offensive ceiling is capped due to significant offensive line issues, specifically the loss of their center and poor performance from the guards, which limits Herbert's potential.

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Juwan Johnson

PositiveUsage15:34

Josh Norris recommends pairing Juwan Johnson with a mid-round tight end, noting he will be the Saints' second-best pass catcher while Jordan Tyson is sidelined.

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Kalif Raymond

NegativeRole22:08

Matt Harmon notes that Khalif Raymond serves as a valuable third receiver for the Bears to open up the field, though he is not expected to command a significant target share.

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NegativeRole22:08

Matt Harmon notes that Khalif Raymond serves as a valuable third receiver to open up the field for the Bears' offense, but he will not command a significant target share.

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Kenneth Walker III

PositiveValue7:02

Justin Boone suggests that drafters in the middle to late first round should hope Kenneth Walker falls to them, noting he is moving up in drafts.

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Keon Coleman

NegativeRole55:56

Chris Allen expresses skepticism regarding Keon Coleman's ability to serve as a reliable wide receiver two, citing struggles with scheme fit and route running.

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Khalil Shakir

PositiveUsage54:54

Chris Allen identifies Khalil Shakir as the only Bills receiver outside of DJ Moore worth drafting, noting his consistent role on third and fourth downs and his high target share when Josh Allen is under pressure.

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PositiveValue57:40

Matt Harmon identifies Khalil Shakir as the only Bills wide receiver he trusts to draft currently, noting he is one of the latest number two receivers off the board. While Shakir has historically had a low air yards per target (3.8 last year), he showed vertical potential in the preseason and could provide sneaky production if the offense improves.

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Kyle Pitts

NegativeValue14:12

Josh Norris expresses conflict regarding Kyle Pitts, noting he is ranked too high in ADP compared to his personal rankings.

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NegativeValue21:46

Matt Harmon advises against drafting both Drake London and Kyle Pitts, suggesting that stacking players from the same team is not always advisable, specifically citing the Falcons as a team to avoid in this context.

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Kyler Murray

PositiveValue20:33

Matt Harmon mentions Kyler Murray as a late-round quarterback option that drafters can target instead of reaching for elite QBs.

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Kyren Williams

PositiveValue10:09

Justin Boone highlights Kyren Williams as a third-round target, noting he has been a top-10 fantasy back for three consecutive seasons.

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Ladd McConkey

NegativeProjection27:46

Matt Harmon notes that offensive line performance significantly impacts receivers, citing that Joe Alt's absence last year correlated with a 35-yard per game drop for Ladd McConkey, suggesting similar risks for the Chargers' passing game.

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Lamar Jackson

PositiveValue30:46

Justin Boone identifies Lamar Jackson as his favorite early-round quarterback target, noting that his potential production can rival Josh Allen's at a lower draft cost.

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Luther Burden

PositiveUsage22:22

Matt Harmon identifies Luther Burden as one of the primary focal points of the Bears' passing game, alongside Colson Loveland and Rome Odunze.

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Marvin Harrison Jr.

NegativeProjection43:10

Matt Harmon argues that it is too early to definitively know Marvin Harrison Jr.'s ceiling, as he has only played two years in the NFL and dealt with injuries during his second season.

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Matthew Golden

NegativeValue38:31

Matt Harmon and Josh Norris discuss Matthew Golden's potential, noting that while he is currently drafted around 114th overall, there is a possibility for a tier jump in his development, though it remains uncertain.

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Michael Pittman

PositiveProjection61:52

Chris suggests that Michael Pittman could potentially outscore DK Metcalf in the Steelers' offense, as Pittman is expected to receive more high-percentage 'layup' targets.

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Nico Collins

PositiveValue19:28

Matt Harmon suggests that a roster construction featuring Nico Collins and Dak Prescott is superior to one featuring Josh Allen and Courtland Sutton, highlighting the value of waiting on the quarterback position.

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Omarion Hampton

PositiveValue6:53

Justin Boone highlights Omarion Hampton as a running back target for those drafting in the middle or late first round.

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Parker Washington

NegativeValue73:48

Chris and Matt Harmon view Parker Washington as appropriately priced as a WR3. While they like him as a player, they express skepticism about his ceiling given the crowded Jaguars receiving corps, including Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter.

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Quentin Johnston

PositiveProjection39:53

Matt Harmon notes that Quentin Johnston has shown improvement on an annual basis, highlighting the tendency for people to underestimate the growth of young players.

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Quinshon Judkins

NegativeBust11:56

Josh Norris expresses concern about relying on Quinshon Judkins as a starting running back, suggesting he is better suited as an RB3.

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Rashod Bateman

NegativeBust43:32

Josh Norris and Matt Harmon discuss Rashod Bateman as an example of a player who has failed to turn his potential into fantasy value over five-plus years.

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Rome Odunze

PositiveUsage22:22

Matt Harmon identifies Rome Odunze as one of the primary focal points of the Bears' passing game, alongside Colson Loveland and Luther Burden.

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Saquon Barkley

PositiveValue7:02

Justin Boone suggests that drafters in the middle to late first round should hope Saquon Barkley falls to them, noting he is moving up in drafts.

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Skyler Bell

NegativeDepth Chart57:07

Chris Allen views Skylar Bell as a waiver-wire watch list player rather than a draftable asset, pending changes in the Bills' receiver usage.

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Tee Higgins

PositiveValue23:02

Matt Harmon cites Tee Higgins as an example of a wide receiver two on a high-powered offense who is worth drafting ahead of other teams' wide receiver ones.

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Terry McLaurin

NegativeValue25:19

Matt Harmon is fading McLaurin due to severe concerns regarding the Commanders' offensive line injuries and overall unit quality, which forces the offense to provide extra protection and limits his upside compared to earlier offseason projections.

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NegativeProjection49:01

Matt Harmon mentions Terry McLaurin in the context of updating draft guide references for the Commanders, implying a need to re-evaluate his standing or projections within the team's offensive outlook.

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PositiveValue64:00

Chris is high on Terry McLaurin, stating he is happy to draft him at his current cost. He believes the addition of Stefan Diggs is complimentary rather than detrimental to McLaurin's fantasy value.

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Travis Etienne

PositiveValue10:22

Justin Boone identifies Travis Etienne as an exciting fourth or fifth-round target, citing the high-paced Kellen Moore offense and his proven track record.

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Travis Kelce

NegativeValue19:37

Matt Harmon uses Travis Kelce as a comparison point in a hypothetical roster construction, suggesting that taking him alongside an elite QB like Josh Allen is less optimal than waiting on the position.

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Tyler Warren

PositiveValue18:34

Josh Norris notes that Tyler Warren's ADP has dropped to the fifth round due to an injury scare, making him a great value target.

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Xavier Worthy

NegativeProjection40:29

Matt Harmon expresses mixed feelings on Xavier Worthy, noting that while he was injured early last season and has dealt with injuries this offseason, he deserves some grace for his development, though Hayden Winks is notably much higher on him.

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Zay Flowers

PositiveProjection42:12

Matt Harmon suggests it would be a mistake to write off Zay Flowers based on his lack of high touchdown scoring, comparing his potential trajectory to Amon-Ra St. Brown, who improved each season.

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Full transcript

Episode Transcript

1,143
0:00Big Show for you here today. It is our last piece of draft advice that you need before you head in to
0:06your biggest drafts of the weekend here, Labor Day weekend.
0:09That is when millions and millions, and I'm not exaggerating, millions of fantasy leagues will be drafted.
0:14We're here for you. I'm here for you. Josh Norris is here for you.
0:18Justin Boone, we're here for you. In-person draft show in New York City.
0:21It's fantastic. You guys are going to love this.
0:24When should you be drafting running backs? Do you want to punt the tight end position?
0:28Don't forget that one of the most When you draft some players, you are drafting the offensive line to Josh Boone and
0:35I will break all that down for you. Then at the end of the show, Chris Allen joins me to talk through the players.
0:41You guys think we didn't talk enough about this draft season, all that and more count up on today's show.
0:47Let's get into it. What's going on, everyone? I'm Matt Harmon.
0:50Welcome to the Yahoo Fantasy Forecast presented by Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL.
0:55All season long, Toyota is celebrating the passion, traditions, and unforgettable moments that make football America's obsession.
0:59From fantasy football to every kickoff, rivalry, and Sunday ritual.
1:02And it is a hell of a day to talk ball here in the great city of New York with my best friends.
1:09Wow, I'm honored. Josh Norris and Hayden Winks. Josh Norris.
1:11Dagger in the heart. And Justin Boone. So you guys are such a package deal.
1:16It just accepted me. I mean, God, what a great opener that I completely ruined anyways.
1:20Best friends, Josh and Justin Boone. Boone, how are you besides that?
1:24Buddy, I'm ready to go back to Canada. We're filming in New York right now.
1:28And after that disrespect, come on now. I've been trying to get this best friend title from you for a long time.
1:34And to do me like that, that's dirty, man.
1:36I mean, I'm going to be thinking about this for the rest of the day.
1:41And when I lay my head down on the pillow to go to sleep time, I think, I can't believe they did that to Boone.
1:48But, you know, Josh. I enjoyed it. As I say, good for you, though.
1:52How are you doing, buddy? Yes, the end of the known Hayden Winks.
1:55I'm here. I'm here next to you and my best friend, Justin Boone.
1:59So I'll enjoy this episode with you. My best friends, Josh Norris and Justin Boone.
2:03And I mean, I can't even call my work proximity associate Hayden Wings because he's not even in proximity here.
2:09He's thousands of miles away. Thousands of miles away.
2:11Yeah. Probably having a lovely time. You guys are having a lovely time as you are watching or listening to this show because it's draft weekend, baby.
2:19We are heading into the biggest draft weekend of the year.
2:22Now, disclaimer, we are pre-recording this show. But it is kind of our big one here because it's our last pod before
2:28draft season where we are going to give you the things that you need to know.
2:33The last piece of draft advice you're going to take with you on the clock.
2:37I think, boys, the reason that I have been making some mistakes here.
2:41Yes. You're so focused. Well, I'm so focused on, yes, obviously helping people with their drafts.
2:45Yes. But right about now at 4 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, September the 3rd, I should hopefully just be pulling in to
2:51the cabin that my wife and I will be staying at for a nice wine weekend.
2:56So my mind is on the rosé. It's on the cab franc rosé.
2:59Yes. But you people out there, your minds are on your draft.
3:03So we're going to get into that here. We're going to give you the last piece of draft advice that you need as you get on the clock.
3:11But also at the end of the show, I'm going to be joined by Chris Allen to answer your Toyota fantasy mailbag questions.
3:17So we've got nine pieces of draft advice to get into here.
3:21Justin Boone, because I slighted you so hard. And just to reaffirm our best friendship, our best friendship.
3:26Well, you get to go first. Yeah, you would.
3:28You would do that. Maybe I should cut the facial hair like Hayden or something, right?
3:33Switch it up. Grow out like a turtleneck. Hayden is a very handsome man.
3:37He is. So, you know, I think she should take it as a compliment.
3:41I mean, a lot of love for Hayden. And we just might mention Hayden.
3:44Oh. Yeah. My first piece of draft advice, it's the one that's straight down the middle.
3:49Like Josh was saying, it's draft running backs early.
3:51We have to do it. And it's not just because the running back talent at the top of drafts.
3:57And it's not just because of the depth at the other positions.
4:00There are so many reasons why you want to build your team this way this year.
4:05It's reasonable, I think, this season to start with two running backs in the first two rounds.
4:09Now, it's a little bit specific based on where you're picking in the round.
4:13Because if you're picking middle of the first, late first, it's pretty easy to come back around and get someone from that
4:20group of Chase Brown or Omarion Hampton or Devon A.
4:22Chan. You can hope that Saquon Barkley or Kenneth Walker falls there.
4:26We see those guys kind of moving up a little bit in drafts.
4:29If you're picking early in round one, it can be a little trickier to do.
4:34And that's because there's a significant drop off when it comes to like the end of the second round.
4:39And there's an even bigger drop off once we get to like the end of the fifth round or so.
4:45So we want to address this position very early.
4:47And I said we were going to talk about Hayden.
4:50He had a great stat in one of our group pieces recently.
4:53Cited some data from 2020 to 2025 that showed that running back scoring exceeds wide receiver scoring in the flex in most
5:00league formats, particularly in half PPR and two wide receiver starter format on Yahoo, which is yet another reason why you might
5:06want to go out and get that third running back early, potentially in those first five rounds.
5:11Impressive stat. Harmon, I'm also impressed that Boone goes back and reads the group pieces.
5:15Like that's incredible loyalty. I've never done that. Never.
5:17My favorite place to draft this year, other than the one-on-one is that 10th, 11th, 12th pick.
5:22Because I know I can double up on those running backs.
5:25You mentioned it though. Barkley to HN, K9, Chase Brown, Derek Henry, Omarion Hampton area.
5:29I guess my question to Frisbee this back to you, boomerang this back to you.
5:34What happens if you do have the three, four, right?
5:36Because then when we get back to round two, at least on Yahoo right now, you have names like Brock Bowers, George Pickens, Nico Collins.
5:43And then the third round running backs are Jeremiah Love, Kyron Williams.
5:47Would you suggest people reach all the way up to CMC or Jonathan Taylor?
5:51Or is it just, hey, your running backs might be a bit lighter this year?
5:55No, I think you come back around and hit it.
5:58I mean, I really like JT this year. I'm not reaching for him at the third pick or the fourth pick or anything like that.
6:05I would come back around and even in the third, I like some of those guys.
6:09Kyron Williams has been a top 10 fantasy back for three straight seasons.
6:13Brees Hall seems like the injury is not going to be a problem.
6:17So he's somebody that I like in that range.
6:19And then there's guys even a little bit later, you get to the fourth and the fifth, Travis HN, right?
6:25Like I think he's very exciting in that Saints offense.
6:28Alvin Kamara is going to be out for a bit.
6:30We know it's high paced in that Kellen Moore system.
6:33We know he can do it. He's done it before.
6:36DeAndre Swift is somebody that I think you can get in those rounds.
6:40And, you know, Kyle Manunga hurt entering the season.
6:42Swift was great last year. I think he can be again.
6:45So there's different ways to approach it. It is a tougher spot to kind of pull it off when you're in that range.
6:52But there's still a bunch of guys in those first five rounds.
6:55And again, I think it makes it even more important that you hit on that position before you get after the fifth
7:01or so, because it gets very ugly very fast.
7:04Yeah. I've just said so many times over the course of this offseason, try not to fall behind at running back, because
7:10I have built teams where, and, you know, Boone, I know you might like one of these players, but you end up
7:16with like Quinn John Judkins as you're running back to us.
7:19It's like, I'm fine with this as a RB three, but like running back to, I feel like I am not loving
7:26that as much, which is tough, Josh, because to balance that out, like those rounds, four to five wide receivers, they're so awesome.
7:32You do have to practice a little bit of click discipline to not have to keep hitting the wide receiver button.
7:38You're back on your game. I mean, click discipline is a tough phrase to use on a podcast.
7:43You nailed it. Good job. Well, at least I know how to say that.
7:47I just don't know how to say one of my best friends' names.
7:51You know, clearly my friendship, you know, needs some work.
7:53Tested. It's tested. This will be a test for us.
7:56Also a test for you people out there. Can you practice some discipline to not punt the tight end position?
8:02Because I think it is very tempting for people to want to do that.
8:06But to me, my first piece of draft advice, don't punt tight ends.
8:09Don't punt it completely here. Because to me, I think shopping in that middle class of the tight end position this year,
8:16the Tucker craft, the, uh, George Kittle is a little going to go a little bit later just because I think there
8:22will be some injury questions, but like Tyler one, to me, it starts at Warren, although if you're seeing the ADP on
8:28the screen here right now, like 39th overall for Colson Loveland, I think is a nice value there even.
8:33So maybe it kind of starts with him that to me, I love coming away.
8:38My favorite teams have been when, okay, Colson Loveland, Tyler Warren, Tucker craft, Sam LaPorta.
8:42Um, I know Hayden, speaking of Hayden, we've had his said, Hey, what are we doing here?
8:47I hear about him enough. Fair point. But I guess this is kind of a, maybe a negative on him.
8:52You know, he's, he's got Kyle pits like up in this tier.
8:56I'm a little conflicted on that. I don't know how I want to find like creative and interesting ways to invest in maybe the two offense.
9:03We'll talk about that in a moment. We shall talk about that in a moment.
9:07But to me, I think that my favorite teams have come when I get one of those Loveland, Warren, Tucker craft, Sam
9:13LaPorta types, and not just go all the way to the, I've heard of this guy's name, which is the Travis Kelsey, Mark Andrews.
9:20So the top four tight ends, obviously awesome. One of my favorite combos to do right now in strategy corner over here
9:26is Tucker craft or George Kittle as what, like the tight end five to someone like the tight end nine that they're going on Yahoo right now.
9:34And pair that later on your draft with Juwan Johnson, because Juwan Johnson is going to be the second best pass catcher
9:40on the saints for the first six, eight weeks of the season as Jordan Tyson is shelved and on the sideline.
9:46And I mean, Juwan Johnson had a heck of a lot of catches last year was already a fantastic performer was going
9:52to be on the field all the time. And this just, you know, really centralizes even more targets in his direction.
9:58And so if you are kind of nervous about the kid or early season and the craft early season stuff, because the
10:04massive injuries are coming back from, uh, as Justin might say, you can start Juwan Johnson for the first few weeks and
10:10then pivot on over to the guy that you drafted earlier.
10:13Yeah. And I don't even know if you need to take a guy like Juwan Johnson, you can wait and grab Jake
10:20Tonjes or someone in to fill in for Kittle.
10:22Right. And we don't even know Kittle might be out there week one or week two.
10:27Like these guys might get back to producing. I think there's no way he's playing week one.
10:31I mean, I think there is. I'm like a limited sample.
10:35It seems odd. Yeah. The Australia thing. That's it.
10:37I think if he was playing in San Francisco or, you know, in the continental United States, perhaps he would play week one.
10:44But to me, it just seems a little strange to me overall draft strategy this year.
10:48I normally don't go in with like a set rigid plan.
10:51And yet this year, it seems fairly clear the, the running back thing, trying to get those guys early, the receivers in
10:57the middle rounds, like we're talking about, you know, however early you want to go around three to around five or six.
11:04Yeah. I even find that there's receivers in like round seven and eight that I'm willing to take.
11:09And then that kind of drops off after that and finding the tight end value along the way.
11:14If you can get one of those top guys, Tyler Warren had the injury scare recently.
11:18I've seen him drop to like the fifth round in some drafts.
11:22I'm willing to take him there. I think that's great value hitting on those injury guys for sure.
11:27And there are still some later guys that if need be, and you have to go to, I'm willing to do it.
11:33Sounds like maybe you're not quite willing to go that range with it, but I think the last tight end and hopefully
11:39this is a safe space to admit this, that I feel like I'm good with.
11:43You're going to say Isaiah likely. No, I'm going to, it would have been Isaiah likely pre Malik neighbors.
11:49Looks like he's locked in going to play here pretty early.
11:52Got it. It's no, it's actually Dalton Kincaid. Oh yeah.
11:54Okay. He's like tight end 10. And I don't want to go any further than that.
11:59I don't, again, I, you get into this zone where I would prefer grabbing a Juwan Johnson or even like a Terrence
12:05Ferguson or even like Dalton Schultz as opposed to like, yeah, I've heard of Travis Kelsey, Dallas Goddard, Mark Andrews before olds.
12:11Yeah. Literally it's like your league mates going to draft it because like he knows that they exist.
12:16So to me, I think Kincaid actually, cause I can see some upside there.
12:20I can't see any upside from those other names.
12:23He's kind of that true last call name for me.
12:26And because I'm not really drafting fan and I'm not really drafting Kittle all that much.
12:30And Kyle pits is just, he goes higher than my overall rankings.
12:34I just would prefer to not get myself into this position and just rather get me Warren, get me craft, get me Laporta and log out.
12:41To me, I just simplify it down to try to get one of the elite tight ends.
12:46And if not take the injury discount guys. And to me, that's craft Kittle and you can include Dalton Kincaid, I think
12:52in that based on the injuries he dealt with last year.
12:55Okay. You mentioned maybe not drafting him and avoiding someone like Kyle pits.
12:59And this fits into my first piece of advice here, uh, identify the bottom three or four offenses and just flat out avoid them.
13:05Okay. So the bottom four offenses in the NFL last season were the jets, the Titans, the Browns and the Raiders.
13:11Obviously some of those teams, uh, had one or maybe two usable assets.
13:15You had Harold Fannin, who was a late round tight end, who finishes the tight end nine in points per game.
13:21Garrett Wilson, before he got injured, was the wide receiver 11 in points per game.
13:25Quinch on Judkins. I think it's arguable how much he helped you.
13:28I mean, he was drafted late because of some other things that were going on.
13:33He finishes the running back 22 in points per game, but someone like Ashton Gentry and Brock Bowers derailed your season because
13:39of one, the injury to Bowers, but two, then the environment of, of Ashton Gentry.
13:43So none of them had three though. And I want to bring that up because some of the teams that are projected.
13:49For the bottom offenses this year, you're drafting some of their top players in the top 100.
13:54Well, can I, can I throw this at you?
13:56Because Nate and I do a show where we look at ADP rank versus offensive projection.
14:01So I take the average of, uh, DVO is projections from the FTN almanac, uh, Vegas projection.
14:06Yeah. They're on the screen right now. Look at that.
14:09Oh my God. These producers are so good. Colin and the boys crushing it and Mike Clay's projection.
14:14So the bottom four teams there in the, all four averages, Tennessee Titans, Las Vegas Raiders, New York jets, Cleveland Browns.
14:20Yes. And I'll throw in the Atlanta Falcons here in a moment, but the Browns right now have two players in the top 70.
14:26All right. The Cardinals have two in the top 26, including four in the top 100 going in Yahoo right now, the
14:32jets two in the top 50 and that's it.
14:35And then the Atlanta Falcons two in the top 19 and three in the top 71.
14:40So it's not necessarily that those teams are for sure going to finish in the bottom three or four offenses.
14:45Um, that did happen for the jets last year.
14:48They were bottom four at the Browns were projected for last and they finished second to the bottom.
14:53But it does put some alarm bells on me for certain teams out there.
14:57Like the Cardinals can be a lot of fun until you check out their schedule through about the first 11 weeks of the season.
15:03You're like, Oh, that's why they're projected for so few points.
15:07And then the Atlanta Falcons, it is so clear that didn't have to get through preseason for to, uh, to put his worst foot forward.
15:14I mean, they could barely get through like mini camp videos.
15:17Exactly. So I kind of like this from the jets approach where, yeah, I can believe in one or two guys.
15:23I can believe in Garrett Wilson. I can believe in Brees Hall, but that doesn't mean I'm going to then draft the tertiary pieces to this.
15:30And it kind of concerns me that like Cal pits might be a tertiary piece in this Atlanta Falcons offense.
15:36We talk sometimes too. I mean, you did a good job breaking it down there, but just about fantasy also being fun.
15:42And when it comes to Sunday, do you want to watch one of the worst offenses in the league?
15:47Do you want to have players on that offense?
15:50I think that factors into, we all deal with enough in our lives that we don't need to add that to it.
15:56Right. We don't need to add necessarily watching the Titans offense or the Browns offense or whatever.
16:01So I think that is something worth considering. Yeah.
16:03I mean, it totally makes sense. Josh, just real quick before we close the loop on this.
16:08So Ashton Gentry, Brock Bowers, you are. Oh, I'm in on Bowers.
16:11Yeah. Not in on Gentry. So it's pretty much just pick one.
16:15Yes. And look, two can still get home in some situations with that stuff.
16:19But yeah, I would say pick your favorite, figure out why, paint the narrative in your head.
16:23And just overall, it sounds simple, but draft good players on good teams.
16:27I mean, it really can just be that simple sometimes.
16:30All right. We are going to take our first quick break.
16:33We come back. We've got more pieces of advice for you to crush your drafts that are coming up.
16:38You know, not dominate, maybe not win your league.
16:41We'll see, but you'll crush that draft. We'll get into that right after this.
16:45All right. We're back with me and my two best friends.
16:48Yep. Say it. Justin Boone and Josh Morris, but mostly Justin Boone.
16:51Okay. So I will never forgive you for this one.
16:54Well, I don't know if this is going to make it any better or not, but I'm gonna let you go first once again here.
17:01So what's your next piece of draft advice? So everything here in my mind is tying together.
17:06We talked about the early running backs. We talked about hitting tight ends, either with the elite guys or kind of those,
17:12you know, discounts that you're getting in the middle rounds.
17:15We talked about how good the receivers are in those kinds of middle rounds or so we know late round quarterback is
17:21a good strategy and it's been a good strategy for a long time.
17:25The last few seasons, I've been a little more willing to go with elite quarterbacks.
17:29They were offering quite the advantage, but this year, when you look at it, there are so many good quarterbacks that are
17:35going to have a chance to be inside the top 12.
17:38So for me, this isn't late round quarterback. This is just make quarterback.
17:42The last starter that you draft, you can address your entire starting lineup and then come back to quarterback.
17:47And because there's so many good ones, we see some names fall, right?
17:51And guys like I've been taking, you know, Dak Prescott, Trevor Lawrence, Brock Purdy.
17:55Sometimes you even get like a Jalen Hurts. I've seen fall into like the seventh or so you can get them.
18:01If you want to go later than that, by all means, pair a Jared Goff with Malik Willis or Jordan Love, who
18:07I know you think has a chance to have a great season this year.
18:11There's a lot of options and it just means you don't have to have any pressure on yourself to take a quarterback.
18:17You can go all the way through your draft and just wait till one of those guys falls a bit lower than
18:23ADP to a value like and grab them there and make sure the rest of your starting lineup is locked in.
18:29That was great analysis. Whoever told you what a great.
18:32I just mean, I just my respect for you is so high that I actually want to ask you a follow up question.
18:38Let's do it. More of your great analysis. Which early quarterback tempts you the most to break this rule?
18:44Question, Matt. Honestly, don't start with me, Josh. Lamar Jackson.
18:46Oh, OK. Because Lamar Jackson at his best can outscore Josh Allen where Josh Allen's going.
18:51And yet he's going a couple rounds normally after him.
18:54Um, so Lamar Jackson to me with a new coordinator.
18:57This offense could be very exciting. Last year he was hurt and it lowered his stats.
19:01He could get right back to having that elite kind of production that wins fantasy league.
19:06So he's someone that I think goes at a value where it's OK.
19:09It's decent. And yet there's so many other towns of players at the other positions like receiver that I just rather get them there.
19:16I love Yahoo drafters. I think they're out of their freaking mind to take Josh Allen with the eighth overall pick in the second round like that.
19:24Like here's, here's some two V two way of looking at it in terms of strategy, right?
19:28Would you rather have Nico Collins and Dak Prescott on your roster or Josh Allen and Cortland Sutton?
19:33Because both of those guys are second round and seventh round picks, right?
19:37Here's another one right after Josh Allen, Brock Bowers goes.
19:40Should I have a Brock Bowers and Bo Nix team or a Josh Allen and Travis Kelsey team?
19:45Like it is so obvious to me that in those round two and nine combos, I would just rather wait on the quarterback because you're really punting.
19:53I think so much leverage in either your number one wide receiver or your number one tight end or maybe your number
19:59one running back just to, you know, take the first quarterback off the board.
20:03And it's tempting to take those names to take those elite quarterbacks.
20:06It definitely is. But I just recommend to anyone out there, go do some mock drafts and look at your rosters at the end.
20:13When you wait on quarterback, you'll be much, much happier.
20:16It feels much better. To quote a great Scott Pianowski line, since we're in New York, he always compares quarterbacks to the subway train.
20:22You miss one, next one's coming not too long after.
20:25So that's the way quarterbacks work, especially this year, man.
20:28Just there's so many good players available. Even just in the nineties, you can get the Bo Nix there.
20:33You can get Jared Goff in the 114th overall pick Kyler Murray.
20:37And, you know, I do sometimes feel that some drafters just want to set it and forget it at the quarterback position.
20:43But this year I do think it is. Or fill out their starting lineup instead of maybe having some depth at running
20:49back and wide receiver on top of it on your bench.
20:52And that's why I think Boone's advice here, you know, which I would just say, Boone is a great analyst.
20:58And I think this is a really great way of saying goodbye.
21:01No, Josh, you may stay. It's a really good way of saying it from him, which is just, you know, make it the last starter that you take.
21:09Even if you just, you really need that screenshot to show that you drafted all the positions first.
21:14That's fine. I like the way you said that.
21:17You want me to go? No, I'm going to go next.
21:20My last piece of advice here. Number two is don't be afraid to say yes over and over again to the concentrated elite ecosystems.
21:27The two teams that really come to mind here.
21:29And I've brought one of them up a lot over the course of draft season, the Chicago Bears and the other is the Dallas Cowboys.
21:36I still feel like there are folks out there who just like, I can't take two guys from one team.
21:42There are certainly sometimes you don't want to take two guys from one team.
21:46Do you want to take Drake London and Kyle Pitts?
21:48No, you probably don't want to do that. Do you want to take Brees Hall and Garrett Wilson?
21:54You probably don't want to do that. But for these teams like Chicago and Dallas, not only do I think both these teams will be top five offenses.
22:01I'm projecting them both to be top five offenses this year.
22:04They're also really concentrated. Again, we're looking at the Bears right now.
22:08Like Khalif Raymond is that perfect third receiver who's going to be really valuable conceptually to open up the entire field for
22:14these guys, but he's not going to command a big target share.
22:17You know, even in the passing game, like the running backs aren't super, super involved as receivers.
22:22It's going to flow through Colson Loveland, Luther Burden and Roma Dunze.
22:26That's going to be the pie in Dallas. It's the same thing.
22:29I mean, 50% of those passing targets, go ahead and book it to the top two outside receivers.
22:34And I'm totally comfortable. You know, it's kind of tough ADP wise to end up with both Cowboys receivers, but it's not
22:40tough ADP wise to end up with one of the receivers and Javante Williams.
22:44So for these guys, I think you can just get as many pieces of this particular offensive ecosystem as possible.
22:50I'm totally okay. Tapping these two teams twice. To take that maybe another layer, I think people need to realize it's okay
22:56to take a team's wide receiver two and a better offense ahead of other teams, wide receiver ones.
23:01Sure. I mean, you mentioned George Pickens. We can go to T Higgins.
23:05I mean, there's more as we can go down, but that might screw with some people's heads of, well, how are they
23:11going to get the same amount of targets as another team's top pass catcher?
23:15But we see it constantly at the end of the season.
23:18There was one year, a couple of years ago where three or four pairs of wide receivers were in the top 15 scores at the position.
23:25Because again, the best offenses score the most points and the most points gets funneled to the fancy assets for them too.
23:31And it's the opposite of what we were talking about with your point earlier, right?
23:36It's fun to have pieces of these types of offenses.
23:38That's what you want to be watching week in and week out.
23:42I get this question. You guys probably do all the time, right?
23:45How can I take two or three guys from the same team that are you can when it's teams like this?
23:51Absolutely. Yeah. When it's teams like this, don't be taking multiple pieces from the Tennessee Titans.
23:56I think the Rams actually doubled up the points that the Browns scored per game last year too.
24:01Like it was 29.5 versus 14.2. That's the thing.
24:03Like if you can get the offense that is going to score the most points this year and just grab multiple pieces
24:09of it, sometimes it's that's, that's who won the league.
24:12Like I was coming back to the 2013 Broncos.
24:15Like who had, who had as many of those guys as possible.
24:18That's who probably won the league. There were Packers teams like that at times.
24:22Patriots teams with Randy Moss and everyone else. And I love that Ben Johnson's already out there saying like, yeah, we're going
24:28to outscore the 23rd Denver Broncos, which probably won't happen just with the way things are structured in the league right now.
24:34But you know, I do love the per game aspect of it there, but Josh, give us your second final piece of draft advice.
24:41Yeah. I mean, this one's kind of half baked.
24:44I wrote at 6 a.m. This morning. I'm also on some day quill right now.
24:48So let's see if it works. Let's go. You're drafting the offensive line when you're also drafting all these skill position players.
24:54Okay. So offensive line to me, when we look back on seasons is the first thing to tank a, you know, potential
25:00solid offense into a bad offense, right? If you look at the offense that underperformance, because they're injured or untalented along that
25:06front five, we all, you know, formulate opinions back in May and June for all this stuff.
25:11But what me, what makes me change my opinion most is the offensive line injuries that we've gotten so far in the last couple of months.
25:19Like I'll give you one example, the commanders. Just think of that, you know, like back when I was doing shows in
25:25May, I was like, man, I can't wait to draft Terry McLaurin.
25:28Yep. You know, this is David Blau offense, more under center, more play action.
25:32He's not going to be, you know, at a left wide receiver spot, 74% of the time.
25:37This is where he really gets back to what he was a couple of years ago.
25:41And then as soon as that Larry Mutunzel injury hit, I had to rework that in my brain.
25:46Because you can't just leave him on an Island anymore and then have your other four pass rushers block three guys.
25:52You have to give the left tackle now help.
25:55And then on top of it, they don't have a center at this point.
25:59And you even have a local writer saying that, quote, this is the worst I've ever seen the commanders offense in years and operable offensive line.
26:06That's terrifying. Josh, the episode that Nate and I did in real human time yesterday, but in your guys's time, a little
26:12bit earlier than that, this was about the offensive lines.
26:15And when we started talking about the commanders was the one he was most concerned about.
26:20Colin, obviously, he's a Cowboys fan. Producer Colin is just like loading up the screen with like all these horror show tweets
26:26about the commanders offensive line from not just Nikki Joala, but like a bunch of other commanders.
26:31I was like, this is horrible. This is atrocious function.
26:33And yeah, this is one of those teams was like, am I trying to draft like Terry McLaurin and Stefan Diggs?
26:39No, I'm not. I don't really want to draft Jaden Daniels right now because of it, because we know if he takes
26:45one wrong hit, there he is sideline that impacts the season.
26:49I've been still hyping up Bill Krosky merit. That doesn't give me a lot of confidence to do that.
26:54And at the same time, like, you know, the chargers are projected for the 14th most points in the league this year.
27:00I could have easily painted a pathway back in June that, oh, they could be top four, top five.
27:05Like, get back to Mike McDaniels best now that he has Justin Herbert.
27:09But you lose the center that you brought from the commanders.
27:12And then every single snap that you see from the left guard and the right guard is just a nightmare factory.
27:18So again, it makes me not move them down in rankings, but think, okay, maybe the ceiling's a bit more capped than I thought it was before.
27:26And how many times this off season have we referenced offenses last year that struggled after injuries happened on the line?
27:32The Buccaneers, the chargers who, I mean, it seems like every year it's the chargers, the Eagles, just huge splits when Lane
27:38Johnson's out there versus when he isn't really impacts them.
27:41Joe alt splits last year, like literally 35 yards went away from loud McConkie and his per game numbers.
27:46And then like, how often do you get, you know, per game off and on splits for offensive linemen.
27:51And yet when it is that apparent and that bad and the quarterback's running for his life, it impacts everything.
27:57And I know people at home probably aren't going to go out and do offensive line research.
28:02So Nate Tyson, go watch the show with Harmon.
28:04They can go check out Nate's article that he wrote about it.
28:08We are reading again in 2026. Brandon Thorne have established a run, does a really great job breaking down offensive and defensive lines.
28:14So check out some of that information. It can really help in your drafts.
28:18Yeah, that's pretty critical information to make sure you know who are the good offensive lines and who are the bad ones.
28:24And especially once you start seeing it in season, that's like the first two weeks start to adjust those expectations, maybe start making some trades.
28:31And obviously, you know, Boone, you do a great job with trading.
28:35You got to stop. You got to stop. All right.
28:37We are going to take our next quick break.
28:40We come back. We're giving you more draft advice to take with you into the weekend.
28:44We'll get into that right after this. All right.
28:47We're back. And as I've said, you guys are heading into your most important draft weekend right now.
28:52And you know, it can really help you listen to the show, of course, but you know, it can help you even
28:58more than that when you draft smarter this season with a Yahoo Fantasy Ultra subscription, which includes a 150 plus page draft
29:04guide and access to our strategy lab. Even better, new Yahoo Fantasy Plus and Ultra subscribers can get 25% off the first
29:11year of their annual subscription fee through September 7th.
29:13But at 1159 p.m. Pacific, though, that that's done.
29:16It's over. OK, that is your last chance to do it.
29:19So get it now. Claim your 25% off today.
29:21Yahoo Fantasy dot com slash plus. And boys, this Ultra is so good.
29:25Massive. It's massive. 150 plus pages, as I said.
29:27And we are updating it constantly to the point, Josh, you were talking about this.
29:32You know, the commanders. That was one last night in the hotel room.
29:35I was sitting there and be like, yeah, Jason Klobaka, we're going to have to scrub all these commanders references.
29:41My guy, Jaden Daniels, did a draft here. We're like, target for commanders, Terry McGowan.
29:45I don't think so, buddy. We're going to have to get all that out of there.
29:50Can I say one thing about the Ultra playbook?
29:52You can. You can say three things, but I think tiers are how you should draft.
29:57And all of us have tier breakdowns of, hey, this is where we would select this player and or, you know, skip
30:03the next round and just take wide receivers here, all that type of stuff.
30:07So rather than just a pure ranking of, oh, he's my 26th rank running back in the 25th one when I should just take that one.
30:14No, look in the tiers because that's where like the real detail and nuances, I think, to draw.
30:19I'm sure you guys get this question all the time.
30:22It's like, well, you got this guy ranked at wide receiver 33.
30:25You've got this guy at wide receiver 34. Why?
30:28I'm like, I don't know. They're in the same tier.
30:31Don't argue. Don't argue within the same tier. Just let the room kind of dictate your draft board and everything like that.
30:37Yeah. So yeah. Avoid crying tears. Draft with tears.
30:40Is that your new piece of advice here? It is my new piece of advice.
30:44But you know who's going to have some great advice here?
30:47That is our guy, Justin Boone, who is a great person.
30:50A great guy. Very memorable. Very memorable. If anybody was to forget Boone's name, I mean, they're probably a horrendous person.
30:56Yes. So with that, give us your third and final piece of draft advice.
31:00Well, it's even my last appearance on the show.
31:02So just so you know. We had a hell of a run.
31:06Go ahead, everyone. This one, people have heard before.
31:08I'm going to add a little more context to it, though.
31:11Don't draft a defense or a kicker until the final rounds, if at all.
31:15And this has been my personal preference for a while.
31:18I've seen little by little in my leagues. More and more people do it.
31:22I think it's to the point now where it's so valuable to have those roster spots, even if you're drafting earlier in August.
31:28The earlier you're drafting, the more valuable it is because you can grab these guys that might have a chance to do something on your roster.
31:36A kicker and a defense are not going to be league-winning picks.
31:39But if you get that late-round running back or late-round receiver that emerges, they could be.
31:44Now, on Yahoo, you can drop a guy who's already played if he's on your bench.
31:48So why not, in week one, take a free look?
31:51Like Kalen Black on the 49ers. They're going to play early in the week.
31:55Hold him. Let's see if something happens to CMC in that game.
31:58Maybe you end up with the 49ers starting running back in week two.
32:02We've got two pre-Sunday games. Exactly. Terrence Ferguson. You're getting a free look at Terrence Ferguson in that offense.
32:07And then you could drop him and pick up a kicker or a defense if you want.
32:12I even like streaming at the position. I know that the Texas defense is going to be really good.
32:17The Rams defense is going to be really good.
32:20Brandon Aubrey is going to be really good at kicker.
32:23But the places where you have to take these guys in terms of their ADP, it's just way, way too early.
32:29I know they're giving you an advantage. But if you're taking these defenses in the eighth round where they're going and they're
32:35ADP right now on Yahoo, it's insane to me given the players that are there at the other positions.
32:40And once you get into the season, if you're streaming, you're not tied to that piece.
32:45Right? You can drop every single week when waivers process on Tuesday, drop that streaming kicker, that streaming defense, and pick up
32:51the hot waiver wire name that week. And then all week long, try to make a two-for-one trade where you can free
32:57up that roster spot, upgrade your team by that trade, and then go get your kicker defense later in the week.
33:03My third piece of advice kind of dovetails onto this.
33:06It's more of a question, a philosophical question for all of you in Strategy Corner.
33:10To draft or not draft your own running back handcuff.
33:13I'm always amazed when we hear from viewers, listeners, all that type of stuff, how many questions I get about handcuffs.
33:19Because I think people have been burned in the past of drafting a running back high and then not having their backup.
33:25And then their season is ruined. So there's kind of three ways, I think, of handling this.
33:30We're talking true handcuffs, not talking Blake Corham or Kyle Mononga, because to me, those guys have some standalone value to this.
33:36Not Travian Henderson, Term Andres. Exactly. So should the Saquon drafter select Tank Bigsby?
33:40Should Kenneth Walker, the third drafter, select Emmitt Johnson?
33:42Should you draft handcuffs at all? Because it so frequently turns out that when the backup is supposed to get the opportunity,
33:49they just pull off Kareem Hunt or whoever else off the street and they become the starter.
33:53Or should you only draft players with standalone value because, or else you're just eating zeros on your bench over and over again?
34:00Or, and this might be the big one, should you draft someone else's handcuff and kind of spread your web, spread your
34:06surface area that if their starter goes down, then boom, you have either a trade piece or a locked in starter on your roster too.
34:13Boom. I find the way that I most often approach it is I'm trying to grab backups for other people's starters.
34:19Got it. And I'm doing that early in the season when if an injury happens, all of a sudden now you could
34:25potentially have that starter for the rest of the season, a backup turn starter.
34:29Later in the year, because we often see backup running backs get dropped when bye weeks come around, right?
34:34People have that roster crunch. Then you can go out and try to pick up your backup for your guy.
34:40The other thing that I think is really important to keep in mind here is there's a certain level of backup right back where we know these guys.
34:48You have to find that line. Exactly. Because when you get a little bit later, we're not a hundred percent sure.
34:54Like Seth McGowan, is he the backup for Jonathan Taylor?
34:57Or is that a team that would bring in a Kareem Hunt or someone like that?
35:01Right? I think that's totally a situation where we could see a veteran come off the street and step in and you've
35:07been holding a gallon the whole time and he didn't really return any value.
35:11So it's kind of case by case, but it's very important to identify those actual backups that could step in and give
35:17you top 20, top 24 value if they get a start.
35:20And with the way backfields are so kind of like specialized now, I think people also struggle with like the Ravens, for
35:27example, like Justice Hill is not Derrick Henry's backup.
35:29It might be like Adam Randall, even if Adam Randall touches the ball one to two times in a game and Justice Hill logs more snaps.
35:37Just be like, oh, Justice Hill snaps about 30 percent behind Derrick Henry.
35:40Like that's the guy of Henry. It was to ever go down, which, you know, he never will, of course, for all the rest of time.
35:47But that people do mistake that part of it.
35:50So it's like a bit of an inexact science in that way.
35:53So you have to be really diligent about reading about those situations and just following the whole thing.
35:58But yeah, I will say for me personally, I do prefer to stash the running backs towards the end of the season, like post draft.
36:05Like, do I want to maybe reserve one draft spot for a backup running back?
36:10Like a handcuff type, but you don't want to get like three or four of those because then injuries happen by weeks, whatever you sacrifice some depth.
36:17Does that does that make sense, Josh? No, it does.
36:20I think the number one handcuff this year is Tank Bigsby, though.
36:23So if you don't know your boy, Mike Washington, I think Mike Washington has legit standalone value.
36:28So I'm well, I mean, I don't want to go through this, but Mike Washington is running back 39, which might be
36:34like the highest in the industry on him. So to me, he's actually going to get maybe roughly 30 percent of the
36:41work versus I don't think Tank Bigsby is going to be anywhere close to 30 percent of the work.
36:46All right. I have him at running back 38, actually.
36:49Never mind. All right. I'm the Mike Washington guy.
36:51You learn something new every day. But yeah, no, I think that's that's a tricky thing, too, is there's guys, you know,
36:58Rico Dowdle's not a handcuff to Jalen Warren or vice versa.
37:01Like there are some just straight. Marshawn Lloyd isn't necessarily a handcuff either.
37:04Like, I think he'll have some standalone value. Well, I mean, especially early in the season, as we might get some type
37:10of suspension and maybe there is one by the time this video comes out.
37:14You might. Yeah, we were playing with fire on that particular situation.
37:18They're like Chuba Hubbard, Jonathan Brooks. That's not a handcuff situation.
37:21So you got to be really like this is one of those where there's no blanket rule.
37:26There's kind of case by case basis and kind of take it as you go.
37:30So. All right. I will go into my last piece of draft advice here, and this is more of maybe a meta
37:36thing, but it's going to go ahead and get it out here.
37:39Anyways, if you say, quote, we know who this guy is after you've only seen a player play like three or fewer seasons, you're probably wrong.
37:47Oh, I think we should be a lot more open minded to players, not even that just weren't productive.
37:52Like, I think there was a certain level of like, all right, this guy was just not productive.
37:57Like, yeah, we know what's going on there, but it's more so guys can jump another level to me.
38:03Like, I would even argue that Drake London last year in his fourth NFL season took his game to another level.
38:08And this is probably more of a wide receiver point than anything else.
38:12But I would argue again that we just I'm open minded to this for even guys.
38:17I don't particularly like all that much. If you see if you see the evidence of it, well, you're making a face over there.
38:23I've got I've got a name to throw. That's why I'm curious.
38:27Who's your name? I mean, in another episode we recorded, you shot me down with Matthew Golden.
38:31No, no, you did. No, I didn't. I said I shot you down.
38:35Incorrect. I shot you down on the Matthew Golden versus Jane Reed thing.
38:39But I said, I'm open to Matthew Golden going one of two ways.
38:42But if he takes like a tear jump up, then that's like outscoring someone like Jane Reed.
38:47And it made it sound like Jane Reed takes another step forward.
38:51I said that's before year four. OK, so this is what I'm saying.
38:54So they're both going to take a tear jump up.
38:57Or they might not. Or they might not. Or they might not.
39:00But it is possible. And that's the thing with Matthew Golden.
39:04Like if based on the player that he was last year, if there was no chance he could improve, I wouldn't even
39:10care about like, oh, he's 114th or whatever overall ADP.
39:13I just like, no, we saw him in year one.
39:15We know who Matthew Golden is. But I think that's like nonsensical.
39:19Got it. I think we should always leave room for players to improve.
39:22I mean, JSN's the proof point of this last year.
39:25All the discourse last offseason about him was we've only ever seen him play in the slot.
39:30Even go back to Ohio State. He's only ever playing the slot.
39:33He's only ever playing the slot. Now he's Cooper Cubs in there.
39:37How are they going to make that work? Oh, well, how about JSN takes a massive leap in year three and he
39:43becomes kind of a fundamentally different player. So there is a bar I think you have to clear to like in year
39:49one, you got to be at least this good to kind of clear this bar.
39:53But at the same time, a guy like Quentin Johnson has improved on an annual basis as well.
39:58Yeah. I mean, I do think people underestimate young players getting coached up and getting better.
40:03But I will say, I know this is a redraft show in Dynasty.
40:07It feels like you're going to lose more often than not if you would take that approach, right?
40:12If you hang in there, the value can go down and down and down.
40:16And if you don't see much in the early years, especially even in year one, you might want to get off that
40:22ride right away and kind of just take back whatever value you can get.
40:26Can I stress test this for you? Does this apply to someone like Xavier Worthy?
40:30Sure. Really? I think even last year, if I'm going to be intellectually honest, when we do this show about like, I
40:36think when we did the year three receiver show, I said this where if I'm going to sit there and say like,
40:42you know, obviously he doesn't matter for the season now anymore.
40:45But like, well, Ricky Pierce was banging up last year.
40:48Like, we got to give him a chance to really play in year three or like Roma Dunes.
40:53They played through injuries last year. And those are guys I liked coming to the draft.
40:58Worthy was someone I was a little more mixed on.
41:01But you got to give the same grace to him for the fact that after four plays of last season, his teammate
41:07who listed weight is like 80 plus pounds better than him.
41:10I think Travis might be bigger than his list is weight.
41:13And I think Worthy might be smaller than his listed weight.
41:16Blasted into him, you know, for actually probably Worthy's fault, but blasted.
41:19They blasted into each other after four plays. He was never right.
41:23Now he's hurt all offseason again this year. So I don't know about that.
41:27But yeah, I mean, even for those sort of players, you got to at least – that's why I said you're probably wrong.
41:33You're not 100% wrong, but it's very likely that you're just writing players off a little bit too soon.
41:39I ask that question because your favorite fantasy football analyst, Hayden Winks, loves Xavier Worthy this year.
41:43Truth serum. He loves Xavier Worthy this year. Absolutely loves him.
41:46There's a reason I wouldn't actually say he's my best friend.
41:49Okay, truth serum. I'm sure coming up with this topic, there was someone in the back of your head that you're thinking, hey, this could apply to.
41:57Like who would you like to throw out there or did we already cover their name?
42:02I mean, there wasn't really anyone that I would think off the top of my head that I was just like thinking about this with a particular guy.
42:09But we've talked a lot, Josh, about like the Zay Flowers example.
42:13Yeah. Like I think it would be a mistake to say we've just never seen him be a high touchdown scorer.
42:19Because like St. Brown's a good example of another guy that got better each individual.
42:23Bucco was like that last year. Bucco was like that as well.
42:26So it's just – for me, I think this is why like role changes matter so much.
42:31You do want to like have a variable that you can – like to tell yourself the story about this.
42:37There's a coaching change. Yeah, someone moving on within the offense like the distribution of the passing pie and everything.
42:42Did they move on out of there? Like that's part of it.
42:46But I don't know. Just I've been – like I said, this is mostly a wide receiver point.
42:51I don't know. Running back maybe it's a little bit different.
42:54But I've just been working on receivers long enough now to note like these guys get to me where they really jump
43:00is between like year three and year five. Even spoiled by early breakouts.
43:04Yes, 100%. And I do think if you're putting like feet to the fire of who this might apply to, a lot
43:10of those like 2024 drafted receivers, like even Marvin Harrison is like, well, we know who he is.
43:15Like do we know who he is? It's only been two years in the NFL.
43:19I hope we don't know who he is. And half of the second season he was basically hurt throughout.
43:25So I don't know. I just think especially in redraft – yeah, Boone, you're right.
43:29In Dynasty, you can kind of sit on that losing value.
43:32Old Rashad Bateman for five plus years and it never turns out.
43:35Yeah. You really didn't have – I know I was mean to you at the top of the show.
43:41But you really didn't have to make it personal.
43:43But yeah, even again, that is probably a better example in the universe.
43:47It doesn't always work out. Sometimes, yeah. Josh Downs might be an example this year.
43:51Yeah, we'll see. Jayden Reed. Josh Downs. Jayden Reed.
43:54Josh Downs. All right, boys. This has been fun.
43:56If you sign up for that, you can actually go down in the drop-down menu on Yahoo and only select players based on our rankings.
44:03Oh. So you can filter that. We get those numbers.
44:06You know who picks – we don't. I was going to say do.
44:10I haven't seen that. I have not seen that.
44:12It's a good sales job. So yeah, I mean you could do it by obviously the aggregate of all the experts.
44:18But if there's one person like Matt only drafts from Hayden's rankings – I would say so if you really want Xavier
44:24Worthy, you go and pull up the Hayden Wings – It's a pretty cool feature I think.
44:29It is actually a really cool feature. I've actually really appreciated when I've had to do leagues on Yahoo.
44:34I don't have to import the rankings here because mine are right there.
44:38So that's like speaking from privilege I guess which actually probably wasn't the best thing to do here at the end of the show.
44:45So with that, we're going to say goodbye to these two gentlemen here.
44:48My two best friends that I've ever met. Justin Boone, a wonderful guy who hopefully will forgive me for my malfeasance on this episode.
44:55And someone I've known for a long time, Josh Norris.
44:58Okay, with that, we are going to throw to a quick break.
45:01When we come back, Chris Allen joins me to break down the questions that you all need to know heading into your drafts in our Toyota mailbag.
45:09We'll get into that right after this. All right, we're back and welcome to Fantasy Hotline presented by Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL.
45:16And yes, I'm no longer in the beautiful New York City studio.
45:20I'm back in my little box, space and time.
45:22Just a concept, folks. Okay, but joining me to handle the hotline today.
45:26It is. Listen, I'm not in the pretty studio, but I'm with a very good looking man here.
45:31It's Chris Allen. Chris, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?
45:34What's going on, man? We had plenty of fun on the live drive.
45:38We're able to kick it and make fun of each other's picks and put together some teams that the rest of the
45:44fantasy community has had a chance to look over and make fun of us for and call us pseudo experts or whatever you want to call.
45:51So now I mean, I'm ready to dive into it because we've got actual live action coming our way here in the next week or so.
45:58So with people cramming for drafts, let's see if we can help them one last time.
46:03Chris, I just want to say I thought the people were pretty high on your team.
46:07They liked your team in the Yahoo Fantasy League.
46:10I heard I kept some receipts. I might have shown a few tweets here and there like people were people were noticing my stuff.
46:17Like, look at look at look at this, babe.
46:19Like people were noticing my stuff. Oh, yeah. I'm sure she thought you've never been hotter than strangers on the Internet.
46:25I think your team looks really cool. That's awesome.
46:28But no, it's a good thing that people like your team so much and you are such a good analyst because we've
46:34got some big things to solve here in the Toyota Fantasy Hotline.
46:37And that is what have we not talked about this draft season?
46:41I brought this up a lot. I've been kind of teasing this show for a while here.
46:45This particular segment. These are the guys that you all feel we have not talked enough about this draft season because, Chris, I remember this last year.
46:53You know, we do 90 minutes of this show five days a week leading up to the NFL season all through the NFL season.
47:00So there's a lot of content. And yet I remember about three weeks into the season, James Cook just absolutely crushing it.
47:06And I'm like, I just don't think we talked a lot about James Cook last draft season.
47:11We didn't say anything bad, but we didn't say anything good.
47:14Like our takes weren't really on the record about James Cook.
47:17Of course, we have rankings and articles and the whole deal.
47:20There's a lot of content out there, but just felt like we didn't talk about him enough on the show.
47:26So this is your guys's chance out there to tell us what you think we did not talk about enough.
47:31That is what we asked you for the Fantasy Hotline presented by Toyota today.
47:35So let's get into it. We've got some tweets.
47:38We've got some emails. The first one comes in from Felton F who says, Jared Goff, if the defense is bad again, the secondary looks very poor.
47:45They could be in for a Stafford-esque season. Weapons are fantastic.
47:48Line should be improved. System that saw Jacoby Brissett become fantasy viable.
47:52I think the belief is that we've seen him at his ceiling, which is why he's dismissed.
47:57But I just don't think that's true. There is elite immobile QB season upside like we've seen from Kurt Warner, Peyton Manning,
48:03Matthew Stafford last year, Tom Brady, etc. That's right.
48:05Jared Goff with the company of legends here. Chris, maybe we haven't talked enough about Jared Goff as a fantasy quarterback option.
48:11What do you think about Goff this year? So I will say that we definitely have not talked enough about Jared Goff
48:18himself, but we've certainly talked about the people that are depending on him to play well.
48:22Right. Because if you look at current ADP over on Yahoo, we're talking about at least four Detroit skill players that are
48:28being drafted within the top 75 ADP shoot. If people want to go back and look at our draft board from the analyst or experts league again.
48:36I mean, we went with Jameer Gibbs, like up at the one on one on Ross St.
48:41Brown went early. Sam LaPorta went to Mr. Norris himself.
48:44I mean, we were looking at each of the people that are going to be at least tied to Jared Goff's right
48:50shoulder throughout the entirety of the season. But I mean, I think it's really about the Jared Goff and his career arc
48:56that people are really sleeping on at this point, because think about it.
49:00We're talking about a guy that needed every second of Sean McVay in his ear in order to complete a forward pass.
49:06What? Seven years ago or something like that when he was still with the Rams and now seeing his trajectory now with the Lions.
49:12And after Sean McVay, Ben Johnson, I mean, no Ben Johnson last year, QB eight just last season in total points without
49:19the, let's say, quarterback gurus at his side to really guide him from a play calling standpoint.
49:23And I think the real improvement has been his ability to handle pressure.
49:27Because I mean, remember all that talk about during the Patriots Super Bowl, how they short circuited a lot of his like
49:33his ability to throw downfield by changing the coverages post snap and all of that.
49:38But I mean, now last season, 11th in EPA per dropback, like when he was under pressure, seventh in passing success rate.
49:44I mean, these are the bigger data points that allow us to say that, well, maybe Jared Goff isn't the same quarterback
49:50that we were looking at even close to 10 years ago.
49:53The same guy that was really struggling to connect with his wide receivers.
49:57So, I mean, if that means that, all right, that he knows how to really approach being under pressure.
50:02I'm willing to say that at a QB 16 price, I mean, now in the more or less the streaming category or the QB two category.
50:09I mean, if we're already looking at his past catchers as guys that were more than confident to draft from Amon, Ryan St.
50:16Brown, all the way down to Jameson Williams. I mean, sure.
50:19Sign me up for what he can potentially give us, especially at this cost in 2026.
50:23You know, Chris, as you were talking there about just some of the early career narratives for Jared Goff, and I don't blame you.
50:30I like when I say this, I'm not saying it to you because I think you're correct in saying there's still this
50:36kind of sentiment about Goff out there. And it's exactly what you were kind of highlighting of what he was early on his career.
50:43Like, what are we talking about, dude? That was like pre-COVID.
50:46That's ancient freaking history at this point. Okay. In terms of like, that's Jared Goff.
50:50Give me a break. Like, the guy he's been in Detroit has been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
50:56From 2022 to 2025, the Lions ranked second in successful play percentage on passing plays and second in explosive play rate on passing plays.
51:03This is one of the most consistent and explosive passing games in the NFL.
51:07And Goff's been the guy behind center all throughout.
51:09And part of the reason, at least from what I've heard about why they're willing to go with Drew Petsing and why
51:16they think it's going to be an upgrade over John Morton is a lot of like the communication aspect of like Petsing as a teacher of the offense.
51:24But also, they feel this way because they say like this is basically Jared Goff's offense.
51:28Like, him and Ben Johnson had such a connective relationship that basically they just kind of built the offense together.
51:34And that's what Scott talks about this all the time, that a great offense is usually just an extension of the quarterback.
51:40And it's so funny that we don't, to the spirit of the question, group Jared Goff in with those guys.
51:45And to the point that, yeah, like if Jared Goff did have a, you know, we talk about him, I think, in
51:52a way of like, well, yeah, we love all his weapons.
51:55And if you want to lay around quarterback, sure, Goff's a great option.
51:58But we don't talk about him as like, what if he throws for 49 passing touchdowns this year?
52:03I do think that's possible because the defense is not going to be good as well.
52:08So not only is Goff a viable streamer, but I do think there's a significant amount of upside that he could have.
52:14I love the comparison, actually, from the question here.
52:17Like, could he have the Matthew Stafford season from last year where typically we don't love the statuesque quarterbacks?
52:22But when they throw a bazillion touchdowns, we love him.
52:25And I think he can throw a bazillion touchdowns this year.
52:28Yeah, and he doesn't really need to have the mobility that you would typically look at for guys that we would want to draft from a fantasy standpoint.
52:36And actually, earlier on in the offseason, I did a study looking at the bust rates for quarterbacks that we draft.
52:42And yeah, we've gotten a lot smarter in terms of drafting quarterbacks in later rounds.
52:46Because remember, again, this was like around COVID times when it was like Lamar Jackson was available in the 12th round because
52:52we didn't know what he was going to be when he got drafted by the Ravens.
52:57We don't see those types of guys. Those archetype of passers being available this late really just need the efficiency.
53:02And if we're already talking about a guy that has these multiple pass catchers and not just wide receivers that can be
53:08solid, but even a good tight end or running back that can be explosive as a pass catcher, all attached to him as options in that passing game.
53:16Then that efficiency really just comes from the extension of his right arm.
53:20So I wholeheartedly agree with you that if we can see all of these guys paying off their cost, why can't Jared Goff exceed his?
53:27That's just why we've been saying it on the show.
53:30We've definitely talked about this a lot. Just wait on quarterbacks this year because I do think even Goff can be a really nice QB one.
53:37Yeah, we probably jumped the shark, Chris. I'm just writing any like overcorrecting for the Lamar Jackson thing when Anthony Richardson was like a fifth round pick.
53:45Yeah, we probably jumped the shark there. Just might have got a little crazy.
53:49Okay, next one comes in again from the email fantasy mailbag at yahoo sports dot com.
53:53Dominic V sends in. What's up, goats? Yes, that's why Dominic got on the show here because the goats of Keon Coleman likely won't survive outside anymore.
54:01If Gleal Shakir only plays in the slot, if Skylar Bell profiles as a slot and Kincaid continues to be, quote, the
54:07biggest, slowest slot to quote the great Matt Harmon.
54:10I don't know. I don't know if I said that, but I probably did.
54:13Then how the hell does this Bills wide receiver core shake out outside of DJ Moore, who I'll assume plays the X?
54:20Are they going to have to pull a Josh Grisard and blur the lines between each of these receivers?
54:25What am I missing here? Yeah, we probably have not.
54:28I mean, I've started to talk a lot about DJ Moore here, Chris, but Kaleal Shakir certainly is a guy that we
54:34haven't talked about really at all throughout draft season.
54:37How do you imagine the rest of this Bills receiver room shaking out?
54:40Josh Palmer's apparently had a good offseason. Does any of this matter?
54:44Where are we at with the rest of the Bills players who aren't named Moore, Cook, or Allen?
54:49I'm willing to take bets on Khalil Shakir, and he's really the only other guy outside of DJ Moore.
54:54But could you talk me into, let's say if this is a deep bench lead, you're talking about a 14-16 team or
55:00something like that, where you're really trying to dig into the dregs of the Bills passing offense.
55:05Could you sell me on a Dawson Knox or something along those lines if you're really struggling at the tight end position?
55:11Okay, fine. But that's just because of how they were starting to use him once they got into the scoring position.
55:17Because remember, this was the same team that once they got like third, fourth down, like inside the red zone, and we're
55:23still running two tight end sets at just above like a league average clip somewhere around 12% or so.
55:29I mean, trying to get as many pass catchers out there as possible for Josh Allen, at least to disguise what they're
55:35trying to do from an offensive standpoint. But if we're also thinking about, well, what can we reliably project week in and week out?
55:41Because that's what fantasy managers really care about. I don't really care so much about if Josh Palmer can come down with
55:48a 20-yard pass or something along those lines, because it's going to be hard to project week in and week out.
55:54I mean, I would like to see Keanu Coleman take a step forward as a reliable wide receiver two-ish for Josh Allen.
56:00But we've seen that time and time again so far that he just hasn't been able to really get there, if not
56:06from a scheme fit standpoint, but also from a route running standpoint as to what he can at least provide to that offense.
56:12So really, it only leaves us with Shakir. And at least we have the, I would say, confidence from a week in
56:19and week out standpoint that Shakir can be that guy.
56:21Because when Josh Allen was under pressure, that was Shakir.
56:24I mean, 24 targets. I mean, last season alone, over 20% of the target share in those types of situations.
56:30Third down or fourth down, obvious passing situations. Still, Shakir was that guy.
56:34It only really changed once they get into the red zone, where if it's not Josh Allen trying to plow through a
56:40few guys in order to get into the end zone, he was trying to look for any of his other pass catchers,
56:46whether it was Dalton Kincaid if he was healthy, Dawson Knox if he was healthy, so on and so forth.
56:52So if I'm just approaching the draft and I'm looking at, let's say, a guy with a BUF designation next to his
56:58name, and I want to try and put them onto my team, as of right now, Shakir's the only other, say, non-DJ
57:04Moore wide receiver that I'm looking to add as of right now.
57:07Could you talk me into a Skylar Bell? Maybe later on, I'd say he's probably going to be on my waiver wire
57:13speed dial should things start to change midway through the season.
57:17But for right now, Shakir's the only one that I trust at least to draft heading into the 2026 season.
57:22Yeah, I think I've drafted him one time this year, Khalil Shakir, and a lot of that was just a full point PPR.
57:29You're looking at a lot of different receivers. It's in the Apex League with a bunch of other analysts.
57:34It's a really fun one to put together, but it's very, very wide receiver thirsty.
57:38So you get around, it's like, well, Khalil Shakir's going to get that football.
57:42You know, he's going to get some targets. He's probably one of the latest number two receivers that goes, certainly in my rankings.
57:49And I do think he's a good player. I think the question, Chris, is just essentially, can he get used further down
57:55the field over the last two seasons? It's Rasheed Rice and Khalil Shakir last and second to last in air yards per target.
58:01They're the only guys that are under 5.0 air yards per target.
58:05Last year, Khalil Shakir, 3.8. I mean, that's crazy.
58:07But if you go back to his rookie season, small sample, obviously only 20 targets, but 10.3.
58:12His second season, we're at 45 targets, 8.6. I mean, can he be a little more of a downfield receiver?
58:18In the first preseason game, they did kind of launch a vertical shot to him.
58:22That's how he could be maybe something more than what he's been previously.
58:25Also dealing with a little bit of an injury to start the year.
58:29So yeah, somebody we haven't really talked about, but could be a source of sneaky production in the Bills offense.
58:35If DJ Moore helps them just kind of go to the next level here.
58:39Let's get to the next one here. This one comes from Timmy L.
58:42DK Metcalf. Short and sweet. That's all they said.
58:45Actually, they said the subject. The subject was DK.
58:47The body of the email was Metcalf. I appreciate it.
58:50Short and sweet. Yeah, haven't spent a lot of time talking about DK Metcalf.
58:54Excuse me, Chris, because talking about the Steelers offense isn't all that fun.
58:58And DK has also been a little banged up throughout the course of the summer.
59:02So DK looks shocked in the picture here that we're talking about him as well.
59:06Any thoughts on DK Metcalf Steelers situation? Is he somebody you've been drafting this year?
59:10No, I'd say for coming into this season, I wasn't targeting him too much like throughout the earlier parts of the offseason.
59:17But now that I've had a chance to really think about the context of their 2025 campaign, I'm at least willing to give him a shot.
59:24I think I'll use your terminology. I say I'm Steelers curious at this point just because, I mean, if you look back
59:30at the 2025 Steelers, I mean, it looked like the 2021 Steelers.
59:34This was a Mickey Mouse offense. And Aaron Rodgers was throwing at about like 2.5 average time to throw.
59:3925% pressure rate, 5.9 air yard or passing a dot.
59:42I mean, it was just grip it and rip it.
59:44That was essentially it for Aaron Rodgers in 2025.
59:47And why? Because the offensive line continued to break down throughout the season.
59:51So that's why we only saw really. I mean, I just I still remember what was it when the London game, I think, was Steelers against the Vikings.
59:59DK Metcalf takes that slot slant. I think it was like seven yard pass and he actually takes it to the house.
60:05But after that, we didn't see too many other highlights from DK Metcalf.
60:08I mean, that was pretty much the the biggest play for him throughout the entire season.
60:13And it's just so funny thinking back to when he was in Seattle and it was just, all right, well, we got this.
60:19We got this guy that looks like he comes from Wakanda playing wide receiver, but just give him the ball and have
60:26him work after the catch and just see if defenders want to make businesses.
60:30Decisions or not. That just hasn't happened. I think it's mostly because of in Pittsburgh, their protection unit hasn't really been up to snuff.
60:36But now looking at their 2026 outlook, I mean, they do have some continuity along the line.
60:41Sunk to what day at least a day one offensive lineman they drafted.
60:45And also, I think they went back or traded up into the third round or to pick up another one.
60:50I know they don't have the depth, but at least if on paper, this is going to look like a unit that
60:57should be able to keep Rogers upright long enough to at least think about passing.
61:01Past two and a half seconds. Then at least we can see DK Metcalf get back to being used farther downfield and
61:07actually being targeted in the areas where you can create after the catch.
61:11So I'm looking at this as a more of a projection than anything else, because after last season, it's just all right.
61:17Well, it's going to be more of the same pass.
61:20I'll let somebody else take him. But if I can at least tell myself a story about how the Pittsburgh offense starts
61:26to get back to what it used to be in terms of how I can keep their quarterback upright, that I'm willing
61:32to at least sink some draft capital into what should be their wide receiver one.
61:36You're trying to tell the story. Jory Epstein, when she was on the show, was trying to tell the story via the Steelers who told her the story.
61:44And I'm not buying any of your stories on this one.
61:47I think the Steelers offense is going to look a lot like how it looked last year.
61:52And I think DK Metcalf's role is going to be mostly relegated to the X receiver position.
61:57And Michael Pittman is going to get a lot of layup looks in this office.
62:01I think Michael Pittman could outscore DK Metcalf. Now, it makes me uncomfortable to say this, Chris, because I do think DK
62:07Metcalf's like a – he's not – I mean, he just kind of is what he is.
62:12Like, he's not somebody that I think there's another level to reach here.
62:16He's a good starting X receiver in the NFL, kind of like what Alec Pierce is now.
62:20DK Metcalf has always been that, if that makes sense, essentially.
62:23And I just don't know that I love that type of role player in this offense.
62:28So, yeah, we haven't – maybe because of my opinion on DK Metcalf, we haven't talked about him.
62:33And, you know, in the spirit of the exercise, could he come out and just really outkick expectations this year?
62:39It is at least possible, and you're telling the story here.
62:42Yeah, I think it's just more of should we expect him to get back to what he was, let's say, in 2020, 2021, like 12, 1300 yards?
62:49I think, no, I think that is completely passed.
62:52He's with a different quarterback, different style of offense, and really that leap that we were hoping to see in terms of
62:58his evolution as a receiver just hasn't happened. But could we still see something that's akin to, I would say, top 24-ish type output for DK Metcalf?
63:06I still think that that's in the range of outcomes for him.
63:09Yeah, like he's not terrible, essentially. He just kind of is what he is.
63:13He's fine. Next one up here – he's fine.
63:15Next one up here comes from Curtis H. This is a two-parter.
63:19Terry McLaurin and DeAndre Swift come to mind. I don't – I'm going to disagree with Curtis on the Terry McLaurin one.
63:25I feel like we've talked about Terry a lot, especially lately with our concerns about the commander's offensive line.
63:30So if you have quick Terry thoughts, I'd be curious on those.
63:34But I actually do think I'm really interested to hear what you have to say about DeAndre Swift because I think Swift
63:40is a candidate to be like this year's James Cook where doesn't get talked about a lot in the fantasy community.
63:46I think we've said some nice things about him along the way, but doesn't get talked about enough and could have a
63:52monster season because the Bears offense goes to the moon and he's the clear-cut RB1.
63:56So any quick thoughts on Terry and more expansive thoughts on DeAndre Swift here, Chris?
64:00I think I would say Terry McLaurin falls into almost the same bucket as the – as we were just talking about
64:07the DK Metcalf conversation in terms of he is what he is.
64:10Like we know that the archetype of receiver that he is and especially with a – I would say a upgrading quarterback
64:16as relative to what Metcalf is going to see.
64:19I would be more than happy to draft him where he's at at cost.
64:23We can assume Jaden Gannon is going to be healthy.
64:25I think the addition of Stefan Diggs is more complimentary and helps a guy like Terry McLaurin that hurts him.
64:31So just give me all the McLaurin. But for Swift, I was making the same point for him as I did during
64:37the experts draft the other day in that DeAndre Swift – I mean that whole running game in and of itself.
64:43Outside of the fact that Kyle Monongai is injured and that's really where a lot of the attention has gone for drafters.
64:49This is still going to be a team that with Ben Johnson has been frustrating to fantasy managers in that they still
64:56would like to run the ball once they get into the green zone, into the red zone.
65:00I mean this is a money touch dependent position and Ben Johnson likes to give a lot of those touches to his running backs.
65:07So while it's been the Luther Burden versus Roma Dunze wars, I've been trying to scoop up DeAndre Swift as much as possible.
65:14He – at least from an offensive efficiency perspective – Swift played one of his better years just last season with a
65:20guy that most people proclaimed hated DeAndre Swift after he jettisoned him away from the lines however many years ago.
65:25So if we're thinking that at the very least as of right now with Monongai's hyperextended knee that DeAndre Swift should have,
65:32it's a significant part of the touch share to start off the season until Monongai gets healthier.
65:36I mean we're talking about a guy that could have, let's say, the bulk of the early down work.
65:42Let's say he ran around what 40%, 50%-ish route rate like last season.
65:45Let's say mixes in for just less than 10% of the targets.
65:49It's okay, he gets like some pass catching role but then now without any competition or I'd say less competition for goal
65:55line work, we are talking about – we are profiling a running back that should be drafted in the second, third round
66:01but is available in the fourth or fifth round where I got him just the other day.
66:06No, I think that's exactly right. If you end up in a draft spot where you kind of feel forced to take
66:12a receiver even if you want to go running back, running back in the first two rounds which I think is a totally viable plan this year.
66:20And then you do have to pass up some of those really cool fourth round receivers but if again you go receiver
66:26in round one, let's just say running back round two, receiver again in round three.
66:30Fourth round like getting DeAndre Swift. He's one of the last guys available that I don't see like uh-oh, now we go off the cliff here.
66:37I really love him. I think he's a great fourth round pick this year.
66:41Okay, next one up comes from Zach W. Baker Mayfield.
66:44Nobody has talked about Baker Mayfield and I listened to a lot of content.
66:48He was leading the MVP conversation before he got hurt last year.
66:51Just curious about your thoughts for him this year.
66:54Terribly disrespected on ADP. Dom also followed that up and said, no, I'm a biased Bucs fan but I don't think Jalen
67:00McMillan gets talked about enough as a great late round sleeper.
67:03Okay, Baker Mayfield, Jalen McMillan, Bucs thoughts overall here.
67:06Chris, this is definitely an offense I know I've warmed up to throughout the course of the process.
67:11Yeah, and I've had to think about this like quite a bit because yeah, look at Baker's cost.
67:16He's what down in the 20s? But yeah, Fernando Mendoza, Bryce Young, Cam Ward.
67:20I mean, all those guys have higher quarterback ADP.
67:22What are we doing here? I know. I don't quite understand.
67:26I think the but I guess I can understand the thought process for a lot of drafters in that.
67:31Yeah, this is completely broken offense in 2025. You and I have talked about the I would say.
67:36A square peg round hole type situation for a Buka last year.
67:39Mike Evans also being hurt. Bucky Irving being hurt offensively.
67:42Everybody was hurt, including Baker Mayfield. So between him being hurt, his protection being hurt, his pass catchers also being hurt.
67:48I mean, this is the contributions that lead to a down season.
67:51So now if you're telling me that he's healthy, most of his pass catchers are healthy.
67:56We'll see about the toe thing with a Buka.
67:58And then also really the only wild card is what can we expect from Zach Robinson?
68:03But this is the same guy that I mean, both of them were in L.A.
68:07when Baker Mayfield started his little comeback tour with the Rams.
68:10Also uses a lot of QB friendly concepts. I'll have like Dave Canales and some of the other guys that Baker Mayfield has worked with in the past.
68:18I mean, all these things sound like these are ways that the Bucks passing game or just the offense in general get
68:24back to what it was when Baker was a larger part of the MVP conversation.
68:29But I would say that McMillan is the one that I kind of fall short of in terms of eyeing as a
68:35guy that I want to add to my teams, at least as of right now, because what's the saying?
68:40Your availability is your best ability. And we just haven't seen it from Jalen McMillan yet.
68:45I mean, he missed, what, 13 games like last season.
68:47He missed some time also throughout like the 2024 year as well.
68:51This is also a player or wide receiver that typically has these boom bust type of plays and how he gets onto
68:57the field or how he produces rather. I mean, his air yard share or his passing or receiving a dot was just
69:03around like 12, 13 air yards and just short of where Mike Evans was at.
69:07Primarily plays on the outside and likes to go fast and get way, way, way downfield.
69:12And if he's already dealing with, I believe, a knee calf soreness, which has kept him out of most of training camp
69:18in the preseason, it just makes me question what his value is going to be to this offense in 2026 or how
69:24often we can, as fantasy managers, rely on him.
69:27Because you'll draft him. You might see a couple of highlights, but in the very next week he gets the Q tag or there's a mispractice.
69:34And then you have to deal with, well, should I start him or should I not?
69:39So I would rather let somebody else draft him or if he winds up still sitting on the waiver wire, scoop him
69:45up if he winds up stringing together a few healthy weeks.
69:48And I hope that's the case for him this year.
69:51Yeah, I think he's important to their offense as the vertical stretch guy, especially if he has to kind of be the
69:57X receiver and open up the defense that way.
69:59He was pretty impressive against man coverage at the end of last year.
70:03I just think like if Buka is going to gobble up targets when healthy, Godwin is probably he's going to be better
70:09than he was last year when he played with coming back from the serious injury.
70:13How good is he going to be? Is he going to be old Chris Godwin?
70:18I don't know about that, but, you know, I think he'll probably get a lot of time.
70:22It's tough to make the math work for McMillan, but to the point, I do think he's a better and best ball type of pick.
70:29I think he the only thing that will worry me, though, Chris, is like if Ted Hurst gets on the field and
70:36he's impressive and they've been talking him up as a guy that actually has looked pretty good and maybe changed their plans on him being developmental.
70:43Like does Jalen McMillan find his way like out of the rotation?
70:46That would be problematic. But all this comes back to Baker Mayfield, who I agree with you.
70:51Like the ADP on Baker Mayfield makes no sense.
70:54And he was going off like board QB seven last year, which maybe was aggressive.
70:58But the middle ground isn't now he drops into the 20s, you know, so he's just again.
71:03Keep you keep saying it like there's so many good late round quarterbacks available.
71:07Baker Mayfield is one of those guys. And again, I do feel like I've said this on the show.
71:12It's hard. It's hard to say. I don't know what I'm saying these days, but he's a guy that looks like he's coming in in shape.
71:19He's doing the Baker Mayfield. Nobody respects me type thing right now playing for the contract behind one of the best offensive lines in the NFL.
71:27I kind of like how this season is setting up for Baker Mayfield and the Bucs offense.
71:31That includes, you know, as we were talking on the show yesterday with Chris Harris, Bucky Irving is a player I've really changed my mind on about.
71:39And I like him in drafts as well. Really, all these Bucs are pretty good clicks at value right now.
71:45Okay. We are going to take a quick break.
71:47We come back. We're looking at some of your tweets that you sent in here for players.
71:52We did not talk about enough. We'll get into that right after this.
71:56All right, we're back. Let's get into some of the social media submissions here.
71:59This first one comes in from at G horse field.
72:02See, look at this. Jeff horse field. Okay. Pull back the curtain here.
72:06The producers only wrote the handle on the docs and rereading these handles is like torture.
72:10I feel like a complete moron whenever I have to read Twitter handles.
72:14So anyway, Jeff horse field looks like a fine gentleman.
72:17Great question here. Jacoby Myers. Don't talk. We're not talking to Jacoby Myers enough.
72:21Was a big was big for Jacksonville after the trade.
72:24Chris, this is true. This is objectively true. Nobody in fantasy football talks about Jacoby Myers, but he did objectively like save their passing game.
72:31And it does. I mean, look, if you look at my rankings, look at ADP.
72:35It feels like, oh, Jacoby Myers is going to go away, but there's no way he goes away.
72:40Right, Chris? No, I don't think he goes away.
72:42I think the problem is almost like earlier we were talking about the Luther Burden versus Roma Dunze thing.
72:48It's a similar case here, although it's more concentrated just because the way that Jacoby Myers wins and the way that Parker
72:54Washington wins, I mean, very similar, less complimentary than the two bears wide receivers.
72:58And we saw that happen last season after the trade.
73:01Myers comes over from weeks 11 to 15. It was all Jacoby Myers.
73:04And to your point, that was the part of the reason why we saw this surge in the Jaguars passing game.
73:1026% of the targets, almost a third of the slot targets.
73:13And really, from an efficiency standpoint, I mean, one of the real reasons that this offense took a step forward, I mean, 13% first downs per route run.
73:21So, I mean, he really he was allowing that offense to stay on schedule.
73:25But then you could almost see Parker Washington's usage start to creep up.
73:29And there was a flippening about midway through the back end of the year.
73:33So from week 16 on, it was all Parker Washington up to about 28% of the targets.
73:38I mean, almost a quarter of the slot targets.
73:40I mean, so noting how much like they are used similarly once they're deployed on the field.
73:45But then my my whole thing with the Jaguars offense is that these are two guys that were pretty much taking up
73:51half of Trevor Lawrence's looks when he was passing to either one of those two guys over that over that last month of the season.
73:58What happens now with Brian Thomas Jr. Apparently healthy.
74:01Bretton Strange healthy. Travis Hunter rotating in off of playing defense.
74:04Is this going to be the same type of offense that's still going to be highly efficient, but now spread out amongst four or five different pass catchers?
74:12That's been my skepticism around Parker Washington. So, no, I don't think Jacoby Myers is going to go away.
74:17If anything, if we should assume there's going to be more of a spread out offense versus this concentration that we saw
74:23in just a short window of 2025, I would say Myers is the better player to draft at cost unless you really
74:29believe that Parker Washington is the truth. And what we saw over that four or five, six game stretch is, I would
74:36say, representative of what we should expect to see throughout a 17 game season in 2026.
74:40I think this is a really good point by you.
74:43And it feels like it's like a safe space to kind of say this, that, you know, can I raise my hand
74:49and just say, like, I think Parker Washington is appropriately priced in fantasy.
74:53Like he's not this screaming value or anything like that.
74:56And Chris part, I mean, the huge part of his Jacoby Myers, because he's, he's just a good player and wins in
75:02the exact ways that you would want from a Liam Cohen.
75:05Like nothing that I'm going to say is negative about Parker.
75:08Watches a player who I actually think is a sick player, but you go to Myers is there.
75:13I could not believe I drafted Brian Thomas Jr.
75:16in like the seventh round, six round, whatever in the fantasy league.
75:19And people were like disgusted by, by this. I think the people are overcorrected too hard on Brian Thomas Jr.
75:25Who will be healthier this year. And Travis Hunter is going to mix in.
75:28And I feel like Parker Washington, totally cool wide receiver three, which is where he's drafted right now in fantasy.
75:34I just think other folks have really gotten kind of over, maybe not over their skis, but just, is he going to dust all these guys?
75:41Maybe we'll see. I think Myers is the biggest one of this group that just feels like, yeah, I get why nobody wants to draft him in fantasy.
75:49Cause there's not like a ceiling here, but he's a glue guy.
75:53That's going to be on the field all the time.
75:55He's wide receiver 67 in ADP. I think that's crazy.
75:58I have like 14 spots higher than that, which again, like, Oh boy, you have a wide receiver 53.
76:04You're really flag planning Jacoby Myers. What I'm flag planning there is that he's not going to go away and that he's
76:10not going to be a nothing burger on this team, which I think you kind of have to assume he's going to
76:16be a nothing burger to like make the math work for everybody else.
76:20But yeah, ultimately Chris, I just think this is going to be a pretty spread out passing game.
76:25And I don't really know that I've changed my mind on that.
76:28And Myers to the point, we haven't talked about him in fantasy, but he's like a good glue guy that's going to
76:34give him some weeks and probably just, you know, make the rest of the distribution confusing if that makes sense.
76:40Yeah. And I really think that the excitement has been about Parker Washington.
76:44It's been about Basial Tootin. And that's really where our focus has been and kind of leaves the rest of the guys,
76:50Brian Thomas, Jr., Bretton Strange, Jacoby Myers, and all of those other guys really relegated to the, yeah, they're on the, they're on the team.
76:57They're going to be, they're going to be fine.
76:59It's almost like the same conversation we were just having with Khalil Shakir.
77:03Everybody's excited about DJ Moore. Everybody's excited about Dalton Kincaid being healthy.
77:06Everybody's excited to draft Josh Allen. Khalil Shakir. Yeah, he's fine.
77:09Same deal for Jacoby Myers. Same deal for Jacoby Myers.
77:12Yeah. Not saying like, ooh, Parker Washington stinks. It just, he's, he's a good bet at ADP.
77:17Like there's a ceiling. There's also some, some downside as well.
77:20Okay. Next one up here. Oh my God. It comes from grotesquely male at grotesquely male.
77:25All right. Eric Bond. Yeah. That's the name. Okay.
77:27A player should be a player who should be the number two target on his team, but they Super bowl champion at
77:33quarterback who the fantasy community has largely forgotten about who goes to double digit rounds.
77:38That is Xavier worthy. Yeah. Very fair point here, Eric.
77:40We've not talked a lot about Xavier worthy. Chris, any hype for Xavier worthy here?
77:45I don't think anybody's forgotten about Xavier worthy. Uh, I think it's just more about his role is hard to reconcile because
77:51I mean, we've almost cited this every year that Patrick Mahomes passing a dot continued to decline like year in a year
77:57out after that 2019 2020 season, we took over the league.
78:00And I mean, losing a guy like Tyree kill will do that to any offense.
78:04I mean, it was like 9.5 air yards per attempt back in 2020 down to 6.9 in 2024.
78:09Last season was really the first time where we saw him really try and test the intermediate waters more often than not.
78:16But if you look at his supporting cast, there's a reason why he wasn't doing it anymore.
78:20And Travis Kelsey's obviously lost a step and even Xavier worthy himself.
78:24It's just that we haven't seen that route diversification, I would say, or the evolution for him as the receiver that we
78:30would hope him to be after he broke the speed record.
78:33Cause yeah, I mean, just last season alone, about 20% of his targets were like they came on go routes.
78:39I mean, can we get him more out in space?
78:41Can we get some more intermediate crossing routes? Can we get some more timing routes to the boundary?
78:46And while that really wasn't necessarily his calling card coming out of college, you would hope that as this offense continues to
78:53evolve and they've tried to bring in the Taequann Thorntons of the world, the Cyrus Allens of the world, the Sky Moores,
78:59the, I mean, Hollywood Browns, Justin Rosses, all these other guys that have been trying to play this downfield threat.
79:04There still needs to be this down in, down out consistency to the offense, their ability to pick up third downs.
79:10And now with what we should assume Mahomes is going to potentially change up his playing style in order to accommodate the ACL tear.
79:17I mean, this should be some sort of signal that worthy now has to take on like a different role and be
79:23a different player than we've seen over the past, like two years or so.
79:27So while I don't think we've forgotten about it, it's just, we're trying to reconcile what this entire offense is going to
79:33look like with some of the guys they've continued to hold on to.
79:37And now that really has this questioning what the chiefs offense is going to look like in 2026.
79:42Now, I think you're right about the role change part of this, because I'm totally willing to kind of give Xavier worthy
79:48a pass for his second season in the NFL, which wasn't good on film, but he basically got blasted, you know, four
79:55plays into the season by Travis Kelsey. It just like, let's, I think we can like, let go.
80:00It wasn't a good season, but we can give him a pass for what he was on film last year.
80:05But what, yeah, what is he in this offense?
80:08Now, I think Hayden Winks is like a positive on Xavier worthy this year because he believes if the play action offense
80:14is going to take a step forward, he's going to be just involved on more of those deep breaking routes, as you mentioned, which I'm open to it.
80:22Just again, the health question is tough because he hasn't been healthy this off season either with the shoulder injury that he
80:28was kind of dealing with last year. So a little bit difficult to get like two.
80:32Yeah. He's been difficult to talk about in that regard because he just hasn't really been participating for good chunks of the
80:39off season, but not a player to totally forget about that's a good shout there.
80:43Next one up comes from at Gord's take. Honestly, Garrett Wilson.
80:46All I've heard is quote. He's great. Gino is the best quarterback he's played with, but Aaron Glenn is still the head coach.
80:52How does Reich as a play caller affect what they'll do?
80:56Is there anything deeper than good player plus better quarterback equal good outcome?
80:59Yeah. Garrett Wilson probably has gotten overlooked in the great like fourth round range of wide receivers.
81:04All, you know, the younger guys like McConkie and Mecca, Buka, the whole deal.
81:08Tedrow McMillan. He's kind of like the old older man there in that grouping.
81:12But I mean, listen, you're not going to get me to say anything bad about Garrett Wilson.
81:17You're not going to get me to get too over my skis about Garrett Wilson because we know how it could end poorly.
81:23Like we kind of know the range of outcomes here, Chris.
81:26But the one thing I would say, I know we got another question here that we can just kind of loop this
81:32in, you know, at Nelson underscore Viveros said, what are your thoughts on Kenyon Sadiq?
81:37I know he's been hurt, but do you see him as a potential second time and a breakout as a, like what Harold Fannin did last year?
81:44Like, I don't think any of these rookies really are going to make like a dent in the Jets offense.
81:50So, you know, Frank Reich has been saying Garrett Wilson is the bell cow receiver, which it's a new term for me.
81:56But I do think that's kind of the truth of it.
81:59Like the guy's going to get a bunch of targets this year.
82:02What are your thoughts on Garrett Wilson? Well, to the Frank Reich portion of the question, going back to when he was
82:09still with even Carolina before he got ousted there, Adam Thielen got over, got just over a hundred targets remembering in that season, like 27% target share.
82:16Even going back to his time with the Colts.
82:19I mean, we were looking at T.Y. Hilton as a guy that we wanted to draft it for so often.
82:24And this was a fun trip down memory lane, actually.
82:27I mean, Alshon Jeffrey back in 2017, 120 targets.
82:30I mean, he was he's still been at least willing to figure out who his wide receiver one is, right specifically, and
82:36not necessarily feed them, but integrate them to the offense, see how they win and then work with them accordingly.
82:42And that's where I see Garrett Wilson falling into like that type of a scheme that Reich can really try and put together for for Geno Smith.
82:49And so, yeah, what should I should we expect him to be in that hundred plus target range by the end of the season?
82:56Absolutely. But it's really about the entire Jets ecosystem that we should be concerned about as to how often they're going to
83:02be in the red zone, how often they're going to be able to get Garrett Wilson into the end zone.
83:08And that's really my concern. So I think he's appropriately priced.
83:11But if we're just talking about straight talent, yeah, Garrett Wilson should belong in that same range as the Ladd McConkeys, the
83:17Ted, Ted, Rowe, McMillons, like those types of guys.
83:20It's just that the environment around him is what kind of lack at least puts him, let's say, a cut below some of those other guys.
83:27Yeah. Garrett Wilson can have a top 10 wide receiver season literally at any point because he's talented enough to do it.
83:33And like there's no need to galaxy brain yourself about any of his stats over the course of his NFL career.
83:39We know why the stats are the stats. And even still, like the raw production has been good.
83:44So no need to get like he's a great player.
83:47Their circumstances just haven't been right. How do you feel about the circumstances this year?
83:51I think, Chris, you bring some valid points about Reich's history and how like that Z receiver or slot receiver has been
83:57someone to get a lot of targets. I mean, Michael Pittman with the Colts, like Adam, those are all good shouts.
84:03There's this obviously there's risk to that. You know, there's implosion risk with this team.
84:07Like, yeah, Aaron Glenn is still a head coach.
84:10Is Aaron Glenn going to be the coach in week 18?
84:13I mean, we'll see. Is Frank Wright going to be the interim HC at that point?
84:18We'll see. There's a lot of that. We know what happened with Geno last year.
84:22The camp reports have been iffy. The preseason was awesome for Geno Smith.
84:25But what does that really mean against the vanilla Steelers defensive coverage?
84:29Maybe nothing. So it's just that's the deal with Garrett Wilson.
84:32Like you can click him knowing what the floor is.
84:35Yeah. And you know, there's a ceiling from a talent standpoint.
84:38There's this obviously ecosystem risks there. All right. We've got one last one to get to here.
84:43And this this one is definitely a player. We have not talked about a lot at Jack BP underscore one says, I
84:49want to hear more about the two three turn guys and where that tier breaks are essentially where are should be quote
84:55boring volume on top three offensive backs. Kyron Williams and Javante Williams be compared to this tier of receivers.
85:00Love this year. I think we've talked a decent bit about Javante.
85:04Well, maybe we haven't talked about Javante Williams. I like kind of didn't even talk a lot at all about him last year.
85:10And then I was super impressed by what he did in Dallas.
85:13But like, yeah, Kyron Williams is probably a guy we don't talk about.
85:17Probably don't talk that much about Javante Williams. But Chris, I think these guys are great.
85:22Like, especially Javante, like in the late third round.
85:24Give me that every single time if I build the right receiver room and Kyron Williams, though, again, a guy we just definitely don't talk about.
85:31So what's your analysis on Kyron Williams and Javante Williams?
85:34So both of those guys, they profile as the players that you should you should be targeting in the second, third round.
85:40But I would say there's at least some level of fragility.
85:44I would say more to Kyron than Javante, because now, especially with the Cowboys moving on from Phil Mafa, also Jaden Blue.
85:50Yeah. And really not leaving too much of a competition at backfield.
85:53He, I'd say Williams takes a step forward in terms of, yeah, he's more of the early down, not as much involved in the passing game.
86:00We'll get those short yardage attempts in order to make do on his cost.
86:04Whereas with Kyron, we were talking about him during the experts league.
86:08I mean, Blake Corham has been there, has started to at least, let's say, whittle away at some of the early down
86:14and short yardage work for Kyron Williams. So between those two, I prefer Williams.
86:18I mean, still both the Cowboys and the Rams profile as, let's say, strong offensive systems.
86:22Both have solid quarterbacks. The wide receivers, of course.
86:25Also, you can compare Pickens and CeeDee Lamb versus Puka and Devante Adams.
86:29I mean, same, same. If we're just talking about, can these guys be the, I would say, the fuel to get Kyron
86:35Williams into the, let's say, red zone, green zone, all the way up to the five yard line?
86:40Absolutely. So that's where Kyron, I have at least some level of concern about what his work was going to look like
86:46throughout the entire season, especially with Corham there. Whereas Devante Williams, if folks have already been drafting him, continue to do so.
86:52Especially now with everything that's happened throughout the preseason and then the roster cuts, I think Williams profiles as the better option between those two in my mind.
87:00You say Williams, you know, they're both Williams. So Williams and Williams.
87:03But no, I see like at cost. Yeah. Give me Devante here.
87:07I just, I mean, he's 34th overall on Yahoo ADP right now, 27th overall for Kyron Williams over the last seven days.
87:13And I just look at that and I say, you know, I think Devante has got, as you say, less competition.
87:19Totally. I mean, listen, we could, by the way, be in your, I don't know, it could be 2023.
87:24And we're like, this is the year Blake Corham takes touches from Kyron Williams.
87:28And then it just never really happens. I'm open to that.
87:31But yeah, I just love the way Dallas is set up and the fact that you can get them a little bit later.
87:38And I think their profiles are very similar. That allows you to kind of, if again, similar to what we said earlier,
87:44the room kind of forces you with where you pick in the first round, you take a wide receiver, you take a
87:50running back in round two, round three, love getting a Devante Williams.
87:54They're just like set it and forget it running back to Kyron Williams.
87:57Totally fine as well. But I do like the way Devante, like where he goes right now.
88:02And I think this Dallas offense, we know the Rams offense is good.
88:06It was good last year. As long as everybody's healthy, it's going to be good again this year.
88:11But I think that Cowboys offense really goes to the moon this year.
88:14All right. You got a lineup dilemma, trade debate or league controversy.
88:18The fantasy hotline is open all season long. So send us your toughest questions and we might just feature them in an upcoming episode.
88:24Chris. It's time. NFL season is closing rapidly, brother.
88:27By the time this episode is out, we'll be one week away from the second game of the season.
88:32It's upon us, pal. And I appreciate you. I appreciate you joining me for this one.
88:37And I'm looking forward to the whole season with a great crew here at Yahoo.
88:41Can't wait. It's going to be absolutely electric. That does it for us today.
88:45Thanks to our friends over at Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL who are here all season long celebrating the
88:51passion, traditions and unforgettable moments that make football America's obsession.
88:54And folks, that does it for our draft season coverage on the pod this year.
88:58Shout out to everyone that made it the best month ever for the podcast.
89:02Yes, the numbers have been crazy. You guys have been crazy.
89:05It was a wild and longer ride than ever leading up to the NFL season.
89:09But we had a blast doing it. I hope you guys had a blast listening to it.
89:14We hope that all the shows have helped you prepare for your most important drafts that you have here on Labor Day weekend.
89:21But we're not going to leave you alone all Labor Day weekend because on Monday, we're going to be releasing a special
89:27pre-taped episode where Josh Norris, Justin Boone and myself provide you our 12 boldest fantasy predictions for the 2026 NFL season because it is finally, finally here.
89:34Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend. Happy drafting.
89:37And until Monday, we are out.

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