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.