PodcastFrom The Long View Podcast
The Biggest Training Camp Note on All 32 NFL Teams
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Aug 14, 2026
Published
Fri, August 14, 2026
21
Player insights
18
Players mentioned
Topics
Alec PierceBreece HallHunter HenryBrian Thomas Jr.Caleb DouglasChase BrownChris RodriguezDenzel BostonDeshaun WatsonGarrett WilsonJosh DownsKimani VidalOmar Cooper Jr.Parker Washington
Player analysis
Player insights
Alec Pierce
NegativeInjury4:00
Alec Pierce has been highly questionable for Week 1 for months, and there is ongoing concern regarding his health and ability to practice, with observers monitoring his calf recovery. Despite the Colts' significant financial commitment, there is skepticism about his readiness and his ability to justify his ADP given his limited production last year and the need for a major role change.
Insight pageNegativeInjury19:00
Alec Pierce is dealing with ongoing injury issues, including a March surgery and multiple PRP injections. Despite GM Chris Ballard's public optimism, Pierce is currently not practicing and limping, casting doubt on his Week 1 availability.
Insight pageBreece Hall
PositiveValue0:01
The source views Breece Hall as a strong pick and the last running back before the dead zone. Despite poor efficiency metrics in 2024, the source highlights his elite talent profile, noting he was 10th in missed tackles forced per attempt and top five in explosive run rate last year. The source argues Hall is underpriced relative to his talent and potential in a more functional Jets offense.
Insight pagePositiveRole4:00
Connor Hughes reports that the team plans to feature Breece Hall more prominently as the lead back this season, a stark contrast to last summer's negative reports regarding a potential three-headed committee involving Isaiah Davis and Braelon Allen.
Insight pageBrian Thomas Jr.
NegativeRole4:00
The Jaguars reportedly envision Brian Thomas playing in the Brandon Cooks/Sammy Watkins role, which is characterized as a secondary or tertiary receiving option in the offense.
Insight pageCaleb Douglas
PositiveBreakout5:00
Despite a polarizing prospect profile and being a surprise day-two draft pick, Caleb Douglas is having a strong camp and is already listed as a starter on the unofficial depth chart. While his college efficiency metrics were inconsistent, his athletic profile and the lack of competition in the Dolphins' receiver room make him a viable late-round best-ball target.
Insight pageChase Brown
PositiveUsage5:00
The Bengals plan to increase Chase Brown's workload, designing plays around him and treating him as a featured player similar to Ja'Marr Chase. He is viewed as a workhorse with high-end speed, and the source ranks him alongside Kenneth Walker in the 1-2 turn range.
Insight pageChris Rodriguez
NegativeUsage4:00
Reports indicate a full-on even split of first-team reps between Chris Rodriguez and Tootin, with both players making plays and looking good in training camp.
Insight pageDenzel Boston
PositiveDepth Chart8:00
Denzel Boston has impressed in camp and claimed the starting X receiver role for the Browns, though the source notes concerns about his quarterback situation and the difficulty of translating camp 'ball-winner' highlights to regular-season production.
Insight pageDeshaun Watson
PositiveDepth Chart7:00
Deshaun Watson is the favorite to start Week 1 for the Browns and has reportedly performed better than his competition in 'move the ball' practice periods.
Insight pageGarrett Wilson
PositiveValue2:00
The source considers Garrett Wilson underpriced relative to his talent. Despite concerns about the Jets' offensive environment and coaching, the source notes the team has added significant skill position talent and believes Wilson remains a strong fantasy asset.
Insight pageHunter Henry
NegativeRole2:00
The source expects Hunter Henry to maintain a similar role to last year, though his route rate could potentially dip from 75-80% to 55-60% if teammate Raird and earns more snaps due to superior blocking ability.
Insight pageNegativeRole3:05
The source expects Hunter Henry to maintain his role as the starting tight end, noting he was the team's second-leading receiver last year and has a strong connection with quarterback Drake Maye. The source cautions against overreacting to training camp rotations involving other tight ends.
Insight pageJosh Downs
PositiveInjury7:00
Josh Downs has returned to practice following a groin injury and is confirmed to be healthy and participating fully.
Insight pageKimani Vidal
NegativeUsage12:00
Kamani Vidal is expected to serve as a situational back, likely handling garbage time carries, pass protection reps on third downs, and potentially goal-line work. While he is a capable runner, he is expected to fall behind Amari Hampton and Keaton Mitchell as the season progresses.
Insight pageOmar Cooper Jr.
NegativeDepth Chart3:00
Omar Cooper has had a quiet camp and is at risk of being leapfrogged by Isaiah Williams, who is currently serving as the team's returner. Cooper's status is increasingly precarious given the rise of other late-round receiver options.
Insight pageParker Washington
PositiveRole4:00
Parker Washington is expected to play in 12 and 13 personnel groupings and serve as the primary receiver across all formations for the Jaguars.
Insight pagePat Bryant
PositiveBreakout11:00
Pat Bryant is generating significant buzz in Broncos camp, with praise coming from teammates like Pat Surtain and head coach Sean Payton. The drumbeat of positive reports is becoming difficult to ignore.
Insight pageRhamondre Stevenson
PositiveRole2:25
The source projects Rhamondre Stevenson to be the lead back to start the 2026 season, noting he took control of the backfield during the final month of the previous season and throughout the postseason.
Insight pageTank Dell
NegativeProjection5:00
While Tank Dell has returned to team drills, the outlook remains bearish. The source considers him not draftable at his current cost, noting a long road back to fantasy relevance.
Insight pageTreVeyon Henderson
NegativeRole1:00
Beat reporter Mike Giardi reports a lack of improvement in Henderson's vision and patience, noting that Rhamondre Stevenson is expected to remain the lead back for both early-down and passing-down work. Henderson's ADP has been slipping from the 4-5 turn toward the mid-to-late fifth round.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00One short view topic for all 32 teams, the News and Notes show.
0:00That's what we're doing today on The Long View.
0:00I'm Ben Gretch. You can find Stealing Signals newsletter at BenGretch.Substack.com.
0:00With me as always is Jacob Sanderson. You can find the Thinking About Thinking newsletter at JacobSanderson.Substack.com.
0:00And we're back Jacob. Before we jump in, apologies to everyone who had issues with the audio on the last episode.
0:00Still getting some stuff dialed in. Our levels were off on the last episode.
0:00We heard from a number of people. Apologies about that.
0:00I was coming in hot. I've also taken the liberty of ordering a new mic.
0:00I've had the same mic for over a decade Jacob since I got it.
0:00It was like the thing to get back in the day when I started podcasting in 2016.
0:00Yeah, technology has changed a little bit in 10 years.
0:00So hopefully it will get me a little bit of a better mic and that is going to help some of the peaking.
0:00We're new. We're new on this podcast. We're getting some feedback.
0:00I should have done that a long time ago anyway.
0:00Obviously do a lot of different podcasting, but we will get that stuff sorted out.
0:00Thanks for sticking with us as we work through that stuff.
0:00But yeah, how you doing Jacob? I'm doing good.
0:00I'm super excited. First off, I wanted to echo your apology to people about those levels, but I also want to offer
0:00an apology to you specifically because I feel like you had to deal with people being like, oh, Ben's yelling when really
0:00I have new equipment myself and I was coming in too quiet.
0:00So I'm making you seem like you're yelling all the time, but I'm confident it'll be better today on the levels front.
0:00I'm confident, especially as you get the mic equipment, we're going to be only getting better and better.
0:00So super excited to do the show today. And otherwise, I'm super appreciative of all the really positive feedback we got to
0:00on the last episode in the last concept. It's been really fun and excited to keep keep plunging forward.
0:00Yeah, yeah. The feedback's been great. We're really appreciating that.
0:00We talked about potentially doing one of our draft streams that are going to be behind the paywall over at Patreon.
0:00We did not get around to that. We may do that after we record this free episode.
0:00So if you are interested in that and you're thinking about subscribing to the paywall shows that we've talked about, there's definitely going to be some soon.
0:00The season's going to start. The season's going to start.
0:00And at some point we have to draft some teams.
0:00So that will be coming at some point. And then, yeah, today we're not going to really do like a long view topic at the back end.
0:00Last episode, we had our fun topic and then the short view went two hours.
0:00There's only more information. And the whole idea about the short view was to be able to react to this stuff, to
0:00hit on a lot of different topics, et cetera.
0:00Well, right now we're at a time in the middle of August where, I mean, we're recording this on Thursday afternoon.
0:00The first week one of preseason, the first real preseason games are coming tonight.
0:00We already had the Hall of Fame game last week, but there's going to be games played sort of starting, I think,
0:00as we're going to be recording this. But we're going to be going over camp news.
0:00We're not going to have reactions to the first preseason games.
0:00But everything that's happened in the last week, you've put together an incredible document here, something from every team.
0:00And we're going to go through and just kind of talk through stuff and treat it as like an extra long short
0:00view, like we like to do at the top of the show.
0:00A not so short view show, as you called it.
0:00Yeah, the not so short view, indeed. So let's kick it off.
0:00I'm going to go kind of division by division.
0:00I'm going to lay out what I got and you pick and choose, as usual, whatever you find most interesting.
0:00So starting off the AFC East, we'll start with the New England Patriots.
0:00There was a beat writer, Mike Giardi. I'm going to name other non-John Shipley beat writers a lot in this short view.
0:00That's a commitment of mine. We're getting some publicity on the larger beat writer community.
0:00Oh my God. Before we get going, did you see Justin Herzig's work on how louder camps have led to...
0:00I did. ADP rises and quieter... Any Longview listener who did not see this, Justin Herzig did some phenomenal work using AI
0:00to figure this out and to classify loud camps versus quieter camps in terms of like the...
0:00I think the prevalence of beat reports and then also the sentiment, like how extreme the sentiment is.
0:00And some of it was like a couple camps were like particularly negative, but some of it was particularly positive.
0:00But like how firm the reports are, as opposed to just like quietly whatever, articulating what they're seeing but not like putting flowery language behind it.
0:00I don't know if I'm describing this particularly well, but Herzig's finding or the AI's finding that he was sharing was that
0:00in the past several years, especially in the later rounds, I think it was like round 8 to 18 or something, the
0:00biggest jumps have tended to come from louder camps, which is just such a funny encapsulation of this concept that like I've
0:00been kind of joking about with the whole Shipley thing, which is just like...
0:00I mean, if the beats know their audience and they know what they're saying and they have these reports, we will react as a fantasy community to it.
0:00Like I tweeted that like this is... The confirmation bias from Herzig's thing was hitting me hard because it's basically what I've
0:00been talking about every time we've talked about the Jags.
0:00Yeah, totally. So here's... Hopefully, you know, we're going to get to all 32 teams today.
0:00So we're going to spread the wealth. We're not going to just be focusing on the Jaguars.
0:00So maybe we'll help guard against some of the great stuff that Herzig was talking about.
0:00So starting off with the Patriots, this is beat reporter Mike Yardi.
0:00He said, this is a direct quote, I haven't seen much improvement with his vision and patience regarding Trevion Henderson.
0:00Noted that Stevenson was likely to remain the lead back between the tackles and on passing downs.
0:00Henderson, of course, would have a role. We've noticed Henderson's ADP has been slipping.
0:00He started Best Ball Mania drafts like squarely at the 4-5 turn.
0:00He's now going more to the mid or even late fifth round.
0:00I've seen him peak into the sixth. So that is converging.
0:00We talked a lot about Henderson earlier on. We've also seen rookie Eli Raritan, who was a shout out to me, I
0:00guess, just like one of my favorite players in the class, is getting more first team reps than Hunter Henry.
0:00I first thought this was like a classic nothing burger.
0:00He's an older player. They just extended him, actually, as well.
0:00Two years, 8 million per. But then I noticed that Henry's also getting reps with the twos.
0:00So it's not like they just weren't playing Henry much at all.
0:00And that's why Raritan was getting all these extra reps.
0:00They actually were playing both of them with the ones and the twos and rotating them on and off.
0:00So I thought that was pretty notable, how much work Raritan's getting continues to get great reviews.
0:00This is an interesting one. Omar Cooper has had a quieter camp, and Rich Cimini said he could potentially be leapfrogged by
0:00Isaiah Williams, who's their returner early on in the season.
0:00Who? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Brees Hall, in better news, I guess, or more fantasy-friendly news, Connor Hughes wrote that Brees Hall looks
0:00like they plan on featuring him more prominently as their lead back this season.
0:00After this summer last year, talk about a negative camp beat.
0:00It was all about how they were going to use this three-headed monster and constantly get Isaiah Davis and Braylon Allen involved.
0:00And then the Bills, Benjamin Solak, he was at camp.
0:00He was noting that they may throw more this year, even though the offensive coordinator is now the head coach.
0:00With Sean McDermott out, they might be able to throw more or might want to throw more, might throw more down the field.
0:00Specifically, they were talking up using DJ Moore in that intermediate and downfield role.
0:00And then Miami, a lot of the talk in Miami has been about rookie Caleb Douglas.
0:00He was their first of three drafted rookie receivers, was not really a guy that was, I would say, beloved in analytical circles.
0:00But he's been having a really strong camp, super athletic guy.
0:00And if you care at all about the unofficial depth charts, I tend to not.
0:00But I do take it as notable when a rookie is actually listed already as a starter immediately on the old unofficial camp depth chart.
0:00Caleb Douglas was listed as one of their starting receivers there.
0:00So that's the AFC East. Anything from there that you find notable or like the opposite of notable?
0:00And let's dive in. Well, yeah. I mean, it's us.
0:00So I'm going to wind up with a long conversation about Caleb Douglas with you.
0:00I'll say the thing that I don't find super notable.
0:00I mean, shout out to Ben Solak who does incredible work.
0:00But just, I mean, a note that the Bills could throw more based on a camp observation.
0:00The Moore downfield thing is pretty interesting. But I just, that's not the kind of, we often talk about this in the
0:00fantasy space in terms of how we want to apply different lessons.
0:00I don't think he's thinking of it as a fantasy lesson.
0:00I think it's easy to latch on to something like that.
0:01But in terms of like trying to actually project them to throw more, that's not really a thing that I would respond to.
0:01The camp observations. That could be very much, I mean, it could have been related to discussions he was having or whatever.
0:01But that's very much like what packages they're working on, all sorts of things like that.
0:01We do have, you know, a lot of actual hard evidence with Joe Brady calling plays the last few years.
0:01So anyway, it could be, there could be smoke there, but it's not the kind of camp report that I put a ton of weight on.
0:01We got to kind of, you know, be careful with the different things that we're actually waiting in the fantasy community.
0:01The Omar Cooper being leapfrogged by Isaiah Williams one is sort of just funny because Isaiah Williams is, like you said, a return man.
0:01Like I, I don't know if I'm really putting a lot of weight on that one either, but it's not great for Omar Cooper.
0:01I mean, what's interesting about Omar Cooper is all the other receivers in the later rounds right now, like around him are getting steamed up.
0:01Like DeJon Stribbling, like Pat Bryant's getting shot up.
0:01Denzel Boston. Denzel Boston. Trey Harris was there. I was just seeing a Harbaugh quote that like, he's right there with the other two.
0:01Lad McConkie and QJ. And obviously Cyrus Allen is, you know, going off.
0:01And all these young receivers late. There's a lot of options.
0:01So Omar Cooper being a first round pick who we already were like, hey, it's kind of weird how late this first round pick is going.
0:01Now he's like, does it sound as fun as like, you know, the other guys.
0:01So anyway, that's, he's a tricky one. But no, I want to, I mean, I, I want to talk about all these,
0:01but those are the ones I was less interested in.
0:01Caleb Douglas. Let's talk about him for a sec.
0:01You said that people didn't really like his profile.
0:01I want to ask about that. I'm not as in the weeds with the rookies as you, but I kind of liked
0:01him when I went through the, the prospect stuff.
0:01I knew that Chris Bell is it. The one that's coming off the ACL tear was, was a bigger favorite of their two third round picks.
0:01And then who's the fifth rounder? They, he's a smaller slot.
0:01Kevin, Kevin Coleman Jr. And he was a slot guy.
0:01And he actually had, he had some, some people who were pretty big fans of him.
0:01Um, people really liked him, but he's a different type of role.
0:01And people really like bell, but bells coming off in ACL.
0:01But Douglas is the one that got drafted the earliest.
0:01And I expected to see like a pretty bad profile.
0:01It's not great. He didn't earn a lot of like target volume, but it's a really high profile.
0:01He had over 1200 air yards, both of the last couple of years, like did have over 800 actual yards.
0:01The like yards per out run isn't fantastic, but this is also the kind of profile that.
0:01I mean, deep efficiency is the hardest thing to sustain and is going to be dependent on quarterback and those things.
0:01It's the kind of profile that can be a little bit masked by the offense he was in, in college and those things.
0:01It's not that he like didn't earn targets. Like he got a lot of volume.
0:01He did have deep production. He just didn't have as much as you'd like to see.
0:01But in terms of like a good fit for Malik Willis, who's probably going to be a lower passing volume guy, but
0:01a vertical passer when he does throw, he holds the ball really high sack rates, really high scramble rates, even back into college.
0:01We've talked about this with him. This is not going to be an interesting offense, but I don't know.
0:01I guess, I guess I didn't hate the profile.
0:01And if something ever did pop up in this offense, I guess I was thinking that it might've been a longer term
0:01rookie development thing in the second half of the year.
0:01What are you thinking about Douglas and what do you think about him as a prospect?
0:01Yeah. So I think that the first thing with Douglas is, you know, there was a lot of talk.
0:01We've talked about struggling before. There was a lot of talk about him going higher than anticipated.
0:01And he did, but like, I was definitely expecting him to get drafted.
0:01I wasn't even shocked that he got drafted on day two.
0:0133rd overall was certainly a surprise. Caleb Douglas was, I think not even just in fantasy circles, but like an NFL circles,
0:01a pretty shocking pick when it happened. For instance, JJ Zacharisen, I think has like everyone that's invited to the combine or
0:01has like a certain level of, I can't remember exactly the cutoffs he uses.
0:01So maybe I'm going to, I'm going to talk wrong, but he like wasn't even in the, the guide prior to the draft.
0:01Like it wasn't, he wasn't like on the radar.
0:01He was a guy that was in a lot of mock drafts, like not even in them or expected to go late day three.
0:01So it was a pretty big reach. Um, I can like, I'm happily will admit that like, this was not a guy
0:01that was on my radar until I saw his name got picked up by the dolphins.
0:01Um, and you know, that's not, that's not a deposit of anything.
0:01There's certainly guys that aren't on my radar that become good.
0:01I looked into the profile a little bit after the draft.
0:01I mean, it's not, it's not great. Like the, the peak yards per team bass attempt seasons, 1.83 on a per game
0:01basis that comes in the senior year. Um, pretty concerning to see like a four year player never get over two.
0:01It's not horrendous. Like there's not literally nothing on the profile, the, the junior and the senior season, both, you know, he's
0:01playing in a power five conference on a good team.
0:01And he is like a, a productive college player is I guess the way I would put it in the sense of
0:01like, it's not producing at the level that typically you would expect to see from an NFL stud, but he was like a real college player.
0:01Um, you know, so yeah, I wouldn't, wouldn't, I would be, I would be surprised if this is a guy who is
0:01someone we're ever excited to draft in like real rounds in fantasy.
0:01I would not be that surprised if in this specific situation where there's like no one on this receiver room at all, the veterans are really brutal profiles.
0:01The other rookies have question marks. One of them probably won't even play for half the season.
0:01Like this is totally a profile where they clearly liked this guy.
0:01They drafted him first out of the three rookies.
0:01He's got a lot of athletic juice. He's showing out in camp.
0:01Like wouldn't surprise me if he was kind of playable this year, especially in best ball formats and maybe, um, you know, how that translates beyond this year.
0:01I don't know, but I, I certainly added them into my best ball rankings.
0:01Like, and I've been clicking him as a 16, 17, 18th round pick.
0:01I mean, this is a spot where we've talked about before how bearish we are on, on how much anyone can really
0:01produce in the context of the dolphins offense, but at the cost of free, you know, even if the number one receiver
0:01on this offense gets 80 targets, like that's 80 targets.
0:01That's, that's pretty playable. Yeah. I'm thinking about it in the context of like Dante Thornton last year, which people were, you
0:01know, the guy people were drafting and yeah, his profile is better than that.
0:01I mean, yeah. Cause Dante Thornton didn't even play like he was like, and I, I'm a Tennessee fan.
0:01So I, I was pretty familiar with his work and like, he was like a rotational fourth receiver basically, um, for, for the Tennessee volunteers.
0:01Yeah. That's, I was going to say his, his career high was in his final season was 26 receptions.
0:01And he had, you know, 17 as a high prior to that.
0:01He had 65 total in college across four years.
0:01Um, like this is a different profile than that.
0:01You know, Caleb Thornton was basically running the role that like two, two at well ran for a couple of years with
0:01the Rams where he was like a guy that would run like 30 to 40% of the routes per game.
0:01And they would like scheme him up some deep shots, but like, he wasn't like a real part of the down to down process.
0:01Caleb Douglas was in college. You're saying for Thornton, or you're talking about last year.
0:01I'm saying in college, he basically had the role that two, two out with the Rams.
0:01Like he was a situational threat. Yeah. And then in the pros, it was like, Oh, he's going to play a lot.
0:01He's going to run a lot of routes. And so people were drafting him.
0:01I was like, this is not actually a player.
0:01And he had, you know, a pretty poor rookie season.
0:01And anyway, the Raiders draft weird people at the receiver position, like the Jack Bash pick, like all of it was very odd.
0:01They drafted three receivers. Anyway, Caleb Douglas, the pros on him, like six, three and a half, 206 pounds, four, three, nine,
0:0110, six broad, like a legit broad jump, a legit 40 yard dash with some actual size.
0:01And then, yeah, to the point about like the different, so that like, that's why I'm comparing him to Thornton is like, it's a deep threat.
0:01It's a really high a dot profile every year of his college career.
0:01As low as eight, I was like 12.8. He had early in his career.
0:01It was over 16 and a half, you know, I mean, super, super high.
0:01The first couple of years, he's just a, a low route, deep threat.
0:01And that was where at Florida. And then Caleb Douglas, and he transfers to Texas tech.
0:01Yeah. He has a little, did very little at Florida was much more involved to Texas tech for sure.
0:01Yeah. Just a pure deep threat. You can see the a dot shift.
0:01And then it's like, okay, he's actually getting some targets underneath, but yeah, he has over 90 targets both years.
0:01Um, I don't have his profile pulled right up, but it's not like, it's not like Thornton's where there's no receptions.
0:01Yeah. He had 54 catches last year, 60 the year prior.
0:01So over the two years in Texas, where he's playing a little bit of a different role, not just as pure deep
0:01threat role, like he was at Florida. He actually catches, I mean, not a massive number of balls, but you know, some,
0:01some passes, 114 catches, uh, receptions over the two years and 800 plus yards.
0:01Like I said, so anyway, to your point. So what you helped me there with the, uh, understanding that he was that
0:01far off the map that he wasn't even on the rookie guides and stuff though.
0:01I mean, that's, that's pretty interesting. Uh, the breeze hall one is super exciting to me when I was going through the
0:01projections, I guess I didn't realize how good breeze hall spent so far to, uh, this, the, thus far in his career.
0:01I do, um, know that his receiving has been, has been fading since early career stuff.
0:01And a big part of that was having Justin Fields last year.
0:01He only caught 36 passes last year, the two years prior, 76, 57.
0:01Uh, the, the big thing I was emphasizing in last year was that, you know, he had gone from 76 in 2023
0:01is his first big year down to 57 catches.
0:01And I wasn't even projecting 57 targets for 2025 in the fields offense.
0:01He winds up with 48 targets, uh, 36 catches.
0:01So, I mean, that was obviously an accurate projection.
0:01Having said that he had another 1400 yard season.
0:01And the thing I guess I didn't realize about breeze hall was so his rookie year, he only played seven games.
0:01We all know we had the big knee injury, the rookie season.
0:01He was having a great start to his rookie season.
0:01He had 681 yards from scrimmage in seven games, including the game he left for, you know, early to, to injury.
0:01So he's pacing for a ton there. I mean, almost a hundred yards per game, but in the three years since he's
0:01been over 1350 yards, all three years as well.
0:01I mean, breeze hall on a per game basis so far in his career in 56 games, he has over 5,000 scrimmage yards.
0:01He's close to a hundred scrimmage yards per game, whatever that is, 85 or 90 or something.
0:01It's a, it's a high number for a guy who's been in such a bad offense.
0:01The other side of it that I didn't really realize he has not had a season with more than five rushing TDs.
0:01We know the jets offense is terrible, but like the bad offenses also negate the ability to have 1350 yard seasons, right?
0:01So he's had over 1350 yards, three years in a row with the jets thing.
0:01And he's played like banged up at times. He's been able to produce despite that, put up a ton of yardage despite that.
0:01And yet he has not been able to score really any touchdowns.
0:01He's given up some of the goal line work at times, but man, five TDs.
0:01Mac max in terms of rushing touchdowns. Now he's had multiple seasons with three and four receiving TDs where he's chipped in more receiving touchdowns volume.
0:01So that second and third season, he had nine and eight total touchdowns.
0:01It was still a small number, but you know, it's better.
0:01Last year, he only had five TDs on over 1400 yards.
0:01That just, that, that can't sustain to me. So anyway, I'm getting more and more excited about hall.
0:01Where are you at with hall? Um, I wrote him up pretty favorably.
0:01I think I have him ranked among running backs, like exactly where he goes among running backs.
0:01But I, I do view a massive tear break after him.
0:01Like he is, he's to me clearly the last running back before we enter the dead zone.
0:01And I think he's on the draftable side of it.
0:01Um, he's a guy where like, if, if I start, you know, let's, let's say you start with a receiver, like you're
0:01drafting in that three or four spot. You start with a Jamar chase or Pukunikua.
0:01You come back in round two, you take Brock Bowers or Trey McBride, perhaps like that would be a plan that I'm
0:01really excited about is then getting breezes my RB one in that scenario.
0:01Um, he's probably also like the last running back where if I start with one running back through two, um, I'm pumped
0:01to take him as my RB two. Whereas if he's off the board, I'm probably saying, no, I'm going to punt RB two for a little bit.
0:01Um, I wrote him up favorably. I like him this year.
0:01I'll note that he, uh, there was like a lot of discussion last year.
0:01About his poor efficiency metrics in 2024. Um, I was really bullish on, on especially the talent aspect of hall going into
0:01last year, just saying like, you know, this is a guy who was a, a absolutely fantastic prospect, um, who was elite
0:01on a advanced metric basis in his rookie season.
0:01The same in his second season, right after he, after that, after he got a little bit healthier and was doing that
0:01like on bad environments, bad teams while dealing with injury, partial rookie season, like we should be giving this guy a lot of grace for one bad year.
0:01Um, it would, it would have been really shocking to me if that was just who he is last year, playing again
0:01on one of the worst offense in the league.
0:01Uh, he was 10th among running backs, uh, in the NFL last year, miss tackles force per attempt, top five at explosive run rate.
0:01Um, and even had, as always had really, really strong receiving numbers across the board.
0:01He has strong receiving numbers every single year of his NFL career.
0:01So I think this is like one of the better, I think it's one of the better talent profiles in the NFL, the running back position.
0:01And I think a pretty underrated one. I don't think people like in league circles, even like when you see those like
0:01anonymous polls and stuff, um, you know, the executive polls, they never seem to rate breeze hall as highly as like, I think it should be thought of.
0:01It seemed last year to me that Aaron Glenn at times, uh, didn't seem to like have a full understanding of, of
0:01how good he was, uh, especially in the off season, the way that they talked about him.
0:01So I don't know. I'm, I'm pretty optimistic that they paid him, that they had the confidence, you know, to bring him
0:01back, make him a big part of their plans.
0:01They're talking about him more favorably this year. Yeah.
0:01I think he's, he's very, a very strong pick.
0:01When you said the last of a tier, do you have love ahead of him?
0:01I do. I have love. I'm hearing in some of the like seasonal, a lot ahead of him.
0:01Um, for hall. Um, I actually got that question from a subscriber like two hours ago.
0:01Um, and it was one that was percolating, um, because I, yeah, love, love.
0:01I do have higher. We actually had, we, we drafted the main event yesterday, uh, on ship chasing with Ron Stewart.
0:01And we had that exact call. So we started Bowers FFPC.
0:01So tight end premium for anyone. Um, who's not familiar.
0:01We start Bowers at the 104. We drafted, I think AJ Brown.
0:01And then we had that choice of hall versus love as our RB one.
0:01We went love. Um, and I think you prefer hall, right?
0:01I do. Yeah, I have hall. Well, so, and I'm hearing from some of the like more seasonal sites and stuff from,
0:01from, you know, subscribers and people talking to me that love has been sliding in some of these places for people that do a lot of drafts.
0:01I'm curious kind of why he is. Um, but yeah, I heard from somebody just a little bit ago that was like,
0:01had a decision point where they had love at the three 10 and like hall was gone.
0:01And so I was kind of like, I think in some of the places hall starts sort of starting to flip him.
0:01Obviously I understand the underdog market is like very, one of the things with the underdog market, it's, I think it's the
0:01best ADP you can get most of the off season.
0:01Cause there's the most volume and all that stuff, but it also has a lot of the same people drafting when you
0:01get to this point in the, in the off season.
0:01There's a, an anchoring effect on underdog where everyone who's drafting there knows where everyone goes on underdog and people sometimes don't
0:01move very much, especially in these like micro changes, like within other people, it's like halls or loves ahead of hall.
0:01So love's got to stay ahead of hall, but there'll be more rapid movement.
0:01I think in places like FFPC and some of the, the, the redraft places that are, that are pretty sharp and are getting real volume now.
0:01So my opinion would be that, you know, you maybe could get some 80 better ADP, um, movement data information from, from
0:01some of those places relative to the best ball landscape right now.
0:02Cause you're getting, I think a more robust wisdom of the crowds as well, more people into the, to the atmosphere and
0:02into the marketplace that aren't, you know, strictly best ball players, et cetera.
0:02But, um, anyway, I, I'm curious about the hall love thing and how that's going to play out.
0:02I agree with you that that's the end of like the start of the, of the running back dead zone.
0:02I, I feel like love is going to potentially wind up being the last one.
0:02I do have hall ahead of love right now.
0:02Personally. I also have hall ahead of, uh, multiple other running backs that go ahead of him that I am sort of fading.
0:02I don't have them behind the dead zone, but, um, yeah, I think Bruce all's a target.
0:02I think he's a, a good target. I have an RB 10.
0:02Like, I think he's, uh, I I'm definitely more bullish on him than you in terms of, you know, you being into
0:02him, but saying you haven't ranked kind of where he goes.
0:02I have him higher than that. And I, I find I want wind up and find, I find myself winding up, uh,
0:02on the clock where hall is a real consideration.
0:02And I'm pretty into it, man. I'm pretty into it.
0:02I'm not like, I'm not like super excited about being in on the jets, but this is a team that has a
0:02lot more talent than past jets teams. I'm not, I'm not excited about Frank Reich.
0:02I got that from, uh, some subscribers, like telling me to pump the brakes on the jets.
0:02That's not the only thing that's relevant. Like the offensive coordinator does matter.
0:02The offense does matter, but it's not the, like it is not.
0:02And I understand the, like the ways that some of the stuff went in Carolina, for example, there was also some weird stuff.
0:02There were like the owner, David Tepper had to have weekly meetings with him and was like wanting to like give him
0:02ideas about, they had to do RPOs. And there was just like these weird reports that that was just not a fit.
0:02The Carolina stuff didn't go well, you know, right from the Colts years, I'm from the Colts years.
0:02I thought Reich was decent, decent enough, like capable of, of running an offense that was functional.
0:02Um, so I'm not like entirely out on an entirely, uh, an entire offense just because of, uh, an uninspiring offensive coordinator
0:02higher, even though like I have written this off season, like I think scheme is more important than ever.
0:02And a lot of these different things that it does, it does concern me.
0:02It absolutely concerns me, but the jets have the potential for a really good offensive line or an improved offensive line.
0:02They got really good young tackles that are both first round picks in the last few years.
0:02Um, they've added a lot of talent, obviously with, we talked about Omar Cooper, but just having Adonai Mitchell and Omar Cooper
0:02as like the number two and three. And even if Isaiah Williams is playing ahead of Cooper, you add Sadiq as well.
0:02Mason Taylor led this team in targets and, and receptions last year.
0:02Um, which I mean, Garrett Wilson played half the year and, and Adonai Mitchell played half the year.
0:02So that's part of the reason why, but Mason Taylor was effective.
0:02He had like 65 targets, 50 something catches, whatever it was, um, as a rookie.
0:02And then you add Sadiq, you can do some of the multi-tight and stuff.
0:02People have always liked Jeremy Rucker too. Like, I think this team's a little deeper than, than people realize.
0:02So I'm not like, it's not an offense that I want to like entirely avoid.
0:02I think it's, you have to be really confident that they're awful.
0:02Like they, they do have in look ahead lines, a bottom three point projection, but you got to be really confident.
0:02They're awful to be out on hall and Garrett Wilson.
0:02And I'm finding myself like relative to their talent.
0:02I think they're both really pretty, pretty clearly underpriced.
0:02And so I'm finding myself pretty in, um, Oh, good.
0:02Yeah. I mean, I share, I share your general positivity about the New York jets, which, uh, alarms me because I've, I've
0:02like gotten burned by this jets team. It feels like kind of since they drafted Garrett Wilson and Brees Hall, I've been
0:02more optimistic about the New York jets that I should have been.
0:02Um, and I'm trying to like, I'm trying to suppress that PTSD, um, to, to, to try to keep it open by this year.
0:02I do have both of them ranked ahead of ADP for what it's worth.
0:02So I think I'm suppressing it reasonably. Um, I agree with you more than I don't.
0:02If I was to point out the slight areas of devil's advocate of like, why I don't have hall, maybe quite as high as you do.
0:02It would be, um, one is Frank Reich, but more than Frank Reich, it's Aaron Glenn.
0:02And I understand he doesn't coach the offense or call the offense, but there's an element of like non-competitiveness that really irked
0:02me last year and how he approached the team where it's not even just about what plays are being called.
0:02It's like, there were games where they were behind by three touchdowns in the third quarter and they're punting on a fourth and two.
0:02And it's like, Oh, well then just go to the locker room then.
0:02Like if that's how you're going to approach this, because like, what are we, what are we doing here?
0:02You know, we're, we're trailing three by three touchdowns.
0:02And it seems like sometimes the goal last year was let's just lose respectably instead of let's like try to maximize our
0:02chances of scoring points and winning and developing. Um, and that's the kind of stuff where I don't know if that's OC dependent, right?
0:02Like that to me is like a head coach culture issue.
0:02Uh, and maybe it's fixable. Maybe this year he knows he's on the hot seat and so he'll be more willing to take big swings.
0:02I hope. Um, but that scares me when you have a losing team, like, um, as a contrary, and, and this is
0:02like, I think a point in love's favor is Michael LeFleur.
0:02Um, when he was OC for the jets, obviously we've never seen him as a head coach.
0:02He was a guy where in the weeks, especially that they had Joe Flacco and, uh, Mike white.
0:02And it was like Josh Johnson played a little bit.
0:02They had, I think in those two years, I had the stat in my article.
0:02I don't have it in front of me right now.
0:02I want to say it was 13 combined games that Flacco or white or Johnson played.
0:02And they averaged like 43 pass attempts in those games.
0:02They lost almost all of them, but they were losing very competitively.
0:02They were like, we're going to go down with a fight here and we're going to throw, and we're going to try to be aggressive.
0:02That we're going to throw the backs a lot.
0:02Like we're going to do the things that teams do in comeback mode.
0:02That encourages me from a fantasy perspective. If you're betting on a team that Vegas expects to be bad, like, are we
0:02going to get garbage time production or are we going to get like one, two, three Cancun?
0:02And we ran 43 plays today. Um, and I went into the locker room.
0:02So that's, that's one thing that concerns me. And then I am encouraged by the additions that they've made in skill position talent.
0:02Um, I I've been making this argument all year that I think the jets have a far better environment, uh, in terms
0:02of their skill players, their offensive line than people think because of the name on the helmet.
0:02Um, but I do wonder if a little bit of that might curtail breeze halls receiving upside.
0:02I just made the case like five minutes ago.
0:02I think he's one of the best receiving backs in the NFL.
0:02So I think he's going to earn a lot of it himself, but we have never really seen him with anyone of
0:02note other than, uh, Garrett Wilson for a prolonged period of time.
0:02And so, you know, if they want to get Omar Cooper, Kenyon Sadiq involved in the offense, like those are yak specialist guys.
0:02Do they eat up some of the screen work and stuff that we've typically seen breeze hall?
0:02I could see that. Um, and we'll, we'll see whether they keep doing like the interchange of him and Braylon Allen at the goal line.
0:02It hasn't been as much of a positive off season for Braylon Allen as it has in past years.
0:02So maybe that's over with, but it's a lingering concern for me.
0:02The Aaron Glenn points are notable. I've written unfavorably about him as well.
0:02Uh, that's all, that's all fair. I was going to say, um, now I forgot what I was going to say, but who cares?
0:02We've talked way too long about the jets. Let's go to Travian Henderson.
0:02You haven't seen much improvement with his vision and patience, patience.
0:02Um, not great. I mean, not great to hear that.
0:02I do think it's Henderson's going to start slow.
0:02Stevenson's going to start as a lead back. That's the way the season ended.
0:02That's, what's gonna, um, going to be something that comes up early in, in the season.
0:02I was saying it to somebody. I can't remember who, but, um, there's going to be a lot of Ramondre Stevenson victory laps about week three.
0:02It's going to be a social media thing. If you're a big, uh, Travian Henderson backer, just stay off social media, uh, around.
0:02That's the reason why I've told dynasty managers, like, look, if you want to buy Travian Henderson, just buy him a week four.
0:02Like I think you're not going to like the first two weeks.
0:02I was, uh, doing some writing today and I ended up reading some stuff that I had written about Travian Henderson around
0:02week 15 last year, after he had a 30 point game coming out of their by, um, his stretch prior to that,
0:02when Stevenson was banged up, uh, for part of it, he went in PPR scoring here.
0:02He went 12.7 points, 28, 32.3, 11.1, 11.6, and then 30.1.
0:02That was a six week stretch. We had double figures every week.
0:02He had 28 plus three times. That's when he was hitting on all the long runs and everything.
0:02And then he got concussed early in week 16.
0:02Um, Oh, he did end up playing week 17.
0:02I think I wrote that he, he didn't play week 17.
0:02Uh, anyway, he ended up coming back week 17 and played a little week 18.
0:02By that point, Stevenson had really taken a handle on the backfield and was playing really well.
0:02And, um, but I think I had talked elsewhere that Stevenson hadn't done much up to that point.
0:02It doesn't matter. The point, this is all, you know, very descriptive of what happened in 2025.
0:02And it's sort of rehashing. My point is just that there was a period in time when Henderson was productive last year,
0:02even though it doesn't feel like it, there was, there was a point in time when the team was prioritizing Henderson touches,
0:02even though he couldn't pass block, even though he had issues with vision, all of that stuff.
0:02They were prioritizing him. He wasn't playing more snaps in Stevenson, but he was getting more touches.
0:02His rate of touches per snap was meaningfully higher during this stretch.
0:02I'm not saying that's where we're at now because Stevenson took over that last month of the regular season.
0:02And then the whole post season by a mile.
0:02Having said that week one of 2026 is not going to be the same as week 17 of 2026.
0:02And I think this is a backfield that could evolve throughout the season.
0:02Trayvon Henderson, still a very good prospect. He, or he was a very good prospect with real draft capital that had, you
0:02know, breakaway speed and breakaway big play ability as one of his big selling points.
0:02And he was the only running back in the league who had four carries of 50 plus yards last year.
0:02He showed that as a rookie, in addition to all of his mistakes, they're not going away from him.
0:02They don't have an RB three presence. I'm not in on Trayvon.
0:02I continue to move him down, but this idea that like he can't get better or he can't improve is, is too ingrained right now.
0:02I think in the market, I think there's plenty of room for him to, to grow basically.
0:02He's, he's expensive though. Like the market is making that like a challenging bet.
0:02Yeah. This can be pretty short because I think I have like a 99.9% agreement rate with kind of exactly, how you viewed it.
0:02Like not just the end conclusion, but really the, the way you laid it out.
0:02And yeah, Henderson has been a guy that I felt that the sentiment on has been too negative, but that the price unfortunately has not matched the sentiment.
0:02So it's like, I get this really negative discourse online about him.
0:02And then I see that I'm like, great. I can't wait to draft against that negativity, against that certainty.
0:02And then often you go and look at the price tag and it's like, wait, the guy that everyone's making fun of
0:02for being a backup is not price. The backup, well, that's annoying.
0:02Like if you're going to, if you're going to be annoying on social media all day, I should at least be able
0:02to draft this guy in round seven. But you can't, but you can get a more at the end around five, early
0:02round six now, which I think is a positive.
0:02We're seeing that Titan. So I agree, especially if we can get like preseason usage, that's bearish for him.
0:02I would like to get opportunities to legitimately buy low on him.
0:02I, I still have some optimism there. Um, anyone else that you want to get in on the AFC East, uh, before we move on?
0:02Yeah. Well, I was going to, I was going to have you move on here in a quick sec.
0:02The, the whole thing that I remembered, I was going to say is you were talking about how they weren't competitive last year.
0:02And I was just kind of reiterating. He still had a 1400 yard season in that environment.
0:02There is. So it's that point of like anchoring, to expectation that they're a bottom three environment.
0:02Like they can't get much worse than what is already priced in.
0:02They can't get much worse than they were last year.
0:02He had a 1400 yard season. Like what does Brees Hall look like in an offense to your point about like, it could hurt his passing game.
0:02If Omar Cooper or Ken and Sadiq are contributors, those guys are contributors.
0:02The offense is probably better though. Like, you know, it's probably helpful for him as a runner and some different things.
0:02What does Brees Hall look like in a more functional jets offense?
0:02That's something we have not seen. And he's still been this productive in these non-competitive jets teams.
0:02And then the other one you had mentioned just was the Raird and thing.
0:02I just like, I you're, you love Raird and deserve a lot of credit for, for being early on that and right on that.
0:02And I agree with you that this is all very bullish for Raird.
0:02And I would caution anyone. And I don't think you were saying this, but caution anyone from thinking that Hunter Henry is going to go away.
0:02Hunter Henry is going to be 32. They did just pay him, but also I would emphasize that he had 87 targets
0:02last year was second on the team in all major receiving categories behind digs by a lot.
0:02Like no one else was even really close to him the year prior before they had digs.
0:02He led the team in all major receiving categories.
0:02He had 97 targets. He's been like Drake may his favorite target for two years now.
0:02Like Drake may actually, and Hunter Henry, I'm a kind of a proponent of this like QB receiver thing.
0:02Like I think Jacoby Brissett and Michael Wilson have a thing going on, for example.
0:02And it's like making it hard for me to understand what to do with Michael Wilson.
0:02And I genuinely think when you have, especially when you have a young quarterback like may that, that there is a little bit of a connection there.
0:02So I think Raird and like playing with the ones is interesting.
0:02I, I, I pretty much don't buy at all that.
0:02There's any path to him passing him. I think they're trying to get Raird in that work.
0:02Cause Henry's already like a known known. The fact that Henry's getting additional reps with the twos is like, okay, we got,
0:02we want to get him work to some degree, but like the idea that this rotation means that Hunter Henry is not
0:02going to be the starting tight end, which I, again, I don't think you were saying, I think it speaks favorably about
0:02Raird and still, I just want to emphasize, but I just think that's, would be bonkers.
0:02Would be bonkers. I'm, I mean, I think that the most likely outcome is that Hunter Henry runs back more or less
0:02the same role he had last year. And that Raird and essentially steps into last year's vacated Austin Hooper role, which is a real role.
0:02He actually played a decent amount. Wasn't really a fantasy viable role, but he was on the field a lot.
0:02Um, I'm not quite as certain like Hunter Henry is an older player.
0:02Um, bit of a frail blocker. Uh, I get to do my favorite thing and talk about tight end run blocking.
0:02Uh, one of the reasons I like Raird and a lot, why I thought he was underrated profile was that he had,
0:02um, strong yards per run his last season of college, really only the last season of college, because he tore his ACL
0:02twice in the seasons previous to that. Um, but less strong, um, overall production.
0:02And one of the reasons for that is that he was held into pass block, like over 30% of the time in
0:02this weird Notre Dame offense that continually asked him to do that.
0:02And yet he was able to win pass blocking assignments, like one-on-one versus Mansoor Delane, Ruben, Ruben Bain in the Miami game, other top edge rushers.
0:02Like this is a guy I think who honestly, this season could be a better blocking option than Hunter Henry.
0:02I do think that has potential to win him some snaps over Hunter Henry.
0:02I don't think it has potential to make Raritan an every week starter.
0:02I wouldn't be surprised if it made Hunter Henry, like if it hurt him a little bit, if the route rate went
0:02down from, I don't know what it was offhand last year, I would guess around 75 to 80%.
0:02Um, I wouldn't be shocked if it went into more 55, 60, um, wouldn't be shocked.
0:02Doesn't mean I think it's like the most likely outcome.
0:02Um, you know, the, the obvious corollary to this would be like the fan and Njoku.
0:02Um, I like Raritan. I don't think he's like the level of receiving threat that Harold Fannin is.
0:02I'm not expecting Hunter Henry to be, um, fully David Njoku.
0:02But, um, I don't know. I'm, I'll hold a little bit more of a candle out for it than, than maybe you will.
0:02I think Raritan is pretty legit player. No, I, I don't think you're wrong with the Raritan thing, but yeah, I just
0:02would emphasize they just gave him over $7 million in new money.
0:03Like this week. Uh, so yeah, that's it. I think he's, he's clearly, yeah, he's not going to go away.
0:03He's not going to like not play. Yeah. Um, all right.
0:03The NF or the AFC North. Um, we'll start with the bangles.
0:03Uh, Joe Goodberry, B reporter, uh, for the Cincinnati bangles was talking about how they plan to put even more on chase
0:03Brown's workload, how he's impressed them over the course of the year.
0:03They discussed how they're going to design more plays around him, uh, and use him everywhere.
0:03Like they do with Jamar chase. He also used the phrase, Hey, you're going to play 99% of the snaps kind of
0:03like imitating what the coaching staff has been saying to chase Brown this year.
0:03Um, so that's good. We would love him to play 99% of the snaps.
0:03Um, Steelers. Uh, this is probably, uh, you know, early point for Ben.
0:03We talked about this guy a couple of weeks ago.
0:03Um, Jeremy Bernard, uh, been working primarily with the second team and was apparently struggling with some playbook issues.
0:03That's per Ben Solak. Solak also noted that despite the switch and offensive coordinator, uh, he expected them based on his conversations
0:03while there, uh, to maintain more of a 12 personnel identity, to maintain a run heavy approach.
0:03He noted that, kind of exactly what you said, which is like, Hey, they're working on installs today.
0:03Maybe this is just like a randomly high, heavy personnel day.
0:03He said that he is cautious of that, but, uh, noted in other conversations, it felt like continued to support that conclusion.
0:03Um, Cleveland Browns reportedly to Sean Watson, um, is, is considered the favorite to start week one.
0:03Um, that was a wrap report report. I'll note, beat writer, Jack Jackson said that he and should have been similar in
0:03drills, but the Watson's been performing a bit better in the quote unquote, move the ball periods.
0:03Denzel Boston. We talked about last week, having a baller camp has already claimed the starting X receiver role and Casey Concepcion
0:03also seeing a ton of first team reps. Um, I don't have anything much new on Baltimore other than just Jacoby lane
0:03is like, I don't know, apparently Randy Moss. It seems like every single week, every single day, there's like two new camps
0:03of him, uh, skying into the air and, uh, making a ridiculous catch.
0:03Uh, so that's, that's the AFC North outlook. Anything strike you from there?
0:03Yeah. I mean, the chase Brown stuff, obviously the, all the rookie receiver stuff is interesting too, but the chase Brown stuff is fascinating.
0:03I moved them up a spot. I'm trying to figure out cause Kenneth Walker is getting a really positive buzz right now.
0:03I'm trying to figure out how high that to be on chase Brown.
0:03Um, I think that's where he belongs is right there with Kenneth Walker and their, they're good picks in sort of the one, two range to me.
0:03Brown's not the profile of all the other running backs that go around him.
0:03Like I was really high on Brown relative to the market, especially after his rookie year, when people were like, this is
0:03a day three back who barely touched the ball and all, uh, his, his rookie year.
0:03And I was like, no. And the big thing people said is that he couldn't do what he's done, which is be a workhorse.
0:03And I, I remember emphasizing that off season that actually he's a, he's an absolutely a workhorse from, from his time in Illinois.
0:03And like sending a tweet was like a screenshot of his game log and being like, look at how much volume this
0:03guy got at Illinois in the big 10, you know, against all these really good teams, uh, like basically carrying a bad
0:03big 10 offense against, you know, good defenses and cold weather in the Midwest.
0:03Um, and people were talking about chase Brown, like he's this lightweight third down back.
0:03And he's, he's proven to be able to hold up to a lot of different stuff.
0:03But again, he is a day three back. He's very fast.
0:03It's extremely, um, extremely fast. So I'm pretty in on him.
0:03The, the big thing about him after that, that rookie year was that he had a really fast time speed.
0:03I think it was the fastest ball carrier speed, but he only had like 30 touches.
0:03And it was like one reception where he got loose.
0:03And people were like, the only reason he's being drafted this high is because he got loose on this one play.
0:03And it was like, no, it's that. And the fact that he was a workhorse in college, like there's a real running back profile here.
0:03Um, so anyway, the fact that he could play that much, the fact that they're going to, it's going to be one
0:03of the more fun offenses to be in on.
0:03They're going to score points. They're also going to do it sort of the old fashioned way.
0:03They're not, I mean, they use tight ends. They use a lot of different tight ends, but they're not going to be one of these offenses.
0:03It's going to be highly rotational. Like, I actually think one of the things I wrote about in my piece today about,
0:03uh, sort of the 2026 meta is like, I think there's going to be some teams.
0:03We're not really ready for it. Probably as a community where like the third and fourth weapons are just not fantasy viable.
0:03The way that we talk about like the Broncos, cause they're doing too much rotational stuff and they, the routes aren't consolidated.
0:03And that's what we're going to see with these sub packages and things.
0:03There's going to be some teams that do different stuff.
0:03I don't know. I don't know exactly who those teams may be necessarily, but there are, you know, clear, clear risk factors or teams that, that are there.
0:03The Bengals are not one of those risky team.
0:03Like the Bengals are one of these offenses. When you draft the guy, you know what you're getting.
0:03Problem is there's basically three dudes to draft chase and Higgins and, and him, but I'm pretty, not a problem.
0:03I'd say that's a, that's a benefit is that there's three dudes to draft.
0:03And there's a bunch of other guys who are just on the field.
0:03I mean, to that point, uh, now I completely forget who this quote was from.
0:03It might've been good, Barry, but someone, one of the Bengals reporters or writers had, had talked to someone on the team
0:03and they were basically framing it as chase Brown has earned the right to be a guy that we make sure we
0:03have plays for, uh, in the practice, um, in, in the game plan every single week, like we do with Jamar, like
0:03we do with T where we say, this is a guy that we have featured plays for, that we want to get the ball into their hands.
0:03And that that's how they look at it in the course of a week is this kind of players, not plays approach.
0:03Um, yeah, it's exciting for Brown. I've moved him up, uh, steadily, kind of throughout the summer.
0:03Um, I have him, I have him above Barkley.
0:03Um, I, I think you have Barkley pretty far down your rankings, but I have him above Barkley.
0:03Now I have him above Hampton in best ball.
0:03I still prefer Hampton in redraft, but I'm questioning that.
0:03Um, I just flipped that talking to Siegel yesterday.
0:03I've been at the same. Yeah. I've been at the same thing.
0:03I have Walker seven Brown, eight Hampton, nine. I mentioned hall 10.
0:03I have Barkley at 11. So he's quite a ways down, like you said, from sort of where he goes, but, um,
0:03it's yeah, that Hampton Brown thing was something I labored on for like three days too.
0:03So I was just saying, I just made that for a while.
0:03I came to a conclusion and now I'm not even sure I believe in that conclusion.
0:03I also have breaking news. Uh, there's, you said there's preseason games right now.
0:03I just talked about how everybody was sitting around watching the Steelers and Jeremy Bernard sucks.
0:03Uh, the Steelers have had one drive so far in the preseason.
0:03He's got three catches, 45 yards. There you go.
0:03Jeremy Bernard. Now that's for Mason Rudolph, obviously working with the second team still, like you said, uh, the news and notes,
0:03you know, and Michael Pittman and DK Metcalf are not playing there.
0:03I think they're dealing with minor injuries, but, um, you know, he's supposedly in a battle with Roman Wilson, Roman Wilson's playing
0:03and he's just getting, getting mugged by Jeremy Bernard down.
0:03Yeah. Jeremy Bernard. That's, that's great for him. I, I, I have an issue with the full season ceiling.
0:03It's this one is one where I feel pretty confident about that whole point.
0:03I just made about like the Broncos and sub packages and routes, not consolidating.
0:03It's really hard for me to see a path for Bernard to get enough routes as a rookie to be fantasy relevant
0:03because he's got two clear veterans ahead of him.
0:03They're going to play in two receiver sets and you have Darnell Washington on this offense with Pat Fryer.
0:03If they're going to play 12 personnel, a decent amount, they're going to have two tight ends out there.
0:03And then they're going to have, there's basically no path to him playing in two receiver sets.
0:03He's a slot receiver, but he's also like, he's mugged by, by, by Metcalf and Pitt Pittman, right?
0:03Like the only way he plays is in 11 personnel.
0:03They're still going to run some 11 personnel, like obviously, but it's going to be tough for him.
0:03I think the route share is going to be tough for him.
0:03Yeah. No, no disagreement on he's never passing up Metcalf or Pittman barring injury.
0:03Um, I I've been, I've been more on the side of, they will run more 11 than, than what people think based on Mike McCafferty.
0:03McCarthy's history. Um, but growing, growing less confident in that based on some of the recent reporting and stuff.
0:03Um, I guess what I would say is that if Jeremy is really, really good, then I, I think that they can
0:03just like not play a ton of 12 personnel, like then they can get their best players on the field.
0:03Um, but I, I agree that that's not, not a given by any stretch.
0:03Um, I'm not really worried about him being behind Roman Wilson.
0:03Like if he's behind Roman Wilson, then he stinks, but like, then he stinks.
0:03Um, like I don't, Roman, are you buying the movable obstacle?
0:03Are you buying the Jacoby lane stuff? Uh, to a point, I mean, and, and certainly like, you know, he, to a point for sure.
0:03Um, he, he's been moving up my rankings. Like again, not a player.
0:03I like loved in the pre-draft process. Um, but there's some interesting elements there, like scored a, but a gazillion touchdowns in, uh, year two.
0:03So like a classic guy of like, uh, where the, some of the yards per team pass attempt stuff and the dominator
0:03stuff, like really diverge, um, based on which, which you lean on, uh, from year two.
0:03Um, and, you know, played against really strong teammate competition was, was against Zachari branch early in his college career.
0:03In addition to my Kyle lemon still was behind the Kyle lemon in later years, early to Claire guy.
0:03Um, some of the concerns with him is ability to separate.
0:03So like I do the, the targets per run versus uncontested targets per run.
0:03He was one of the guys that had the highest, like contested target rate and thus a pretty low uncontested targets per
0:03run, uh, probably correlated with this is like sub 10th percentile reception, perception marks against each of man's own and press.
0:03So I think there's a lot of red flags on his profile, but some of the zoomed out stuff is like kind of interesting and he's really cheap.
0:03Um, and there's no one outside of Zay flowers that is particularly ingrained as a high volume target earner.
0:03Um, are you a little bit dubious of like how seemingly every single wide receiver who thrives making spectacular catches is apparently the best player in preseason?
0:03No, I am. Yeah. Yeah. Everything you just said, I was like, well, lane's not a redraft candidate.
0:03I mean, I think you still think more than I do in terms of best ball and, and what you're describing could
0:03probably work in best ball, but there's just no world where I would draft what you just said and redraft.
0:03I just don't think that's going to be consistent enough in an offense.
0:03It's going to have a lot of competition for the secondary targets and everything.
0:03I mean, it's, it's Zay flowers. And then if he can't even separate in college and he has a high rate of
0:03uncontested, um, low rate of uncontested, like the, the, the big gap between the two, um, everything I heard about him in
0:03the off season and like the quotes from coach begin next and stuff was like, they basically wanted to use him as
0:03the D D Andre Hopkins role from last year, which is like, I remember there was one quote that was like Lamar
0:03Jackson loves a 50, 50, like ball winner. It's like, yeah, that's great.
0:03You'll have 40 targets and he'll win some balls and you'll score a few touchdowns.
0:03Like that's, he's not going to, he's not going to go for 85 targets or a hundred targets or it just doesn't
0:03seem that way based on everything you just said.
0:03Yeah. The profile. Wow. You, I mean, that was my prior on the most likely income.
0:03That's certainly what I think is the most likely outcome.
0:03Yeah. I, and then Denzel Boston, same deal. Like the, the quarterbacks last year couldn't get the balls of the receivers.
0:03Like one of the reasons I was like vaguely still defending like Jerry Judy, not really defending him, but like I, the
0:03Jerry Judy stuff is fascinating because people are confident.
0:03He's just going to go away and he still has, he still owed so much money.
0:03And he's 27. Like I just, they're just going to play the rookies and not play Jerry Judy.
0:03I don't know. That's going to be weird. Jerry Judy.
0:03I think they're going to play all three. Their tight end room is so thin after fan and like they, they should
0:03be near the top of the league in 11.
0:03Right. Jerry Judy's like targets brought was like 17%.
0:03I think it was a career low. It was also the highest for all wide receivers on the team because they literally
0:03couldn't get the ball down the field to the wide receivers last year in this offense.
0:03It was all like Dylan Samson had really high targets per out.
0:03Quentin John Judkins did Harold Fannin did. It was all the underneath weapons.
0:03They got all the, like a ton of volume.
0:03Uh, but like, uh, what's his face? Isaiah bond was, was even worse.
0:03And like when Tillman played, he was even worse.
0:03And like every other guy that they were playing point being Denzel Boston.
0:03Looks amazing. And can't, that's fantastic. I think he's really good.
0:03I'm a UW fan. I'm, I'm in, um, what he needs is a quarterback that can get him the ball vertically so
0:03he can go win in similar situations to what Lane just said.
0:03Maybe he can be a little bit better than that.
0:03Doesn't seem like he's going to get that. Right.
0:03So that seems like a struggle for him. I'd wait, way rather play conception where you get the underneath stuff and the more ball in hand stuff.
0:03I'm not out on Boston, but it's just like, um, yeah, I'm with you.
0:03The, the fact that all these like ball winners look great in camp makes sense.
0:03And that's not really what we want in the regular season.
0:03Right. I think that that's for a combination of reasons.
0:03Um, why this is the case. It's been the case before.
0:03Like remember, remember Brian Edwards was always a training camp all-star.
0:03Yeah. like I think there's a reason for this.
0:03It's one, it's just quarterbacks. I think are far more willing to throw 50, 50 balls in a training camp scenario.
0:03Like why wouldn't, you know, why wouldn't you be more willing to take, take some risks when the downside is not that high.
0:03And two, I think that, you know, we're not seeing the stat sheet every day.
0:03We're getting like reports from beat writers. And it's, I think it's highly plausible that in some of these practices, beat writers
0:03are obviously going to be more willing to be impressed by some spectacular catches than like some pretty routine, you know, guy
0:03caught a drag route and he ran for 70 yards afterwards.
0:03Guy caught a screen pass. Um, so when we're just getting kind of the impressions, we're getting the videos like, yeah, these
0:03flashier players, I think are, are going to be more in the news.
0:03Uh, Boston has a lot more substance on the profile than lane.
0:03And I'm not saying that you didn't say that he did.
0:03I think you've said before you like Boston a lot.
0:03Um, I, I think he in a vacuum, like if Denzel Boston was on the Ravens, I do think I'd be getting a lot more excited.
0:03Um, but Boston on the Browns, um, tougher sell.
0:03I moved him up. I think he might get chased up to where I I'm struggling to get in, but, um, I
0:03do think he has a decent, decent profile, um, beyond like purely being a ball winner.
0:03Um, the other part about camp with what you were saying is that they do a lot of one-on-ones.
0:03A lot of the video we see, there's no safety.
0:03Like the NFL defenses during the season are rolling a safety over the top of that route, but be reporters are like,
0:03Oh, I made a great play over a defender.
0:03It's like, yeah, he doesn't get to make that play over one defender in the NFL in the regular season.
0:03Like he has to make that play over two defenders.
0:03That's not how that works. Or, or that ball's never getting thrown because there's two defenders or it's not getting thrown to your point.
0:03Yeah. Let's go to the next one. We, we're on base for a four hour show.
0:03We've got the two divisions in an hour. All right.
0:03We'll pick up the face AFC South. Uh, so we'll start with the Colts.
0:03Um, you know, we got, we, we're going to have to get, get out.
0:03There's a brooder film, uh, because there may or may not have been a second shot.
0:03Alec Pierce. Uh, it was reported by James Boyd.
0:03That was, that was, that was a dad joke, man.
0:03Yeah. You're, you're going to be like, you're going to make some great dad jokes someday.
0:03I'm excited for you. Thanks. I was proud of that one.
0:03Um, all right. So Alec Pierce, uh, James Boyd, uh, reported also Adam Schefter said this, like on the Pat McAfee show,
0:03that Alec Pierce got a second PRP injection. I believe that's, it's either platelet rich plasma or plasma rich platelets.
0:03I think platelet rich plasma. The first one. Um, okay.
0:03He got, uh, that he got a second PRP shot in June that followed of course, the surgery in March and that
0:03the first PRP shot was in January. Um, it's now being reported by like literally Chris Ballard, who I have like so
0:03many questions about why Chris Ballard is coming out to the podium to make declarative statements, but he comes out, he says, no, no, this report is wrong.
0:03He didn't get a second shot. He also, for reasons that are nonsense to me, this is like, now we're just getting
0:03into like my grievances as a Colts fan, but he comes out and he's like, no, Alec Pierce is playing week one for sure.
0:04And I'm like, I'm not even saying that won't be true, but like, there's no way he can possibly know that that's
0:04true because Alec Pierce is currently not practicing and he's limping around at camp.
0:04So why you as a general manager would put this pressure on your player to be like, no, no, he'll be ready.
0:04I promise you he'll be ready. Cause he paid him a ton of money this off season.
0:04Yeah. It's like, to me, like it's, it's to me, not only like unreliable, it's actually just unfair to Alec Pierce.
0:04In my opinion, to put that level of pressure on him.
0:04Um, but whatever, uh, what is also really notable about all this reporting is like Schefter went on the McAfee show and
0:04he said, um, um, Oh, um, you know, there's nothing to worry about because the Colts wouldn't assign him to this contract
0:04probably if they didn't think he'd be ready for week one.
0:04And it's important to note the order of operations.
0:04So he got a first PRP shot in January.
0:04Um, the hope was that that treatment would mean he would not need surgery.
0:04He then gets signed to the contract. Now I'm doing some guessing, but I'm guessing his doctors had set up some sort
0:04of plan of, if you don't show enough process by X date, we're going to do the surgery.
0:04So you have enough time to be ready for week one.
0:04As long as the surgery goes well, he then gets the surgery after signing the contract after the PRP recovery did not go well.
0:04So that's like a nonsense narrative. Anyways, this is usually the part where I list things and I let you talk, but
0:04once we get into the Colts, I guess I decided I was just going to completely monopolize this, but you're, no, you're a Colts fan.
0:04Go for it. It's tough. They gave him 60 million fully guaranteed.
0:04I think 80, 80. I got it at 60 on, on my, okay, maybe 60.
0:04Um, anyways, all that said, basically Alec Pierce, uh, Chris Ballard has a lot of confidence.
0:04He's going to be out there in week one.
0:04I don't necessarily share this confidence, but he remains a pretty walking around very digitally at camp.
0:04There's people that are doing the, my favorite training camp bit when they take the photos of the calves, they try to
0:04measure whether what calf is, is smaller than the other calf.
0:04Uh, we're doing that. We're doing a calf watch with Alec Pierce.
0:04Anyways, that's all the Alec Pierce stuff. Uh, the rest of the FC South, um, now it's time for John Shipley chasing,
0:04uh, Chris Rodriguez, we mentioned the last show was getting, getting some goal line work.
0:04Uh, he's now reporting that it's a full on even split.
0:04Both Tootin and Rodriguez are making plays. They're both looking good, but that they're splitting wraps with the ones evenly, uh, as
0:04long along with LaQuint Allen playing in obvious passing downs.
0:04Uh, there was also a Cameron Wolf report that the Jaguars envision Brian Thomas in the Brandon cooks slash Sammy Watkins role.
0:04Um, and there's, uh, further reporting that Parker Washington is going to play in 12 and in 13 and be the primary receiver in all, all formations.
0:04Uh, we'll go to the Titans. I don't have much of the Titans.
0:04I'm not going to lie. Um, I don't know for sure if the Titans beat reporter industry is thriving, but I don't see a lot of the Titans.
0:04I, this is so, this is a total joke.
0:04uh, but one Bill Robinson, uh, he's been invited to stay at cam Ward's house.
0:04So that's, that's the most notable report I saw on the Titans.
0:04There's some other stuff like Nick Singleton looks good.
0:04Apparently. Um, but nothing much concrete. The, uh, last thing I'll, I'll notice on the Texas, uh, is, uh, Jaden Higgins continues to draw really strong camps.
0:04I know you've talked favorably about him and we touched on tank Dell a while ago.
0:04He has now been included in team drills for the first time three days ago.
0:04Um, it's positive update for tank Dell. It's a guy that I think any human being is rooting for.
0:04I remain pretty bearish on his fantasy outlook, but, um, big, big up update for, for Dell and him trying to battle his way back.
0:04Uh, thoughts on the AFC South rooting for Dell.
0:04Dell recently called him the worst pick in late.
0:04Like, I don't think he's draftable. I think it's pretty, pretty long road back still.
0:04Uh, but rooting for him, like you said, for sure.
0:04Wanda Robinson staying at camera words house, obviously the biggest news here, the Thomas and the cooks and Watkins role, I assume
0:04refers to what Brandon cooks and Sammy Watkins did in the Rams offense.
0:04Correct. Under Liam Cohen years ago, which that was a period of time where like Brandon cooks and Sammy Watkins were good in that role.
0:04But it was Cooper cup and Robert woods that were doing everything for that past game.
0:04Just for people who don't understand what that role means.
0:04That was the third role. That was the role that didn't matter as much.
0:04Like that was the other role. Uh, C rod and tunes, evenly splitting first team reps is, is, uh, been all over the place.
0:04I've definitely heard that one, but I want to go back to the, um, Colts, the Colts, your, your discussion.
0:04First of all, report on the, contract, 60 million fully guaranteed on the fifth day of next league year, 10 million more
0:04guaranteed on the fifth day of the league year.
0:04After that 14 mil more guaranteed, 84 million in total guarantee, 60 million fully guaranteed.
0:04Those other guarantees will total versus fully. Yeah. Right.
0:04But I mean, the first of that 10 is happening.
0:04He's not getting, yes, right. That's what I'm going to say.
0:04They're likely to hit. I was just going to say, you're more right than I am.
0:04As a Colts fan, those are going to hit the 10 million is going to hit.
0:04It's going to be 70. Maybe they get out of the 14 million after two years, but, um, still 70 million minimum care fully guaranteed.
0:04A lot of money for Alec Pierce to hopefully be able to walk.
0:04And Colts fans are loving it. Please, please don't put in the newspaper that I'm mad.
0:04Oh man. Also like, this is one where it's so interesting to me, which injuries, um, it's a real like frog in boiling water situation.
0:04You know, it's like Luther burden can, can, uh, tweak a groin and camp and be expected to be fine in a few weeks.
0:04And, uh, everyone like completely lost their mind for, for a day.
0:04Alec Pierce has been like highly questionable for week one, four months.
0:04And I think it took it to like yesterday for him to finally flip Josh Jones and ADP.
0:04Um, it's a wild one to me. Like it's been like, it's been a very open question of whether Alec Pierce will
0:04start the regular season on pop, but people are just hitting that button.
0:04Until like, like the last couple of days, which that's what I was telling you about the underdog anchoring, dude.
0:04Like the profile wasn't even good. When I did the, like the ETE show, we went through the projections like two months ago.
0:04I was like, this is, I mean, he caught 49 balls last year, guys.
0:04Like his eight out was so high that he needs a whole role change.
0:04Like my, my take at that time was he's not healthy yet enough to be practicing the different stuff that you want
0:04him to do to be able to draft him here.
0:04Cause he didn't, he didn't do enough last year, even though he was efficient as a deep target, he didn't do enough to justify where his ADP was.
0:04The contract is not everything, but that's where we're at right now with, with fantasy.
0:04That's where, I mean, I personally think Christian Watson is, is overdrafted too.
0:04I think that's where we're at with him too.
0:04He got the huge contract. Anyway, AFC South, not a ton there.
0:04Anything else for you in that division? This is like a last thing I'll note.
0:04I mean, look, take what you want. Cause the other receivers on the field, I think we're Ashton doing in Laquan Treadwell,
0:04but joint practice yesterday with the Patriots, Daniel Jones completed 12 passes in the full practice against the Patriots.
0:04Do you want to know how many of those 12 passes were to Josh Downs or Tyler Warren?
0:04Well, was Downs playing? Yeah, he's back. He's good.
0:04Oh, okay. He had the, he had the groin.
0:04That's great. Yeah. That's why I left him off.
0:04He, he, he tweaked his groin after we recorded.
0:04He came back before we recorded again. He's fine.
0:04I, uh, I see it now in the, in the writeup.
0:04That's I, I wish I wouldn't have. Cause that would have been, I know it would have been my guess.
0:04I think. Yeah. 11 of 11. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, there was one day where Josh Downs was not, uh, yet
0:04practicing and, uh, the Colts, uh, Twitter account posted a compilation of Laquan Treadwell catches.
0:04And like, that was like, I was looking up therapy offices.
0:04That, I was, that was a tough 24 hours.
0:04Dude, we're doing Treadwell bull posting in the big two six.
0:04Oh my God. Colts. We're going to get canceled.
0:04All right. Yeah. AFC West. Please trade for Kayshawn Booty, by the way, Chris Ballard.
0:04Like, I don't know why Keenan Allen is solving our Alec Pierce problem.
0:04He runs a four nine. Uh, uh, AFC West.
0:04We got Rashi rice. Uh, this is, this is what I would call a bearish beat report.
0:04Nate Taylor. I mean, great. Just random take as you're moving off the Colts, like Kayshawn Booty to the Colts is, I like it.
0:04Yeah. I mean, this has been the, cause all this Pierce Fudd is like everyone's saying they're going to sign Keenan Allen,
0:04which they probably will by the way. But I just, as a Colts fan, like nothing makes less sense than, well, the
0:04Colts might not have one of the best deep threats in the NFL ready.
0:04So they should sign a guy who might not run a 40 under five seconds.
0:04Like how is Keenan Allen solving this problem? Why are we so confident?
0:04It's confidence, but why are we so confident on August 13th?
0:04They're going to sign Keenan Allen. I'm not that confident.
0:04I'm like, I'm saying it wouldn't like, I just don't want to be like, they probably will.
0:04And like, I'm assuming that that means that like a lot of other people think that it's like a done deal.
0:04I've heard the room. Okay. Yeah. I, sorry. I'm, I guess I'm more saying this is like, I've been tweeting about how
0:04I don't think that they should sign Keenan Allen or specifically, like why that isn't not even as much that they shouldn't
0:04sign him, but why that, that isn't an actual solution to the Alec Pierce problem, like by any means.
0:04Um, and I don't want that to be conflated as me.
0:04Cause like some people think I have inside information on the Colts.
0:04I obviously don't. Um, but I don't want that to be conflated as me saying they won't sign Keenan Allen.
0:04Like they, they may or may not sign Keenan Allen.
0:04It, it makes sense. Like Steven Holder has been saying that he thinks it would make sense for a long time.
0:04I'm, I kind of doubt that he's just saying that as like a pure opinion.
0:04I feel like it's probably been discussed. They obviously have a needed receiver, even if Pierce was healthy.
0:04Like I just mentioned Laquan Treadwell. Um, so it wouldn't shock me, but I, I think that what they should look at
0:04is that booty, um, Darius Slayton, um, Cedric Tillman, apparently I just camp caught.
0:04I just Googled Keenan Allen Colts. I'm scrolling down.
0:04There's what people are saying, right? There's the, uh, the Reddit for Colt, the Colts, uh, whatever our, our, our Colts.
0:04There's, uh, Stephen Holder on X and there's Jacob Sanderson, fantasy football analyst.
0:04That's the three things that popped up. Oh, this would be a better fit for what we're lacking than Keenan Allen at Colts from Jacob Sanderson.
0:04I assume this is, uh, that was me quoting Tillman.
0:04Um, so that's, that's where I'm at as a Colts fan.
0:04I'm wish casting Cedric Tillman. Amazing. All right. Oh man.
0:04It's a tough scene. Anyway, uh, we're going to move on from the Colts.
0:04So in negative beat reporting news, Nate Taylor, uh, chiefs beat writer has said he thinks that asking for 900 yards would
0:04be too much from Rashi rice this year. Uh, and that there's a lot of, uh, a lot of shots of Rashi rice laboring around at camp.
0:04Uh, not looking great on the knee. Uh, so we'll, we'll revisit the Rashi rice discord.
0:04Um, speaking of ball winners who are balling out, but this time a guy that I think both of us have a
0:04lot of love for in our hearts. So, you know, we'll see how ideologically consistent we can be.
0:04Pat Bryant, um, is the talk of Broncos camp right now.
0:04Um, they did like a compilation of everyone on the Broncos, uh, saying how great he is from Pat Sertain to Sean Payton.
0:04Sean Payton was on with Kay Adams. They were like, Scott off the field.
0:04And Sean Payton said, we're not Kay. Uh, so thanks Sean Payton.
0:04I'd always reliable. He also was the one that got me to finally like in August convince you, like I didn't have him anywhere.
0:04I had been saying he was a bust off last year, but he kept talking about Evan Ingram so favorably that I
0:04was like, you didn't want to take Ingram. We took Ingram together on a main event team.
0:04So that was, uh, yeah. Sean Payton loves talking up.
0:04The least reliable narrator of all time. So on.
0:04But, uh, the, the Pat Bryant drumbeat is legitimately hard to ignore at this point.
0:04It's from all reporters. We're talking about constantly. Um, there's, there's been a discussion of whether he should be nicknamed, uh, Patty ice or PB 13.
0:04We'll get your thoughts on that. Um, and then, uh, Raiders camp.
0:04Um, uh, they're talking about an increased passing game role for Asha Jenti.
0:04That's, that's cool. And then the, the real news, um, which is like ghost of the state of the Raiders is that,
0:04uh, Malik Benson is apparently pulling ahead in the wide receiver three battle with Jack Bash at Dante Thornton.
0:04Um, so that's a good receiver room. And then, um, we got this report from the Los Angeles chargers.
0:04Which is, uh, direct from Mike McDaniel. He said, bad news, fantasy owners.
0:04Good news is I see all three of these guys referring to, of course, the Marion Hampton Keaton missile and Kamani Vidal producing at a very high level.
0:04The bad news is I can't tell you which games those will be.
0:04Um, so thoughts on anything from the AFC West.
0:04I'm not that concerned about the chargers quote, the way I wrote it up in my off season stealing signals thing was
0:04what that I thought that they would have intent to use Kamani Vidal.
0:04And as the season worked out, they would just not find enough work for him.
0:04I felt that he would likely get some situational usage.
0:04And then I thought I, I wrote it as like, this will be a legitimate like limitation to Mario and Hampton.
0:04Who's already going to get a little bit limited by Keaton in the regular flow of games.
0:04But I think Vidal will wind up being their garbage time back.
0:04Like if they win games by double digits, he'll get all the carries in the fourth quarter.
0:04Cause there'll be like, we want to get it work, you know?
0:04And so I still projected him for like 70 carries or something.
0:04I think he's going to have games where he gets eight, 10 carries in the fourth quarter of a game, but I do.
0:04And I think early in the year, they're going to use him.
0:04I think as things progress, presuming that Amari and Hampton is as good as he looked last year, he was meaningfully better.
0:04And all the peripherals and Vidal in the same offense.
0:04And if it all had a good year, but Hampton was better.
0:04Um, and assuming that he is what we think he is as a first round talent and assuming that Keaton Mitchell stays healthy.
0:04And I think they have a real plan for Keaton Mitchell.
0:04I just don't think you find enough snaps to rotate the third guy in when he's come on in Vidal as good
0:04as I, I was really into him as a prospect.
0:04I think he's good. When I say like that, like in a derogatory term about him, it's just like, he's not that dynamic.
0:04He's a bowling ball. He's a good runner. They may use him as like a goal line back, which would be frustrating for the other guys.
0:04I think they'll use them in like very obvious pass pro reps.
0:04He, he was good in that area last year.
0:04That was the other, I think like, I think like third and 10, I just wrote about like some, some situational stuff with running back today.
0:04I think that'll be like an area, but not like it's not as a, as a receiving back with intent.
0:04You know, I think that'll go to Hampton and, and to Mitchell, but the, like the very obvious pass pro, that's the other thing.
0:04A pass or two in that. Yeah. Yeah. That was the other thing I wrote about was like, he'll, he'll play some
0:04on obvious pass downs, maybe the long down and distance stuff.
0:04And then garbage time rushes like that. And then, yeah, he'll get some like other carries, but like, as the season progresses,
0:04assuming anything about the Omari and Hampton and Kate Mitchell upside thesis, theses are correct.
0:04They will separate from Kamani Vidal. They just will, like, that's what those players are.
0:04This idea that like McDaniel is saying in camp, I see all three of those guys producing at a very high level is one of those things.
0:04It's like, yeah, sometimes they tell us numbers or they tell us usage and they don't really like their, their coaches.
0:04Like they, I, what I, what I, what I actually take from this is that's favorable is Mike McDaniel is saying he
0:04does have a lot of intent to, to run this offense through the running backs, which has been my read all off season, frankly.
0:04I mean, that's confirmation bias, obviously, but the way I wrote it up is like, I don't love Ladd McConkie at his price.
0:04I don't love Quentin Johnson at his either. And I love this offense.
0:04So I don't love that. I'm not in on the two most expensive receiving weapons.
0:04I've been trying to play Trey Harris where I can.
0:04Obviously we had the long discussion about a Ronda Gadsden.
0:04We heard a lot of feedback on, um, I think the running backs are really meaningful.
0:04It's a part of why I'm playing Justin Herbert is I think the, running backs are going to be really utilized in the passing game.
0:04You go to the Mike McDaniel trends, 113 plus running back targets, all four years in Miami, the, uh, chargers had like
0:04133 combined the last two years, like under Greg Roman, they've not been throwing to the backs.
0:04Mike McDaniel has always thrown to the backs. They had, there was talk to soft season about, you know, Justin Herbert's footwork
0:04and working on his footwork to work on the quick passing game.
0:04They're going to do the quick passing stuff, man.
0:04They're going to, the stuff with Keaton Mitchell running the vertical routes.
0:05I just talked about this on the stealing bananas, but this, this happens a lot these days where teams split the running back out wide.
0:05Defenses often respond by sending a linebacker out there.
0:05And then they sent them on a go route.
0:05That's where Ramondre Stevenson got his huge receiving efficiency.
0:05Last year was on multiple go routes where he's just lined up outside because defense is matched by putting a linebacker out there.
0:05So they could keep a cornerback on the inside, on the wide receivers.
0:05If you have Keaton Mitchell out there, you can't put a linebacker out there.
0:05He's one of the fastest time players in the league.
0:05He's going to just blow your linebacker off, off the field.
0:05So you have to put a cornerback out there, which means the interior wide receivers now become, they're going to be like
0:05running zone and stuff on the interior, but it is, it's, it's a problem.
0:05Like if you can use Keaton Mitchell as a guy who's actually stretching the field with his speed and you have to
0:05put real speed out there or put a safety over the top, it creates room underneath for Ladd McConkie, for Quinton Johnston, for these other guys.
0:05I do see that as bullish for those guys, for sure.
0:05I think defenses are going to have to play them with more defensive backs because Mike McDaniel is going to create these kinds of conflicts.
0:05And then they're going to be able to get back into positive run situations against lighter defenses.
0:05That's going to create space because those guys get blocked off the field by, you know, Charlie Kolar and all these guys that everyone loves.
0:05Like they're going to, and then suddenly Keaton Mitchell is going to be in a second level and you're not going to have an angle on him.
0:05Even though you have DBs on the field, like you're not, you know what I mean?
0:05And I think the same thing is going to be true for Amari and Hampton.
0:05I'm taking both of them aggressively. I think they're going to be the centerpieces of the offense.
0:05I think they're going to score a lot of touchdowns.
0:05One of the things with Mike McDaniel's quick game is that Devon HN caught a lot of TDs the last few years.
0:05And I think, you know, Herbert's going to throw TDs to other guys too.
0:05They're going to use Quinton Johnston's athleticism in there.
0:05He's always caught a lot of touchdowns. I do think the receiving, the vertical receiving stuff for the receivers and the tight
0:05ends is going to be a little bit unconcentrated.
0:05That's my concern with like where the relative ADPs are for the higher up guys.
0:05And I've come around to the idea that I think loud McConkie is just pretty significantly overpriced.
0:05Like he, the bet on him is that he would consolidate.
0:05Maybe he still will. It's a tricky bet, man.
0:05It's a really tricky bet at his cost. I don't see what the difference is between him and like Parker Washington.
0:05Who's the, the meaningful bet in a, in another good offense.
0:05That's on, on consolidated and those kinds of things.
0:05So anyway, I think that's a, a fascinating quote about the, using the three different backs.
0:05I do think it's evidence that Mike McDaniel intends to utilize the backs, right?
0:05Like that, that is a positive signal there. Where in addition to the obvious sort of negative implication of, of more of
0:05a committee, but I, I, I mean, I was already considering it as a, at least a two back committee.
0:05Like I just, the pie here for the running backs could be so big.
0:05That's the emphasis I'm trying to, trying to draw.
0:05I see it very similarly. Um, and I, I, yeah, I, I am definitely in agreement with it.
0:05This quote, which kind of seems bearish is like a little bit under the radar bullish.
0:05I mean, Mike McDaniels bullish about everybody too. And to be clear, he talks glowingly about his receivers and stuff as well,
0:05but I do read into it, even if it is confirmation bias to an extent that he's, you know, he's talking about
0:05how he has big plans for the running back room.
0:05And I do think that like the fantasy valuable touches are going to flow through, uh, Hampton and through Mitchell.
0:05And I mean, more confident, obviously that a lot of them flow through Hampton than Mitchell.
0:05Um, but I, I'm intrigued by both. And yeah, I agree.
0:05Like if you're, if you're Mike McDaniel and you're designing all of these dynamic touch opportunities for running backs, scheming them into
0:05space, the way that he does better than anyone else in the league.
0:05Like you're going to want to get dynamic players involved.
0:05That's Hampton. That's Mitchell. I believe that they like Kavani Vidal.
0:05They should like Kavani Vidal. He did a lot for them last year when they were in a tough spot with both
0:05of their two running backs going down. And he stepped up and shouldered the load quite confidently for six weeks, you know?
0:05Um, and yeah, if I was a coaching staff, like I'd want to talk up that player, right.
0:05To keep his head up. And I'm sure, you know, injuries happen.
0:05So he might have a big role at some point in the year.
0:05I agree that that doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to be a, a point of emphasis in the weekly game plan
0:05about how do we scheme the ball into this guy's hands?
0:05So, um, cause they have to make Keith Mitchell.
0:05They have to make Keith Mitchell a point of emphasis, like schematically.
0:05I just, I just strongly think that they brought in this guy with this type of speed.
0:05It's a dynamic element. And if you're doing that, then Vidal is really cutting into Hampton who to everything you just said
0:05about Vidal, they feel the same way about Hampton.
0:05They drafted him in the first round. That's a guy that want to keep his head up and everything.
0:05They're going to play him 60% of the snaps.
0:05They're not going to let him get down to 40% and like really cut in.
0:05Not unless he's bad, but we have no reason to think he's bad.
0:05So yeah, I, I agree. He was, it's important that you emphasize like Hampton's metrics.
0:05You've already said this, but Hampton's metrics were better last year than Vidal's.
0:05Even while Hampton was struggling with injury for parts of the season, even though it was his first season.
0:05Um, I think that that's really important to emphasize that even in a year that was uneven at times for Hampton, where
0:05he started the year a little slow, finished the year a little slow because he was dealing with injury.
0:05Still on the whole, the upside that he was able to flash in the periods of the season, what he was at full health and he was thriving.
0:05The aggregate of his season was still better than Vidal's in a season that, you know, for grading on a curve, he
0:05gets an a, but in the NFL, we're not grading on a curve and Hampton proved to be the more dynamic player.
0:05Mitchell's a really dynamic player. I love the point that you made about the, um, getting the linebackers off the field and
0:05how that's going to open everything up. I'm playing the charges pretty similarly to how, to how you are.
0:05Um, and yeah, with that, like with the receivers, um, I didn't put this in the, in the quote, but like Trey
0:05Harris has got nothing but positive buzz. They're talking about how he's right up there with QJ and lad McConkie.
0:05Um, I think if you're wanting to play the, the charges receivers, like that to me is the, is the way to do it.
0:05Easy. Um, because the opportunity cost is nothing. And I think that the prospect profile is really legitimately interesting with Trey Harris.
0:05I think he has real upside and yeah, well, it's, it's tough to pay the premium right now for McConkie and for
0:05Johnston, even though, well, I don't, I honestly really struggle to see the upside case for Quinton Johnston at his cost, but
0:05I really do see the upside case for loud McConkie.
0:05I just don't feel like it's particularly well calibrated.
0:05Yeah. Agreed. I mean, last year he was basically on a yards per game.
0:05I was looking at some just, I mean, yards per game is a very base level stat, whatever, but he was basically
0:05on the same level as Marvin Harrison, who we've all decided like can never produce again.
0:05And it's like, yeah, I mean, McConkie had the better rookie season for sure.
0:05They're both third year guys. Harrison had the better, much better prospect profile coming out.
0:05The huge, way bigger draft capital. And like Harrison's going way later.
0:05And I'm not necessarily even on Harrison at that point.
0:05Like we're really buying into a year three breakout rebound for Lad McConkie as a community where he's going.
0:05And I understand like this idea of like, you want to be in on the offense, but to your point about Trey
0:05Harris, like if everything I just said about the running backs being really centrally heavy to this offense, and then like the
0:05wide receivers and tight ends are on concentrated. If it plays out that way, and you've, you've taken a lot of Trey Harris, you're in a tough spot.
0:05Like you're not getting points off of that, but it's a, it's a small miss in the late rounds.
0:05If you've done that with Lad McConkie, you're screwed.
0:05If it plays out separately, like in a way that actually produces wide receiver scoring, more wide receiver scoring than I'm letting
0:05on, you can still win with the Trey Harris cheat pick because his profile is legitimately very good.
0:05And he may actually leap both of those guys.
0:05I don't think people understand like the possibility for that is actually there.
0:05If you're taking Lad McConkie where he's going, you have to have multiple things.
0:05The uncertainty in the offense, it has to work in a way that is favorable, is concentrated, is favorable for these players,
0:05which is something that Mike McDaniel did in Miami.
0:05He concentrated more volume when he had less skill position depth, but you also, you have to have that, you have to have it work in that way.
0:05And it's very favorable. And you have to have McConkie be the one who is the guy consolidates.
0:05And it's not even necessarily clear that he's the clear head and shoulders ahead of everybody.
0:05So it's just, it's tricky. It's a, it's a tricky bet, man.
0:05It's, it is a tricky bet. And I've been getting more and more bullish on, on Trey.
0:05I, you know, this is the long view podcast.
0:05If you want to take the long view on this a little bit, like this is a guy who coming out had
0:05put up like truly hilarious stats, um, at Ole Miss yet, I think 5.12 yards per route run.
0:05It's a, one of the most insane sort of partial season stuff that you can imagine, you know, that's really encouraging.
0:05One of the things that people would bring up about Trey, it's impossible to even know what to think of this guy.
0:05Cause he's playing from this gimmicky offense and how is this going to translate?
0:05So like, we're talking about a guy with a lot of raw talent who came from his college career was he started
0:05at Florida, no, Louisiana tech, sort of Louisiana tech, um, which obviously is, is a tough level to translate from comes up,
0:05eventually plays at Ole Miss in this really bizarre offense, shows a ton of raw ability, difficult profile to translate to the NFL game.
0:05Then lands on a team that has serious playoff aspirations that has lad McConkie, Quinton Johnson, Keenan Allen ahead of them.
0:05Like, what can you realistically expect in a rookie season from that profile?
0:05You know, I think that, yeah, like maybe if he is a superstar, you come in right away.
0:05I just think that he has a lot of very valid excuses for having had a slow start to his rookie year.
0:05He was still a player that the coaching staff found ways to get on the field.
0:05They were playing him in like run blocking situations.
0:05He ran 294 rounds towards the end of the year.
0:05Yeah. So I, I think his rookie, like, I think he's a legitimately high upside prospect who I think has seen a
0:05lot more disfavorably now than when he came out in a way that I think is a little bit unfair, um, to
0:05what we would expect from a player who should have needed a bit of an adjustment period to the National Football League
0:05and was dropped in a spot where he wasn't going to be a guy that they were going to scheme a bunch of production to.
0:05You know, this was not a developmental team that he jumped on and it was not a particularly, um, light wide receiver
0:05room that he jumped onto where he could have an opportunity to just start right away and get first read targets right away.
0:05So, you know, when I hear that how encouraged they are and a new offensive coaching staff is by him, like that makes me pretty encouraged.
0:05Um, especially with two guys that I do think are a little bit fragile and more fragile than their, their price indicates.
0:05And, you know, we talked about it for an hour last week, but like all of this, a Rondé Gadsden, Charlie Kohler
0:05stuff, like to, to me, the, the player that is most inversely correlated with a Rondé Gadsden in the offense is Trey Harris, not Charlie Kohler.
0:05Like if a Rondé Gadsden is a guy who is disfavored, we talked about this last week.
0:05That is just because that appears to be the case right now does not mean that that's going to be the case all season long.
0:05But if you are taking the Rondé Gadsden FUD seriously, I think that the obvious corollary to that is they play more
0:05receivers, fewer tight ends, more opportunities for Harris, um, you know, running routes against Charlie Kohler versus being subbed off the field
0:05to get Gadsden on the field, a bunch of multi-tight end sets.
0:05I think that makes a lot of sense. I hadn't really considered that people were knocking Harris a lot for the rookie
0:05year, but he ran almost 300 routes. One of the interesting things about him, the three games Quentin Johnson missed last year, he played 14 games.
0:05Harris ran by PFS numbers, at least 82% routes.
0:05Um, you know, a route on at least 82% of dropbacks.
0:05He wasn't super high. Otherwise, Quentin Johnson was, was playing ahead of him when he was out on, on the field, but
0:05his, uh, Trey Harris's route rate was rising into the playoffs.
0:05Like in that playoff game, he was at 59%.
0:05That was his season high in games that Quentin Johnson actually played in the last, uh, so Johnston missed 15 and 18.
0:05Those were games that Harris had really high numbers, but in 16 and 17, between that Johnston was in Harris was at
0:0552 and 43%, which are, you know, were reasonable for him.
0:05I just said 59% was his highest in games that, that Johnson played.
0:05And Johnson was at 73%, 81% in those games.
0:05Um, early in the year, he was playing like as high as 90%.
0:05Point being, if you look at the routes on a weekly basis, it really starts about week eight for Quentin Johnston, where
0:05Trey Harris is suddenly in a real, real role in the very beginning of the season, Trey Harris is sub 30% routes.
0:05He's in, in that week eight to like week 12, 13, 14 range.
0:05He's over 30% most of the time touches 50% in week 11.
0:05Um, and it's a stretch where Quentin Johnson's routes fell meaningfully.
0:05He's suddenly in the seventies, a lot more. He's has a couple of games in the sixties.
0:05He was dealing with some injuries, I think, cause he did miss some games in there, but, uh, or he missed week
0:05six and then he ended up missing week 15 on the other side of, of that stretch.
0:05But, um, early in the season, he's playing a ton and that's when he was most productive.
0:05If you go look at Quentin Johnson's game log, it's a lot worse.
0:05And I've emphasized this off season, his game log was worse than later in the season.
0:05And he was losing routes at that time as Trey Harris was gaining some again, Trey Harris is just a rookie, um,
0:05in a competitive team as you, you described. But one of the big things about the like gimmicky offense stuff, he had
0:05the five plus yards per out run. He also had a three plus yards per out run the year prior and two
0:05plus the years prior to that when he was really young.
0:05Um, there, there's not a huge route sample there, but when you have a five plus yards per out run, the way
0:05I've talked about this is like, you could literally double your routes and have zero yards on the rest and still be
0:05at a 2.5 yards per out run. Like, you know, you're still very good.
0:05So you can call it gimmicky all you want, but like he was insanely productive, a thousand yards on 200 routes.
0:05We've always said that that kind of air raid offenses lasted for years.
0:05And like, it's not like everyone comes up with a five yards per out run, right?
0:05That's the point. Yeah. I mean, production leads to production.
0:05That's the, the, the theory is that really good players make plays.
0:05They gain yards and it shows up in the stats.
0:05Trey Harris did that. He did that in a major, major way, even though it was gimmicky, it was such an off
0:05the charts number that you have to believe that he's capable of producing.
0:05He's capable of catching and gaining yards. He had an insane catch in camp where he like contorted his body as he
0:05was falling down and kept the ball on top of him.
0:05It like basically didn't make any buzz. Cause everybody's so certain that he's buried in lad McConkie and all these guys, I know that's not fair.
0:05I saw the Trey Harris play circulating, but it's like, nobody was like, Oh, I'm going to move Trey Harris up my boards.
0:05They've just convinced themselves like what he did on that play to contort his body.
0:05Like that's part of what receivers do to make plays is body control is getting their body in a place where their
0:05hands can then make the catch that ball's thrown behind his back.
0:05And he basically falls. He does like the matrix Neo thing where he's like dodging bullets to fall directly backward and let
0:05the ball sort of land on his lap. It looks quote unquote lucky.
0:05It's a feel for the game. It's a feel for ball tracking that again, shows up in the production all across his college career.
0:05Four years of two plus yards per out run multiple years over three, one year over five, a good player, a good
0:05at the game football player that people are just like confident.
0:05And it can't be because I don't know. Cause he came along later than Quentin Johnson, because Quentin Johnston doesn't have that.
0:05Like he's had a lot of spotty stuff in his production profile.
0:05I mean, he was good. He was a good prospect.
0:05He had some good stuff as a, as a collegiate prospect and so did lad.
0:05But I mean, I don't know. I'm just, there's, there's reasons that I'm concerned about those guys as long-term, like long view
0:05players, lad McConkie and Quentin Johnson that I think are relatively fair.
0:05So anyway, playing it this way to me, I'm glad that you're on it too.
0:05Cause it's, it's very kind of straightforward. Anyway, we spent a lot of time on the chargers.
0:06We did. For anyone who watched our, our ship chasing main yesterday, you know, I was probably antsy to talk about Trey Harris.
0:06Cause I was trying to do Trey Harris talk and it wasn't going anywhere yesterday.
0:06So I was excited to get in and try to, try to flesh out why I was trying to found the table for Trey Harris.
0:06For sure. Anyway, is there anyone else at AFC West you wanted to talk about?
0:06Yeah. I want to talk about all the rest of the AFC West.
0:06I'm super excited. All right. I mean, Pat Bryant being the talk of the camp is fantastic.
0:06You asked me, you said the Pat Bryant, uh, contested catch thing.
0:06I want to, I want to go back to that.
0:06Cause you know, the prospects way better than me.
0:06They were comparing him to like Michael Thomas last year when he was a rookie.
0:06So isn't he more of a separator or is he more of a, is he bad in that uncontested target per outrun?
0:06No, he wasn't, he wasn't bad. He's just like a, a, a big bodied receiver.
0:06And like one of his calling cards coming out was his ability to play the ball.
0:06Um, for sure. Which is positive. Um, yeah. You know, and he was, he was a guy that was, I was really
0:06excited when he landed with Sean Payton because he was primarily a outside receiver in college who was a bit more of
0:06a brawler, but who a lot of the people who are more into the weeds on, on this stuff said would potentially
0:06translate best to the NFL as a big slot, which is that role that, you know, Sean Payton has used very favorably
0:06in the past with, with guys, um, who they've kind of converted into being more of a middle of the field player.
0:06Um, cause he has that strong feel for space.
0:06He has really strong hands over the middle, all that stuff.
0:06So I think with it is like, he's not, it's, it's not an inability to separate by any stretch, but he's not
0:06like the twitchiest guy in the world, you know, in terms of an outside receiver, he's not really going to be that four, four blazing speed player.
0:06He's a bit more of like a feel player, a bit more of a strong hands guy.
0:06I just, I thought you were saying that that was more of a red flag in his profile a little bit.
0:06Cause you said, are we going to be able to, um, you know, be whatever the mental gymnastics we are going to
0:06do is he, he doesn't have the red flag the way that like Jacoby lane has red flags.
0:06Not, not anywhere close to that extent. Not anywhere close.
0:06Perfect. The, uh, the Raiders increased pass roll for Ashton Jenty.
0:06Sounds amazing. Super pumped on him. Malik Benson, wide receiver three.
0:06Do we care about the Raiders receiving room at all?
0:06I mean, I care about Brock Bowers and Ashton Jenty.
0:06That's it. Yeah. The Jalen, the Jalen Naylor hype is like, I was talking about it with Sean yesterday too.
0:06And I was just like, I don't, I can't be bothered to care about Jalen Naylor.
0:06Can I, I, I mean like one of Naylor or Tucker will probably be a good best ball pick, but outside of
0:06best ball formats, like, poof, like, you know, and for, for doing Malik Benson hype and like anything can happen, but that,
0:06that was not a prospect that I was particularly excited about.
0:06If you're decent or if Naylor's decent or if Tucker's decent, it just draws coverage away from Brock Bowers.
0:06And then you just want more Brock Bowers. That's, that's the solution.
0:06Yeah. Like every single one of their receivers is like, it is the kind of receiver that ball knowers love to get
0:06online and say, like, you span a C guys.
0:06They don't know what they're talking about. Like this guy's way better in real life than you realize.
0:06Um, I said that about Jack last year. Every single one of their receivers, like Trey Tucker, uh, Jalen Naylor, Jack Bash, Dante Thornton, Malik Benson.
0:06Like this is the, this is like the, you just don't know ball bro receiver room.
0:06Like every single one of yards, dude, show me the production.
0:06Well, a common theme in the, you just don't know ball bro receiver room is like a bunch of guys who don't
0:06really produce that much, who people love to tell you are way better than their production because they do other things, but
0:06like they have an entire receiver room of guys who do other things, but they don't have any receivers who do the things.
0:06Um, but I guess they have a tight end.
0:06Who does the things? Do any of you receive?
0:06It's right there in the name, right? Like it's a lot of like, you know, not wide blocker.
0:06We don't call it wide blocker, right? It's like Jack bash is a great blocker and Trey talker is a great field stretcher.
0:06And like Jalen Naylor is like done well. And like some of like the separation score stuff.
0:06And like Malik Benson's really fast. Thought I thought it was really fast, but like, there's not a lot of receptions in this receiving room.
0:06Wide wind sprinter. Yeah. So we want the receiving.
0:06We would like the receiving. All right, cool. Yeah.
0:06We're see rice thing. Clearing 900 yards is asking too much.
0:06The reason I hate this so much is beat reporters who say stats always do it on a scale that indicates that they don't really understand.
0:06Like they don't look at box scores as much as we do.
0:06And they don't look at it. It's that they think a team runs 110 plays per game.
0:06Right. When you say clearing 900 yards is asking too much, it's way too realistic.
0:06It is way. It hit me so hard. It's like, Nope, Nope.
0:06That is way too good of a prediction. I cannot accept that.
0:06That could be a possibility. What I, so the knee stuff is a concern.
0:06I, when we talked about the chiefs the other day, I was saying to you, are you just out on the chiefs?
0:06He's still, where she rise came back last year and he wasn't very good.
0:06And that's why people aren't on him. And mainly it's because his yards per target was meaningfully lower.
0:06It was over two yards worse than the year prior.
0:06Uh, and his rookie year, he's been really good ball in hand.
0:06He's actually been really efficient for a guy who's had a super low a dot yards per target is half of the yards per outrun equation.
0:06Targets per outrun is the other half. I talk about this all the time.
0:06He's still at 20, still had a 29.1% targets per outrun last year.
0:06Even though we had this very low yards per target, he was still over two yards per outrun.
0:06And if you look at this as a 265 route sample and say prior to that, he had almost 500 routes in
0:06the NFL, 483 over the first two seasons. And his yards per target was 9.6, 9.7.
0:06He's at 7.4 last year. His targets per outrun same ballpark.
0:06It's been 25.5% or higher all three years. Obviously that second season, very small sample, but we now have three seasons of
0:06small samples where the, the, the sum of it is like a 28, 29% targets per out.
0:06It's more like 28, maybe 27 and a half.
0:06Even I'm, I'm looking at an average, but the highest number was the smallest route sample, whatever.
0:06It's a very strong number targets per outrun. Anyway, is he going to not earn targets?
0:06Because 900 yards is not that many. If he's anywhere close to this, if he's not going to earn targets, who the fuck is in this passing game?
0:06Cause I'm not ready to play 37 year old Travis Kelsey.
0:06Xavier worthy fell. He's literally 37 in October. That's not a joke.
0:06Xavier worthy. You're laughing, but it's serious. Xavier worthy.
0:06He's that old. Xavier worthy fell on his shoulder and it's surgically repaired shoulder.
0:06And like, everyone's like, it may be attached. It may not.
0:06We have no idea. Wind might knock him over.
0:06Cyrus Allen is a thing. And I'm pretty sure he's a made up player.
0:06Tyquan Thornton had 19 catches last year. I mean, I keep moving Kenneth Walker up my rankings.
0:06Yeah. Are the cheese going to be terrible? Like what's, what's happening?
0:06They got rid of Matt Nagy. Like I actually thought the offense had a chance to schematically improve this year.
0:06Is where she writes under, like, I still want to draft.
0:06She rice is the problem. So I need you to help me figure this out.
0:06Well, I don't, I don't want to draft for she rice.
0:06I've been drafting him a little bit. After our last conversation, because I think you've raised some really good points.
0:06And like, it's, it's a lot easier to like ignore the math and just be like, I don't want to draft for she rice.
0:06Um, so I'm kind of caught between two things.
0:06I still maintain that they are going to have a shockingly low pass rate over expectation this year.
0:06I, I, I like, I made a bet literally yesterday with Pat Corain.
0:06He set the line at, uh, over under four plus four.
0:06And I, I took the under, um, I, I maintain that their pass rate over expectation is going to be by far
0:06the lowest of the Andy Reed, Patrick Holmes era.
0:06I think it's going to be, um, between zero and one.
0:06That would be like my bold prediction for the chiefs.
0:06That would be admittedly unlike anything else we've ever seen in this era.
0:06I just think that it is necessary for them to have.
0:06Sustainable offense while their quarterback recovers from an ACL, while the receiver room has so many glaring holes.
0:06And while they just added this game changing running back, who I think is one of the most exciting talents that his
0:06position in the NFL, I think that that's the path forward for them in a, in a large respect.
0:06I think that would open a lot up for them in the passing game to put their limited players in better positions to succeed.
0:06Um, but I also think that one, there's a possibility that I'm just wrong.
0:06So how about that completely two, uh, there's a possibility that even if I'm right, that would still make them one of
0:06the five or six pass happiest offenses in the league.
0:06Yeah. Uh, and that someone has to catch the ball and like, there's still a, the math is, I am, I am drafting Xavier worthy, dude.
0:06I don't like it at all, but I'm drafting him like kind of a lot and more than I want to.
0:06Um, but I, I think, I think that's right.
0:06I don't want to, if my, if my choice is to be like super in on round two, three turn rice, or
0:06super in on round nine, 10, Xavier worthy. Like I feel like Xavier, even if those prices are probably pretty reasonable based
0:06on their medium outcomes, I do think Xavier worthy as asymmetrical upside, um, in terms of a guy that there's a lot
0:06of very valid reasons to be bearish about, but also a lot of, there's a lot in there where if I came
0:06from the future and I told you, if we played our game last from last week and I told you, no, Xavier
0:06worthy had an awesome season this year. It, you could understand how that happened.
0:06It was like, Oh, this, this really, this productive prospect who was really young, who wasn't quite ready at the beginning of
0:06his rookie season, but flashed a ton over the second half of his rookie season who got like murdered by his own
0:06teammate in the first play of the season last year.
0:06Like actually he was just good all along. And, you know, he, he showed up and he, and he grew into year
0:06three and he, he became maybe the co-leader even of the passing offense, like in an offense where there's a ton of opportunity for him.
0:06That makes a ton of sense to me in hindsight, if that's the story of the chiefs offense.
0:06Um, it also, you know, makes a bunch of sense to me, obviously, if for she rice just keeps earning a target on 28% of his routes.
0:06But I do think that his, the way he earns targets is just like so much more fragile than any other player
0:06who earns as many targets as he does. Like I, I would be absolutely stunned if Justin Jefferson, like plays all 17
0:06games this year and doesn't earn a ton of targets or Garrett Wilson or CD lamb or any of these other guys,
0:06whereas like I, Russia rice, there's like an element to it.
0:06That's real. And there's an element to it. That is like scamming.
0:06And like, it just feels like it could go away if someone else can step up.
0:06And I don't know if anyone else can step up, but I guess I would just rather play it at the massive cost differential between them.
0:06I'd rather play it through worthy. I think if I'm playing the chiefs game, my two thoughts, I love what you're saying about worthy.
0:06It's really hard to envision him saying healthy. The guy I've been thinking about in relation to him is Jamison Williams, who
0:06when we've talked about him, I've been saying was fifth in the league and wide receiver routes last year.
0:06I mean, he ran a ton of routes. They played him a ton.
0:06Jamison Williams is tiny. Looks like he's, you know, he's just a small fast dude.
0:06Looks like he's would get destroyed. If anyone ran into him, that's what everyone says about Xavier worthy.
0:06It's what happened to Xavier worthy. As soon as he ran into Travis Kelsey, the point is that there are small receivers,
0:06small, fast receivers that are able to navigate an NFL season and run the fifth most routes in the entire league at the position and not die.
0:06Hopefully that happens to Xavier worthy this year. Rashid rice, everything you said about him in relation to the different, really good
0:06receivers that he gets drafted near is true. He's nowhere near the player of any of those guys.
0:06I just want, I don't know if I've made this clear.
0:06I want to make this like, I want to strongly emphasize this.
0:06When I talk about rice favorably, it's because we're playing fantasy football.
0:06He draws a massive number of targets. He can't beat man, like all this stuff from campus.
0:06Like he can't, he can't get open against man coverage.
0:06We already knew that like he can't beat man.
0:06We already knew that he still earns a 27% or 29% targets per hour.
0:06Cause teams play more zone than man in the NFL these days.
0:06And when they run zone against Patrick Mahomes teams, because he does, they don't want him to beat him vertical.
0:06Rashid rice has a feel for soft spots in zone.
0:06Clearly a feel for it. That that is very, very good up there with good receivers.
0:06Now, the way that I talked about it was Sean last year to try to get Sean on to Rashid rice a
0:06little bit was that I was like, it's, it's very unique to this offense.
0:06And, and then Sean kind of repeated it back to me.
0:06He's like something about, you know, the number of other offenses he would be in.
0:06He wouldn't be as good. and I was like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to say.
0:06Literally 31 other offenses. Rashid rice would be worse.
0:06And that's what I believe about Rashid rice as a player and a fantasy asset.
0:06It doesn't matter. He's in the 32nd offense. He's in the offense that needs a volume play to basically take the Travis
0:06Kelsey role, which Travis Kelsey ended up doing a lot of again last year because Rashid rice missed so much time, but
0:06for the, the entirety of Patrick Holmes's career, he's had this zone beating middle of the field, low a dot tight end.
0:06That's been their top target. The superstar player of Travis Kelsey, who is 30 going into his age 37 season.
0:06He's going to be 37 in October and you maybe want to play Travis Kelsey.
0:06If you're out on Rashid rice, honestly, but the whole thesis for me on rice, I mix them in, but like, I
0:06am not going to bet my season on a 37 year old.
0:06Like I don't think he's undraftable, but I have zero excitement to play Travis Kelsey.
0:06Yeah. The thesis for me has been that Rashid rice is the heir apparent to that part of the offense.
0:06As far as routes intersect and stuff, he doesn't play tight end, but in terms of like operating in spaces where my
0:06homes is going to find that throw that check down, and my homes is going to still be looking vertically.
0:06He's going to be looking vertically at Taequann Thornton.
0:06Xavier worthy is going to run vertical routes, et cetera.
0:06And it's going to threaten defenses when they do drop back.
0:06And then he's going to find the underneath stuff in soft spots and zones.
0:06You can't play man on everyone. There are situations where like at the goal line and stuff.
0:06Yeah. It sucks that Rashid rice can't win on a slant at the goal line.
0:06Like that's not great. He still might catch a hundred balls.
0:06If he's healthy enough to at least move around, Juju Smith Schuster can't move and would like put up production in this
0:06offense at 33 catches for this offense last year.
0:06And I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a knee like Rashid rice is.
0:06I don't know where he's at health wise. I don't, I think there's way too much emphasis put on his limitations as
0:06a player relative to the other superstar wide receivers.
0:06When we're talking about fantasy football. And I think people don't understand that he doesn't need to be fully healthy to do
0:06what he does well, which is find soft spots and zones.
0:06You, you do need that probably to have the strong yards per target bounce back that I was talking about.
0:06Some of the yak stuff needs to rebound. Rashid rice is falling, man.
0:06He's falling and falling and falling in some of these drafts.
0:06And I'm like, I, I feel like maybe I shouldn't worry about taking him.
0:06When I went through my projections, I was like, he's going to the two, three turn probably should be going closer to the one, two turn.
0:06There's room for when you look at the target rate stuff, unless you're really in on Xavier worthy, there's room for him
0:06to have 150, 160, 170 targets, like these like crazy target volume.
0:06Like we've all agreed now that Aminor St. Brown is a, is a superstar target earner.
0:06And we just don't question that anymore. But there was a point in time people were like, Aminor St.
0:06Brown can't go in the first round because he can't do what the other X receivers and outside receivers do.
0:06He's like more of a slot guy. And there are unique.
0:06It reminds me of Wes Welker with Tom Brady.
0:06That I was playing PPR a long time ago.
0:06And Wes Welker and PPR was a beast. Even after Randy Moss or before Randy Moss, there was a year where I
0:06think it was Welker and, um, and, uh, Gronk in 2011, Welker had 122 catches.
0:06He led the league in PPR, um, 173 targets.
0:06Nobody wanted to draft Wes Welker in PPR. I remember that year.
0:06I was taking him like everywhere. And like the one, two turn.
0:06Cause I used to just love these guys that caught a bunch of balls in PPR leagues, 122 catches.
0:06Like, yeah, I'll take that. It's his 30 year old season.
0:06He wasn't like super athletic or anything, but you had Gronk.
0:07You had Aaron Hernandez. You had other threats in the passing game, which the chiefs do have.
0:07And all the volume funneled to Welker because that's the way that offense was set, you know, set up.
0:07He also had 123 catch season two years prior and 110 plus in 2007 and 2008.
0:07So four out of five years, he had a hundred five out of six years.
0:07He had 110 plus catches that whole stretch. It was just like, people didn't want to draft him because he's a short white dude.
0:07And it's like, he's not anywhere near, you know, the elite receivers of the, of the era, Randy Moss and all these guys.
0:07And that's what I, I hear when I hear the Rasheed Rice stuff is like, he's nowhere near these other players.
0:07I don't care, man. It's fantasy football. Like I understand if you're planning standard or even maybe a little bit more in
0:07half PPR being a little lower on Rasheed Rice, that's fair full PPR, which is like most of the stuff I play.
0:07If you look at like FFPC and stuff, you start getting a discount on a guy that can have 110 catches.
0:07I just, I'm worried about the health though. When, when Nate Taylor says clearing 900 yards is asking too much.
0:07That's scary. That's, that's where it's like, all right, it's like that.
0:07So I, I don't have a clean answer, but I do think the Rasheed Rice conversation misses the uniqueness of, of what
0:07he is and what the, the chief situation is.
0:07So anyway, that was my, my rice spiel. Everything about the chiefs, I think is scary.
0:07It's like, like I don't feel good about any of this.
0:07I would feel terrible. Like betting a ton on rice.
0:07I would feel terrible drafting. No one on Patrick Mahomes is offense.
0:07I feel terrible drafting Xavier worthy. I would feel terrible pinning it all on a 37 year old.
0:07Like, I don't know. I feel like no matter what I end up with on the chiefs, I do feel uncomfortable.
0:07Um, but I think you talked that through that, uh, very well.
0:07Um, all right. Can we, can we head to the NFC at an hour 47?
0:07We're going to, we're going to breeze through the NFC.
0:07All right. Let's breeze through it. So the NFC East, we'll start off with, uh, I saw you were getting into it
0:07a bit on Twitter about this one, but, uh, Jaden blue, uh, has been deemed the juice back.
0:07Uh, and the idea that, you know, maybe he's equal that he seems to be in line for a real standalone role alongside Javante Williams.
0:07There seems to be some skepticism about how much his role would grow without Javante Williams.
0:07Um, I've been following, uh, Zane Denani has been tracking all the beat reports on this.
0:07It does seem like Phil Moffa has received most of the non blue reps with the ones, um, more so than Malik Davis.
0:07But I think that that is very ambiguous. Um, in the Eagles side of things, the Kyle lemon Devonta Smith still out with hamstring injuries.
0:07Dontavian Wicks has been drawing constant praise. Uh, a lot of Eagles, uh, beats seemingly thinking he's entrenched, as the wide receiver
0:07to, um, at least to start the season in two wide receiver sets.
0:07And then, I mean, this is just cat in it for me.
0:07Like I can't, I can't wait to say this part, but per, I think it's Gary Mosher says that, uh, Eli Stowers
0:07is struggling with the physicality of the game and, uh, might not be active for the first couple of weeks of the season.
0:07Um, so, you know, maybe tight ends, they should, they should get in there in the, in the run blocking situations.
0:07Um, at Washington, wait, uh, who was the, who was the beat there?
0:07His last name was Mosher and I think it's Gary.
0:07Gary Mosher. Okay. Sorry. I want to make sure that that's, I hope that that's true.
0:07I'll double check that, that the first name, cause I only put the last name in here.
0:07So my apologies if I have the wrong first name, but, um, at Washington, we're getting, getting more, more positive buzz on bill.
0:07Um, there's been talk, especially from Ben standing that he's shown the improvement required in the receiving facet of the game to
0:07where they might be able to utilize him as more of a true RB one.
0:07Um, but I'll note Rashad white is also shining.
0:07He got the first snap with the ones, um, and caught a, an angle route against Jordan Brooks in their recent joint practice.
0:07Um, so I still feel that it's pretty ambiguous, but definitely encouraging notes for bill.
0:07Uh, and then Jackson dart. This is, we just talked about the chiefs.
0:07We're going to talk about Matt and Aggie again, because, you noted that Jackson are needs to work on seeing defenses, uh,
0:07and, uh, the reports on the giants offense, not been particularly glowing.
0:07I will note them. A league neighbors has mostly not been participating.
0:07I think to my knowledge, any of like the full sessions.
0:07And so a lot of what the giants offense is, struggling with is a wide receiver room currently led by, uh, Malachi
0:07fields, Darnell Mooney, Odell Beckham, uh, Juju. Juju is in, is involved.
0:07Uh, Darius Slayton, uh, Brax, Sibirios. Yeah. It's not a good group.
0:07God, that wide receiver group is worse than the coaching staff.
0:07Didn't we just talk about the coaching staff? How they have all the guys that got replaced by all the young coaches.
0:07Greg Roman, Brian Callahan, and, uh, and Matt and Aggie.
0:07Yeah. Yeah. If you're wondering where all the guys who got replaced by the up and coming guys are, they're all in retirement home with, uh, John Harbaugh.
0:07Um, yeah, the, the giant stuff is scary. I'm like, yeah, I think that's a team that can wind up being worse.
0:07It's Jeff, not Gary, Jeff Mosher. My apologies, Jeff.
0:07Okay. Um, that was a, uh, yeah, I, I, I, I misheard you.
0:07I was thinking of something different. I'm going to, I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself on what the listeners are like.
0:07Why were you asking that question? Anyway, the, the giants I'm starting to get a little concerned about, uh, systematically.
0:07And I'm kind of down on dart. I still want to take neighbors.
0:07And then scatter boo was kind of the tricky one.
0:07Um, I'm pretty out on likely as well. So I don't know if you have any big thoughts on them, but I'm not super excited about the giants.
0:07I think dart is still a fun play in as a quarterback play, just based on the rushing, but I've been, my,
0:07I've been getting colder feet by the day on that.
0:07My thesis on that is they are talking about him running less.
0:07Cause he keeps trying to get himself killed. If he runs less to not get himself killed, that's worse for fantasy.
0:07If he keeps running as much, he's going to get himself killed.
0:07I'd rather just take one of the more stable quarterbacks in that range.
0:07Yeah, that's, that's pretty darn fair. I, I'm, I'm going to cut myself down as very skeptical that he's going to run less.
0:07I think players are who they are, but it's going to get himself killed.
0:07Well, he may get himself killed. If you're in super flex, uh, redraft, I just realized this the other day.
0:07People get worried about getting boxed out on QBs.
0:07Go take Jameis Winston really late. That's the guy that I want to stick.
0:07This is the best case of, of all that I haven't heard from Malik neighbors.
0:07Almost anywhere is like, he's everyone wants to talk about how fragile Jackson dart is.
0:07I mean, if he's truly fragile, that you get Jameis, you get Jameis.
0:07You get Flamus. He's probably one. Like people always want to know about the QB two.
0:07That's like worth drafting and super flex in the very last round of stash.
0:07I think Jameis is legit worth that. I think he'll give you enough scoring if he, if, and when he, you know,
0:07would play, he has Malik neighbors to throw it to, and he'll chuck the ball around.
0:07Like, I mean, I'm not saying like stash him the whole year, but he's worth like considering to see if dart gets himself concussed early in the year.
0:07Like, anyway, um, bill RB one improvement in the passing game is, is definitely exciting stuff.
0:07Don't have a ton on that. The, uh, stowers thing.
0:07I'm just going to completely ignore wicks balling. My thought on that was, uh, yeah, I mean, I don't have stowers high wicks balling.
0:07Um, was my thought was, cause so McKay and lemon is, I obviously gave you really lofty thoughts on him recently.
0:07I think I said it on this show, but yeah, um, feel really good about him, but the fact that he's out
0:07and we're probably going to get a little bit of a slower start and wicks is balling and wicks is going to
0:07be this number two early in the year. I'm kind of fading Devonta Smith because of McKay lemon and the potential for stowers.
0:07And I'm like, man, maybe I need to move Devonta Smith back up a little bit.
0:07Cause maybe it will be the case where Devonta Smith is just the clear one.
0:07and McKay lemon is going to need too much time to come along.
0:07I still don't love that. Like by the end of the season, you have McKay lemon there to, to compete with this.
0:07I also don't love playing Chris Lave for similar reasons.
0:07And Jordan Tyson has a, a thing now. Um, yeah, I'm sure we'll get to, but it's honest.
0:07Yeah. As we, as we move forward with both those guys, they're, they're, they're rookie prospects that I really like.
0:07And even if they do have a slow start because of these camp injuries, like that's not great for the second half of the year for sure.
0:07But made me think about the Devonta Smith thing as it related to the, the lemon thing.
0:07And then the, uh, Cowboys backup situation, the Moffa thing is, is intriguing.
0:07I didn't know that. Um, I got a lot of responses about film off.
0:07I tweeted that. I thought Malik Davis was, um, the most draftable running back.
0:07That's not widely drafted. Uh, if you talk about Jaden blue being a juice back and the quote that Davis Maddox shared
0:07was saying that, and it was saying that if Javante Williams was out, that wouldn't change.
0:07And that somebody like Malik Davis would take the majority of the work.
0:07Now I understand people, I mean, Luke Davis is going to be 28.
0:07Like he's not, he's not really anything, but at the end of last year, he had a hundred yard game in this
0:07last game with, um, on 20 carries. He was playing a lot more as Javante Williams was nursing.
0:07A little bit of a shoulder thing. And he was fairly effective.
0:07He had a 4.8 yards per carry. He had some pretty good numbers, um, in limited work.
0:07They've kept him around. They liked him a lot last year.
0:07They kept him ahead of Jaden blue the whole time.
0:07I was like, dude, who's their backup Malik Davis.
0:07Like I was mocking that he became their clear number two.
0:07And then they sat him in week 18 to play blue and Moffa.
0:07And then they played a lot of blue. They basically didn't use Moffa in that week 18 game.
0:07This film office stuff. I need you to tell me if I'm crazy, but there's like nothing in the profile.
0:07He's a big back. He's a yards after contact in theory, but Jaden blue had more yards after contact per attempt in their relative collegiate careers.
0:07Like he's not an actual yards after contact. Maven.
0:07He's his efficiency is not good. Is it miss?
0:07Like a miss, uh, tackles force rate is not good.
0:07There's nothing in the receiving profile. That's intriguing. His yards per carry, not intriguing.
0:07He's just big, but he's not particularly fast either.
0:07Like there's nothing to, he's just a big back that no one else in the league wanted to draft.
0:07He went in the seventh round. They know how heavy he is.
0:07There's not something like hidden here. Like if there was something hidden, some other team would have wanted it.
0:07I don't understand why people are like film office is surprisingly like notable player.
0:07Like it's, I think I can provide the backstory on that, which is so first, first of all, I agree.
0:07There's nothing in the film off a profile that jumps out at you at all.
0:07I mean, the best argument you can make for film off it is that Jaden blue is also has not much.
0:07If you look purely at like the rushing side, I think he has a lot of interesting stuff as a receiver.
0:07And then you just mentioned Malik Davis is like a total guy.
0:07So, you know, if you want to tell me that film off it could beat out those two for rushing work, like that seems plausible.
0:07Like, you know, um, but film off in a vacuum.
0:07I think the reason why there's a lot of latent enthusiasm for film off off from some corners is will Shipley used
0:07to be like a huge name in Debbie circles.
0:07Um, obviously didn't really pan out, but he was like at a time viewed as a potential, uh, you know, day one, day two prospect.
0:07And he got a lot of his lunch eaten by a freshman film off way back at Clemson who like came in
0:07immediately stole work from a guy that was really high, really regarded at the time.
0:07And so a lot of people had a lot of enthusiasm for Mafa going back to his freshman season at Clemson.
0:07Nothing ever happened to that, but there's like a lot of film off of truthers out there who have like a Debbie bag packed full of film off.
0:07So he, he's like a higher pedigree guy. You know who the comp is?
0:07It's actually, it's funny cause he played on the Cowboys too, but it's Bo Scarborough who was another guy who like played
0:07at a big program and people knew a lot about despite not really doing anything.
0:07Cowboys, the Cowboys love these guys. They got Mike Weber too, who was like an Ohio state guy.
0:07It wasn't really anything. Um, anyway, maybe Jerry Jones plays Debbie.
0:07I'm not sure, but, um, but that's, that's, that's the film off of backstory.
0:07He, by his fourth year in college, had his first thousand yard rushing season, played 14 games, 13 games, 14 games with
0:07Clemson, those, you know, final three years. So he got a ton of college games and.
0:07I mean, he had an 1100 yard rushing season in 14 games like at college.
0:07That's not that impressive, dude. You got to do more than that to impress.
0:07Yeah. And he had five, 5.2 yards per carry, which like, I mean, like, you know, yards per carry is yards per
0:07carry, but like, that's not, it's not very impressive at the college level.
0:07Um, and that was his last year's career high was 5.4.
0:07Like he never put, you know, never had a 5.5.
0:07Like, like that would be good at the NFL level in college.
0:07Dudes rush for six plus. Like you better, if you're an NFL prospect, you better rush for six plus.
0:07Like you better rush for, give me, give me seven.
0:07Give me, you know, a Keith Mitchell 7.2 or whatever.
0:07You had that one year. Anyway, obviously film off.
0:07That doesn't have to be Keith Mitchell. Who's the greatest of all time.
0:07Let's, uh, next division. All right. Perfect. Um, let's do the NFC North.
0:07So, I mean, the biggest news here, we have some real big news, which is Kyler Murray confirmed the starting quarterback.
0:07Um, not, I wouldn't say it's shocking news, but nice to have confirmed, um, green Bay.
0:07We got some, some potential news on Josh Jacobs.
0:07So Adam Schefter, uh, recently stated that he clarified that there are a number of different disciplinary situations that remain under review.
0:07And he mentioned Josh Jacobs. And then we'll get to the NFC West at the end.
0:07He mentioned Puka Nakua as well. Um, said that it's currently under review.
0:07It said that he could result in a suspension.
0:07Certainly didn't say it necessarily would. Um, but interestingly he did confirm, or at least I interpreted as confirming that they will
0:07make a decision on that one way or another before the start of the season.
0:07Um, or at least that was highly likely, which in like a functional world shouldn't be news, but in the NFL, it
0:07seems like the disciplinary process is so random. And like, you never know when the guy is going to get suspended or
0:07not suspended, or if it's being reviewed or not being reviewed.
0:07So that was, that was notable to me that like, it seems like the result is that Jacobs will either be not
0:07suspended or he will be suspended this year at the start of the season.
0:07You know, it won't be like a 20, 27 thing.
0:07Um, and he's also not practicing right now. He's out apparently another week with a groin issue.
0:07Marshawn Lloyd, um, played, uh, at least on the first drive, he played a hundred percent of the snaps at the starters in preseason just now.
0:07Um, and, uh, more, more live news from preseason snap tracking is, nine snaps with the starters.
0:07Uh, and that was nine snaps for Matthew golden, uh, all at X, eight snaps for Christian Watson at Z.
0:07Seven snaps for Jaden Reed only in three receiver sets.
0:07And who played the one snap that Christian Watson came out of the game for was Stavion Williams, not, not sliding Jaden Reed over to Z.
0:07So we might get the same old bullshit from the green Bay Packers.
0:07Um, or you could choose to not read into nine snaps, but, uh, I wouldn't say it's an encouraging development if you're
0:07hoping for two receiver set Jaden Reed this year.
0:07Uh, no, that's not great. It's, it is encouraging for Matthew golden, who's still miss very, very, uh, lions news.
0:07Uh, I mean, I do want to stress it's nine place, but, um, but yeah, I, I agree.
0:07And then, uh, the lines news, Isaiah Pacheco, who's been drafted really high for reasons that I'm not particularly aware of.
0:07Uh, he's sprained as MCL, um, probably back. Probably the worst pick in that entire range.
0:07It's been really bizarre. Uh, and then the bears, I mentioned this earlier, Luther burden, uh, had a groin strain as likely to going to miss the preseason.
0:07There does seem to be a lot of optimism.
0:07He'll be back for week one, but going to miss at least a few weeks of training camp here.
0:07Uh, probably the rest of the preseason. Uh, any thoughts on the NFC North news?
0:07I'm bumping a dunes. A and Loveland. I think that's going to be a concentrated passing game.
0:07I think we talked about that. Um, and I'm legitimately concerned.
0:07I, I understand like there, all the doctors came out on social and said, he's going to be back for week one.
0:07He's going to be fine. All this stuff. I'm excited about burden.
0:07The concern is we want him to go from not a hundred percent route rate all year.
0:07Like he never got over like 70% even late in the year when Loveland was running 80% plus and burden was higher than Loveland early in the year.
0:07So like it wasn't Loveland took that traditional rookie ramp up period.
0:07And late in the year was running 80% plus routes for four games in a row early in the year had been
0:07really low because he needed to learn stuff or whatever.
0:07Burden was higher than him early, but still never got all the way to full time because he wasn't able to do everything he needed.
0:08They wanted him to do. When I went through the projection process, I was like, this is going to be a really concentrated team.
0:08I think burden is like has to run the route.
0:08So now I understand his ADP. Well, now he's going to miss all of camp.
0:08Like you're telling me like, no, they're going to lean on Cleef Raymond early more than they want to.
0:08They're going to play Jadae Walker early. Like they're going, they're not going to push Luther burden early in the year when
0:08he didn't play it all in camp. Or I don't think, I'm still very optimistic overall, but I am a little bit
0:08concerned that especially like the other issue is that groins can linger and this is a legitimate groin injury.
0:08And he's had soft tissue stuff. He didn't run a ton of routes throughout his college career for different reasons.
0:08The fact that I like the way I put it as missing all of August is not great for the thesis that
0:08he's going to go play 17 games and run more routes than he's ever run at college or in the pros.
0:08And he's going to scale up and stay healthy the whole time.
0:08Like it's tough bet to be like, he's going to go play 17 games and run a ton of routes.
0:08I'm concerned. I mean, I think your concerns are fair.
0:08I, I, I do feel as though, despite how fair those concerns are, that this is a spot that I think has
0:08gotten like almost outsized scrutiny in terms of the impact.
0:08Like there's a lot of guys who are missing time in training camp that I feel like go very under the radar.
0:08Like Devonta Smith hasn't practiced two weeks. Nobody cares.
0:08Like Kevin says in practice two weeks. Nobody cares.
0:08Now, Kyle Lemon hasn't practiced two weeks. A lot of people care and that makes sense because he's a rookie.
0:08And in the world where you want him playing in two receiver sets, he has to cross train positions probably because he's
0:08going to have to learn the F and three receiver sets.
0:08He's going to have to learn the Z and two receiver sets.
0:08And I think the question comes down to like, where does burden slide on this scale?
0:08Do they view him as a, a player who has already developed to the degree that they need him to or close to it.
0:08And that they can just drop him in week one, all their plans to be a full-time guy, or is he still
0:08a guy that they needed to see more development from?
0:08And I don't know. I'm probably more optimistic that it's the former.
0:08Like, I don't think that we'll see him have a limited route rate in week one.
0:08If he's gets in a full week of practice ahead of that, which he should, assuming it's a grade one strain.
0:08Um, but I, I hear your concerns. I guess like all in all, I'm not out.
0:08I would rather, I would rather draft burden. I would rather have the like one round discount to draft Luther burden, um,
0:08with slightly more risk than to have taken him where he was going, um, previously, which I was still willing to do,
0:08but I'm, I'm probably a little bit more excited about playing the discount here.
0:08Well, I mean, I didn't realize there was going to be like a substantial discount.
0:08I don't know. I'm, I'm just kind of guessing.
0:08Like, I mean, he's been falling, but like, I don't know exactly where he'll, he'll finish.
0:08It's interesting that like sort of your perception is that it's gotten too much scrutiny because a big part of my perception
0:08was based on seeing multiple tweets right away from like the, the Twitter docs that were like, he'll be fine.
0:08Don't move him anywhere in your ranks. And everyone like retweeting and be like, yeah, it's not, it's a non-issue.
0:08And I'm like, well, no, it's kind of an issue.
0:08Like he needed to have a good August so that we felt good that he'd be playing every down because he didn't do that last year.
0:08Like this is a new thing for him. He needs to be getting these reps and learning more of the office.
0:08He missed part of camp last year. And Ben Johnson had that quote that we all remember that was like, yeah, it's
0:08not good that he's not in here learning as a rookie.
0:08And then it kind of carried into his playing time last season, right?
0:08Like that was his rookie year. I get it, but this is not ideal.
0:08Like in terms of like, I understand that the doctors are saying it from a pure health perspective that this shouldn't linger into the season.
0:08And I'm, I'm optimistic about hearing that. And I appreciate that.
0:08Take from the people that know better than me, that this is not like a high re injury concern and all of these things.
0:08And it shouldn't be too long of a concern.
0:08And we did see him out there on the field, like walking and he didn't like have a limb.
0:08That was, that was something that, that I think sometimes we do this and it sometimes doesn't matter as much as we
0:08say, like per the doctors, again, I'm not one, like you said, the people who know more than us per the doctors,
0:08that was meaningful because apparently basically, if you have a grade one groin strain, you can look completely fine walking around.
0:08You still can't like run routes and stuff. But if you have a grade two groin strain, they said, you know, 24
0:08hours after injuring it, there's no way he would look that good.
0:08And so the grade one strain apparently is more of like a two to three week timeline.
0:08And so the read on that from the doctors is that some of like the month talk, probably more precautionary that that's
0:08about like, okay, he's not going to play in preseason, but it seemed like people were confident.
0:08He's still going to get a week or two of full practices in before the season starts.
0:08And if he's able to do that, like he also had a really, really strong start to camp where he was drawing
0:08nothing, but strong reviews was consistently involved practicing in full.
0:08So I think as long as he can combine, you know, that really strong start to camp with coming back, you know,
0:08with a full week or two of practice ahead of the first game, my concerns would be alleviated, but I definitely agree with you that.
0:08Yeah. If there's a possibility that timeline is not totally sure.
0:08And he's like not getting back to practice until the lead up to game day.
0:08Maybe he's even getting limited practices in before week one.
0:08Yeah. I mean, you'd rather play Roma doon say in week one, probably than wrote than Luther burden, if that's the case.
0:08So yeah, I should say what I'm saying. Nothing.
0:08What I'm, I was saying I'm moving a dunes a up.
0:08I still have burden ahead of a dude. I've had burden as a target.
0:08And I, I, I moved a dunes. I had like a tier apart and I've moved the dunes a into the same
0:08tier and a couple of spots behind burden. And I'm more intrigued by the prospect of playing a dunes a at this
0:08point, because I do think it's going to be a highly concentrated offense and they may need to lean on him more,
0:08but no, I'm still in, I'm still in on burden.
0:08I'm not trying to say I'm out on burden, but anyway, we were just kind of talking through.
0:08I have a wider gap between them. I think then you do still.
0:08Um, but I did move from a bit up.
0:08Um, I, in my heart, I've moved Loveland up.
0:08I don't know how much more I can move them up.
0:08So I don't think I actually have my rankings.
0:08I'm already so aggressive on him, but it's, it's only furthered my conviction and wanting to play Colston level.
0:08That's for sure. Yeah. He's a fun, fun play.
0:08Uh, the golden stuff that you mentioned from the preseason, I think is legitimate.
0:08Interesting. How high are you wanting to go on golden?
0:08Um, uh, pretty high. I mean, I have them, I haven't ranked like solidly above consensus in all formats.
0:08Um, well, here's an interesting one. So we had, uh, here's a choice you will actually have to make in FFPC drafts.
0:08We talked about this guy earlier today. Would you rather have Xavier worthy or Matthew gold?
0:08Yeah. I have them back to back. Um, I just moved golden ahead of worthy.
0:08Uh, I've had worthy ahead of golden, but golden, I think is getting more expensive and where these not.
0:08So it's more just a price thing at this point, but that's a group that I've been saying for like months is
0:08a really, and I was like to the point where I was talking about Pierce all in that group as well.
0:08And then Jordan Addison. And I'm like, this is like way too cheap for all these guys.
0:08Like I love being in this pocket of receivers.
0:08Uh, Pierce all is obviously no longer in the equation.
0:08Addison. I don't know. Maybe I'll move those guys over Addison.
0:08I had Addison higher than them. I think his ADP is a little bit higher now.
0:08Um, but I question if I'm not high enough on golden, I think he's going to continue to rise.
0:08I feel similarly. I also have them back to back.
0:08Sorry. What were you going to say? Well, what would you do about golden verse?
0:08Like read, what would you do? I was going to say about like Marvin Harrison, Brian Thomas are guys that I have a hard time with.
0:08That's a lot higher. I'm, I'm way more in on Harrison than you.
0:08So that is a complete to your difference of player.
0:08Um, I would rather have golden than, than worthy.
0:08I'd rather have him than Addison. I think he's a target in that tier.
0:08I also agree that tears undervalued, um, in like a, in a shallower league.
0:08So like a non FFPC in a home league where you're starting two receivers and a flex, and I'm going purely on upside.
0:08I think I'd rather have golden than like Chris Godwin.
0:08Um, um, I'm, I'm wondering if I might rather just have Matthew golden than McKay lemon with some of the injury concerns and stuff with lemon.
0:08Um, and the potential slow start factor there. I don't have it ranked that way yet, but I'm open-minded to that.
0:08The next guy up after those would be read in my rankings.
0:08I, I think I will, I think I'll keep read ahead because I do feel a lot better about the player and the target earner that read is.
0:08And I guess I do find it a little bit hard to imagine that now that it's consolidated to these three guys
0:08that like, it will be as simple as read literally never plays a two receiver set.
0:08You know, like it's maybe that's easy to do on one preseason drive.
0:08I think that's harder to do game to game to game.
0:08Like even if we can just get read to play in like 20% of the two receiver sets or a third of
0:08the two receiver sets, like that would still be a meaningful amount, especially it's a meaningful amount that might come directly at golden's expense, um, or Watson's expense.
0:08But I, I do think that the three green Bay receivers should be a lot closer together.
0:08Um, and I consider read to be a, a soft target and golden to be a pretty big target now in like,
0:08uh, I say all that because I've been like in the underdog world.
0:08I've been in the FFPC world. Um, you know, if you go on an ESPN league right now, Matthew golden has a higher ADP than Jayden read.
0:08Um, so then it's a pretty different conversation in terms of the value.
0:08And like, I guess the question would be, should that be a different conversation in terms of how you rank it?
0:08You know, you're, you don't want to get anchored to what the environment you've been drafting in for five months.
0:08Um, I think I still do prefer, read straight up, but it is close and I might have them like back to back.
0:08How about you? I have them very close as well.
0:08That's that's very similar to the range. I mean, I'm, I'm lower on Harrison as you noted.
0:08So I have Harrison, not higher, not much higher than that.
0:08I'm looking more at ADP now to see the names that are in between them and Harrison.
0:08And like, I have Metcalf meaningfully higher than those guys.
0:08And I have downs higher. Um, I have lemon last of a tier right now, but I've debated moving him down.
0:08And then I have Brian Thomas and Marvin Harrison leading the next year after that.
0:08And like Quentin Johnson's in this range and I have Quentin Johnson, like, yeah, even further back.
0:08Um, but then after Thomas Harrison, who I've also debated, like, do I have them buried too far?
0:08Cause I don't have them as fades. I just like, I think they're hard plays, but I go read Godwin Addison, golden worthy right now.
0:08And like, I don't want to be out on Godwin.
0:08So I moved him up there. I don't think I need Addison that high.
0:08I haven't really actually been excited to click him or collect him very much.
0:08And I am taking it later too. Cause I, yeah, I didn't really, I'm not like drafting daily right now.
0:08And so I'm not, well, it depends on the form.
0:08It, well, it depends on the format and depends on the, it's like, it really depends on platform.
0:08So like on underdog Addison goes ahead of worthy and golden on.
0:08I think that's what I was looking at. The opposite.
0:08So it's like, it really depends where you're drafting.
0:08And I think it makes more sense for him to go after like just my intuition.
0:08I I'm more optimistic about ceiling cases for golden and worthy.
0:08I mean, obviously Addison has Justin Jefferson. So you're just, you know, I'd argue that the markets are both efficient, honestly.
0:08Like I think Addison, I have way more confidence in, as this is a good player than worthy and golden.
0:08But like, it's really hard to see a scenario outside of a Justin Jefferson injury in which Jordan Addison is like a
0:08massive story of the season type player. Um, whereas, you know, we outlined like the precarity of the chief situation and were these unique upside.
0:08And it is like quite easy for me to envision a scenario where Matthew golden is the highest scoring player on the green Bay Packers.
0:08And like, yeah. Um, you know, so I think that the, the true ceiling outcome, which is what I'm, especially in this
0:08range, like this is the range where you're really not drafting these guys as starters, as week one starters in your lineup
0:08for the most part, maybe the last starter in your lineup.
0:08Um, this is an area of the draft where I'd really have to be a really think you should be ceiling optimized, right?
0:08Especially in like a redraft scenario. Um, be that on FFPC or in a, in a home league.
0:08And so when you get into that, I think that that pushes guys like worthy and golden where the like 90th plus
0:08percentile outcome, I think is more enticing than Addison's.
0:08Yeah. Yeah. All right. We talked bears and Packers.
0:08You mentioned Kyler starting. I think that was kind of expected.
0:08That is sort of the Vikings deal. Pacheco MCL.
0:08We were just saying, not really in on the lines are going to be super concentrated.
0:08They gave Pacheco one year under 2 million and he hasn't been very good the last couple of years.
0:08It's a name value thing. So if you're wondering why we were both like, this is not, he's a bad pick.
0:08The reason he goes where he goes is like fantasy players think as a Pacheco is more than the league does.
0:08No one wanted to pay him more than $2 million on a one year deal.
0:08He was a seventh round pick. He wasn't very good.
0:08He got hurt a couple of years ago. It was not been the same player.
0:08It's not just that he's the clear backup or you think he's the clear backup.
0:08It's can he produce when he gets in? If he does get in, because if he can't, they'll just find another backup.
0:08They'll, they'll bring somebody else in like something you've talked about.
0:08Maybe they'll bring in James Connor or something. Isaiah Pacheco is not even a lock to be the number two to start the season.
0:08Now he has an MCL tear or tear injury.
0:08I just, I don't think you want to be on Isaiah Pacheco right now.
0:08No. Um, I I'd be honestly really surprised if they don't bring in a meaningful, uh, running back addition.
0:08Like, uh, like that's, that's pretty French unless I don't know, maybe silent vac he's having the camp of his life, but,
0:08um, I think somebody will threaten Pacheco cause he's not like on, on his merits.
0:08He's not going to be a reliable number two to be like a workhorse.
0:08If, if Gibbs got hurt and the fact that people are playing it, like that's clear is a, um, a massive miss in my opinion.
0:08Like they're just lost. I've had him ranked really, really low.
0:08Uh, anyway. And the easy thing to point out with that spot is, it is like really, really likely that one of
0:08Trey Benson or James Connor, if not both are not on the Cardinals to start the season.
0:08And the OC for last year's Cardinals is the lines OC.
0:08So he has familiarity with both of those guys.
0:08Love it. All right. All right. So we, you mentioned it earlier, Jordan Tyson hamstring.
0:08Um, I mean, he had been having a really strong camp.
0:08It seemed like until that. So super unfortunate. Um, this one, like, you know, uh, we had, we had Nick Underhill tweet
0:08out that the belief is that it's not super serious.
0:08Uh, my first question is about the English language.
0:08When you say something is not super serious, does the not only cancel out the super such that it is still serious?
0:08Um, it's, it's, it's only a lawyer, only a lawyer.
0:08I'm just like, I don't like this. If he had said it's not serious, that sounds great.
0:08You know, not super serious is like, well, it's still a little serious.
0:08Um, so anyway, I mean, I also just like, I have, I don't Jordan Tyson and hamstring.
0:08That's two things. I don't want to see together.
0:08Uh, like long history of hamstring issues. I would like his hamstring to stay attached.
0:08I would like to see them together. You're saying you would like it torn off the bone.
0:08No. Well, I just like, I just don't English English language.
0:08Jacob. You're saying you don't want his hamstring attached to him.
0:08I'm saying. Oh, I see. I see. Yeah. I just don't want to see anything.
0:08I don't want to see a tweet ever that says that has Jordan Tyson bracket hamstring involved.
0:08Yes. You know, I want to see that either.
0:08That's, that's just like, so I don't know what to do with this.
0:08I mean, I assume even if it's minor that you can add a week or two extra to whatever the timeline would be.
0:08I mean, this is a guy who missed a ton of the off season program with a hamstring issue.
0:08It's a guy who missed multiple stretches of his last college season with a hamstring issue.
0:08It's a guy who missed previous college seasons with a hamstring issue.
0:08Like it's a, it's an issue. Um, it's kind of the whole reason maybe, well, I shouldn't say the whole reason it is one of the biggest reasons.
0:09He wasn't the consensus wide receiver one in this class is the injury proneness and specifically this chronic hamstring issue.
0:09Um, and so how far are you really, really not ideal.
0:09I dropped him a tear and behind some other dudes.
0:09How far? Well, so like this happened today and I was writing, so I haven't even like gotten a chance to actually
0:09do it yet, but, um, I mean, I had him as a target and I'm changing that.
0:09Um, interesting. I, I'm moving him down, but I still want him.
0:09I, you still profile. I, I want to target and builds.
0:09Well, I just like, I don't know how far he's going to move down.
0:09So maybe he moves down a lot and then I can re-add the target.
0:09But I guess what I'm saying is I would no longer target him at the, like you're doing the targets more based on like ADP.
0:09Yeah. I do targets more on profile where it's fair.
0:09Fair enough. There's different sites and different ADPs and stuff, but that's, you have different ranks for your different sites.
0:09I just have one ranking set. So it's more like, these are, this is a kind of player that I could build around still.
0:09Yeah. So I had him, um, I had him ranked, like I'd move him down.
0:09I, I already had him behind Harrison because Harrison's a, a much more priority for me.
0:09Um, but I had him head of Rome. I'm going to move him behind Rome.
0:09Um, I had him at a Metcalf. I'm probably going to move him behind Metcalf, um, which that would mean moving him down a tier.
0:09So I guess my answer is the same that I will move him down a tier.
0:09Um, I don't know if I'd move him behind Brian Thomas.
0:09I might, um, um, I probably wouldn't move him behind Josh Downs because there's just such a wide ADP difference that like, that's where I stopped.
0:09Once I move someone behind Josh Downs, that means you can't draft them anymore because three rounds at 80.
0:09I have Cardinal Tate right behind Josh Downs for that reason.
0:09Oh, nice reason. But there you go. But I have doubts really high.
0:09Yeah. It's a scary one. It's a player I love.
0:09Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, Devontae Adams is undraftable.
0:09Let's be honest. That was all right. Here you go.
0:09That's the show. Two minutes, two hours, 21 seconds, two hours, 21 minutes.
0:09Devontae Adams is undraftable. Um, I mean, yeah, this is any of his numbers other than the 14 TDs last year.
0:09They're not great. And then they were trying to trade him the whole off season.
0:09They like, they told him they wanted to trade him and then they were not satisfied with AJ Brown's knee and some other things.
0:09But like, yeah, the T for hype is coming at Devontae Adams expense.
0:09They're going to find other things to do with all those air yards that he couldn't catch.
0:09Yeah. Uh, super excited about terms for yourself. I, I, I haven't read your tight end tears list, but do you have,
0:09do you have a nice target on T for guy?
0:09I hope I've got a target on him. The problem is like how high he continues to rise.
0:09I haven't been like, yeah, I'm moving him up.
0:09But he can't catch. After our last talk, I moved him ahead of Gadsden.
0:09You, you get props for that. There we go.
0:09I think I mentioned that you convinced me on, on the last episode in, in a rankings update where I noted that
0:09I'd move Ferguson ahead of him, but I don't, I mean, I want to keep moving them up, but it's like at
0:09a certain, like there's a lot of uncertainty to the bat.
0:09Like, yeah, I mean, he's, he's, he's another format dependent guy, right?
0:09Like in a, if you're in a redraft league, there's a, there's a pretty low opportunity cost, which is like, my recommendation
0:09is just, he should be your last pick in all of these.
0:09But, um, it's a higher opportunity cost, obviously in like a best ball scenario and FFPC scenario.
0:09Um, because yeah, he is like, he's, he's the way where he's moving up to is where you're going to have to
0:09take him in an FFPC league where floor at tight end is pretty darn meaningful because of the, the extra tight end premium point.
0:09Like you're gonna have to probably take him maybe if the hype keeps moving like over Britain strange or Dalton Schultz, uh, or, um, Jawan Johnson even potentially.
0:09Um, and that's where like, that's where if it's a total air ball, that's, that hurts you.
0:09Yeah, for sure. Um, we'll get to the NFC West in a second.
0:09Yeah. Let's let's, so you did the Tyson hand me and I cut in, but what do you have for the rest of the NFC?
0:09So, yeah, Tyson hammy. Scary. I book a toe seems to be not that scary.
0:09It said to be a minor toe injury, but, uh, that was my, my main note on the box.
0:09And then, uh, Carolina, we got a transaction. Darren Waller has signed with the Carolina Panthers.
0:09Oh, I miss that. Oh, that happened. That happened yesterday.
0:09Uh, yesterday, yesterday evening. So Darren Waller is now a member of the Carolina Panthers.
0:09We get your extremely live reaction to this because this is, this is brand new information.
0:09Uh, so no, I'm pumped about that. Yeah, no, I'm pretty excited about that.
0:09That's pretty cool for him. And it's pretty cool for the Panthers.
0:09I, one of the things when I, when I did my projections and talked about the Panthers offense, I emphasize that their
0:09tight ends were not good last year. Mitchell Evans had the best yards per out run, very limited routes.
0:09Tommy tremble has led the tight ends and routes the last few years.
0:09He's run like two 40, two 50, but sub one yards per out run every year.
0:09But he like rotationally runs enough routes to like also affect the other guys.
0:09Jatavian Sanders, you were hoping for a little bit more in year two.
0:09It actually went the other way. If I'm, if I'm not mistaken, his yards per out run kind of got worse.
0:09Um, he hasn't had a huge sample size. So I remember I like contrasted him to Xavier Leggett and was like, the gets ran way more routes.
0:09I'm way more confidently get sucks at this point, but Jatavian Sanders probably looks like he's not that, not a thing, but
0:09maybe there's still some potential there, but that was their like three tight end situation.
0:09And none of them looked exciting. And they were going to rotate.
0:09I was going to say rotational, but then I just decided to say rotate with the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable.
0:09Uh, Darren Waller is going to take some type of rotational routes role, but be an actual threat in the receiving game.
0:09He looked pretty decent still last year with the dolphins, always been a talented receiver that, uh, comment you just made that you think he's draftable.
0:09I think it's pretty interesting. I think he's probably still, you know, a low bet, a slim bet to have like a massive number of routes.
0:09So I agree with you. He's probably draftable, but he's probably back there with the T Fergs of the world.
0:09Um, but he, he should be there most, if he's healthy, he should be their most productive tight end in receiving yardage.
0:09And I think their third most productive player probably, because if you're like, that's bad though, I was excited about, you know,
0:09them getting, uh, Brazel or Brazil or whatever. I can't say the guy's name.
0:09Brazil, the gazelle, Brazel, Razzle, Dazzle, Brazel, Razzle, Razzle, Dazzle, Brazel as their third receiver.
0:09Now you have Waller to be that third guy and draw some coverage and do some things for, to free up.
0:09You can get kind of vertical, like one of the few.
0:09Yeah. Yeah. Should be good for McMillan. Should be good for Coker.
0:09I'm excited. I mean, it's, it's a fun fit.
0:09They needed another legitimate receiving threat. And there's not a lot of guys out there that are legitimate receiving threats in August,
0:09but Darren Waller could be that to the extent that he can run 300 routes.
0:09Yeah. When he was, uh, when he was active for the dolphins last year, he was legitimately productive.
0:09Um, he had a real role and, and it was a little volatile because the routes are going to be up and
0:09down, but he had, I think he had three top six weeks at the tight end position last year.
0:09I'm, I'm pretty sure that that's correct. Um, so he's an interesting guy.
0:09I would view it like from a role perspective, I think he would run like the Jatavian Sanders routes in terms of
0:09like, he was the guy who was kind of used most as the receiving only tight end.
0:09So I think Sanders kind of goes like pretty darn close to zero, honestly.
0:09Um, and if you were bullish on anyone to consolidate the tight end position previously, I think Mitchell Evans was probably the best bet for that.
0:09Um, but that obviously I think now is, is more unlikely.
0:09I think Mitchell Evans will be used more as an inline guy.
0:09They're going to find some, some role for tremble probably.
0:09And then Waller. Yeah. I would expect Waller to be like a, a low snap rate, many, much higher routes rate than snap rate player.
0:09Um, like I could see some weeks where he's like 60% of the routes on 30% of the snaps almost, um, for him where he's used pretty situationally.
0:09I think that would be wise given his health, but I could, I could see weeks where they, uh, uh, they throw to him a lot for sure.
0:09Darren Waller, or I'm going to give you some one-on-ones.
0:09Darren Waller, Gunner, Helm. Uh, I'll go Helm. Darren Waller or Kate Otten.
0:09Ooh, um, best fall Otten redraft. Give me Waller.
0:09Yeah. FFPC. Give me Waller. Darren Waller, Greg Dulcich.
0:09That's an interesting one. Similar. I mean, yeah, adults, it's going to have the higher route rate, but like on how many drop backs?
0:09Uh, I think I go Dulcich. Darren Waller. Okay.
0:09Darren Waller, or I mean, I have AJ Barner lower than that.
0:09Eli Raritan. Darren Waller, Eli Raritan. I'm going Waller.
0:09I'm going Waller. I think there you go. Darren Waller, or like, what about like Barner or like Evan Ingram or Mike Gusecki or those dudes?
0:09Definitely going Waller over Ingram and Gusecki. Uh, I think I would stick with Barner, but in like, uh, I mean, in
0:09FFP, like it really depends on the format. Like in, in best ball, Waller is a bit scary because like no one
0:09would be shocked if he plays like two games, his hamstring falls off the bone and that's that for the career.
0:09But in a league where you're, where you have to start a guy, I do think we'll probably get some weeks where
0:09Waller like projects well and you start him reasonably confidently.
0:09Darren Waller or Eli Stowers. Definitely Darren Waller. All right.
0:09Oh man. What else do we got? All right.
0:09We got one. Oh, this is, this one is like, I heard this yesterday because Pat told me this and it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard.
0:09Kevin Stefanski apparently started this thing at the end of practice that they call opportunity period at Falcons camp, which is like
0:09for players that don't have a secure role yet and younger players to, to only play with and against each other while the starters and veterans rest.
0:09And Zachari branch was playing an opportunity period for much of the off season.
0:09And this recently he stopped. And so one of the beat writers wrote that he's graduated from opportunity period university and into contention for the starting lineup.
0:09Oh my God. Is there anything lamer than opportunity period university?
0:09No, no, that was bad. That was bad. But should you draft Eddie Falcon branch after hearing that?
0:09Like, that made me, that made me want to move down B shot.
0:09Like, I'm like, I can't be associated with opportunity period.
0:09That made me want to move down B shot is the quote of the show.
0:09That's incredible. The abuka toe, not bad, right? It's supposed to be minor.
0:09Yeah. And I mean like, so I, I'm not, I'm not massively concerned.
0:09What is supposed to be minor? Well, it means that like, it means I haven't examined his toe.
0:09I don't know. The viewer say it's considered minor.
0:09It means I haven't examined his toe. All right.
0:09Like we're talking about Todd Bowles team. Like, I don't know.
0:09Like whatever the coach speak index reliability meter is on Todd Bowles.
0:09It's like negative. He just said, he might have a toe and he might not.
0:09We don't know. Maybe next winter we'll figure it out.
0:09Right. Like, I don't know. I don't know what anything means, but it's supposed to be minor.
0:09Cool. All right. Next. All right. We got one division left.
0:09Yeah. Last division. Finally, we're going to get this under three hours.
0:09Zach Charbonnet is accordingly ahead of schedule. This is per, oh my God.
0:09I really wish that I put down the first names for these.
0:09Mr. Nemhauser. I said, Charbonnet is ahead of schedule, could return much earlier than expected and might not even be on the PUP list.
0:09And I will also note, Gendarian Price missed some time with some, some tightness, some soreness.
0:09He's, he's back at camp and he's going to be hopefully fine.
0:09And I think in his first practice back, he was reported to have taken the first snap with the ones even ahead of Mr.
0:09Helani. So Charbonnet. I think it's Brian Nemhauser. I think that's a Hawk blogger.
0:09If I'm, it is Hawk blogger. It's definitely Hawk blogger.
0:09Say, say that again. Charbonnet ahead of schedule. I wasn't listening to the audience.
0:09Yeah. Brian, Brian Nemhauser, Hawk blogger was talking about Zach Charbonnet.
0:09He said, the recovery is going great. He's ahead of schedule.
0:09And that he'd said, people have been expecting he won't be back until October or November.
0:09But he thinks that there's a chance that he will beat that and might not even be on PUP to start the season.
0:09Okay, cool. Next. And then we got Carson Beck played like, honestly, he balled the hell out in the hall of fame game last week.
0:09And, but then did not, he won't be playing in the game.
0:09It's happening right now. He had a minor rib injury.
0:09That's also supposed to be minor. So unfortunately, he couldn't keep that momentum, but like I was really impressed by him in the hall of fame game.
0:09And then, and he, you know, that's, that's pretty meaningful.
0:09He might play games at the end of the season.
0:09And then we had, uh, Pukanakua in like one of the, I talked about it.
0:09You don't want Jordan Tyson bracket hamstring. There was an underdog alert regarding this one.
0:09You never want your name bracket antisemitism slash biting.
0:09That's never anything you want to be in headline.
0:09And, uh, um, Pukanakua did have the bracket antisemitism biting where, uh, to summarize, uh, Adam Schefter, as I mentioned in the
0:09Josh Jacobs section, uh, that Pukanakua is, uh, situation remains under review.
0:09So there's some risk of suspension, I suppose with him.
0:09We'll probably find that out sooner or later. He also picked up a minor injury, um, in camp.
0:09I think, I think it's supposed to be fine from a health standpoint.
0:09And then, uh, the last team in the list, the 49ers.
0:09Oh, yeah, I was, I was, I was supposed to let you go through all of it, but what are you doing with Puka?
0:09Dude, it's tough. So, I mean, we, I said, we drafted this made event yesterday and as luck would have it, like
0:09what slots we pick, but the fricking 104. Uh, and so we had to immediately confront this, this question, you know, do
0:09you take Puka where we would have probably all happily done?
0:09So the previous day, really tough. Yeah. I mean, for what it's worth, I voted for Puka.
0:09Um, but I totally get why we took powers.
0:09Uh, so I, I wrote up Puka super favorably.
0:09I had him as my 103 solidly above chase.
0:09Um, I think he should even be a consideration to be the one of two of a B John.
0:09If everything is all good on health and discipline.
0:09That's interesting. I didn't know we were so locked on Puka, but that's exactly the way that I've been looking at him,
0:09but I just flipped him behind chase. As you told me that the, I didn't hear the Schefter thing that the suspension was still under review.
0:09If that's the case, then I'm, I moved him back a spot behind chase.
0:09Now, would you move him behind JSN? That's, that's been the tough one for me.
0:09That's why I asked. Yeah. Cause I, I do think that, um, I kind of did immediately like in, especially my best
0:09ball rankings, but I, I think, I, I think if I was on the clock in the one Oh four, it's just my team.
0:09I'm probably still taking him above JSN because I do think he projects pretty meaningfully better on a week to week basis.
0:09And it's not going to be like suspended. He might be suspended.
0:09Not at all. And if he is probably one or two games.
0:09Yeah. Right. So like, you know, you get in the scenario where like, you have a famously anti-semitism slash biting is more of a water two games.
0:09Jesus. Yeah. You get one for each. My God.
0:09But maybe they're served concurrently. You know, it's like when you get like, if you, if you, if you like go into
0:09a liquor store, you rob a liquor store at gunpoint and you, you kill a guy.
0:09It's like, you get charged for murder and for aggravated assault, but you could serve them concurrently instead of consecutively.
0:09Maybe he only gets one game total. He gets to serve them concurrently.
0:09He gets to serve. God. It feels bad. It feels bad.
0:09I mean, my read, this is, this is pure conjecture, but if you watch the Schefter video, the way he phrased it,
0:09he said, there is a possibility that when the Rams kick off their season in Australia against the 49ers, that Puka Nakua will not be in the lineup.
0:09My read on that was he is going to get one game and exactly one game, but that's like purely me inferring
0:09something from what Adam Schefter said and how he phrased it, which could be completely baseless.
0:09But that was the inference that I personally made.
0:09I'm not even really up on what he did.
0:09I remember seeing like the, like reports, but anyway, he did antisemitism.
0:09It's not funny, but it's not a little, it's a little funny that that's the, oh man.
0:09All right. What else, what else do we got from the night?
0:09The last one on my list is just, is, Oh, and Puka's hurt too.
0:09You also had injury. Yes. He also suffered a minor, minor injury.
0:09Sick. It's been said by everybody's minor, but, and then 49ers, the last two on my list.
0:09So we got continued strong buzz on Dijon Stribling.
0:09Our guy, Grant Cohn, who like, I'll just, I'll just say it.
0:09Like, as sometimes, there's some performative elements in his reporting style.
0:09There's a Shipley. He's more than Shipley. No, we're not going to put them in the same, that that's no, we're not
0:09going to put these two in the same category.
0:09Okay. All right. Oh my goodness. But, uh, he, he said, you know, he's been talking up Stribling.
0:09He said, he's the best wide receiver in camp.
0:09Now, granted, Mike Evans doesn't practice in like two weeks.
0:10Um, but then the best wide receiver in camp, he said, he outplayed Carnell Tate in the joint practice.
0:10He's the, he's the best rookie receiver in the class.
0:10Uh, Stoll's chain. All that stuff. and then the other fun thing is that, uh, they've been dealing with just a million
0:10running back injuries, including even Christian McCaffrey has been missing time with, with like tightness.
0:10They've been calling it. Uh, and Debo Samuel's been taking some snaps at running back.
0:10So maybe we get the wide back back. And my, my point on that is that's great for Debo.
0:10It's also, I think great for Stribling. Yeah. I think it's great for the offense.
0:10It's, it makes a lot of sense. Uh, cause they don't have a backup and they actually could spell McCaffrey.
0:10Some with Debo, that they could legitimately do some of the McCaffrey stuff with Debo.
0:10They were starting to, to do some interchangeable stuff with those guys.
0:10They were putting Debo in the backfield and putting McCaffrey at wide receiver to like, just change things up.
0:10Like a couple of years ago, uh, obviously when Debo was still with the Niners, um, before McCaffrey was hurt, the Stribling best wide receiver in camp.
0:10The note, obviously that's interesting. There is, you know, Evans was out with a quad Evans back yesterday.
0:10I saw is another piece of news that I can give you.
0:10I'm, I'm not as low on Evans as like Devonta Adams, for example.
0:10Um, still earned a lot of volume last year.
0:10And I think there's real potential for him to be the clear number one.
0:10The thing about me being out on Adams is it's kind of contingent on, on Pook and Akua, not biting people.
0:10So, you know, if Pook and Akua is suspended, you're in a tough spot with right.
0:10It's possible the fading Adams could come back to bite you.
0:10Damn. That was all right. That's I love a dad joke.
0:10Um, I saw that one right into the globe.
0:10You did. You nailed it. We're so deep into this recording.
0:10It's absurd. Um, yeah, struggling, struggling continues to get buzzed.
0:10We knew that we talked about it earlier even.
0:10Uh, but this Debo stuff is pretty interesting. I I've raised him up quite a bit.
0:10Um, what about, I mean, I'm sure you're taking digs over Debo, right?
0:10Yeah. Yeah. But I, I mean, I don't have digs that or Debo that far behind him.
0:10I have six spots, wide receiver spots behind them.
0:10Let me see how many more I have. Uh, how far up is the rankings I'm looking at?
0:10I saw this going, digs is going pretty high.
0:10So like, I mean, it's the same main event team.
0:10Um, like we took, we took digs is going on underdog.
0:10He's going over worthy and golden already. And Wanda Robinson, people just in conception.
0:10People just hate those receivers. That's crazy. I mean, like, yeah, I understand the bull case for digs, but I just, I
0:10feel like, like, we're just going to blow him past these other receivers.
0:10It's kind of nuts to me, but yeah, go for it.
0:10I won't be trapped a lot of things that way.
0:10Yeah. I don't have a lot of digs. Debo wide receiver 55 here.
0:10Yeah. I have him right at 55. I have.
0:10And so digs is going six 46. He's going nine spots higher.
0:10I have digs at 49. Um, and that's despite having like Quentin Johnston behind him and Cortland Sutton behind him.
0:10So there's several guys behind digs that I have ranked ahead of digs.
0:10Right. but so I have, I'm checking out, I have digs at wide receiver.
0:10Well, I did my wide receiver 46. So I think that's exactly what he is going as, but I also have exactly
0:10the names you just said, Quentin Johnson at 47 and Sutton at 48.
0:10Um, I have Debo at, well, I, so I have Debo lower in my, uh, quite a bit lower actually.
0:10In my like redraft stuff. I have a lot higher in best ball, but I'm down at 60 in redraft.
0:10Okay. Um, so that's, yeah, that's behind. Like part of it is just, I don't know.
0:10Like that's, that's pretty format specific. Like to me, if it's a managed league, I'm starting two receivers in a flex.
0:10I'm just pretty confident. I'm going to get receivers that I think I have, that have a high enough floor that I don't need Debo.
0:10And I'm, I'm pretty bearish on like the true upside case on him at this age.
0:10But like, do you see him having like top 24 upside?
0:10Like on a sustained basis? No, but I think in managed, he could have spurts of interesting usability potentially.
0:10If that's fair, if the usage is, is interesting.
0:10And then, you know, you're kind of plug and playing him.
0:10I don't know that I, I should move them up.
0:10If there's like a lot of contingent upside with McCaffrey, that's probably something I wasn't really factoring in.
0:10Jacoby Myers and Romeo Dobbs versus Debo is like, they're going ahead of him, but that's interesting to me.
0:10Yeah. That's a pretty fair point. I haven't, I currently haven't ranked between them.
0:10You know, I have both those guys as fades a little bit behind their ADP.
0:10Yeah. I currently have them back to back to back, like right.
0:10So anyway, I could have them in that same group.
0:10Cause I have, I have Myers at 53. We have Dobbs at 55.
0:10I could definitely have Debo in that group. That's what I have.
0:1054. Here's the player I have above Debo. Trey Harris.
0:10Ooh, I got your Harris a little bit behind there.
0:10Yeah. I have Pat Bryant right behind there though.
0:10I have Harris behind Bryant. Pat Bryant is a rocket ship.
0:10Anyway. Other, before we give away all of our, just randomly, the Niners, we just talked about the Puka thing.
0:10We talked about Carson from my end. Yeah. Carson back.
0:10I was pumped about as well. I talked about this a bit on bananas yesterday, but I was all like, I was
0:10surprised about the, the, the actual physical throwing. I was excited that they played with some tempo with him in there.
0:10Like Matt, Michael for was excited to get him like actually moving a little bit.
0:10And then I felt like he had command over the playbook and like the line of scrimmage.
0:10He called at least one audible and everyone was locked in.
0:10There was a spot low in the play clock where a guy didn't go in motion.
0:10And he very demonstrably and very quickly like stepped back and made sure that guy got moving.
0:10Cause there was like five on the, on the play clock and they like would have either otherwise needed to take a timeout or potential delay a game.
0:10Maybe most quarterbacks, you know, are aware enough to do that.
0:10I was saying on, on bananas, it maybe sometimes that makes them question themselves.
0:10Like I felt like that was a clear, like I know exactly what I should be seeing when I call for a motion, that guy should be going.
0:10Like, let's go did it with like no hesitation.
0:10That kind of a thing I took as a positive about Beck, but also about Lafleur who I, the haircut has been
0:10a concern for me, but now I'm like, you know, maybe he's communicating his offense well enough.
0:10If he's got a rookie plan, like with some command of the playbook in the offense in his first game, even if
0:10it is a, you know, a hall of fame game against stripped down defenses and a very base level offense, like you're,
0:10and then in addition to him throwing on time and knowing where to go with the ball and completing so many passes and the stat sheet look great.
0:10I think optimism for Arizona's offense. I took out of that game, even though it was the hall of fame game.
0:10I mean that tempo stuff, everything like man. All right.
0:10Maybe Michael Fleur little brother knows what he's doing a little bit.
0:10Like that's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, I think that the natural take from a lot of people is LOL, all of
0:10fame game, you know, it doesn't matter. It's preseason.
0:10And like, there's truth to that. I'm not, I'm not enshrining Carson Beck and Canton just yet, but I was legitimately impressed.
0:10Everything you mentioned to me makes sense. That's the guy who started 43 games in college at top flight programs, right?
0:10He played at Georgie, played at Miami. He was in national championship contention.
0:10Basically every game he was starting does not actually shock me that much that he's a guy who has an easier time adjusting to those things.
0:10Then frankly, guys drafted way higher than him, right?
0:10I mean, this is a guy that started a ton of meaningful games.
0:10At a really high level with really top coaching.
0:10What did surprise me in the most positive way is this is a guy who once upon a time was viewed as
0:10around one talent who tore his UCL in college.
0:10And in my opinion, never really recovered from it.
0:10The velocity outside the numbers I thought dropped off dramatically after that injury.
0:10And he was just not the same guy at all at Miami last year.
0:10I thought he showed way more zip on the football physically than he showed at any point in Miami last year.
0:10So like that to me is, is real. Like, that's just like, can you throw the football really hard?
0:10And I thought he did repeatedly in that game in a way that I didn't think he was physically capable of doing anymore since that elbow injury.
0:10So if that's coming back, then like, yeah, maybe this is like a, uh, uh, I mean, he was a guy that
0:10went at the top around three that a lot of people thought was laughable.
0:10Um, and I'm not saying he'd be a day one guy.
0:10There's other issues with Beck, but it would be, it would make way more sense to me if you have the physical
0:10profile back in this guy that I thought we had like two years ago in college when he was considered a potential round one guy.
0:10And, you know, I'm not necessarily like leaping out to draft Carson back, but this is a team that has a lot
0:10of very highly drafted skill players, despite, you know, being viewed as one of the worst teams in the league.
0:10And yeah, if you're drafting McBride, love Harrison Wilson, it's really encouraging to see that the guy who's probably starting for them
0:10in the latter half of the year that we may have some base competence out of.
0:10And maybe this is a guy that they can still call a pretty aggressive offense around and ask some, some more out of him.
0:10You know, it's like, cause, cause what can you expect?
0:10Like, I think an optimistic comp would be, can this guy be rookie year Gardner Minshew or rookie year?
0:10Even like Aiden O'Connell was like not very good, but he was able to funnel fantasy value to Jacoby Myers and Brock Bowers.
0:10And they passed a lot with him. What you don't want is like Brady cook, you know, or JJ McCarthy or like
0:10guys who just completely make it impossible for anyone to do anything in fantasy.
0:10So yeah, not, not life-changing, but like, I think it's actually real.
0:10I think it's actually more real than people seemingly were saying it was.
0:10People are just for some context, Trey McBride going into last year had Kyler Murray as his quarterback and concerns about pass
0:10volume concerns about TD, potential to score any touchdowns because he had never really been able to score any TDs with Kyler.
0:10And Marvin Harrison, still, still a lot more optimism about Marvin Harrison last year than there is right now.
0:10He was going to the third, fourth round and he was going on underdog last year, Trey McBride 25th.
0:10He's going 29th right now because of Carson Beck, because everyone says late in the season, Carson Beck's going to be the quarterback and you can't have that.
0:10So he's going later this year than last year, despite a season where, yes, I know he ran the most routes in,
0:10in tight end history, basically in PFF database by a lot, but he showed us an ability to score a lot of touchdowns.
0:10He now has a way better quarterback in Jacoby Brissett that he's starting with and potentially a better backup quarterback in Carson
0:10Beck, potentially a better offense situation, less competition. If you understand the Harrison year two, year three narrative shift to be favorable for Trey McBride.
0:10And just the fact that he established himself that much more as a superstar in that year.
0:10Like I think he has more separation between him and the wide receivers.
0:10The fact that Trey McBride is going lower this year is wrong.
0:10It's just wrong. I mean, I'm not like, I'm not even like, I like playing Bowers and Colson Loveland more.
0:10It's wrong. It's, it's a, it's a mistake by the market that undervalues Trey McBride's profile and skillset and what he actually is as a player.
0:10He's way too good to be going worse off of one of the greatest tight end seasons we've ever seen.
0:10I mean, people are like, they think Trey McBride is not as good as he is.
0:10It's a mistake that they've made. The market's made in the past.
0:10They're making it again right now. I feel strongly about that point.
0:10Um, I don't, do you have any thoughts on McBride or?
0:10I don't have any additional thoughts. I think that that is true.
0:10I mean, that's the crux of McBride thing. I think he's a great pick.
0:10And the only annoying thing is that I think that there's two arguably better picks at the tight end position.
0:10And it just makes it so hard to decide on who, but I think it's a great pick, uh, and a great call.
0:10Um, I have, uh, I have the least reliable beat reporter of all time for this, um, which is Davis Maddock.
0:10So maybe this is, this is completely wrong. We are almost three hours in something.
0:10He just tweeted something that I think you're going to want to hear to end, end the program, which is that apparently
0:10come on even doll playing in the preseason while Keaton Mitchell rests with the starters.
0:10Nice. Now that could be baseless. Cause this is Davis.
0:10So this could be like Keaton Mitchell could come in and 30 minutes, but like, I wanted to hear it.
0:10And I thought you would want to hear it.
0:10I love hearing it. I love hearing it. Our listeners love hearing it.
0:10I did want to go back to the Seahawks.
0:10Charbonnet ahead of schedule. I'm making bold claims at this point in the show.
0:10Zach Charbonnet is a horrendous redraft pick. You're even if he's ahead of schedule, even if he misses PUP, even if whatever
0:10you're missing, uh, you're, you're rostering him through miss time early in the season.
0:10There's the potential for a first round running back to break out during that time.
0:10And in addition to that, he's never really been a special athlete.
0:10And when he comes back on a quicker timeline off an ACL, he tore his ACL in January off a quicker timeline
0:10off his, off an ACL then, then is expected.
0:10Traditionally, he may be not a shell of himself, but not as efficient as he was last year because he's never really been a special athlete.
0:10He doesn't have a whole lot to give back.
0:10He hasn't been rehabbing or he's been rehabbing. He hasn't been training and being like at peak physical shape.
0:10When you're going to play a guy coming off an injury, like you want to play, I want to play Malik neighbors a little bit like Malik neighbors.
0:10Is a superstar, elite athlete, elite talent was talented to gain where I think 80% Malik neighbors can still be dominant at the NFL level.
0:10I don't think 80% Zach Charbonnet is even an NFL player.
0:10Like he's too fringy. Like I think that's, so I think particularly in redraft, if you want to play him in best
0:10ball on these timeline stuff, I'm not great at best ball, whatever, do what you want to do.
0:10Particularly in redraft, there's the possibility that he's good late in the season.
0:10It's a damaging thing to have a bench roster spot that you can't churn locked up for a play.
0:10That's not even probably a high ceiling play. And by the time he returns, you may want to cut him anyway.
0:10Cause your area and price might be doing well enough that you're like, now I just have a backup.
0:10Like, just don't take him in and manage. I, and that doesn't mean that he can't produce later.
0:10I just, it's not a functionally smart play for how you have to manage your roster.
0:10I, I totally agree with that. Um, everything you were saying, like you're going to want to make waiver moves the first couple of weeks of the season.
0:10It's the best time to do it. You want to have guys that you take that are easy cuts.
0:10And if you take Charbonnet, you're attached to Charbonnet.
0:10You have to keep him on your roster while you wait for him to come back or, or you don't, in which
0:10case you've just wasted a pick for nothing. Um, and I'll also note, I just pulling up a tweet here from Jeff
0:10Mueller, uh, who does a lot of great injury stuff on Twitter.
0:10Um, and this is a quote tweet of an Albert Breer report from a couple of weeks ago that said that Charbonnet
0:10could be a potential close call to be ready for week one.
0:10Mueller said, this would be only six months to 25 days.
0:10The only way I see this being possible is if he had a repair versus a reconstruction.
0:10The reporting on that isn't fully clear. Returning that early after a reconstruction is not fully recommended.
0:10Um, so anyways, I'll, I'll note that, that maybe there was something weird with the surgery, but, um, I am fully in agreement.
0:10Yeah. Anyways, but other outside of that, I'm, I'm very much, uh, very much in agreement on the thesis on that.
0:10And I've, I, I, I, I've seen other people tweet about that, that I can't find right now, but I know that
0:10I've seen it saying like, that would be a bit of a risky procedure in terms of how well he would be able to return to form.
0:10Okay. So if it was a repair, not a recovery, there's a concern that that could, it was a repair rather than a reconstruction.
0:10You can return sooner, but the return to performance is, would be pretty volatile and that it's possible he could return sooner,
0:10but look like crap basically, or get re-injured or get re-injured.
0:10Got it. Or be fine. But anyway. Yeah. Interesting.
0:10Okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess there'd be additional risks to returning beyond what you would have on a, on a anyway.
0:10Yeah. But maybe that does. I mean, if he returns week one, it refutes my point of like, you don't want to
0:10have somebody like, then you are going to get her.
0:10I'm so bearish on that. Like, it seems extremely bearish, but I'm just, I was very, very firm about my take a minute ago.
0:10I'm at least acknowledging that I could be wrong.
0:10I'm still not going to draft Charbonnet. I still recommend you guys.
0:10No, neither am I. I don't think he's in my, I don't think he's in my redraft ranking.
0:10Any, uh, final thoughts before we wrap up? I'm good.
0:10Great. Thanks for compiling. We did only short view.
0:10We almost did three hours. Jesus. Well, I mean, you ended up with something for all 32 teams.
0:10I mean, this was a, this is a legit project.
0:10Thanks for compiling it all. It's great. Great information.
0:10Do you feel like at the end of this show that we graduated from opportunity period university?
0:11I do. I do. It's good. Oh my God.
0:11Subscribe on Patreon. Listen to our stuff. Uh, we're going to do a draft stream soon.
0:11Any other, uh, promotional stuff you got? Um, well, let's, let's promote this.
0:11We, we both, uh, just released an article in the athletic today.
0:11I didn't know that they were going to come out on the same day, but they sure did.
0:11Um, and, uh, yeah, that was really fun. I wrote a dynasty market principles article.
0:11What did you write about the athletic today? I wrote, uh, biggest lessons learned from my projections process.
0:11A lot of, um, sort of technical Jonathan Taylor's routes and target stuff.
0:11The kind of things that you, you know, the numbers that I normally shout at you guys on these podcasts.
0:11It's fun. Yeah. So check us out in the athletic.
0:11Uh, we're both gonna be writing a bit in there for the rest of the season.
0:11Um, mine will be entirely dynasty focused. So I'll have two more before the end of the off season.
0:11I'm going to have a sleepers article and a sales article, and then I'll have some fun in season dynasty content.
0:11Um, probably on the rookie class. I'll have some like trade deadline strategy and stuff for buyers and sellers.
0:11So excited for that. Uh, if you are used to my work on thinking about thinking, um, you'll, you'll probably have a
0:11feel for, for how I do dynasty content, but, um, I'll have a little bit of a little bit of a little
0:11bit of a little bit And of course I'll still have, um, all the writing that you're used to it thinking about thinking.
0:11And in fact, uh, much more, I'm excited to announce kind of my in season plan, but, um, yeah.
0:11Anything else you wanted to plug? Fantastic. No, that's great.
0:11Uh, thinking about thinking definitely go subscribe. You had your big, uh, uh, draft strategy guide, um, stealing signals.
0:11I've got stuff out. I just wrote part one of my big strategy thing.
0:11And the responses are in, um, they, uh, let me give you a couple of the, uh, comments that came in today.
0:11Good read, but I got to say, Ben, I'm more confused about what to do strategically than before.
0:11This was definitely a get inside Ben's inner thoughts kind of piece.
0:11And not a, here's what I think, uh, is best kind of piece.
0:11Um, thanks, Ben. This was really good. I'll say, I don't always feel like I comprehend everything you write.
0:11So it's great. We were looking good. No, the first, the first half of it was about understanding the 2026 fantasy football meta.
0:11It was very me trying to tie together a lot of the stuff that we've talked about with the different formational stuff, different like injury timeline stuff.
0:11A lot of different things that I've written about over the years, I think, um, was going back and kind of reviewing stuff that actually won in 2025.
0:11The, the, I said that was part one. The part two is going to be more of the actual, I got to
0:11let these guys know, but it's going to be more of the actual strategy and what to do that's coming.
0:11But I, I just laughing at these comments. Anyway, I, I closed it by saying I didn't, I didn't have a strong conclusion.
0:11So for the record, there, it wasn't intending to be a super, super actionable.
0:11It was more of a foundational discussion of the 2026 fantasy football meta.
0:11But anyway, pretty, uh, well, let us know in these comments, if what we said makes sense to you.
0:11Yeah. Let's know if everything we're saying makes absolutely no sense.
0:11Uh, what else? Subscribe on all the platforms and stuff, right?
0:11You got to do the platforms. You're the podcast.
0:11Yes. like subscribe, follow, et cetera. And, bet had mentioned, uh, off the top that we're going to do some draft episodes soon.
0:11Um, can't promise you exactly when those are going to release, but we, we definitely will be doing some in short order.
0:11So you will get those exclusively. On the Patreon.
0:11And, uh, otherwise we will see everyone back, uh, sometime soon for the next episode of the long.
0:11Um, yeah.
