August 4, 2025 • 16 mins
Join Ryan Wormeli and Jake Ciely for their four must-have fantasy football players for the 2025 NFL season!
Is Cincinnati Bengals RB Chase Brown being overlooked again? Can Chicago Bears WR Rome Odunze cape up for managers in his sophomore season? Plus, would missing out on Green Bay Packers WR Matthew Golden be a mistake?
The Pros deliver these super values!
Timestamps: (May be off due to ads)
Intro - 0:00:00
FantasyPros ECR Rankings - 0:01:27
Defining Must-Have - 0:0:1:37
Jake’s Must-Have Players - 0:02:32
Chase Brown (RB - CIN) - 0:02:55
Rome Odunze (WR - CHI) - 0:06:27
FantasyPros Draft Assistant - 0:11:06
Matthew Golden (WR - GB) - 0:11:36
Outro - 0:15:01
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everybody, Welcome into Fantasy Pros. I'm Ryan Warmley, joined
today by Jake Sealey from The Athletic. No, this is
not an emergency podcast to talk about how much we
disagree about Fantastic four first steps. This is talking about
must have players rough Jake e Tooy twenty five drafts.
Just as a quick aside on that. I respect people
who like Fantastic for most of the people in my
(00:21):
life have really liked it. I was just let down
by it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I will say, oh wow, we might have to do
a whole completely separate podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I found it to be just kind of boring there,
Like I thought it lacked juice and I was not
a Pedro Pascal fan as mister Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Okay, so that was my Also I had two minor complaints. Actually,
I think it was just as good as Superman. I
just think it's a completely different tone, and I think
it was going for the family drama like more grounded,
which I mean at the end I want spoiling it.
I'm not gonna spoil it, I think, but like it
kind of gets superheroly at the end. But I just
understanding that was tone. I thought it was fantastic Pedro Pascal,
(00:59):
I actually don't think was the best fit. Like, I
really don't like that. Actually, he was one of my
minor complaints, so I'm with you on that one.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah. I thought Vanessa Kirby was amazing. I will give
her credit. She was awesome. I thought Julie Gardner is
Silver Surfder was great. There were parts I like, and
I might actually see it again because so many people
have told me I'm wrong, that I will give it
a second chance and maybe enjoy it differently. That's enough
of that. This is a shorter episode here, so we
can't waste any more time with that. Like I said,
we're talking about some must have players for you here
in twenty twenty five drafts. All of our rankings, consensus rankings,
(01:29):
and tiers can be found at fantasypros dot com slash rankings.
Before we jump in, what kind of defines a guy
as being must have? In your opinion? When you hear
that phrase, what does that mean to you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
That's interesting because I was looking through and kind of like, well,
I really want this player and really want that, so
must have kind of feels like guys that are undervalued
for me. I know that might come into play of
like people thinking that's sleeper or anything like that, or
you know, these are late round values, but like must
have is like you could argue Jamar Chase must have,
but I mean you're going to pay for Jamar Chase
at the one on one. You know, Nico Collins must have.
(02:01):
He's gonna be a fringe first rounder. I'm not really
telling you anything like, oh, surprisingly go draft Nico Collins.
So I took it more as within the ranges that
we're doing the top fifty this, you know, fifty one
to one twenty, then one twenty and after it's kind
of like, guys, I'm trying to get home, like, actually,
there's a piece on the athletic I have coming out
which is my so far most drafted players. Because I
say so far because it could change and in a month,
(02:22):
but at least so far, everybody we're mentioning today is
in that list of like guys I have on a
lot of my teams. So those feel like the quote
unquote must haves for me.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Let's jump into these must haves. We're gonna kind of
separate it by ranges in the draft. We'll pick one
inside the top fifty one in that like fifty one
to one twenty ish range, kind of those mid round
picks and the one guy going outside the top one
twenty again fantasypros dot Com slash rankings if you guys
want to check out, are consensus rankings and tiers there,
and you could throw out some honorable mentions that you
would have considered as well. Just get a few more
(02:52):
names in here, but we're going to highlight kind of
three main ones. Who do you have inside the top
fifty top fifty?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
You know, I originally was going to go with Jayson
because I have them on teams that We've talked about
him a lot though, so that's why I kind of
pushed him aside Christian mccaffe or you and I have
talked a lot about and of course Drake London as well.
So I'm like, hey, you know what, let's do a
little something different. And I have a lot of Chase
Brown and then I'm sitting there looking at he's twenty
fifth overall and that seems like a decent price, but
at the same time it feels undervalue to me. And
(03:19):
I don't understand really what happened this offseason with Chase Brown,
because we were all excited for him last year. By the way,
when he took over from weeks four through the end
of the season, he was already six, like only the
big big names were in front of him. And we
go into this offseason, I'm like, oh my god, are
they going to draft somebody, They're going to sign somebody,
They bring back some a JP Ryan. I'm not worried,
(03:40):
you know, maybe a little bit on the passing downs.
They draft Brooks, who I think is basically a Chase
Brown replicant, which is, if something happens to Chase Brown,
they can turn to Brooks. And we all know that
the injuries to Zach Moss took their toll because they
released him. But all these things happen, and it's like,
we have all these concerns. They don't draft anybody, they
don't sign anybody a significant and then people are like
(04:01):
Chase Brown, push him down to the two, three, turn
even into the third round, and I'm sitting here, going
the guy was just RB six. He's on one of
the top five offenses in the league. He is productive
at the goal line. Is he one of the best. No,
But he's also productive in the passing game. Is he
one of the best. No, but he's above average in
both where if he's getting seventy percent of the workload
like he was last year and he was RB six,
(04:23):
what's going to change this year? By the way, Somaj
p Ryan not as good as Chase Brown at the
goal line in the passing game, pretty equitable, especially at
this point of career. You could argue Chase Brown's better
explosive after the catch. I just love Chase Brown's talent.
We got what we wanted last year, which was just
give him the ball, and then everybody just in this
offseason went kind of like, eh, I'm okay, I don't
(04:43):
need Chase Brown anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Besides the fact that he was a fifth round pick.
I don't understand the case against him. Like, we saw
what we needed to see. It's not hypothetical. We saw
this play out for a large chunk of last season.
The offense is still going to be amazing. There's still
no competition there unless you count the other Day three
pick they took this year. Obviously. Zach Mouskott, I just
like like Round two feels too high, like late round two,
(05:08):
but I don't know that it should. Round three feels
like this is an ideal Round three pick. I just
don't understand the case against it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't either. And if you look at other the
running backs going around him, you know, the Kyraen Williams
of the world, but like Kenneth Walker, who I like,
I've come around on. But there's other questions with like injuries,
time shares, and like you said, the fifth round. If
people want to play that against him and talk about
Damian Pierce Chase Brown, what he did was not what
Damian Pierce did. Like, Chase Brown's season was significally better
than Damian Pierce's season when he was the guy for
(05:37):
the Texans, and people will point to that Day three
pick of Damian Pierce and be like, well, this is
what happens in Day three picks. They might pop off
and whatever it might be. But I think Chase Brown,
because he was a Day three pick, it was actually
kind of underrated in the draft in my opinion to
begin with. And maybe that's me coming from the side
of being a Chase Brown supporter. But no matter what,
it gets like, the only way I really see this
(05:57):
going sideways is if he gets hurt or he has
multiple weeks where he looks terrible, but I think it's
going to take multiple weeks, and of course that could
happen to a lot of running backs.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
It makes me more comfortable taking a guy like I
don't like Seedy Lamb over Jamiir Gibbs in the first
half of the first round, knowing that, hey, I can
take the wide receiver here because there are guys like
Chase Brown and Kenneth Walker, like you said around later,
that I can aim for it that I think I
have really high ceilings and assuming health, pretty high floors too.
So I agree definitely on this Chase Brown pick. Let's
look at the fifty one, two, one, twenty range. So
(06:29):
this is how we're defining the mid rounds. Obviously you could,
you know, shave off a few picks on either end
of that, but that's kind of the range we're looking at.
Who stood out to you?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, So I wanted to say justin fields, I'm like, now,
I'll set him way too many times. The argument there
just being he just gonna run and if he's a
mediocre passer, which is pretty much what he is, guess what,
he'll be a top ten quarterback, just like he was
in fifteen games two years ago. I wanted to throw
out Calvin Ridley. I almost said Calvin Ridley just because
I feel like he's not getting the respect everybody's talking about. Well,
(06:58):
the backfield should be better because they actually have a
capable quarterback. The offense should be better because of the changes.
Cam Ward is gonna rise all tides and all this
type of stuff, and like but or rise all boats.
I should say tie Rice is the boats and the
rest all the tides. But the thing is is like
on one hundred and twenty targets last year, with one
end zone target, Calvin Ridley was still a top twenty
five wide receiver. Why aren't more people like do we
(07:20):
argue for all these other situations where the quarterbacks better
situations are better the Jaguars And everybody's just like, yeah,
I forget Calvin Ridley. So I wanted to throw his
name out for respect. But the one I would go
as more of like that winner, I think as Roman
Dounza had a very disappointing rookie season, part because of
his own play, let's be honest about that. But we've
already seen the talk up of Ben Johnson, and I
(07:41):
know that people are gonna be like, oh, Ben Johnson.
It's the off season hype and everything like that. But
I'll go back to what I said about a Dunsay
coming out of college. I think he's bigger Garrett Wilson.
If you're saying Garrett Wilson and he's bigger, like everybody's wow,
get me on board with that. But the real appeal
here is that you know the DJ Moore a dounsay
they're gonna be the one in two and I think
there's a world where Adunza is the best wide receiver
(08:04):
on the Bears this season. But even if he's not,
even if he's just Jamison Williams to a mom around
Saint Brown being DJ Moore, Jamison Williams is just the
top twenty five wide receiver, actually pushing the top twenty
depending on the format you're playing in. And no, I
don't think the numbers will be identical, as in the
hit rate on the receptions being kind of a low
reception rate in big yards and big touchdowns, but that
(08:24):
is part of his game. But that's also why I
like Adunza because I think he can play outside and inside,
which so can DJ Moore, but he can move those
pieces around that being Ben Jonson's where DJ Moore having
a great season doesn't have to come at the discount
or the detriment of an Donsay breakout year. So I
know they have burden. I know they drafted Lovelin, and
I know there's a lot of pieces involved here, but
(08:45):
I think that a Donza being this year's kind of
breakout wide receiver, second year wide receiver, having that Jamison
Williams impact that we just saw with the Lions is
very much in play.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
What percentage of a pick like Roman Duneza for a
list like this is the pre draft love you have
for him versus any kind of flashes we saw last year,
I guess, and a better way to freehim? That is
What percentage of the letdown last year do you think
was him not being as good as we thought versus
the situation letting him down? Like obviously the situation was
(09:15):
bad and played a role. How much of a role
do you think it played. It sounds like you're not
concerned about him as a player strictly kind of the
environment he was in.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So there is a slight concern as a player. There
was some concerns of a dunesday. That's why I said,
some of it was his own fault, some of it
was the routes not being always on time, some of
it were his own concentration drops. But I think there
are more concentration I think there are more issues that
were possibly o'dunsay pushing too hard to try and make
an impact. I was trying to impress his dad so
(09:43):
his dad would stop tweeting like whatever it might be,
like a dounsay, feels very much. You know what feels
very much in the world of like a Marvin Harrison,
where we know the talent is better and you said
the flashes. We even see it show up in their
rookie season. We show it saw a lot more for
Harrison than we did oduonsay, But we know it's still there.
It's just it took a year. It wasn't that year
one impact that some other wide receivers have. And as
(10:05):
you mentioned, part of it was the offense. Part of
it was Caleb Williams running around on the pocket too long,
trying to extend play. As part of it was the
inconsistency of offensive coordinators and what was going on with
all those changes in the firing and Waldron and then
Thomas Brown and then Thomas Brown got promoted. It's just
like a lot of moving parts where I don't want
to say it's a throwaway season, and I don't want
to say that doing say can't bust. Like if we
(10:25):
got to the seventeenth week this year and you and
I are talking warm and it's like, oh my gosh,
on Dosday's wide receiver fifty seven, he's Quinton Johnston all
over again, completely different wide receiver. But you get my point,
Like I wouldn't be like shocked, I'd be surprised, but
like there's a chance that could happen. But that's why
he's seventy eighth overall. Right now, if we were talking
about him going around Jameson Williams, I'd be like, all right, now,
(10:47):
you're kind of buying him needing to break out. But
I think that breakout is the potential. And when you
get him seventy eighth overall outside of the top seventy,
that all upside is baked into that cost where you
can afford to like, hey, you know what, maybe it
takes a week or two, or maybe there's some hiccups
along the way, but at the end of the year,
we're talking about a top twenty five wide receiver.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
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(11:27):
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All Right, one more player here, Jake, Who do you
have outside the top one hundred and twenty? So you know,
kind of those twelve rounds ish, depending on how many
people are in your league that you are targeting in
all your leagues.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
A bunch of rookie wide receivers and a quarterback. By
the way, Anthony Richardson. As we're doing this right now,
the news keeps coming. You know, I've been on the
proponent side of things of that he's going to be
the starter, and he's going to be the starter unless
he gets hurt again. Just I don't see the Colts.
If you turn to Daniel j Owes, you were saying
we screwed up. He's a bust in the NFL and
the Colts aren't going to do that unless he gets hurt.
(12:06):
Looks miserable and I mean miserable for like six weeks,
like they're not turning the script. So I say, Anthony
and Richardson could be a league winner because you're getting
them for free, on free, on free, and free for
a quarterback that, just like Justin Fields, just needs to run,
it'll be a top ten. But as a side, we've
talked a lot of Trey Harris, We've talked a lot
of Jaden Higgins. You and I debro a lot of
people here. The one I don't think is getting enough
(12:28):
talk about. So I'll bring him in to the conversation.
And I know some people are but Matthew Golden, I
think he should be in the same conversation. Actually would
take over both of them, because I think Matthew Golden
can step onto this team being the Packers, and be
the one from day one, be what Christian Watson was
supposed to be. When healthy for this team, and even
if you know the consistency is not there, I'll go
(12:49):
back to the Jamison Williams thing. I actually think that
at Jamison Williams type season where you're talking about sixty
something receptions, one thousand to eleven hundred yards and six
or seven touchdowns is well within play for him. Which
again I don't need him to catch seventy percent of
his balls because I don't even know that that's Matthew
Golden as a rookie. I think that could come with time,
but step out there as that one big threat where
(13:12):
it's Dobbs has some downfield. We know that, but I
think dobbson and Reed kind of battle for that second
position and Golden steps in and you know, one hundred
and ten targets he could do that with to get
those sixty receptions. Like that's what my point being is
that for the sixty receptions, I don't need you know,
one hundred and thirty, one hundred and forty targets, just
one hundred and ten, and I think he puts that
out there, and if he has the Jamis and Williams season,
(13:33):
I don't know how many times it's going to bring
him up on the show. But apparently I love some
Jameis and Williams too. But like, that's a top twenty
five performance and another top twenty five performance for somebody
that I pulled it up right before we did this
is going to one twenty nine. Like that's the end
of the drafts. I will be taking Matthew Golden in
like the ninth or tenth round, possibly even a little
bit earlier.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I was going to wrap on that question where you
will be drafting not where he is currently ranked, but
where not only where you want to draft him, but
where you think you will need to draft him by
the time we get to late August, Like, do you
think there will be healium here where he starts to
go earlier?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I definitely do, especially if you start to get some
news that hey, guess what, he looks good? He is
the number one. I think that's going to immediately push
his value up. I was going to pull up right
now like where I had him in my rankings, because
I just did my updated rankings over on the athletic
and at wide receiver. I'll tell you right now, Matthew Golden,
I have his wide receiver thirty eight and I'll just
tell you how much I'm on Golden and overall as
(14:26):
a control FM, that puts him at overall seventy ninth,
right in front of Cooper Cup and Jacoby Meyer. So
as you can tell, I have a lot of Matthew
Golden so far. Because again for everybody out there to
be clear, as of today, as Worm and I are
doing this, remember their lesson being also in the ADP
is you don't have to take him eightieth overall. That
is fifty spots over where he's going in ADP. You
(14:47):
can wait two more rounds. Still know that, Hey, I
think there's a lot of value with gold and still
get him but not have to pay the premium price.
I would not take him eightieth overall, but I will
take him one hundredth overall, ninety fifth overall and still
get him every single time.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
We should have done a fourth player so we can
make this our own Fantastic four of players that are
oh there exactly. We only pick three players who threw
out of extras.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well, we don't like Patro anyway, so we threw them out.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yes, our favorite three problem the Fantastic four, Chase Brown, Romadunza,
Matthew Golden plus the other guys he mentioned. He's Jake
Seey from The Athletic. I'm Ryan Warmley. Thanks for joining in.
We'll see everybody next time. Thanks for listening to the
Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football podcast. If you love the show,
the best free way to support us is by leaving
a positive review on Apple podcasts at Fantasypros dot com
(15:32):
slash review, or on Spotify. Follow us on x, Instagram
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channel at YouTube dot com slash Fantasy prost.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
About the pos
Hello, everybody, Welcome into Fantasy Pros. I'm Ryan Warmley, joined
today by Jake Sealey from The Athletic. No, this is
not an emergency podcast to talk about how much we
disagree about Fantastic four first steps. This is talking about
must have players rough Jake e Tooy twenty five drafts.
Just as a quick aside on that. I respect people
who like Fantastic for most of the people in my
(00:21):
life have really liked it. I was just let down
by it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I will say, oh wow, we might have to do
a whole completely separate podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I found it to be just kind of boring there,
Like I thought it lacked juice and I was not
a Pedro Pascal fan as mister Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Okay, so that was my Also I had two minor complaints. Actually,
I think it was just as good as Superman. I
just think it's a completely different tone, and I think
it was going for the family drama like more grounded,
which I mean at the end I want spoiling it.
I'm not gonna spoil it, I think, but like it
kind of gets superheroly at the end. But I just
understanding that was tone. I thought it was fantastic Pedro Pascal,
(00:59):
I actually don't think was the best fit. Like, I
really don't like that. Actually, he was one of my
minor complaints, so I'm with you on that one.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah. I thought Vanessa Kirby was amazing. I will give
her credit. She was awesome. I thought Julie Gardner is
Silver Surfder was great. There were parts I like, and
I might actually see it again because so many people
have told me I'm wrong, that I will give it
a second chance and maybe enjoy it differently. That's enough
of that. This is a shorter episode here, so we
can't waste any more time with that. Like I said,
we're talking about some must have players for you here
in twenty twenty five drafts. All of our rankings, consensus rankings,
(01:29):
and tiers can be found at fantasypros dot com slash rankings.
Before we jump in, what kind of defines a guy
as being must have? In your opinion? When you hear
that phrase, what does that mean to you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
That's interesting because I was looking through and kind of like, well,
I really want this player and really want that, so
must have kind of feels like guys that are undervalued
for me. I know that might come into play of
like people thinking that's sleeper or anything like that, or
you know, these are late round values, but like must
have is like you could argue Jamar Chase must have,
but I mean you're going to pay for Jamar Chase
at the one on one. You know, Nico Collins must have.
(02:01):
He's gonna be a fringe first rounder. I'm not really
telling you anything like, oh, surprisingly go draft Nico Collins.
So I took it more as within the ranges that
we're doing the top fifty this, you know, fifty one
to one twenty, then one twenty and after it's kind
of like, guys, I'm trying to get home, like, actually,
there's a piece on the athletic I have coming out
which is my so far most drafted players. Because I
say so far because it could change and in a month,
(02:22):
but at least so far, everybody we're mentioning today is
in that list of like guys I have on a
lot of my teams. So those feel like the quote
unquote must haves for me.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Let's jump into these must haves. We're gonna kind of
separate it by ranges in the draft. We'll pick one
inside the top fifty one in that like fifty one
to one twenty ish range, kind of those mid round
picks and the one guy going outside the top one
twenty again fantasypros dot Com slash rankings if you guys
want to check out, are consensus rankings and tiers there,
and you could throw out some honorable mentions that you
would have considered as well. Just get a few more
(02:52):
names in here, but we're going to highlight kind of
three main ones. Who do you have inside the top
fifty top fifty?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
You know, I originally was going to go with Jayson
because I have them on teams that We've talked about
him a lot though, so that's why I kind of
pushed him aside Christian mccaffe or you and I have
talked a lot about and of course Drake London as well.
So I'm like, hey, you know what, let's do a
little something different. And I have a lot of Chase
Brown and then I'm sitting there looking at he's twenty
fifth overall and that seems like a decent price, but
at the same time it feels undervalue to me. And
(03:19):
I don't understand really what happened this offseason with Chase Brown,
because we were all excited for him last year. By the way,
when he took over from weeks four through the end
of the season, he was already six, like only the
big big names were in front of him. And we
go into this offseason, I'm like, oh my god, are
they going to draft somebody, They're going to sign somebody,
They bring back some a JP Ryan. I'm not worried,
(03:40):
you know, maybe a little bit on the passing downs.
They draft Brooks, who I think is basically a Chase
Brown replicant, which is, if something happens to Chase Brown,
they can turn to Brooks. And we all know that
the injuries to Zach Moss took their toll because they
released him. But all these things happen, and it's like,
we have all these concerns. They don't draft anybody, they
don't sign anybody a significant and then people are like
(04:01):
Chase Brown, push him down to the two, three, turn
even into the third round, and I'm sitting here, going
the guy was just RB six. He's on one of
the top five offenses in the league. He is productive
at the goal line. Is he one of the best. No,
But he's also productive in the passing game. Is he
one of the best. No, but he's above average in
both where if he's getting seventy percent of the workload
like he was last year and he was RB six,
(04:23):
what's going to change this year? By the way, Somaj
p Ryan not as good as Chase Brown at the
goal line in the passing game, pretty equitable, especially at
this point of career. You could argue Chase Brown's better
explosive after the catch. I just love Chase Brown's talent.
We got what we wanted last year, which was just
give him the ball, and then everybody just in this
offseason went kind of like, eh, I'm okay, I don't
(04:43):
need Chase Brown anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Besides the fact that he was a fifth round pick.
I don't understand the case against him. Like, we saw
what we needed to see. It's not hypothetical. We saw
this play out for a large chunk of last season.
The offense is still going to be amazing. There's still
no competition there unless you count the other Day three
pick they took this year. Obviously. Zach Mouskott, I just
like like Round two feels too high, like late round two,
(05:08):
but I don't know that it should. Round three feels
like this is an ideal Round three pick. I just
don't understand the case against it.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't either. And if you look at other the
running backs going around him, you know, the Kyraen Williams
of the world, but like Kenneth Walker, who I like,
I've come around on. But there's other questions with like injuries,
time shares, and like you said, the fifth round. If
people want to play that against him and talk about
Damian Pierce Chase Brown, what he did was not what
Damian Pierce did. Like, Chase Brown's season was significally better
than Damian Pierce's season when he was the guy for
(05:37):
the Texans, and people will point to that Day three
pick of Damian Pierce and be like, well, this is
what happens in Day three picks. They might pop off
and whatever it might be. But I think Chase Brown,
because he was a Day three pick, it was actually
kind of underrated in the draft in my opinion to
begin with. And maybe that's me coming from the side
of being a Chase Brown supporter. But no matter what,
it gets like, the only way I really see this
(05:57):
going sideways is if he gets hurt or he has
multiple weeks where he looks terrible, but I think it's
going to take multiple weeks, and of course that could
happen to a lot of running backs.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
It makes me more comfortable taking a guy like I
don't like Seedy Lamb over Jamiir Gibbs in the first
half of the first round, knowing that, hey, I can
take the wide receiver here because there are guys like
Chase Brown and Kenneth Walker, like you said around later,
that I can aim for it that I think I
have really high ceilings and assuming health, pretty high floors too.
So I agree definitely on this Chase Brown pick. Let's
look at the fifty one, two, one, twenty range. So
(06:29):
this is how we're defining the mid rounds. Obviously you could,
you know, shave off a few picks on either end
of that, but that's kind of the range we're looking at.
Who stood out to you?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, So I wanted to say justin fields, I'm like, now,
I'll set him way too many times. The argument there
just being he just gonna run and if he's a
mediocre passer, which is pretty much what he is, guess what,
he'll be a top ten quarterback, just like he was
in fifteen games two years ago. I wanted to throw
out Calvin Ridley. I almost said Calvin Ridley just because
I feel like he's not getting the respect everybody's talking about. Well,
(06:58):
the backfield should be better because they actually have a
capable quarterback. The offense should be better because of the changes.
Cam Ward is gonna rise all tides and all this
type of stuff, and like but or rise all boats.
I should say tie Rice is the boats and the
rest all the tides. But the thing is is like
on one hundred and twenty targets last year, with one
end zone target, Calvin Ridley was still a top twenty
five wide receiver. Why aren't more people like do we
(07:20):
argue for all these other situations where the quarterbacks better
situations are better the Jaguars And everybody's just like, yeah,
I forget Calvin Ridley. So I wanted to throw his
name out for respect. But the one I would go
as more of like that winner, I think as Roman
Dounza had a very disappointing rookie season, part because of
his own play, let's be honest about that. But we've
already seen the talk up of Ben Johnson, and I
(07:41):
know that people are gonna be like, oh, Ben Johnson.
It's the off season hype and everything like that. But
I'll go back to what I said about a Dunsay
coming out of college. I think he's bigger Garrett Wilson.
If you're saying Garrett Wilson and he's bigger, like everybody's wow,
get me on board with that. But the real appeal
here is that you know the DJ Moore a dounsay
they're gonna be the one in two and I think
there's a world where Adunza is the best wide receiver
(08:04):
on the Bears this season. But even if he's not,
even if he's just Jamison Williams to a mom around
Saint Brown being DJ Moore, Jamison Williams is just the
top twenty five wide receiver, actually pushing the top twenty
depending on the format you're playing in. And no, I
don't think the numbers will be identical, as in the
hit rate on the receptions being kind of a low
reception rate in big yards and big touchdowns, but that
(08:24):
is part of his game. But that's also why I
like Adunza because I think he can play outside and inside,
which so can DJ Moore, but he can move those
pieces around that being Ben Jonson's where DJ Moore having
a great season doesn't have to come at the discount
or the detriment of an Donsay breakout year. So I
know they have burden. I know they drafted Lovelin, and
I know there's a lot of pieces involved here, but
(08:45):
I think that a Donza being this year's kind of
breakout wide receiver, second year wide receiver, having that Jamison
Williams impact that we just saw with the Lions is
very much in play.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
What percentage of a pick like Roman Duneza for a
list like this is the pre draft love you have
for him versus any kind of flashes we saw last year,
I guess, and a better way to freehim? That is
What percentage of the letdown last year do you think
was him not being as good as we thought versus
the situation letting him down? Like obviously the situation was
(09:15):
bad and played a role. How much of a role
do you think it played. It sounds like you're not
concerned about him as a player strictly kind of the
environment he was in.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So there is a slight concern as a player. There
was some concerns of a dunesday. That's why I said,
some of it was his own fault, some of it
was the routes not being always on time, some of
it were his own concentration drops. But I think there
are more concentration I think there are more issues that
were possibly o'dunsay pushing too hard to try and make
an impact. I was trying to impress his dad so
(09:43):
his dad would stop tweeting like whatever it might be,
like a dounsay, feels very much. You know what feels
very much in the world of like a Marvin Harrison,
where we know the talent is better and you said
the flashes. We even see it show up in their
rookie season. We show it saw a lot more for
Harrison than we did oduonsay, But we know it's still there.
It's just it took a year. It wasn't that year
one impact that some other wide receivers have. And as
(10:05):
you mentioned, part of it was the offense. Part of
it was Caleb Williams running around on the pocket too long,
trying to extend play. As part of it was the
inconsistency of offensive coordinators and what was going on with
all those changes in the firing and Waldron and then
Thomas Brown and then Thomas Brown got promoted. It's just
like a lot of moving parts where I don't want
to say it's a throwaway season, and I don't want
to say that doing say can't bust. Like if we
(10:25):
got to the seventeenth week this year and you and
I are talking warm and it's like, oh my gosh,
on Dosday's wide receiver fifty seven, he's Quinton Johnston all
over again, completely different wide receiver. But you get my point,
Like I wouldn't be like shocked, I'd be surprised, but
like there's a chance that could happen. But that's why
he's seventy eighth overall. Right now, if we were talking
about him going around Jameson Williams, I'd be like, all right, now,
(10:47):
you're kind of buying him needing to break out. But
I think that breakout is the potential. And when you
get him seventy eighth overall outside of the top seventy,
that all upside is baked into that cost where you
can afford to like, hey, you know what, maybe it
takes a week or two, or maybe there's some hiccups
along the way, but at the end of the year,
we're talking about a top twenty five wide receiver.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
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(11:27):
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All Right, one more player here, Jake, Who do you
have outside the top one hundred and twenty? So you know,
kind of those twelve rounds ish, depending on how many
people are in your league that you are targeting in
all your leagues.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
A bunch of rookie wide receivers and a quarterback. By
the way, Anthony Richardson. As we're doing this right now,
the news keeps coming. You know, I've been on the
proponent side of things of that he's going to be
the starter, and he's going to be the starter unless
he gets hurt again. Just I don't see the Colts.
If you turn to Daniel j Owes, you were saying
we screwed up. He's a bust in the NFL and
the Colts aren't going to do that unless he gets hurt.
(12:06):
Looks miserable and I mean miserable for like six weeks,
like they're not turning the script. So I say, Anthony
and Richardson could be a league winner because you're getting
them for free, on free, on free, and free for
a quarterback that, just like Justin Fields, just needs to run,
it'll be a top ten. But as a side, we've
talked a lot of Trey Harris, We've talked a lot
of Jaden Higgins. You and I debro a lot of
people here. The one I don't think is getting enough
(12:28):
talk about. So I'll bring him in to the conversation.
And I know some people are but Matthew Golden, I
think he should be in the same conversation. Actually would
take over both of them, because I think Matthew Golden
can step onto this team being the Packers, and be
the one from day one, be what Christian Watson was
supposed to be. When healthy for this team, and even
if you know the consistency is not there, I'll go
(12:49):
back to the Jamison Williams thing. I actually think that
at Jamison Williams type season where you're talking about sixty
something receptions, one thousand to eleven hundred yards and six
or seven touchdowns is well within play for him. Which
again I don't need him to catch seventy percent of
his balls because I don't even know that that's Matthew
Golden as a rookie. I think that could come with time,
but step out there as that one big threat where
(13:12):
it's Dobbs has some downfield. We know that, but I
think dobbson and Reed kind of battle for that second
position and Golden steps in and you know, one hundred
and ten targets he could do that with to get
those sixty receptions. Like that's what my point being is
that for the sixty receptions, I don't need you know,
one hundred and thirty, one hundred and forty targets, just
one hundred and ten, and I think he puts that
out there, and if he has the Jamis and Williams season,
(13:33):
I don't know how many times it's going to bring
him up on the show. But apparently I love some
Jameis and Williams too. But like, that's a top twenty
five performance and another top twenty five performance for somebody
that I pulled it up right before we did this
is going to one twenty nine. Like that's the end
of the drafts. I will be taking Matthew Golden in
like the ninth or tenth round, possibly even a little
bit earlier.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I was going to wrap on that question where you
will be drafting not where he is currently ranked, but
where not only where you want to draft him, but
where you think you will need to draft him by
the time we get to late August, Like, do you
think there will be healium here where he starts to
go earlier?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I definitely do, especially if you start to get some
news that hey, guess what, he looks good? He is
the number one. I think that's going to immediately push
his value up. I was going to pull up right
now like where I had him in my rankings, because
I just did my updated rankings over on the athletic
and at wide receiver. I'll tell you right now, Matthew Golden,
I have his wide receiver thirty eight and I'll just
tell you how much I'm on Golden and overall as
(14:26):
a control FM, that puts him at overall seventy ninth,
right in front of Cooper Cup and Jacoby Meyer. So
as you can tell, I have a lot of Matthew
Golden so far. Because again for everybody out there to
be clear, as of today, as Worm and I are
doing this, remember their lesson being also in the ADP
is you don't have to take him eightieth overall. That
is fifty spots over where he's going in ADP. You
(14:47):
can wait two more rounds. Still know that, Hey, I
think there's a lot of value with gold and still
get him but not have to pay the premium price.
I would not take him eightieth overall, but I will
take him one hundredth overall, ninety fifth overall and still
get him every single time.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
We should have done a fourth player so we can
make this our own Fantastic four of players that are
oh there exactly. We only pick three players who threw
out of extras.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Well, we don't like Patro anyway, so we threw them out.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yes, our favorite three problem the Fantastic four, Chase Brown, Romadunza,
Matthew Golden plus the other guys he mentioned. He's Jake
Seey from The Athletic. I'm Ryan Warmley. Thanks for joining in.
We'll see everybody next time. Thanks for listening to the
Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football podcast. If you love the show,
the best free way to support us is by leaving
a positive review on Apple podcasts at Fantasypros dot com
(15:32):
slash review, or on Spotify. Follow us on x, Instagram
and TikTok at Fantasy Pros, and subscribe to our YouTube
channel at YouTube dot com slash Fantasy prost.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
About the pos
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