September 3, 2026 • 49 mins
Jake and John are back for the penultimate episode before the real fireworks begin! The guys review the latest news and notes around the league as you continue to cycle through your drafts! We also give you deep sleepers at every position, so what better way to spend your holiday weekend than grabbing some last minute tips to crush the competition!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly
source for the nation's best fantasy speculation and advice. What's
up and welcome back. Can you believe it? Looks like
we made it. It is the last off-season episode of
Fantasy Football Weekly with your host, faithful narrator, John McGaza,
(00:23):
my friend and yours, Mr. Jake Trowbridge. Jake, how are
you doing? If it was the 11th hour, it's the
11th hour and like the 59th minute. Are you dotting
your I's and crossing your T's? What's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We spend so much time preparing not only our listeners, John,
but ourselves in doing this.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
But there's a part of me that always.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Breaks into a cold sweat when we start talking about
this being the last week of the preseason because all
of that preparation.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Now we've really got to put it into action.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And it's no matter how many years you're doing this,
there's always it's mostly good excitement, There's a little bit
of anxiety that creeps in, at least for me, too,
once we start having to put this stuff into use.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, all these season-long contests, man, have added this volume
element for me, and I just can't wait to stop drafting.
It's the best part, and of course, like everything else,
we really overdo it, but you get really familiar with
the board, movements in the market, some players you were
way ahead on, me like Marshawn Lloyd, some players maybe
not so much, but we were talking about We're kind
(01:28):
of at a dead point. Players are getting bubble wrap.
Not much should be going on. And of course, what
ends up happening, news drops and things are going on.
Josh Jacobs is on the front of everybody's mind. The
Green Bay running back. He was placed on the commissioner's
restricted list. So I'm not great with this stuff. I
(01:49):
got they placed Jacobs on the list following formal charges
filed against him. He cannot practice or attend games indefinitely
while they review the matter. There really isn't much concrete stuff. Now,
Ari Myroff, I think it is, said the surveillance video
was out. I hadn't seen any of it. It confirms
relevant portions of the woman's account. I don't really know
(02:10):
anything beyond the little bit that can be explained to me.
But right now, it looks like we're not going to
guess Josh Jacobs. But we've seen this turn into a
year lost. This could just be like six games where
Josh Jacobs is sinking like a stone in lots of
drafts right now, Jake. Character, part of this aside, because
(02:33):
he's obviously not a good guy. Would you draft him
on the hope that he only misses six games? Missing
six games mean he still could play in 11. And
guess what? They are all the most important ones. You're
a Packer guy. What do we think about Josh Jacobs
from the fantasy football perspective?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, John, I've been staying away from Josh Jacobs all offseason.
I've been telling listeners, stay away from Josh Jacobs. Just
because outside of everything that's happened off the field, I
even thought on the field last year that it looked
like the wear and tear was catching up to him.
This is a guy who has the second most touches.
(03:11):
of any active running back in the NFL just behind
Derrick Henry. And I thought that was starting to show
last year. Once all this stuff started to enter the fray,
it was just wiping my hands clean and moving on.
I had started to take some nibbles towards Marshawn Lloyd,
towards even.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Chris Brooks at a certain point.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Now, of course, the Packers have added Caleb Johnson from
Pittsburgh into the mix. So I'm not reversing course on
Josh Jacobs.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I'm staying away.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
It doesn't matter how far he falls down draft boards
because as you said, okay, maybe he misses the first
six games. A, that's.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
A lot of games.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And B, it could be much longer than that because
he is effectively right now serving a suspension without there
being an official suspension.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
He's on this list.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
He can't come off of it until something happens one
way or the other. So I'm not going to try
to sleuth through that, figure out.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
When that's going to be. I'm just moving on.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I'm still comfortable with taking Marshawn Lloyd, though less so
by the minute because he's going up draft boards fast,
and Caleb Johnson's a late-round dart that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, interesting how that's kind of flipped on its head
for me. I was, like yourself, at 0.0% Josh Jacobs
through the entirety of this because there was this chance,
and we had the fall-off. I think it's important that
you mention that. We're not hearing a lot of that.
A lot of what we're hearing is, man, if you
get Josh Jacobs, you get this kind of RB1 situation,
(04:39):
YPA was at 4, below 1 yard before contact per rush,
even if you want to put that on the offensive line.
Still at 3.0 yards after contact per attempt, which is
not great. Negative EPA, sub-50% success rate, single-digit, more like
a 6% explosive rush rate. These are not great, especially
with a lot of volume. You want those explosive rates up.
(05:00):
If you're going to be getting the rock a lot, yeah,
he scores a lot of TDs, but that could be
the first thing to go. So I'm with you. Also,
I was going to ask about Lloyd. I'm glad you
mentioned it. I went from the preeminent Marshall and Lloyd drafter.
I just tweeted it the other day. I showed you.
My average ADP was in the 180s. I've been tracking
(05:22):
drafts literally every second of every day. He's going in
like the low 70s. I'm with you. I think that's
gone entirely too far because, one, we've never really seen
him stay healthy, even if he is good. And Jacobs could,
in fact, enter the fray. Now let me ask about
that low 70s price. Is it because Jacobs is still
somewhat technically lurking? What if we found out Jacobs is
(05:45):
out for the season? We've got to be interested in
somebody for the Packers running the ball. Where would your
opinion be in that case? Because I think, again, right
now you waiting for a piece of news is very,
very smart. Let's say we were to get that because
I think that could be coming down the pike. Now
how do we treat the Packers backfield? I think they're
projected for too many wins to outright ignore them.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, you can't ignore them, but I don't think you
will ever get to a point or should get to
a point where Marshawn Lloyd is just replacing Josh Jacobs
in ADP, where Jacobs was earlier in the offseason, I
should say. We haven't seen it from Marshawn Lloyd. We've
seen plenty of Josh Jacobs. And even though I didn't
love what I saw towards the end of last year,
I get why people were at one point saying, OK,
(06:28):
I'll take him in the third round and be comfortable.
I'd never be comfortable taking Marshawn Lloyd there. even if
you could guarantee me he was going to stay healthy
for 17 games, which you can't because that's just how
these injuries work, unfortunately. But also, again, the lurking is
not of Josh Jacobs for me. It's about Caleb Johnson,
(06:49):
this guy who obviously last year he was drafted in
the third round, clearly had a case of the yips
with Pittsburgh, never got over it. I think it literally
started with just a bad kickoff return and there was
Fumble and shenanigans with that. And I don't think he
ever got mentally right after that. We've seen a change
of scenery fix a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
This is a good offense.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
This is a good outside zone running scheme for Caleb Johnson.
So I can't be confident that we won't see a
50-50 split between those two guys even. So I'm much
more comfortable taking Johnson just because his ADP is still
in the dirt. Marshawn Lloyd, though, you know, in the
seventh round, I guess... But I'm never going to jump,
(07:30):
I think, earlier than that.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, Caleb Johnson is on the move up. I've been
having a hard time getting him, actually. I had him
probably in the low 200s on my ranks. He's going more.
People start to get a whiff of a player they
think maybe could pop, and I agree. It's possible. It's
still a very vulnerable backfield, like you mentioned. I think
(07:52):
you also make a really good point with the unforced
errors that kind of cascading for him that was the
singular worst place for that to happen with aaron rogers
and in fact man i didn't get to listen to
the whole clip but there is a clip on social
media making the rounds literally today of caleb johnson like
joking about aaron rogers stuffing him in a broom closet
(08:15):
like i don't know if you meant physically or at
least emotionally you got stuffed in the emotional broom closet
But that is a case, and we know Rodgers has
very little tolerance for that, being out of position, especially
when it ends up with him on his back. So
there is a great spot. I think Green Bay does
a good job of coaching guys up. I'm with the
(08:36):
Johnson thing. I just think for listeners, if you're going
into drafts, be ready around 175, because you know what?
That's when people start to throw ADP out the window,
which I'm okay with. I still think I might like
some other players, which actually is what we're going to
be talking about in a little while, me as a
you know, subpar host that I am, forgot to mention.
We will be talking about sleepers after these news and notes.
(08:57):
But the next guy is a player that I was
really into. I'm mentioning this because I'm starting to run
for the exit. That's Emeka Egbuka, who, again, I really like.
But there's a lot of competition for targets there. They
finally admitted it is Turf Toe, which we know has
derailed seasons. It's very hard on explosivity. I think we
(09:19):
were talking about that last week. You were mentioning that. Now,
Igbuka still has not practiced. I was looking it up
feverishly today. I got working with trainers on the side field,
running without any obvious problems, but just like you were saying, running,
you know, non-competitive practice running is not the same as
(09:39):
the type of explosiveness and max force you have to
put on these joints. Where are you in Igbuka? This
is a guy I was really into. There's so many
wide receivers in that realm. Jake, I'm now off the
egg buka thing. Ah man, this one could burn me,
but I am an injury pessimist. How are you feeling here?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, I was all in. on Ibuka in all formats.
Still very much in on him in Dynasty. I'm not
running for the exit, as you are, I don't think.
But I am walking towards it, you know, with my
back towards the exit. Just kind of feeling the wall,
making sure I still know where the exit is with Ibuka.
What concerns me with him is the unknown timeline. How
(10:21):
many games could Ibuka miss? How many games could he
exit early because the injury flares up? Or how many
games will he just be much less effective even if
he is technically on the field? When I'm drafting someone
in these early rounds, those are questions that weigh really heavily.
And it's the same type of concern that I have
(10:42):
for Malik neighbors that I know not everybody shares, but
Before the injury with Ibuka, I would have happily reached
to get him in the third round because I was
just projecting, again, this Jackson, Smith, and Jigba type of
arch upward. And now, even if he's sitting there at
the end of the fourth, I'm just, oh, it almost
pains me.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
To click it. I think I'm at the point where.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
If I'm at the turn and I can get him
in the beginning of the fifth, I'm still very much
into it because I do think that the sky is
available to Ibuka.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
But it's how soon are we going to get there
with him that scares me.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Man, that's a great call out. It's funny. I've still
just had trouble because there's other wide receivers with other
injury punishments baked into their ADP that are looking more up.
Like Luther Burden is now back. They said he looks 100%.
And if I have to choose between the two, yeah,
I wanted Ibuka apples to apples to begin with. But now,
(11:39):
to me, they were just close enough that I'm kind
of going with Burden. Same for Mike Evans also. I'm
not really buying that out of San Fran. I think
they're bubble wrapping him. He's going to come out and explode.
Everyone's going to go, oh, man, Mike Evans is going
to have a big season. Anyway, two quick RB notes.
We could tackle them both at once. One was just
Isaiah Pacheco got sent to the IR. I really wasn't
(11:59):
drafting him. Anyway, the second he got hurt, I kind
of buried him so far in my ranks. No one
subscribing to my stuff was going to get him. I
don't know. What do we do? We move Gibbs up
to the negative 101. So, yes, there's really not much there.
And then Jonathan Brooks, I don't want to, you know,
jump the shark on this one. I don't want to, like, overreact.
But right now we're just very optimistic. That was the
(12:21):
quote from Canales, that he'll be available week one with soreness.
All of a sudden our, you know, injury optimism, there
it is. He's going to be healthy. All of a sudden,
he played a few preseason snaps, and now he might
not be available week one. Pacheco probably not so much actionable.
Where are you on the Brooks thing? He's very polarizing.
I've seen him go in the fifth or sixth round.
(12:41):
I mean, now we have questions about week one. I'm
kind of out on the Panthers, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah, I don't think that's unfair. And real quick with Pacheco,
I wasn't drafting him either. I just, anybody who's tempted
to hear the quote from Dan Campbell about Jacob's sailors
moving up, and oh, we're very comfortable with him as
our RB2. I would be as well if I had
Jameer Gibbs as my RB1. I don't think we should
be reading into this to say that any RB2 is
(13:09):
going to be worth much for fantasy in Detroit. With
the Panthers, I would say Jonathan Brooks is still somebody
that if he slips a couple of rounds, I think
I'm still going to be okay. I know that it's
concerning for somebody who gets a little bit of preseason
action to now have this sort of red flag hanging
over them. But I don't take this to mean that
(13:33):
it might be like this all year. I understand if
that is an interpretation that you want to take with it.
I just think that the upside is still very much
present with him. Now, Chuba Hubbard, I guess we should
point out, though, the reason he kind of lost his
job last year was because he himself got injured. So
if he looks really healthy, then maybe Chuba really is
(13:55):
the guy that you would prefer there. I'd be interested
to see what the gap in ADP ends up looking
like by the end of this very week, frankly, with
those two.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, I don't think I want Chuba Hubbard.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
If, if Brooks falls, I'll consider him.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, I thought a healthy Hubbard was always going to
be a thorn in the side kind of team captain
guy that they really like. And even if he's eating
up a lot of the low calorie work, he's still
eating up a lot of it. I definitely would agree
high value touches for a team I don't think very
highly of. If it's true that Brooks can secure the
pass-catching role, then it could be a lot of work
(14:33):
for him in PPR formats in the fourth quarter. I
don't know if it's this year, maybe more than ever.
There are certain teams I'm just kind of distancing myself from.
When you get the Sunday... There are teams that are like, yes,
I have a player on this team that I think
is going to go and score 28 points, almost getting
off the bus, and then some teams are like hoping
they're going to get to 14 or 15.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
You're hoping they get off the bus at all.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Right, in Brooks' case, we're hoping he's on the bus
in the first place and strapping on. But, you know,
it really is the truth, and I always talk about
trying not to be too cute about predicting injuries, but
when we see them in front of us, is when
I really start to pump the brakes on the optimism
I was talking about. Let's do some sleepers. We each
have a sleeper at each position. This is really good.
(15:20):
Because as we approach drafts, I think what happens, guys
like Lloyd, guys like Brooks, that drafters might be thinking,
I'm walking away with this guy. they go entirely too
early and you find yourself maybe short at a position
or backpedaling at the end of drafts. And I think
it's important to have that plan B or C. So
I think this is going to be really good. Why
don't you start us off with your quarterback? It's Sam Darnold.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, Sam Darnold going outside the top 150 players.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
It does make sense to me.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I understand why if you just looked at his fantasy
points per week last year, it's not like you were
Grilled every week to be starting Sam Darnold, but he
certainly was effective for you overall. He was very effective
for the Seahawks overall. But my thought currently with Sam
Darnold is just this. What if the backfield in Seattle
(16:10):
is weaker than we expect it to be? At least
until Zach Charbonnet gets back, whenever that might be. And
don't get me wrong, I like Jadarian Price.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
But he hasn't shown that he can be a workhorse.
At least he didn't in college. maybe a committee backfield
leads to more of an emphasis on the passing game.
And therefore, we have Simon Darnold, who last year was
one of only six quarterbacks to throw for 4,000 yards.
And he did that while ranking 15th in pass attempts. Now,
(16:42):
Darnold had more passing yards than Bo Nix had last
year on 135 fewer passing attempts. Nix is still being
drafted pretty dang high, especially for a guy who is
coming off a brutal ankle injury at the very end
of the year. And so this rushing upside that we
(17:02):
supposedly like for him, I just don't see. But he's
going five rounds before Sam Darnold, who could be in
a much more efficient offense. So I'm not going to
say that Sam Darnold is going to be amazing for
fantasy football, but I am saying he could easily hang
with a lot of these quarterbacks that are going much
earlier in the drafts. And I think you could do
(17:23):
better to bolster the rest of your positions, your running backs,
your wide receivers, whatever. If you just wait a little
longer on quarterback and grab Sam.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah. You know, when I first saw this, I kind
of scoffed, and I thought maybe you had gone a
little off the rails. I was actually thinking, man, I
thought there were more quarterbacks that we liked, and I
went in thinking low volume, and that part was correct.
There were bottom three in dropbacks per game. That was
at 30. But everything after that really kind of came
(17:55):
up Sam. He had six top ten finishes. He had
three top five finishes. So volume, yeah. Yes, we like
volume because volume– It helps to get there, but when
you can be efficient, and how do you boost efficiency?
How about one of the best wide receivers in the world?
I'm also surprised you didn't mention what the addition of
(18:17):
Rashid Shaheed could really do, because he's a player I
love in drafts. I mean, after pick 130, that's when
I start thinking, I'm just shooting for upside. Most of
these guys are going to end up dropped or hurt
or both. Give me Shaheed almost everywhere. I think he's
going to play a full-time... role on the opposite side
of jsn and man we've seen creativity from jsn moving
(18:41):
in and out shaheed was also showing flashes of being
able to win on routes that aren't just go routes
as a fantasy community we really need to stop doing
that like he's a he wins deep and he only
wins deep that's not the case you win by design
a lot of times and shaheed has absolutely popped on
perb route metrics and stuff. So yeah, there's actually a
pretty good explosive case to be made for the Seahawks.
(19:03):
So I'm actually loving that call. And I've started mixing
Darl into my, you know, best ball plans where you're
thinking about the entire league or super flex plans where
you're absolutely thinking about a second and third quarterback. He
should 1 million percent be part of that QB2 discussion.
I really love that.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Let's be clear, John. Let's be clear.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I took Sam Darnold because you took the guy that
I really wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Oh, okay. I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
This is my backup plan, which I think is a
good backup plan, but it's not as good as your
plan A.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Oh, I love that. So let's call it our plan
A and making Darnold our plan B. I'm fine with
signing on with that 100%. You know what? That's right.
I did. I posted first, and I didn't know that,
that our favorite play would be. I mean, it's pretty obvious.
to me that it's Malik Willis, right? We've all had
the Rebar Konami Code stuff just repeated over and over
(19:58):
because it's correct. Quarterbacks that run have an inherent and
built-in floor, especially a guy like Willis who has shown
efficiency passing as well. My note says, Jake, it feels
like I'm taking crazy pills. We've drafted Justin Fields and
Anthony Richardson in the top 65 overall as a consensus.
(20:22):
Now Malik Willis, who again, yeah, the weaponry's not as good.
I don't care. I think he's better than both of
those guys, in particular with the passing stuff. We're not... Yes,
putting the best EPA per dropback on Malik Willis would
be nuts. But I don't think putting a league average
passing play on a player that's shown us... Top flight
passing play is crazy. I just, I love the rushing floor.
(20:44):
I mean, I also wrote, see Baltimore week 17. Last year,
he went 288-1-0, 960-2. I mean, he's putting up two
separate stat lines at once from pick 130. These are
all the same arguments we've been making for Justin Fields,
for Anthony Richardson, and I'm all about Malik Willis. He's
(21:06):
probably my most rostered quarterback across hundreds of drafts. So, yeah,
add on if I missed anything. I'm over the moon
for this guy. I can't believe the price. For as
sharp as the markets have gotten, I really think they've
dropped the ball here.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
That's what I just wanted to emphasize.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Maybe it's people trying to course correct too much from
those other guys that you talked about because you get
burned by Anthony Richardson. You get burned by Justin Fields.
In the long run, yes, you do get burned. But
remember the joy that you get from starting those guys
every week?
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, you're right. It didn't matter if they were throwing
very efficiently.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
But Malik Willis can throw downfield especially very efficiently. So
you're getting the two best things that you want in
a fantasy quarterback, which is rushing upside and the ability
to just chuck it downfield successfully.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Sign me up.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Are you buying any of this bench risk? That's what
I'm hearing from some of the fancy football intellectual dark
web that I'm not really buying.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
That's too much.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
And the, I think the green Bay of the South
kind of narrative there is getting overblown as well. You know,
they pick up this guy who would have been cut, frankly,
all due respect from the Packers. He gets traded to
be the backup to Malik Willis and in preseason looked good.
but it's the preseason, and it was against a bad
(22:22):
Cardinals defense where most of the guys he was throwing
against got cut themselves.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Let's pump the brakes.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Malik Willis is going to be a starter for at
least the first 14 weeks.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, that's exactly where I am and where I've been.
I'm not coming off that. My dad is getting ready
to do his fantasy football draft, and I told him,
Just totally wait on QB. Take Willis plus. Take two
guys at the back end, and if you're worried about
Willis up front and you want to see what you get,
that's fine. He is the most clearest week one mainstream
(22:57):
waiver wire headliner guy like ever if he runs for
two TDs week one. How did we miss that? Well,
not all of us did. All right, Jake, that's the
halftime whistle. Give me one second. I want to get
into our sleeper running back, wide receivers, and tight ends
at Ogo after 150 in just a second. All right,
(23:18):
we're back with the skill position players. I want you
to lead us off. This one is really interesting. And
the second I saw it, I realized if people like
you are on this player, I'm a little too low.
I've moved them up my ranks. It's the newest giant,
Najee Harris. What do you got?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
John, I can't talk about Najee Harris without also talking
about Cam Scadabo, which is a big reason that I
have Harris on this list. I wrote down just a
quick list of things that Cam Scadabo runs like. Just
so everybody knows where I'm coming from, Scataboo runs like
the juggernaut from the X-Men franchise. He runs like a
toddler that just snuck a sip of a Red Bull.
(23:57):
He runs like he's trying to wake up all the
sandworms in the Dune movies. He runs like a Roomba
that's gotten stuck in the corner of a room and
is desperately trying to get out of it. He runs
like that rat from Ratatouille is hiding under his helmet,
controlling him. But the rat also just did a bunch
of HGH. My point, John, is that Cam Scadaboo is
(24:19):
not a man who puts his.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Health front and center.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
And I don't think that coming off of an especially
gruesome injury, I don't think I can trust his style
of play to hold up whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
So I look at who they just added, Najee Harris.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I think people are down on Harris because a little
bit of the lost year. It's just a little bit
of that out of sight, out of mind. Bad pun,
I guess, for the Najee Harris eye thing. But he
is maybe not the most exciting running back, but he
is a high quality, reliable running back that can do
all the things that you just need a starting running
(25:00):
back to do.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Capable pass catcher?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yes. Good.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Pass blocker, yes. Can get you solid yards after contact, yes.
Now he's coming off of his own Achilles injury, but
he did look pretty solid in the preseason. I thought
it didn't look like somebody coming off of an Achilles injury.
So instead of drafting Skadaboo in the fourth round, which
is crazy, crazy ADP to me, I'm waiting to pick
(25:26):
up Najee in the very last round.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
You don't have to start him in week one. I
do want to be clear about that.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Don't feel like you got to force this guy into
your lineup right away, but see what the snap share
looks like early on.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Compare his efficiency with Skadaboo's.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
If Najee comes out ahead in any meaningful way, you've
got yourself a bona fide flex play, at least for pennies.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, I'm curious how that's going to shake out. Skadaboo
has really profiled as a three down back. You know,
he's good between the tackles. He's also a good route
runner and pass catcher. But like you mentioned, it's very hard.
I was muted and kind of laughing and snorting through
some of that. But it's true, yeah, I think about
the juggernaut thing, and we love it sometimes. It's not
(26:11):
always great. We knew it going in that this could
lead to an injury, and that's exactly what you got.
So I think having the backup plan behind that, regardless
of what you think of Skadabo, I think given all
these things we know about him, we should be viewing
that backfield as vulnerable, and that's the thing I like
to target first I was going through the Nazi Harris
(26:32):
advanced stuff from last year. I think we got something
like 41 snaps, which of course was not great. But
I did find one thing that was interesting. And even
though the yards per attempt were really low at 4-1,
though that was what Scadavo had also, his yards after
contact were still excellent. And that's always been a thing
(26:54):
for him. Excellent. And now if you're pitching me A
guy that's going to be in the right spot is
just bad.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Naju is never this like great explosive back. There's something
to knowing where to stand. That's how I joke about just.
following all the assignments, understanding the assignments and executing the
playbook the way that they need to do it. We
don't need, yes, we love 18 yard runs, but not
if it's going to be minus six, minus six, minus eight,
and you're throwing off the drive. Sometimes it's just three
(27:24):
in the cloud of dust over and over. And you
mentioned protection, keeping dart upright should, would, and must be
number one priority for this team because without him, they
might go winless, right? It looks really bad there without him. So,
I actually like the Harris thing. I moved him up
into my plan, as I mentioned. Mine, I think, is
a little more, well, he's quite a bit more expensive.
(27:46):
It's Dylan Sampson with the Browns. I was thinking more of,
outside of 150, last resort, are there any points, fantasy points,
to be had? Hopefully there's some argumentative points to be
had also. Dylan Sampson, of all running backs that earned
over 40 targets, he was number one. In both target
(28:06):
per outrun, 28%. And yards per outrun, 1.9. The book
on Sampson. First of all, those are good wide receiver numbers.
The volume stuff is off. But he has shown to
build off the reputation. Now, you would know better than me,
as you're much more plugged into the college stuff, that
Sampson was going to be a really good pass catcher.
(28:28):
And for a lot of teams, he might have been
their running back. One, he just happened to go in
the same draft as Jutkins, who to me... is profiling
more almost like Nick Chubb-esque, fantastic runner, fantastic runner, almost
as good as they get, he can handle a pure workload,
he's awesome, but with a really good pass catcher behind you,
(28:52):
on a team that's projected to be like the worst
in the league, could get a lot of negative game scripts,
what do you think about Dylan Sampson in PPR, I
think he's a sneaky potential like flex start, right? You
wouldn't be thinking about starting the Browns backup. I mean,
I don't want to start the Browns at all, but
Browns backup running back, he could be like an eight
fantasy point a game guy. Am I stretching that? What
(29:14):
do you think?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
No, I think it's a good call because I remember
hyping up Samson just a little bit last year, thinking
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
This is a bad offense.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I want the guy who's going to be In a
trailing situation more often than not, who would be catching
these passes? And we got to see it for like
one game last year for Sampson. There's one game, I
think he had like seven to eight targets, something like that,
just about as many reception.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It was a perfect.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Shining example of exactly what you're talking about. It doesn't
have to look good. Maybe just don't watch the games
that he's actually playing in. Just take the fantasy points
without having to put yourself through seeing how the fantasy
points are accrued. But I think The only thing is
that they did add Casey Concepcion, who might be a
little bit more of that kind of schemed. I don't
(30:03):
want to say gadgety because he's so much more than
that as a wide receiver, but he could eat into
that just a little bit. But I still think I
would so much rather take the flyer on Samson than
invest early draft capital on Quinshawn Jenkins, for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, that's a great call, which puts both of us
at odds with these fourth round running backs, which means
you better have your answers earlier before Or after, right?
That's kind of been the main sticking point for a
lot of people. So yeah, I'm just, you know, thinking
about Sampson more as a flex. Or maybe a guy
come bye weeks. If Cleveland, who knows where their injuries
(30:38):
are going to fall. And again, that game you mentioned. Remember,
Jutkins didn't play... week one, and Samson got 20 touches
and he caught eight balls. So there is some contingency
upside also there. The Browns are probably going to be
double-digit underdogs quite a few times this year, and that's
a good spot to target, you know, a guy that, again,
could easily catch six passes. Might not be pretty, like
(30:59):
you're saying. You're not going to want to watch it.
It won't be in red zone, but, you know, fantasy
points all the same. Now, next up, this one's good.
Don't break my heart, Jake, my achy, breaky heart. It's
Billy Ray, Cyrus Allen, and I'm half joking because, you know,
I just think I'm very transparent. I'm out there. I'm
taking my L's. I wrote him up as part of
a bold prediction piece. Then I got trolled this morning
(31:21):
that he got cut. It turns out that was not true.
So I'm back. We're back in the Cyrus Allen business.
Sell us on the, you know, Chiefs kind of rookie
that's kind of popped out of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, we got AI slopped on a rumor that was untrue, thankfully.
Because it would have broken my heart, John, if Cyrus
Allen truly did get cut.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I was shocked. I was shocked.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It would have hurt because I've been watching, and it
wouldn't make sense, frankly, because I've been watching this guy
all offseason long just continue to build true rapport with
Patrick Mahomes. I know that's a thing that gets bandied
about a lot during the offseason with rookie wide receivers
and oh, we saw one catch, you know, slowed down
on a social media reel. And so now that guy
(32:07):
is a trustworthy wide receiver. It's not often the case,
but it really does feel true in this situation because
Patrick Mahomes is saying it, number one, that he is
a very trustworthy wide receiver, but he's showing it consistently
at camp and in preseason. He looks to be as
in the hunt for wide receiver through season. I don't know,
(32:30):
let's say wide receiver two or three right now for
the Chiefs, just depending on what shakes out with the
ambiguity on the receiving depth chart. Not that Rasheed Rice
is going to get suspended or anything, but we've talked
about him before and how it's maybe always just waiting
on another thing.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
With Rasheed Rice, but also Xavier Worthy.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
We don't know that he's really proven himself to be
that consistent wide receiver too. So I would, again, like
I said with Najee Harris, if you don't want to
start Cyrus Allen week one, I get it. I don't either,
but I do want to draft him and watch what
his snap count is those first couple of weeks. And
then I want to see what he does with those snaps.
(33:11):
How many targets per route run is he is like
really watch him. Don't just look at the box score
and see, is he the first read second read for
Patrick Mahomes? If you start to see those things on
any significant amount of plays, I get real comfortable putting
him into my lineup after that, at least as a
flex play. And if he doesn't, and if it really
(33:34):
looks like it is just hype, and we got hyped again,
cut him, move on, don't worry about it.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
But I want that upside.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Man, you just gave me the title for this, right?
And it's next week's waiver wire today, right? These are
the players that you do not want to start week one,
but you understand how important We are going to react
if we even get, again, doesn't even need production. I'd
like to add one thing for Allen that I'm going
(34:01):
to be looking for in particular, and it's deployment in
two wide receiver sets. I mean, I wrote, okay, so
I wrote, Bare case for Allen. He's a fifth rounder
that never topped 750 yards in college football. I immediately
don't care about any of that when not only are
we talking about the continuity you're referring to, but with
(34:23):
a superstar quarterback. When you get that, the guy, right,
those quarterbacks that matter, the quarterbacks, there's only a few
of them. When they matter and dictate who's playing, you
want to be on that list of guys. That matters
to me. The bull case, all the stuff you mentioned,
plus I have Worthy is fragile, Kelsey is ancient, and
(34:45):
Rice looks terrible. He already could not win off the
line against press man coverage in the first place. If
you're going to line him up out wide, not at 100%,
I think he's going to be exposed immediately. Will the
Chiefs move to a lot of three wide sets? Will
Rice be that guy in the On the outside, I
(35:08):
should say, so it's deployment, and it's the type of
deployment for Allen. Dude, if you catch on to Patrick Mahomes,
you could be talking about his number one wide receiver here.
I don't want to put the carpet before the horse,
but I had about a 165 price tag on Allen
right now and all my best bowl drafts going on.
If I'm at pick 160, even 165, and Allen is
(35:32):
floating out there, I'm snatching him up because I think
that's a perfect, compliment it's how you win these games
it's a huge upside play and in redraft even if
it's a small loss and a big win play i
love that my play is significantly more boring than yours
jake i mean yours is rocky road there's chocolate covered
(35:55):
peanut butter filled pretzels in there mine is just vanilla
i like to think it's the good vanilla like the
vanilla bean vanilla not the one that comes in the
carton that's all like icy and crystallized it's trey tucker
for the raiders i just think we're getting the wide
receiver one on even if it's a bad team but
(36:16):
i think he's pretty much definitively the one he ran
580 routes last year for crying out loud he led
all wide receivers on the raiders in Routes, targets, receptions, yards,
and TDs, he was easily their best play-action option, which
I think works with his game. He's kind of a
technician out there, and when you have a good play-action game, cough-cough,
(36:38):
Clint Kubiak, cough-cough, last year, what we saw with Donald
and JSN, I'm not going to say Trey Tucker is
this year's JSN. He's not. But in even a T-move
version of that role, meaning if they're just able to
execute that play, he should be the beneficiary. We've seen
it happen in that system time after time after time again,
(36:59):
and you're just not overpaying for it. You can get
Tucker in the 160s. Maybe it's 150 right now. I'm
partially to blame for that. But he's pretty clearly, again,
the camp buzz is huge. They all seem to love him.
There's rapport with the quarterbacks and the coaches. So, yeah,
I'm going with Trey Tucker. He's the guy over nailer
for me who I've kind of bailed on. Talk to
us about the Raider wide receiver core in general.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Do I have to, John? Are you forcing me to
do this right now? You know, actually, somebody did ask me.
I was doing these mailbags and somebody in the fantasy
life discord community had asked me this exact thing about
what do I think about the wide receivers for the Raiders?
And I said that I think they will all do
(37:41):
their roles differently. as a compliment to the two top
receivers being Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer, I think they
will do their complimentary roles very well. I had a
hard time picking one. You make a very good case
for Trey Tucker though. I didn't want to pick one
because Jalen Naylor's the new guy. We didn't really get
to see him as a starting wide receiver, except for
(38:05):
when Jordan Addison was out, but he looked good when
Jordan Addison was out. But I think you make a right,
the right call for Trey Tucker which was the Kubiak
stuff but also what did we see last year and
what did they do with it last year and he
was good when we're drafting wide receivers in this range
you just got to look for opportunities and he certainly
(38:26):
got it yeah you.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Know he also had a monster game and it's weird
to like I'm like a you know a fake quant
if anything and never referring to the smallest samples but
you know week three last year he went eight 145-3.
It's crazy. Yeah, that's, you know, he was the number
two overall wideout that week. Like, not a lot of
(38:49):
players can lay claim to that. You know, like a
few of those things. Those are all things that we're
looking for. That's the ability to tie together, you know,
volume with efficiency and long touchdowns, which are, you know, again,
how you win this game. So I would not be
surprised if Tucker ends up having a little bit of
a a breakout season. I think it's going to depend
(39:10):
on the gentry health. And also, you mentioned the Mayer pick.
Let's move right into tight ends. I think we should
make him our, he's got to be our honorary choice.
Neither one of us picked Mayer. Talk to us about
your selection or your favorite tight end after pick 150.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
To be fair, if Greg Dulcich was going inside of
the top 150, I would love to grab Michael Mayer.
But Greg Dulcich, despite my best efforts, still going very
far outside of the top 150. And my rationale with
him all offseason has just been how many tight ends
realistically have a shot at being their team's top target?
(39:45):
And now how many of those guys are available after
round 10? It's a very tiny amount. And I know
the argument against Dulcich is just like, he gets hurt
a lot. Okay, here's my solution for that. Don't play
him in the weeks that he's hurt. But in his
healthy weeks, he could be absolutely fantastic in this offense.
(40:06):
You talked about it with Malik Willis, so I won't
harp on it, but there's not a ton of reliable
pass catchers here. I don't know that there's any reliable ones.
There's guys I have hope for. I like Chris Bell,
the rookie, but he's coming into the season a little
bit injured. His hype is ramping up a little bit,
but I think it could be a slow start for him.
But we've got Dulcich over here. His ADP is in
(40:27):
the dirt. Meanwhile, some stats on Dulcich from last year.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Just a couple. These are my favorites.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
He was eighth in targets per route run among all
qualified tight ends. So guys who ran at least like
100 routes, basically.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
He was eighth.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
He was third in yards per target among tight ends,
15th overall, all pass catchers, yards per target. And he
was second in yards after the catch per reception, again,
among qualified tight ends.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Behind only my true love, Tucker Kraft.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
So if I can scoop this dude up, this is
somebody that we've been throwing out, John, often as like,
you draft Tucker Kraft or you draft George Kittle early.
But you're worried about the injury stuff. So you better
make sure you have a plan B. Here is your
plan B at tight end. Greg Dulcich, I would say.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, I love those players as a pairing. I think
both of the prices are really fair. I think they
both fit the same archetype of player that is a
winning fantasy tight end. Again, my notes very much mirror yours.
I put potential to be at least the second option. Yes.
Can this player win in the secondary? Yes. Have they
shown to be efficient? Clearly, yes. I had your yards
(41:40):
after catch that, which is awesome. We love that in
tight ends. That's what we're looking for. He was also
number seven in fantasy points per route. I mean, that's
the sample. That's it. All the routes. When he's on
the field, he is producing. I get there's some trepidation
with the Dolphins and how it's going to be run.
I have been asking people to expand their minds a
(42:01):
little bit. And maybe we're just giving the ball to
the best players. And this offense runs through Malik Willis
and A-Chan, which it should, with a little bit of
stretching from Bell if he's out there, with Dulcich doing
the underneath stuff that he's always done. For me, it's
a little bit clearer than everyone else is making it. Like,
this is a disaster. Run for the hills. This can't work.
(42:24):
They're going to be terrible. Well... The offense I just
described would be awesome down 21 points because that's how
you rack up PPR points if you're down against preventative
too high shells. So, like, I'd be loving that all day. Like,
those are the games where Dulcich is going to catch
seven balls. Yeah, it might be seven for, like, 48. Okay,
we're going to take 11 points from that price point, ADP-wise,
(42:46):
and move on. I'm with you. I drafted a ton
of Dulcich. I want to pick your brain just really
quick for one thing and ask you, if my reaction
is an overreaction, and it was the rookie that they
just brought in. I don't know anything about this. Justin Jolly,
he got cut, right? He just got drafted and immediately
kind of turned around and cut, if I'm not mistaken.
(43:08):
From the Broncos, it sounded like his archetype was kind
of similar. And I'm hearing some people say like, oh,
that's it for the Dulcich second half. Like, you know,
we took the rookie run out, backfilling the second half
of the season. What do you think? I don't really
know anything about him. I don't want to be scared,
but I don't love Dulcich that much that I'm still
like smashing a button firm. So I've been moving away
(43:29):
to my pick, not to bury the lead. Do you
know anything about Jolly? Is he worth rostering? Is he
worth getting away from Dulcich for the questions? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Jolly, I believe a fifth round pick by Denver last year.
It was somebody that I was putting as like a
dynasty stash or sorry.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
No, this year, this year. That was right. He was,
he was drafted.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Time has gotten away from me.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Already, John. It's okay. I got sloppy. Jolly.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
This is somebody that I was pointing out as like
a dynasty deep stash because it's I take it more.
This is Sean Payton's never ending obsession with trying to
find this joker. that he just can't stop himself. And
this was supposed to be his new attempt at a joker,
which is like either a running back or a tight end.
That is a hybrid of all the things you can
(44:15):
use him in all the scenarios. And I just took
this to mean Sean Payton's taking his L earlier than usual.
Like he did last year with Evan Ingram, it took.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
A little bit longer. And then he did it with
RJ Harvey and it took a little bit longer.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think he's just cutting his losses earlier because I
don't know, maybe he didn't have the patience to see
this thing through. I'm not worried about Greg Dulcich from
where I'm drafting him because even if Justin Jolly does
manage to become the tight end by the end of
the year, which I don't think will happen for the record,
but even if he does, I get what eight weeks
(44:48):
of Greg Dulcich doing his thing for rock bottom prices.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah. Again, there's just, there's an explosive upside here that
I don't think you get with the catch and fall
tight ends that which I'm generally just advising people against.
You could stream that. We've seen the studies done with
streaming QBs and streaming tight ends. You could find that
kind of minimalist production or whatever. All right, the player
(45:13):
that I have shifted to may be harder than any player. Again,
as prices shift, this player has not. It's Rams tight
end Colby Parkinson. I mean, this is another one. I
feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Parkinson missed, like,
a chunk of the beginning of last season. So then,
I don't know, you want to give him some grace
(45:35):
with time to kind of hit the ground running, and
then hit the ground running he did. How about Parkinson
ended up with more end zone targets than some guy
named Puka Nakua in fewer games. So, like, right off
the bat, that's pretty good. Rams are projected to score
through the roof again. Nakua also has some issues going
on right now. There's, like, injury stuff. There's off-the-field stuff.
(45:56):
These things... That chapter is not closed yet. I mean,
enough so that I'm worried at the fourth overall pick.
So anywhere that I could try and swim in that wake,
I'm interested. But regardless, all this happened with the Rams
pretty much healthy. So this is after Week 9, and
he really kind of hit his stride and was playing
more kind of full-time. Also remember the Rams very much
(46:18):
into this multiple tight end set stuff. Of all 35
tight ends with 25 targets after Week 9, so I'm
not really cherry-picking. He was 6th in points, 7 in
points per game, 2nd in points per target, 1st in
points per route, 6th in targets per route, 5th in
yards after the catch per reception that we love, 5th
(46:39):
in routes per first down. That was under 10, which
is elite, elite. He was also tied for 1st with
20-yard touchdowns and 2nd in red zone targets. He had
17 red zone targets. After Week 9, on a ridiculously
prolific offense that loves to use the tight end, I
feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Jake, for me to
(47:04):
feel like Kobe Parkinson should, could, and would be a
top 7 tight end doesn't feel like a bold prediction.
He's going off the boards as tight end 31 or 35.
He's not even part of people's draft plans. I don't know, man.
I've been all about that Parkinson life, especially because you
don't have to draft him as your tight end one.
You can draft him as a last round pick. And
(47:25):
to me, he feels like that next week's wave of
wire tight end. If he goes out and catches two scores,
as he's known to do, I think he's going to
be the big ad. So how much of the shark
have I jumped? I know I've overblown it, but like
how far have I gone?
Speaker 2 (47:39):
I think everybody's hesitation with this is very, very simple, John.
You look at the Rams roster and it's basically all
tight ends.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
Like I did that.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Scott Fishbowl charity draft earlier this offseason. I drafted 20
tight ends for charity. And as a bit, the Rams
do this as part of their actual game winning process.
So I think you just see that you go, I
don't want to mess with it. And people like Terrence
Ferguson as kind of a breakout guy because he's kind
of a wide receiver ish dude.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
And I get that.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
But I just think you make great points. Only thing
I would add is Devontae Adams, as much as I
love him, he can't possibly stay that guy forever who's
going to get all of the, you know, the end
zone targets basically for the wide receivers. And maybe they
even put more on Colby Parkinson this year if he
takes a step back.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
So many high value touches on a team that creates
them at a higher frequency than anybody else. We talk
about the mind meld with the superstar quarterback. I mean, honestly,
this is one pick that at this point of draft season...
where most of the value has been sucked out of
the entire board. This is one of the picks that
(48:52):
just kind of survived settling, you know, the dust settling,
where you know you can get him and pick 215
or later. It's almost like a baseball team. When you
have a great closer, you shorten the game. I feel
like I'm shortening the draft because I'm just so willing
to have Parkinson as my tight end three. I feel
like he could be a tight end one. So that
was really awesome. Thank you for being here for my
(49:14):
Kobe Parkinson struggle session.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Anytime.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Anytime. Can you believe that was it? So that's it
everybody for the off season. We'll be here with week one.
It's me riding solo from Jake and John. We really
do appreciate the support and the feedback. Everyone, we'll see you.
Get ready for kickoff. Have a great weekend. Thank you.
Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly
source for the nation's best fantasy speculation and advice. What's
up and welcome back. Can you believe it? Looks like
we made it. It is the last off-season episode of
Fantasy Football Weekly with your host, faithful narrator, John McGaza,
(00:23):
my friend and yours, Mr. Jake Trowbridge. Jake, how are
you doing? If it was the 11th hour, it's the
11th hour and like the 59th minute. Are you dotting
your I's and crossing your T's? What's going on?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We spend so much time preparing not only our listeners, John,
but ourselves in doing this.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
But there's a part of me that always.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Breaks into a cold sweat when we start talking about
this being the last week of the preseason because all
of that preparation.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Now we've really got to put it into action.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And it's no matter how many years you're doing this,
there's always it's mostly good excitement, There's a little bit
of anxiety that creeps in, at least for me, too,
once we start having to put this stuff into use.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, all these season-long contests, man, have added this volume
element for me, and I just can't wait to stop drafting.
It's the best part, and of course, like everything else,
we really overdo it, but you get really familiar with
the board, movements in the market, some players you were
way ahead on, me like Marshawn Lloyd, some players maybe
not so much, but we were talking about We're kind
(01:28):
of at a dead point. Players are getting bubble wrap.
Not much should be going on. And of course, what
ends up happening, news drops and things are going on.
Josh Jacobs is on the front of everybody's mind. The
Green Bay running back. He was placed on the commissioner's
restricted list. So I'm not great with this stuff. I
(01:49):
got they placed Jacobs on the list following formal charges
filed against him. He cannot practice or attend games indefinitely
while they review the matter. There really isn't much concrete stuff. Now,
Ari Myroff, I think it is, said the surveillance video
was out. I hadn't seen any of it. It confirms
relevant portions of the woman's account. I don't really know
(02:10):
anything beyond the little bit that can be explained to me.
But right now, it looks like we're not going to
guess Josh Jacobs. But we've seen this turn into a
year lost. This could just be like six games where
Josh Jacobs is sinking like a stone in lots of
drafts right now, Jake. Character, part of this aside, because
(02:33):
he's obviously not a good guy. Would you draft him
on the hope that he only misses six games? Missing
six games mean he still could play in 11. And
guess what? They are all the most important ones. You're
a Packer guy. What do we think about Josh Jacobs
from the fantasy football perspective?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, John, I've been staying away from Josh Jacobs all offseason.
I've been telling listeners, stay away from Josh Jacobs. Just
because outside of everything that's happened off the field, I
even thought on the field last year that it looked
like the wear and tear was catching up to him.
This is a guy who has the second most touches.
(03:11):
of any active running back in the NFL just behind
Derrick Henry. And I thought that was starting to show
last year. Once all this stuff started to enter the fray,
it was just wiping my hands clean and moving on.
I had started to take some nibbles towards Marshawn Lloyd,
towards even.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Chris Brooks at a certain point.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Now, of course, the Packers have added Caleb Johnson from
Pittsburgh into the mix. So I'm not reversing course on
Josh Jacobs.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I'm staying away.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
It doesn't matter how far he falls down draft boards
because as you said, okay, maybe he misses the first
six games. A, that's.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
A lot of games.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And B, it could be much longer than that because
he is effectively right now serving a suspension without there
being an official suspension.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
He's on this list.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
He can't come off of it until something happens one
way or the other. So I'm not going to try
to sleuth through that, figure out.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
When that's going to be. I'm just moving on.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I'm still comfortable with taking Marshawn Lloyd, though less so
by the minute because he's going up draft boards fast,
and Caleb Johnson's a late-round dart that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, interesting how that's kind of flipped on its head
for me. I was, like yourself, at 0.0% Josh Jacobs
through the entirety of this because there was this chance,
and we had the fall-off. I think it's important that
you mention that. We're not hearing a lot of that.
A lot of what we're hearing is, man, if you
get Josh Jacobs, you get this kind of RB1 situation,
(04:39):
YPA was at 4, below 1 yard before contact per rush,
even if you want to put that on the offensive line.
Still at 3.0 yards after contact per attempt, which is
not great. Negative EPA, sub-50% success rate, single-digit, more like
a 6% explosive rush rate. These are not great, especially
with a lot of volume. You want those explosive rates up.
(05:00):
If you're going to be getting the rock a lot, yeah,
he scores a lot of TDs, but that could be
the first thing to go. So I'm with you. Also,
I was going to ask about Lloyd. I'm glad you
mentioned it. I went from the preeminent Marshall and Lloyd drafter.
I just tweeted it the other day. I showed you.
My average ADP was in the 180s. I've been tracking
(05:22):
drafts literally every second of every day. He's going in
like the low 70s. I'm with you. I think that's
gone entirely too far because, one, we've never really seen
him stay healthy, even if he is good. And Jacobs could,
in fact, enter the fray. Now let me ask about
that low 70s price. Is it because Jacobs is still
somewhat technically lurking? What if we found out Jacobs is
(05:45):
out for the season? We've got to be interested in
somebody for the Packers running the ball. Where would your
opinion be in that case? Because I think, again, right
now you waiting for a piece of news is very,
very smart. Let's say we were to get that because
I think that could be coming down the pike. Now
how do we treat the Packers backfield? I think they're
projected for too many wins to outright ignore them.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, you can't ignore them, but I don't think you
will ever get to a point or should get to
a point where Marshawn Lloyd is just replacing Josh Jacobs
in ADP, where Jacobs was earlier in the offseason, I
should say. We haven't seen it from Marshawn Lloyd. We've
seen plenty of Josh Jacobs. And even though I didn't
love what I saw towards the end of last year,
I get why people were at one point saying, OK,
(06:28):
I'll take him in the third round and be comfortable.
I'd never be comfortable taking Marshawn Lloyd there. even if
you could guarantee me he was going to stay healthy
for 17 games, which you can't because that's just how
these injuries work, unfortunately. But also, again, the lurking is
not of Josh Jacobs for me. It's about Caleb Johnson,
(06:49):
this guy who obviously last year he was drafted in
the third round, clearly had a case of the yips
with Pittsburgh, never got over it. I think it literally
started with just a bad kickoff return and there was
Fumble and shenanigans with that. And I don't think he
ever got mentally right after that. We've seen a change
of scenery fix a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
This is a good offense.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
This is a good outside zone running scheme for Caleb Johnson.
So I can't be confident that we won't see a
50-50 split between those two guys even. So I'm much
more comfortable taking Johnson just because his ADP is still
in the dirt. Marshawn Lloyd, though, you know, in the
seventh round, I guess... But I'm never going to jump,
(07:30):
I think, earlier than that.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, Caleb Johnson is on the move up. I've been
having a hard time getting him, actually. I had him
probably in the low 200s on my ranks. He's going more.
People start to get a whiff of a player they
think maybe could pop, and I agree. It's possible. It's
still a very vulnerable backfield, like you mentioned. I think
(07:52):
you also make a really good point with the unforced
errors that kind of cascading for him that was the
singular worst place for that to happen with aaron rogers
and in fact man i didn't get to listen to
the whole clip but there is a clip on social
media making the rounds literally today of caleb johnson like
joking about aaron rogers stuffing him in a broom closet
(08:15):
like i don't know if you meant physically or at
least emotionally you got stuffed in the emotional broom closet
But that is a case, and we know Rodgers has
very little tolerance for that, being out of position, especially
when it ends up with him on his back. So
there is a great spot. I think Green Bay does
a good job of coaching guys up. I'm with the
(08:36):
Johnson thing. I just think for listeners, if you're going
into drafts, be ready around 175, because you know what?
That's when people start to throw ADP out the window,
which I'm okay with. I still think I might like
some other players, which actually is what we're going to
be talking about in a little while, me as a
you know, subpar host that I am, forgot to mention.
We will be talking about sleepers after these news and notes.
(08:57):
But the next guy is a player that I was
really into. I'm mentioning this because I'm starting to run
for the exit. That's Emeka Egbuka, who, again, I really like.
But there's a lot of competition for targets there. They
finally admitted it is Turf Toe, which we know has
derailed seasons. It's very hard on explosivity. I think we
(09:19):
were talking about that last week. You were mentioning that. Now,
Igbuka still has not practiced. I was looking it up
feverishly today. I got working with trainers on the side field,
running without any obvious problems, but just like you were saying, running,
you know, non-competitive practice running is not the same as
(09:39):
the type of explosiveness and max force you have to
put on these joints. Where are you in Igbuka? This
is a guy I was really into. There's so many
wide receivers in that realm. Jake, I'm now off the
egg buka thing. Ah man, this one could burn me,
but I am an injury pessimist. How are you feeling here?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, I was all in. on Ibuka in all formats.
Still very much in on him in Dynasty. I'm not
running for the exit, as you are, I don't think.
But I am walking towards it, you know, with my
back towards the exit. Just kind of feeling the wall,
making sure I still know where the exit is with Ibuka.
What concerns me with him is the unknown timeline. How
(10:21):
many games could Ibuka miss? How many games could he
exit early because the injury flares up? Or how many
games will he just be much less effective even if
he is technically on the field? When I'm drafting someone
in these early rounds, those are questions that weigh really heavily.
And it's the same type of concern that I have
(10:42):
for Malik neighbors that I know not everybody shares, but
Before the injury with Ibuka, I would have happily reached
to get him in the third round because I was
just projecting, again, this Jackson, Smith, and Jigba type of
arch upward. And now, even if he's sitting there at
the end of the fourth, I'm just, oh, it almost
pains me.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
To click it. I think I'm at the point where.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
If I'm at the turn and I can get him
in the beginning of the fifth, I'm still very much
into it because I do think that the sky is
available to Ibuka.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
But it's how soon are we going to get there
with him that scares me.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Man, that's a great call out. It's funny. I've still
just had trouble because there's other wide receivers with other
injury punishments baked into their ADP that are looking more up.
Like Luther Burden is now back. They said he looks 100%.
And if I have to choose between the two, yeah,
I wanted Ibuka apples to apples to begin with. But now,
(11:39):
to me, they were just close enough that I'm kind
of going with Burden. Same for Mike Evans also. I'm
not really buying that out of San Fran. I think
they're bubble wrapping him. He's going to come out and explode.
Everyone's going to go, oh, man, Mike Evans is going
to have a big season. Anyway, two quick RB notes.
We could tackle them both at once. One was just
Isaiah Pacheco got sent to the IR. I really wasn't
(11:59):
drafting him. Anyway, the second he got hurt, I kind
of buried him so far in my ranks. No one
subscribing to my stuff was going to get him. I
don't know. What do we do? We move Gibbs up
to the negative 101. So, yes, there's really not much there.
And then Jonathan Brooks, I don't want to, you know,
jump the shark on this one. I don't want to, like, overreact.
But right now we're just very optimistic. That was the
(12:21):
quote from Canales, that he'll be available week one with soreness.
All of a sudden our, you know, injury optimism, there
it is. He's going to be healthy. All of a sudden,
he played a few preseason snaps, and now he might
not be available week one. Pacheco probably not so much actionable.
Where are you on the Brooks thing? He's very polarizing.
I've seen him go in the fifth or sixth round.
(12:41):
I mean, now we have questions about week one. I'm
kind of out on the Panthers, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah, I don't think that's unfair. And real quick with Pacheco,
I wasn't drafting him either. I just, anybody who's tempted
to hear the quote from Dan Campbell about Jacob's sailors
moving up, and oh, we're very comfortable with him as
our RB2. I would be as well if I had
Jameer Gibbs as my RB1. I don't think we should
be reading into this to say that any RB2 is
(13:09):
going to be worth much for fantasy in Detroit. With
the Panthers, I would say Jonathan Brooks is still somebody
that if he slips a couple of rounds, I think
I'm still going to be okay. I know that it's
concerning for somebody who gets a little bit of preseason
action to now have this sort of red flag hanging
over them. But I don't take this to mean that
(13:33):
it might be like this all year. I understand if
that is an interpretation that you want to take with it.
I just think that the upside is still very much
present with him. Now, Chuba Hubbard, I guess we should
point out, though, the reason he kind of lost his
job last year was because he himself got injured. So
if he looks really healthy, then maybe Chuba really is
(13:55):
the guy that you would prefer there. I'd be interested
to see what the gap in ADP ends up looking
like by the end of this very week, frankly, with
those two.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, I don't think I want Chuba Hubbard.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
If, if Brooks falls, I'll consider him.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, I thought a healthy Hubbard was always going to
be a thorn in the side kind of team captain
guy that they really like. And even if he's eating
up a lot of the low calorie work, he's still
eating up a lot of it. I definitely would agree
high value touches for a team I don't think very
highly of. If it's true that Brooks can secure the
pass-catching role, then it could be a lot of work
(14:33):
for him in PPR formats in the fourth quarter. I
don't know if it's this year, maybe more than ever.
There are certain teams I'm just kind of distancing myself from.
When you get the Sunday... There are teams that are like, yes,
I have a player on this team that I think
is going to go and score 28 points, almost getting
off the bus, and then some teams are like hoping
they're going to get to 14 or 15.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
You're hoping they get off the bus at all.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Right, in Brooks' case, we're hoping he's on the bus
in the first place and strapping on. But, you know,
it really is the truth, and I always talk about
trying not to be too cute about predicting injuries, but
when we see them in front of us, is when
I really start to pump the brakes on the optimism
I was talking about. Let's do some sleepers. We each
have a sleeper at each position. This is really good.
(15:20):
Because as we approach drafts, I think what happens, guys
like Lloyd, guys like Brooks, that drafters might be thinking,
I'm walking away with this guy. they go entirely too
early and you find yourself maybe short at a position
or backpedaling at the end of drafts. And I think
it's important to have that plan B or C. So
I think this is going to be really good. Why
don't you start us off with your quarterback? It's Sam Darnold.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, Sam Darnold going outside the top 150 players.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
It does make sense to me.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I understand why if you just looked at his fantasy
points per week last year, it's not like you were
Grilled every week to be starting Sam Darnold, but he
certainly was effective for you overall. He was very effective
for the Seahawks overall. But my thought currently with Sam
Darnold is just this. What if the backfield in Seattle
(16:10):
is weaker than we expect it to be? At least
until Zach Charbonnet gets back, whenever that might be. And
don't get me wrong, I like Jadarian Price.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
But he hasn't shown that he can be a workhorse.
At least he didn't in college. maybe a committee backfield
leads to more of an emphasis on the passing game.
And therefore, we have Simon Darnold, who last year was
one of only six quarterbacks to throw for 4,000 yards.
And he did that while ranking 15th in pass attempts. Now,
(16:42):
Darnold had more passing yards than Bo Nix had last
year on 135 fewer passing attempts. Nix is still being
drafted pretty dang high, especially for a guy who is
coming off a brutal ankle injury at the very end
of the year. And so this rushing upside that we
(17:02):
supposedly like for him, I just don't see. But he's
going five rounds before Sam Darnold, who could be in
a much more efficient offense. So I'm not going to
say that Sam Darnold is going to be amazing for
fantasy football, but I am saying he could easily hang
with a lot of these quarterbacks that are going much
earlier in the drafts. And I think you could do
(17:23):
better to bolster the rest of your positions, your running backs,
your wide receivers, whatever. If you just wait a little
longer on quarterback and grab Sam.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah. You know, when I first saw this, I kind
of scoffed, and I thought maybe you had gone a
little off the rails. I was actually thinking, man, I
thought there were more quarterbacks that we liked, and I
went in thinking low volume, and that part was correct.
There were bottom three in dropbacks per game. That was
at 30. But everything after that really kind of came
(17:55):
up Sam. He had six top ten finishes. He had
three top five finishes. So volume, yeah. Yes, we like
volume because volume– It helps to get there, but when
you can be efficient, and how do you boost efficiency?
How about one of the best wide receivers in the world?
I'm also surprised you didn't mention what the addition of
(18:17):
Rashid Shaheed could really do, because he's a player I
love in drafts. I mean, after pick 130, that's when
I start thinking, I'm just shooting for upside. Most of
these guys are going to end up dropped or hurt
or both. Give me Shaheed almost everywhere. I think he's
going to play a full-time... role on the opposite side
of jsn and man we've seen creativity from jsn moving
(18:41):
in and out shaheed was also showing flashes of being
able to win on routes that aren't just go routes
as a fantasy community we really need to stop doing
that like he's a he wins deep and he only
wins deep that's not the case you win by design
a lot of times and shaheed has absolutely popped on
perb route metrics and stuff. So yeah, there's actually a
pretty good explosive case to be made for the Seahawks.
(19:03):
So I'm actually loving that call. And I've started mixing
Darl into my, you know, best ball plans where you're
thinking about the entire league or super flex plans where
you're absolutely thinking about a second and third quarterback. He
should 1 million percent be part of that QB2 discussion.
I really love that.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Let's be clear, John. Let's be clear.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I took Sam Darnold because you took the guy that
I really wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Oh, okay. I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
This is my backup plan, which I think is a
good backup plan, but it's not as good as your
plan A.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Oh, I love that. So let's call it our plan
A and making Darnold our plan B. I'm fine with
signing on with that 100%. You know what? That's right.
I did. I posted first, and I didn't know that,
that our favorite play would be. I mean, it's pretty obvious.
to me that it's Malik Willis, right? We've all had
the Rebar Konami Code stuff just repeated over and over
(19:58):
because it's correct. Quarterbacks that run have an inherent and
built-in floor, especially a guy like Willis who has shown
efficiency passing as well. My note says, Jake, it feels
like I'm taking crazy pills. We've drafted Justin Fields and
Anthony Richardson in the top 65 overall as a consensus.
(20:22):
Now Malik Willis, who again, yeah, the weaponry's not as good.
I don't care. I think he's better than both of
those guys, in particular with the passing stuff. We're not... Yes,
putting the best EPA per dropback on Malik Willis would
be nuts. But I don't think putting a league average
passing play on a player that's shown us... Top flight
passing play is crazy. I just, I love the rushing floor.
(20:44):
I mean, I also wrote, see Baltimore week 17. Last year,
he went 288-1-0, 960-2. I mean, he's putting up two
separate stat lines at once from pick 130. These are
all the same arguments we've been making for Justin Fields,
for Anthony Richardson, and I'm all about Malik Willis. He's
(21:06):
probably my most rostered quarterback across hundreds of drafts. So, yeah,
add on if I missed anything. I'm over the moon
for this guy. I can't believe the price. For as
sharp as the markets have gotten, I really think they've
dropped the ball here.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
That's what I just wanted to emphasize.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Maybe it's people trying to course correct too much from
those other guys that you talked about because you get
burned by Anthony Richardson. You get burned by Justin Fields.
In the long run, yes, you do get burned. But
remember the joy that you get from starting those guys
every week?
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah, you're right. It didn't matter if they were throwing
very efficiently.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
But Malik Willis can throw downfield especially very efficiently. So
you're getting the two best things that you want in
a fantasy quarterback, which is rushing upside and the ability
to just chuck it downfield successfully.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Sign me up.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Are you buying any of this bench risk? That's what
I'm hearing from some of the fancy football intellectual dark
web that I'm not really buying.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
That's too much.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
And the, I think the green Bay of the South
kind of narrative there is getting overblown as well. You know,
they pick up this guy who would have been cut, frankly,
all due respect from the Packers. He gets traded to
be the backup to Malik Willis and in preseason looked good.
but it's the preseason, and it was against a bad
(22:22):
Cardinals defense where most of the guys he was throwing
against got cut themselves.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Let's pump the brakes.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Malik Willis is going to be a starter for at
least the first 14 weeks.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, that's exactly where I am and where I've been.
I'm not coming off that. My dad is getting ready
to do his fantasy football draft, and I told him,
Just totally wait on QB. Take Willis plus. Take two
guys at the back end, and if you're worried about
Willis up front and you want to see what you get,
that's fine. He is the most clearest week one mainstream
(22:57):
waiver wire headliner guy like ever if he runs for
two TDs week one. How did we miss that? Well,
not all of us did. All right, Jake, that's the
halftime whistle. Give me one second. I want to get
into our sleeper running back, wide receivers, and tight ends
at Ogo after 150 in just a second. All right,
(23:18):
we're back with the skill position players. I want you
to lead us off. This one is really interesting. And
the second I saw it, I realized if people like
you are on this player, I'm a little too low.
I've moved them up my ranks. It's the newest giant,
Najee Harris. What do you got?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
John, I can't talk about Najee Harris without also talking
about Cam Scadabo, which is a big reason that I
have Harris on this list. I wrote down just a
quick list of things that Cam Scadabo runs like. Just
so everybody knows where I'm coming from, Scataboo runs like
the juggernaut from the X-Men franchise. He runs like a
toddler that just snuck a sip of a Red Bull.
(23:57):
He runs like he's trying to wake up all the
sandworms in the Dune movies. He runs like a Roomba
that's gotten stuck in the corner of a room and
is desperately trying to get out of it. He runs
like that rat from Ratatouille is hiding under his helmet,
controlling him. But the rat also just did a bunch
of HGH. My point, John, is that Cam Scadaboo is
(24:19):
not a man who puts his.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Health front and center.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
And I don't think that coming off of an especially
gruesome injury, I don't think I can trust his style
of play to hold up whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
So I look at who they just added, Najee Harris.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I think people are down on Harris because a little
bit of the lost year. It's just a little bit
of that out of sight, out of mind. Bad pun,
I guess, for the Najee Harris eye thing. But he
is maybe not the most exciting running back, but he
is a high quality, reliable running back that can do
all the things that you just need a starting running
(25:00):
back to do.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Capable pass catcher?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yes. Good.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Pass blocker, yes. Can get you solid yards after contact, yes.
Now he's coming off of his own Achilles injury, but
he did look pretty solid in the preseason. I thought
it didn't look like somebody coming off of an Achilles injury.
So instead of drafting Skadaboo in the fourth round, which
is crazy, crazy ADP to me, I'm waiting to pick
(25:26):
up Najee in the very last round.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
You don't have to start him in week one. I
do want to be clear about that.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Don't feel like you got to force this guy into
your lineup right away, but see what the snap share
looks like early on.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Compare his efficiency with Skadaboo's.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
If Najee comes out ahead in any meaningful way, you've
got yourself a bona fide flex play, at least for pennies.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, I'm curious how that's going to shake out. Skadaboo
has really profiled as a three down back. You know,
he's good between the tackles. He's also a good route
runner and pass catcher. But like you mentioned, it's very hard.
I was muted and kind of laughing and snorting through
some of that. But it's true, yeah, I think about
the juggernaut thing, and we love it sometimes. It's not
(26:11):
always great. We knew it going in that this could
lead to an injury, and that's exactly what you got.
So I think having the backup plan behind that, regardless
of what you think of Skadabo, I think given all
these things we know about him, we should be viewing
that backfield as vulnerable, and that's the thing I like
to target first I was going through the Nazi Harris
(26:32):
advanced stuff from last year. I think we got something
like 41 snaps, which of course was not great. But
I did find one thing that was interesting. And even
though the yards per attempt were really low at 4-1,
though that was what Scadavo had also, his yards after
contact were still excellent. And that's always been a thing
(26:54):
for him. Excellent. And now if you're pitching me A
guy that's going to be in the right spot is
just bad.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Naju is never this like great explosive back. There's something
to knowing where to stand. That's how I joke about just.
following all the assignments, understanding the assignments and executing the
playbook the way that they need to do it. We
don't need, yes, we love 18 yard runs, but not
if it's going to be minus six, minus six, minus eight,
and you're throwing off the drive. Sometimes it's just three
(27:24):
in the cloud of dust over and over. And you
mentioned protection, keeping dart upright should, would, and must be
number one priority for this team because without him, they
might go winless, right? It looks really bad there without him. So,
I actually like the Harris thing. I moved him up
into my plan, as I mentioned. Mine, I think, is
a little more, well, he's quite a bit more expensive.
(27:46):
It's Dylan Sampson with the Browns. I was thinking more of,
outside of 150, last resort, are there any points, fantasy points,
to be had? Hopefully there's some argumentative points to be
had also. Dylan Sampson, of all running backs that earned
over 40 targets, he was number one. In both target
(28:06):
per outrun, 28%. And yards per outrun, 1.9. The book
on Sampson. First of all, those are good wide receiver numbers.
The volume stuff is off. But he has shown to
build off the reputation. Now, you would know better than me,
as you're much more plugged into the college stuff, that
Sampson was going to be a really good pass catcher.
(28:28):
And for a lot of teams, he might have been
their running back. One, he just happened to go in
the same draft as Jutkins, who to me... is profiling
more almost like Nick Chubb-esque, fantastic runner, fantastic runner, almost
as good as they get, he can handle a pure workload,
he's awesome, but with a really good pass catcher behind you,
(28:52):
on a team that's projected to be like the worst
in the league, could get a lot of negative game scripts,
what do you think about Dylan Sampson in PPR, I
think he's a sneaky potential like flex start, right? You
wouldn't be thinking about starting the Browns backup. I mean,
I don't want to start the Browns at all, but
Browns backup running back, he could be like an eight
fantasy point a game guy. Am I stretching that? What
(29:14):
do you think?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
No, I think it's a good call because I remember
hyping up Samson just a little bit last year, thinking
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
This is a bad offense.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I want the guy who's going to be In a
trailing situation more often than not, who would be catching
these passes? And we got to see it for like
one game last year for Sampson. There's one game, I
think he had like seven to eight targets, something like that,
just about as many reception.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It was a perfect.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Shining example of exactly what you're talking about. It doesn't
have to look good. Maybe just don't watch the games
that he's actually playing in. Just take the fantasy points
without having to put yourself through seeing how the fantasy
points are accrued. But I think The only thing is
that they did add Casey Concepcion, who might be a
little bit more of that kind of schemed. I don't
(30:03):
want to say gadgety because he's so much more than
that as a wide receiver, but he could eat into
that just a little bit. But I still think I
would so much rather take the flyer on Samson than
invest early draft capital on Quinshawn Jenkins, for sure.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, that's a great call, which puts both of us
at odds with these fourth round running backs, which means
you better have your answers earlier before Or after, right?
That's kind of been the main sticking point for a
lot of people. So yeah, I'm just, you know, thinking
about Sampson more as a flex. Or maybe a guy
come bye weeks. If Cleveland, who knows where their injuries
(30:38):
are going to fall. And again, that game you mentioned. Remember,
Jutkins didn't play... week one, and Samson got 20 touches
and he caught eight balls. So there is some contingency
upside also there. The Browns are probably going to be
double-digit underdogs quite a few times this year, and that's
a good spot to target, you know, a guy that, again,
could easily catch six passes. Might not be pretty, like
(30:59):
you're saying. You're not going to want to watch it.
It won't be in red zone, but, you know, fantasy
points all the same. Now, next up, this one's good.
Don't break my heart, Jake, my achy, breaky heart. It's
Billy Ray, Cyrus Allen, and I'm half joking because, you know,
I just think I'm very transparent. I'm out there. I'm
taking my L's. I wrote him up as part of
a bold prediction piece. Then I got trolled this morning
(31:21):
that he got cut. It turns out that was not true.
So I'm back. We're back in the Cyrus Allen business.
Sell us on the, you know, Chiefs kind of rookie
that's kind of popped out of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, we got AI slopped on a rumor that was untrue, thankfully.
Because it would have broken my heart, John, if Cyrus
Allen truly did get cut.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I was shocked. I was shocked.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It would have hurt because I've been watching, and it
wouldn't make sense, frankly, because I've been watching this guy
all offseason long just continue to build true rapport with
Patrick Mahomes. I know that's a thing that gets bandied
about a lot during the offseason with rookie wide receivers
and oh, we saw one catch, you know, slowed down
on a social media reel. And so now that guy
(32:07):
is a trustworthy wide receiver. It's not often the case,
but it really does feel true in this situation because
Patrick Mahomes is saying it, number one, that he is
a very trustworthy wide receiver, but he's showing it consistently
at camp and in preseason. He looks to be as
in the hunt for wide receiver through season. I don't know,
(32:30):
let's say wide receiver two or three right now for
the Chiefs, just depending on what shakes out with the
ambiguity on the receiving depth chart. Not that Rasheed Rice
is going to get suspended or anything, but we've talked
about him before and how it's maybe always just waiting
on another thing.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
With Rasheed Rice, but also Xavier Worthy.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
We don't know that he's really proven himself to be
that consistent wide receiver too. So I would, again, like
I said with Najee Harris, if you don't want to
start Cyrus Allen week one, I get it. I don't either,
but I do want to draft him and watch what
his snap count is those first couple of weeks. And
then I want to see what he does with those snaps.
(33:11):
How many targets per route run is he is like
really watch him. Don't just look at the box score
and see, is he the first read second read for
Patrick Mahomes? If you start to see those things on
any significant amount of plays, I get real comfortable putting
him into my lineup after that, at least as a
flex play. And if he doesn't, and if it really
(33:34):
looks like it is just hype, and we got hyped again,
cut him, move on, don't worry about it.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
But I want that upside.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Man, you just gave me the title for this, right?
And it's next week's waiver wire today, right? These are
the players that you do not want to start week one,
but you understand how important We are going to react
if we even get, again, doesn't even need production. I'd
like to add one thing for Allen that I'm going
(34:01):
to be looking for in particular, and it's deployment in
two wide receiver sets. I mean, I wrote, okay, so
I wrote, Bare case for Allen. He's a fifth rounder
that never topped 750 yards in college football. I immediately
don't care about any of that when not only are
we talking about the continuity you're referring to, but with
(34:23):
a superstar quarterback. When you get that, the guy, right,
those quarterbacks that matter, the quarterbacks, there's only a few
of them. When they matter and dictate who's playing, you
want to be on that list of guys. That matters
to me. The bull case, all the stuff you mentioned,
plus I have Worthy is fragile, Kelsey is ancient, and
(34:45):
Rice looks terrible. He already could not win off the
line against press man coverage in the first place. If
you're going to line him up out wide, not at 100%,
I think he's going to be exposed immediately. Will the
Chiefs move to a lot of three wide sets? Will
Rice be that guy in the On the outside, I
(35:08):
should say, so it's deployment, and it's the type of
deployment for Allen. Dude, if you catch on to Patrick Mahomes,
you could be talking about his number one wide receiver here.
I don't want to put the carpet before the horse,
but I had about a 165 price tag on Allen
right now and all my best bowl drafts going on.
If I'm at pick 160, even 165, and Allen is
(35:32):
floating out there, I'm snatching him up because I think
that's a perfect, compliment it's how you win these games
it's a huge upside play and in redraft even if
it's a small loss and a big win play i
love that my play is significantly more boring than yours
jake i mean yours is rocky road there's chocolate covered
(35:55):
peanut butter filled pretzels in there mine is just vanilla
i like to think it's the good vanilla like the
vanilla bean vanilla not the one that comes in the
carton that's all like icy and crystallized it's trey tucker
for the raiders i just think we're getting the wide
receiver one on even if it's a bad team but
(36:16):
i think he's pretty much definitively the one he ran
580 routes last year for crying out loud he led
all wide receivers on the raiders in Routes, targets, receptions, yards,
and TDs, he was easily their best play-action option, which
I think works with his game. He's kind of a
technician out there, and when you have a good play-action game, cough-cough,
(36:38):
Clint Kubiak, cough-cough, last year, what we saw with Donald
and JSN, I'm not going to say Trey Tucker is
this year's JSN. He's not. But in even a T-move
version of that role, meaning if they're just able to
execute that play, he should be the beneficiary. We've seen
it happen in that system time after time after time again,
(36:59):
and you're just not overpaying for it. You can get
Tucker in the 160s. Maybe it's 150 right now. I'm
partially to blame for that. But he's pretty clearly, again,
the camp buzz is huge. They all seem to love him.
There's rapport with the quarterbacks and the coaches. So, yeah,
I'm going with Trey Tucker. He's the guy over nailer
for me who I've kind of bailed on. Talk to
us about the Raider wide receiver core in general.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Do I have to, John? Are you forcing me to
do this right now? You know, actually, somebody did ask me.
I was doing these mailbags and somebody in the fantasy
life discord community had asked me this exact thing about
what do I think about the wide receivers for the Raiders?
And I said that I think they will all do
(37:41):
their roles differently. as a compliment to the two top
receivers being Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer, I think they
will do their complimentary roles very well. I had a
hard time picking one. You make a very good case
for Trey Tucker though. I didn't want to pick one
because Jalen Naylor's the new guy. We didn't really get
to see him as a starting wide receiver, except for
(38:05):
when Jordan Addison was out, but he looked good when
Jordan Addison was out. But I think you make a right,
the right call for Trey Tucker which was the Kubiak
stuff but also what did we see last year and
what did they do with it last year and he
was good when we're drafting wide receivers in this range
you just got to look for opportunities and he certainly
(38:26):
got it yeah you.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Know he also had a monster game and it's weird
to like I'm like a you know a fake quant
if anything and never referring to the smallest samples but
you know week three last year he went eight 145-3.
It's crazy. Yeah, that's, you know, he was the number
two overall wideout that week. Like, not a lot of
(38:49):
players can lay claim to that. You know, like a
few of those things. Those are all things that we're
looking for. That's the ability to tie together, you know,
volume with efficiency and long touchdowns, which are, you know, again,
how you win this game. So I would not be
surprised if Tucker ends up having a little bit of
a a breakout season. I think it's going to depend
(39:10):
on the gentry health. And also, you mentioned the Mayer pick.
Let's move right into tight ends. I think we should
make him our, he's got to be our honorary choice.
Neither one of us picked Mayer. Talk to us about
your selection or your favorite tight end after pick 150.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
To be fair, if Greg Dulcich was going inside of
the top 150, I would love to grab Michael Mayer.
But Greg Dulcich, despite my best efforts, still going very
far outside of the top 150. And my rationale with
him all offseason has just been how many tight ends
realistically have a shot at being their team's top target?
(39:45):
And now how many of those guys are available after
round 10? It's a very tiny amount. And I know
the argument against Dulcich is just like, he gets hurt
a lot. Okay, here's my solution for that. Don't play
him in the weeks that he's hurt. But in his
healthy weeks, he could be absolutely fantastic in this offense.
(40:06):
You talked about it with Malik Willis, so I won't
harp on it, but there's not a ton of reliable
pass catchers here. I don't know that there's any reliable ones.
There's guys I have hope for. I like Chris Bell,
the rookie, but he's coming into the season a little
bit injured. His hype is ramping up a little bit,
but I think it could be a slow start for him.
But we've got Dulcich over here. His ADP is in
(40:27):
the dirt. Meanwhile, some stats on Dulcich from last year.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Just a couple. These are my favorites.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
He was eighth in targets per route run among all
qualified tight ends. So guys who ran at least like
100 routes, basically.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
He was eighth.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
He was third in yards per target among tight ends,
15th overall, all pass catchers, yards per target. And he
was second in yards after the catch per reception, again,
among qualified tight ends.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Behind only my true love, Tucker Kraft.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
So if I can scoop this dude up, this is
somebody that we've been throwing out, John, often as like,
you draft Tucker Kraft or you draft George Kittle early.
But you're worried about the injury stuff. So you better
make sure you have a plan B. Here is your
plan B at tight end. Greg Dulcich, I would say.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, I love those players as a pairing. I think
both of the prices are really fair. I think they
both fit the same archetype of player that is a
winning fantasy tight end. Again, my notes very much mirror yours.
I put potential to be at least the second option. Yes.
Can this player win in the secondary? Yes. Have they
shown to be efficient? Clearly, yes. I had your yards
(41:40):
after catch that, which is awesome. We love that in
tight ends. That's what we're looking for. He was also
number seven in fantasy points per route. I mean, that's
the sample. That's it. All the routes. When he's on
the field, he is producing. I get there's some trepidation
with the Dolphins and how it's going to be run.
I have been asking people to expand their minds a
(42:01):
little bit. And maybe we're just giving the ball to
the best players. And this offense runs through Malik Willis
and A-Chan, which it should, with a little bit of
stretching from Bell if he's out there, with Dulcich doing
the underneath stuff that he's always done. For me, it's
a little bit clearer than everyone else is making it. Like,
this is a disaster. Run for the hills. This can't work.
(42:24):
They're going to be terrible. Well... The offense I just
described would be awesome down 21 points because that's how
you rack up PPR points if you're down against preventative
too high shells. So, like, I'd be loving that all day. Like,
those are the games where Dulcich is going to catch
seven balls. Yeah, it might be seven for, like, 48. Okay,
we're going to take 11 points from that price point, ADP-wise,
(42:46):
and move on. I'm with you. I drafted a ton
of Dulcich. I want to pick your brain just really
quick for one thing and ask you, if my reaction
is an overreaction, and it was the rookie that they
just brought in. I don't know anything about this. Justin Jolly,
he got cut, right? He just got drafted and immediately
kind of turned around and cut, if I'm not mistaken.
(43:08):
From the Broncos, it sounded like his archetype was kind
of similar. And I'm hearing some people say like, oh,
that's it for the Dulcich second half. Like, you know,
we took the rookie run out, backfilling the second half
of the season. What do you think? I don't really
know anything about him. I don't want to be scared,
but I don't love Dulcich that much that I'm still
like smashing a button firm. So I've been moving away
(43:29):
to my pick, not to bury the lead. Do you
know anything about Jolly? Is he worth rostering? Is he
worth getting away from Dulcich for the questions? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Jolly, I believe a fifth round pick by Denver last year.
It was somebody that I was putting as like a
dynasty stash or sorry.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
No, this year, this year. That was right. He was,
he was drafted.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Time has gotten away from me.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Already, John. It's okay. I got sloppy. Jolly.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
This is somebody that I was pointing out as like
a dynasty deep stash because it's I take it more.
This is Sean Payton's never ending obsession with trying to
find this joker. that he just can't stop himself. And
this was supposed to be his new attempt at a joker,
which is like either a running back or a tight end.
That is a hybrid of all the things you can
(44:15):
use him in all the scenarios. And I just took
this to mean Sean Payton's taking his L earlier than usual.
Like he did last year with Evan Ingram, it took.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
A little bit longer. And then he did it with
RJ Harvey and it took a little bit longer.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think he's just cutting his losses earlier because I
don't know, maybe he didn't have the patience to see
this thing through. I'm not worried about Greg Dulcich from
where I'm drafting him because even if Justin Jolly does
manage to become the tight end by the end of
the year, which I don't think will happen for the record,
but even if he does, I get what eight weeks
(44:48):
of Greg Dulcich doing his thing for rock bottom prices.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah. Again, there's just, there's an explosive upside here that
I don't think you get with the catch and fall
tight ends that which I'm generally just advising people against.
You could stream that. We've seen the studies done with
streaming QBs and streaming tight ends. You could find that
kind of minimalist production or whatever. All right, the player
(45:13):
that I have shifted to may be harder than any player. Again,
as prices shift, this player has not. It's Rams tight
end Colby Parkinson. I mean, this is another one. I
feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Parkinson missed, like,
a chunk of the beginning of last season. So then,
I don't know, you want to give him some grace
(45:35):
with time to kind of hit the ground running, and
then hit the ground running he did. How about Parkinson
ended up with more end zone targets than some guy
named Puka Nakua in fewer games. So, like, right off
the bat, that's pretty good. Rams are projected to score
through the roof again. Nakua also has some issues going
on right now. There's, like, injury stuff. There's off-the-field stuff.
(45:56):
These things... That chapter is not closed yet. I mean,
enough so that I'm worried at the fourth overall pick.
So anywhere that I could try and swim in that wake,
I'm interested. But regardless, all this happened with the Rams
pretty much healthy. So this is after Week 9, and
he really kind of hit his stride and was playing
more kind of full-time. Also remember the Rams very much
(46:18):
into this multiple tight end set stuff. Of all 35
tight ends with 25 targets after Week 9, so I'm
not really cherry-picking. He was 6th in points, 7 in
points per game, 2nd in points per target, 1st in
points per route, 6th in targets per route, 5th in
yards after the catch per reception that we love, 5th
(46:39):
in routes per first down. That was under 10, which
is elite, elite. He was also tied for 1st with
20-yard touchdowns and 2nd in red zone targets. He had
17 red zone targets. After Week 9, on a ridiculously
prolific offense that loves to use the tight end, I
feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Jake, for me to
(47:04):
feel like Kobe Parkinson should, could, and would be a
top 7 tight end doesn't feel like a bold prediction.
He's going off the boards as tight end 31 or 35.
He's not even part of people's draft plans. I don't know, man.
I've been all about that Parkinson life, especially because you
don't have to draft him as your tight end one.
You can draft him as a last round pick. And
(47:25):
to me, he feels like that next week's wave of
wire tight end. If he goes out and catches two scores,
as he's known to do, I think he's going to
be the big ad. So how much of the shark
have I jumped? I know I've overblown it, but like
how far have I gone?
Speaker 2 (47:39):
I think everybody's hesitation with this is very, very simple, John.
You look at the Rams roster and it's basically all
tight ends.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
Like I did that.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Scott Fishbowl charity draft earlier this offseason. I drafted 20
tight ends for charity. And as a bit, the Rams
do this as part of their actual game winning process.
So I think you just see that you go, I
don't want to mess with it. And people like Terrence
Ferguson as kind of a breakout guy because he's kind
of a wide receiver ish dude.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
And I get that.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
But I just think you make great points. Only thing
I would add is Devontae Adams, as much as I
love him, he can't possibly stay that guy forever who's
going to get all of the, you know, the end
zone targets basically for the wide receivers. And maybe they
even put more on Colby Parkinson this year if he
takes a step back.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
So many high value touches on a team that creates
them at a higher frequency than anybody else. We talk
about the mind meld with the superstar quarterback. I mean, honestly,
this is one pick that at this point of draft season...
where most of the value has been sucked out of
the entire board. This is one of the picks that
(48:52):
just kind of survived settling, you know, the dust settling,
where you know you can get him and pick 215
or later. It's almost like a baseball team. When you
have a great closer, you shorten the game. I feel
like I'm shortening the draft because I'm just so willing
to have Parkinson as my tight end three. I feel
like he could be a tight end one. So that
was really awesome. Thank you for being here for my
(49:14):
Kobe Parkinson struggle session.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Anytime.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Anytime. Can you believe that was it? So that's it
everybody for the off season. We'll be here with week one.
It's me riding solo from Jake and John. We really
do appreciate the support and the feedback. Everyone, we'll see you.
Get ready for kickoff. Have a great weekend. Thank you.
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