Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Pre-Draft Podcast with Brett Whitefield

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) welcomes in Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) to talk some former rookies and the incoming 2021 class. And Scott asks the most important question... what's his ball situation like? Should he try for some Manscaped products?... Get 20% OFF Manscaped PLUS Free Shipping when you use promo code FP2021 at MANSCAPED.COM! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to the Fantasy Points podcast. I am your host, Scott Barrett. We have a lovely, wonderful, special, very special. special guest today. Today we're going to have on Brett Whitefield. Tomorrow we're going to have on Dane Bruegler. The day after that, we're going to have Mike Renner of PFF. Brett Whitefield,

close personal friend, also one of the unsung hero, hidden gems of NFL draft, fantasy football, DFS community. I think he has like 6,000 followers on Twitter. Absolutely egregious because this is one of the smartest guys I know. This is maybe the best film evaluator in the space. Uber genius. He's a guy I lean so heavily on. You've heard the notion of a mastermind group or a, you know, a think tank or whatever. I surround myself with people who are way smarter than me. And, Brett is one of these smartest people I know, one of the guys I lean heaviest on. I think his upside in this industry is unparalleled. If he wanted to be the next Daniel Jeremiah, if he wanted to be way high up in a front office somewhere, I think that's easily within the realm of outcomes for him.

I really can't sing this guy's praises enough. And, he's a funny guy. He's a fun guy. He's a close personal friend. So Brett, the first question I'm going to ask you is the first question I've been asking a lot of my recent guests, Brett, what's your ball hair situation looking like? Is it just a mess down there? Is it, you know, do you manscape? What's going on downstairs, Brett? I'm going to just come out with it, man. My ball hair situation is great.

And you want to know why? Why is that? Because I do use the lawnmower 2.0 and the crop duster. Whoa! That's what I love to hear. And the reason why I ask this question is because support for fantasy points is brought to you by Manscape, who is the best in men's below-the-waist grooming. Manscaped offers precision-engineered tools for your family jewels, the obsess over their technology developments to provide you the best tools for your grooming experience. Who wants to work at NASA these days?

You're a top engineer in your field. You want to work at Manscaped. Manscape distrusted by over 2 million men worldwide. Now, we have an exclusive offer for my listeners. That's 20% off plus free shipping with the code FP2021 at Manscape.com. One more time, that's FP2021 at Manscape.com. Look at that, Brett, put you on the hot seat and you hit such a home run already. Yeah, I mean, when you're talking draft, you have to list the number one overall pick with men's

care and that's definitely a manscape. Oh, look at that. You're better than I am. You checks in the mail. Checks in the mail, Brett. So what we're going to talk about today is, you know, you've spent countless hours breaking down film, watching all of the top quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends in this class, you know, former PFF employee, you know, spent a lot of time grading

these players. You have a similar process, I guess, now at FTN, Fade the Norfolk. boys. What is your position there, Brett? Yeah, so I'm the director of football operations and analytics. And so basically all things football charting. So we're breaking down the film 100 different ways and charting out all that awesome data and making it go. How much time do you think you've spent thus far this offseason breaking down tape? Oh, man.

I mean, I feel like probably six hours a day since January 1st. At least, you know, I mean, and that's not including my actual job, which, you know, I've had to watch many prospects to do write-ups on or whatever, collecting data. So that's just, you know, film study for the class. I've done about six hours a day at least. And then I've watched more for my, for my day-to-day job as well. All right. So first up, we're going to leave the draft stuff off to the side for now. We're going to talk about some of my most egregious misses.

from the 2020 season. I was madly in love with Clyde Edwards E. Laird, just, you know, you had the draft capital, ideal landing spot, comp to Brian Westbrook, you know, his primary competition opted out of the season. I love Clyde Edwards E. Lear. You, like I said, one of my go-to guys, he slithered into DMs.

You're like, hey, man, you might want to pump the brakes. I don't know about this guy. His tape wasn't great. And I'm like, okay, Brett, you think you're smarter than Andy Reid, do you? Really? I went against the grain. I don't like to do that with you. Went against the grain.

Brett, give me your thoughts on Clydewards E-Lair and how you're feeling. What you told me a year ago and what you're thinking today. Yeah, so I had a bunch of concerns, obviously, with him coming out, which is why I advise you to pump the brakes. I think the main thing for me was the LSU offense was so prolific, and they were just exceptional at spreading out defense. and it basically created a situation where Clyde Edwards-Hillard often had five, six, seven-man boxes to run against. And it's pretty hard for running backs to not flourish in that environment, especially six-man boxes. I just know the NFL, the game's a lot faster. Teams don't really do that.

The chiefs don't really spread defenses out as much. I didn't think he'd have quite the amount of running space. And so what we saw him do a lot was anytime he got in traffic, his product, his product, productivity went way down. Anytime teams put a seventh guy in the box, you saw a massive decline in productivity. Anytime there was an eighth guy in the box, it was an even bigger decline in productivity where... Just real quick, my counterpoint to that was, I mean, it's the chief's offense. These should lead the league in touchdowns and like should lead the league in, you know, six, five-man boxes. But go on. Yeah. So I had no dispute that the opportunity in Kansas City was

was potentially great. I did have worries. At the time, we didn't know Damien Williams was going to opt out. So at the time, I thought he would still be a factor in the offense. They ended up signing Levi-on-Bell, which kind of maybe nerfed some of that opportunity. But ultimately, I think the Chief's offense,

they don't do a lot of the same things the LSU offense did. Even when they kind of go spread and three-wide, there's sometimes a lot of tight formations. They do use a second tight end a lot. And I just didn't think he, would be very productive in those situations to where his other backs in the class his own class like jonathan taylor even d'andre swift who's a similar build to clide those guys you know did a much better job with seven and eight man boxes and it's really it comes down to a vision thing

in generating yards after contact i thought those guys were much better suited to to take the the torch at the next level than than Clyde was all right so so let's say you have a team you know i i I don't want to name a specific team because then, you know, outside zone scheme versus whatever, you know, comes into place. So just like a random team, let's say you have the, you know, a middle of the second round pick, all the running backs in this class are still on the board. Or you could just trade that pick straight up to Kansas City, get Clyde Edwards E. Lear. Where would you put Clyde Edwards Hiller in this class? Do you like him more than the most running, the number one running back? Or would you have him like RB4?

I would probably have him RB5 or six in this class. Wow. Yeah. So there you go, man. Not a big CEH fan from Brett. Let's talk about two more of my misses. One, I was way too high on Hollywood Brown, and I'm still getting killed in my mentions for it. How much of his overwhelming season was on him versus poor quarterback play, let's say, or some other concerns?

Yeah, it's hard to know. I mean, so I'm a huge Hollywood guy. He was my wide receiver won his draft class. I loved them coming out. I thought, you know, teams would be happy to have them. And ultimately, though, I think the situation of Baltimore just doesn't really do him any favors. And Lamar has definitely had his struggles with accuracy, throw for through accuracy.

And on top of that, it's just a scheme issue as well. You know, they run the ball so much, you know, even if Lamar is making every accurate throw, I mean, what is Marquise's opportunity there in full? I think that's the biggest problem, really. But how much of an issue did you see on tape with him getting separation? Or would you say that was more on the quarterback? I think he was more on the quarterback for sure. I think he still separates pretty well.

They tried to do some more ISO-type stuff with him last year where they kind of put him on an island and tried to let him work one-on-one with a corner, whether that was against cover three or man. It didn't really matter. I thought he did well generating separation. but quarterback play just wasn't really there last year. And it wasn't just Lamar's issues. The offense as a whole kind of took a little bit of a step back. Were there any concerns maybe with his size?

Yeah. Lack of physicality. Yeah, those are his big knocks. Size lack of physicality. I think you'd like to see a guy with his speed and his agility be better after the catch, and I just don't really think we saw that. So even those manufactured touches he's getting, he's not as productive as he should be on those. All right. Well, last guy, and then we'll move to the rookies. I don't want to say he was a miss, but he just somewhat underwhelmed. And that was Jerry Judy, who we both saw as an elite separator coming out. Nick Sabin seemed to imply once he was drafted. He'd be better utilized in the slot. That's where he had him. That's where he thinks Denver should have had him. He was kicked to the outside with KJ. Hamler in the slot for the far majority of the season. Production. I mean, there were some

ops. Tim Patrick out produced him for extended periods. I'm still extremely bullish. Where do you stand, Brett? Yeah, I mean, Judy, Judy was my top guy last year, and he was, I thought he was phenomenal as a rookie. Production wasn't always there. He kind of low-key still had a decent season, especially given the circumstances of that team. When you watch the film, though, the guy is literally always open. It's very rare he doesn't win his route at some point. It just comes down to quarterback play ultimately. I mean, Drew Locke had an egregious season. I really think Judy is in line to take a step forward.

If they can get another quarterback in there that can compete and kind of elevate the overall play of the offense. Oh, Heaven Sutton back will help too. Jerry literally always open Judy. Love it. Love it. All right, Brett. Who are your top five quarterbacks in this class in order to go? All right.

I'm going to preface this, Scott, by saying, I think there's five tremendous prospects in this class. I don't know that needs to be stated, but I want to. In my scoring model, they're all scored as top 10-ish, top 15-ish picks. So the gap between some of these guys is not very large. Anyways, off the top. So I don't care. Whoever your QB4 is, that means you hate him. That's true.

You're right. Totally. Okay. Man, I'm going to take some heat. All right. So Trevor Lawrence off the top, number one. He's the top guy. But I do think it's closer than most to Zach Wilson. I think they're both elite tier prospects. And I like them both a great deal. So I'm being told by Mel Kiper that Trevor Lawrence is one of the four best quarterbacks in like 30 years. And it's not particularly close. It's Peyton Manning, John Elway, Andrew luck, Trevor Lawrence. You don't think his upsides that high or you don't think he's that sound of a prospect. Why is it so close between him and Zach Wilson? Or is it just you love Zach Wilson? Yeah, I love Zach Wilson, one, but two, I think we're at the point in the process where

Lawrence has been crowned the number one pick for so long, basically since he was in high school, that I kind of think we've hyper-evaluated the other four guys and we've kind of left Trevor alone on his own pedestal. But when you really dive into the tape, there are some flaws there. And it's not to say he's not a great prospect or lead. He is my number one guy. But there's some blemishes there that I think kind of knock him off of that best quarterback in 30 years, you know, pedestal.

And that's kind of where I'm coming from on this. Okay. So what are those blemishes? What are the flaws? Because like you said, you know, maybe it's just we've hyper-valuated the other quarterbacks because, you know, I really don't hear any. knocks on Trevor. It's just, oh, you know, easy 101. Yeah. So first and foremost, he hasn't really gotten better. That is the one kind of knock I have heard a few guys say. He hasn't really gotten

better. You could make the argument, too, that his best season was his freshman year. So anytime you're kind of evaluating players, especially quarterbacks, I do like to see a progression where, you know, whether it's there are a four-year player or a three-year player where they've kind of, at some point, they made a jump. And I just, I don't see that with him. There's definitely strong points in his game in all three seasons that he played. However, you know, you don't see a really big jump and there's some inconsistency here and there. The big thing for me, though, is coming from that Clemson offense, I just, I don't really see him as a guy who kind of works through his progressions fast, sometimes a little slow reading the defense, sometimes he's slow coming off of his one.

some of the same criticisms we've heard about Justin Fields actually, which are legitimate. I also think are legitimate for Trevor Lawrence, and they kind of just seem to get overlooked. All right. So if you love Zach Wilson, I think it's easy to see why. And we spend some time together watching tape on him.

A stat I have that I love that West Huber gives me a hard time with, he hates it. But I just think it's fun. So on 30 plus yard throw, those last year. So balls traveling 30 or more yards through the air through 28 such throws. And he completed 20 of them with three drops. So that's an 82% adjusted completion percentage. The Power 5 average was 38%. Patrick Mahomes last year was 38%. The NFL league average last year was 36%. And so you just see that on tape, just ridiculous, phenomenal, deep touch and accuracy. You see the off platform throws. You

You see, you know, creativity, hyper accuracy, phenomenal velocity. There were plays where we watched where it just looked like, you know, a flick of the wrist and then the ball teleports from his hands right to his receiver's breadbasket, which is in the receiver's 23 yards down field. So, you know, armed talent for days, you know, everyone always talks about that. Just a fun prospect. Are those some of the things that you liked when you watched Zach Wilson on tape? Yeah, of course. Those are the easy things to fall in love with, especially in a past happy NFL where we're all chasing the next Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, Deshawn Watson, these guys that can play out of structure, just make literally every throw in the book. That's a cliche that often gets thrown out. But Wilson can literally make any throw in the book. He can run any play. He's, I mean, that aspect of his game is easy to fall in love with. I think his arm talent ability will also make him a candidate to be hyper efficient in the red zone in the NFL.

he can really hit those tight window throws, whether it's with touch or, like you said, teleporting the ball, fitting the ball into tight windows. That's something he's just so good at. There's just so much upside there. Another part of his game, too, that I think goes really under the radar is that he could arguably be the best runner in this class. Oh. Yeah, hot take alert, I know. It doesn't have the raw production, is it say, Justin Fields or Trey Lance or even Trevor Lawrence at times, who's also a good runner in his own right. But what Wilson does in the open field is just incredible.

I mean, he's just got the ability to make guys miss. He's got kind of an uncanny burst where he's able to kind of change angles and avoid taking big hits when he's out there running. And I think that's a very valuable trait. You're not really going to set up a ton of, you know, designed run plays for him. But when you need to move the chains, when you need the red zone threat, I think Wilson's going to be phenomenal at the next level doing those kinds of things. Yeah, wow. I will just say one concern I have with him is like there's this great tweet where it was like Zach Wilson looks like the actor who plays Zach Wilson in a Disney Channel movie.

Like he just looks like Justin Bieber like a teen heartthrob where I, my worry is, okay, he breaks the pocket. And then Aaron Donald rips him in half and dribbles his head on the Asher turf like a basketball. But I mean like size wise, you know, he surprised me at his first. Prode. He's quite a bit bigger than I thought. But yeah, you definitely see it on tape. He's Shifty, some nice runs. And I remember watching tape with you where you said this maybe more than once, there were some plays where it's like, those are only really Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rogers type plays. And now they're also maybe Zach Wilson plays. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously,

the creativity is there. But he definitely makes plays where, I mean, it just leaves you scratch in your head. Some people will cite the level of competition as like a negative against him. But, I mean, he utterly dominated this last year. So that doesn't really matter to me. Another thing he does that's really, really good. And I think probably the best of the top five guys is the progressions. You know, everyone's talking about reading defenses and how you get through your progressions.

I think Wilson works really fast in the pocket. And I think that's pretty much one of my top traits that I look for when I'm scouting a quarterback is is how well he understands what he sees pre-snap, post-snap, how he's evaluated the defense and what they're trying to do. And he's just got a great understanding of the past concepts they're trying to run. And he knows how to implement from that standpoint. So I think all those things make him just an absolute excellent elite tier prospect. Yeah, I remember watching Louisiana Tech with you where I think he only had one

in completion or two incompletions. And maybe one or two of those were actually just dropped. passes where he just really exerted his will over that, of course, lesser tier defense where he just did whatever he wanted. But the thing you pointed out to me where, you know, as a tape novice, I'm not really going to have a lot of respect for is just he went through multiple progressions fast. And then he just constantly hit the right guy, the guy he was supposed to hit. And, you know, something, you know, more advanced and nuance like that, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, not going to pick up on, but you really did a great job just pointing that out to me. And it's like,

okay, well, I understand how that's important for the NFL and why, you know, this kid was doing that right. All right. Well, let's talk about your, your QB3 and just remember that whoever is your QB4 means you hate them as a prospect. So, so who is your QB3, Brett? Well, it makes me extra nervous then. But yeah, my QB3 is actually Mac Jones. Whoa. Who am I talking to? Is this Kyle Shanahan? Yeah. Yeah. I'm Kyle Shannon. So why do you like Mack Jones? Because a lot of people have him on their big board, you know, 28. Yeah. Yeah. For me, Mac Jones is a, I mean, first and foremost, I want to address the criticisms he gets.

One of them is that he's some type of statue in the pocket. I think that's such. BS to me. He's not a statue in the pocket. I think he's an above average athlete all around. He's obviously not on the level of the four other top five guys. Those guys are all very, very good athletes. But athleticism is not everything to the quarterback position anyways. And what he does well, I just think translates to the NFL really well. I think it gives him a pretty large floor. And I don't think he's a guy that's without upside either. But when I watch this, when I watch this film, what I see Jones do is he always makes the right decision. He, you know, obviously always is a big word and he doesn't always, literally always make

the right decision, but he's pretty much always in the ballpark of where he's supposed to be. He's getting through his progressions. Sometimes there are one read throws. That's fine, but he's always throwing to the right guy in that read. Most passing concepts, as you know, have two or three players within that concept. And you're either reading, like, you're creating a high, low, or there's some type of read. And he's pretty much always making the right read and throwing to the right guy, getting to the open receiver. He works fast and he's surprisingly good under pressure. That's one thing.

It's kind of an unstable metric at times, but I do like to see the acumen for him to consistently deliver accurate throws despite being under pressure at times. Okay, so he's good under pressure. What about, you know, non-pressured accuracy? What about ball strength? What about how quickly does he get the ball out of his hands? Yeah, he's got a really, really, really tight throwing motion. I think his, release is really, really fast. When he decides to go, the ball goes. It's not, he doesn't have this giant arm, but he's got adequate arm strength plus, I would say. Sometimes you'll see in his tape some underthrown deep balls to Jalen Waddle. Jalen Waddle is obviously very fast, so that that's

slightly understandable. But he, for the most part, he throws with really good timing and anticipation in that, that's more what the deep passing game is about in the NFL. You don't necessarily need a rocket chip arm. to make that happen. And I consistently see him throw in rhythm. You know, throws with really good timing. Really throw for throw accuracy is really solid. Really solid.

All right. So if you have Mack Jones QB3, that means you hate Justin Field. So tell me how close is it between them? What are some knocks you have on Justin? What are some pluses? What do you like about his game? What don't you like? Yeah, it's really tight.

So after Lawrence and Wilson, I would say Jones, Fields, and Lance. Those are all pretty tight e-valves, especially Jones and Fields. Ultimately, for NFL teams, and it's going to come down to flavor, I think, and what you prefer out of the quarterback position, I think there's a lot of teams that can make the case that they'd rather have Fields than Jones. I think that's obvious. Fields does a lot of things really, really well. I would consider him an elite tier prospect. And something I didn't say about Mack Jones either is Tua, his Taga Lavoa, went fifth overall in last year's draft, and I think Jones is a better prospect than him.

Now, I personally didn't have Tua that high myself, but I think Jones is a much better prospect than him. So that said, Fields being a tight, you know, tight score to me is Jones. I think these are both top 10 caliber quarterbacks. Fields' athleticism obviously stands out. He's a phenomenal runner, especially if you're looking for, you know, I think you've told me he stylistically compares to Cam Newton very well from a running standpoint. That's very true.

You know, he's a bulldozer. He's a big, strong guy, just absolute, you know, unrelenting desire to move the chains and keep the ball moving when he's running the ball. I think those are, you know, things that bring him a lot of upside in an NFL offense. For me, the reason I have him slightly below Jones is some of his bad games, I would cite the Indiana game, which I thought was really. really, really, really bad in the Northwestern game, which was bad, but not quite as bad. Having that tape exists just scares me a little bit on him.

There's some really bad tendencies in there that I just, it's, it makes it hard for me to put them above Jones, who I think is consistently doing, you know, making the right reads and getting the ball out in time. Yeah, I remember watching two games of Justin Fields with you, one Indiana, where I did sort see all the concerns you just laid out. And then the Clemson game where we watched. And you're just like, yeah, I mean, if you just watched the Clemson game, this looks like the best quarterback ever.

So the upside's clearly there. Is there a hope that, you know, maybe he's not as pro-ready. And you've heard that from Todd McShea, Mel Kiper, who actually argued he should have stayed in school another year, which seemed crazy to me. But if he can work on those issues, you know, what's his upside? It has to be sky high, right? Oh, it's enormous.

It's enormous. Yeah, the upside with Fields is enormous because he has got all the tools. I mean, if you're just a guy scouting traits, yeah, Fields is probably going to be a top one or two pick for you, for sure. He definitely has it all. If he lanes in the right situation, San Francisco, you know, being one of them, to where I don't necessarily think Shanehan's offense would get the most out of field skill set, but I do think it would help Fields make that jump and kind of really develop into a star quarterback. There's other situations too that I would like for Fields, but ultimately it's going to come down

to a situation. And I think he can develop into an elite prospect. That's why he's still a top 10 player for me in the class. It's not like I hate this guy, as you put it. I mean, that's just what Twitter has become, where you have to hate one and love the other. You can't just be like, hey, they're both great. And, you know, they're in a tier. and I have this guy slightly more because I value these traits over these trades.

But that's just unfortunately the world we're living in. So I'd like to remind the listeners, again, these are Brett's NFL draft rankings, not necessarily fantasy rankings, where, okay, yeah, I'd say Zach Wilson is probably the second best quarterback in this class from an NFL perspective, but I don't think I'm going to take him over Justin Fields. I don't think I'm going to take him over Trey Lance. Trey Lance, phenomenal Konami Code upside. He averaged 13.3 rushing fantasy points per game, 77 rushing yards per game over his career at North Dakota State.

Justin Fields, a little bit less than that, but you have the all-time great speed score for a quarterback ranks just, ranks third best since 2000, 114.7, tied with Cam Newton. So that's a big reason why I like these guys for fantasy. But yeah, let's talk Trey Lance. You said he's, you know, it's a lot close. between Fields and Mac, which means it's a little less close with Lance. So what are you looking at with Lance who, you know, universally everyone's saying is a really difficult e-val? Yeah, he's so, so hard to evaluate because he's only got, you know, 300 throws on tape.

I think someone tweeted today, actually, that he even didn't have that many in high school, like 150 or something like that. So in total, this guy has less than a season's worth of throws on tape, whether or be high school or college, which it just makes the Evalve really hard. North Dakota State, too. He's already kind of playing down as far as level of competition, but he's also playing for an absolute juggernaut in that environment. And so his teammates are also the best in that division.

So or in that FCS football conference. So that's what makes it a hard evolve. You know, there's just not a lot of information. You don't get to see him do high-level things at the consistency that we get to see pretty much all the other guys do it at. And I think that's the biggest pause for concern with him. That automatically gives him the raw, the raw QB label, you know, but there's some truth for that, and he's definitely raw.

I think the biggest issue for me with Lance is, I don't know that he trusts himself yet. I don't know if he trusts his arm yet. He's got this really, really, really nice arm, a rocket chip level arm where he can, you know, he can zoom the ball, just absolutely swing it. And there's times in his tape where he doesn't, he kind of refuses to put that much heat on the ball. And a lot of times he kind of resorts back to touch throws or hanging the ball in the air for a long time. And I'd really like to see him cut it loose.

I think that's a developmental thing for him and something a coach will have to get into his head is that, dude, you've got the talent. Just get out there and sling the ball. Yeah. So I think what's interesting here is, you know, the criticism with his tape and saying it's a tough eval, because he only had, let's say, 150 throws at the varsity level in high school. And he only had 350 throws at the college level. But at the same time, you could say, okay, a ton of untapped potential, a ton of upside, you know, a one-season sample body of work.

But what a body of work it was. And this guy didn't play last year. And how did he played, you know, maybe this guy is jumping off board, up boards in the same way that Zach Wilson is. So what are your thoughts there? I mean, right? Like another guy with a tremendous amount of upside, you have to say. Yeah, absolutely.

He's like, again, if you're scouting traits, you know, him and fields are, I mean, they're just loaded with, say in Wilson. They're just loaded with traits. He's got the arm. He's got the legs. Really, really smooth runner. He ran that North Dakota State offense, which is a pro, a pro style offense. He ran that offense really well. So I don't have concerns with him as far as that goes.

those, you know, progression and stuff like that. I think he's really solid there. Okay. Well, we're going to save the best for last, and that's going to be wide receivers. So let's move quickly through the running backs. Do you have it big three, little three, as far as the tiers?

Because just about everyone has it, big three, little three. Yeah, I guess you could say that. I might have it big three, little two, maybe. Okay. Okay. All right. So big three, what's your order? Yeah. It's really tough. And these guys are close for me. But ultimately, I've gone back and forth on this too. I'll just admit that. I haven't really planted my flag on any one guy. But I have to go with Travis Aten as my number one guy. You probably always expecting that. No, I don't think so. I think where the pro game is going and just having the ability to affect the passing game as much as he can. The elite speed and ability to make guys miss in the open field, I just think that it's so valuable.

I don't think we really got to see him be a Belkow at Clemson, but I 100% believe he can be in the NFL. And I just think the upside is insane there. So that's sort of my reasoning too where he, okay, we don't like prospects who, played all four years in college. And the reason for that is because, you know, third year juniors who get a sixth round grade and then go bet, like those aren't great prospects ever. But Etienne is unique in the same way Devonda Smith is in that he got a consensus second round grade. And he, he went back. He's like, I'm not leaving for no second round grade. I'm a first round caliber player. And NFL teams said, okay, you want to go in the first round? The one thing you need to improve on

is receiving work. Guess what? He led the all power. five running backs and receiving yards last year. He did see a dip in rushing production, but I mean, that's following back to back 1600 rushing yard seasons. And the most efficient running back in this class by a landslide, one of the most efficient running backs to come out ever. You've all heard my analysis on that point. And the knock with him, the knock on him from my model's perspective, from a lot of tape evaluator's perspective, is, oh, can he be a bell cow? That's the question. And I don't think it's really a question.

It's just like he wasn't a bell cow because guess what? Clemson's routinely leading by 21 points at the half and then you bench their starters for the second half. But if you look at the big games, no other running back was getting a single touch. And if you adjust for the blowouts, he was getting like 77% of the touches on a routine basis. So I do think he definitely has that upside. I don't really think that's a major question with him, although I will say, you know,

Najee Harris. it's far less of a question. I'm guessing you have Harris, too. Yes, I do. Okay. And what is it you like about him? Do you get the Stephen Jackson comps? Do you get the Matt Forte comps where it's like, how can a guy this big be so good as a pass catcher? Yeah, I get them definitely from a standpoint. I think Najee Harris's ability to play finesse football at his size is incredible. and that's not to say he can't be a brute. When he needs to be a brute, the dude can, you know, he can shed some tacklers and initiate some contact

and wreck some people's lives. I didn't really see that with Jackson or Forte. They weren't necessarily truckers or phenomenal runners between the tackles. They were just really, really fluid for their size, and that's what Harris is. So I get the comp from that standpoint, fluidity. A little bit of Levi-on-Bell there, too. Okay, so Javante,

Williams, a full year younger than Travis Etienne, who's a full year younger than Najee Harris. He's been comp to like Marshawn Lynch. And you get that from a physical standpoint, from a tape eval, maybe. But then his athletic profile is like basically Alvin Kamara, which is, you know, sort of shocking and surprising. Not a lot of past catching production, but he was in an offense with another really good past catching running back. I liked Kenneth Dixon where the athletic profile works perfectly. And then the tape, just watching him on tape, I think that works perfectly as well. And I loved

Kenneth Dixon, one of my all-time biggest misses, but you could blame that on, you know, multiple injuries throughout his career. But man, I loved his tape, just like I loved Javante's tape, a freak at generating yards after contact, forcing miss tackles. How close is it with Javante at RB3, assuming that is your RB3. Yep, he's my RB3. And the whole cluster is tight. The couple guys you threw out there, Marshaun Lynch and Alvin Kamara, are in ways perfect.

I see some Marsha on there because Javante looks like he's running angry at times. And, you know, he's wanting to stick his face in a fan and blow someone up. So I understand that. But the way he's able to slash and kind of, you know, jump holes. And really, I mean, he just, he's, sets up angles so well. It's my favorite part of this game, something that Kamara does. He just does not give defenders clean shots on him if he doesn't want to. If he doesn't want to initiate that contact, he's able to set up the angles and completely avoid guys. So I do see it

from that perspective. Something you touched on too is the fact that he played with Michael Carter, who's a phenomenal pass catching back. I do think that capped Williams' ability to be productive in the passing game. And I think that's an area where you might actually see him do well right off the bat in the NFL because I think he is a good pass catcher. Yeah, that's really reassuring because my model is basically Najee's a bell cow lock. Etienne's probably a bell cow. And then Giovante is at least a workhorse back, you know, 18 and 22 carries every single week. Let's go. But pass catching TBD. But yes, untapped potential there. And so that that is really reassuring. You said you had probably a little two. So who would your little two be in order?

Michael Carter would be next. He doesn't have like the size you're looking for, especially for a guy like you who's looking at it from a fantasy standpoint. It doesn't necessarily have the size you're looking for to be a bell cow. But he's built really well. He's thick in the lower body and he's just a phenomenal pass catcher. So I think he's got major PPR upside, which who isn't playing PPR anymore. So I think there's a chance he does really, really well there. And he's so agile.

It's freaky. You know, he ran a sub four short shuttle. With his lower half being as thick as it is running that kind of short shuttle is really impressive. And I think that's going to give him the ability to continue making guys miss in the open field at the NFL level. And I kind of think he can slot in as like a third down change of pace guy right away and potentially work himself into an RB1 type of role. Don't know that he'll ever be a bell cow, but I think he could be a featured guy someday. Okay. And right behind him?

Trey Serman. Okay. That's a big, it's a big West Huber guy. What about Kenneth Gainwell? You don't, you don't love Gainwell? I don't love Gainwell. He's, he's so undersized for me. He's also like, like Carter's undersized, but you see the build and you think that can stand up to, to hits in the NFL.

And gainwell is just, he's really thin, man. He's fat. I think Gainwell will be, he's a really good pass catching back. And I think that's something he should be able to do at the NFL level. But as far as draft capital goes, I'm already lower on running backs as it is, you know, being an analytics guy. So I just, you know, I don't see investing a huge draft capital commitment in the game. Well, I don't think that's smart. Okay.

Let's move on to tight ends then and we'll do this pretty quick. Everyone who's listening knows my undying love of Kyle Pitts. You said something really interesting to me really early on in the prospect. I think you argued that Kyle Pitts might be the best wide receiver in this class. Is that something you still hold to be true? Yeah. If the Cincinnati Bengals walk the card up at 5 or the Atlanta Falcons at 4 and announce him as Kyle Pitts wide receiver, Florida, I'd have zero problem with that.

He's that good. There's tape, too, of him just utterly destroying cornerbacks. It didn't really matter who covered him, whether it was a safety, a linebacker, corner. He made life absolutely miserable for opposing defenses. Where is his upside? What's his potential? Is he the best tight end prospect ever? What is it about his tape that you really liked? Is he a matchup nightmare? How do you even cover him? Yeah, you can't really. I mean, you can't cover him with one guy. I mean, that's for sure. I mean, he's got an advantage. What does that do for an offense if you have a tight end where you can't

cover him with one guy? Well, either defenses decide to play him with one guy, like you saw the Buffalo Bills do against Travis Kelsey in the playoffs, and Kelsey, you just eats you alive. Or you can commit a second guy to him and that just opens everything up on the outside of the field. You get one-on-one matchups everywhere else, and you're good to go, basically. I mean, it does wonders. How unstoppable would an offense like Atlanta's be with Julio Pitts, Calvin Ridley? I'm not even sure how you'd go about stopping that, to be honest, especially because you can play Pitts at wide receiver.

So in theory, you know, you could run some 12 personnel with Hayden Hurst and get the match if you like. You can motion those guys out and kind of see how the defense plays you. If you get man coverage, it's game over. If you get zone, he's going to destroy you. And then most importantly, down in the red area, I mean, Pitts, he's just absolutely unguardable, you know, jump ball king. he's a really good natural separator.

You can run design passes to him to, whether there's screens or end-arounds. It doesn't really matter. You just get the ball in his hands and you're going to win. Who would be your number two tight end and then number three tight end? We don't have to spend too much time. Yeah, it's tough. It's a tough class, man. I think Fryermuth is the de facto number two tight end.

I could see a team dropping a second round pick on him. He comes from a good pedigree to Penn State. He does a lot of things well. He's an athletic guy. He's not near Kyle Pitts's level, but he just, he kind of does a little bit everything. He's a decent receiver. He's good on those two-way option routes that tight ends, you know,

really need to be good at to succeed in the NFL. And, you know, he's just okay. He's good at everything. He's scored well in my model because he just doesn't have massive holes in his game, but he's also not great at anything. So I think he's just a he's a complete tight end that's probably, you know, going to be your run of the mill starting tight end in the NFL and nothing too special. Does the guy right behind him come close?

No, I don't really like anybody in this class. I think like there's a cluster of like Brevin Jordan, Tommy Trembal, Hunter Long. I think if I were to spend a draft pick on any of those guys, I'd probably take an upside swing. on Tommy Trembal just because of the athletic upside comes from the Notre Dame lineage. Obviously, there's like no production there to really hang your hat on. But when you watch the tape, I mean, he just, he looks the part, you know, looks like a natural athlete that can really be an asset to a passing offense in the NFL.

All right. Well, let's move to the good stuff. And that's wide receivers. And that's also your specialty. You want to tell the folks at home a bit about why I consider you the wide receiver goat? I don't I'm not even sure this I mean I'm not keeping track of all my my my good takes but it seems like I've had a few and maybe they've helped you from time to time isn't that what isn't what isn't what wasn't that your specialty at PFF wasn't that

your your primary yeah I got my start at PFF charting pretty much routes just charting routes it's how that's how I got my start and working in football is just just charting routes and I did that for for years charted you know every route of every game and I'm still doing that. I started a department when I got to FTN where we're diving into passing game doing deep dives. And yeah, so I think that's why I have kind of an edge with wide receivers is because I spend so much time watching them naturally day to day that I've kind of gotten good at evaluating them. Right. So when Brett Whitefield tells me who is wide receiver one was at the end of his grading process and he's my wide receiver five,

I get nervous. I start sweating. Brett, who is your wide receiver one? Yeah, so I'll preface by saying I have a top tier that's really tight, but my first guy in that top tier is actually Rashad Bateman. Crazy. Crazy. craziness. Why? Well, for me, you know, my scoring model takes a lot of things into account. It's a numeric scoring system with multiple buckets. And within each bucket, there's also tiers of, you know, whether their trades or specific things I'm looking for that get a score and altogether it creates a cumulative score. Well, in my scoring model, Rashad Bateman didn't score poorly in literally one category. And when you watch the tape, it agrees. He does literally everything well. There's nothing he can't do,

whether it's the screen game, the vertical passing game, or just purely from a route running standpoint, he generates separation. He's phenomenal at the catch point. He's got an enormous catch radius despite being a little shorter than we may have thought. He's got a really good wingspan and jumping ability. Competitive toughness. He's good after the catch. You name it. Rashad Bateman can do it.

You said there was one thing he didn't do well, right? Remind me. Is there anything or he just does everything well? No, he does everything well. There wasn't one. I said there wasn't one thing. Oh, there isn't one thing. But I misunderstood you.

So who then is your wide receiver too? Yeah, so in my scoring system, I have Jalen Waddle and Jemar Chase. Oh, boy. And Waddle has a very, very slight advantage right now as wide receiver too. And I know you hate this. I hate it. Why do you love Jailen Wadle? Well, simply put, he is the closest thing ever to Tyree Kiel that we've seen.

So if you like what Tyree Kiel brings to an offense, he's definitely your guy. I know that comp gets ridiculously thrown out and everybody that runs fast gets a Tyree Kill comp. I personally have reserved that comp. I know a lot of guys called Henry Ruggs that guy last year, but that was so obviously not true. Where I do think it is true for Jalen Waddle. He's a destroyer of angles. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you, we'll get to the deep threat stuff late in a minute.

But in the open field, Jalen Waddle is so hard to get to the ground. because his speed and quickness and burst is just so incredible that you could have three defenders in place with good angles to tackle him and he just completely destroys him. All right, Brett. So then why do you hate Jemar Chase? I don't hate Jemar Chase. I mean, I've been getting this on Twitter too. People think I hate Jemar Chase.

I do really like Jemar Chase. I think the two things he does extraordinarily well, he does probably better than anybody. That's his ability at the catch point is insane. And his ability after the catch are both insane. He reminds me of T.O. a little bit. Obviously, he's smaller than T.O. I see a little Devante Adams to him, or sorry, prospect Devante Adams, not this refined version that we have now.

But what he's really lacking and kind of where I have Waddle and Bateman Head is just the route running stuff. I don't see him generate separation on the level that those guys do. It doesn't mean he can't or won't ever be able to generate more separation. As of right now, those guys generate extraordinary separation. Their route running is a little bit better. Waddle had a little bit of advantage because he played in the slot more and was constantly seeing off coverage.

But he took advantage of those situations really well and destroyed his opponents. where Chase, most of his phenomenal plays, I think I said this to you. Did we watch Chase together? Yeah, we did. I think so this year is like, note one thing is every single one of these jaw-dropping plays, they're all either contested catch situations or yards after the catch. Very rarely did we see something of him with just crazy separation where he crushed a guy in man coverage.

And that's my only real concern with Chase. It's just that we didn't see him do that enough. Yeah, you said something. interesting to me. You asked me a question. You said, show me one play where he, blank, blank, blank. What was that? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Show me one route he ran. That was an in-breaking route where he just absolutely won the route with separation. And they're very hard to find, very hard. Yeah. So, I mean, the athleticism's there. The production's there. Clearly, it wasn't a big issue for him. Don't you think you can

kind of refine his route running, coach him up? I mean, he was 19 in his elite record breaking season. You know, D.K. Metcalf, that was a knock for him. Tyreek Hill. I mean, look at the route runner he is now. Do you think that's a possibility?

Oh, 100%. But for me, and just going back to the quarterback conversation too, like a lot of this is risk management, right? So when you see a refined product, when you already have a refined product and then you've got a guy you have to project a little bit. Personally, I sometimes lean towards the refined product now.

Jamar Chase obviously has room to develop. Devante Adams is raw coming out too. He didn't have the amazing route running ability he does now. He was not a separator. But he's one of the best separators in the NFL now. And I think Chase can get there for sure. He's still a top 10 player for me in the class as well. Yeah, just so far, it seems like, you know,

you're not really drooling over upside so much. You're just sticking to the grades from when you watched these players play last year. You're not baking in a lot of, oh, well, this guy, if he does this, could be that. It's like, here's who the prospect was last year. Here's what we're getting. Would you say that's a fair assessment? Yeah, I think that's fair. I think development is vastly overstated by NFL draft community.

There's some development that takes place for sure. and there's always, you know, unicorns that end up completely transforming themselves. But for the most part, I think what you see is what you get and good coaching can take guys up to an extent. But for the most part, you don't see massive flaws corrected. It's very rare. So I think that's why I... Would you say this as a massive flaw? I mean, ability to separate is really important.

So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if massive is the right word or not, but it's definitely, it's definitely an issue for me, which is why I have two guys ahead of him when he's, generally the consensus one. Okay. Well, then who's your wide receiver for? Wide receiver four is Terrence Marshall Jr. Why? Well, I think Terrence does a lot of things really, really well. Some of it is related to this draft class specifically.

We have a draft class that is just absolutely loaded with guys that can only play in the slot. I shouldn't say only playing the slot, but mostly play in the slot. They're smaller frame guys, smaller in stature, height and weight. And Terrence Marshall brings a really large frame to the table. He's a guy who can play the X. He can play in the slot. He's got just a massive catch radius to go along with that frame. Really good jumping ability.

Really deceptively fast. Just excellent burst too for his size. When you see him after the catch, he just pops. it's pretty rare for a guy, you know, 6-3 with those really long legs to kind of move the way he does with the ball in his hands. And I think that's a huge, huge asset. I think he profiles his guy you could really become a true number one receiver at the NFL level. And in this class, I kind of think that's rare, actually. Right.

So what do you make of that, you know, Rondale Moore, Jalen Waddle, Elijah Moore, all excellent in the slot. but, you know, at the very least, very early in their career, they're probably going to be in the slot, like, 90% of their snaps. Are you devaluing these players because of that? Yeah, to an extent, if you're a slot-only guy, and I didn't see you absolutely destroy the matchups you were given in college, then, yeah, that's going to be a knock for me. The reason I kind of overlook it with Waddle a little bit is because,

so just getting a little nerdy real quick, Anytime, like college defenses play a ton of quarters coverage, which is a too high look. So what that means is a lot of times a slot receiver, especially if he's running something in the vertical route tree, he's going to end up one on one with one of those two safeties that are too high. And for me to really look past the slot only thing, I need to see you utterly destroy that guy because he's a safety and you should, you should steal his soul. Jalen Waddle did that every single chance he got. if he was ever one-on-one with a safety in that situation, he absolutely stole his soul and made the defense pay for playing stupid coverages like that.

Elijah Moore did the same thing. I don't see that necessarily for Rondell Moore. So yeah, I definitely knock him. Okay, okay. Well, then who is your next wide receiver that list? Yep, my next wide receiver, also just for a clarification point, my wide receiver's four through seven are kind of in a tier together. So Marshall being the first of that tier, Devante Smith would be the second one in the tier as my wide receiver five.

And what is it? I mean, everyone's telling me, you know, Devante Smith locked to be one of the first three wide receivers off the board. Is it the weight issue? The BMI issue? Is that why he's following your prospect or in your process? Or was it just, I don't know why I struggle with that work. Or was it just like what you watched on tape where you're like, I think this guy is being a little overrated just on tape alone.

Yeah, it's a little bit of both. From an analytical profile, you know, there's some red flags. Obviously, you know this. You're an analytical guy or an analytics guy, you know, whether it's the late breakout, the drafted age, and the BMI issue. So those are real concerns. I'd say the BMI issue is the bigger concern. I don't blame DeVontz Smith for playing with Jerry, Judy, Henry Ruggs, and Jalen

Waddle. So that doesn't really bother me. and even those before them. But the BMI is an issue. There's very rare instances on tape. You see it become an issue. But anytime he was lined up on the line of scrimmage, impressed,

there are some glimpses of what that could look like in the NFL, and it wasn't pretty. Thankfully for him at the college level, he was able to recover quickly and get into his route. So I do think there's a chance he can overcome that in the NFL. I personally view him more as a slot receiver in the NFL. I would rather just get the small frame inside. and let him win with route running, which he is pretty good at.

As far as the overrated thing, a lot of like everyone throws the Heisman trophy thing up in the air and the raw production, which obviously was insane. But ultimately, you have to break down what the Alabama offense is doing. And a lot of that is schemed. Tons of screen passes, tons of jets, but also these crossing routes where, you know, these are just complete overloads where they're overloading the defense and they're basically getting Devante Smith to run free across the middle of the field. Some of that is route running, for sure. A lot of it is also scheme, and he's just wide open. Catches the ball, you know, runs for 30 yards after the catch. Good stuff.

I'm not going to say all of his production was like that, but a lot of it was to where I kind of, I'm not taking a 2,000-yard season for him and saying, wow, he's the greatest receiver of all time. Okay. Brett, we watched the next player on your list together. And the entire time, I'm just like, why don't you have this guy higher? because you and I both were just gushing over him. I think we watched him two nights ago.

I'm way high on him. That's Elijah Moore. Brett, why aren't you full-blown in love with Elijah Moore like I am? I am. I absolutely love the guy. We're at the point where it's like this receiver class is so just chocked, just full of just really good talent. It's like, it is absurd that he's sixth in my right.

rankings when I think about it objectively and just watch him like we watched the other night, just completely blown away by the guy. I'd love to put him higher. I just don't know where. You know, my scoring model tells me he's wide receiver six, so I've got him wide receiver six. He does just about everything well. Everything he was asked to do, he thrived at. A lot of people, especially on Twitter, and Twitter's not the gospel by any means, but the consensus on Twitter is he's a slot only type. But there's a lot. lot of reps and we saw him the other night Scott where he lines up on the outside and utterly destroys the corner opposite of him. So I'm not sure he is a slot only guy, even though he's

five, nine. I think maybe he's got a little Deshawn Jackson to him where he can, you know, he can line up on the outside if asked to, probably not a full-time outside guy, but he can get it done out there if required. Yeah. And then even in the slot, you know, we saw him work, J.C. Horn. Yeah. And, you know, dog over the middle, like you said, flashes of Steve Smith, who Lane Kiffin personally comped him to. The concern you have, if I recall correctly, was due to size? Was that one of your biggest concerns? No, size isn't really my concern.

I think his, well, let me back up. Yeah, anytime a guy is like 5'9, 100, what is he, 180 pounds, 185 pounds? Yeah, anytime a guy is that size, it's concerning for sure. I'm not going to say that's not a concern. He never, the size issue, I mean, that was never an issue on tape. He plays with attitude. I mean, I called him a dog the other night. You know, you just see that all over.

I think that's where the Steve Smith comp comes into play. Kind of has that chip on his shoulder mentality where he's just, he might be 5.9, 180, but he's going to make you feel like he's the biggest guy in the field. So I, yeah, the size doesn't really bother me that bad. I think the biggest flaw in people's thinking about him is they see the whole. 115 targets and, you know, they just, they think he's, you know, he's a lock for, for high productivity early on. But what would they have to realize is a lot of that production was manufactured in the

form of, you know, jets and screens and even, you know, little tosses from the running back position. You know, they ran, they ran a screen game with him as a running back. So we got a lot of those touches, which if a team drafts him and decides to do that at the next level, then that's great. He probably is a shoeing to be a PPR stud. But I just don't know that that's the case. Yeah. So I'm hoping it is. I do kind of think it is. And, you know, sure, a lot of manufactured production, but at the same time, they're just getting the ball into their hands of their best player. And that was clearly Elijah Moore. We watched some running back snaps where

he looked like a real running back. You know, he read the defense perfectly. He made, he created yards on his own without any help from his offensive line on those runs. Great vision. You kept typing his vision. I got to pull you back. I'm trying to get you to bump this guy up in your rankings. 5-9-178 pounds. Not ideal. What is ideal, 4.35 40-yard dash, 6.673 cone, 4.0 short shuttle. That was basically Michael Carter's time. Guy, I think, is super special. You had a great take where you're like, well, you know, some concerns with catch radius. And I'm like, I'm rooting for Green Bay. And you're like, hey, man, maybe you're just joking.

And I'm taking you out of context. But if he goes to Green Bay, he could be a Hall of Fame. Which I would like that. If he goes to Green Bay, just put him in the Hall of Fame now. For sure. I have so many Elijah Moore shares. And that would be pretty great, pretty great. Who do you have after Elijah Moore?

This is wide receiver seven? Yeah, no, wide receiver eight. Oh, yeah, it is seven. You're right. You're right, why receiver seven. And this is getting close to the next tier here, and I might even tear break after Elijah Moore because I do think there's a pretty big drop-off.

But I have Rondell Moore at seven. Yeah, he's the toughest e-valve of the wide receivers, too, in my opinion. Would you rather have ignoring everything else about their prospect profiles, would you rather have an outlier who was as short as Rondale Mores or a wide receiver who is as skinny as Devanta Smith or 2-2 at well? I would take Devanta Smith for sure. Right.

I mean, not the player, though. Just the red flag. Oh, just the red flag. I would take the skinny guy. Why is that? What's the concern with Ronda Moore? It's the catch radius, you think? That's part of it.

I mean, but just being very, like, logical about it, you can gain weight. You can't gain inches. Right. And that's the main thing. I mean, I'm hearing Devontas Smith's frame is just, like, totally maxed out, and he's just, like, cap there. Like, that's just what he is. I don't think that's true. Okay.

I don't think that's true. I mean, Alabama, pretty good strength and conditioning coach, I'm sure. Yeah, for sure. It probably came down to not wanting to mess with his speed and agility and ultimately just trying to make him comfortable. I think NFL teams, because they're not, you know, they don't have to fit this guy into the team for like a very short amount of time. Like colleges are obviously very finite NFL teams. It's more a bigger investment. I think they could, you know, probably use some of their really cool tech and get him to a better weight while maintaining some of that speed.

The boy needs to squat more, that's all. You know, who doesn't need to squat more with his record-breaking squat at his diminutive size is Rondell Moore, squat king, 600 pounds as an 18-year-old. I mean, I loved his tape, man. I really loved his tape, and we watched some of it together. Just ridiculous at creating yards after the catch. There were some really sexy routes he ran, but also something like 80% of his career receptions came 10 yards or shorter down the field.

What are some concerns? What's some upside? Like, particularly from a fantasy perspective, you have to admit, like, if he goes to the right scheme, the right team who really likes him, you know, he can just be peppered with touches and sure that's manufactured production like I saw at Purdue. But, you know, that all means the same for fantasy. Yeah, for sure. I mean, if I'm drafting Rondell Moore, I'm definitely going out of my way to manufacture

touches to him. So he's one of the funest players to watch in this draft for sure. I will say that. I think my biggest, well, I'll start with the strength. I mean, just obviously agility for days, speed for days, all that explosiveness, suddenness. It's just all exceptional. And with all that stuff being present in his game, you would think he could develop into a good route runner at some point. And I think my biggest issue, though, with him is you just don't see a lot of receiver type things with him. He just wasn't asked to do a lot of receiver-e-type things. Specifically, there's hardly any vertical routery to speak of. There's like one clip that's circulated Twitter, maybe 5,000 times of him of him catching a deep ball and kind of boxing out the corner on the

right side outside the numbers. Yeah, that's great. That's one play, though. And ultimately, I'd like to see more of that for me to bump him up and it's just not there right now. Doesn't mean you can't develop. Landing spot's going to be important for him, man. There's a few teams, I think, would be a great fits for him. We mentioned one with Elijah Moore, but Green Bay would be a great fit for him. But I think the concern for me, or the question for me is, is he going to be Tavon Austin, or is he going to be Percy Harvin?

I think his spectrum is somewhere in there, which is pretty wide. If he's Percy Harvin, you struck gold. If he's Tavon Austin, you wasted a draft pick. Right. All right, Brett. I hear a crying baby in the background. So this is going to be my last question for you. Do you have my favorite player comps?

Is that something you concern yourself with or you know, team, team no player comps? Every player is unique. I am not team no player comps. I think that's silly. Yeah, I do. I did player comps for I think my top 10 receivers. And when I do player comps, I go for stylistic comps.

I don't go for ceiling floor. I just go, when I watch this player, he reminds me of X, you know. So there's not always body type matchups either necessarily. It's just I legitimately go for for play style. So yeah, I've got a couple favorite ones. You want to hear some? Oh, yeah. So for Jamar Chase, I have if Devante Adams and Stefan Diggs made a baby.

Oh, I like that. I want to draft that baby in a Devee League. There you go. For Rashad Bateman, I have Justin Jefferson. Oh, oh, my. I think Terry McLaren's another one that came to my mind. How much do you like Justin Jefferson and Terry McWren? Oh, I liked them a lot.

Yeah. I think Wes told me he thinks Justin Jefferson's going to the Hall of Fame. He's like, he doesn't throw that out too often. I mean, he's on that trajectory. Damn. Yeah, he certainly is. is, isn't he? Let's see here. Devante Smith, I have as Tyler Lockett. Oh, interesting. I've heard that with Elijah Moore, and I get it. Haven't heard that with him. Elijah Moore, I get it too, because the

vertical route tree from the slot, I guess that makes a lot of sense. The speed, yeah. Yeah, the speed, all that. Diami Brown, this actually is my favorite one. We didn't get to talk about Diami, but here's a comp for him. Marvin Jones Jr. Oh, interesting. I mean, that doesn't seem super exciting to me. I think it's exciting. I mean, from a play style, like I said, this isn't ceiling floor. This is just playstyle. Right.

I think Dimey Brown is not the biggest guy in the world, just like Marvin Jones wasn't. They're not the fastest guy in the world, just like Marvin Jones wasn't. But somehow, these two guys both are incredible deep threats. And they will beat a defense deep with savviness and ball skills and ball tracking and ability at the catch point. And it's uncanny how similar Miami round plays at Jones. And living in Detroit for the last five years, I've watched a lot of Marvin Jones play. Yeah, I remember that Thanksgiving game where I faded Marvin Jones because he was being shadowed by,

or he was going to be shadowed by Xavier Rhodes. And then he just, like, made three ridiculous touchdown catches, you know, out jumping him, you know, in traffic. So, yeah. Yeah, you should have known better. Jones routinely tore up Rhodes. At one point, Xavier Rhodes' Wikipedia page. Yeah, at one point, his Wikipedia page listed Marvin Jones Jr. as his father.

Oh, boy. And then my last one I'll give you. Actually, I'll give you two more. Cadarius Tony reminds me of DJ Moore in college. Ooh. I think that there's that level. Actually, that is a good ceiling floor to me because I think Tony could develop into a really solid number one receiver, similar to DJ Moore.

All right, time out, because now you peak my interest. Who would your next wide receiver have been? Would it have been Cadarius? Yeah, it's Cadarius, yeah. So he's one of the trickiest evals to me. You know, there's a bunch of those in this class as, you know, because I keep saying that phrase. But he was super tricky, you know, former quarterback in high school,

you know, first year starting last year and he was otherworldly. You know, he moved in a way. I don't remember ever seeing a wide receiver move. Really exciting. Like what is his potential? How raw is he? What are the red flags? What excites you?

Yeah, he's, it's so crazy. Like, he's one of the most unique case studies ever because of the things you mentioned. Plus, even this year, kind of finally getting a full-time gig at receiver. It's like early in the year, you see a lot of rawness to his game,

but he still maintained some level of productivity. But as the year, on, I swear he got better. His route running tightened up a little bit. I mean, early in the year, like, he'd run a slant route, and he'd try to juke the DB like five times before he finally cut. And it just took too long as the year went on. He kind of sped his process up a little bit, got a little more, I think he's playing

with some confidence, got a little more decisive in his cuts. And his route running actually got better. So that's a really good sign to me that I think he can develop in the next level and continue adding on to that release package and the things you need to have to succeed in the NFL. I yeah I love the way he moves is is absolutely insane some of the best I mean stack him up against the running backs in this class he's got the best make you miss moves in the class for sure that's something DJ Moore did very well in college to make guys miss and just that burst elite vision and burst Cadarius will catch a ball against zone and he knows exactly how you know where where the softest point is to get upfield and maximize yardage it's it's uncanny So I love that about his game.

All right. You said you had a final comp for me. Yeah. Amon Rae, St. Brown. I know you don't like him. But same school comp here. I'm going with Robert Woods. Okay.

Wow. So the Greg Cassell draft guide is out in only 25 bucks. One of the best film evaluators of all time. Read all of his write-ups and all these guys. his comp was Robert Woods. No way. Maybe a tiny bit of Keenan Allen. Yeah.

We just got it. We just got it yesterday. So that's going to be updated really soon to probably already out the update. And yeah, so I'm probably wrong on Amon Ross St. Brown. You know, he just didn't really crush my model. And maybe I was wrong on that, you know, similar production to Michael Pittman at a younger age. And then the athleticism, you know, really hurt him. the lack of top line speed, though the jumps were fine.

But at his weight, really underwhelming 40-yard dash time. But, yeah, I mean, Wes Huber loves him. You love him. Greg loves him. So I'm probably just wrong there. Yes, you are wrong. All right. All right.

Well, I appreciate that, Brett. I'm going to move him up now. You know, it makes me too nervous to go against you, let alone you plus Wes, plus the great Greg Cassell. Brett, you want to tell all the folks at home where they can find your work, why these should subscribe to FDN as well as FantasyPoints.com. Yeah, so you can find me on Twitter at BG Whitefield. That's the best place to find me.

I go through spurts of activity, draft season. I'm on there all the time. You can also find my work at FtNFantasy.com or FtNDaily.com. I've written up a lot of these wide receivers, done draft profiles on them. And at FtN, we're just, you know, our product is awesome. We have a bunch of experts that are really good at what they do. We combine the data plus the, you know, other various analytical models that our site provides. It's a really good package, really good value. We don't just do football either. We do, you know, MBA, NASCAR, golf, and, you know, we're kind of hitting

the whole betting circuit there. And I think that's a huge added or added value if you are into that kind of thing. All right. I lied. One last question I got to get from you. What is some, what is like one or, what are one or two crazy things that are going to happen on draft day that you are pretty confident will occur, but is going to, you know, either blow the NFL, NFL world's mind or the fantasy world's mind?

The 49ers won't draft Mac Jones or Justin Fields. Ooh. Bigot Trey Lambs. Correct. Interesting. Okay. And how good do you feel about that? I feel pretty good about it.

I feel, I'd say I'm like 70% yay on that being right. Okay, okay. And one more. Give me one more. I know you have it. One more. I mean, you told me one behind the scenes. I'm just trying to get it out of you for the podcast.

But if you can't, you can't break your source, I understand. I have so many draft takes. It's hard to, it's hard to remember. I think the Falcons will draft Calpitz. Okay. Is that where you going for? No, it wasn't. It wasn't.

I might even edit this part out of the podcast. But anyway, we'll talk as soon as I stop recording and I'll dig deeper into your wealth of knowledge so as to better fine tune my final knock. That should be out probably next week. Brett, thank you so much for coming on. As I expected, you absolutely crushed it. But yeah, we'll do this again maybe during the offseason, probably during the offseason. Yes, let's do it, man. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast.

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com.