Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Fantasy Football Rankings with Jake Ciely

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Jake Ciely (@allinkid) hops on the latest Off-Season Points with Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) and Nick Skrip (@P2WFantasy) to break down his rankings and players he furthest from the consensus. Taken from Livestream on July 19th, 2022. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And welcome into the Fantasy Points live stream as we are trucking away getting closer and closer to the NFL season. My name is Nick Scrip. I'm one of your hosts today, as always here with Scott Barrett. Scott, how are things going? It's good. I'm stuffing my face with a burrito, as you know, but everything is good. Yeah, it was funny before we started, it seemed like he was trying to shotgun it. And we were swapping some food poisoning stories with our guest, Jake here.

But we'll switch to football. But Jake's our special guests here today, senior writer for the athletic fantasy. You just dropped a cheat sheet on the website, some breakout articles. You were referred to on the athletic site as the rankings prodigy. So we're going to talk about some rankings in the show today. And that's another set of info you dropped on the site. But Jake, thanks for joining us. Yeah, of course.

I mean, Scott invited me, so I'm obligated. As much as Scott invites me to anything, I should always show up, right? Of course. Just like me, except for the Flex League. Except, hey, I was, that was the underlying dig. I was going to see if you caught that. Oh, nice. Okay.

Yeah, Scott and I will talk about some guys who want to bring on the show and he'll say to me like, hey, how about this guy? And, you know, how about Jake? And I would say back to him like, hey, I think you got to ask to get him on here. But glad to get you on the show today. So what Scott and I have been doing the last handful of weeks, we've been talking about a lot of strategies, you know, big tournament strategies, best ball strategies, a little bit of redraft strategy.

Today it's very player focused, which I think as we get closer this season, that's the route to go because we're going to be drafting soon in our redraft leagues and kind of weighing things out here. But the bulk of the show today, we're going to go through some of Jake's rankings and specifically some players that he is a bit further than the ECR and ADP, which we'll get into in a bit. But I do want to touch on a recent article, Jake, that you released fantasy football success running back stats that matter and those that don't it was an

article you talked about some things that don't matter as much draft capital guys versus eight man box 40 time yards per carry yards after contact total plays mentioned my question to you is when when people are out there drafting and looking through running backs and trying to separate them what do you think is the number one stat people get get too caught up in when trying to separate running backs. So I think the, there's actually, I'll give you two, because one is like the common every league is everybody always referenced yards per carry. And we always know how wasteful that a stat is and how much is buried inside of it.

But if you took it the next step where you find people who get more advanced and they start looking at the metrics and are like, let's go a little bit deeper. Let's look at everything and look at, you know, how many times are inside the goal line, the eight-man box, which you mentioned. I know that one gets thrown out a lot, but I think the bigger one, is what people have kind of taken with the explosiveness, and they think at the simplest version of that is, well, how many times did you run for over five yards?

Which, as we know, as you guys know, that that's not what explosiveness really is, and that's not what elusiveness is. There's metrics behind that that build those and make those valuable. But if you're looking at it kind of ties it to yards per carry, it's like how many big plays did he have? You know, how many times, whatever? Obviously, the draft and the 40 times and stuff like that inherently,

those are trash as well, but those are like, but in the metrics that we talk about that, I think that's a big one is like how many big plays that they have. Big plays in their own right really don't mean anything. It's interesting, too, with the yards per carry, because we look at it or some people that maybe just casually look at that stat and say, hey, this is a pretty, you know, deeper look at running backs, but it's literally just the baseline of many other different things that make that up.

So Scott, same question. What do you think people get too caught up in when trying to weigh out which running backs to take? Yeah, I mean, obviously, yards per carry is just about worthless. Jake and I are both giant fans. And you were talking about explosive play. Is that a great tweet thread a few years ago when Saquan was healthy?

Just about all of his production was coming on 20-plus yard runs. And that's something we know, you know, tends to regress the mean, even for the league's best running backs, Adrian Peterson, who used to dominate the stat. And Seycone Barclay's production was just like head and shoulders above any other running back in this regard. But the thing is, if you took that away, his yards per carry fell to like 2.1. It was so, like, that was all he does.

And that's just like a stylistic thing. He's just like such a home run hitter. But yeah, like, what do people get wrong with running backs? I mean, like, just basically everything that isn't weighted opportunity or. expected fantasy points just like and snaps. Snaps are massive and then looking at that by total numbers per game numbers, market share numbers, that's really the key important thing. You know, I'm very unique with my running back approach. I'm very bell cower bust. I want running backs who are going to rank highly in snaps carries targets, snap percentage, carry percentage target percentage,

and XTD percentage just meaning like they don't have that goal line role taken away from them, like was the case with Austin Echler in 2020 when he scored four touchdowns, but wasn't the case last year when he led the league in touchdowns of 20. And just, yeah, efficiency is generally extremely overrated at the position. Obviously, you have to account for outliers like, you know, Nick Chubb a couple seasons ago where his volume wasn't really great, but he really rose above it. Derek Henry, to a lesser extent, like he's not getting those targets. And so, like, when you're not getting those targets, then you're what I diagnose as a game script dependent running back.

Or if you're only getting the targets, like in Naim Hines or J.D. McKissick, you're dependent on negative game script. Whereas, like, you know, Josh Jacobs historically, but not at the tail end of last season. Or Derek Henry is very dependent on positive game script. So, like, I realize this is just like a super long monologue. and I'll let Jake give all his thoughts a second. But with Derek Henry in particular, he averages over the last three seasons, something like nine fantasy points per game more in victories than losses.

And Vegas is expecting like three fewer wins from Tennessee this season. And if that bears out, then like the expectation for him just based on wins and losses is he is like an RB4 by ADP, but we should be valuing him as like an RB6. team because in wins he's the clear rb one head and shoulders about even prishman and kaffrey but in losses he's like the rb 25 but anyway uh i i always think i'm pretty unique at running back and it's the most valuable and important position so like it's important to go

into the weeds a little bit but i really like jake's article in part because he he gassed up my stat weighted opportunity a little bit but jake yeah why don't you give us your thoughts yeah on yours or just in general back to what you were saying because back to where you're saying, the interesting thing is, you know, I talked about yards per carry. Well, I don't, I meant to include this, too, is people throw out yards after contact all the time. Like, well, how good is it go back to the elusive thing? Well, it's broken tackles. And then what does you do after contact?

It's even less important than yards for carry, which is already unimportant. Like, to give you an idea for the reference to what Scott's talking about for my article is put in the R square there. 0.142 for yards per carry, 0.137 for after contact. that those are both irrelevant numbers. Those are even, and you can't even get to the point five. But yeah, you mentioned it plays.

Goal to go attempts per game, goal line attempts per game, which is inherent. Like, you know, you get a score three times at a 10 and you're getting a touchdown. We want those kind of plays. But yeah, I'm with you.

That's, you know that, Scott. I've always been. I want two running backs in the first three rounds, if possible. One of them I want a bell cow by NFL term. Second, I say bell cow in fantasy doesn't necessarily mean you're a bell cow in real life. I want somebody I trust to get double digit points every single week.

Like we know Austin Eckler's not getting 22 touches every single week. But he's a bell cow in fantasy because of that sustainable production. So yeah, all these things. I'm very much like Scott. We've always been that way is I want to get one of those running backs and I want to play the dead zone. I want to placing these running backs and chasing them in week 14 to see if it's going to be Savan Ahmed or anybody else that steps up for that brief amount of time and spending

the rest of my fab on that. And the bigger thing too is if you do the running backs early, well, well, everybody else is chasing that dead zone. What are you doing? You're drafting that giant ass wide receiver tier from like wide receiver 20 to 35 who all have potential to finish like top 20 in their own right and just load up on two or three of those guys. And that's when you end up with a T. Higgins while everybody's chasing Mike Davis and,

you know, Miles Gaskin. Yeah. So I think that's a great point. Like obviously that paid dividends last year with the highest producing wide receivers were, you know, Jamar Chase, Cooper Cup, obviously, Devo Samuel, who were going much, much later in round four for Cup, like round eight for Debo. That was where all the value was. And that's where the value's been in the last three seasons. And just looking this season, there is a wide receiver tier that is haunting my dreams. I cannot get over the upside. And I really don't know how to

shake out these rankings. I don't know who I like the most from this group, but it's wide receiver 28 through 35. It's Darnell Mooney, who, you know, relegated Alan Robinson to looking like beyond dust really just dominated the target share there. I'm on Ross St. Brown, who at the tail end of his rookie season, was on par with Randy Moss, Odell Beckin, Jr., and no one else came close. And it's like if this guy had round one pedigree, Wes Huber said he bang the tables, like this is a round one talent. He would be going in like the third round,

second round. Then you have Chris Godwin, who went healthy, easy, wide receiver one. Mari Cooper, wide receiver 31. I have a lot of them just because I have a lot of Deshawn Watson stacks for upside and tournament style leagues.

But I mean, if Watson gets eight games or less or really all but the fantasy playoffs, he could be a league winner in the postseason. Adam Feelein, one of my guys, I think we've talked about every episode. Elijah Moore, you know, we've talked about for two years now, nonstop. Russell Gage, really like him, personally recruited by Tom Brady, who loves slots, the offense, that Bruce Ariens offense loves slots, always thought he was underrated, Devontas Smith, and then a little bit later, wide receiver 40,

Michael Thomas, just unreal upside. Do you have a favorite, Jake, out of any of those names I mentioned, I do. Are anyone you hate? Is there anyone you don't like? Honestly, it's funny, and I'm probably about to piss off your entire chat as I saw his name mentioned a few times already. It's Adam Thielen. It's just, I, look, I'm not discounting what Adam Thielen is similar to Tyler Lockett was

with Russell Wilson. I just, I'm on the, I want to get out before it's too late. And really what it comes down to is I think the coaching staff change is going to open things up a little bit more where I'm big on Irv Smith, bigger, whether you want to call him that or not. And I could even see KJ Osborne be a more of a factor. And it's not that I dislike feeling. It's just that touchdown rate, if it comes back a little bit, just a little bit, and it hasn't. Like, I could be completely wrong. Adam Thielen scores 10 plus touchdowns. I'm wrong. I'm an idiot. But my concern is that's just when I'm playing this range of those guys

that you mention, like his ceiling is, and this is what I look at too when I'm drafting these kind of wide receivers. What's Adam Thielen's ceiling? like wide receiver 25, assuming nothing happens to Jefferson. We're saying his ceiling's probably about wide receiver 25. There's a lot of receivers you just mentioned, and you just even said like Amari Cooper, he's my favorite from this group. Michael Thomas, if he has 7,000 more hurdles to cross and gets to them, like some of those guys have top 15 upside.

And that's where I go. Adam Thielen's upside and also at his ceiling is double digit touchdowns to get there. A lot of those guys can have a few things go right and wrong to still get it. I don't hate feeling it's just all of the names you mentioned. He would be the lowest. But I am on Amari Cooper. Even if Deshaun Watson was out for the entire year, I'm still in Armari Cooper because the wire receiver column is coming out next.

Scott, no surprise. The correlation of what produces fantasy and what's predictable, volume, volume, volume, especially at wide receiver. Give me those targets. I don't care if it's Jacoby Brissette and who can't even get 10 yards per completion, not attempt, for completion, is the fact that it's like, I'm okay with it because he's still going to get 160 targets because who else is going to. I like David Bell, but as a two or a three and, you know, Donovan People's Jones, honestly, I think Cooper might, call me crazy, might target volume wise that it might be better for Bersett at quarterback volume wise because Bersett stinks deep.

And where's Donovan People's Jones going? He's going deep. So, yeah, exactly. He reminds me a lot of Brandon Cooks last year, who I have really heavy. exposure to where it's yeah the quarterback situation looks grim but i mean just on volume alone and you know you bury the lead like yeah what are we trying to target with running back squad receivers tight ends is like predictable volume and and he certainly has that we have a i'm a massive brannic cooks guys well always have been oh reliable uh so we got a long list of players

to go through and we're uh we're jumping into some of them as we speak now and uh what we're going to do is basically look at some guys that Jake is a bit further away than the ADP and just with some questions to why and then get Scott's take on some of these players as well. But before we get into the specifics of where you got certain guys, I did want to bring up a player that has not been talked about a lot on Twitter. Ben, who's pushing the buttons in the back. He brought him up in our DM chat and said maybe we should talk about this guy. But Gabriel Davis, again, not a lot of people talking about him in the Twitter world.

But it seems like there's a fair line. You're either in or you're out because ADPs would suggest that you're pretty in. And then guys might suggest that, hey, you know, I'm not buying into the massive 18, you know, touchdown game that he had in the playoffs this past season. So again, kind of tip for tat. And Jake, I got to ask you, which side are you on when it comes to the polarizing Gabriel Davis for 2022? I'm 100% in until I will warn this is one of the pieces. I talk about in the off season do is helium players.

If you're watching fantasy Twitter, hashtag fantasy Twitter, the helium is with Gabriel Davis, a few others. But I jokingly even tweeted said by the time we get to August, the end of August, it's going to be Justin Jefferson versus Gabriel Davis, the way things are going. Like the fantasy community loves him. And rightfully so, because he has the talent. He has the number two role to himself.

He has Josh Allen. He has the office. Like there's nothing to really take away from Gabriel Davis to argue against him outside of maybe he can't handle it, but we've seen him handle it. So I don't really know where you're going to argue against him, where he falls into a conversation of like, Alan Robinson with Stafford, T. Higgins with Joe Burrow, all these number twos who if you told me at the end of the year,

Stefan Diggs was a top five wide receiver and Gabriel Davis was top 15. It wouldn't shock me. But what you have to be careful about is don't get so involved with the helium. And I'm not even talking, a lot of people will point to ADP and say, well, don't take them at that. No, what I'm going to say is also don't take them so far over ADEP because you want to look smart. And you want to be like, I got to get Gabriel Davis because I know there's two other guys in my league that love him.

So I'm going to take Gabriel Davis in the fourth round. Screw you guys. That's how you lose drafts. That is a way that you see some of the home leagues go sometimes, especially if you're from a certain area. The Buffalo Bills fan base, they might be taking him in the third. I know people, I'm a Chicago fan and some people go and grab Darno Mooney super, super early just to say, hey, I know he's that guy for Justin Fields. But Scott, I got to get your take.

Are you with Jake? Are you pretty into Gabe Davis and other some factors to what in actually means? But what's your take with Gabe Davis for this coming season? Yeah, I'm sort of out on him. And I'm lucky because that was one of Adam Kaplan's guys per his sources. So I have him on a ton of dynasty teams. But for redraft, I just think he's too expensive. And it's interesting we just talked about Adam Fielden, too,

because he reminds me a lot of Adam Feeleyn, who, you know, I drafted a ton of in 2017, but he was at a round 10 ADP. The whole thing with him was like, okay, well, he was, you know, his numbers were steadily increasing. The team made a commitment for him. And then he had that massive week 16 game where he had 200 plus yards and multiple touchdowns. And so I kind of see the same thing with Gabriel Davis, where there's a lot of unknowns,

but he had that massive game in the playoffs. But he's going in like round four. four or round five. So if that game didn't happen, where would people be taking him and, you know, way, way later and like just banking everything on one game that there are a lot of other concerns. Like he couldn't play ahead of Cole Beasley, who was old and cooked. He couldn't play ahead of Emmanuel Sanders who was old and cooked. But yeah, I mean, like, whenever he was a starter, he's done extremely well throughout his career. And, you know, he's talented and it's an ideal offense, but I mean, I just can't get a board at the current price. There's, there's some other

wide receivers who get me a little more excited. And that's what I say every single year, Scott, is don't buy all the risk. Don't buy these players, obviously first and second round. I mean, there's how much return on investment. You're just hoping they finish us first and second rounders, but don't buy all the risk where Gabriel Davis, everything has to break right from to like, I'm looking right now, you mentioned the ADP. He's right alongside Al Robinson and Cortland Sutton in front of Cooks in front of him all around St. Brown, Cooper, Godwin, Mooney, Schuster, Bateman, like, where's the ceiling for you to get a return on investment there? That's tough.

Right. That's tough for that spot. I will just say, I actually, like, don't like that tier at all. So it goes, it goes. You're just, like, sitting out of it? Yeah, I think so. It goes McLauri, Deonti, and then Gabe, Judy, Robinson, Medcalf, Cooks, Bateman, Juju. And I just, I don't know.

I feel like no one there gets me excited and there's, like, a lot of risk and, like, the tier right after it that we talked about. is the one where like, I wish in redraft you could just trade down, you know, and I would just like trade down and sit in that spot, but I can't really do that. Well, speaking of trading, you said if you have them in Dynasty, holy crap, sell high right now. Yeah, no, I know. Right at the end, you could have sold them right after that playoff game and probably got a king's ransom for him. And there's some people in the chat bringing up a certain name in this offense, and it's

just kind of a curveball side question here. But what's your guys' thoughts about obviously two very different players, one's in the slot one's not going to play in this slot but james and crowder's been brought up in the chat and people are kind of curious about how he could impact um gabriel davis isaiah mackenzie's another guy james cook but i saw crowder's name in the chat multiple times what you guys thoughts about his effect on davis if any if a little i mean he's yeah go i wanted to throw down the middle i said i said i'll go crowders look at two three years ago love some Crowder. Basically, for me, what he's stepping into this team, he's now Cole Beasley. And that's

really what we saw last year, Cole Beasley, despite, you know, he tailed off a little bit, dealt with a little bit of injury himself. But at this point of Cole Beas's career, I think it's lock and step with James and Crowder's. He's ninth's third option. Scott loves slots, then I saw people in the chat joking, you're phrasing on that. But if you talk about it, is like, I think that's just the one-to-one replacement. The Gabriel Davis upside on what we're talking about is that he does replace Emmanuel Sanders, but he locks down that number two all to himself and Dawson Knox doesn't take a step forward who is very touchdown reliant and that McKenzie's not a factor and they drafted Shakir and he's not a factor like you're basically

hoping for Gabe Davis that he's clearly the number two as I mentioned and that Crowder does just replace Cole Beasley if I mean honestly is anybody on this show or anybody out there in the world betting 17 games of James and Crowder I think so I'm not that worried about him yeah I don't want to like live and die by any James and Crowder takes, to be honest. I'm not sure about Scott. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I think he nailed it. I think we can expect something approximating Cole Beasley. And then, you know, you can say Beasley was extremely hurt last year, but she was.

And, you know, maybe that's a more valuable role than, than people are getting credit. I mean, I don't want to dump all over Gabriel Davis. Like, there's a somewhere within the range of outcomes is he, like, supplant Stefan Diggs, who like, by most efficiency metrics was not great. year. Of course, he was the year before, but maybe that was an outlier year. Who knows? But the only thing I want to say, which is like a really minor point, but it's, I haven't written about it or tweeted about it, but I keep thinking about it is Kansas City, Buffalo, the Jets, maybe like one or two other teams really showed signs of being a heavy wide receiver by

committee situation, like much more than we typically see where it was like, wide receiver 2, 80% of routes, wide receiver 3, 60%, wide receiver 4, whatever the remainder is. And it does like cap these guys a little bit. So I do wonder if, you know, many of us are overstating definitely Kansas City's receiving core, maybe the Jets receiving core,

maybe Braxon Berrios as the wide receiver 4 is a much bigger thing than, you know, Elijah stands and Garrett Wilson stands want to admit. Um, and just something I've been thinking about. I don't really know how to act on it, but just looking at ADP, it seems like no one or content, no one's really taking that into consideration. No, it's a good point. Like, uh, so for my projections, when you download them, you can play with all the target shares because that's, you know, if you say, hey, Jake, you're stupid, which plenty of people do. And then they go through, you can like change it in for your point. I actually have Gabriel Davis for slightly over a 17% target share.

That might seem massive for a lot of people. And if you drop them down and you say, well, Crowder's not going to have 11. Crowder's going to have 15 and Gabriel Davis is going to have 15. Dawson Knox is going to have 12 and then some of the back. Like you can just see the effect. You are right. And that's something I think more people just in general, whether you're talking about Gabriel Davis or anybody, like you mentioned Kansas City, any of these teams. You talk about backfields.

I mean, talk about backfields like Philadelphia and Baltimore when you're chopping out 25% just going to the running back. Or not to not to the running backs going to the quarterback. Like these percentages, it has to waterfall, Scott. I think that's what you're getting at. You can't add up all these target shares and rushing shares and get to 115 because there's no such thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, got a long list here. So let's pivot to another player on our list.

So what we're going to do is go through some of Jake's rankings and compare it versus ADP and just pretty much ask Jake, like, why are you further away than ADP on this specific player? And by ADP, we're talking about where these guys are going in drafts with the first kind of list being Trevor Lawrence. So I took this a week ago. know you are constantly updating your ranking. So if I'm off, you can just correct me. But you have the list of the QB 13, which is plus 5 versus ADP. So QB13, right on the edge of a QB1, this would mean a breakout in year two. So the question to you, Jake, what pushes Trevor Lawrence towards this breakout? Is it a specific player? Is it a group of players, new coaching staff? Is it

E, all of the above? It's all the above. And something you didn't mention, too, is that let's go back and let's not play revisionist history and say that if he does fail in the NFL like if this continues just cancel scouting like let's just stop because there wasn't anybody out there to say Trevor Lawrence was going to be this disappointing like his rookie season was massively we can go down the list and play the game of Pete Manning in a disappointing season all the quarterbacks that Josh Allen's first two years were disappointed but so let's just throw all that out let's answer what your question is and say it's the litany of things urban mire included the the bringing in of Doug Peterson, and I think that while the Christian Kirk signing, while we all say for money terms, and we're sitting,

there's nobody out there saying, wow, that was a massive contract to get Christian Kirk. I'm looking at Doug Peterson and what he's going to do this team. And if you look back, like, especially with the Eagles, there wasn't really anybody, and I jokingly said this on my podcast, does anybody in the Jaguars eclipse a thousand receiving yards? I would actually say no. But that's how Peterson has seen success in the past is with, balance in the backfield and just balance the wide receivers with it's Christian Kirk, whether it's treadmill, whether we get something to Chanel, Marvin Jones. They bring in Evan Ingram.

I mean, you might have two relevant tight ends on this team. And then you just let Trevor Lawrence be Trevor Lawrence. What do we know about him coming out of college? The guy can fit it in windows. He can put the placement among the best already. And what I liked what we saw late last year is he started running again and that opened things up for him. And that's where some of the value in fantasy comes from. If he starts running and gets four or five hundred yards, and here's one two years ago. Remember when everybody was going bananas for Daniel Jones to be a QB1 because he ran for 500 yards and everybody's like,

oh, Daniel Jones doesn't need to do much in the passing game. Trevor Lawrence is 10 times the pastor Daniel Jones is. And if he runs for four or 500 yards under Doug Peterson, I think QB1 is in the equation. QB1 territory, not QB1 overall before everybody goes crazy. The chat's already blown up. No, it's interesting with Trevor Lawrence in the rushing,

because I feel like people don't look at him as a guy that rushes the ball enough or a ton or consistently over 300 yards is his rookie season and not in the best environment. And like you said, Jake, they didn't go out and grab a Tyree Kill sort of wide receiver, but they kind of put these these bumpers a little bit around him with the Christian Kirk and Evan Ingram, even Zay Jones, another guy that might play in the outside a little bit. Scott, are you in with this sort of ranking? Are you far from this ranking? QB13, Trevor Lawrence. What's your question? Yeah, so it's convoluted. I have a few things to say.

So, like, I, he's not really on my radar in typical start sit leagues. The tier death for me is sort of like Tray Lance and Justin Fields or like the last two quarterbacks I care about. I just really like they're rushing upside at cost. In a best ball league, obviously things change. And I like really all of the. like especially a best ball tournament style league, I like all of the sophomore quarterbacks,

is that was supposedly historically great class. It kind of wasn't, you know, Davis Mills is maybe the best passer last year. But according to my work in anatomy of a league winner, like you look at the top league winners over the past five seasons, and 80% of the top 10 list were sophomore quarterbacks. Lamar Jackson, Pashtamah, Mahomes, Carson-Watson, Deshawn Watson, Dak Prescott, Jared Gough,

Josh Allen, Justin Herbert. And so it really pays to to gravitate towards those guys where there's this steep learning curve. They struggle as rookies. And it sort of comes together. There's this massive sophomore leap. You know, there is better value on the unknown commodities because the known commodities are priced as such, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But anyway, so I really like this whole class. I think I think Zach Wilson, like, you know, Tony Romo was saying unprompted in week one last

year like I love this kid he is going to be a superstar in year two or year three but he's going to suck this year but he's going to be a superstar and then like just in field tray lance they have the rushing upside you know maybe davis mills was just like way too slept on mac jones i mean this brings me to my last point is like everything looks like Trevor lawrence should be the next Andrew luck that's how he was hyped to be i will just say my pff brain trust like all the guys i was friends with in my PFF days who are really good, like brilliant film analysts, they were kind of united on Trevor Lawrence being overrated, which was really weird.

At least two of them said they would take Mack Jones ahead of him. And so I just can't get that out of the back of my mind. But I mean, like, yes, in a vacuum, like Jake is just so right. I mean, like, his head coach was kicking kickers. Who kicks kickers? And like, everything else that could get. Do you kick? Oh, that's right.

That was a great line. That is true. That is a great line. That's your brand. But yeah, just like one of the most incompetent coaches in NFL history. And like this is the golden boy future, you know, Andrew Luck 2.0. So like, yeah, I can't really hate on it. All right.

We got a bunch of players. So we'll just go to the next guy on the list here. Sequin Barkley. Jake, you have him as RB5, which is plus 9 versus ADP. It's been a little frustrating in the last two seasons with Barkley. So what factors push Barclays bounce back? And I know it's more of a redraft focus show, but any thoughts on what your ranking would end up doing for Sequin in Dynasty Leagues?

Because he was probably once the one or two, and he seems to have just been pushed down Dynasty League boards. But yeah, give me your thoughts, Sequin Barclay. Yeah, I'm glad you said that too. I covered it up so people don't think I'm a honer. And people know that I'm the first person to crap all over Giants. Daniel Jones, Kenny Gallagher. I said the most miserable signing.

I called it from that day. That was a terrible signing. So I'm putting that out there to say, this isn't coming from a homer. Just try to take this out of the equation. I got a sign jersey because I just, you know, Giants fan, so I do have some of that. But let's be said, I'm going to go back one year from today

and say, what were people talking about for Sequin Barclay? Look, he's going to be slow to start. Have patience because you're drafting him from October and beyond. So let's get to September. We got to week three and people to start, look at him in week three. He might be back earlier than we thought. Week four rolls around and all of a sudden be like,

yeah, Sequin is back. We were playing John Wick Gifts all over the internet. He's back. He's back. Seacquan Barclay, he's back. And Scott's right. The 20-plus yard big plays are part of his game. But if you look at him too, it's kind of that like Austin Echler where he doesn't get very many games of 100 rushing yards.

It's a lot of 70 and 40 and 80 and 40 and 80 and 10. And like he's always hovering around that 100 to 120 mark combined, which makes him so valuable. And then he rolls his ankle in a freak injury against the Cowboys. That has nothing to do with it. And he comes back from the injury and never looked the same. Dan Dugan for the athletic even said when he came back, he lost that explosiveness for that second gear where normally he was getting away from the defender. And he's just getting caught and caught and caught and never got it back.

So this just comes down to who is Barclay when he's 100%. one of the top five talents at running back in the league. And everybody in the NFL industry, and maybe the fantasy, no matter who you talk to, the Giants offensive line, as of today, is a significant upgrade over last year.

If Barclay's 100%, if the offensive line is middle of the road, if Brian Dable is going to do stuff for Daniel Jones, why can't he do it? Like, why is everybody talking Daniel Jones? Like, he's going to resurrect his career and not Saquan Barkley.

So that's why. You said one or two? he actually finished in front of Christian McCaffrey that one year. And I'm not saying that's going to happen again. But as a top 10 running back, yeah, health is all that matters when it comes to me as AQUAN Barclay. I couldn't agree more. Whenever he's been healthy, he's been like 95% Christian McCaffrey and no one is coming

close to 95% Christian McCaffrey. Only Derek Henry, Jonathan Taylor, maybe 90%, let's say. Right. So he's only ever been awesome and healthy, but he's only ever been like the worst running back in fantasy. when hurt or at least like high N.RB3, not great, right? And so there's the massive coaching upgrade. Joe Judge, highly incompetent running QB sneaks on third and nine, things like that. Just so bad, so bad.

Inside their own 20. Oh, my God. Inside their own 20. It's so, so bad. And now we have this offensive genius who's talking about getting him used far more in the passing game. But everything, to me, centers around on. what Dr. David Chow told me in a private conversation a few years ago. I keep talking about this, but I love Dalvin Cook coming out of college, had him his rookie year. He got her the next year.

I'm talking to him on the phone. I'm like, I need to draft this guy. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, do not. Do not draft running backs their first year back from ACL, draft them the following year. One, you get them at a discount. Two, they're 100% healthy. But the year before, not only did he have a massively higher injury risk and a decline in efficiency, but a much higher rate of compensatory injuries, which is exactly what we

saw with Saquan Barclay. I mean, like, I pumped him up last year as a great upside wins championship pick. And I was just wrong. That was bad process. Just freaking look at his quad, right? Like, one quad is the size of my torso. The other one is like the size of my forearm. Like, of course, he was going to get hurt again. So, yeah, unbelievable, unrivaled upside. Really like Saquan Park. Yeah, and with the weeks mentioned by Jake, weeks three and four, 11 catches and three total touchdowns, he had 20 plus fantasy points in both of those. So I think that gives you a glimpse of his upside. And I think what happens too often with guys like Barkley is like we, some people don't draw the line between like bad at football and injured at football.

I think some people want to kind of tie both of those things together too often and say guys are washed or lost a step when in reality they're not further, you know, far enough from their big injuries or they have. have an unfortunate one like was mentioned with the ankle. And next running back on the list came back. Super, super early, speaking of injuries from an Achilles, Sarah. That's going to be my best pivot of the show right there. But Cam Acres, Jake, RB13, which is interesting, plus three on ADP. I've seen Cam Acres personally in so many different rankings, you know, close to top 12. Some guys have them in the 20 range.

I feel like he's a super polarizing running back. So one question with Cam Acres. What do you say to somebody, Jake, if they come to you and say, hey, you know what? I just haven't seen enough out of Kamakers for me to have that trust and that sort of finish. What do you say to that? So it was something I say every single year. Watch or listen to what the team is telling you. Camakers came back in an ungodly amount of time, and we all know that.

And everybody points out, or go back to what we talked about at the top of the show, stats that mean nothing. Everybody goes, he didn't even average three yards per carry when he came back. Two things. One is he came back again. in a godly amount of time. He faced some pretty strong defenses, including the 49ers. But what did the Rams tell us?

They immediately gave him bell, cow touches coming off that injury and with the Super Bowl and playoffs on the line. If that doesn't tell you what the Rams, and this was with Sony Michelle looked good. When Darrell Henderson was out there looking good, they had options. And they said,

we're going back to Cam Acres, and we're going back to Cam Acres 20 plus times. The Rams, want cam makers to be the guy and now to go back to the talent conversation similar to barclay cam makers is a terrific talent at running back and you give him all this time off to get back to 100 percent oh and by the way sam sam sam sam matthew stafford talking about the fact that he's more even more comfortable in the office this year which oh my god that's the complete sidebar of like if he's telling the truth holy crap but anyway game makers give that by the way but do you yeah his adp makes

no sense of me he's going like four rounds behind joe burrow everyone's expecting this massive lead. But like, why isn't that factored into Matthew Stafford? Who outscored Joe Burrow if you factor in the postseason? And Joe Borough was, I love some Joe Burrow. Let's be, yeah, Joe Burrow was remarkably efficient. Didn't even get to 600 passant attempts last year. So like, I'm with you on that. But yeah, Cam Acres just comes down to, what did the team tell us? He's the guy. And all you need to know is blank Rams running back, let alone a talent of acres thatcher. I mean, 13 might be low when we get to the end of the year. Yeah, so I've been way out on Cam Acres and I've been arguing it everywhere, but I will say that was the best pro-Akers argument I've heard.

And you make a really compelling point where it's like the guy, you know, you don't come back from this injury at all, let alone, you know, nine months early. And then like the coaching staff is like, okay, you with a barely intact Achilles are immediately better than Darrell Henderson and anyone else we have. So I mean like, yeah, that's a great argument. My meme argument that I gave to Graham Barfield on the show is like the injury discount you're getting on Cam Acres is the same one you're getting on Bronco Negerski. They're both dead. And really it just comes down to that. It's like how much does the Achilles scare you?

And like I don't know enough. And I've talked to medical experts who like didn't really help me make a decision. But I don't know. I've just been grabbing Darrell Henderson just because. because I think the ADP discrepancy is so wide. I like the value there, or at least the arbitrage or whatever that is. I like that Dolan caught that I almost called him Sam Bradford, just being so fired up about Camacres.

You're into it. You're into it. That's a great point, though, with the coaching staffs, especially after Henderson and Sony, Michelle, both had a lot of good games for the Rams this past season. So that pivot straight to Camakers, I think, does say a lot. And the next guy, we've been talking a lot of positives here. So I have to go in the opposite direction. So Ezekiel Elliott, so Jake RB 24, which is minus 6 versus ADP, does your ranking mean that we should be avoiding Zieg altogether for 2022?

Should we just get out of him in redraft mode and dynasty? What's the thoughts with Zeke here? Because you're on the opposite end of him. I am and I compared him 100% and said, tell me, I asked Chris Media on my show, I said, tell me the difference between Damian Harris and Ezekiel Elliott. There's essentially none. There's same amount of workload, same amount of touchdown opportunity, same amount of passing game used. A little bit more for Zika, I should say.

That's being fair. But let's pull another one in this conversation. James Connor. People don't want James Connor. It can't happen again. He didn't even carry the ball that much. People don't want Damien Harris. He's not going to do it again, talking up Ramandre Stevenson.

And yet everybody's apologetic for his. Eel Elliott and ignoring the fact that they're pushing more and more towards what the Broncos did last year. I don't think it's going to be a complete 50-50 split with Tony Pollard. But you talk about fantasy Twitter, love some Tony Pollard, and yet they're going right back to making apologies for Ezekie Elliott. I like Zeke, but I think everybody out there has also sat here and said the same thing. If it wasn't for the contract and Jerry Jones wanted to prove that he's the smartest man on earth and regretting that contract, Zeke would be in more of a 50-50 split or potentially even out of a job

at this point because you watch Zique the past two years, especially last year. He's not himself anymore. He's honestly kind of more in the Melvin Gordon conversation. And that's not a bad thing for R.B. 24. It's a bad thing if you're telling me a split backfield that's based on touchdown upside, which is granted one of the better offenses for it. But if you're out on James Connor and you're out on Damien Harris, you should be out on Zicieliot.

That's as simple as it gets. Scott, are you in an agreement? Are you close to that? Are you far from that? Well, you know where I stand. Yeah, so I like Zeke. You see these narratives form on certain players, and like all of it I'm seeing is in this one direction, anti-Zique, pro-polar, which makes me think there's value in going against it. Like the counter-narrative, I think, is really compelling.

And that's that, okay, all he's ever been was an easy top five fantasy running down, except for two years ago. What happened two years ago, Dak Prescott missed 66% in the season. And except for last year. What happened last year? He played with a torn PCL for 75% of the season. All right. What happened the last two years with a fully intact PCL and with Dak Prescott on the field, easy top five fantasy running back with amazing volume.

Last season from weeks one through six, maybe one through eight, he let all running backs in XFP. Efficiency wasn't there, but the volume was. And so like that's the bulk case argument. I think it's a compelling one. I think it makes him a deserving pick at cost. And just for Pollard, I mean, it's like every year there's always these, who was it, Joseph Randall in the past or one of the Dallas running backs who like, oh, he averaged

five yards. Like he needs more touch. Julio, or no wait, Julius Jones or whatever it was like way back. Yeah, there you go. And to be clear, Scott, you know I'm not in a, I made the joke that everybody thought I was being serious last year on Monday night football when Z got tacked. There was like a third and seven or something like inside their own. own 20 and I was like, oh, Pollard would have scored from there.

Like, just because, like, how crazy people were going for Pollard last year. Like, so I'm with you 100% on that. I just, it's more of the guys that are in front of them. And that's where I think, I think that Zieg settles in as a fine RB2. Maybe 24 ends up too low at the end of the year by default, especially if he plays 17 games. I just, I feel like his, we're now at the point of his career where he's capped. I can be wrong. Yeah, I mean, I do think Pollard's going to be far more efficient on a,

per touch, per snap basis again, I just worry about projecting the volume. Like you said, Jerry Jones has all this money tied in. And Pollard couldn't crack 12 touches per game when Zeke had this torn PCL. So like what makes us think it's going to happen next year? I mean, ultimately, I don't know. But to me, I just like the upside versus risk evaluation, whatever at cost. I will say, though, David Montgomery is going like five picks behind him. I love David Montgomery.

Definitely take him over Z. I don't know. I mean, Harris is going two rounds later. I'll just take Damian Harris. See, I mean, that's the thing we need to talk about. It's like that backfield scares the crap out of me because it's Bill Belichick. Like what, what happened? Like everyone's getting excited about Remandre, you know, taking over the backfield.

But. Rose-colored glasses. You know, like, Remandre needed his two biggest games came with over 20 carries in both of them. Damien Harris was doing what Remandre was doing. already on fewer touches every single people forgot how good damien harris was last year damon harris is actually zeke's stat line without the passing game like that's so yeah sure james white's healthy again you know whatever my maybe it's pure strong and instead of james white and i get the billet check and there is a cap stealing with that and my argument here isn't to take

for everybody that misunderstood my podcast i'm not saying take damian harris over zieg elliot i am not saying that but i am saying i'll wait two more rounds and james just take Damian Harris? I think Ty Montgomery could be a thing, by the way. I think he could just beat the new James White. But I mean, just Balochek is so he just causes pain. Yeah. All right.

Well, we mentioned, I want to make sure we get another wide receiver or two in here. We talked about a lot of running backs. So we talked about Gabriel Davis already and how he was polarizing. I feel like, you know, I've always been a fan. I still am and I'm still in. But Deonti Johnson, I feel like, has become a bit polarizing for where he is being ranked by different people. And Jake, you have him at wide receiver 10, which is plus 5 versus 80P.

So with this ranking, does it mean that Deontay Johnson is QB proof just because we're not sure how that's going to look? Or are you just more optimistic about the situation than other people? Because, again, he seemed to be a bit polarizing this offseason. Yeah, so I'll answer the first part of the question is what's to say this, is like, Deonti Johnson was already quarterback proof because the past three. years of Ben Rothesberger was trash. And I actually even compared Ben Rothesberger to what we've seen from Mitchell

Trebisky's career. The numbers are not that much different. And stop with the narrative that he can't throw to one side of the field. That's actually bunk too if you go down it. There's a lot of quarterbacks that are more efficient to one side of the other or certain areas of the field. It's not as stark as what everybody wants to make out to be. But anyway, Deonti Johnson's already quarterback proof.

I don't care if it's Chubisky. I don't care if it's picket. I don't know how it's not. you don't give picket a chance after you draft him the first round knowing what tribusky is, but all that being said, he is quarterback proof. And I'll tie in because I know we're running out of time and I hope you don't mind. I'll just tie in Chase Claypool because you have Chase Claypool is one of my ones that I'm significantly lower on. And it comes down to fit too. A lot of times when you're talking about inaccurate quarterback like Trubisky or a rookie who's going to struggle likely with some inaccuracies and developing at the NFL, you do what the Bills did with Josh Allen. and you do what the Panthers didn't do.

They tried to big, big bodies out there for Cam Newton, and it failed because it's like, oh my gosh, what do we need to do? Get quicker guys. Guys who know how to get open every single play. That's Deonte. And when it comes down to Claypools, I don't know that Claypool, two things, doesn't hold off pickings from potentially battling with him for Target share the entire year. But even if he doesn't, this is where the quarterback concern comes into play.

I think it's Deonté is fine. Nagee Harris is fine. the third option is my concern, and that's either wide receiver. And as much as I love some Air Fryermouth, I think he might even be hurt depending on who the third person for either quarterback ends up being for them. Before we go to Scott, I just want to mention you mentioned pickings. I thought it was hilarious that they had Claypool announced that pick when it potentially might be the guy that is taking his job, which was just like the wildest thing. But Scott, any thoughts on any of those guys mentioned? Yeah, again, I think it comes down to like competing narratives for me where the narrative is,

oh, he was just Ben's guy. All he had going for him was target on. But like the counter narrative to that is targets are indicative of a surplus and talent. Targets are earned due to, you know, talent, you know, getting open, being reliable, things of that nature. And there's a chance that Deonti Johnson is just like, Devante Adams, you know, year three or year four. And like no one is making that argument.

But I think that's fully possible just based on like the production we've seen from him with like Jay said, league worst levels of QB play. And so yeah, I mean, definitely, definitely more bullish on Deante than not. But a little too much of my commentary, I want to hear more about Jake, just so I can know like who to bump up or down. in my own rankings. And so this one won't be a debate because I'm in full agreement on this is you're maybe 15 spots higher or 10 spots higher on Robert Woods.

And I completely agree. I completely agree. So make your case. So it comes out to Robert Woods. And this isn't like self back padding for the Trailing Burke's hate. And I put that in quotes because not having trailing. I'm a hater. I know.

Well, like, so, no, no, for me, for me. Because like, so I do, you know, I do my rookies for the draft every single year. And I do them in tiers because a lot depends on landing spot. In tier one, I did not have trailing Berks. He started tier two for me, if you want to say start, you know, again, he's in a tier. But everybody, that's why I'm joking is saying everybody who's like, oh, my God, you hate Trailing Berks because he's in tier two. No, I saw some problems in his game. I have some concerns of him connecting in the NFL, especially as a rookie.

What were they? Were those numbers based or film based? Film based. Yeah. Big concerns over separation ability. You know what? I saw some concerns of a similar to potentially a Kenigalladay, like some Kenigality concerns. Just really quick and then let you go on a rant. I had Jim Nagy on the podcast, director of the Senior Bowl. He said he did not have basically a day one or day two grade on Traylon Burks. Our guy, Brett Whitefield, you know, genius film expert, did not have a day one, day two grade on Traylon Burks. like very, very concerning stuff on film. Other people said he is, you know, A.J. Brown

Plus, Lance the airline said that. But definitely what a vast range of outcomes with them. And like the number profile on a superficial level looks amazing. But if you dig deep into it, very Leviska-esque. But sorry, Jake. Go ahead. Yeah, that's, you know, that's good too. And that's the, I could see his peak if everything comes together for him. But, you know, we've talked about. But not year one. Exactly. And that's my biggest problem, too, is like the year one was, And I'm looking at where he got drafted. And this is before. So, AJ Brown is like, yeah, this is great because AJ Brown is just going to see 180 targets.

He's just going to get Cooper Cup volume. But when it comes out, we have the Robert Woods. And the only concern with Woods is what is his health? And if you're talking about a veteran company to play with Rand Tanna Hill, who is going to be the number one in this team, purely from a talent standpoint as of today, player, player, you're going to take Robert Woods 10 times out of 10. And then again, on Sunday. and what it comes down to with Robert Woods versus Traylon Burks is who fits a little bit better, in my opinion, is actually kind of more the Robert Woods in this offense. If you look at the way that they kind of assemble up this offense with Ryan Tannahill and where things fit, I just think it makes more sense personally. So Trayland Burks would need to, one, get past Robert Woods, but two develop super fast.

And this should be the most concerning thing of anybody. I don't think anybody out there is going to say Westbrook Aquina is one of the top 40 wire receiver talents in the NFL. but the fact that Berks is still behind him. As a today, I know it's only July, but that he can't even get past Westbrook Aquina as of today, and they're showing issues with him on the field and actually getting open in practice and getting on the same page and whatever.

And I'm not even talking drops because don't throw the drops from Chase last year. I was one of the people on the show saying, that's the stupidest thing ever, still draft Jamar Chase. So I'm not concerned with drops with Turyl and Berks. I'm concerned with his ability to step in the NFL and be ready. I don't think he's going to be until a year or two.

That's another guy. I'm getting major Brandon Cook's 2021 vibes on. He's finished as a top 20 wide receiver by fantasy points for game in five consecutive seasons. He's like wide receiver 50 by 80P. What about what about another guy? What about what about Drake London? Looks like you're 17 spots higher than 80. Yeah. So you got to defend that one. Well, this is what it comes down to is there's so there's two things that are factoring in here. So, One is, let's talk about the player in the situation himself because the other factors I'm going to talk to in a second. But Drake London comes down to, in my opinion, if I were to rank wide receivers in this draft class, Drake London was my number one, the best talent in my opinion. So Drake London is going to a situation where he is now also the number one wide receiver.

Kyle Pitts, for all intents of purposes, the number two wide receiver. You could even argue he's the number one and London is the number two. We all know that Kyle Pitts is not a true tight end. But either way, even if it's Pitts, then London are London in, it's the two of them stepping in. And I know Marcus Marriota is a quarterback, but Marcus Marriota also made Delaney Walker a top 10. And Richard Matthews, the people forgot was a top 20 wide receiver that one year. So it's not like Mario daunt a can't play quarterback. And if it's Ritter at some point, it's not like real quick on Ritter.

Everybody was like talking about the consistency of the quarterback and you're drafting the most consistent. Ritter was the most consistent rookie quarterback. Like everybody's talking about Kenny Pickett. Kenny Pickett took four years and combined them into one. Ritter was very consistent. So anyway, I'm saying that to say is even it's one of the worst passing offenses, they're still going to throw 500 times. They're probably going to see the Kansas City Chiefs like Target Share,

where it's almost 50% are going to two players, and that's Kyle Pitts and Drake London. So talent plus opportunity, I'm going to go with it. And what it comes down to, like the second part of it is, now there's another layer. This might seem high for some people. And again, buying all the risk, I just said don't do that.

But the wide receivers in this group, we talked about this at the beginning of the show, there's like probably 10 to 15 wide receivers every single year that are separated by one point per game. I'm going to go with the guy who could potentially get top 15 if everything goes right. If Marriota has the best year of his career, he sees 160 targets, you know, all that.

So London versus some of the other names, sure, there's a better floor with some of them. Arguably, you could even say Robert Woods is a better floor. But I'm going to go for that upside. off the talent and opportunity. And I think a lot of guys being drafted around Drake London right now, you look at what their target potential could be versus his, and it's two different things.

And people read a little bit too much into situations and things like that. But Jake, I know you have a call coming up here pretty soon. So I do want to thank you for your time in the show, breaking down some players and letting me and Scott give away some of your rankings from the athletic. So anything you want to plug as we close the show out today. No, I appreciate you guys. I mean, it's been too long that we haven't been able to do this, Scott.

I love doing this show. But yeah, the athletic, the guide, you mentioned all these articles and stuff like that. We did our fantasy god earlier this year because we have a print version coming out if you want something tangible. It'll be the same thing. There's a QR code, which will be updated on the site so you don't get stuff from three months ago in the magazine. But that's all out there. And then I'm doing the correlation. I'm going to continue that with Y receivers and Trenz, as I mentioned that last week.

And thanks to Scott for letting me share his running back one because weighted opportunities is a big one for sure. All right. Appreciate your time, Jake. Thank you guys for tuning into the show today.