Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Saturday Market Report: Training Camp Week 1

Episode Date: August 6, 2022

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) and Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley) discuss news and updates from the first week in August. --- 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 for 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. A little while since I've talked to y'all, you probably got tired of listening to me because of the franchise focus podcast if you listen to all 32 of them, which you definitely should have done. My name is Joe Dolan, and I am back on the Fantasy Points podcast. But I am not with a special guest today. This is about as unspecial as it gets because, quite frankly, Tom and I, we've been paired up quite a bit in the past on multiple different podcasts.

I'm Joe Dole and that's Tom Brawley. And Tom, like, we haven't done a podcast together in like, I don't know, maybe since last year, but we got to get back in the seat. We got to get back in the swing of things. And I thought what better time to do it than kind of a Saturday morning market report, have your coffee, have your breakfast, have your toast. podcast. Just for just for disclaimer, we're recording this on Friday afternoon, so something might break Friday night. But Tom, we, we just kind of wanted to sum up the first week of training

camp here and the news. And it's great to be with you here on the podcast. Yeah, it's been a while. I'm trying to think. It probably is all the way, since the podcast feed, probably all the way back to the waiver wire, I guess, week 18 at the start of the new year. We did a, you know, some, you know, post-season, you know, betting shows on the live stream, but it's been a while. So I'm glad to be back. You know, we're excited to, you know, this is, you know, we got the, the balls are in the air last night with the Josh Jacobs and all the Raiders running backs playing last night. Oh my God.

Yeah, that was wild. But, you know, football is back in the air here. August is, you know, the calendars flipped to August. So I'm ready for some football here. I'm not quite ready for the grind of the season, but this is a good way to ease back into it, you know, follow all the news coming out of training camp and watching the preseason games,

but it's five weeks away. I saw, you know, 37 days till the opening Sunday. We're 34 days away from the Thursday night game against the bill, you know, with the bills and the Rams kicking off the season. So it's, it is right around the corner. I know you, Joe, too. You're getting all the requests. Hey, call me.

You know, get me on the website. It's just starting right now. Oh, it is amazing. I call them my August friends. They're just like, hey, you know, hey, I wonder what Dolan's up to. The same time of year, every year, Tom, it's like, I don't know, it's like an animal molting. It just like, it just like happens out of nowhere.

They just somehow, something in their instinct reminds them that I exist. It's always funny that way. Tom, it's funny you mention the Thursday night game, the opener that we're going to going to have to talk about, and we're going to get right to it at the top of the podcast very briefly. But I mean, just from your perspective, week one, a training camp, sometimes the preseason just kind of blends together for us. But do you find like week one a training camp, this was like really the first full, full week? Do you feel like that's kind of the week when your mind is swimming the most when it comes to like news and updates? Because teams are, because

because preseason games haven't really kicked off yet, teams are practicing every day. It kind of feels like it's almost hard to keep up with this first week. Yeah, it's hard to keep up, but it's also, I'm like trying to filter out, you know, BS from stuff that's actually, like, relevant. Because you think about the beat reporters. They haven't been doing this for, you know, they haven't been covering football for how long. And, you know, they're out there tweeting every little detail. And so I don't want to get, like, bogged down and, like, you know, how much. many, you know, you know, Giovante Williams took, you know, 10 carries on first team. And Melvin

Gordon had, you know, I don't want to get too bogged down into that kind of stuff because they're rotating guys anyway. And, you know, the Pittsburgh stuff, the, the quarterbacks were really struggling. But they didn't have Deontay Johnson. They didn't have Pat Friarmoot. They didn't have Chase Claypool. Yeah, they are going to struggle. They're playing with, you know, scrubs and, you know, rookie receivers. So you have to have, you know, you have to put everything through context. And you know, sometimes it can be a little more difficult to do that. But preseason games, there's, you know, that's when we really get to see how the depth charts are breaking down. And, you know, for any of the teams that actually still play, you know, their key players in the preseason.

But it is a good, you know, there are things that can come out, you know, the rookie players that are, you know, seeing more time and getting reps with the first team. And it's really a lot of the young guys. I'm trying to get a feel of just, you know, where they are in relation to the rest of their depth charts. So there are, there is some news that can be, you know, gleaned out of this, you know, first week or two. But I try not to go swimming too deep into everything that's out there. So let's get into it. Let's get right into the pocket. And I think what we're going to do is go by position.

I'm not trying to make this like my daily lineup show on YouTube, which, by the way. Go check it out, people. Joe has been kicking ass. doing that. That's going to be a weekly feature at 9 o'clock in the morning. You got to do that all the way through the postseason or through week 18? Probably not through the postseason. Yeah, you want to take a breath or two. I have to have enough news to talk about.

But it's going to be every Tuesday through Friday on our Fantasy Points YouTube channel. So subscribe. And obviously it's live at 9 a.m. But Tom, the beauty of YouTube is it's on demand too. So I basically been around the 15 minute mark. this week. I'm probably thinking during the season it might be more in the eight to 10 minute mark just to do a quick, quick little recap of the news, something that you can digest really quickly. But that's what I've been doing. So I don't want this podcast to be too similar to that since this is going to be a little bit, tinier, bit longer form. But we just think you're tough. You guys got off to a good start. I mean, it's like you guys have been, yeah, I've got to give Ben Cucanus a lot of credit too. He's, you know, behind the glass doing a lot of the graphics and everything for the the videos there. So it. It looks clean and polished already.

So, yeah, I highly encourage anybody to, you know, that loves listening to these podcasts or just likes to digest any fantasy football content. Those are pretty digestible at, you know, 10 to 15 minutes long. So, Tom, just so we just thought we, the best way to do this podcast was to kind of break it down by position, right? So it is similar to what I do on the morning show, but we don't have the limitations of the lineup. And part of the reason I did the lineup, the way I did it was to rest. restrict myself to make sure I don't go too overboard talking about everything. But here we kind of just have the ability to talk about whatever we want. So we are going to start at the quarterback position, and unfortunately we have to talk about it.

Nobody wants to talk about Deshawn Watson. I sure as hell don't want to talk about Deshawn Watson. I don't want to draft DeShon Watson. I don't want to hear about DeShon Watson. I don't want to think about DeShon Watson, but we can't ignore it, Tom. The NFL has appealed Watson's six-game suspension handed down by the independent arbitrator, Judge Sewell Robinson. Let's just, if you want more details, I saw the ringer had done some great podcasts on this. You can get them from multiple sources who, people who get into the legal weeds.

Tom, let me translate essentially what I've gathered from the podcast, from all the podcasts I've listened to, the documents that I've read, the articles that I've read about the NFL appealing to Sean Watson's suspension. Okay. My translation is thusly. He is fucked. Yes. Okay, I was wondering, I thought you were going to go deep here.

Yeah, he's basically screwed. I mean, everything I've been looking at, too, Joe, I mean, the Ezekiel Elliott, you know, what was that, 2017, that's kind of like, you know, what I'm looking at here. Because they kept kicking it. They tried to get, you know, all kinds of different stays on his suspension. And they get them for a little bit, but they would get, you know, kicked up to another court and be taken strike, you know, they'd be struck back down. We're just looking specifically for this season, playing time, you know, fantasy specific here. So he's going to have a, you know, he's going to have a tough time just stepping on the field here. You know, we're recording this on a Friday afternoon.

So we might actually get some news in the next, I don't know, 24 hours here while you might be listening to the podcast. But it really looks like they're pushing for an indefinite suspension, you know, knock him out for a year. and then he can appeal to get back, you know, back on the field. But this is, you know, he's off. I mean, he's completely off the radar now, I, you know, especially in redraft. Maybe, maybe, you know, they go a little softer on them and knock it down to 12 games. But I just don't see it happening. And the NFL has been pushing for an indefinite suspension from day one here.

And it looks like it was a judge from New Jersey that Roger Goodell got. But I think he has, you know, he's sweet to the NFL here. So I think they're, you know, they're going to get their indefinite suspension here. Yeah, I think that's what it's going to be. And I mean, Tom, like, let's just say, I mean, I think at minimum, and I'm talking at bare minimum, he's going to get two games added on here. And that's at bare minimum. I don't think we're going to see him this year.

No. I mean, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but like, based on how, like, incredibly. And I mean, I thought the reaction was easily predictable. Like, I know what kind of society we live in these days. And whatever you think of that, I'm not trying to insinuate something. But the pendulum swung in a different direction in recent years. And I mean, Tom, based on some of the just the absolute reaction that we've gotten from the media and from fans and, you know, from pundits and everything, but also the fact that Watson seems kind of incredibly smug about the whole thing.

Yeah. Not a whole lot of remorse. And his ownership group, you know, didn't do him any favors here. You know, they're saying how remorseful he is and he hasn't said it. No. And his lawyers are saying, yeah, you know, we haven't done anything wrong. So, yeah, they're. Right. I mean, you're, you're stuck between, hey, I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm remorseful. I mean, but based on all of this, Tom, I mean, it's within the. range of outcomes that I don't think I think we don't ever see him again. Yeah, I probably put that at a pretty low percentage, but there's certainly a chance. Yeah, I put it like a 10% chance. But, yeah, I think he's going to do everything in his power to, you know, get back on the field for

next year. And the Cleveland Brown certainly have invested a lot of money on it on, on, you know, into him, uh, with that, you know, all guaranteed money. So, you know, they're going to do what, you know, they're going to have Deshawn Watson. programs all over Cleveland and Ohio over the next 12 months to make sure, you know, that he's on the field next year. But, uh, 2020, we're doing redraft here. I, I just don't see it happening. Let's put it, let's put it now other Cleveland Browns, Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt, uh, Omari Cooper. How are you treating them? I'm, I'm basically treating them the way I have all season, offseason for quite frankly, Tom, because I've drafted based on the presumption

that Watson was going to miss most, if not all, of the season. But are you drafted? Is this team just off limits for you? Not off limits, but it's a team that I haven't really drafted much of. And you can even see it in the win total. Draft Kings put up a win total when the six games suspension was announced, which I was kind of kicked myself. I didn't bet something.

I should have known that he was going to get, that they were going to, the NFL was going to drop the hammer on him. but, you know, it went from nine and a half to eight and a half, you know, the win total. So, you know, that tells you right there that this, the ceiling for this team is a lot lower with Jacobi Brissette quarterback. So I've knocked down, you know, I have a little bit of Mari Cooper. His price is pretty reasonable in like the mid to late sixth round. Like he is like the clear number one receiver. I have some Nick Chub if he, you know, gets the early part of the third round.

But, you know, not outside of that, you know, a little bit, a little bit of a little bit of. Donovan People Jones, who's, you know, supposedly had a pretty strong start to camp, but, you know, not a whole lot of involvement with this team. And there's just so much uncertainty right now. So I, I've pretty much stayed away from the Brown. You know, they're probably one of my lesser owned, you know, in terms of players from, you know, specific teams. They're probably, you know, in my bottom 10, probably, you know, in my bottom 10. Oh, I mean, yeah, but they're not, even if Watson was going to play the whole season that they're a very narrow fantasy team. Like they have one good, watch. receiver. Well, not one good running back, but no good, you know, not a, you know, Injoku got the big contract, but he's been kind of a guy. He's honestly the brown I've drafted the most, quite frankly, as like a tight end. Because he might be their second best receiver, which is more an indictment of the receivers than him.

Yeah. So, oh boy. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, it's a situation I've been mostly steering clear up here this offseason. Let's move on over to Matthew Stafford with the Rams now. Tom, this saga is getting really annoying, too. We know Stafford had a pain managing injection in his throwing elbow in May. He played through elbow discomfort, won a Super Bowl.

He'll obviously take that any day. But the Rams are limiting Stafford's reps. And Ian Rappaport reported this week that Stafford is dealing with elbow tendonitis. Now, the Rams, when pressed on this, Sean McVeigh, is according to Jordan Rodriguez, our friend from the athletic, they were unable, he did not want to call it tendinitis. He said it was something more that baseball pitchers deal with. And R. Edwin Poris said tendinitis would be a relatively good news.

But then he followed up with when Jordan Rodriguez report came out and said that, this is quoting Edwin, in terms of baseball injuries, there are a handful of options and none of them are encouraging. Yeah. Tom, I think. It's just weird. Like I went from like, oh, tendonitis. You know, like McVeigh usually, you know, optimistic and, you know, wanting everything to sound better.

Yeah, bringing the pitcher's elbows into this. You know, we have a long history like Tommy John and, you know, elbow injuries of baseball are not good. So whenever he brought that up, I'm like, oh, I want, this whole story has been a roller coaster. You know, I went from like, oh, tendonitis, that's not so bad. And now, you know, bringing a pitcher's elbow in here. I'm not exactly feeling much better now. Oh, God, no. But there is some video him throwing a little bit.

I don't know if you saw that yesterday. Tutu Atwell, like he's catching a bomb from Stafford. Apparently, they're just limiting him in team drills. So, you know, but he's still on some sort of pitch count right now. Yeah, and by the way, Jordan Rodriguez has also said that when Stafford is thrown, he's looked pretty good. So this is the way I'm reading this, Tom. Tell me if you think this is incorrect. I'm not touching in my rankings, I'm drafting these guys, but in my rankings, I'm not adjusting

Cooper Cup or Alan Robinson yet, but I'm probably going to shy away from Stafford at QB12, which is his ADP, in favor of safer guys, like maybe a Derek Carr or an Aaron Rogers. And though that might sound foolish or might end up looking foolish, I think that's probably the fair way to go about it. And one thing I do know, Tom, John Hanson has had Justin Jefferson ahead of Cooper Cup in his rankings all off season. I think this is just going to strengthen his resolve on that. Oh, absolutely. I'm with you there, too, Joe.

I haven't touched anybody on that team, you know, in terms of receivers. But I have, you know, just a couple spots. I, you know, in my own personal rankings, I've moved Aaron Rogers ahead of Stafford. he's one of those back-end quarterbacks right around 100 picks. And to be quite honest, I'm pretty comfortable taking, you know, the first 13 quarterbacks. You can stretch even, you know, the first 14 quarterbacks, and you can even stretch that out to Kirk Cousins and Justin Fields in the top 16. So I just think that Stafford, there's just more downside to him than these other guys. they're all pretty close to begin with.

You know, if there's at some point in the season where he has to, you know, sit out and rest of game or, you know, if it's just bothering him a little bit. And we can't forget last year, I mean, he, he was, his back was a major issue for, you know, several weeks towards the end of last season. He was missing practice time for it. So, you know, he's beat up a bit here. So I'm not totally, you know, shying away from them, but I'm elevating some guys that were, like, previously behind them, the Derek cars, the Aaron Rogers. They're probably ahead of him for now, unless we get, you know, some pretty glowing reports in the next week or two. So let's move on over to the running back position where one of the guys who I've really loved drafting because of his ADP being suppressed is Alvin Kamara, Tom. And his ADP was suppressed because there was an expectation that because he was a rest of.

on felony battery charges back in February at the Pro Bowl in Las Vegas that he was going to carry some sort of suspension. A felony battery would be a collectively bargained six-game suspension. But his court date has been delayed from February to April to July, and now it's been delayed to September 29th. There's no guarantee that that court date's not going to be delayed further. There's no guarantee that this legal process will wrap up at any point during the the regular season. As a matter of fact, some of the Twitter lawyers out there

believe it's most likely it extends past the regular season. And while I'm sure it'll creep back up a little bit, I haven't really seen Camara's ADP rise too much. Man, you can get this guy at the end of the second, beginning of the third round. And look, I can't predict how quickly the legal process is going to move.

But Tom, even when this legal process ends, there's a chance the charges are dropped, the suspension isn't out there. I mean, yeah, Camara, he's one of the best fantasy players in history. Like, yeah, I mean, I'll just take him at that discount. And if something happens, I'll cross that bridge when it comes. Yeah, I'm doing, you know, I like to do a bunch of underdog, you know,

fantasy points, fantasy PTS. So you know, your promotional code there to get $100. But yeah, and I still got him in a third. It was like, pick, you know, 29 or something this morning. in one of my drafts. And I'm with you, Joe. I thought for sure, you know, once we got this 60-day delay again this week, that, you know, he would start creeping, you know, back up to like, you know,

the late second round and just kind of stay there right ahead of, you know, the four Nets and the Jomte Williams kind of right behind Aaron Jones there. I thought that that's kind of where he might settle back into. But he's still, you know, falling into the third round quite a bit. I mean, his lawyers are going to do everything they possibly can to delay this trial until 2023. They're going to ask for another 60 days at the end of September. I just don't see this. They're going to do everything humanly possible, not to see this trial go through in 2022. So the only remaining question is, does the video leak out?

And, you know, and there is apparently video of the melee, probably, you know, it's probably not going to be, you know, very good for Alvin Camaro. So that's the one thing that's kind of just hanging over this whole thing. And if it's so bad, you know, the NFL might, you know, indefinitely suspend them. But, you know, that was back in February. So we're a good seven months past that. And it hasn't leaked out yet. So, you know, I'm pretty hopeful, you know, for,

for fantasy football, you know, we'll see the trial eventually go to, to, you know, it will eventually come up. But for fantasy football, like, if it hasn't happened yet, you know, I'm thinking it's not going to happen. So I'm fine, taking them here late second, early third. I'll be, I'll be gobbling that, that up all draft season here. So he is in a bit of a different situation that we, than we've seen, you know, with James Winston and Michael Thomas back. But, But, you know, he's still, you know, he's not going to catch the 80 balls that he was, you know, his first few season with Drew Grease. But he's still one of the highest upside, you know, running backs here with his kind of role. I mean, they got Mark Ingram behind him.

I mean, he's going to get as many touches as they need to, they need for him in this offense. So he's a must draft for me in the third round. How are you treating the Rams backfield? Because Shaw McVeigh, far be from me to believe a word he says about his backfield. but he's he's kind of talking up Acres and Darrell Henderson as co-starters. And, you know, Cam Acres, we're talking about somebody who's in uncharted territory here as he recovers as quickly as he did from his Killies, but he didn't look great in the playoffs. We know McVeigh's history with Belcowbacks.

He likes them a lot. Cam Acres is going at RB 16 in the third round. Darrell Henderson is going at RB 46 in like the 11th round. But here's the other thing. The other twist to this whole thing, Tom, is Darrell Henderson has never stayed on the field. either. It's this Rams backfield is so confusing. I've drafted Henderson a whole lot more than Acres just because he's so much cheaper. But what if? What if Cam Acres looks good? And Sean McVeigh's history of employing a Belcow back rings true again this year. Yeah, that's why it's like kind of

tough to believe that, oh, we're going with the co-starters just because everything in his history has suggested that, yeah, he's going to feature one guy. We saw it at different points last year. Henderson was the guy for the stretch of the season when he was healthy. Then he left the lineup. Sony Michelle was the guy. And then Cam Acres got healthy. He was the guy throughout the postseason. But the one thing I will say is we, you know, we really didn't see Henderson and Acres healthy at the same time last year. The Super Bowl was the only time that Henderson dressed while Acres was in the lineup. So that was, you know, it was the Super Bowl. So he may have been rushed getting back into the lineup.

So I think he did end up seeing like six or eight touches in that game. So he did have a little bit bigger role than, you know, than McVeigh typically gives his, you know, second, third string running back. So, you know, you're right, Joe. Both of these guys have injury issues. Maybe this is them maybe taking a longer view that maybe we need to, to spread out the touches a little bit more evenly here with Akers and with Henderson. You know, Henderson broke down last year.

obviously Acres is dealing with the, you know, coming back from the Achilles injury. So maybe, you know, the Rams are thinking a little bit differently now, but it's like one of those, like I kind of got to see it to believe it here. It's never been in their nature to split touches between backs. So I'm still leaning towards one guy is going to be kind of the guy here. We're going to find out, you know, probably relatively early in the season who it's going to be. But we're probably not going to get much indication here for the rest of the, for the rest of August because, you know,

we know the Rams aren't going to play anybody in the preseason. Training camp, the reporters are going to be there for one more week, and then they're going to be kind of ushered away. So it's going to be probably pretty tough to decipher who that leadback is going to be. But, I mean, for myself, I'm going to take my shots on Henderson as the deeper, you know, the later pick. But Acres ADP has started to slide here. I have seen him start to creep into the,

fifth round. So, you know, maybe I'll start, yeah, I have almost no acres at this point, but if he starts to become like a, you know, a consistent fifth round pick, I might have to start picking up a few shares here. Let's go to the wide receivers now, Tom, where the Pittsburgh Steelers, Deontay Johnson was holding in. He was at training camp, wasn't really practicing, so he didn't get hurt and injure his, quite literally, injure his earning potential. The Steelers get something done with Deontay Johnson. They signed him to essentially, essentially, two-year extension, which kicks in after this year, without getting into the nitty-gritty. The extension kind of falls in between Hunter Renfro from the 2019 class and the big four,

that being A.J. Brown, Debo Samuel, D.K. Mekath, and Terry McLaren, who all received kind of three-year extensions for more money. Deonté gets two years like Renfro, but he also gets more money than Renfro. You're obviously a Steeler fan, but you're also, you're practice. You're tactical. You've been drafting Deonti. You said he is your most drafted wide receiver in best ball. I would have to imagine this contract makes you feel better about that. And then why is he your most drafted wide receiver in best ball? He's just been, he's a stud. I think people still kind of underestimate just what he's capable of. I know people are worried about, you know, Ben Rafflesberger being gone. But, you know, he's just a guy that gets open. And any quarterback that's,

you know, that it's going to play with him is going to want to get him the ball. And, you know, my hope is that, you know, Ben Rafflesberger was one of the worst quarterbacks in the league the last two years, a lot of low A-dot throws. Maybe we see more of that route tree from Deonté Johnson. Maybe he starts to expand what he can do. And, you know, he has some glimpses that he can be a downfield spread at times, even with Ben Rafflesberger. So I think in general, the offense is going to be more run heavy here with Matt Canada, now really getting to run his offense with, you know, mobile quarterbacks and Kenny Pickett and Mitchell Trubisky. But I still like his upside. And he's going, you know, he's been going mid to late

fourth round. Most of the time when I'm picking him up, you know, I just think he should be a third round pick with, you know, his potential to really rack up catches. And I just think he's one of the more dominant players. So, you know, the talk in Pittsburgh that they weren't going to get a deal done. I know the historical evidence, like, was pointing that, you know, they haven't done it much. Antonio Brown was kind of the only guy, but Deonté Johnson, I'm not saying he's at Antonio Brown's level right now, but, you know, he has that kind of potential to be one of the best receivers in the league. And it's just a completely different situation here with Pittsburgh has, you know, Trabisky on, you know, basically, you know, six or seven million dollars a year for the next two years.

Mace Rudolph will be gone after this year. And Kenny Pickens are going to be on a rookie contract for the next four to five years. So, you know, they're not paying that $40 million for Ben Rafflesberger. So they're going to try to keep their best receivers intact here to give their young quarterbacks a chance to succeed here. So as a Steelers fan, I was pretty excited that they got something done here. I kind of figured they wouldn't stretch out the deal to four years. But it seems like both parties got kind of a happy medium here. get the two years and Deonte can still hit Free Agency at a relatively younger age.

I think he's going to be like 28 or 29 by the time he plays out this next contract. But I think this was kind of a win-win situation for both sides. Michael Thomas, we're recording this on Friday yet again. Nick Underhill, who's basically the most plugged in Saints reporter out there, says he's out at practice, he's in one-on-ones, and he's looking good. Our Dr. Edwin Poris says he's exhibited caution with, Michael Thomas. But Tom and our staff discord today, he kind of gave us the go ahead. Go draft Michael Thomas. Now, do I anticipate Michael Thomas to be the 140 catch record breaking wide receiver ever

again? No, they don't have Drew Brees. That's a pretty big factor. Michael Thomas hasn't scored a touchdown in nearly three calendar years in the regular season at least. So that's kind of, that's kind of big. But, I mean, he's kind of available as a wide receiver three now. And as as boring as it is, I can kind of endorse that. No, I have started to, yeah, he was kind of a guy I was avoiding earlier in the summer, but now he's kind of like an automatic pick for me in the sixth round. I'll probably, you know, looking at the ADP here, I'll, I'll kind of slot him in, you know, kind of behind Chris Godwin and Elijah Moore, you know,

right around 60 to 65 picks is where I kind of feel comfortable taking him. You know, I previously had taken like Amari Cooper and Devonte Smith and Adam Feelein before him. But now, you know, I'm going to move. I've moved him up above those guys. All reports are pretty strong here. But you're right. The situation is a little different here. You know, he doesn't have much of a rapport with James Winston, obviously, since he didn't play last year.

They did, they have, you know, this is a deeper receiving court than we've seen as well. You know, they move up to draft Chris a lot. They bring in Jarvis Landry. So it's a deeper receiving core. And they didn't throw the ball much last year. They were one of the, you know, the run heaviest teams while James Winston was in control of the offense. Maybe that changes a little bit with Pete Carmichael, Colin plays.

But, you know, it's, we're not going to get the highs that we used to get with Michael Thomas where he'd be like a slam dunk, you know, top five type of fantasy receiver. But, you know, I think he can slot into that top 50. top 20 again. You know, he'll probably still dominate targets in this offense, but maybe just not to the extent that he used to when it was just basically him and Alvin Kamara competing for targets. Now let's go to a guy who's been blowing up training camp and somebody who I really wasn't

drafting a lot of, and I'm going to say I wasn't drafting a lot of them because of the potential issues with the quarterback. But our guy Adam Kaplan was out of 49ers camp this past week, Tom. and he said Brandon Iyuk had one of the most outstanding individual practices he's seen in 20 years of going to training camps. He said on Sirius XM this morning, quote, if Dion Sanders was out there, he could not have covered Brandon Ayuk. This guy's wide receiver 42 on underdog. And I think in large part it's because Debo Samuel resigned and of course George Kittles and now to tight end. And then there's the question of Trey Lance.

But man, when I hear reports like that and we know, My yuk has flashed in the past, Tom. I'm going to bet on talent at a guy who's being drafted as a wide receiver four. I think, I don't know, that's just kind of an easy pick for me to make now based on what Adam's saying. Yeah, and we've seen, you know, flashes of, you know, greatness from him, you know, during his rookie season. Got off to the weird start last year where, you know, Kyle Shanahan essentially put him in the

doghouse out of training camp, didn't like his work ethic early in the year. So, you know, it kind of appears like, you know, a switch has flipped on here. You know, from reading some things, it's, it sounds like him and Trey, you know, we're gonna, they're buddies. We're, you know, we got the friendship narrative here. You know, they've been working with each other throughout the summer in Southern California. They're kind of best buds at this point. And, you know, that's, it's, I did a draft, I'm in a draft last night. And I went, Trey Lance, I had like,

the 10th overall pick. I went late 6th round, Trey Lance, and coming back around, I took Brandon Ayyuk as a stack. And I think we're going to, I've started to see Brandon Ayuk. He was kind of,

you know, going into 80s there in best ball drafts. He's been sliding up here. The hype is building for him. And, you know, it looks like the 49ers are ready to roll with Trey Lance at quarterback. All the signs are pointing towards it.

You know, Kyle Shannon's, and it's Kyle Shanahan has said all summer that he's our guy. And these two seem to have, you know, build up a nice little chemistry. And, you know, everything that we know about, you know, Trey Lance is that he's got a pretty big garb. He can get it downfield. And, you know, when I think about Kittle, when I think about Debo, I think about those guys as more, you know,

shorter A-DOT kind of guys and run after the catch and, you know, do, that's kind of where they operate. I think Brandon Ayuk is, you can throw him some more jump balls and get him going downfield. So it's kind of not a surprise that he's a pretty good fit here with Trey Lance so far. To wrap up the wide receivers, let's just talk about Dallas, who, you know, historically, at least dating back to when they traded for Amari Cooper. I believe that was in Dak Prescott's second season. I think that was 2017. They've had a great receiving court.

And they've had one of the best supporting casts in terms of offensive line, backfield, and receipts. receivers a quarterback could possibly have, but they ended up paying the quarterback. They, of course, controversially paid Ezekiel Elliott. And the Cowboys have kind of had to pay the Piper in recent years. And it's resulted in a very thin receiving core. They traded Amarri Cooper this offseason. Michael Gallup tore his ACL. Now they resigned him. But he's not going to be back at the beginning of the season. James Washington goes down with a Jones fracture in training camp. And all of a sudden, you know, we've got CD Lamb. And of the other 10 active receivers in camp, I saw one of their beat reporters say this.

I credited it. I credited him on the website, but forgive me right now for not remembering who said this. But of the other 10 healthy wide receivers in their camp, Tom, not a single one has a touchdown reception in the NFL. I was going to say, I thought you were going to go receptions. Well, no, Noah Brown. Noah Brown has caught passes. So I think he's the only one who has caught passes. Not many, though.

I can't. He probably doesn't have more than, you know, three or four dozen. He doesn't have a whole lot. I think you're right on the money at like three dozen because I think it's like 34. Yeah, I was going to say, it's an extremely thin group here. Jalen Tolbert, I have a long shot bet on him at Rookie the Year. Got an 80 to 1 early in the summer just because I could see this Gallup situation, you know, coming, you know, Edwin is, Edwin Porras, has been all over it. He, he got the surgery and

ACL surgery in February. So, I mean, if he's, even an optimistic timeline, like, he's probably not going to be back until mid-October, probably more likely in November. So, you know, no Amari Cooper, no Cedric Wilson. That's, you know, we've seen it with Dalton Schultz. His ADP has really skyrocketed this summer. You know, he's, you know, he's, He's become like a six-round pick in a lot of leagues. So this, there's a lot of, you know, we don't expect the Cowboys to completely change their offense. I mean, Ezekiel Elliott's breaking down.

He's not the same player he was a couple years ago. So they're probably going to remain one of the more pass-heavy offenses in the league. So those targets got to go somewhere. And, you know, Tolbert and, you know, Dalton Schultz are kind of the leaders now, you know, is behind C.D. Lamb. I don't know what the odds are still, but I got on some C.D. Lambs, most receptions, 20 to 1 and, you know, receiving yards at 25 to 1 to lead the league. So I'm sure those odds have probably shrunk a little bit this week because of the James Washington news. But, you know, the opportunity should certainly be there for Lamb. We'll see if he's ready to take advantage of it.

He had a little bit of a sideways kind of second half. You know, he kind of, his play kind of fell off, you know, towards the end of season. But he was just 22 years old at the time. He's still a very young receiver. He came into the leg at very young. So maybe he starts to hit a stride here in the third season. He's been probably, you know, looking through my, yeah, he's been one of my most drafted receivers. Kind of when I have a late first round pick, I tend to get Lamb quite a bit if I take a one of the, you know,

if I take a Dalvin Cook or a Naugie Harris at the end of the first round, a lot of times pair him with Cidid Lamb at the start of the second round. Just a couple of notes here on the tight end position so we don't leave those poor guys out. Irv Smith had thumb surgery this week now. It looks like Irv is going to be ready or at least has a chance to be ready for week one, Tom, but his ADP was up there kind of at tight end 11, tight end 12. I would imagine it takes a little bit of a ding here in the next couple of weeks as his availability for week one starts to come into doubt.

Yeah, personally, I'm going to eat that up, Joe. It looks like it's a pretty minor surgery. I mean, you know, maybe he misses week one, but I kind of think he's probably like 75, 25 to kind of play week one. Even if he misses, I still think he's a pretty good pick. I mean, all the tea leaves coming out of Minnesota, you know, I don't even think they're trying to hide it. I mean, they are going to be a lot more pass heavy.

this year. We have questions about Adam Thielen. He's starting to get, you know, a little bit over the hill. So I've been, you know, especially if you take Kirk Cousins, you know, as your QB1 or maybe as a high end QB2, I've been stacking them. You know, it's an easy, easy to stack, Irv Smith and KJ Osborne with Kirk Cousins. So I'm going to continue to draft Irv Smith, even if he does see a little bit of a dip here. I, I still. still like his upside. He was a guy I was kind of into last year before the whole Miniscus injury in the last week of the season. But I draw him so much. He was such a young

receiver too. He's still only like 24 years old. So, you know, he's the kind of guy. He has the talent you want to bet on. And one more to wrap it up because there was such a big injury for the Broncos. And I mean, it was maybe a bigger injury for the Broncos than it was for fantasy as popular as Tim Patrick was as a stacking option for Russell Wilson. But the question is also, I mean, they are going to have a wide receiver move up the depth chart, whether that's KJ Hamler or the rookie Montreal Washington who's kind of making some buzz down there. That's a name to watch in preseason. Samford. From, not Stan, Sam. Samford. But they essentially drafted him as a return man, Tom, but he's been kind of impressing in the reps. And he's gotten some first team

reps with the offense because I've seen him make some place from Russell Wilson. So certainly a name to watch there is Montrell Washington. But I think a lot of people are thinking because Tim Patrick was kind of a bigger slot receiver, bigger red zone option, that maybe one of these tight ends would step up for Russell Wilson. And they have two of them. Albert O. Albert O. O'Kuibunum, who's kind of going off at tight end, I think like 15 or 16 on underdog. And then, of course, Greg Dolchich, who's the rookie who missed a little bit of training

camp with a hamstring problem. Well, both of those guys are out there now. And I wonder with the news of Irv Smith having a thumb injury, the Tim Patrick injury, rendering him out for the season for Denver. I wonder if Albert O's ADP might rise up a little bit here. Yeah, I moved him up ever so slightly in my own personal rankings. It hasn't been a guy I've been going after too much just because it's been. Russ doesn't really throw to the tight end.

Yeah, and it's just so congested in that, you know, there's four deep at receiver in Denver. And, you know, we hate season ending injuries, especially this time of year. You know, can't even, you know, didn't even get a chance to get games under his belt. but, you know, it does clear things up a little bit for fantasy. You know, we're probably going to see more, you know, KJ. Hamler's probably going to be the guy that steps in to three wide receiver sets. It's actually, it might be a bit of an upgrade for Jerry Judy, too. It's tough to tell because he's probably not going to play as much in the slot anymore.

That was kind of his position last year with Hamler out of the lineup. But it probably gets Judy on the field more and two. wide receiver sets because, you know, they were probably going to play Patrick quite a bit, you know, because of his run blocking ability. Like you said, he can play in a big slot. He can, he can muddy it up in the running game. So, you know, it's, you know, it's a bit of a, you know, a slight downgrade for the running game, you know, without Patrick as a blocker. But it does clear things up a little bit in Denver, but it's still, this is still one of those offenses. Don't know what quite to expect from it.

Obviously, we think very highly of Javante Williams. They could still obviously run the ball a lot. But we know Russell Wilson wanted out of Seattle because he wanted to throw the ball. So they're going to be one of the more, you know, even though we probably won't see Russ Wilson in the first team offense much, I still kind of want to watch how exactly they play offense in the preseason. That is one area. You know, we don't get too into the weeds on.

you know, preseason games, but I do kind of want to see, you know, how they attack on offense in the preseason. Tom, we'll reconvene next week with more training camp news. Now, there's going to be some preseason games next week. And we're going to probably have to do this a little bit earlier in the week, though, Tom, because we're traveling, baby. We're going to Canton. I'll be seeing you there. I'm getting there Friday afternoon. Our entire staff is going to be at the Fantasy Football Expo, virtually our entire staff, rather. Maybe we do the pod. At night, Joe, we'll do it like a fantasy points after dark pod, you know, when we have a few soda pops in us.

Ooh, that can be fun. We'll have to talk about that. Yeah, oh, we're going to have plenty of sodie pops in us in us. That Friday night, we're actually sponsoring the welcome party of the Fantasy Football Expo next Friday night. We'll be Fantasy Point sponsored. So if anybody listening to this is there, make sure you come and say hi. And if you do come and say hi and say that you listen to the podcast, that means I know you listen to the podcast because I buried this all the way at the end here.

Our podcast feed, Tom, has been just absolutely. We might have been a little light in the off season. Well, we've made up for that. I mean, I think. The last couple of weeks. Oh, man, we've all the franchise focus. And John and CoSell did 75 minutes. And we got Wes Huber doing his pod and the IDP guys did their pod.

And oh, we're going to beef it up during the season, too. We're looking at, you know, trying to get four or five pods, you know, throughout the season as well. We'll definitely do that. Yeah. It's going to be fun. It's something that I think we're going to take advantage of. But, you know, thanks for joining us here, guys. It's been a week of training camp news.

I'm sure so much of what we talked about on this is BS. But, hey, it's BS that we haven't had for a number of months. We got beatwriters excited about being at training camp. I kind of understand it all. If you're drafting this weekend, good luck. Tom, I'm sure you're going to be doing some best balls this weekend. Oh, yeah. As soon as the draft, the NFL draft ends,

I'm in the best ball street. So yeah, I've been, uh, I was a little light, lighter this summer because I was traveling, uh, over to England and United Kingdom. But, uh, yeah,

I got like 20 slow draft going right now. So yeah, I'll make it up for last time. When Underdog launched in Pennsylvania, I was like, oh, oh, there goes, brawley. Yeah. There he goes. So, um, you are, so you're going to,

we're going to see you at the, uh, at the expo. Are you bringing Moyer along? Yeah, that's the, that's the word. He's, uh, probably going to be joining us. We'll have a whole crew out there. If you're looking for me and Joe, we're the too tall, handsome, you know, the best-looking guys in the fantasy points crew. So, that's right. We'll be the easiest ones to pick out. Very, very fairly put there, Tom. I don't want to pet myself too much on the back, but, you know, that is why they chose me to do that daily show,

because they look good on camera. Tom, it's been great joining you, my friend. We're going to, I mean, I'm sure we'll be texting all weekend, but I'm going to see you next week. We're going to throw some back in Canton, Ohio. I hope to see everybody there. Maybe we'll do one of these live when we're in Canton, Ohio. Who knows? But I'm Joe Dolan. He's Tom Broly. At Tom Broly on Twitter. I'm at FG underscore Dolan. Guys, thanks everybody for a wonderful first week of training camp, a wonderful week of content at FantasyPoint.com. If you haven't subscribed, use code Brolly 22. It'll get you 10% off, by the way. And by the time you listen to this, Hansen's draft plans out. Brawley's been doing all the betting previews, okay? He's been keeping up on the market report.

We've got Scott Barrett putting out the Belkow report. We've got Graham Barfield's best ball tiers. I put out the auction draft plan. Values over values, values are out. It's everything you could possibly want for your drafts. Oh, and all of our cheat sheets are updated as well. And there's still more to come. I had to plug the website there. I know you're tired of hearing me. As a matter of fact, I've probably got to edit Hanson's draft plan here very shortly, Tom. Yeah, that's why we did this in this. afternoon here, Joe, unfortunately. You're going to have to go through that,

but you're going to be the first one to get his hints. John, by the way, is not brief. So it takes me a while. So anyway, it's been good talking to everybody. I hope to see everybody in Canton, Ohio. For Tom, I'm Joe. See you. I was going to say see you, boys.

But that's not very inclusive. See you, everybody. 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 fantasy points.com.