Fantasy Football Daily - 5 Fantasy Football Players I REFUSE to Draft, Even Though They Might DOMINATE!

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

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Yo, what is going on? Fantasy Football Daily is back. Thanks for joining us on this Monday. I've got my guy, Ryan Heath, here. We're going to be talking through five players that he is completely refusing to draft. These are going to be some players that either have a lot of upside and kind of scare us, scare us away from drafting, either good or bad, or it's just mainly a price thing. It's players that Ryan has identified that might absolutely. burn him this season. Ryan, you've gone through all of your off-season analysis, man. You've had anatomy of a league winner come out. You've had your player rankings come out here at fantasy points.com. You can check all of Ryan's incredible analysis out on the site right now. But these are going to be the players that Ryan's like, man, I'm looking at these guys and I'm like, there's a lot of upside here, but either through price or maybe just through some other analysis, these are players that Ryan is thinking they might burn him in drafts. Kind of a fun exercise, Ryan, to go through some players that, you know,

maybe you're not taking on a ton of teams, but, you know, players that certainly have a lot of upside. As I was saying off the top, Ryan has dropped all of his excellent pre-draft articles. They're over on FantasyPoint.com. You can use code fantasy, one word fantasy. Go to FantasyPoint.com slash plans. Use that code fantasy. Save yourself 10% on any play.

plan right now or if you're listening to us on YouTube hit the QR code bottom right hand corner that'll get you to the plans page right five players you refuse to draft fun exercise here i don't think we spend enough time in general in the fantasy space going through players and just kind of players that we hate and just players that we think are overpriced but this is kind of like a confluence of both factors it's like yeah these players are really good at football but they actually you know are maybe overpriced maybe just the wrong price let's get into it today right how you doing, man. I'm doing great, man. And yeah, it is kind of just peak overthinking season for me now that I've got anatomy of a league winner out. I've got my rankings out that you mentioned you guys can go

check out on fantasy points.com right now. Now that I've like put my feet in the ground, like said, these are my takes. Like these are the players I'm drafting. These are the ones I'm not. I just wanted to talk today about five guys that I don't have ranked such that you're probably going to get a lot of them if you're just following my rankings or guys I'm maybe a little lower on or at least guys I'm choosing other people at their positions over. But like for a lot of these players, there are like really like kind of scary pro arguments that exist for them where it's like, well, this guy could totally burn me this year if I don't have him. So yeah, I wanted to kind of go through five of those. Ultimately, I don't think I'm going to change my mind on these guys during this show at this point.

Maybe unless you change my mind, Graham, for something I haven't considered. But I think it could be valuable just for people to listen to, to hear. These are guys that I was like kind of almost there on, but like just didn't quite rank high enough to the point where I want a lot of them. Maybe it'll be convincing to the listeners one way or the other. But I thought this would be valuable. Yeah, no, this is a definitely very valuable exercise to go through. And I think maybe for a few of them there's going to be. I'm just trying to make a convincing argument and try to convince Ryan.

This is not necessarily a debate show. Trey's not here with the wig. He doesn't have the gavel. But I will try to try to kind of push back on a few of these players. Ryan and are going to talk through today. If you guys have not already, listen to the pod on YouTube. Make sure you subscribe. Hit the notification bell so you never miss one of the shows that Ryan and I are live on or Scott and Brett are on on Friday.

We are daily here on YouTube. So make sure you never miss out. It is go time. this 10th, baby. We got actual preseason, preseason games coming up this week. I'm really excited. Ryan, let's get right into it, man. We'll go through the five players that you are refusing to draft, but might burn you. And this is a player last year. I know you were very high on Brian Thomas, Jr. The entire fantasy industry, to be fair, was very high on him. You were a BTJ bull, along with myself, coming back from, you know, a great rookie season. He just completely busted last

year had really strong volume, Ryan, to start the season. I think that's one of the things I go back to is like, yeah, before Jacobi Myers broke out, before Parker Washington broke out. Yeah, BTJ was leading this team in targets, but he was just like generationally underperforming his volume. He was like a solid wide receiver 2-ish based on volume, but finished outside the top 36 fantasy wide receivers. And then he got hurt. Week 9 after the buy got hurt in that Raiders game, Ryan hurt his ankle, never was fully healthy, was fully right for the rest of the season. B2J now is like a consensus six-round pick. He and Parker Washington's ADP. There's the Parker Washington Bell that hit what five minutes into the show here. The Parker Washington Bell hits. Listen, I do think it's a really interesting

price on BTJ because it's fully pricing in the fact that he sucked last year. Like he fully sucked, fully busted. It's pricing in that we really don't know who leads this team in targets here at fantasy points. We have it split basically three ways between BTJ, Washington, and Jacoby-Myers. So let's talk through it. Why are some of the reasons that you're fading BTJ this season? Is it just one of the things where it's like, man, there's three really good receivers on this team and I'm not really sure who to pick? Or is it strictly just a price thing? Are there other players in the range that he's going that you like better? Yeah. So you laid out a couple of great points for kind of the pro BTJ case at the beginning there. I want to add a couple of my own

as well just so that we're yeah just fighting against like the strongest version of the argument. Not only was BTJ amazing in his rookie season. He was the fourth best fantasy wide receiver for any rookie season since 2014 behind only Jamar Chase, Pukinakua and Odell Beckham in terms of total PPR fantasy scoring. There were a million BTJ stats like this that you could right after his rookie season. When I went back, looked through my own Twitter history, just name search, Ryan Heath, Brian Thomas Jr. There were a lot of things to choose from. I didn't want to choose them all for you guys, but they were all basically as bullish as this. That is just how amazing his rookie season was. And then, yeah, of course, early on in 2025,

he is kind of arguably miscast in this role where he's trying to run over the middle of the field. There was like the very kind of viral criticism of him like slowing up on some routes, maybe not looking like he's giving a hundred percent effort. There was an argument that we were all having back and forth for like three or four weeks of well. Is this because he has this wrist injury that Liam Cohen invented in this week to press conference seemingly that he's now listed with? Is this a mental thing? Is this just because he would be better used as a vertical receiver and he can't be this high volume guy over the middle of the field? field. We had all those arguments. We hash it all out. And then yeah, coming out of the

buy as you mentioned, BTJ just was no longer in that role. Comparing his route trees from before Jacobi Myers got added to the team after the by to after it's stark. It's very night and day. On the left here on screen, yeah, you can see this is like a fairly balanced route trees going over the middle. He's on some horizontally breaking routes. This is like pretty solid wide receiver usage. There's no like red flags here. But then if you just flip over producer Trey to the next one, yeah, he's suddenly running one of the highest rates of go balls of any wide receiver in the NFL. He is hardly ever going in breaking, going over the middle of the field. And that's where Jacoby Myers and to an even greater extent, Parker Washington were really

feasting down the stretch and really racking up all of those PPR points. And this role for VTJ after the buy was worth just 9.2 expected fantasy points per game, which is just like not viable for a fantasy football wide receiver whatsoever. So my like reason for being out on BTJ, kind of my case against him is, yeah, I think he's an incredibly talented player on this great offense where it's somewhat ambiguous, who's going to lead the team in targets, who's going to command all the volume. but ultimately what I go back to is the last time we saw this offense really working down the stretch run of last season from week 10 through the playoffs.

It was the best stretch of Trevor Lawrence's career. It's the best that the Jaguars offense has looked in years. I think that's like what they want to replicate, right? Generally, the heuristic I like to use is teams want to replicate the thing that worked. I don't see a reason that they would suddenly switch up the roles again, have BTJ start doing the things he was doing when the offense wasn't working and wasn't clicking

just because it's like a higher volume role for BTJ. I don't want to make that assumption that they're just going to flip things around here and give the more fantasy friendly routes, the more fantasy friendly work to BTJ. But like they could. And if they do,

there will be huge egg on my face. BTJ will absolutely smash. We will be like, wow, I can't believe that it only took like one bad and injured sophomore season for us to start drafting this guy right next to or behind friggin' Parker Washington who came out of nowhere. This like it's so easy to like put yourself forward six months and laugh at ourselves in hindsight for this. I do think it's correct ultimately. But I, yeah, I guess I just do want people to be aware that it's like a super nerdy and like in

the weeds kind of reason for being out on BTJ. If like I think if you, I totally, get why some people are zooming out and just saying talented player, good offense, ambiguous wide receiver core. I'll just bet on the guy who was a first round pick and who was amazing as a rookie. Like I totally get that. But yeah, I don't know if you can change my mind here, Graham, but I'm willing to hear you out. No, I agree with all of your analysis. I mean, BTJ, he was really bad last year. I think your analysis specifically on the role change. This is something that Scott talked about when he came out of LSU, that BTJ, might just be like a one-trick pony.

I don't have the exact stat off the top of my head. But I remember Scott and I going back and forth on BTJ, and he was basically saying, like, dude, like over 40% of his production came on go-balls. This is a legitimate concern that they do kind of try to pigeonhole him into this just kind of deep threat-only role. My only pushback I have with BTJ is that not only did, you know, he kind of sucked to start the season.

Trevor Lawrence was not playing particularly well. Then he closed out the season as legitimately an MVP candidate after that by week, Ryan Lawrence was fifth in EPA per dropback. I mean, he was legitimately playing at an extremely high level and then BTJ got hurt. So it's like we never really saw Thomas play with the, you know, best version of Trevor Lawrence last season. I think that's my really only pushback because I do agree with our projections and I agree with you that it is somewhat ambiguous between who leads the team and targets. I just feel pretty strongly it probably won't be Jacoby Myers. Myers like probably has the least amount of upside among these three players to me. Thomas and Washington, we've just

seen more weekly upside out of both of them, Thomas specifically in his rookie season. And then, yeah, I don't think there's putting, there's no putting like, you know, any of the catch-up back in the bottle with Parker Washington. He was awesome at the end of the last year. And I think a big part of the reason Lawrence kind of had this nice little surge at the end of last season. I'm somewhat in, though, with Thomas at the price. I think it's, you know, a battle between him and Romo Duneze. and Marvin Harrison all around kind of a similar ADP. All three of those players have kind of struggled at times throughout their career, but Thomas is really the only one who's actually given us,

like, consistent fantasy production over any large amount of sample. Romo Dunzei obviously have the, you know, weeks one through six stretch last year, then he got hurt. Marvin Harrison has had a few spiked weeks here and there, but he's really never put a full stretch together like PTJ has at in his rookie season. And, you know, at times he had a few decent games last year. season. BTJ, wide receiver three, I think I'm perfectly fine with the price. I do fully, you know, yield to Ryan's points, though, that, you know, this offense is pretty tricky

to get right specifically with the receivers. And Ryan, you know, I, we do, the Parker Washington price has come up, man. I know we didn't put him on the show sheet, but he's really come up in price. He's come up from like mid-80s, late 70s and 80p into this six round. Is this a price you can get in on because it does feel like at least one of these jaguars or receivers, Ryan, is going to be like just a massive, massive win at ADP. Yeah, to your point, uh, let me just talk about like the prices of these guys in a few different formats and how, how I kind of go about ranking in them. Uh, I guess starting in dynasty, which we don't talk about dynasty on this show that often, but kind of everything we're saying in terms of if you zoom out BTC is a talented player,

it's a good offense, it's ambiguous, all of that. To me, that matters way more in dynasty. And I give way more credence to kind of the long view of a player in that format. Not only because you own them for life, but also because you own like any of the value swings on a player for life, right? BTJ is a player where if he did have like a breakout third season where he looked even 90% as good as his first year, his dynasty price would instantly skyrocket into like the second or the third round of startups, right? So for that, for a dynasty format, I have BTJ and Parker Washington just like very close. I think they're back to back in my latest dynasty rankings update just because you, I think you have to acknowledge more of, yeah, the overall profile, the long view, the uncertainty there. But for redraft, we kind of want to do the opposite.

it. A redraft season is almost like one DFS slate where you want to figure out like what your story of the season is, like what your overall thesis is on all of these players, all of these different situations. And to me, you just like want to draft to that. Like you want your redraft rankings or your redraft drafts to tell a story to tell a particular story. And I do think in the case of the Jaguars where it's so ambiguous, but we know the upside of the offense is so high and that if you pick right on any guy, you could well, you could well have been happy drafting him in the second or the third round, like they could pay off a much higher cost than any of them are going to.

Then I think you want to be a little bit less price sensitive in terms of, yeah, maybe a Parker Washington, if you're in on him at a sixth or a seventh round ADP and he gets steamed up to the fifth or the late fourth or the four or five turn or what have you is that really changing your thesis i get it just depends on how strong your case in your particular take was on that player for this year i i guess i'll just say my rankings are in my ryan heats rankings and must draft players piece that's on fantasy points dot com right now you can see exactly where i have washington or btj ranked relative to every other single player. And that's like regardless of market cost, right?

This is just the order that I would draft guys in. You can see exactly every player that I would take each of them over and not take each of them over. So if that question is like lingering in your mind in terms of, oh, Ryan wrote up player X, but what are we doing now? Like if he's going a little bit higher than he was in the ESPN or Yahoo ADP from two weeks ago, yeah, look at the rankings. is my answer to that. I guess sorry to be coy about the rankings,

but that's like what I would really direct people toward. That's always going to be the easiest way to get an answer to any of those specific questions. One of my questions back to you, Ryan, is why not just draft the hell out of Trevor Lawrence? Like I think that's the biggest thing here. It's like we love the receivers, right? All of them are kind of fairly priced at this point. I think BTJ and Washington specifically Washington is very fairly priced. Lawrence is going in the mid-80s to 90s on most platforms.

I think that's been my main answer, specifically with redraft leagues. You talk about your team telling a story where it's like, yeah, okay, first three, four rounds. Like I feel really good about my two or three running backs, come back in a bunch of receivers, and then Lawrence is just sitting there in the seventh and eighth round on an offense that we're projecting to be one of the best in football. We do team projections here at fantasy points going through each team. And the Jags are our clear top breakout offense.

their seventh and total fantasy points. And to me, that just screams draft Trevor Lawrence. Yeah, I'm not going to disagree with that one. I will 100% give you that one. If you are like, man, I really can't figure out who's going to be the guys to own for fantasy on the Jaguars this year. It's just too ambiguous. I agree.

I think kind of no matter what your thesis of the team is, Trevor Lawrence is just an amazing pick in fantasy football right now. Yeah, he's, I believe the status that he's third in rushing. touchdowns over the last three seasons or something like that. He's one of only six or seven QBs last year to average over five fantasy points per game on the ground. That has been a like a threshold stat associated with league winning quarterbacks over the past several seasons.

Yeah, I think Lawrence is just an awesome pick, an awesome bet. And yeah, kind of whether we're right or wrong about BTJ or Parker Washington or Myers or any of these guys like the, yeah, the real answer is Trevor Lawrence wins no matter what. Yeah, if you're fading basal Tutin, I think it also works with Trevor Lawrence. I am not fading basial Tutton. I know Ryan is not either. However, if you are, Trevor Lawrence, like,

that is a part of the kind of downside case for Tutin. Lauren's got 31% of the teams carries inside the five last season. That wasn't like on the same kind of plain as Jayland Hertz and Josh Allen, who are up at 40% but it was, you know, fifth, six most among quarterbacks last season. So there's legitimate touchdown upside to Ryan's point.

And he could kind of, you know, hurt Tuton just a little bit at the goal line. We've got a question from chat from Sean. He's asking the player importer that was just on the screen. Is that available to us at Fantasy Points? Yes. That's BTJ's Dynasty value and his ADP trend. Looking at his ADP trend over this season in Dynasty Leagues. Yes, all of this is available in the $60 subscription over at FantasyPoint.com. You just hit Fantasy Points. Go to the front office. It starts. importing your teams. We have every single league that you could possibly want, every platform you could possibly want between Yahoo, ESPN. If you're one of the old dustballs like me, you're

still playing on my fantasy league. Yeah, our guy Jay has my fantasy league hooked up to the importer as well, along with sleepers. So all your dynasty leagues are all ready to manage. And yeah, we're going to be featuring the front office tool quite a bit here on the show moving forward. moving forward Ryan let's keep it going here man uh we're going to talk one running back on this show just one and it's one that i really agree with you on this patriots backfield is one that i think is just kind of like incorrectly priced and it might be for different reasons maybe some of the reasons that haven't been mentioned totally able to get into this patriot's backfield but trevion henderson is a player uh yeah i i fully agree with you man i'm not drafting him either but he

certainly could burn us here at this fifth round 80p and And there's a number of ways he could burn us. The main one is obviously, Reminderer Stevenson gets hurt. Henderson gets this insane role. And if you drafted him Henderson in the fifth round, you're going to be like, you know, getting a top eight, top 12 weekly running back in the fifth round. The downside is Remandor Stevenson still really good at football. And Ryan, you know, the coaching staff just loves them.

They love playing him on passing down. So let's talk through Trevion on Henderson, the upside and the downside case. Yeah. Yeah, the upside case is very simple and straightforward to me on Trivion Henderson. This is a player that averaged 24.3 fantasy points per game on an 82% snap share in three games without Ramandre Stevenson last year. He was just a smash high-end RB1. He was amazing for fantasy in those games. They were all against bad run defenses with the Patriots like beating up on the Jets and the Bengals if memory serves.

But regardless, that's like such an amazing proof of concept. Like this guy, if he had this backfield to himself, would just be a league winner. Romandre Stevenson could get hurt or Trevionn Henderson could just win the job outright. That's not totally impossible, right? He was a pretty decent prospect. Running backs tend to crush when they go into year two. This is when we see running backs see the largest increases in their workloads. it's when we see it's one of the most popular years for running backs to become league winners at ADP

based on my anatomy of a league winner research year two running backs are just awesome and really the thing that kept Henderson off the field the most last year was the pass protection right just that the Patriots trusted remandre stevenson in that role more Henderson had flubbed a few pass blocks early in the season, kind of never really got that role back under control or ever had that again. But hey, Henderson's like one of his biggest pros as a prospect that every evaluator was pretty unanimous on is, yeah, Trivion Henderson is a good pass protector. Everybody called him the best pass protector in that very deep running back class last year. That was supposed to be like a strength of his profile. And that's another area where it's pretty common that we see running backs

improve on in year two. I don't know if it's just because like moving from college to the NFL, there's a lot of things that running back has to pick up and pass pro just happens to be like one of the things that a lot of them just don't get to in the summer or what have you. That just kind of seems to be how it works though, where as rookies, guys often are not good past protectors, but by the time we just roll over to year two and suddenly they're, they're the guys we trust in past protection. So I really think it is just like a time.

in the system, time with the team sort of attribute. And that could easily just not be a problem for Henderson this year. But then I kind of look at the ADPs. I look at where Trevion Henderson is going. I look at where Remandre Stevenson is going. And I say, well, Stevenson was used as an every down bell cow in the playoffs last year when it mattered the most. Stevenson was more efficient than Trevion Henderson kind of down the stretch of the season. after Stevenson came back from injury.

He was a much more efficient runner over those final five or so weeks heading into the playoffs. And ultimately, I just look at an ADP board and I see Trevion Henderson and I say, wow, there are a lot of other year two running backs that we can just kind of make a similar type of bet on where we're closing our eyes a little bit

and saying, all right, we want an increase in the role. a lot of these backs are on offenses that are just as good or potentially going to be even better than the Patriots are going to be this year. And a lot of them have less imposing backfield competition. So I'm vague posting a little bit, but I'm especially thinking about kind of the Jaguars running backs and the Broncos running backs when I say this, that there's like kind of some ambiguity in terms of who's going to have the biggest role. will anybody become a bell cow and take over any of these backfields? There are year two guys in all of them. And I mean, Romandry Stevenson compared to J.K. Dobbins, who is the most injury prone running back in the NFL,

compared to Chris Rodriguez, who has been on and off of practice squads his entire career. And it's like, man, Stevenson is like the most imposing competition to me in any of these teams. yet his year two back that he's fighting with is the one that goes the earliest across most sites on most ADP. So that is the reason I'm out on Henderson, just because I think you can make the same type of bet much later, or like a little later and also much later, and in a lot of these different ambiguous backfields.

But it could totally burn me. Like no one's going to care that Henderson had around 4 ADP and Bachel Tootin had around 5 ADP. if Henderson is the one that's averaging 18 fantasy points per game after Romandre twist his ankle in week two. Like that can totally burn you having no Henderson. So I am pretty scared. But yeah, ultimately I do my rankings. I can only have people.

I can only like push people in my rankings towards a certain number of players. I can't just say, hey, this is a portfolio. You're going to take 18% of this guy and 16% of this guy. That's not how I want to run my redraft. content. So yeah, ultimately there have to be like winners and losers of my rankings. And Henderson just clearly is a loser because, yeah, I think the case is just thinner than it is for the guys that you can get around or several rounds later with a similar bet. It's thinner and it's it's thinner because really twofold for me. I really do think

it comes down to the biggest thing that Henderson is going to have to do to access his upside is the passing down work. you mentioned myself included i thought henderson was a great pass protector coming out of college uh there's apparently been some reports from rabel saying that henderson's still struggling in that particular area i think the the bigger maybe like one that's one a one b is this team is going to regress year over year ryan uh the patriots are implied for five fewer points per game just looking forward at the you know look ahead lines this season that to me is going to impact this backfield more than drake may the Patriots were very pass-heavy last season.

They were the fifth most pass-heavy offense in football by pass rate over expectation, just over 5%. So any reduction in scoring volume will immediately impact this backfield. And how that hurts Henderson is Romandre was also pretty heavily involved at the goal line. So it's like we've got a player who doesn't have access potentially to have a high value touches in the past game and an offense that might regress year over year. terms of the touchdown value and he does not have the goal line role. Henderson to me is a player that I'm only drafting in specific builds where I feel amazing about my first two running backs

and Bayshal Tutin's off the board because I think you can make a similar upside case for Tutin and he doesn't have to deal with Reminder Stevenson like you said Chris Rodriguez had bounced around Washington's practice squad they didn't even bother trying to resign him to an offer sheet and then he goes on this kind of a small deal to the Jaguars. And I know running back contracts, you know, trying to evaluate, you know, an extrapolate fantasy analysis from contracts when it comes to running backs. It's kind of like a fool's errand at times. It led me down the wrong pass with Devante Williams last year.

All that being said, though, Rodriguez has been a player who has basically never played on passing down. So we have a pretty good idea of, like, if Tutin's catching screens in this offense, we feel very, very good about what his, you know, kind of fantasy value is going to be just right there. With Henderson, we don't know if he's going to be catching passes in this offense. This offense is going to regress. They're very pass heavy.

And, you know, Stevenson's going to be involved at the goal line. Ryan, the Patriots backfield last year produced the second most expected touchdowns. They had 20 expected touchdowns across the full season. We're projecting that to decline by 36%. I went into underneath the hood of Chris Wex projections, pulled out our rushing touchdown figures. We have Drake Mays passing touchdown efficiency coming down as well, but it's really this backfield that might, you know, see the biggest decline in production here. And that, to me,

screams that it's going to impact Henderson. This is one I'm fully with you on. I fully refuse to draft trivia on Henderson at this fifth round price. Like I said, I really think it's one of those situations where if I've got two really good running backs, I feel great about and I don't have to rely on Henderson as like my RB2, that could be really scary, man. Henderson's ex-fp in games with Stevenson, his role is worth like eight or nine fantasy points per game, right? I mean, it was just not that valuable of a role. Yeah, he full on just like was not startable when Romandre Stevenson was like not even a flex worthy player like not even like an RB3. Yeah. So it's and I'm not one to shy away from an ambiguous bet, an upside bet. I love doing that. That's exactly how I play fantasy

football. I but yeah, like I said, I just think even you made a comparison to Bachel Tutin. How is this different than RJ Harvey to me? Where He's going into year two. Yes, we were higher on Henderson as a prospect and the like criticisms of Harvey's game, I guess are more related to how he looked as a runner, how we looked between the tackles as a rookie versus the past pro for Henderson. Henderson struggled in between the tackles too, Ryan. He also did. Yes. But that, but like the past pro thing has just like taken all the space in everyone's mind as if that's like the only thing that he needs to figure out or that needs to.

improve that that's not the case like if either of these guys Henderson or Harvey are going to take a step forward this year and be like fantasy viable on an every week basis uh they they need to improve from how they played as rookies and and that's fine for year two backs but i just much prefer when i can draft a guy that doesn't need to be a starter on my team like my rb2 uh or my flex like that that's a player I love to have like first slot on my bench I see what happens in weeks one two three how the role looks where things seem to be heading over the season like that that's a archetype I love but it's not one that I want to have to start in week one that's just like very scary to me so it's that's kind of where I ultimately end up is that yeah the the the pricing

the ADP market has just made this decision for me and and yeah like I said it could totally be that Ramondre twists his ankle or that Henderson just has improved so much in the off season. He's a revelation in week one and it's off to the races from there. But yeah, it's just relative to the other bets you can make. I'm just all set. Right. I mean, running back, the entire market has been compressed upwards and that obviously affects running backs throughout the market.

I'm with you in general. I think if we were looking at Henderson in the same offense and the same kind of relative value two years ago, he'd be going probably in the seventh round, not the fifth. that would probably be the price on him. And I'm kind of with you that I think these two running back should be priced a lot closer. Stevenson going mid-70s on most platforms, Henderson going in the mid-50s on most platforms right now. Yeah, fully, fully agree with Ryan's analysis. Let's flip over to some more receiver talk.

The next couple of players are all going to be receivers. This next one just got a new running mate, Stefan Digg, signs with Washington. But Ryan is a little skittish on Tara McLaurin here, drafting Terry McLaurin kind of at this, you know, four, five round price, depending on the platform. He's going in the fifth round in most season-long leagues and some sharper platforms. He was kind of getting some fourth-fifth round buzz right there at the four-five turn, Ryan. But I think he'll solidly kind of land in this middle of the fifth round as ADP kind of starts to, you know, pan out over the next couple of weeks, specifically, you know, with a lot of people drafting here

this next coming weekend is a big draft weekend. So Ryan, talk through Terry McLaren, tell the people why. you're a little skittish of this price in ADP. Is it strictly Stefan Diggs signing and you're kind of a little concerned about like his alpha level target share? Are there just other concerns in the offense for you? So it's not strictly that, but I'll, yeah, we'll get into all of it. I have so many thoughts on Terry McLaurin. I think like from a high level, the reason I'm not in on him is there are just so many other round four and round five wide receivers that I am really in on that I want to be high on.

you have to rank some guys lower in order to be higher on other guys. Terry just kind of is a casualty of that for me. Where there are like some really strong pro arguments you can make for Terry McLaren. And I've made several of them throughout my content this summer. And I just got to a point where I have to step back, look at the totality of all of my content, all my research, everything I've done on all these players for months and months. And I just kind of come down on the side of Tara McLaren's not the. the bet I want to make over some of these other guys. To talk him up a bit,

he was the wide receiver four overall in first downs per out run last year, absurdly efficient on a per row basis behind only Pukinakua, JSN, and Amunerras, St. Brown. A lot of that was with backup quarterback play with Marcus Marriota, just with the offense being kind of a mess in general, with McLaren being stuck on the left side of the formation for like 80, plus percent of his routes, which is like the Cliff Kingsbury special. I had broken down and there's a tweet somewhere here if producer Trey wants to put it up showing that McLaren and D'Andre

Hopkins in Arizona had like a huge efficiency boost if they just got, they just moved off of that left spot of the formation. And that's something that should happen now with David Blow at OC. We're getting whispers of the commanders using more heavy personnel, which is an efficiency cheat code if McLaren is the guy that's still on the field, like one of the only wide receivers still running a route when they're bringing multiple tight ends and fullbacks on. That's like another way that McLaren could access this high end per route efficiency. That's kind of the story of his profile to me is I see a lot of ways where if everything goes right, McLaren could continue to be the very efficient player that he was last year and that he also was in 2024, uh, went kind of

when J. and Daniels was healthy, the offense was working, and McLaren was a really good fantasy asset. So I can see like a repeat of that 2024 season, basically, where McLaren was, if I'm not mistaken, he was like a borderline wide receiver one, like right there around the top 12. I can see that. That's like the upside case to me. I can just see that or more for like almost every other wide receiver that goes in rounds four and five. And the concern for me on McLaren is kind of twofold. One is the age, which is a concern we have for a lot of wide receivers that I'm into. So it's not like disqualifying on his own, but maybe a little bit scarier when so much of McClorin's fantasy viability has just been, yeah, he's been one of the most efficient per route

receivers in 2024 last year. Anytime he's been fantasy viable, it's because of the per route efficiency, the big plays, all of that. That, if that goes away because of age, then McCle, McLaren is just instantly, like, not a guy that you care about that much in fantasy football, right? So there's like a little bit of extra exposure for him with the age in my mind because of that, because the profile is so efficiency heavy. And then the nail in the coffin really for me was the Stefan Diggs signing, which I was expecting and kind of pricing in. But McLaren over his entire career has not really been this alpha high-end target earner guy that's getting. up close to a 28, 30% target share. That's just like never been him at all. Even over the past two seasons, just to like illustrate this point, McLaren's 10th among all wide receivers in

fantasy points per route run, but just 32nd among all wide receivers in targets per route run. It's not that he's commanding all these targets on every single route. It really is just per target. He's been so amazingly efficient that it's like made up for the different. the last couple seasons of him not being this amazing like Drake London or even like Garrett Wilson-esque target earner. So that's kind of where I land on McLaurin is Stefan Diggs is in the offense now. He was a great per route target earner last year. I had a very strong target per route run rate even on like kind of a more part-time role coming off of a torn ACL the season before. Diggs could be healthier.

I think McLaurin runs more routes. and probably outscores digs, but to me there's like a 45% chance that digs out targets McClorin just on lower A dot stuff, just as him being over each of their careers, just a better target earner, a yeah, just a guy that has been targeted more heavily on a pro out basis, I believe, every single year of their career. So to me, it's, if the offense is great, McLaren will probably be great. They have had some injuries to their offensive line already, which is like concerning to me. I'm just kind of seeing alarm bells a little bit here where McLaurin, I think arguably two or three weeks ago, he was in like one of the best situations for a wide receiver and just in terms

of who else are you giving the targets to. This team is probably not going to have a great defense. We'll probably have to throw a lot. But now things have just deteriorated on that front to where it's, it's like impossible to project like eight to 10 targets a game for Terry McLaren like his coach was saying earlier in the offseason. That to me is now like a dream of the past. So I'm not drafting McLaren. It's not because I hate him. It's just because there are so many other guys that I think I can make more convincing Bull case arguments for or that maybe don't have quite as many things cutting against them. But yeah, McLaren's someone I've obsessed over a lot this year and kind of gone back and forth on. So I thought he really fit into this specific video topic. Yeah, the dig signing,

I'm with you. I think it is a bigger impact than maybe some are letting on. I know at fantasy points here, I talked to Chris about the projections and stuff and like whether or not the McLaren signing really impacted, you know, his outlook for the season. We had already kind of like taken a bunch of targets and set them to the side just thinking that, you know, Washington is going to have to sign somebody. It did impact McLaren's projections just a little bit. Diggs shakes out as like a very strong, you know, wide receiver three. I do share Ryan's concerns with McLaren's like target earning potential. He's always been just like right around a 22% target per route run just throughout his career. It really doesn't matter if he's had, you know,

quote unquote good competition for, you know, targets or not. Now he actually does. I think my only pushback is twofold. One, Jane Daniels was not fully healthy last season. Daniels was, I mean, I think he got three or four different injuries before he was knocked out for the season. He had a ribs injury early in the year that probably really, like, limited the downfield passing. You look at McLaurin's catchable target rate in 2024, Ryan, when he was wide receiver 16 in fantasy points per game. McCloin's catchable target rate that season was 83%. Like that's Jemar Chase T. Hagan's level of like just amazing target efficiency and quarterback play. last year that drops all the way down to 74%.

The truth is somewhere in the middle here. And I'm just looking at this is from like, okay, Daniels is back, fully healthy. He's got two legitimately good receivers now. We know Daniels is very good. He can be very good. And Washington's defense might be trash, man. Like absolute trash.

They might be bottom five in the league this year. It's going to hopefully give plenty of shootouts here. So yeah, maybe McClorn doesn't have like the Mike Evans level of target per route run alpha, you know, target share, or maybe even to a lesser extent, like Ladd-McConkey. That being said, though, I still think there's plenty of upside at this ADP. It is just really tricky, Ryan, because like you're saying, there is a lot of, this entire bucket of receivers fourth and fifth round

is going to decide a lot of drafts this season. I know you're in on Lad. How close is Terry McLauran versus, let's say Devonthe Adams this season for you? Where are you at on Adams versus McLaren? just a quick one view one. Oh man, I have him ranked back to back. I believe I have McLaur in one spot ahead of Adams. But Adams is another one that, like make Adams an honorable mention for this video.

He's another one where it's like, yeah, over the entirety of last season was a really strong per route efficiency player. Obviously scored a billion touchdowns on one of the league's best offenses that we expect to continue being a really good offense. He also has the age concern. With him, it like rings a little like more true in my ears, I guess, in terms of being concerned about his age just because we saw him fall off at the end of last season. Now, of course, some of that was due to lower body injuries. But yeah, he was not like as effective of a player down the stretch in the playoffs as we had seen from him early in the season. So that kind of gives me the hebie-jeebies a little bit on Devonte Adams.

But he is another one where you could very easily say, yeah, if you're picking like an old guy that everybody's overthinking that was just a wide receiver one through the first 10 weeks of the year before he got injured. Yeah, Devonte Adams makes a lot of sense in that kind of lens. So yeah, he's another one that I have ranked below ADP. I have like next to Terry McLaurin, but it really is just like a vehicle to get you higher on someone. of these other wide receiver bets that I like more. So yeah, sorry to vague post so much on like, oh, there are just other guys I like more. I don't know. I can maybe we'll list a couple of them out at some point. I just don't want to like fully just read off my rankings on this show. That's not what people come here for. But yeah, that that's kind of where I'm out on Adams and McCloron,

just very similar to me this year where they could they could burn me. They're talented players. Adams is on one of the best offenses. It could just be a running back last year. I really considered Adams for a long time in terms of a guy to write up as a potential league winner, but I just didn't come away as convinced as I wanted to be. Yeah, Adams is a player I've struggled with as well. And that's why I brought him up because I do think it's a really interesting kind of value equation like two weeks ago before they signed Diggs.

Yeah, give me McLaren all day. But now, you know, we're talking about pushing McLaurin kind of first. further back into this fifth round pocket. I do think Adams probably regresses more of this season because Stafford, dude, this touchdown rate Stafford had last season is not, it is not going to, yeah, he's not going to be able to roll that over. 8% touchdown rate last season for Stafford. Adams had 24 end zone targets to Nakuas three last season.

Just absolutely crazy in their games played 24 to 3. If Stafford does have a, you know, a drop off when it comes to the touchdowns, it definitely will hurt Adams more. A player that I was a little lower on a couple weeks ago, but now I've come up on as Mike Evans. I think Mike Evans clears Terry McLaurin all day at this point now. Just with a Ricky Pearsall injury, Christian Kirk's not fully healthy.

George Kittles got an Achilles injury. It might not be fully healthy until October. Evans is certainly a player that has kind of flipped McLaren in my mind. I'm sure it has for Ryan as well. Receiver, man, it is so tricky this season. I think in this third and fourth round pocket. One player that you're finding very, very difficult to draft and rank is Emika Egbuka. He's really come up in price the last couple of weeks specifically.

He was like a three-four turn pick for most of the summer. He's now going in the middle of the third round, specifically in best ball. I know this obviously is not a best ball show, but he's going like middle of third round, 31, 32 overall. In your home league drafts, he's not even going to come close to that. He's going to probably closer to that three-four turn, maybe, you know, around 42, 43 overall to start the fourth round. But Egbuka has a huge chance here, man. Huge chance. No Mike Evans, completely open, vacated target share. Chris Godwin might not be, you know, Chris Godwin anymore.

He might be a shell of his former self, 75% of his former self. And then Jalen McMillan. McMillan got hurt again in preseason man. The guy just, you know, he's just in the last two August. So it's been snake bitten this year. It's a knee injury. The chance for Agbuka is very, very real, right? Like we saw the great volume last season, Ryan, it's just Baker. Baker Mayfield was very hurt, very injured, dealing with some sort of bilateral shoulder issue. Baker's fully healthy. Egbuka's in year two. There are a lot of conflicting factors around his ADP, though. Like we said, we don't really know if Egbuk is a full-blown alpha-level target earner. We have to learn that this season. And then there might be additional concerns here for Egbuka. Ryan,

What's your thoughts on Amika Abuka this season going into his kind of new ADP. I think this ADP is going to continue to rise with all the bucks kind of injuries they're dealing with. Yeah. So Ibuka's kind of weird to me. He was one of the first players that came to mind with this topic that I really wanted to talk about. I do want to be super clear though. If you're looking at Home League ADP ESPN, Yahoo Sleeper, the ones that probably 95% of listeners are doing most of their drafts,

if not all of their fantasy football drafts on. I have a Mecha Agibuka ranked above ADP on those platforms and quite a bit above ADP. The reason he's on this list for me, though, in terms of I don't feel like I can fairly say, oh, I'm like telling you to draft him Mickey Igbuka. The reason I'm on the other end of that is the wide receivers I have ahead of him that I'm also a round plus ahead of ADP on. most of the time, at least in the tests that I'm running on my rankings as I'm mock drafting and following my own rankings and like just seeing how the teams end up. What I was really finding is you're not going to get much Egbuka if you faithfully follow my rankings because I have players like Jalen Waddle, like Zayflowers, like Ladd-McConkie, ranked ahead of the Mecca-Igbuka, where all of those guys on most platforms have similar ADPs to Ibuka or even later.

or ADPs. If you're drafting those guys, you're probably not drafting a Gbuka unless the board falls just right. So yeah, to be clear, I think Egbuka is a strong vet in a vacuum at ADP if the board falls just like in a certain way to where you can't get some of these other guys that I prefer. But he's like, I can't really say, oh, he's one of my guys based on how I have him ranked. So that's why he's on this list. The reason I'm scared that he burns me. Yeah, it is pretty easy. He was the, third highest scoring wide receiver through an initial five games of his career since Berlin Wall fell only Puka Nakua Randy Moss have averaged more fantasy points per game through an initial five NFL NFL games which is just an absurd stat from weeks one through five

Egbuka was just massively efficient on kind of a like high end wide receiver two ish type of workload he was incredibly efficient I scored as effectively a wide receiver one. Then in week six, Iguca injures his hamstring. The injuries pile up more for Baker Mayfield in week six and week seven. And the offense just kind of crashes and burns. Egbuka maintains his volume where he's still right around 13, 14 expected fantasy points per game, like solidly wide receiver two level territory there. But the efficiency just craters. He's down below eight fantasy points per game after week six because of yeah kind of whatever combination of factors you want to assign there his injuries baker mayfield's injuries uh the buccaneers offensive

line being extremely banged up uh or maybe teams just figuring him out right so it's very difficult for me i think you can very easily look at that and say iqbuka was on his way to one of the best rookie seasons we've ever seen and then injuries hit but we can also say that about so many different players. There's probably read my draft guide, read anatomy of a league winner. There are so many times when I'm like, yeah, up until this injury,

this player was producing at a wide receiver one level or an RB1 level, right? There's just so many guys like that. So it's not like a totally unique thing for Igbuka when I'm weighing him against all of these other players that we can draft, right? But it is like encouraging.

Mike Evans is gone. Like there's, in hindsight, if Ibuka totally smashes and averages 17, 18 fantasy points per game this year, that it will have been pretty easy to say, oh, well, yeah, we probably should have seen that coming. Less target competition, healthier, was a good prospect, did flash before injury. All of that would make just a ton of sense to me.

But yeah, the issue for Egbuka to me is with Zach Robinson coming in as the new OC, there's just too much ambiguity here. and I think that the Buccaneers offense could succeed in a number of different ways, right? This isn't one that I've given like a ton of credence to in terms of how I'm ranking players, but this offense might be more run heavy. Zach Robinson was one of the most run heavy play callers in the league. Of course, he had Bijon Robinson, but he has compared Buckey Irving to Bijon, like very explicitly before, right? They paid all this money to get Kenny Gainwell in the building.

What if this is a much more like run heavy running Vax focused offense than it's been over the last couple of seasons than we've been used to, right? That's one way that a round three or round four ADP for a Mecca Abuka could fail. There's also Chris Godwin, who to me, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Chris Godwin is just washed. We have seen this with so many different players with Mark Andrews, with Tony Pollard, with a lot of players that have these. especially fibula injuries, but Godwin had more than just that dislocated his ankle. It was like flopping around the wrong way as he was like crawling on the field after he after that injury in 2024. Like it was awful. He was play he had like setbacks in the 2025 off season. Like he was clearly playing hurt playing somewhat diminished for a lot of that year.

What if we flip over into 2026? Yeah, Godwin's not super young. He's in his 30s, but it like this is the type of player where he is a little bit more of like a route running type, like a guy that can just sit in the slot and rack up a ton of targets. That to me sounds plausible. We also have seen Godwin really benefit from motion in these types of offenses, right? Where we've got a Baker Mayfield and Chris Godwin themselves have been saying, yeah, this offense is like 50% new stuff. 50% what it was with Liam Cohen. Zach Robinson talks to Liam Cohen on the phone every day. What if it's just a really similar offense,

very motion heavy, lots of just quick, easy PPR scam screens to Godwin, where he was a top three fantasy wide receiver in those first six or seven games with Liam Cohen before he got injured, right? And that can just be like a total target black hole that is just taking everything away

from McBucah. I think that's totally a world we could live in. It literally happened to Mike Evans that year in 2024, that he was not all that great of a fantasy wide receiver when Godwin was healthy just because that was how they were choosing to run the offense. So yeah, I don't know. When you can draft Godwin several rounds later and still kind of get access to this offense is upside. Of course, for all the reasons I talked about first, I'm a little afraid that I'm just drafting Seahawks Cooper Cup last year and missing. out on Seahawks, J-S-N, if that's a Mecha, Ibuka. Like, that has to cross my mind when I give a take like that.

But yeah, I think ultimately I'm happy with getting in on the offense in that way, in a much cheaper way. There are, as I said, I listed off three names I have ranked ahead of Ibuka that are preventing me from getting much of him if you faithfully follow the rankings. That's where I come down. That's where I'm ultimately comfortable. But it is hard. if I will be, yeah, I'll be banging my head against a wall if Hibuka comes out in week one,

week two, and looks like an alpha. And I totally just should have not overthought it. The price is, it's, it is tricky because, you know, there's just like a big, we've been talking about this the whole show, but there's just a big bucket of receivers that are going right into that, that range. You do have to kind of take some stands. And I appreciate Ryan, like coming in and wanting to take a big stand on a lot of these players too specifically with, with McLaurin and Egbuka, kind of in this like shock

an approach of the fourth and fifth round. Egbuka is a player I've really come around on that, though. I've kind of gone the opposite way of Ryan just a little bit. The more I've dug into it, I think with Egbuka, it's like really simple to me. I think now, like Godwin is, okay, maybe he can bounce back and be like 90% of his former self. But here at Fantasy Points, his average separation score really fell off last season. He was consistently like right around like a 0.09 ass the last year, it fell off like by

half, 0.05, 0.06, average separation score. And I talked to Brett. He's got some data behind the scenes that I won't leak, but the numbers on Godwin's speed did not look particularly good last season. So, you know, he's now 30 coming back from an ACL plus, like you said, just like truly one of the worst ankle injuries we've seen in NFL history, at least recent NFL history. I mean, his legs completely snapped, like you said. It's like one of those things where it's like, man, Godwin might not be his self. And now Jalen McMillan's hurt again. And he's missing a bunch of training camp time playing on a new offense.

I could see a really strong start for Egbuka. And Baker Mayfield's just very underrated, like super underrated quarterback. He was QB3 two years ago in catchable throw rate. I'm looking at this as like, would I rather have Amika Agbuka attached to Baker? Or would I rather have Garrett Wilson attached to Gino Smith? And it's like, I love Garrett Wilson, but I just trust. Baker Mayfield way more. I do think there's there's like legitimate downside here though like Ryan was saying. The main downside to me is I just agree with him fully that this offense might be pretty

run heavy. This this team might be a little more run heavy than we think. They might just, you know, say, hey, we don't have Mike Evans anymore. We don't fully trust Egg Bucha to be kind of the engine of this passing offense. Let's just lean on the run game, lean on Bucky. And we'll let the chips fall where they may. They have an awesome front seven, but this secondary Ryan is so bad. They might want to play a little slower pace, try to control the game with the run game. That's the main downside risk I'm seeing. But I think Igbuka is just like in general, a little overpriced depending on the platform. But I certainly see the upside case for him at this price.

Ryan, one final player that is very, very tricky to talk about. And this is a player that I'm very low on too. I don't think he should be going where he's going in most leagues. I much prefer the running backs in his pocket. It's Justin Jefferson. Jefferson, we saw the historically low floor for him last year. Like for a player of his level, Ryan, we should never think of Justin Jefferson as like an eight or nine points per game player. That's kind of what he was at the end of last season.

He was basically unusable. Anybody that had him in fantasy last year knows how bad the Jefferson experience was. And obviously he was drugged down by quarterback play and just this offense was really bad. But Jefferson took a big step back. By average separation score, his separation score was not where it was, at least in 23 and 24. It took a big step back last season, Ryan. There's, you know, I'm not saying that Jefferson is just not the same player anymore. He certainly has the high-end top three, top two type of receiver in football in his range of outcomes.

But I'm kind of viewing this similarly, and I'm curious if it is like just the running backs that go in his pocket that make you, you know, a little, just in terms of like how you're building your teams, right? like just structurally, you prefer the running backs, or if there's just more to the profile here that maybe some people aren't totally getting with Jefferson. Oh, sorry, it was muted. Got it. I didn't. Yeah. All right. Hey, you're good. Jefferson, to me, yes, some of it is the running backs, but some of it is also the profile. I have Drake London ranked ahead of Justin Jefferson, is how low I have ultimately come out on him. I don't think he's any different as a player than he was a couple of years ago. I know some of the separation score data, some of the peripherals were not great last year.

He had some bad moments last year. I'm pretty willing for a player of Jefferson's caliber to kind of chalk that up to he was really pissed off and annoyed with the offense and with J.J. McCarthy McCarthy. And maybe the effort wasn't always there. I remember we saw that with like Devante Adams with the Raiders. and then he went on to have even more productive seasons elsewhere. To me, that's closer to the truth of, like, how good is Jefferson today as a player for me? I still think he's amazing. I still think he's easily, like, a top three or four wide receiver in the NFL.

But, yeah, I just can't get in in fantasy this year. Some people in chat have been comparing him to CD Lamb and saying, like, they think CD feels a bit safer or asking, like, if you're, in on Jefferson or you in or if you're out on Jefferson or you out on lamb for the same reason. To me there's like a very big difference here in that yeah, both of them kind of disappointed last year. For Citi, he was just injured. That was like one of the biggest things, right? Injured his, it was a lower body.

I think it was a hamstring. That's an injury we see receivers struggle with to come back from a lot. I'm like way more willing to chalk last year up to injury for CD and say this is still like a top two passing game environment in the NFL for a player that has scored a ton of fantasy points for years in on this exact team with this exact quarterback uh yes george pickens is here now but cd was still out targeting him in their healthy games together like that a lot of the george pickens splits were very specifically without cd lamb where he was fully going off so i'm not overthinking that angle too much i have cd ranked basically in line with ADP. But with Jefferson, yeah, I really do think the market is,

I guess, the market is too low on Kyler Murray from a fantasy perspective, I think, because he runs a lot. Every veteran quarterback basically ever to come through this Kevin O'Connell system has succeeded for fantasy,

at least somewhat. But I think they're too high on Kyler in the sense of how well is he going to support Justin Jefferson for fantasy football or at least how certain is that to happen, right? Kyler just has had bottom tier accuracy over the middle of the field over the past couple of seasons. I've tweeted incessantly about how I think this is basically what has ruined Marvin Harrison,

Jr. for the last couple of years. Like Kyler is in this specific area, like feeding a receiver on in breaking routes over the middle of the field, just extremely bad. Just a bottom tier option. in terms of who do you want your quarterback to be to put up fantasy numbers as a wide receiver. Of course, Kyler also likes to scramble, likes to run. That's pulling more pass attempts out of the offense compared to more of like a pocket passer, right? So that's like another kind of issue with drafting any receiver on the Vikings in fantasy this year.

And then Jefferson specifically in 2023 and 2024 led, led the NFL in fantasy points per game on deep and intermediate targets over the middle of the field. This was a banger stat that Jacob Gibbs from over at fantasy football today had pulled. But basically what this is saying is all of that stuff that we just had on screen that Kyler's awful at. That's like where Jefferson was scoring a ton of his fantasy points more than anybody else in the league in 2023 and 2024, completely cratered last year with. with J.J. McCarthy. In this specific area, I don't know that Kyler is actually an upgrade in terms of, yeah, just facilitating those targets to Justin Jefferson down the field. It could very well end up nothing. It could just be like, hey, Justin Jefferson has averaged 18 fantasy points per game or more every single year before last year. He's been over two and a half yards per outrun and every single year before last year. I, J.J. McCarthy was just so much worse than anything else he's ever dealt with. Kyler has a level of competency that he can succeed with.

But I think there's like that, even if I were to put it at like a 30 to 40% chance, that it's not significantly better just for Jefferson over the middle of the field. That's like unacceptable to me for a round one pick for a guy that I'm drafting over all of these running backs at the one-two turn that I, that I really like that I'd be drafting over a Drake London who easily outscored Justin Jefferson last year, especially before London got injured, right? He was the wide receiver three in fantasy points per game before he hurt his PCL, came back for a couple of games at the end of the year, ruined all of his like full season averages, kind of ruined everybody's perception of him. Now he's a round two pick. Are we that certain that the quarterback situation is,

going to be better for Jefferson for fantasy football than Drake London's is. I mean, Tuotunga Vailoa has been, say what you want about him. He got some amazing seasons out of Tyree Kill. He's like a good quarterback for a wide receiver to have in fantasy football because he gets the ball out quickly. He gets it to his top receiver. He is accurate down the field, at least at his best. or even if it ends up being Michael Penix, like Drake London has averaged nearly 20 fantasy points per game and 12 career starts with Michael Panics. Like that's a real stat, that's absurd.

We've seen like the proof of concept. And London has kind of two chances for the quarterback to work out. Jefferson really only has the one chance to me. Unless you are still a J.J. McCarthy bull, I won't call you a J.J. McCarthy deadender just because that's kind of mean. And I was a J.J. McCarthy guy for fantasy last year too. So I'm with you guys. I feel that.

But yeah, I just am more oddly, like more bullish on the quarterback situation for the Falcons for Drake London as it relates to his fantasy scoring than I am for Justin Jefferson. So yeah, he's one of like I said, of course, this is guys that I'm low on that could burn me. It's freaking Justin Jefferson. He's amazing. Could easily burn me. But that's like, yeah, one of the biggest kind of like anti-Sense. stands I have in round one is yeah I will I will have no Justin Jefferson whatsoever at anything approaching his ADP on any platform so I just completely agree I think with Jefferson in particular

it has nothing to do with him actually like I just said like he's he's clearly one of the best receivers in football I think he could be the best receiver in football if he ever everything breaks right again like we've seen it for five years I mean the guy was on an incredibly just basically one of the most productive stretches in football history regardless of quarterback play, but I do think, you know, we're getting into the nuances of these players at the end of the first round. C.LAM has got significantly better in a much higher floor quarterback play in Dak Press guy. Kyler, man, I mean, we've been saying for years that Kyler is overrated as an NFL passer. For fantasy, he's great, Ryan, because he runs around a lot, averages 30 yards

rushing per game. He's got a little rushing upside near the goal line. He's great for fantasy in that regard, but for his receivers, we've been saying for years that he's held his receivers back. Why aren't we using the same analysis for Kyler right now? Are we just like completely memory-holling this for Kyler? Like, yeah, J.J. McCarthy was terrible last year. We were wrong. I was wrong about McCarthy last year. Fully, fully admit that. But, man, Kyler, since 2019, among the quarterbacks that have thrown 1,500 or more pass attempts, Ryan. Kyler's 24th out of 31 and touchdown rate. He is 24th in yards per pass. attempt. He's 15th in yards per game. I mean, just from a base stat level perspective,

he's not been very good for his receivers. And then when I went back to look, over the last three years of fantasy points data charting on all throws 10 or more yards down the field, he's bottom six in accuracy, bottom six and catchable throw rate down here with, you know, quarterbacks that have struggled with accuracy down the field by Caleb Williams and Justin Fields and Will Levis. To your point on Tua, Tua's top 10, top eight. accuracy on throws 10 or more yards down the field. Like, yeah, too is not the world's best quarterback, but like you said, he gets the ball out quickly on time and in rhythm.

I have real concerns about, just my only concern with Jefferson is, is Kyler's fit within this offense and fit within O'Connell's scheme. One other factor here is the Vikings have been very, very pass heavy, Ryan, the last couple years, they've been pass heavy, you know, basically in the middle of the field, and they've been very past heavy near the goal line. I'm curious to see if this is a team that kind of changes. their stripes a little bit, maybe tries to run the ball and become a little more balanced, try to have answers for the current NFL meta of, you know, playing a lot of too high coverage,

having the middle of the field open. The Vikings have got to try and run the ball better, in my opinion, if this offense is going to work this season, because I don't think you can really just saddle up Kyler with, you know, 35 dropbacks and expect to put up a bunch of points. It's just not the player he's been. It's not the player he's been in his career, and I don't think he's going really change his stripes for that. And, you know, again, this could burn me because Justin Jefferson is incredible. He could get 150 targets and be, you know, just an absolute dominant playmaker with the ball in his hands like we've seen so many times in his career. But yeah, I see the same downside with Jefferson as Ryan this season just because I think this quarterback situation

is maybe a little worse than we're expecting in fantasy. Ryan, this has been awesome. Five players, Ryan is refusing to draft at ADP going through the top six rounds. Brian Thomas Jr., Trevion Henderson, Terry McClureen, Amika Agbuka, and Justin Jefferson. Just an hour of great high-level fantasy analysis. Ryan, you are going to be updating your rankings article. I'm sure throughout the rest of this summer and draft season, as draft season kind of heats up here, you got any other plans? Any other content you want to plug here that's coming out here?

Yeah, like we said, go get my rankings, my targets, my must draft players. That's an article on fantasy points.com that you can go check out. I will be updating it periodically. We'll probably push through a big update later this afternoon, just catching up on some news from over the weekend and shifts that we've seen, ways my mind has been changed. So yeah, definitely go check that out. In terms of other content, I'm going to, over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be releasing just like some refreshers, some breakdowns on what are the most predictive stats at

every single position. So if you are just diving back into your fantasy football research right now, maybe you're checking out the fantasy points data suite that has all the numbers that me and Graham are citing on a consistent basis. If you are wanting to do your own analysis or just interpret everybody else's analysis, I'm going to have some articles going up saying these are the most predictive stats at the running back position, at the wide receiver position, at the tight end position, the things that actually matter the most for fantasy production to kind of just help people not get as lost in the sauce of all of the overwhelming data that we have. So that that's like a fun little series that I'm going to be doing over the next couple weeks that you can check out

on fantasy points.com. Yeah, Ryan, you do, you know, the nitty, gritty analysis better than anybody. I also think some of your high level analysis is better than anybody, just going, you know, looking at things from a top-down perspective. So make sure you're on the lookout for Ryan's kind of breakdowns of each staff that matters here at Fantasy Points. If you have not already subscribed, you can use the QR code on the screen if you're listening to us on YouTube. Just scan that with your phone right there on the bottom, right hand corner below Ryan. Scan that code.

It'll take you right at the plans page. Use code fantasy, one word. Fantasy. Save yourself 10% off any plan right now. For Ryan, I'm Graham. This was another awesome episode of Fantasy Football Daily. Ryan, you've got a new show coming out with Scott. It will be a debate show.

I'm excited for that one. It's going to be a great show between you and Scott. Heavyweight battle. Make sure you guys check that one out coming out on this feed or wherever you get your podcast later today. For Ryan, I'm Graham. We'll see you at the top of the little boards.