Fantasy Football Daily - A Deep Dive Into Exciting Rookie Prospects Ahead of The 2025 NFL Combine | Fantasy Football Daily

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Fantasy Points begins the march to the 2025 NFL Draft with Brett Whitefield and Theo Gremminger taking a deeper dive into some of the exciting prospects ahead of the 2025 NFL Combine. #FantasyFootball Fantasy Points Senior Bowl Fantasy Notes article here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2025/senior-bowl-fantasy-notes#/ Where to find us: http://twitter.com/BGWhitefield http://twitter.com/TheOGFantasy Find Our Podcasts Here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/podcasts#/ Subscribe to FantasyPoints for FREE - https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/ FantasyPoints Website - https://www.fantasypoints.com NEW! Data Suite - https://data.fantasypoints.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/FantasyPts Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FantasyPts Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/FantasyPts TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@fantasypts #fantasypoints #nfl #fantasyfootball #dynastyfantasyfootball #FantasyFootballAdvice #dynastypoints #dynasty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's week three of Canadian tires early Black Friday sale. These prices won't go lower this year. Maybe too long. Freezing. Save up to 50% November 20th to 27th. Conditions apply, details online. When planning for life's most important moments, sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start.

That's why we're here to help. When you pre-plan and prepay a celebration of life with us, every detail will be handled with simplicity and professionalism, giving you the peace of mind that you've done all you can today to remove any burden from your loved ones tomorrow. We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at Dignitym memorial.ca. The Dignity Memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral

cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. Which players are set to gain value at the NFL Combine? Theo Greminger and Brett Whitefield for fantasy points. We are recording this on Monday ahead of the NFL, the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. This is always a huge time of year for fantasy football managers. Brett, how excited are you? about the combine in general. Oh, man, I'm, I'm pretty stoked, man, because, like,

I think there's, there's an element where we just need to sit back and appreciate what's happening. You know, I love, like, these guys have worked so, they put in so much work to get their bodies to perform at this level. I like just sitting back and just taking it all in, just in appreciating it for what it is. It's, it's awesome. It's, you know, it's not a gladiator event, but it feels like it. All these guys almost, they're basically shirtless going out there running, being strong.

It's just, it's awesome. It's man stuff, man. I love it. I love it. Yeah. And for us in fantasy football, it's unbelievable because the schedule is on Saturday at 1 o'clock Eastern time. We get the quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers all working out on the same day, essentially at the same time. It's awesome. Friday night, we get the tight ends. So for us, it's like a very consolidated day at the office. I know you're going to watch every single position, but fantasy football managers, Saturday is like a little mini holiday for us. craving football, craving these guys we get to see for our redraft leagues, for our dynasty leagues.

Brett, we're going to start getting like sort of big combine-related news seemingly every day, even hour by hour as we get closer to the actual start time. Guys start doing things like checking in on Sunday. We have an idea who's going to compete. If somebody's going to be banged up at the combine, we find that out pretty quickly. But the big storyline right now, certainly for fantasy football and for NFL draft in general is Shadur Sanders is not going to be throwing at the combine. Now, as a preface, Shadur Sanders has met with the top three teams already,

but he is not going to throw at the combine. And you're getting some really big-name people that do mock drafts, certain some big-name NFL coverage people, like very, very critical of this, saying things like he doesn't want to throw alongside other NFL draft prospects. like the the haters are out in full effect for Shadur Sanders. Where are you at on this decision? Does it matter to you that he's strung at the combine or not? It's funny to me that we treat it differently than we treated Bryce Young.

Like Bryce Young was kind of like a consensus type QB1. Wasn't a lot of people pushing back on that, right? So when he decided not to throw, he didn't have many haters coming out. Shadur is a very polarizing guy. And for whatever reason, that just means that we don't treat it the same way. For me, it's a bummer, man. I like to see you guys go out and compete. I was critical of Bryce too.

I'm a little critical of Sanders about it. At the end of the day, it's not a huge deal. We got four years of tape on Sanders. We don't need, you know, him throwing next to, you know, Will Howard and Bazook Arm Cam Ward. That doesn't really matter to me. We know it's an inferior arm talent situation. So it is what it is.

It doesn't really bother me that much. It's a little bit of a bummer. I think the people spending time hating on him, you know, that's, you know, That's just the culture we live in, I guess, but that's also lame. Yeah, I mean, Dion Sanders is always a lightning rod. Shadur has been a lightning rod type player for a lot of people out there. But for me, it's someone in the top 10, most of the teams that are selecting a quarterback in the top 10 have sort of already made their decision on whether they like Sanders or not at this point. And then it comes down to is there another quarterback that's in consideration with him?

Talk about guys like Ward, talk about guys like Dart. Teams are going to maybe potentially value these guys differently this year. So for me, I think that, like you said, Sanders is like a Bo Nix type in terms of experience level. It matters far less for him than it will a number of other players at the combine. But yeah, people love to pile on Shadurr Sanders whenever possible. Let's talk about how the combine will affect you, Brett, because you are watching every single game, every single play that these players have taken part in. you have an extensive evaluation process, a very film-based evaluation process.

Then we are going to get these verified numbers coming in athletically that you can finally trust, not what a college is reporting, not what we're hearing about this guy, but what the NFL is measuring in Indianapolis. How will the athletic numbers coming back change your process or evaluations on certain players? Yeah, I'm going to give you a 3,000 foot. view of how it kind of weaves into my evaluation process, but I will encourage you go check out the February 25th edition of First Read with myself and Joe Marino. We hit it at a pretty high level. I think we spent 10 to 15 minutes really getting into that topic specifically, how we weigh that

in the evaluation process. So go check that out if you want more details. But 3,000 foot view right now, I have a numeric scoring system. It's a weighted score. It comes out. Each player gets a grade, zero to 100. Within that number, there's different benchmarks for round values. That score is comprised of four major buckets that are all weighted differently. Those buckets are, you know, I have a skills and traits bucket, a production bucket, which is basically the analytics. And then an athletic bucket is the third bucket. So I'm looking for, like as I watch these guys, Theo, I get, I have archetypes for each position. I call them positional archetypes or roles, you could say. Within those archetypes, I have benchmarks I want to see athletically. And so I use the combine, just

to check boxes mostly or tell me who the outliers are. So it's like a to the running back for Virginia Tech. We know that guy's going to run really fast. It's already in my valuation. Just looking for him to check that box. Confirm what I see on tape. That's your archetype for me. You are a speed back, change of pace back that relies on a burst and acceleration

and long speed. Great. Check the box. If he doesn't check the box, like say he shows up and runs four or five Theo, now I got to break out the valuation. Okay, what are we missing here? maybe I messed something up in the evaluation. I have to look at it a second time.

But for the most part, I'm just looking to find out all the guys checking boxes. And then if there's outliers on either side of that, overperformers or underperformers, then I got to reevaluate their case specifically. But that's what I use it for. Yeah. And for me, I love how you use the term double counting. Like you've,

and we went over this last year in sort of when we discussed guys like Xavier worthy, where. you knew that they were going to be fast. So fantasy managers, if a guy is supposed to be fast and he runs fast, that shouldn't change anything we think about the player. It's certainly going to move the needle for some players, but we don't want it to be like we over, overreact to the combine. I think for me, for fantasy managers,

the great thing about the combine is it'll say a lot more about sort of the draft capital that teams might be more willing to spend on some of these guys. So for me, like if it's an early best ball or it's valuing sort of these rookies in dynasty startups, you can feel a little bit more comfortable about the premium assets when they back it up with athletic measurables that are strong. So yeah, no, I love that one, Brett. And I think it's a really good one because, again, you're hitting the tape so hard in just kind of talking about how it's part of it, but it doesn't sort of like reshuffle any too much. I love that one. Let's start talking about some of the players that we think are going to have big combines.

And the first player I want to talk about is one that we've discussed on several pods. I know leading up to Mobile, we were both very excited about seeing Sabian Williams perform. And he did not participate. That was disappointing. But we expect him to have a very, very big combine. This is a wide receiver with size. also was moved around the field a lot at TCU, Bruce Feldman's Freaks List guy.

How do you expect Sabian Williams to test? I think he's like a freak, man. Freakless is a great way to describe him. You kind of buried the lead there a little bit too. You said a receiver with size. He's a giant dude. I mean, this guy might be bigger than Harold Fanon Jr. When it's all sudden done, you know what I mean?

Like 6.5.230 plus. I mean, just an absolute unit, Megatron size essentially. Now, whether he runs Megatron fast or not, I guess we'll find out. But some of the rumors are he is going to put up something in the four threes at that size. That's ridiculous. That'd be an insane speed score. And we know if you read Scott Barrett's article that's, or sorry, Ryan Heath's article that just dropped about correlating what combine measurements, you know, correlate to draft value. Well, 40 time is, it almost, it almost correlates negatively, actually.

The faster you run, it's almost like the lower the chances of you being a good NFL player, which is really funny to think about. It's kind of a brain melt there, actually. But Savion, you know, I think he's going to jump really well. You see that on the tape for sure. Good vert, good broad, should run really fast as well. I don't know that I'm buying into four-threes, Theo, personally, even though, that's the rumors.

I think low four-fours, though, are definitely on the table for him. Either way, I think we come away from the weekend thinking he's one of the most athletic dudes in the class. Low, but, you know, like, this is why we have the speed scores. And if he's 235 and runs in the low-4-4, that's insane. And Sabian also, like you brought up, the vertical should be there. A lot of the lifting numbers that came out of TCU.

Guys don't really fudge those, Brett. It's kind of hard to fudge those when you're in a weight room surrounded by other players. Sabian's, Sabian Williams is weight room numbers. We're also super, super high. And he's an interesting one where they lined him up in the wildcat. They lined him up at running back, line them up at wide receivers. He's a little bit older prospect, too. This is not a young wide receiver, but this guy could go nuts athletically.

When we come back, we're going to talk about one of the tight ends that we loved in Mobile, Elijah Arroyo. Welcome back, Theo Greminger and Brett Whitefield for fantasy points, talking about players who are going to gain value at the NFL scouting combine. Brett, we've been basically talking about Elijah Royo every time we talk to one another ever since Mobile. actually ever since about the first 15 minutes of the senior bowl practice, when we were both like Elijah Royo is going absolutely nuts. Then we podcasted a million times since. Arroyo is my tight end three in what I believe to be an exceptionally good tight end group.

How do you expect for Arroyo to perform athletically? Yeah, I kind of fully expect him to be the most athletic tight end at the combine. Now, there might be a guy I haven't really studied much yet that pops up. You know, there's guys who overperform or have crazy performances that you haven't really heard of yet. But as far as the known commodities that we have, that top seven, eight tight end range that we really like, I think he's going to be the most athletic guy there by a mile. Some of the GPS data that I have access to says that he is the most athletic tight end by a lot. So that's exciting for me.

Yeah. And what do you think when you're talking about a royal, give people like an idea. here. Is this a player that's going to run a four, what in the 40? Like, just your guess. Because when we watched him in Mobile, he moves differently. Like very, very explosive, very fluid athlete, has speed. Just how fast do we think, Brett? Yeah. I, I struggle with this because tight end, like, even a really fast tight end might still be four or five. You know what I mean? So I think he's in the four-fives for sure. Chance he dips into the four-fours. I'm I would say four or five's.

Luke Musgrave comes to mind from a few years ago where on tape he just looked like an athletic freak, a lot of injuries, but he only ran like four, six. He did everything else really well. I think he jumped really high. So I think Arroyo is just an overall really good athlete. I think he's explosive. You see that acceleration being ridiculous. So I think maybe even if he doesn't, you know, drop your jaw from a 40 standpoint, I think he does all of the testing really, really well. And so, but yeah, I would say in the four, five, four, five would make me really.

happy with him and some good jumps. And this has been something you've discussed before, but I think it's important to remind people, tight ends, athleticism at the tight end position is the most important, especially when comparing it to running back and a wide receiver. Kind of your thoughts on athleticism being such a huge factor in both draft capital for tight ends and future NFL performance. It's funny when you look at the history of tight end and some of the guys that have been the

best players ever at their position. They kind of came out of nowhere, if you think about it. Travis Kelsey comes to mind right away. Not a very high draft pick, not a, you know, wasn't this lock stud or anything like that. Antonio Gates is another one who came out of nowhere. Jimmy Graham pretty much came out of nowhere. These guys are all fantastic athletes. And so the evidence, like we've had multiple data scientists look into this, whether you're using relative athletic score from MathBom or Scott Barrett's spork score, there isn't a single athletic measurement out there. that suggests athleticism matters more to a different position.

I think if you use go off RAS, RAS score, there's only been two tight ends in the modern era to have over 800 yards receiving that weren't an 80th percentile athlete or better. I mean, that's mind-blowing. Like that, it just shows you the impact. Athleticism is paramount. It is by far the most important thing.

No matter what I say about a player's film, if he's not a great athlete, chances are he's not going to have a successful career from a production standpoint, which, again, means not a successful career from a fantasy standpoint. Yeah, and I think we just need anecdotal evidence for some fantasy managers out there. If we just look at the best fantasy scores of the position last year, Brock Bowers, Trey McBride, George Kittle, all overly athletic sort of overgrown wide receiver type builds. All of those guys can run.

Talk about guys like David and Joku, Evan Ingram the year before, plus, plus level athletes. And then historically, you look at a guy like a Rob Grancowski, Jimmy Graham, basketball convert, just tons of them over the years that we can point at and say that's a plus athlete at the position and they perform well for fantasy football. So we are absolutely looking for the athletic testing numbers

at the tight end spot. Let's pivot over to running back. And this has been a player where we discussed him on a, we have a pod coming out with the two of us and Cody Carpenter of Ross. to watch where we do an NFL mock draft. And we sort of talked about how Basial Tutton of Virginia Tech has been a guy

that's been a very popular name for a lot of analysts to kind of talk up over the last few days because there are some rumors out there that he's going to do very, very well at the combine. How about your film breakdown for Tutin, what you've seen from him? Also, how do you expect for him to test? Yeah, so a guy like Tutin

I think he's going to be very popular. More popular than I think the draft community realizes. Jamir Gibbs is doing these guys a lot of favors because NFL teams are chasing explosive plays now. If you look at the analytics on generating explosives, I think any drive that has an explosive play in it, it increases your likelihood of scoring on that drive by 4x. So when you're talking about a guy like Tutin who can absolutely scoop, maybe the best acceleration and burst in the class, he's got ridiculous top end speed. I couldn't find a single play where he gets caught from behind in his entire college career,

which is basically two years. He's an absolute stud. And like in a class that's absolutely stacked at a certain point, teams will have to have the conversation of we could we could burn a top 32 pick on Trayvion Henderson or maybe we back off late second, early third on a guy like Tutton and get a very similar skill set and a very accomplished player, Tutan who, you know, he's got all the make you miss moves you could want. It's like it's a great combo of vision.

in explosiveness, man. And so I, you know, he kind of gets lost in the shuffle with this class, Theo, but he's a dude. Like, he's a legit dude. His 23 and 24 tape was both like really, really good. He's another guy that made the freaks list. Interesting, Brett, he transferred up from North Carolina A&T to Virginia Tech as well. So this has been a guy who sort of earned it, moved up levels and had big time production.

And I think it just speaks sort of volumes to the, the quality and depth of the running back class where he's been sort of pushed down a little bit, but it's not a profile that you dislike. It's just there's all these other guys in this class. The athleticism for Tutin is going to matter. And just remember you heard it from Brett Whitefield and Theo Greminger before the guy goes out and blows up at the combine. Let's stay at the running back position

because you mentioned Trayvion Henderson. And this has been a player where fantasy football managers are head over heels with the possibilities that Henderson presents on an NFL. field. You bring up explosive plays. Henderson has those. You bring up sort of the high value touchback where people love to say this guy has Gibbs like traits. Devon A Chan is another high value touch guy, but sort of these these backs that can come in and thrive in committees and are explosive athletically, Henderson is a guy who could gain a lot at the combine.

For sure. And, you know, we've had our debate about Henderson, I guess, our, so. Have we done that publicly, I don't know, but. Well, yes, well, I'm higher on Henderson than you are. And, you know, you could talk about your, your thoughts on him as a player as well. Yeah, so I think I see the things everyone loves with Henderson. Like, I don't hate Henderson by any means. He's still a day two player for me. The biggest question I have is toughness. And I think that's one of the most important traits of running back and have. And if you, if you're not tough as a running back, you're just not going to make it in the NFL. We kind of see this with DeAndre Swift where it's like, for the skill set Swift has, he's always under,

in every single season he's been in the league. And I worry that we're going to get similar things with Henderson there. But that's more of a personal bias, right? So if you want to make an argument, Theo, that he's a top four guy in the class, I'm not going to be mad at you about that. Sure, the skills are there for sure. The talent is there for sure. But yeah, he's another one.

He should blow out the combine. You know, I don't know if there's betting odds on fastest running back 40, but he's definitely in the mix for that. If Henderson runs the fastest 40, then you're going to see him for a lot of dynasty managers in like single QB leagues be right behind of Ashton Genty. He'll move up to the 102. I think that's one where people are expecting fast. But if he just like blows everybody out the water, then Henderson, I think will steam and steam up. He's already being drafted pretty highly on like underdog. You're already seeing his value for a lot of dynasty managers. right there. So Henderson is one where the fantasy community is really rooting for a big, big performance in Indianapolis. Another player where we talk about double counting, but Isaiah Bond, it could be history repeat itself this year, Brett, where a Texas Longhorns wide receiver runs the fastest 40 time at the combine and certainly for the wide receiver

position. Yeah, Bond is, if I had to bet money on fastest 40 of the week, and among offensive players. It would be Bond for sure. Probably, you know, going away, too. Like, he's really, like, the tape says he's insanely fast. You've heard rumors about his training and stuff he's going to do there. I think he was a Felden Freak guy too, right? Yeah, I think so.

I'd have double check that one. And then I got some GPS data that also says he was the fastest receiver in college football this year. So, you know, long story short, this dude's going to run really fast. I'm not going to double count it. My evaluation on Bond is done. I'm just hoping he checks boxes. And if so, great. But I'm not, he's not going to get elevated if he runs 425.

Yeah, this is one like, there's like one like little voice or like one little guy on my shoulder saying don't pay attention to the 40, don't pay attention to the 40. And then there's another one saying Theo, he ran a 425. Let's let's vault him up a little bit. But I agree with you. This is one, Isaiah Bond is going to be super, super fast. He's not, I don't think he's going to get Xavier worthy. but when we look back at like the the Alabama wide receivers there's been and that's where bond transferred to Texas from like the waddles the rugs the jameson williams they're all super super super fast

bond sort of in that super super super fast mold uh but he didn't he's not a guy that either one of us have put into the top five wide receivers in our ranking so just bear that in mind as well let's stay at wide receiver because I'm in a big big FFPC best ball invitational called the Hardway with a couple of guys who have won overalls, a very competitive draft. I drafted Ted McMillan, and this is a single quarterback, not super flex. I drafted Ted McMillan as the second rookie off the board in the fourth round. I'm head over heels over his fantasy potential. I know you also have him as the number one wide receiver in this class. But Brett, you mentioning him as a guy you think is going to gain value at the combine is very,

very, very exciting for me. Jed Fish said it's the best athlete he's ever coached. Wow, I didn't, I have not heard that. That's, that's nuts. And he prefaced it all before not to interrupt you, but he prefaced it with, um, it's the way he factored in things like his processing speed, his anticipation, his quickness, and mentioned that the vertical's not that great, but everything else was like top, top notch for him. The vertical is in vertical leap? He, I can get the exact quote. It's interesting. While you start talking about how you think he's going to do.

Yeah, sometimes with the vert, too, it's when a guy is that tall and long, it's hard to put really good an estimate on the vert because he naturally reaches places other guys can't. But yeah, I think when I say he's going to gain value, here's what I mean by that. I think he's going to test as a really, really, really phenomenal athlete.

And in a class where, you know, I think there was a consensus he was wide receiver one, but now you're seeing a lot of guys really, on the Luther Borden bandwagon. And gosh, I think what, both Lance Zierline and Bruegler have burdened, wide receiver one. That's a kind of speaks volumes. I'm not even close to that, but it's not something to be ignored.

So what I say tech gains value, it's I think he goes in test really well and solidifies himself as the wide receiver one. So there's not a lot of value for him to gain in my eyes because I already think he's wide receiver one, but I think the NFL for sure comes around to that fact. Yeah, it's definitely one where we're rooting for it. because I think from a fantasy perspective, McMillan is a player that can be a 150 target guy,

which is super exciting at his size to be that big of a target, you know, magnet. You've mentioned Drake London several times in trying to like throw out an NFL comp in terms of some of the things that McMillan does. Here's the exact quote. So Jed Fish said that it's the best athlete he has ever seen. And he says that T-Mack is probably the biggest freak that I've ever been around. He doesn't have that great a vertical, but it's his coordination that is freakish. He has great hand-eye coordination. He's the best athlete I've ever seen. He doubled down on that

one. So pretty, pretty strong praise from Jed Fish, for sure on that one. And Fish is Washington coach, but he coached McMillan for two seasons at Arizona. That sort of wraps up our, our offensive players, our fantasy relevant players. But Brett, before we wrap this one up, You think that there is going to be a player on the defensive side of the ball that might do some absurd things athletically at the combine this week. Yeah, and in fact, I'd be as bold to say if Trent Balke was still picking fifth overall, this would be his pick because this is the, this is a Trent Balke pick through and through.

But that's Shamar Stewart, Texas A&M edge defender. The guy's a freak of nature. 6-6-ish, 280 plus pounds. There's rumors he's hit 21 on the GPS. as a 6-6-280 pounder, like make that make sense. His training camp is saying he's going to push four-fours. Again, at 6-6-280-plus pounds. I don't think we've seen anything like that in the NFL.

That's scary. I'm not buying that low personally. I'll go high two or high four-fives, though, and that's still freaky at that size. Ridiculous. So, yeah, absolutely freak in nature. The three cone's going to be nuts, the vert, the broad, all of it. Whatever he participates in is he's going to put up ridiculous numbers.

monster. After this weekend, are we going to see him inside of the top 10 picks in the NFL draft? Is it going to be that freaky a performance? Yeah, I've been saying this for a few weeks. I've like talking to artificial risers. I think he is one for sure. There are a large swath of GMs that they, you know, bet on the traits. They bet on the trades guys. Hey, he's got all the physical tools in the world. We can coach him up and get him ready to rock. So think Trayvon Walker a couple years back. The guy was nowhere near a first overall calibre. player from a skill set standpoint. But the physical traits were so abundant.

I want a bunch of money on that. As soon as I saw that man run his 40, Theo, I bet him to go first overall. And at that time, he was getting mocked in the 20s. So, I mean, I think we're looking at something similar with Shamar Stewart. I don't think he'll go all the way up to number one. I'm not saying that. But I think he go, like right now he's being mocked anywhere from like 15 to 32. I think now after Combine Week, you'll never see him lower than say 20.

Yeah. And shout out to all the people who remember. member the Mike Mamoula pick, which was sort of like the, like this has been happening for years where NFL GMs just can't help themselves, where sometimes these guys just perform so well that they're going to say, you know, we can make it happen. We're going to turn this guy into an all time great and guys sort of get pushed up. But yeah, really, really looking forward to that one. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about a couple of players who could test way better than expected and really some cool names here for you fantasy,

managers out there looking for more quality and depth at the wide receiver position in the 2025 class. Welcome back, Theo Greminger and Brett Whitefield. We're talking about the NFL scouting combine and players who are going to gain value there, especially on the fantasy football side of the ball. Brett, we've talked about the wide receiver class for weeks and weeks and weeks. I think that this has been a positional grouping that's been a little too beat up in the community. it's not the 2024 class,

but you don't have to be the 2024 class to make an impact in fantasy football. Why don't you talk about a couple players that you think could test way better this week at the combine and maybe gain some value in fantasy? Yeah, so these are guys I'm looking at like, hey, if they go out and have a good week

and do all the box checking, like there's an argument that you made there'll be wide receiver too. We've already talked to Burden. not a burden guy, but, you know, if he tests, well, he's, he's in the mix, too. But four other guys, I'll mention, Emeka, Egbuka, Ohio State, Matthew Golden from Texas, the other Texas wide receiver, Jalen Knoll from Iowa State, and Jack Bess from TCU, all these guys have NFL wide receiver skill sets. These are probably the more, the foremost polished guys in the draft

outside of Tett McMillan. And if they go test well and they check that box as good, good to great athletes, I think, you know, some of these guys are knocking on first round door. Some of them will inevitably go in the first round. And then early day two for the other guys. So I'm excited about this group as a whole. I think all of them will do certain things better than you. Like I think Jack Bash jumps way better than people think you will. I don't know about it's 40 time.

If you can get sub 4, 6, I think that's a win. Jalen Noel, though, I think he's going to be a much better athlete all the way around that people think. Golden, again, I think his 40 time will surprise people. And Emeka Ibuka is just a good athlete, like just all the way around. he'll be solid across the board. So what do you think about these four guys? I love it. And we've talked about this where I love that you put down Igbuka

because Igbuka, everybody loves just throwing out like power slot, talking about some of the traits that translate to him being a target earner, but not a lot of like love there for the athleticism. There are some reports out of Ohio State that Igbuka is going to test well. And that's a player with that profile. like we talk about how it can help our well-rounded view of a player. Like if we can look at Egbuka with some of the plays he's made out on the field and then back it up with some very strong testing numbers,

I think that's a profile where we can start getting very excited fantasy-wise. I know you brought up like a stylistic comp to Rashi Rice, which sort of gets the people going in the community, Brett. But Egbuka's one where I think like there are some landing spots where he could perform very, very well this year. and I think he's a first round pick. The other ones like Golden, Noll, Jack Besh, you have this unbelievable little segment of the draft

where it's the late first round into the early second where there's several landing spots that are extremely fantasy friendly and viable for a wide receiver where I look at Green Bay at 23, Houston at 25, the L.A. Rams at 26 as the Cooper Cup replacement. The Baltimore Ravens potentially at 27. The Washington commanders at 29 and the Buffalo Bills at 30, where we start talking about a player that might perform well enough

to get themselves into the first round. There are some of these players, like Matthew Golden is the name where you mentioned that I'm going to circle in like red ink. because if he lands on several of those landing spots and it becomes a little more apparent that NFL teams value him, then I think Golden's a guy that's going to gain. Like, we see it every year in Dynasty where we have all these dynasty rookie rankings, then the actual NFL draft happens. And there's guys where we have like a one week correction before Dynasty rookie drafts.

Matthew Golden could be that guy this year. So much to like about him profile-wise. and then you bring up the athletic numbers of potentially being very strong. He has the special teams background. He has the track and field background. I agree with you. We've talked to Cody Carpenteer, Alex Dunlap, who both cover Texas for Orange Bloods. And both those guys are like, Golden's not Isaiah Bond, but Golden is also really fast, really explosive.

And the yards per reception this year in the SEC, I'd have to look this up, one up. And I'm pretty sure that we're like at 17, 18 yards per reception. This is an explosive big, big play guy. So I'm really into Matthew Golden. I think that's one that could help elevate the class. Let's pivot over. There's in fantasy here, Brett. And the two of us, we've talked about sort of how we rank these guys.

I rank them straight up one through whatever. You rank them by your round projection. So you've had a ton of running back steamed up. But in the fantasy football circles, it's Ashton Genty and then sort of a big four where it's Trayvion Henderson, Quinn John Judkins, O'Mary and Hampton, Caleb Johnson, where there's a kind of a somewhat wide range of opinions on who is the RB2 in this class. I'd say that Quinn Sean Judkins has the fewest people sort of pounding the table for him as the RB2 overall.

but Trayvion Henderson, Omari and Hampton, Caleb Johnson, all have their backers. And I think the Combine is going to go well for potentially several of these guys. But you've brought up Trayvion Henderson as a guy that you think is going to perform very well. When you look at Quinn-Shon Judkins, Omarion Hampton, or Caleb Johnson, if you had to put a chip on one of these three guys checking off a lot of boxes at the Combine athletically, who would it be? I think I'd go Trayvion Henderson. because people will value the 40 time more than the other stuff.

I think Hampton might be the better overall athlete, like when it's also done three cones, shuttle, jumps, yada, yada. But for just burst and acceleration and top end speed, I think Henderson will test the best. He's got that juice. And I've seen, I got tape of Hampton. You know, he's getting, he's getting chased down by safeties and corners. And you never see really Henderson getting caught from behind by anybody.

So, yeah, Henderson certainly ran away from the Texas defense. than the half at that playoff game. Let's talk a little bit about Hampton, though, because I think like, bring that, go a little bit deeper into context on that one, because Hampton would have been my guess to have a very, very strong performance at the scouting combat.

I think he's going to run well, Brett, and I also think that he's a legit 220, where a lot of college teams might list the guys weight, and then you get to the combine and things sort of shift. But to me, when I see Hampton, he's every bit 220. I think he's going to run pretty fast. you break up the fact that you saw him getting caught from behind. Go a little bit more into that.

Yeah. So, well, one thing, you know, he had a lot of, because he breaks so many tackles, he gets a lot of runaway opportunities. And there are a lot of runaway opportunities where he, you know, there's a safety with the poor angle that catches him. I even got one with the linebacker, you know, who's got, Hampton's got a five-yard cushion on him and gets caught by the linebacker. I've seen a lot of people float in this 23.2 miles per hour GPS time.

for Hampton out there. And I do think it's true. The problem is the play that happened on was an interception from his quarterback in which Hampton had like a 60-yard runway to catch the guy with the ball. And so he hit that 23 miles an hour on that play. It wasn't a play he was carrying the ball or anything. So is the juice there?

Like he's got juice in droves. I'm not saying he doesn't. I just think, you know, that top end speed probably isn't as good as a Henderson's and he needs a little bit more buildup runway speed to get going. And that's it. That's really all. Yeah. And Caleb Johnson's one where there are some people predicting a super, super fast 40.

I think I said on another pod last week, I said that I thought like a 4-5, maybe a 4-48. And somebody, there were some people like sort of angry. They wanted more enthusiasm on the speed. I've seen some people saying a 4-4. or this is always a difficult thing to say like, Brett, what's the guy's 40 going to be? But what are your general feelings on how Caleb Johnson's going to test? How much do you think he's going to weigh, how fast he's going to be? Like your general idea of him athletically, because this is another player that there's a ton of enthusiasm for in fantasy football right now.

Yeah, another really good prospect, by the way. So whether he runs really fast or not, it's kind of irrelevant to me. I think he's a really good player. but I don't see that top level, you know, that high-end speed, that breakaway speed in him. I see really good burst in explosiveness and a weight-adjusted speed score might still be great, but I would put him low four-fives at best, maybe mid-four-fives. Remember, running backs always, too, they do run slower than people think every year. Corners and wide receivers are the fastest players in the NFL.

So I think a lot of times we get caught up with this is a really fast running back. He's not going to run cornerback. speed though guys. It's rare. Like Jemir Gibbs and Devin A. Chain and who was the cat last year, those guys are just, they are just rare. So I think speed adjust or weight adjusted speed score, I think will still be really good with Caleb, but I don't think he's pushing into the four fours. If he does, I'll stand corrected. I don't see that kind of top speed on tape though. Yeah, last year we actually had some some very exciting 40 times out of the running back's position, Garendo, Jalen Wright. But yeah, it's a you never know. And Jail and Jail.

Zealand rights blind. And so, you know, there you go. There you go. But we will always have Indianapolis, Brett. We'll always have Indianapolis. Let's talk about, you know what? Let's dive into the tight end position, Brett, because we've talked about the tight end position. Let's sort of talk about the big four. Not even the big four. Let's go even a little bit more expansive on that if you'd like. But Tyler Warren, Colston Loveland, let's talk about these two guys, athletically, where are these two guys at? I know we've talked about Arroyo a little bit earlier, who we would both include in like our top four tight-end rankings.

But Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland, for most people, are both projected to go inside of the top 20 picks at this point. I think when it comes to Warren, we could see him inside of the top 10. Loveland potential to be inside the top 15. So we have a chance that you could have two top 15 picks at the tight-end position in the same draft class, which is extremely rare.

The fun thing about these two is they're both completely different types of tight ends, and the athleticism is also very different. Now, I think they're both really good athletes, but they're going to accomplish that athleticism in different ways. Colson Loveland is a very smooth, agile route runner. He's a very smooth athlete. He gets in and out of his brakes really tight. He's short area quickness in droves, right?

you know he's got good leaping ability um i think you can juxtapose that to a tyler warren who's a little bit longer a little bit stiffer he's got long legs he's a little bit more of a long strider he's got he needs some buildup room but i think tyler warren's a really good athlete though and i think something we we we kind of gloss over with ted macmill and you were laying the foundation for it was what we call functional athleticism right and jed fish's comments speak to that body control and body control is my number one trait among past catchers, whether you're a running back, wide receiver, or tight end.

If you've got good body control, you can kind of accomplish everything. And so I think Tyler Warren is, you know, expert body control guy with good long speed because of those long explosive strides where Colson Loveland's a little bit more on the smooth side,

really good agile players, you know, things of that nature. So very different players, but I do think they're both really good athletes. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that they're both going to show up at the combine. Loveland is faster than I think some people think, and I think we'll see that in the 40 time.

Warren also is going to weigh in heavier than a couple of the other tight ends. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm not sure exactly what Warren is going to weigh in, but I think north of 255 seems about right at his height. And if he goes over 260 and runs well, that's just going to further cement him. Sorry, he has the best GPS numbers of any, any tight end in the class actually.

Yeah, and also, like when we talk about Tyler Warren, everybody loves throwing out the receiving statistics. But Brett, you don't give players manufactured rushing attempts at that volume where you end up getting over 200 rushing yards from the tight end position this year at Penn State if the guy's not just a really, really good athlete. It's wild, wild, the amount of pure stats that he accumulated. If you just took Tyler Warren's numbers and threw it on a Big Ten wide receiver. Everyone would be getting like super, super excited about that sort of level of production,

just wild. But we talked about a royo. We've talked about the two guys that we feel extremely strong about their draft capital in Loveland and Warren. Now you got Harold Fanon Jr. The most productive tight end in college football history on a single game, a single season basis. I had also over 1,000 receiving yards in 2023, over 70 receptions in 2023. So back to back years of top level production, ripped up the two big schools on the schedule in Penn State and Texas A&M, huge stat lines against both them. Wait in at 238 at the Senior Bowl, Brett. This is a guy where what do you expect him to do at the NFL Combine? How important is it for him? Yeah. So it's, dude, important. That's a great word to you. This week is really important for him.

There's enough red flags in his profile where it's like, please don't. make athleticism one of them. You know what I mean? Like it's so let's let's uh let's dive into that a little bit just a old deal that's something I put in here and the in the show sheet we like that was not what he was listed at in college. So you can make the argument that a lot of times guys add a little weight for a way in and senior bowl maybe he did that. I need to see that 238 hold. But man, on top of that he got it he has come out and be a good athlete because of the size concerns the fact that at senior bowl he never lined up in line. He was H-back only, some slot reps, but he really played fullback slash H-back.

There's just really not a lot of fantasy-relevant guys playing that position, right? And so I need this guy to play tight end if he's going to be fantasy relevant. And so we can't have an athleticism red flag as well. There's just too many other things going on. So I want to see him go out there and run fast. He needs to look smooth in all the past-catching drills. It is a huge week for him. It can't be understated how important it is.

And one player that is not on the show sheet, but I'm just interested in what you anticipate from Miranda Gadsden, the Syracuse tight end slash maybe wide receiver on some teams boards. I hope not. We want him to stay at tight end for fantasy football purposes. But I know he scored very highly in Scott Barrett's rookie model. How do you anticipate he's going to perform athletically in Indianapolis? Yeah, I'm a big fan of his as well. one of the things I look for in the modern NFL is mismatch guys.

And so this is a dude you can move all over your formation out wide in the slot and in line. He played in line about 40% of the time at Syracuse, which doesn't sound like a lot. But when you compare to, you know, a lot of guys of that archetype, that's about what they're doing. Right. So he's basically a big slot that can play in line. I think this is a big week for him because he has to test as a good athlete, for one. But for two, he's got to prove to teams that he can be a tight end. And then from there, we're looking at landing spy.

He's got to land on a team that's comfortable playing in 12 personnel and things of that nature. Because I don't see him being in every down tight end right now. Like he's got to add a little weight to the frame, get a little stronger at the point of attack and the run game. But this is the starting point for him. I got to see what he weighs. Can he get over that 240 to 240 mark? He's long too, right? He's what, 6.5.

Yeah, he's 6.5. I think legit 6.5. So he's got the frame to certainly add weight. Now we've got to see what he weighs in at. But big week all around for just the measurables and the testing numbers. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about players with the most on the line at the NFL Combine. Get you and your crew to the big shows with Go Transit.

Go connects to all the main concert venues like TD Coliseum in Hamilton and Scotia Bank Arena in Toronto. And Go makes it affordable with special e-ticket fairs. A one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel across the network on any weekend. end day or holiday for just $10. And a weekday group pass offers the same weekday travel flexibility from $30 for two people and up to $60 for five. Buy yours at go transit.com slash tickets. Welcome back.

Brett Whitefield and Theo Graminger for fantasy points. We are breaking down players who are going to gain value at the scouting combine. Brett, we've talked about the elite running backs. We've talked about the players we expect are going to gain value. We've taken a deep dive into the tight end position. There's two players that I've circled that I think have a ton on the line at the combine. The first one, Tess Johnson, weighed in at like 156 pounds at the Senior Bowl, but completely dominated in every drill, looked fantastic, had a ton of steam, ton of momentum, but 156, Brett,

he has to fly. And I'll preface this with last year, the betting market said that Troy Franklin and And Bucky Irving were both going to be in the mix for the fastest 40 at their positions and both disappointed. Is Tess going to break the string of Oregon players underperforming in the 40? Maybe it's just a lack of muscle master these dudes, you know? They're so small. They don't have the muscles to propel it. No, I don't know.

When I watched Troy Franklin and Bucky Irving's tape, I never once thought, oh, wow, these guys are burners, right? But when I watch Taz, I do think that. So, yeah, I think there's a good chance he breaks the mold. but man, you nailed it. The size 156, that's tiny. Like, he has to fly for him to be a viable NFL option. Now, we know at that size he'll never be a wide receiver one, right, in the NFL. But if he's going to earn a wide receiver two role and be kind of a go-to deep threat,

the guy that you trust to make the most of his skill set, he's going to have to have, like, undeniable, measurable speed. And I think that's what this weekend is for for him. Yeah, and when we talk about guys that are the super low BMI, Xavier Worthy super low BMI gets inside the first round. Jordan Addison, super low BMI gets inside the first round. Devontas Smith super low BMI, nearly a top 10 pick. Let's throw those guys out the window because Tess Johnson won't be a first round pick.

But if you start looking at the guys who were day two picks that were the super, super skinny ones, two big names that ring a bell, two Atwell was I believe a second round pick. And then Tank Dell was a third round pick. obviously we had big time fantasy success from tank Dell especially as rookie season 2-2 Atwell been sort of a mixed bag nothing great there but those guys both ran very very well when you look at Dell versus Tess do you think more in like a straight line 40 we're looking at Tess being faster in just your initial initial feel here Brett yeah I forget what a tank run you know let me pull those ones up because I don't want to I don't want to try to use my memory on this one

No, go ahead. Yeah, give me one second there. While you're doing that. Yeah, go for it. You know, Tess, well, the thing with Tank, I think Tink would have been a second round pick, too, but he was also older. He was older and small, 24 years old as a rookie. Tess, obviously not. So it's tough because everything about Tanks profile was kind of strange because he was a guy who, like, played above the rim.

He played big for his size. You don't really see that from Tess. So they are really different players. Tess is more of a pure route runner, probably a pure route runner, probably a pure. here slot receiver where Tank legitimately had the tools to play on the outside as a small guy. So very interesting, I guess two guys to compare there. Well, 2-2, and so I mixed these ones up because Tank actually only ran a 4-4-9, which is a little bit of a disappointment for him at that size at the combine. Tutu Atwell ran the 4.39, which is sort of like what we expected,

but Atwell was the one where there was all these reports that Atwell was like a 4-2 guy, and the 4-39 was like a disappointing score. So I would venture that Tess has a chance of being faster than both of these guys. And with what we saw at the Senior Bowl, I think if Tess gets in that 435 range, he's going to go on day two. Because all the guys have been going in the Senior Bowl and having big time performances over the last few years have all sort of had their draft capital pushed up. So he's already got a leg up by having a strong few days in. Mobile, this is like needs to back it up. Would you agree 435 is?

That's the exact number I was going to throw out. I think Tess runs 435. I think that that'd be a really good number for him. 437 probably. You know, 433 to 437, I think it would be a great range for him to be in. Okay, so we got to talk about Cam Scataboo, because this is a player that is sort of a polarizing player for many in fantasy right now, where there are certain analysts really want to push him up. Certain analysts want to be very realistic about things. There's certain analysts

that are not into him. This is a player where we've talked back and forth about him for months now. What is your general feel on Cam Scataboo, the athlete? And also, how big is he really? Because this is one where, you know, I talk to some people are seeing like a 225 and making comparisons to guys like James Connor, David Montgomery. I've said, I'm not sure he's that big. Your thought. thought spread. Yeah, I don't think he's that big. And if he does weigh in at that weight, he's not running. I'll promise you that. I think he's going to be small. If he runs, he'll be around 2.15, which is, by the way, that's not small, but it is small considering the workload you're anticipating he can handle, right? Yeah, my big issue with him and his valuation is he just doesn't have the juice for me to be a super viable running back worth a day, you know, I got, I mean, not. definitely not a day one, but like early to midday two. I don't even like him there because the burst acceleration just isn't there. The long speed isn't there.

I think he'll struggle in certain schemes. Like teams like Minnesota will just, they won't even have them on the board, I don't think, because it's all outside zone. He's not going to be able to win the corner consistently. It's going to need to go to like a team like Denver, I guess would make sense is like a round three pick because it's downhill.

It's duo. It's power. It's counter. But any, any scheme he's going to have to push the, push the envelope and win the corner consistently, just don't see that working out for him. So that's one of the reasons I'm a little lower.

I think he's my RB 10 or 11 right now. And by the way, if he tests poorly at the combine, this class is good enough where he could get absolutely buried, Theo. Like we're talking some guys having him as an RB5 all the way down to, well, you tested bad and now 15 people just leapfrogged you. Yeah, I think this is a, this is a, of all the players we've talked about, he needs to have a strong combine. Because, like, Scatabo, if he weighs, you brought up a very interesting point that he might not run if he weighs in pretty heavy.

But like, let's, like, with his profile, like, there's been multiple teams who've talked about him as how powerful he is, how he doesn't lose yardage, how he can be a powerback. Like, if you're going to be that, you've got to be 225. And we've talked about guys like Damien Martinez that can do that already. And they're younger and maybe have more juice. Then you talk about him as a receiver where some people, view Scataboo as a receiving asset. Maybe you think he's a little bit more of a compiler in that nature. But if I look at pure receivers, there's a ton of competition as well. I've got specialists like Breshard Smith, LeQuint Allen, and then I've got a more well-rounded back that both of us have

more highly ranked in RJ Harvey, which we think will have also a strong combine. So for all the players we've talked about, certainly Tess Johnson has a lot of pressure on him. Harold Fennon Jr. has a lot of pressure on them of the fantasy friendly assets, but there's a lot of pressure on Camp Scataboo. We've got to see it. There's got to be a couple of things being checked off here, especially after not seeing him at the Senior Bowl. Yeah, that'll be a very, very interesting one. And Brett Whitefield and I are going to be covering the NFL draft right up until the first

round. We're going to be getting you ready to crush your fantasy leagues this season with deep, in-depth knowledge of all of the players in this exciting class. We're going to be back next week. we are going to re-rank the class post-combine. That's going to be a really fun one, Brett. We might have to actually expand it a little bit. Might have to go past the top 10 on a couple of these positions.

But make sure you're subscribed to all of our podcasts here at Fantasy Points. Make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel as well. And let's go have a fun NFL Combine this weekend.