Fantasy Football Daily - Fantasy Football TE Expert Andrew Cooper Breaks Down The 2025 Rookie TE Landscape

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Fantasy Points continues the march to the 2025 NFL Draft with Theo Gremminger bringing Andrew Cooper, three-time FSWA Winner, host on Sirius XM Radio, and Lead Analyst for Fantasy Alarm. To talk all things tight ends in the 2025 NFL Rookie Draft and beyond. Where to find us: http://twitter.com/CoopAFiasco http://twitter.com/TheOGFantasy Join the Discord here: https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/discord#/ 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

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Let's just dive right into it. Trey McBride signs this massive deal. It's a record-setting deal. McBride gets $76 million four-year deal coming off of a unbelievable season where he was in the top four all time in receptions, points per game-wise in fantasy football, average north of 15 points per game. McBride has just been a target monster.

The Arizona offense has really, seems to be really built around McBride's success, and they rewarded him. Coup, is this like a harbinger of things to come? Are NFL teams getting more and more serious about past catching weapons at the tight end position? Or is McBride just a special talent and sort of a one-off in terms of getting this sort of

gargantuan deal. Yeah, man, it's a perfect time for you to have me on because tight ends are so back, right? You know, and I just want to say first, congratulations on landing over here at the fantasy points. You and I have done probably 100 shows together, you know, looking around. Just to preface it, preface it, I'll interrupt you. Like, Coop and I did a weekly podcast last season. We did like a weekly podcast, and then we've come on each other's channels, like my show Dynasty Life, my old show press coverage and then going over to your stuff at fantasy alarm like i'd say like of people i've podcasted with you're in like the top three in terms of most frequent uh so yeah man

this is uh this is easy but yeah it's first time over here with me uh and anybody who's at fantasy points like coop is one of the sharpest guys around we'll dive in a little bit more into like your bio and everything like that later in the show but you're one of the people that i truly trust in in terms of your fantasy takes but when it comes to when you say something tight end related, that's like top of the game. Like you've been on point with a lot of these guys. You predict a lot of breakouts. You're tight end.

You're sort of like the Matt Harmon of tight ends or Matt Harmon might be the Andrew Cooper of wide receivers anywhere you want to flip it around. So congrats to you on all your success over there, man. Yeah, I appreciate that. Since Go district, we've been doing this. But let's get into tight ends, man. So basically, you know, what happened with tight end is kind of similar to what happened with the running back position.

right? When the 2010 CBA came around, it expanded the game day roster, right, to 53 players. That made for a lot more niche positions. And teams like the Patriots were obviously taking advantage of that at running back, really devalued it. But quietly, a lot of teams also said, hey, we'll piece together the tight end position with multiple guys. I mean, the team like the Indianapolis Colts hasn't had a real tight end since, you know, for seven years. They've just been using the rotation to like four or five different guys. So it really devalued the position. But now what we're seeing is this new revolution where teams are seeing the two high

safeties, the cover six, the cover eight, all these very confusing four deep, two, you know, two deep safeties, but it ends up being like quarters or, you know, cover six is like half quarters, half, you know, half, right? So it's like you run into these crazy new defenses and teams are realizing we got to go over the middle, right? And a lot of these tight ends block better than our slot-wide receivers while catching just as good, right? Like you look at Evan Engram. He's not a good in-line tight end in terms of blocking. But if you put him up next to Tyler Bowley, he catches the ball just as well, and he's a much better blocker because he's 6-3-2-35. And same goes for Travis Kelsey and Mark

Andrews and Tray McBride. And teams are realizing that. And now, Theo, you look the last three years, who is the most impactful free agents, right? Johnny Smith and Evan Engram weren't real free agents. They were released, right? They didn't actually hit the market naturally. They were released due to the scheme issues. Besides those guys, the highest paid guys over the last three years are guys like Colby Parkinson. Kobe Parkinson, Luke Farrell, Josh Oliver, Will, I mean, Will Disley.

These guys are all top five and guaranteed money. How crazy is that? So teams are looking at it and they're paying guys like Tram McBride. And now you're seeing it in the draft. Tight ends are are creeping up. You're seeing the Kyle Pitts and Sam LaPorte and Dalton Kincaid and Brock Bauer is going earlier. So don't be surprised if it happens again. Yeah, no, I think you nailed it.

I think that the current climate is there. And it's almost a perfect storm where you have these high-end prospects in the 2025 draft in a time where the NFL is really embracing the position. Also, you're seeing a ton of 12 personnel. You bring up some guys that are never going to be fantasy friendly, but NFL teams really value having them on a roster so they can run 12. but specifically Tray McBride. Like, Trey McBride last year, there were some arguments being made that this is sort of the peak of his production

in terms of his first read rate, in terms of his target share, in terms of his targets overall, 147 targets and only 16 games played, 111 receptions, just remarkable numbers. But you don't pay somebody this sort of salary if you think this is a peak.

This seems like we're building our offense around this player and and Trey McBride is absolutely here. He's a guy who can challenge for like top five wide receiver numbers. I'm curious your take though, just how high can he go? When we talk about Trey McBride, is this a guy that can take his game from a 15.6 point per game mark to potentially a Travis Kelsian like peak 20 point per game season? Yeah, it's so funny that we suggest that it's a peak or it might not happen. And I know fantasy points very stat driven, which I love because I'm an analytical guy myself.

And we will say touchdowns are fluky. Like everyone agrees touchdowns are fluky. But then a guy goes out and scores one touchdown or doesn't really find the end zone. And then we say, oh, well, he can't do it. Right? It's like if touchdowns are fluky one way, they're fluky both ways. And I think this guy's going to find the end zone plenty. My only concern with McBride is that.

So I recently did an article on Marvin Harrison, Jr., over at Fantasy Alarm, people just Google. Fantasy line Marvin Harrison Jr. comes right up. But when I was doing that, I was obviously one of the things you do, besides watching all the film as you go over to fantasy points and you start sorting things and checking things out. And one thing that I saw is that per fantasy points, the data suite, Kyler Murray was top three in the league in getting the ball out of his hands in under two seconds. That is fast. And when you look at the way he plays, people think, oh, he just scrambles around. That's not true. He either gets the ball out right away or he breaks down and scrambles around, right? So that's great for Tray McRide, but everyone surrounding the team, Drew Petsing everyone, they want Kyla Murray to learn to go through his reads and progress through. So I guess that's the one argument.

If you think that Kyle Murray can progress, obviously they're going to need to improve the offensive line, maybe take like a Kelvin Banks in the draft or something. But if you think Kylean Murray can progress as a quarterback, that actually might not be a great thing for Tray McBride. It's kind of a double-edged sword. Maybe the offense as a whole gets better and he scores more touchdowns. But we like the current setup where Kyler Murray gets the ball. He panics and throws it immediately to trade the pride.

That's been the bread and butter. I don't think the floor is going away, but you have to wonder if maybe as a whole, they don't want him to do that too much. Because these things are kind of letting them do it. They're letting them take the low-hanging fruit, whereas some of the other quarterbacks like Joe Burrow might leave Mike Gaseki or guys open underneath because he knows the second read, Jamar Chase, T. Higgins are going to be open for bigger chunk place. So it is kind of a double-edged sword, but I still have in dynasty for sure and in redraft and in

every format McBride and Bowers are in a top tier of their own. Yeah, and I think it's interesting because it might not be something where they want Trey McBride to have this incredibly outsized target share and usage. But at the end of the day, he's simply their best weapon in the passing game. Even if Marvin Harrison Jr. takes a big step forward this year, McBride is still one of the best bets to lead to lead them in targets. And Kyler Murray, you can try to change him. But at this point as a pro, he has tendencies and he's probably going to fall back on them when the going gets tough.

So that'll be a very interesting one. Let's stick with Bowers because Bowers, we don't really need to dive into it too much. Bowers is both of our tight end one. If you're playing fantasy football and you have somebody besides Trey McBride ahead of Brock Bowers, like I think it's really difficult to make that to make that argument, whether it's dynasty, whether it's redraft. Bowers came on the scene and basically put up Pooka Nakua like numbers, but at the wide receipt, at the tight end position.

He was unbelievable, set a record for the most receptions in NFL history by a rookie and did it with subpar quarterback play. This year he gets Gino Smith. He gets Chip Kelly as the offense coordinator. Pete Carroll is the head coach. It's an offense that seems like they're going to be aggressive, run a lot of plays. Everything's set up for the Bowers' explosive season. My question to you is just how close is McBride to Bowers?

Because in FFPC right now, tight end premium, like the best balls, the $350 redraft contest, you're seeing Bowers go off the board somewhere like four or five overall. You get McBride about 10 picks later. On Underdog, it's similar. It's about a 10.80p gap between the two of them. Should it be closer? Is the argument that Trey McBride should be drafted higher? or are you comfortable with this sort of a range of a gap between the two of them?

Just because Bowers did so much as a rookie, he's like two, three years younger and maybe has a little bit more room to run in his profile. Sort of your take on the gap between Titan 1 and Titan 2 in the current environment. Yeah, I think they're honestly could be arguments, given everything I kind of laid out with McBride and the changes they're hoping to make. I think that Bowers is kind of in, you could say they're both in a tier. I have them both in the top tier, but if somebody wanted to say, ours was in his own tier and Trey was in his own tier.

I actually wouldn't really argue. I think the ADPs for both of those guys is correct. I mean, the reason why they're both safe compared to so many other guys is that you want your tight end to be a top two target on the team, right? The number one tight end season of all time was Rob Grownkowski, and he was the number two target on his team that year. West woker got 173 targets, but we rarely have difference makers that are the third target on their team.

This goes for wide receivers and tight ends, right? If you take all the teams, throw them into a bucket and take the player that was the third target on his team per pro football focuses targets. I like how they, just like you guys that kind of take, get rid of some of the junk, right? But like the guy that was third on his team that scored the most fancy points was Rashad Bateman and he was wide receiver of 40. We want these guys to be top two on the team. And with Bowers, even if they were to add the best wide receiver in the draft, which it's not even a great draft, but say they had the number one wide receiver, who does that hurt? obviously it vaporizes Trey Tucker, who is one of the least efficient wide receivers in the league,

but it hurts Jacoby Myers more than it hurts Brock Bowers, because he immediately became the focal point of that team, right? So for me, Bowers, like, you couldn't even possibly add the two best available players out there. I mean, like, you could add Amari Cooper, Tyler Lockett, Ted McMillan, and Luther Byrd into this team. And I think Brock Bowers is still, you know, one of the top two of those guys.

So you can't even force him off that platform. That's why he's so good for redraft and for dynasty. Like if you're doing early best balls or whatever, like he can't be dislodged from that. I don't think McBride can either, but you do have a situation where maybe Marvin Harrison Jr. takes a step forward. Maybe they do add another wide receiver.

I'm hoping they don't. I hope they stick with what they have because it's great for fantasy that Mike Wilson and, you know, and Tip Ryman and these guys aren't really getting targets. But for me, Bowers is just a totally different beast. And the craziest part of it is that he would, coming off the high ankle spring. So there's an outside chance off that tightrope surgery.

There's an outside chance that we haven't even seen the full 100% Brock Bowers yet. It's crazy. Boggues my mind. Yeah, it's wild. And I think just a general argument would be there's a three-year age gap. And Brock Bowers in his first year in the league had a better year than McBride in his third year in the league. And you factor in that three-year age graph.

Like, just to put it in perspective, Brock Bowers, is five months younger than Tyler Warren right now, a guy that we're both excited about coming into the league. So it's Brock Bowers ahead of McBride in all formats, but it's McBride strongly at the tight end two. Yeah. And then there is a, for me, it's a gap between tight end two and tight end three. We're going to take a quick break.

And when we come back, we're going to talk about who the tight end three should be moving forward heading into 2025. Welcome back. Fantasy Football Daily with Theo Greminger. My guest today, Andrew Cooper of Fantasy Alarm. Coup, you're crushing it with the content, but you also won an award last year, several awards. Shout out for the FSWA Award, writer of the year, man. You absolutely crushed it. Let everybody know a little bit about the Yin and Yang tight end series that you write on a weekly basis,

where people can access that and where people can access like the current work that you have coming out this offseason. Yeah, it was a good one. I got writer of the year from FSWA. We got article of the year, football article of the year. If you type in FantasyAlarm.com slash three books, that's three books for the dynasty trader. That one is definitely helpful. That's the one's evergreen and it'll help you just become a better trader if you asked me. We won the FSWA radio show of the year on our series XM show.

We also won best mid-sized product with the FSGA. So big year at Fantasy Alarm, maybe not as big as you've. fancy points guys. You guys are blowing up like crazy. And I love to be on talking with you guys. But we definitely had a good year. The Yinn and Yang tight end thing is basically a system that I've been using for years. And it's a way to get access to upside for cheap. Right. So if you go out and you draft Brock Bowers, you don't need a second tight end. And a lot of people don't like having two tight ends. But my argument is that in most formats these days, you have deep enough benches. And if you spend all your early picks on running back wide receivers like nine picks in a row like we all

do, then maybe you should be carrying two tight ends. And the yin and yang part of it is the yin is you just find a tight end that you can start early in the season that's not going to tank your year while you throw the highest risk, highest reward option on the bench and keep cycling those guys out until we hit. And throughout the years we've hit on guys like the reason it really took off as those first couple of years we were doing it. There were guys like Mark Andrews and Darren Waller and Logan Thomas that came out of the woodwork and just won us leagues.

So we've been kind of doing our best to find that. But a good example would be Tray McBride in his breakout year, right? Because you go out and you draft another tight end. Trey McBride did nothing when he was behind Zach Gertz for like six weeks. So it's easy to say people in hindsight were like, oh yeah, Tray McBride was a league winner, but you needed somebody to get you there. That's the whole point of having the two tight end system in the rotation. And that's something we've been doing for a long time.

We'll continue to do over at Bance alarm. Sometimes we go a little high risk. high risk with the Yang Yang tight end. But there's a lot of ways to do it. And we've been doing a lot of that. So I appreciate you giving a shout out on that. Yeah, no, I mean. It's so lame to bring it up yourself.

No, listen, I like those other awards and all that. And a big shout out to the other people over at FST up, excuse me, at Fantasy Alarm. But the writer of the year award like, Coup, you're the man. You crush it. And it was about time you were winning that award. I know you've been in consideration for it. So a big shout out to you.

and highly recommend all of Coop's work. Your podcasts are absolute fire. So get Andrew Cooper in your weekly rotation of podcast articles if he's not there already. And you'll be back in the mix over here. I'm going to have him on this channel as much as possible until he says, you know, Theo, that's enough. I've done it too many times this offseason. I've got to take a break.

Have I ever said no? No. I've ever said no to you, Brad. Yeah, we'll push it to the limit, though. Yeah, let's talk about tight end three because this is one where there's a little bit of indecision here. last year the first tight end off the board in ADP was Sam Leporta coming off of his unbelievable rookie season where he set all sorts of records and was the first tight end won overall in fantasy that was a rookie like broke a glass ceiling that a lot of people thought would never be broken last year Leporta was a slight disappointment at ADP he's still back up in that three four mix on underdog on FFPC wherever you play right now then you have have George Kittle. And George Kittle is like timeless. George Kittle's 32 years old, but George

Kittle actually averaged more points per game than either Brock Bowers or Trey McBride. He just played fewer games. So obviously he was not the tight end one, not the tight end two. Played only 15 games, but average 15.8 points per game. Kittle gave you 14.2 yards per reception, which was higher than either one of the young tight ends, had 11006 receiving yards. Kittles just been an unbelievable source of fantasy production for years and years. So with Leporta, you have a new offensive coordinator in tow. Ben Johnson is gone off to Chicago. When it comes to Kittle, you have wide receiver turnover with Debo Samuel, now Washington

Commander and Iyuk, a potential trade candidate pretty much any time. He could get moved during the NFL draft. They could enter the season with Brandon Ayuk slow and injured to start the season. like a lot of question marks of the IUC situation. When you look at George Kittle next to Ricky Purcell, Joanne Jennings, or do you look at Sam Leporta as a guy who maybe is a chance for a real bounceback where the end of the season usage was better than like the beginning of the season usage when it came to Leporta, the fantasy performances?

Like which one of these guys gives drafters a better edge right now in like early redraft ADP and an early best ball at APP? Yeah, these guys are both guys I like much more in bestball. And for kind of different reasons, right now the edge to me, if I'm drafting now, I'm taking George Kittle if I have to take the set in three off the board. And one of the big reasons is the scheme. The difference in schemes for these two teams is that the 49ers like to put guys on the field that do not soak up targets, right?

So you have a guy like Kyle Eusecheck. When he goes into the game, you don't take out Kittle, you don't take out the running back, you take out one of the wide receivers. That's why Joanne Jennings for years had trouble doing anything at all. That's why the dolphins who run the same scheme with Alec Engle did fullback, they never have a wide receiver three that does anything because they have these guys playing all these snaps. Not to mention they go out and Eric Sawbert was playing a ton of snaps and they said, that's not good enough.

We're going to pay Luke Farrell, basically the highest paid amount of money besides Evan Engram to come in and play a bunch of snaps and not touch the football. That really consolidates the targets among the top guys. not to mention of all the tight ends. George Kittle, since I've been doing this, has way more 40 plus yard receptions than any other tight end. It's basically him and Kelsey that have double digits and nobody else has more than like seven.

Like just big tight end plays are so rare. And Kittles is the only guy that has like three different, four different plays that are 70, 80 yards. This guy is an absolute animal. He ran a 452. He's still fast. Plus they run play action to get him in those positions. So he's perfect for best ball because he has these games

where he goes away or blocks or does nothing, doesn't matter to me in best ball. But he rips off. He's the only guy that rips off big chunk plays. The targets are consolidated. As you mentioned, the wide receivers are thin. So I like him there. And then a guy like Leporta, because he scores touchdowns, it's also more friendly in best ball.

In redraft, I want targets. I need a guy that's going to get me 90 targets minimum. That's the bare minimum I need because touchdowns can be fluky. But in best fall, guys like Leporta, guys like Mark Andrews, that, you know, are capable that if I was going to bet money on somebody to score 10 touchdowns, I would pick those guys. It's a little more forgiving in basketball. But it's Kittal for me just because he can score the touchdowns.

He can break up the chunk plays. And the target should be there given, you know, Debo and Iyuk are not coming through that door. And Iuk, if he does come through the door, isn't going to be till November. And Kittles is interesting because the, the San Francisco offense has just been so efficient with this when it came to Kittal as well as Debo Samuel, where, It's super efficiency and yak ability. So the targets for Kittle, he hasn't had 100 target season since 2019, but he's able to just be a kind of a weapon of mass destruction in that 90 to 95 range,

which is perfectly fine at the tight end position. On that topic, the tight ends to score 200 fantasy points, 200 PPR points, right? Which is kind of the floor for us, what we're looking for. There's been five of them to score 200 plus PPR points with 95. or fewer targets. Three of them are George Kittle. That's, I mean, that's just the absolute fire staff, by the way. He's a monster, dude.

One of the other ones are Vernon Davis, who had the best combine of all time for a tight end. And the last one was Orange Julius, Julius Thomas, in the year that Peyton Manning threw 55 touchdown passes. So George Kittle is an absolute unicorn. He's a freak. It's literally just those two San Francisco tight ends or your quarterback needs to set the record for touchdowns. That is just the dopest stat.

It's so good that I'm going to repeat it. You've only had five tight end seasons where a tight end has scored 200 points or more on fewer than 95 targets. And three out of those five seasons were George Kittle seasons. He's absolutely on the Mount Rushmore of fantasy football tight ends, at least in the over the past 25 years. Kittles just an awesome weapon. And I'll say, for me, could we see Kittle go above 100 targets this year? I think so. because a lot of what we have with Ricky Purcell is a projection that he's going to inherit a lot of the Debo Samuel manufactured touches and see increased roll downfield.

Joanne Jennings had incredible usage last year. Hard to imagine that his usage is going to go above and beyond what it was last year. So for me, it's a kiddle could be in a perfect storm for him despite his age where he has a vintage target season. Maybe he gets to 115, 120. and I think there's an outside chance he leads San Francisco in targets if they want to embrace him in that role and gives you just one unbelievable year. Laporta is interesting for me because I think he's super talented. I think when we talk about the contract that we just saw go to Trey McBride, like Leporta could get a bigger contract than that. I think Detroit absolutely values him, but they also value Jameson Williams.

And Jameson Williams is a threat to be the number two target on the team. You also have a potential increased role as a receiver for Jemir Gibbs in year three this year. So a lot of sort of question marks with Detroit with San Francisco, the lack of weapons. I think bodes really well for Kittle. So I'm sort of there with Kittle as my Tid N3. Very quickly before we take a break, your quick thoughts on T.J. Hawkinson. He's in like the tight end five range, but is this an edge for drafters or a situation to maybe avoid? Jordan Aveson took a huge step forward last year, average 15 points per game.

It's hard for me to envision Hawkinson being the number two target in Minnesota. Seems more likely to be the number three target. Right. And here's the thing. If you want to get involved here, especially in early best ball, if you want to try and find an edge, it's actually to draft J.J. McCarthy. So if you believe, and you do take Hawkinson, you absolutely should be taking J.J. McCarthy at his ADP.

because you look at where these guys are going, Theo, Justin Jefferson goes wide receiver, what, two, three in virtually every draft. T.J. Hawkinson goes as a top five tight end, and at minimum, Jordan Addison goes as a top 30 wide receiver. So we're going to have a top five wide receiver, a top five tight end, and another fantasy relevant wide receiver on this team, but J.J. McCarthy's going to go off the board as what?

The QB, I mean, I don't even, 24 is word 20? he goes outside of the top 20. So like if you're going to make that bet in bestball, make the bet, bet on the whole thing, bet on T.J. Hawkins, because Justin Jefferson's going to get his and there's going to be a lot of targets. So if you're going to make that bet on either Addison or Hawkinson, also take McCarthy. It would be, it happens every once in a while, but it's so rare for three guys on the same team to get 100 targets. Per PFF, it hasn't happened three years in a row. If you go to a site like pro football reference, that's a little more loose, with their targets, then you can say that the Bears, technically three guys got 100 targets,

but how exciting was Roma Dunzee in fantasy? Like one of these guys is not going to be worth their ADP unless JJ McCarvey goes bonkers. So if you want to create leverage, that's where to create it. I don't really draft a lot of Hawkinson at 10-5. Yeah, I think what's interesting is with McCarthy, every year we see a guy become a first year QB1. Last year, we saw it with Jaden Daniels, we saw it with Bo Nix. We saw it with Sam Darnold.

the year before it was sort of the big Baker Mayfield breakthrough. Like it happens every single year where a guy is drafted 10 spots below where he finishes at the quarterback position. That could absolutely be J.J. McCarthy. He's got some unknown rushing upside with his athleticism in this offense as well, whether that's in a few unexpected manufactured rushing attempts or really just he's an opportunistic scrambler. That bodes well for him.

But unbelievable weapons and the market is certainly not pushing him up. there. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're talking about Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland, where we'd like to see these two awesome rookie tight end prospects land in order to maximize their fantasy football potential. It's the Nissan Black Friday event where you can, wait, wait, wait, isn't it like a month long now? Nissan Black Friday Month? Does that work? It's the Nissan Black Friday Month event. On remaining 2025 Rogan Centra, get zero percent financing. Plus, get $1,000 Nissan bonus on kicks models. This Black Friday, you've got a whole month to catch all the exclusive offers waiting for you.

See your local Nissan dealer or nissan.ca for details. Conditions apply. Welcome back, Theo Greminger and Andrew Cooper of Fantasy Alarm, talking about the tight end position for fantasy football heading into the 2025 season. We've had back-to-back seasons with rookie tight-end one overall finishers, Leporta, Brockback, Bauer's back-to-back years. And drafters are super, super excited about Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland. Right now, Tyler Warren is the tight end eight on underdog. That is higher than Bowers was selected, certainly higher than Leporta was selected in early

best ball drafts. Colston Loveland is going at tight end 13. So right on the cusp of breaking into tight end one land, certainly he could burst right through into potentially the top 10 if he has a great landing spot in the NFL draft. So let's talk about it. Where are a few spots that could elevate the ceilings of these players and put them in a position to have really outsized scoring numbers? And we're not going to put it as these guys are going to be Brock Bowers.

These guys are going to be Leporto. Like I think that's setting them up to fail. But the bar is not so high that these guys couldn't give you top six to eight tight end production and be starters every single week for you in fantasy football this year in redraft. Your thoughts on the dream landing spots. for these two players. Yeah, and for redraft and dynasty, I think one of the biggest misconceptions are people just look at good offense, good quarterback, and say, put them there, especially if the tight end spot is open, right? Like, people have always been trying to put tight ends on the Bengals.

But with Jamar Chase and T. Higgins, that's a low upside spot for fantasy. People are saying, oh, yeah, replaced Dallas got it with Tyler Warren. And what, put him behind, A.J. Brown. You don't want that. And that Barkley guy is going to get a lot of touches next year. I don't know. I don't know, just my thoughts. That team threw the fewest passes in the league last year. You know what I mean? Like, because they didn't have to. And so you look at teams like that, those are actually oddly bad landing spots.

For redraft, it's simple. We just want the most vacated targets, whether that means they just vaporize the incumbent tight end when they show up, like, you know, going to Dallas where, you know, these guys are just better pass catchers than Jake Ferguson, Jake Ferguson runs like a 4-840, right? And he'll be the inline tight end and they get to play big slot, right? Like a spot like that. Patriots obviously have an unlimited number of targets for whoever wants them, right? Like the Jets have actually oddly now, after Garrett Wilson, a wide-opened tight end two spot.

And when you go through and look at the teams that do historically have three guys get 100 targets, a lot of times a running back is involved. Like Washington commanders one year with Tara McCorren, Logan Thomas, and J.D. McKissick, the Giants one year with Odell, Sterling Shepard, and Seguan Barker. As you can see, Theo, it's not usually the teams that you think it's going to be either when these guys get three, you know, guys with 100 targets. So teams like that would be good. Now, for the long term for Dynasty, I'm still holding to something that you and I talked

about. The time is all blending together. It could have been a month ago. It could have been five months ago. But we talked about the best long term landing spots of like the Broncos as like, okay, Evan Engram's an older guy and you end up being that joker role, the Chargers, where it's like, okay, they have Tyler Conklin on a one-year deal. That couldn't muddy things up.

But Greg Roman has used Mark Andrews. as a big slot tight end playing 85% of his snaps at wide receiver. And he had a top five tight end season of all time under Greg Roman. Like that would be great. The heir apparent to George Kittle, things like that, you know what I mean? Where it's highly consolidated. So there are some long-term spots for Dynasty I'd be fine with. But short-term, as always, it's as simple as where are the targets?

Where are the targets going to be? They're not going to be with the Rams, right? Because they got Adams and Nekua. They're not going to be with the bucks. They're not going to be with these teams that have two good wide receivers. We're looking for a team that says, hey, with our first round pick, we're actually not going to draft a wide receiver. We're going to draft a tight end and use them as a wide receiver, which is what you got with Brock Bowers, which is what you got with rookie Kyle Pitts who had 1,000 yards.

So any of those teams, I mean, Jets, Patriots, anybody else that jumps out on for you, Theo? I mean, there's targets out there. Yeah, for me, the spot that I'm getting more and more intrigued with, and I think could be a team that trades out of where they're currently picking. But shout out to Brett Whitefield, whose prospect guide is available to you at FantasyPoints.com for free. You just need to register an email and you can access Brett's unbelievable prospect guide. One spot that he's talked about, and I think there's a little bit of smoke here with

some rumors that they could be interested, Jacksonville Jaguars selecting Tyler Warren, whether they stand pat and just take him at five or they could trade down with a team like San Francisco at 11, potentially San Francisco moves up for like an arm on Membue or a Mason Graham. And at 11 overall, Jacksonville gets Tyler Warren. When you talk about the targets available there, Parker Washington, as a slot wide receiver, doesn't put fear into anybody's heart. He's a guy who was a sixth round pick that's really kind of exceeded expectations at this point. And then you talk about Diami Brown and Gabe Davis as two guys that you couldn't really anticipate getting either one of those guys getting more than like 80 targets even in a very positive argument.

Brian Thomas Jr. is going to get pretty much all he can handle. But let's say BTJ gets 160 targets and Tyler Warren steps in right away. You could talk about a season where if the passing volume is high, Tyler Warren with 120 targets right out the gate as the number two target in Jacksonville. And moving forward a role that could keep him there as a top two target of his team, I think that's a great one. you referenced the Jets. Let me talk on the Jags real quick. So that would be a great short-term landing spot. Like if you just look at what Liam Cohen did when either Mike Evans or Chris Godwin were hurt,

K. Totten was getting half a retardist. He had no problem with it. The problem that I run into long term is that if he is trying to replicate that offense that he used with the Buccaneers and that they used with the Rams, Brian Thomas Jr. is going to be your Chris Godwin type, where he plays in three-wide receiver sets, he plays a slot. And then in two wide receiver sets, he goes out wide. But to really complete that offense, you do need to have the big split end, right, eventually on the outside.

And that whatever tight end is going to be in that system is going to end up being kind of the KDodd or Tyler Higbee where they are the third fiddle. They play a ton of snaps and might not get a ton of targets. That's why it concerns me a little bit. Like I worry for Brenton Strange. I think Brenton Strange right now in the spot he's in has, you know, access to those targets. But if they go get a Ted McMillan at five or tradebacking, take them, or they take a Jaden Higgins to be their Mike Evans. And now they have Mike Evans, they're Mike Evans and they're Brian Thomas Jr. Now the upside for that tight end is K. Don's when everyone's healthy, which is actually not that good.

So that's one of those ones where short term, we love it, long term. I worry that he's going to get stuck into that third fiddle spot where we see Kedaten, Dallas Godder, and these guys live, where we wonder why they're not, they're never doing it, you know, besides the injuries to Dallas Scott. But we wonder why they never have the upside. It's because they're the third target on the team. I think that the Jets, you brought them up, are also super interesting, both long and short term. Garrett Wilson's one of the elite target earners in the league. He's never had fewer than like 140 plus targets in any season in his career. But I think Tyler Warren's stepping in being an immediate number two target on that team would be an exciting one for him. And I think he has the

longevity to sort of stay in that role, be top five in the league and tight end targets in that offense. Indianapolis, that's an interesting one as well because Josh Downs is not really your prototypical wide receiver one. And Michael Pittman struggled last year. Certainly the offense could change also with Daniel Jones, but I think that's an immediate role for one of these tight ends. And I think that's a team that's been continually looking for their answer at tight end.

When you throw those guys on the Colts, you find out who. who likes Josh Downs and who doesn't, right? Because the people that like Colston Loveland say, yeah, that would be a great spot for him. But the people that like Josh Downs look at this big slot guy and they say, oh, we already got a slot guy. So we don't want that. So you find out pretty quick where the loyalties are

when you start messing around with that Colts tight end spot. Yeah, I mean, I really like Josh Downs. I just think at the end of the day, Josh Downs was a third round pick a few years ago, never was really drafted to become this wide receiver, one 150 target type guy. Can he handle it? Yes, but is that the role that he should take on in order to be conducive for a team

maximizing their passing game potential? I don't know. A premium blue chip tight end prospect like Warren or Loveland helps the Colts stylistically, and I think it could potentially help fantasy managers. And then we got to talk about the nut spot. I mean, the Chargers, the Chargers trading up. If they stand pat, they still could potentially get a Loveland. but if the Chargers trade up and get one of these guys,

right now it's Ladd-McConkie getting about as much as he can handle. But if one of these guys in a Roman Harbaugh-led offense as the number two target, plus the potential of a Loveland like reunion with Harbaugh, a guy who gave him an outsized role as a young player where he outproduced a, like, you know, playing alongside like Luke Schoonmaker, almost leaving the team in receptions during the national title season, like reuniting with Harbaugh. Harba. You could tell yourself a story that, like, you know, Harba just got his guy wheels up for Loveland.

So Chargers, you've talked about a lot. Coup as a, like Conklin, absolutely just a stopgap guy. Dissly, like you said, a blocking tight end two that they used a ton last year. Right. And the thing with the Ladd-McConkie that I hate is that people will go, oh yeah, Lab McCawkey, he's a slot guy like Julian Edelman. And like, it bothers me because it's the right comp, but not for the right reasons. Julian Edelman did play slot, but he could also play flanker out wide. He played a ton of snaps out wide, and they moved him around all over the place, and he was good,

no matter where they put him. That's why Ladd-McConkie is the comp for Edelman, not because he's white, not because he's a slot guy, but because he can play all over the field. And if you look at what the Patriots did with West Welker and Rob Grancowski or Julian Edelman and Rob Gruncowski, that could be the chargers with Ladd-McConkey and Tyler Warren. Boy, does that sound good. Sounds good to me. And I'll throw out the last one is New Orleans where Joanne Johnson re-signings, a lot of people pointed to that and said, that probably

precludes them from taking a tight end. But like you've talked about, teams really want to have two tight ends on the roster that they can trust. And Tyler Warren coming in would completely nuke the potential of Joanne Johnson taking on a huge role as a pass catcher this year. But I think what's interesting is when I look at Chris Alave, this has been a guy who's sort of, really kind of under underwhelmed in terms of our expectations for him and has the concussion issue sort of hanging over his head. Rashid Shaheed was fantastic last year. You were all over Rashid Shaheed last year in redraft season as a guy we should target.

And the fantasy gods cruelly took him away from you coop after you were flexing on everybody for a few weeks. They took all our boys away. They took Godwin away. They took Rashid Hayes. Yeah, they took, they took Rashid Shaheed. They took Godwin. They took Rashi Rice from us.

It was just nothing. but cruelty, every time we would kind of brush our shoulders off saying, we told you so. They'd say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, coop. We told you so. We're taking them away. We were pretty rich there for a minute, weren't we, buddy. Yeah, we felt great.

We felt great. But I like that. So what are your thoughts on a New Orleans spot long and short term? Yeah. And the other part of it, the other part of the equation that you have to consider is that they pick at nine, right, in the draft. And that's where people are saying this guy's going to go. You know, they're saying, well, at least one of these guys could go top

10 and if the best player available is there, teams will take the best player available, right? And they just, you know, they're moving on from Taysom Hill because of that ridiculous contract. I mean, this is a guy that can do, if they want Tateaum Hill, this is Tyler Warren does the things Taysam Hill does. He plays quarterback. He threw a touchdown bad.

Like, he's got those little lefty dump offs, man. Like, he can do all those things. So if you just want a cheaper version of that same guy, he's there, you know, but the Juan Johnson contract, the three years, 30 million. And like, it is annoying. But Juan Johnson is also, he's a converted wide receiver. And he just plays wide receiver. He's like a rotational wide receiver.

So I don't know if it necessarily overlaps as much as people think. You know, it's not, again, you don't draft the guy there to not use them. That's the thing. If they pick him at nine, he's going to play. He's going to play a huge chunk of snaps. Even Brock Bowers started off playing like 60, 70 percent. And pretty quickly, they said, wait a second. This guy is an absolute dog.

Why? We picked this, why did we pick him here if we're not going to use him? And then all of a sudden, he was going to play in every snap and getting 17 targets. Very quickly, who's your favorite titant? Like after Loveland and Warren, this has been one where we've actually talked to each other a lot about this. Where are you currently at in your tight end three in this class? A guy you'd like to bet on pre-NFL draft.

We're 20 days out. Of course, we don't know landing spots. We don't know draft capital. But just in your evaluated process, who's that tight end three for you? Yeah, man. And the thing is, people hate my answer. of this because everyone wants to be a deep tight end class with like 10 different guys coming out and being awesome. But the reality is, if you take all the tight end classes, the best

tight end three in a class that scored the most career fantasy points, the tight end is Mercedes Lewis. Right. Like it's not good, man. The 2017 NFL draft has a chance to be the best of all time for fantasy. And it's like, Kittle, Engram, Gaseki, Gaseki is third right now. now and Johnny Smith. Like, it's just very rare to have multiple high-end tight ends coming from a class. I worry about Harold Fanon just because, you know, he set records in the Mac. Corey Davis set records in the Mac, too. You know what I mean?

I saw that post you put on X. It was hardcore. Nobody likes, nobody likes thinking about it, too. Yeah, it is hardcore. I don't know why. You're pouring cold water on this entire class. Give us a name, though, if it exceeds expectations. Okay, fine.

And I will pander. Be grudgingly. I'll pander to you. and say that I do think that Elijah Arroyo, okay, offers some unique, unique upside. I didn't see it until I talked to you, talk to you a bunch of people to win the Senior Bowl, and you got to be careful with you Senior Bowl guys,

you know, I know you guys can fall in love, you get together, have a couple beers after you watch, you know, everybody running around out there, and then you chat up some of these players. But I will say you guys were right about Lab Makaki and some of the guys coming out of that Senior Bowl last year. And I think that he is intriguing. and we haven't seen him because of the injuries, right?

So he's got that intriguing upside. If, and let me throw out, if a Ronde Gadsden lands with a team that will, like, actually use him as a big slot, I don't see why Harold Fanon would be ranked so far ahead of a guy like Gadsden. This guy's got tremendous hands, and he's just as good of a big slot player, if you ask me, as a guy like that. So he's a couple names. Yeah, no, I love it.

And when you watch Elijah Royo, there's no need to have beers after because you're high on life, Coop. That's how good he was out there just taking snatching souls of opposing defensive backs. And that's our, that's been our guy. Brett Weifled and I have been on Arroyo since the Senior Bowl. I mean, I think, you know, you throw a lot of good arguments out. Certainly, if you want a cleaner path towards tight-in success, Loveland and Warren are going to have the excessive draft capital. we love the profiles. But I think if you want to bet on a third tight end in this class,

Arroyo has the athleticism. He had 21.5 miles per hour this year. Super athlete, perform really well at the Senior Bowl. He's got the size. It's a position where athleticism matters. I think he's going to hit all those boxes. And draft capital-wise, I think he's going to go in the mid-second round

where there's a bunch of really fun landing spots. We're going to take a quick break here. And then we're going to lightning round through about 15 tight-end names, get quick opinions from Coop on some of the biggest names in fantasy football at the position right after this. When you're flying Emirates business class, enjoying a good night's rest in your lie flat seat, you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over.

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Coupe, we're going to try to lightning round this. So I'm going to ask you a number of questions here. You share your opinion, and then I'll give you maybe a a quick opinion of mine. The Baltimore Ravens, Mark Andrews had a really strong end of the season propelled on touchdown catches. This has been a guy that in the Todd Monkin offense has performed well. Isaiah likely has also been one of the biggest contingent upside plays at the position. When Mark Andrews misses time, Isaiah likely sees unbelievable usage. And he's had moments where people look at Isaiah likely and they say this should be the guy in Baltimore, like the Kansas city game early last season. Then you couple that with Mark Andrews having the disaster of a game

against Buffalo in the AFC playoffs this past off season. There's more and more people sort of pounding the table for a likely takeover. That seems unlikely though. Baltimore is saying everything they can that Mark Andrews is most likely the guy this year. Do you believe it? Do you think this could be a the usage is closer between the two of them? Or do you still view this as Mark Andrews is the man there? Isaiah likely would sort of need a, a injury to have a predictable weekly usage. How close are they in value right now for you in redraft and bestball? Yeah, you know I've never been good at lightning rounds, bro.

I never one time. We'll try our best. And I ask like a one minute long question. I will condense it though to this one point. If Mark Andrews comes out and has a bounce back year, which I think he's capable of, that will solidify the rumors and the things that you and I have been thinking about the tight row of surgery and that we've seen with Tony Pollard took him forever to back said he didn't feel healthy until week 11.

Darno Mooney, another guy who had a very bad year, came back the next year and was great. Mark Andrews had the same surgery, started very slow, and then it caught a touchdown every single week to end of the season. So if he bounces back this year, I'm going to change my outlook on tightrope ankle surgery to one, essentially a full year recovery to get up to 100%, even though they can play on. 2023 class members, Tucker Kraft and Dalton Kincaid. Tucker Kraft is tight end 12 right now an underdog. Dalton Kincaid is tight end 14.

Of course this was a Tucker Kraft was a third round pick. Dalton Kincaid was the first round pick of the bills. Last year, Kraft sort of broke through. Kincaid had a disappointing season as an ADP sort of guy that failed to hit expectations. Now the ADPs are very similar for these two guys. Who would you rather have on your roster in redraft in best ball right now? Kraft or Kincaid? Yeah, and redraft right now, I think I'd still go with Kincaid.

I do like betting on both of these tight ends over the wide receivers, because if they're going to rotate everybody and spread the ball around, the positional scarcity of tight ends makes the targets for Tucker Kraft and Dalton Kincaid more valuable. If Tucker Kraft and Dalton Kincaid get the exact same number of targets as Jaden Reed and Khalil Shakir, the fact that they are tight end eligible makes it more valuable, right? For Kincaid, I just think that this guy, he's got great hands. Last year, he was banged up the entire season, as confirmed.

by Matthew Barry in his article where he like goes and talks to people at the combine. Like he said multiple people came and said, hey, by the way, you know, Kincaid was just not healthy the entire season and you're going to see a different player. So I still believe in the player. I also love Tucker Kraft.

I think that with Tucker Kraft, if I might have it flopped in Dynasty where I took a craft higher in Dynasty because eventually the, the money bag man is going to come calling and they got to pay Christian Watson, Romeo Dubs, Dantavian Wicks, Jaden Reed, Luke Musgrave, Tucker Kraft, all these guys are on rookie deals.

It's going to short itself. And Tucker Kraft is either going to be a focal point that gets a lot of money and gets the ball a lot or he's going to go somewhere else and be a focal point where he gets a lot of money and gets a ball a lot. For me, I'm going to go Tucker Craft in all formats slightly ahead of Kincaid. I think the market is actually correct in best ball and redraft.

And this has been sort of a range where you usually want to avoid the low end, tight end one in redraft. But when it comes to Tucker Kraft, heading into year three. Like you said, it's a lot of indecision at the wide receiver spot. I think that Green Bay is going to be in the mix to add a Matthew Golden potentially in the draft. I think they're going to maybe draft a rookie wide receiver in the first round. But right now with the current makeup of the roster, I think Tucker Kraft has a chance to take a step forward.

Coach speak from LaFleur has been very positive as well. Let's go from young to old. Jonu Smith and, well, not old. David and Jok was not old, but older guys. John Hsu Smith and David and Joku, these are two guys that, David and Joku on a per game basis for the last two years has just been awesome for fantasy football. John Hsu Smith last year had the best season of his career, unbelievable production in his first year in Miami. Right now, John Hsu Smith at Tid N7 or David and Joku at Tid N10, that's the current underdog ADP, and it's similar in the FFPC streets. Which one of these two guys do you think gives you a bigger edge right now?

who do you think has a stronger season in 2025 between the two of these players? Yeah, and the beautiful thing is that it's best ball season, so we don't have to worry about redraft yet. Like, when we get to August, it might be in Joku, depending who the quarterback is for the Cleveland Browns. But right now it's Sammy Pickett, right? So I just, I can't get on board with that, especially because they have Judy, they have Tillman. With Johnny Smith, it's essentially he's, he's, he's, uh, East Coast George Kittle, right? Like, it's the same scheme. They use the fullback.

They use Julian Hill and all. these other tight ends that don't touch the ball. And it's a highly consolidated scheme that sets him up to rip off chunk plays. And we know this dude can rip off chunk plays. And that's what he did last year. So for me, in best ball especially, he's more interesting because he can rip off those plays and have sporadic big games. And we only get the big games.

For redraft, I might end up looking at it and saying, okay, well, Joku actually is a top two target on the team, whereas Jadu Smith is not. And they did sort the quarterback. And then for redraft, I might have Nogoku ahead. right now, Johnny Smith is, he's, he's everything you want in best ball, which is explosive, big games, and who cares about the bad game? For me, I think that either one you can make an argument for, these are actually two players, which I think are great targets for you in all formats, including Dynasty, because you get

a little bit of a discount here on these two guys. David and Joku, the Dynasty price never matches up with the on-field production. Like what he's done the last two seasons, like completely unbelievable level. play to end the 2023 season. And then last year, I believe he had five top five tight end weeks in like 11 games played. Like this is a guy who's put up big spikes week seasons. And I love that you brought up the target competition. Like I think Jerry Judy, what he did was real.

And I think that's going to be sustainable. But when I look at the other wide receivers on Cleveland, I don't think anything is going to be prohibitive from David and Joku having a very strong target share and weekly predictable usage. John Smith not only has to deal with a healthy Tyree Kill, even if you think Tyree Kill regressed, I don't think he'll be at 12 points per game again, probably more likely going to go a little bit higher the 14 point per game range or higher. Jalen Waddle also a guy that was really poor last year, but could have a chance to bounce back,

but he also has to deal with Devon A. Chan, who led all running backs in receptions last year and receiving yardage. So for me, just the target competition argument, even though I think that the Miami offense is better than the Cleveland offense. That's the way I'm leaning. Got to talk about your boy, Evan Engram. Your expectations for Evan Engram in Denver this season. FFPC and Underdog, FFPC is a mix of redraft and best ball. Underdog, obviously only best ball.

But the market is treating Evan Engram as the tight end 11. Denver is a spot that the two of us, we podcasted on, I don't know, could have been Dynasty Life, could have been your show. We both talked about, I think this was actually your show. we did a free agency preview and we were saying how Denver is like this unbelievable spot for a tight end well they go and get one of your favorite players in evan ingram is the market too low on evan ingram at tight end 11 right now or is it just right it might have just been on the phone the other day that where we sometimes we'll be talking on the phone and start talking ball and be like yo why don't

we just save this for a show right there you go could have been anywhere but i got to say evan engram man like this is the exact he's the guy the exact example and david joke is another one of like the journey that these guys have to go through to find the right schemes, right? Like David Injoku's career got derailed because the Browns got tricked into signing Austin Hooper after the Falcons threw 50 more passes than the other team in the league. Like it really set back in Joku years, which in football is everything, right? And so Evan Engram got stuck with the Giants, finds his way to Doug Peterson, has the second most receptions the tight ends ever had.

And now he's such a goodbye in dynasty because people see him get released and they think, how good can this guy possibly be if he's being released when they don't realize that there is no role in that scheme for a big slot tight end. They needed to clear out Christian Kirk and Evan Engram because Brian Thomas Jr. is going to be in that Chris Godwin role and they need a two-way inline tight end that can block and run routes, right? We saw in Miami where they used Durham Smyth over Mike Gaseki because the blocking is most important in that scheme.

Same goes with Liam Cohen's scheme. they needed a guy like K Dodd or Tyler Higby. That's Brenton strange. Then they couldn't find anyone to take on the contracts. We got released. He landed in the perfect spot. It's like he fell out of the tree and bounced off the trampoline and landed upstairs in the master bedroom. Like Evan Engram landed in the perfect possible spot.

And I hope that in the draft, they go out and they take somebody like Traveon Henderson in the first round and they don't take a wide receiver. And then it's Corlin Sutton, Evan Engram, Trayvion and Henderson. and it's Jimmy Graham and Marcus Colston and, you know, and Alvin Kamar or Mark Engram or whoever, the key players have always been for Sean Peyton and Joe Lombardi. Like that's what this team should absolutely do. And if they do it, then I will sit back and I will clap and I will smirk. But if they take a wide receiver, I will be pissed.

Yeah, I mean, if every, I completely agree with you. I think you completely nailed it. If Engram can survive the first two days of the NFL draft without Denver adding a potentially highly targeted weapon. I think that there's a little bit, there's a small chance that Denver could be in the mix for a Tett McMillan if he falls. That would be catastrophic.

There's also a chance that a Mecca, Agbuka could be sitting there for them. Second round, a guy like Jalen Knoll would not be good for them, but I actually think that they like their wide receiver room more than we do. Marvin Mims took a step forward last year, Devon Bailey, Troy Franklin's a guy that has had some positive coach speak this offseason, and Cortland Sutton had his best usage ever as a pro. So Evan Engram, I think the market is too low. I agree with you.

Tighten 11 seems cheap. Engram has a chance to be a top five tight end. Can live in the slot this year, can do a lot of the things. And I think he's going to be a potential easy button target for Bo Nix. Cortland Sutton also is a guy where was sort of at the peak of his usage last year. Like, we loved what Cortland Sutton did. But I don't think this is a guy that internally Denver is like, we've got to get him even more involved. We've got to push those targets up in the 150 range. That's just not what. but he is. So Evan Engram, completely agree with you. Great value.

When you view the reality that Adam Trotman is going to be the inline tight end, and Engram's basically going to be the slot wide receiver like Mark Andrews. And then you're going to have, you know, like Mark Andrews and Nick Boyle were once upon a time. And then you have Cortland Sutton on the outside. You only need one other wide receiver. So you really only need one of Marvin Mims or Troy Franklin to stretch the field and the offense is set. Like you don't, why would you bring in three wide. receiver sets when you have a tight end that doesn't play in line.

Like you're going to pay them all that money to make them a rotational piece. It doesn't make sense. I don't want them to do it. If they take a slot wide receiver in the draft like a Luther Burden type or a Micahabuca type, I will be pissed. I'll be livid. I don't want it. Don't do it.

Don't do it at all. Agreed. Is Travis Kelsey dust? Travis Kelsey at tight end nine on underdog seems way too high for me. do you disagree with me on that? Entering his 13th season, he still had 133 targets last year, but it doesn't seem like that at all.

His points per game were 120 fewer points per game than in his 2022 season. Only three touchdown grabs last year, which could have helped him overcompensate the sort of downward spiral with his reception total. Excuse me, his points per game, still had 97 receptions, though. So, like, where are you at with Travis Kelsey?

Do you think this is one where you want some exposure to him or are you completely out? I think I'm out, Coop. Well, I will say this. You know, when you talk about FFPC and Underdog, right? There's a huge difference between those two platforms when it comes to a player like this. 97 receptions means a lot on tight end premium. Underdog is half PPR. Huge swing in how you should view guys like this.

For me, when I'm building a room, I have no problem taking Travis Kelsey at value. he was still a top five tight end last year he's going to give you a good floor and same goes for redraft for yin and yang tight end this guy's going to be tight end 10 and when you're playing in your hometown league with your buddies there's no way Travis kelsey falls that far because somebody is just going to fall in love with the name but if you were taking him as tight end 10 we'll just take them and start them and then later on your bench put the highest risk highest reward guy that you can find and see if you catch lightning in a bottle and then you can trade the name value of kelsey but like i think for yin and yang tight end he has now entered the realm where he's the yin tight end that you say okay

if i get the 10th tight end off the board in the 12 team league i will start him and i will try and find this year's breakout that's the way i look at a guy like kelsey all of a sudden now but i mean come on i mean would you be shocked if he was a top five tight end again i wouldn't of course we would no i wouldn't i i just feel like i i i it lacks a certain upside edge the way i like to draft i mean what if he's what if he what if instead of three touchdowns he scores 10 well then I feel like I might I might miss out. Travis Kelsey also I think with Rashi Rice coming back, that could be that could really hurt him in terms of the target ceiling.

And then also we don't know the the role for Xavier Worthy, just how hard is this going to run? Are they going to increase his usage? He's certainly an explosive player. And over the second half of the year with him playing like 80% of the snaps every single game, like Xavier Worthy is a guy that takes up forward. So for me, I don't know. if Kelsey was a little bit cheaper, I might be more into the profile.

So we'll continue arguing the Kelsey one all offseason coupe. Let's throw out some of these mid-tier tight ends all into one little group. We talked about Isaiah likely, so I'm going to leave him alone. He's sitting there in sort of the tight end 15 range on underdog. I think a lot of that has to do with stacking with Lamar Jackson. But let's look at the guys who are the mid-tight-end twos down to starting towards the mid-to-bottom tier tight-end twos. Who is your favorite bet in the 2025 season of Dallas Goddard, Jake Ferguson, Kyle Pitts, Kate Otten, Cole Comette.

I just threw a group of five tight ends in there that are all going in similar range. Pass. You complete pass. I mean, the thing is, with Kyle Pitts, like, I think he'll be a breakout candidate in 2006 when he escapes that team. I think he's actually a trade candidate all coming up in the draft. They can move him. It's a one year, $10 million deal.

but everything comes off the books if they trade them. But like Jake Ferguson is one addition away from being completely vaporized. Dallas Goddard has never, hasn't played a full season like seven years. Isaiah likely I'm not going to take Cole Commet. Now he's going to be like the Sam LaPorter for them. But, you know, it's like just not appealing. I would rather wait and just take upside stabs on guys I think could be a top two target on the team, especially right now.

Like we talking about, you know, Brenton Strange right now technically is in that hypothetical role that you assigned to Tyler Warren, but what if Tyler Warren doesn't go there? What if they don't draft a wide receiver? Like, he could be in that spot. What's stopping Hunter Henry from leading the team in targets again, but the team being a little better? What's stopping Jatavian Sanders for, I mean, like, Xavier Legget and Jalen Coker, fine, but like Jatavian Sanders can be a top two target.

Juan Johnson with Rashid Jihad being out. I mean, like, Chigakopo, who's the number two target after Calvin Ridley on the Titans right now? Quick, wrap of fire. No, that's, that's, that's, that's, like Traylon Burks. I know. Number two target right now, maybe Tai J. Spears. There's nothing. There's nothing there until post-Defel. Right. Right now we're sitting in the Millennium Falcon with all these guys and we're about to go do the Kessel run through the asteroid field. Right. Like Evan Engram already dodged a huge asteroid in Cooper Cup. He's got a lot more coming. Some of these guys could dodge a lot of bullets here. I mean, even Tyler Conklin, what if the chargers just don't add weapons? Like some of these guys could sneak their way through. No, fan, I mean, is a guy who potentially Clint Kubiak wants to bring in the fullback.

He's straight up setting his press coverage. I'm going to use the fullback. If it's going to be a fullback and two wide receivers in JSN and Cooper Cup and then a tight end in Noah fan, what is materially different from the scheme that he ran with the 49ers and that he ran with the saints and that the dolphins run? It's like that Chanahan tree. So like I can make more argument upsides for these guys versus trying to convince myself that like Dalton Schultz is going to all of a sudden like learn how to run fast and

break a tackle for once in his life. So I'm just skipping that whole section. I'm sorry. I refuse to pick one. I'll pick Cal Pitts. How's that? Yeah, I think that that's fine. And for me, pre-NFL draft, because this is obviously this argument goes out the window in 20 days when Dallas selects a pass catcher. But right now with the current makeup of the Dallas Cowboys roster, it's probably Jake Ferguson for me. It should be, but he's, He runs him forward. He's a jet. I know.

You've been anti- you've been anti-Ferguson for a long time. And the haters came after you for that very short period of time. But now I think it's been more sobering. Ferguson could, I mean, Dallas potentially could also add a tight end. They've gotten a lot out of Ferguson when he's played. He was obviously a day three guy. I mean, a guy like a Mason Taylor or Terrence Ferguson,

those sort of guys are more appealing because of their athleticism compared to. So I'm completely with you. You're right, though. You're right. I saw this is where I admit my bias and people do come to me and they say well he's a top two target on the team coop like you always say and then I say you little they throw it back at it's ridiculous it's but they're right but they are right and you are right at this moment again if he dodges the asteroids then once again and doc prescott obviously loves throwing a tight end Dalton shultz in that same role as a guy who's not super athletic right he he popped off but he also if I had an award called the most likely to be the next awesome who or Ward, which I have given Dalton Schultz after he left, Jake Ferguson is that guy, where if they had one wide receiver, he's cooked. And I like where your head's at. Breton Strange is a guy that we both talked about.

Of course, I'm saying Tyler Warren could end up in Jacksonville. They added Johnny Munt. I don't think Brenton Strange is great, but I think Brenton Strange could be a guy that takes advantage of the situation in Jacksonville. We saw him have a couple of decent games last year filling in for Evan Engram. I agree with you that I think Jetavian Sanders is. is interesting as a move tight end in that offense that we think is going to be better this year.

Also, that's a team where we don't know if they're going to add a wide receiver in the NFL draft. And I think Theo Johnson's interesting because it's a big athletic pass catcher on a team that lacks wide receiver size. And I think that Theo Johnson could be a guy that has some decent work in the red zone. And he's got the greatest first name in the NFL. So why not propel him up a little bit because of that one? Such a strong name.

And I will say, dude, with Brent and Strange, last year I said, On shows with you, I said, KDodin is discount Dallas Godd. If you like Dallas Goddard, you should like KDon. Because when one of the two wide receivers gets hurt, he's awesome. Dallas Goddard had like 140 yards in a game last year where the guys were hurt. And when they're not hurt, then he's a guy that is just kind of hanging out, right? And Brenton Strange, if they add a wide receiver, say they draft Jaden Higgins, now Brenton strange is discount Kodon.

He's discounted Dallas Gutter. He's the third fiddle, clear third fiddle on a scheme that sets it up that way. So, like, no problem with Brenton Strange. I just, it's hard to, he was drafted fairly early out of Penn State. And, you know, he looked pretty good. Yeah, it looked pretty good when he filled in for Engram. So you can't, I think that's a great guy. If you're, like, rebuilding in Dynasty, just load your bench with, like, cheap.

You can get these guys are so cheap. And people are like, because of the draft, as everyone steamed up, they're like, oh, I want more third round picks. Just like start trading third round picks for, like, Chigacu and Jetavian Sanders and Brenton, and Theo Johnson and just see what happens. And in worst case, you just drop them. But that's what you do with guys you draft in the third round anyway. Yeah, I mean, I think the Chigakonkwo one that you talked about is actually interesting

because this is a player that ended the season so well. Maybe that sort of momentum kind of carries along with him. Like this was a guy where it was very, very slow starting for the season. And then once we got to like week 11, he was, or excuse me, week nine, he played 70% of snaps or more multiple times over. And in the fantasy playoffs, he was very much usable, 13.9 points in week 15, 19.1 in week 16, 10.9 in week 17. And I know in the FFPC, he was a guy that a lot of people picked up off the waiver wire, put in their flex or put in their tight end spot.

And in that tight end premium scoring, he was crushing it. That week 16, Shigakanu made people money in week 16. I had a team where I used him out of desperation, and I finished second in like a pretty decent money league. So big shout out to you, Chigacanquo. And a big shout out to you, Andrew Cooper, because you crushed it on this show. I know that I sometimes typecast you and make you only discuss tight ends.

Next time you come on here, we're going to talk about other positions. I highly recommend all of Coop's work. Coupe, let them know once again where they can find you. Yeah, absolutely. For my first show, advancing points, we had to do tight ends because that's my bread and butter. But you know, you'd be surprised that my leagues, they're not just tight-end leagues.

So I do got takes on other players. And we'll talk about those all summer long, baby. So you can find me at Fantasy Alarm. That's where all my work is. The Fantasy Alarm. YouTube got shows over there also on Series XM, Thursday and Fridays, 6.8 p.m. And Sunday mornings during the season. And you can find me on Twitter at Coop a Fiasco, C-O-O-P, letter A fiasco, for all my

negative Harold fan and tweets. I'm mixing some positivity today just for any new followers. Yeah, and check out my episode I recently recorded with Brett Whitefield, where we went through and we identified all of the potential fantasy football landing spots and needs for all of the teams in the AFC, in the NFL draft. Next week, we're going to record one for all of the NFC teams. That show came out really, really well. It was absolutely awesome.

And check out School of Scott. I'm planning on a number of episodes with Scott. those will be dropping next week. We have some cool guests lined up all the way up until the NFL draft. And Dynasty Life is making its way over to Fantasy Points. Make sure you subscribe to Dynasty Life anywhere you get your podcast for my take on Dynasty. I'm going to dropping an episode every single week. But Fantasy Football Daily, we're going to drop three shows a week at least every week heading into the NFL draft and after it. We are going to help you crush your fantasy football leagues this season. We'll see you soon.