Fantasy Football Daily - How Much Did the Preseason Change About Fantasy Football in 2026?

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

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What takeaways matter for preseason week one? We are here to tell you. This is Fantasy Football Daily with Brett Whitefield and Scott Barrett. Let's dive right in. And you will be seeing more of us on the Fantasy Football Daily feed because Scott and I are going to be doing the daily show every day. How are you, Scott? Yeah, that's right. I'm excited to debate you more frequently and because I always win those debates.

It's very fun and enjoyable for me because as we all know, you don't need to watch film when you have the best analytics in the game and the best analytics mine in the game, myself. So it's just, are you excited for this near daily beatdown? Yeah, and I'm super excited to lose arguments to a Sesame Street character for sure, for sure. Which one is that, Brett? I don't know, you're feeling, you're giving me Oscar the Grouch vibes today, but sometimes your cookie monster also. So, you know, maybe Elmo on your, your days you're feeling sweet. But I know, here we are. Let's dive right in though.

Scott, I know we both kind of have a proper amount of disdain for preseason takes, right? Preseason as you wrote in the show sheet is worse than useless for the most part. However, there are some takeaways that matter. There are some things teams are telling us through preseason. We're going to try to uncover all of those and dive right in. First, I kind of want to talk about Dejon stribling. Well, this is what I put in the show sheet. So talking to my friends across the industry, one of which, who I think you can guess is, you know, all in on Dejaun Trin. Did you watch that game?

It was crazy. He was amazing. I got to move him up six rounds in my rankings. And listen, I like Dejaun. I'm very bullish on Dejaun Shrivoling. There's, there's tremendous contingent upside. It's a Kyle Shanahan offense. He was, you know drafted really high and like one of these days kail shenan's got to be right on one of these guys and i'm wrong it hasn't happened but but one of these days and uh and and and and yeah dude mike evans is old ricky piercells are ready hurt christian mcalfrey george kiddle have a number of and so like yeah i i really like dejohn shribling as a as a sleeper of sorts but um it has nothing to do with this preseason game and like literally yeah i think

I think preseason is when it like actually, if you don't know what you're looking at, like monitoring snapshares and seeing like, oh, wow, this running back we thought was going to be in a 50-50 committee has an 85% snap share with the first team offense. That might mean something. I mean, it also might not, but it might mean something. But it's like, Dejaun stribling going off against a fifth string cornerback who's like interning with Morgan Stanley while he's at practice. Like that doesn't really mean, yeah, like of course he should beat up against third stringers.

But this happens constantly is so like last year, I got a throw flag. I'm sorry. That's not what Stripling did. What did you do? The Titans played their starters. The whole time Stripling was on the field. The Titans had their starters on the field.

Right. He was going up against Alante Taylor. Yeah. He just signed this massive contract in the offseason. I mean, it's not. Come on, give him a little credit here. It's not like he went out and, you know, he didn't, he wasn't Joe Burrow. He didn't have to play the Lions third and four string guys and still suck.

But yeah, but also was it like he was, he was getting open and routing this dude up? Or was it more like, hey, Kyle was like, hey, let's let's see what the rookies got. Let's let's pepper him. Let's get him some screens and what it's just like. And so like maybe this is like a real thing. Maybe he looked amazing. Like that's why you're here. You're the film guy.

But like I'm just telling you is like this happens every year. year. Last year, Travian Henderson jumped two rounds in ADP and was a bad pick at that cost. Kyle Pitts had that one touchdown and you jumped two rounds by ADP. You had last year is Tori Horton and Jacori Kroski Merritt. Terrace Marshall was a preseason superstar once upon a time. Donovan People's Jones. The all time, my favorite all time, was Marquez Callaway, where you, where you have Nick I fell for that one.

Dick Underhill tweeted like this is he's a superstar and like he looked amazing in preseason up against first string cornerbacks. And in FFPC leased, he went from like around 16 pick to like round four, round five by early September. And yeah. And so it's like really just like one of those things from being in this game long enough is it it appears to be almost like negatively predictive. And so yeah, it's, I think we know what matters. And again, you're, you're the best film guy in the game. So, yeah, what did you get from Dejohn Sribling's preseason? This is definitely a guy I'm going to be high on,

but I don't know how much of it had to do with this Titans game. But, but you, you watch the tape more closely than I did. Yeah, so I definitely don't go like into the box score and like, oh, he went six for 63. That was a really good game for him. And he went off. No, like, yeah, we got to add more context in that. And so when I watch stribling play, I'm like, what am I looking for?

Here's some key factors. Like, contextually, how is he performing? So it was the 49ers second team offense, mostly, like their offensive line didn't start. Purdy didn't play. CMC didn't play, right? Evans didn't play. So it's really the second team offense versus the Titan starters. And he held his own.

I think contextually, that's good. So the box score looks even better because of the fact that it was a second string offense, second team offense versus the first team defense. then I look for like okay how are they using him he's a rookie right like how much are they putting on his plate right now Scott this is where I was blown away he had he ran routes from the X he ran routes from the Z he ran routes from the big slot role and that big slot role when he was drafted I don't know if you remember you Theo griminger and I did a show and I was like I think they drafted him to play this kind of pseudo souped up joan jennings role obviously he can be an ex receiver as well

but the fact that they've already put this much on his plate is really where it like struck me. It's like, okay, the hype actually might be real with this guy because you don't see that with rookie players a lot, Scott. Usually it's like cool. Your rookie season, you do these three things really well and that's it. Just go do these three things really well. And then we'll slowly add to your plate. No, they got him playing the entire offense, X, you know, Y, F or sorry, X, ZF, and then some design touches in there as well, a ridiculous downfield catch through traffic with, you know, falling out of We would call that a hero catch here at Fantasy Points Data. He had another play where he body to Lante Taylor.

He had some run after catch stuff. It's like he put the full thing on display. Now, does that mean it's going to be how he has every game? No, but I'm like, I'm looking for how do the movement skills translate? We haven't seen him play in the NFL. So we saw him at college in this Ole Miss offense where he was given all of this free space. And then I want to see how those movement skills translate to more congested environment, actual NFL cornerbacks.

And he looked good. He looked apart. looked like he belonged. They put a ton on his plate. And they, you know, one thing you said that was definitely true. They definitely were targeting him to see what he had for sure. So that I think the target numbers are inflated because of that. But despite all that, even the plays he didn't get the ball. You felt like the movement skills were there. There was separation. When there wasn't separation, there was ball skills and adjustments to off-throne target or off-target throws. And I just was really impressed all around with stripling. Am I like gassing him up ADP-wise? No, but I feel pretty

good about where he's heading as an NFL player now. Well, where did you have him coming out? I had a day too great on him. He went a little bit higher than my score suggested he should, but I did have a day too great on him. You know, I was, I was like mid, probably like early, early third round is kind of where I saw him going. And he went like a whole round ahead of that. But yeah. Yeah. So you know I'm, I'm very high on Mike Evans this year. But I was thinking about it. And it's like you said, you know, he was moved all around the formation. He was, you know, a ton of targets and like i love mike evans but like realistically he's more you know the 49ers devante adams he's not a yak guy he's not you know a real a guy you really pepper with you know short area

targets certainly and then debo samuel could be that guy but he's also maybe fat you know he's old and he's lost his step uh christian kirk's already hurt and so like yeah if if mike evans is the 49ers devante adams maybe Maybe there's a chance to John Sribling could be their Pooka Nakuwa. Certainly, you know, we want to be invested in Kyle Shanan offenses and, you know, Brock Purdy is the best quarterback Kyle Shannon has ever had, or at least since, since Matt Ryan back in the day. But yeah, so Dejaun Shribling, I think, is a, is a fine sleeper, but really had, you know, less to do with his preseason performance than everything else. Sure.

Let's start off with the things that we know really matter. Everything else, we're kind of guessing what might matter, a little bit of tea leaf reading, but what really matters, injuries. Jeremiah Love, it's now reported. He can miss week one. Our injury expert, Jeff Mueller, best injury expert in the game, who skews a little optimistic, I would say, is optimistic, but pessimistic weeks one through three. And so I this is a player I was already really down on it.

It's just like I feel like where we can be too overly optimistic with these rookies and projecting playing time. It's also like one of the deepest, best, most crowded running back rooms in the league. It's it's Tyler Algear. It's James Connor. And so like, yeah, he got a ton of work. But like I think that makes sense. You know what you have in Algear and James. Connor. Let's let's get the rookie some playing time. So, you know, his snapshot doesn't really mean

anything to me. And then it's, it's also just not a good offense. It's an offense that's probably playing for Arch Manning in the second half could be starting Carson Beck. It's bad game script. It's a, it's a not great offensive line. So this is a player. I was a, he looked at my rankings versus ADP. I was, I was really low on him in comparison. And now you factor in this injury. And yeah, that was a big part of it is like I thought Jeremiah Love could be like a, great player to have on your team, but more so as a mid-season trade target than a player you want to draft. I think he's going to be cheaper week five than week one. And so that's the, that's the arbitrage opportunity. And, you know, certainly now with this high ankle sprain,

uh, has me more, uh, convicted in that take. Dude, I just got to say, this is really, uh, just a, a, a guy. punch for a rookie class you were already kind of out on. Right. Like yeah. Do you do look at this rookie. Like it was already sussed for fantasy because of some landing spots, but you have Mendoza stuck behind Kirk cousins.

You have Jeremiah Love injured now. You have Cardinal Tate stuck with Cam Ward and we'll get to that whole thing in a bit. Jordan Tyson's injured again. Kenyon Siddique is injured again. Malachi or sorry, Mackay Lemon injured can't get on the field. Probably going to miss week one and week two. It's looking like you have Cooper getting. mugged by Isaiah Williams.

Scott, like, like we're holding out hope for what a Deshawn stripling and Jonah Coleman coming out of nowhere to save us. This rookie class could be buns this season, dude, like big time buns. Yeah. Yeah. So I was saying pre-draft. It's like 2016 if you took out Derek Henry.

And if you remember like all that class had really of the top 10 drafted wide receivers, the top five running back is like all it really had was Jared. Goff, Zeke, and Derek Henry. And again, there was no alpha RB2, I thought, pre-draft, you know, maybe that's Shedarian price, but, uh, and so yeah, and now you're taking out Zeech, too. Right. And so now you're taking out Zique as well. And it's, yeah, like last year, I thought, I thought, you know, one of our biggest edges was going in on the rookies. I was extremely bullish on Tyler Warren, Colston Loveland, Luther Burden, Bejel Tootin, Cam Scadaboo. And it actually, like didn't even really materialize for for what was a great class you know all those guys you know

they're they're really expensive in drafts today but they they kind of disappointed uh if you look at like the full sample of the entire season uh and yeah this class is awful and so um yeah so yeah not not very optimistic we're going to talk about omar cooper junior later we're going to talk about Caleb Douglas later but let's stick to what really matters that's yet another injury to a rookie Jordan Tyson. And like I said, Jeff Mueller, best injury expert in the game, skews a little optimistic. He is straight up blackpilling all over Jordan Tyson. And I need to fully capitulate in my rankings. I was doing a show with good friend Theo Greminger the other day. And I was saying the biggest, you know,

ideological or logical inconsistency in my rankings was how low I was on Chris. Olavi and probably not high enough on Jordan Tyson, given how low on Chris Olavé I was. And it's just like reading between the tea leaves of the press conferences, the code speak, the even like words straight out of Chris Olavi's mouth, it really seemed like they drafted Jordan Tyson to be their PPR cheat code. They wanted Chris Olave to be more of the deep threat, which we know is like the less valuable skill set for PPR leagues. And lo and behold, he's picked up his four three injuries since October. There are reports saying this is very likely to linger into the season. He's now seeking multiple opinions for a guy who the big knock on him coming out

was he can't stay healthy. And so yeah, this is going to be a major capitulation by me. You're going to see Chris Olavé move way up in my rankings. Jordan Tyson, I'm going to have to move down. And yeah, there's certainly a ton of upside here because, you know, you look at what chris olive did last year with tyler shuck he was putting up easy easy uh wide receiver one numbers i think the the full stats like yeah with tyler shuck eight point nine targets per game 17.8 xfp per game 18.8 fantasy points per game those are all top six numbers and yeah yeah it's it's capitulation season for me on this one scott i in at risk of losing a podcast partner on our first official episode is the daily hosts. I don't know how much I need to nitpick you,

but you keep, I've heard this said so many times. This is one of my issues with the offseason coach speak content wheel that we live in. When a coach says he wants Chris Olivae to be more of the vertical receiver and that's he doesn't mean it the same way we mean it. We think of vertical as like 20 plus yards downfield go routes and post routes. This is not what he means. He means any route where you're attacking a vertical stem. It still uncovers the entire intermediate route tree. It's a proper role for a lot of it. And it's the big money role that we want. We want those intermediate, intermediate dig routes, those intermediate comebacks, hitches. Those are the wide receiver one type routes. That's so when we got to do a better job of separating what

he says, he doesn't speak the same language as you as a fantasy guy. It's like we got to have a amending of the worlds here, our joining of the world's, the union. I guess that's where I'm supposed to live is in this tension and bring us together but i just want to point that out crystal lave is was getting positioned to run the more valuable skill set not the other way around yeah yeah it was it was a few more things than that with crystal lobby it's also like i don't think the injury i think there needs to be a bigger injury discount on him with his concussion history uh and there's a few other things to that but no like i said i got a move him up and i think that's a fair point brett is uh yeah the vertical stem as opposed to just, you know, not a sacrificial X.

Yeah. So, so, yeah. So let's talk, let's talk about things that might matter. Things that might matter. I was really encouraged by Breeze Hall's usage. So he played on 10 of 11 of the team's preseason snaps of the first team offense. Now, you know, what is that? 93%.

last year was at 57% and this matches the hype you see it on the screen there uh Connor j hughes saying jets look like they're you know featuring breeze hall a bit more you know again the coach speak they just gave him this big contract and they're kind of saying yeah breeze hall is going to be more of the focal point more of the featured back and then yeah preseason usage you know 10 of 11 preseason snaps of the first team offense up from 57% last year and then unfortunately He got hurt. He strained his groin possibly. It's not believed to be too serious, but this was just an hour ago. So we got to monitor yet another injury.

It's kind of the nature of playing running back. Yeah. I mean, it's just all these guys will get banged up before the end of the season. Well, actually, speaking of capitulation, so if you guys watch my debate with Ryan Heath, a big sticking point for me on why I was so low on Ladman. I just had no excuse for how bad he was last year. He was awful. And so I got to hang out with Sigmund Bloom in New Orleans the other day.

And he was like, you've got to watch my Greg Rosenthal interview. And I watched it. And on it, Greg said he kind of like leaked this little secret for us. Ladd McConkey had an injury in August that the team was aware of. And they knew he, they kind of kept it under wraps all year. But they knew he wasn't going to be close to 100. at any point the entire season. And so that kind of really explains that whole injury, but that Greg Rosenfall went on to like, like this is really the norm for so many leagues. It's like they

underreport injuries. Every player is more hurt than they let on. There's way more injuries than really were ever made aware of. And it's just kind of like what it is. And so like you, it could be the case that, oh, this is this is not serious for Brice Hall. He's going to be okay, but really it is. Also, do you buy it for sure? Is Greg Rosenthal a super worthy person to listen to? Yeah, for L.A., I think his track record on L.A. is really, yeah, go ahead. Here's the thing. He puts the team in an awkward spot because there are rules on reporting injuries, right? And so for him to say this publicly, it's like, it's just like, well, yeah, they're supposed to. It comes with penalty. If you don't, teams have been, you know, they get penalties

all the time for this stuff. It's like, that's a pretty big thing to hide through your offseason program I'm into training camp and then all through the season. Meanwhile, the other receiver had documented injuries that were reported the entire season. So I don't understand. Yeah. I don't know. This is where it's like, ah, I, dude, watch watch quarterbacks, watch wide receivers. Um, and Ross St. Brown had the hand foot and mouth disease.

It's literally bleeding from his hands. No, no mention of it. Last year, Baker Mayfield, you saw his like entire arm was black and blue. He wasn't on the injury report at all that week. Like it's, uh, so I, I think there's a ton of true. I think it's maybe one of those unwritten rules. There's a great podcast. Joe Rogan interviewed supposedly the best NFL better of all time,

although really I think it's my guy. Ed Teach, shout out to Ed, who's retired two years ago, but all-time go. And so he interviewed this guy, I forget his name, but he shouts out our old injury expert, Edwin Porras, in his book, actually. But he basically said, like, his entire edge was, like, injuries. And it was like really just like paying sources, like paying the Adam Schaefters of the world, but not Adam Schaefter.

Don't, don't see. Careful there, Scott. Exactly. But you know, like whatever you call that title, the influence peddlers and and also team sources for injuries. And dude, I think about this all the time as like so many of my worst calls have been like that. A guy was hurt. You find out about it. January. It's like imagine how much easier my job would be or how much better at my job Chris and I would be if we had like legit perfect access to injury information. Maybe we should start dishing out some coins. Scott, come on. We have connections. We have the right people. We just got to pay them, I guess. Tell us some things. Well, I mean, so like I feel like fantasy points is uniquely set up with like maybe like eight teams we're excellent with. And so we just got to expand our sphere of influence, I guess.

um texans giants eagles there's a bunch all right yeah we don't got to list them out so let's let's talk um let's stick with the jets here uh and a rookie oh this is a tweet from kyle devorchak uh omar cooper was on the field for the jet's sixth offensive drive tonight the last time a first round rookie of any non-cuby skill position was on the field that laid into a preseason game was Traylon Burks in 2022, which I don't know if you remember rookie season Traylon Burks, a guy, you and I were both very low on day three grade. Mike Vrable was just like anytime he was asked about it, he was just like, I hate this guy. It was like the, what's the, what's the Johnny Cash Spoof movie?

Oh God, I don't know. I'm not a film guy. Dewey Cox, it's, you know, it's like, wrong kid died. It was Danny Kelly's bit for like how much He hated Traylon Burr. So yeah, it kind of seems like the Jets hate Omar Cooper Jr. And this kind of matches with where I was at on Omar Cooper Jr. We kind of thought about him. But I did not think he was anywhere close to a round one caliber talent. And I did not like him from a redraft perspective.

This is a team that, you know, they drafted a tight end. We're like, we want to play a ton of 12 personnel. And they drafted a slot wide receiver who's probably not going to play in 12 personnel. And you know, I love Garrett Wilson. You know, I love A.D. Mitchell, the ad. So it's it's yeah, like this is a guy. I, oh, I have zero interest in best ball, redraft, even dynasty. You know the irony here too is the guy that is been starting over O'Marcooper Jr.

in camp is Isaiah Williams. And I say the irony there is Isaiah Williams is a preseason darling. Go back, what's the two or three years when he was a UDFA to Detroit? Aaron Glenn at the time was in Detroit. Isaiah Williams dominated preseason. He had like 200 yards receiving over three games. And then AG brings him over to New York. And now he might start over the first round pick at wide receiver.

This reminds me a lot of the Luther Burton thing from a year ago, where Burden couldn't get on the field in favor of Olamed Zakias, who is just a, he's a solid pro, good route runner, doesn't give you a lot beyond that. That's kind of where Isaiah Williams is like a really good route running slot receiver with no dynamicism after the catch, no vertical element to his game. And if Cooper can't beat him out, that's super red flag, Scott, like super duper duper red flag. I'd be very concerned moving forward, especially for dynasty players. Like if you can get off a Cooper,

I probably would if that if that's how it shakes out. But yeah, it's it's irony because we're talking about preseason takeaways and the guy he's losing to his really only played in the preseason. Yeah. If this happens and he beats out Omar Cooper Jr., it's it's one of two, things. One, either Omar Cooper Jr. is just like absolute dog shit or two. And it's probably a mix of both. Two, you got to give props to Aaron Glenn and Darren Mugie for like having the stones to do that because like that was a big issue with Adam Thielen early on or Greg Dorch even where it's like obvious from like day one that this guy should be starting. But the GM doesn't want to look bad. You know, It's like, oh, we drafted this guy who sucks in round two.

And so we don't want the UDFA making me look bad, making me look dumb. So, you know, props to them for having a true meritocracy. That's something I don't think people talk about enough or think about enough. Next point I want to bring up is Jackson Dart. And there's two things we could say. One is, oh, my God, look at him just get lit up there. The stat I had is he, I don't know if my math is actually correct. My math might have been wrong on this, but he, he's made a trip to the blue medical tent

in six career games, including preseason. And so I don't know how many starts that is, but when I did the math, it was 43%. And then it went viral and I was like, oh, I should have triple check that one. but um it's just like is this a sustainable play style um and then then we'll get to the the other thing i wanted to talk about because like yeah he's he's he's he's paying rent to the blue medical tent he is in there so much well to be fair to him the play that sent him to the blue medical tent had nothing to do with this play style tyrone Tracy just whiffed on a block and like listen which is good for yeah cam scataboo by the right and also one one thing i want to say before the

giants fans get mad he's only had one die documented concussion at least since high school. And so he's going to the blue medical tent, but he's actually like typically fine and just pops right back out. Yeah, because, you know, he's taking hits. Players typically just get up from where he's a quarterback, so they're going to treat him with kid gloves and whatever. But yeah, I was, you know, talking about things that matter.

Like, so anytime I'm watching a quarterback that had clear deficiencies as a rookie or in any season and then we get to see him with the first team offense and preseason, I'm like, cool, let's see if he fix anything. I actually thought, like to answer your question, is Jackson's Darts placed out liable? I thought he was a much cleaner player in this limited sample, what, 10 dropbacks or something like that. But I thought the feet, the feet were the big problem last year. Happy feet. He was super heel-clicky, wasn't really willing to slide and step in the pocket.

It was more just all-out scramble right from the onset. And I thought his pocket awareness, the feet, everything calmed down, just seemed to slow down for him. Was it perfect? No, it wasn't perfect yet, but it was a lot better. And I think when you extrapolate like, cool, he was really productive despite some really bad habits and tendencies last year. If he cleans up the habits a little bit even, production should in theory go up. He's an ascending player in that regard. So I'm pretty excited about what I saw from Dart, to be honest with you.

I thought his, the one thing that if I'm going to knock him on is like he does lock on to that first read really, really quickly and often. And to the point where they were jumping the first read on a couple plays where it's like, cool, we know exactly where he wants to go. and we're literally throwing extra bodies directly at that player. And Dart wasn't really quick to come off of it. But I did think he looked more decisive. The feet were solid. The throwing mechanics looked good. The touchdown pass he had to Malachi Fields was freaking ridiculous.

The catch was ridiculous too. But it was Caleb Williams-esque where he's working against the grain, scrambling to his left side and flinging it up into the end zone. It was a really good play. So I really like what I saw from Dart. And I think it is actionable for fantasy football, because I do think he's getting better. I think you're underselling it.

I think Jackson Dart is a rare talent. I think he has special upside. I think anyone with eyes can see it. You look at what he did last year. Let's go back even further. What did Daniel Jones do last year with Shane Stuyken? Before his fractured fibula, he was leading all quarterbacks and passing yards.

The Colts had the best offense in football by EPA per play. He had the best record in football. And what did Daniel Jones do with his exact same dog shit supporting cast and head coach and offensive play caller? He did absolutely nothing. He looked awful. He was a bottom five quarterback.

What did Jackson Dart do last year with just 15 total snaps with Malik neighbors? He went freaking nuclear. He was awesome. He was top five in EPA per dropback on non-play action passes. is he, if you exclude the Vikings game, led all quarterbacks and fantasy points per start. He runs and he showed rare upside. You can see it on this play right here. The Malachi Fields touchdown is, you know, the off script plays.

So last year, only Patrick Mahomes averaged more EPA per dropback on out of rhythm plays. And this is what I'm saying is like, there is some. some Patrick Mahomes to his game. It should be illegal to say that. You should be cash rated for ever comping anyone to Patrick Mahomes, except I'm right and you're wrong. Go screw yourself. It's like special out of the pocket, off script, out of rhythm.

You see it here on this play. And this was the thing that, you know, quarterback after quarterback got overdrafted, overhyped because they saw the shades of Patrick Mahomes. And time and time again, And it was like, no, Patrick Mahomes is one of one. But you see it with Jackson Dart, but you don't see anywhere near the hype. And so I, yes, there's things he needs to clean up.

Yes, he's really raw, but special upside, rare traits. And he's a doll. Do you know how hard it was to bite my tongue during that entire monologue? God, I can't, we can't have this debate any, like any more than we already have. But Scott, production doesn't equal. Big blue. Big blue. I'm really not a Homer.

I'm not. I'm not a Homer. I'm just saying a guy who was terrible on film. It was amazing and a special rare talent. Yeah, that's not homerism at all. Who was he throwing to? PPR scam, Wondale Robinson and Theo John.

Scott, you can contextualize the performance with that, but you can't lie about the performance with that. The film wasn't very good. I'm not on an island here. There isn't a film guy out there who was super enthused by what they saw on tape from Jackson Dart last year.

It left more doubts than it did not. And so it's it's impossible for him to put up the numbers he did with the supporting cast he did for that to be true I refuse to believe it. Okay. Well, I don't know. I mean, okay, it is true. I don't know what to tell you. I mean, this is going to be typical in two years. No one saw Jackson Dart coming. And you know, he's a top five. Scott, I was the biggest Jackson Dart guy that ever walked the planet. That's true. So this was Brett's QB one. And I was like, I don't know about that one, my guy. And now we've kind of flip-flopped here a little bit. No, I'm still arrow pointing up, especially what, even that play, though, we just watched

the Throat Malachi Fields. There's a, there's a big problem with it. Do you want to watch it again? So you can see if you can find it. Yeah, what is it? Try to throw that back up there. Let's go. That wasn't the one.

That was nice, though. He had a free, free runner. And, you know, here we go. What's the problem? So you're going to say that wasn't real pressure. It wasn't not only real pressure, it wasn't pressure. He built from a completely clean pocket. He literally had multiple turn downs here. And was it as clean as a touchdown? No. And it ends up being a touchdown. And that's the playmaker gene. And if he does a lot of this, you live with some of the turn downs and some of the bailing from a clean pocket. But like, if I'm going to sit here and criticize Caleb Williams for doing this 30 times a game, I can't not criticize DART. The result here is good. But as a as a coach, I would live more in the realm of process over results. Look at that just jump. Look at that just jump. bad of his hand though my goodness yeah but to be very concerned about the arm talent so that that is a little bit of the Caleb Williams thing and hey for the folks at home who don't know or new to this

channel if we're ever arguing about film Brett is right I am wrong do not listen right is the best film guy in the game I am awful with film but uh I don't know I think there's something there with Jackson Dart here's where I want to take the Jackson dark convo so because I am optimistic about what I saw you obviously love him you think is amazing if he does improve mechanically, if the pocket stuff is more consistent, if he's throwing in rhythm more. What does that mean for the pass catchers on the Giants in fantasy? What does it mean for Malikai neighbors? What does it mean for even Malachi Fields who got, you know, starter treatment basically in this game as they're, I'd say he's their wide receiver two probably next to neighbors.

So what does it mean for those? What does it mean for Isaiah likely? Yeah, well, I mean, Malik neighbors didn't play. So that's your wide receiver one when he's healthy. Isaiah likely is interesting. I looked at that snapshot. This is really concerned. It's again, it's, it's just the first week of preseason teams do weird things.

I don't know that this means anything. It's his entire career so far. What do you mean? It doesn't mean anything. Yeah, but you have every beat writer saying he's going to be a full time player. You have the coach saying he's going to be a full time player. And you had, you had. I don't know.

Scott, we just did a show a large sample. Yeah. We did a show two weeks ago telling everyone why beat writers are important for what we do. No, I, I, I know. It's I, I, I need a lot. I need a much more robust sample to shake me off of. Okay, that's, that's fair. But we have the robust sample of him in Baltimore with the same head coach.

Yeah, with with way tougher competition and Charlie Kohler, who just got the bag, Mark Andrews, who was the ask God. There's a lot of people who like Theo Johnson. And they're wrong. He's a big athletic inline freak. Like he's going to play on rundowns. It's just obvious. Well, it's also a team that's going to play a.

a shit ton of 12 personnel. I think. They should with the right ride receiver room they have. All right. So I just need to see more before I think there's anything to. But tell me what you think about Malachi Fields because this is a player. I was not high on at all.

I think my comp for him Giants fans might appreciate was if Ramsey's Barden wasn't at all athletic, something like that. But, uh, so off the wall. Yeah. You're hanging with Danny Kelly too much. I'll pull up the actual. don't think it was that but yeah tell me what you think i you know i really liked malika feels as a

prospect but more from an nfl standpoint than fantasy where it's like yeah i think he provides a clear role i thought he was one of the better run blockers in the draft the vertical contested catch stuff um you know he's super dynamic at all of that so like i thought that could be great at the senior bowl though in mobile he he definitely showed a little more route running and separation ability but just like legitimate top tier s tier ball skills and body control and I've said a thousand times at this point body control is my number one trait for receiver if you have that you can become a good route runner you can become a dynamic player after the catch so like the fact that he's got that in droves I think is is really good for him and then what's really cool I landed I really

like I like that he has malik neighbors as the wide receiver one because that takes some of the pressure off of him And he should help neighbors quite a bit as well. But I think he's got a chance to be a good player. I had a day too great on him. In fact, I had a higher grade on him than I did Deshaun Stribling. But they're very similar players, big, physical guys who, you know, pretty athletic dudes for their size. So I had two comps for him. Both.

By the way, he ran a 465, 40-yard dash. You know that 40-time doesn't define athleticism, right? I do know that. One alliance player, which you'll appreciate, one of Giants, mine was Ramsey's Barden, if he was unathletic. And if you don't remember, that was the only thing Ramsey's Barden had going for him was athleticism. The other one was literally Quintas Cephas. Just just quintess. Literally, it's the same guy.

Literally, it's the same exact guy. But yeah, maybe something's here because like, you know, like I said, I'm well connected in Giants camp. And I got a lot of people saying, hey, you're wrong. this guy is just really good and jackson dart loves him loves you know the stylistic skill set is perfect for him etc that's true that is true so yeah yeah i didn't think about the play style thing actually that's a that's a good point very very much what he's used to throwing to so yeah hey could we pay the bills here and and talk about our new front office tool yes we can so let me just say one thing is like if you had a fantasy point subscription it's because we had the best projections we

have the best content. It's not because we have the best tools. We had probably the worst league importer draft dominator tool in the game. And now we have the best. We spent a lot of time, money, energy, effort, and we built, it's the front office tool we're calling it. We really built it from the ground up. It's a lot more than just an importer. You bring your leagues directly into the fantasy points ecosystem. So you get access to our the best projections in the industry. Shout out Chris Wecht.

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FPFO for 15% off. This is good for ESPF. PN, Yahoo, Sleeper, FFPC, CBS, MFL, yeah, just about all of them. Shout out to Jay, shout out to Thomas, who really put a ton of work in this. Really, really pleased with how everything came out. It was a really cool collaborative process building this with the dev team and Thomas and a lot of back and forth, even the, you know, you content guys, you, yourself, Graham Barfield, Joe Dolan, Tom, they all got involved and just put in the final touches on this.

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Let's, let's hit Miami guys. Caleb Douglas, Malik Washington, clearly the top two guys so far. However, we found out today, Chris Bell. is coming back. This catch by Caleb Williams on the screen right now or Caleb Douglas is absolutely insane.

I immediately texted Stephen O'Rourke and was like, Broda, did you see that? Because Caleb Douglas is Stephen O'Rourke's guy. Great catch. So Caleb Douglas was insanely unheralded

throughout the draft process and then like went, what was it, round three and it kind of caught everyone off guard because there were other wide receivers, Bell, for instance, still on the board that people had higher. I know that was your guy.

So, so sell me. me on Caleb Douglas and then if you have to quote Stephen the ass guy, the director of ass over a great wide receiver expert and then tell me your take and then also tell me where you're out on Sky Bell because my guy. Sky Bell or Chris Bell. Sorry Chris Bell. My guy is Malik Washington, but but go ahead. Sell me on your guy or Steve's guy. Yeah, yeah. So Steve, it's funny because we all do like a piece of this pie. So Steve, you know, went down to Mobile with me this year to senior bowl. He helped me with some of the wide receiver evaluations in the draft guide. And he locked on to

Caleb Douglas pretty early in the process is one of his guys. And I think for Steve, it was like the size adjusted separation ability and contested catch prowess just means he's always open. It's like he can separate against bigger corners. And then if it's a smaller corner, he can go up and be a ball winner on the boundary. I think that's a really attractive skill set. And it's kind of where the NFL's getting back to where we had like a five year period where everyone was like five, 10, 511, 6 foot and shifty. We are. getting back to some bigger body guys that have legit route running chops. Caleb Douglas definitely fits the mold there. I felt like he was limited as an athlete and I was a little

lower on him than Steve, not by much, but a little bit just because like what he was asked to do at Texas Tech wasn't great. I thought he'd have a pretty steep learning curve transitioning from his role in college to his role in the NFL. He seems to be taking to the game pretty well, though. There's a lot of hype coming out of camp about him. They also don't really have anyone else. So it's going to be like a for fantasy situation where I mean, he could see. a really healthy target load just because of, you know, who else is in the room with him. And then my guy, Chris Bell, they got off like a 50 pick discount on Bell because of the late season ACL. It's absolutely absurd that they've activated them already. It's a really good sign for

him because that was like, that was a mid-November ACL tear. And they have nothing to play for this year. So there's a lot of reasons they could have played this super safe and popped him and brought them back like week seven. But no, they're like, hey, we're going to get him in the mix now. I think it's really cool to see that they might have three young guys. They also drafted the Missouri kid to play in the slot too behind Malik Washington. So they have like four I would call really young receivers that kind of that could take over this room when it's all sudden dead. But Bell is the A.J. Brown clone to me, physical freak, run after catch demon, back shoulder, you know, stuff all day long. He can win vertically, but he's he's really more of an inbreaker slant, dig kind of guy and just kind of dominate that way.

So there's parts to like about all these guys, though. Yeah, so I think there is sneaky upside here. It's, yeah, you have Malik, well, we got to talk Malik Willis too, Brett, but you have Malik Willis, a hyper-mobile quarterback where you're going to see fewer pass attempts and completions than you would, a pure pocket passer. And, you know, you could bake in, like, Devon A-chan ranking top three at the position in targets. And there's still, like, project out targets. There's still like a pathway for one of these guys to get 100 plus targets even. And to me, the guy with the most upside, I think is Malik Washington, who his final year of college had 110 catches, 1,426 yards through 12 games, mistackle force machine.

The stat I had was if you ranked all Power 5 wide receivers since 20,000, 2017 with at least 35 catches. Malik Washington had seasons ranking second, third, seventh in mistackles force per catch. C.D. Lamb, his 2019 season was at top that list. And so, yeah, it just seems like there's, you know, looking for a PPR cheat code in an offense where there's a ton of targets up for grabs. I think he's the most interesting guy is like a last round FFPC target, perhaps. but I don't know maybe you know the fact that he hasn't done anything through this point in his career

and maybe maybe it's one of these you know exciting rookies we should gravitate towards I can give you closing thoughts on that but I also want to hear your take on how Malik Willis look yeah I mean Willis looked awesome I mean it was a really small sample Scott but like one of the things I was really impressive were his eyes like his eyes were very deceptive you know he basically was working out coverages while using peripheral vision and not just staring down his first read. Then the

back foot would hit. Then he would hit the first read and really lock on and deliver an accurate ball. I thought he looked really good, really decisive. It's preseason. It's vanilla. So you're seeing a lot of like spot. You're seeing a lot of stick and some easier concepts to run. They worked in some high, low stuff

as well. I think they had a flood concept in there that he worked pretty well. But ultimately, like I just thought, he looked really comfortable. And that wasn't true for Malik in Tennessee. Obviously, the reps he had in Green Bay were really good. That's what got him paid. But just the comfort level that you're seeing from Willis is special.

I think he has the physical tools to be an incredible quarterback. So for him, it's just always been between the ears, learning how to play the NFL game with high level competition and against high level competition. So I'm pretty, like, I'm really bullish on Malik as my kind of like late round quarterback this year. as bullish as I am, Brett. That's probably true. If he's not your Exodia quarterback, you're not as bullish as I. Yeah, and so love to see this, because that's the thing that really reminds, like, so you

remember Justin Field sophomore year? I made him the Exodia quarterback. After the first month of the season, he averaged 25 fantasy points per game, finish the year, you know, top five overall. And I went against you on that. You're like, Justin Field sucks and like, you should not be, he's going to be not starting in the league in two years, blah, blah, blah. Which is true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was like, and that was a hot take. And you said that when he was coming out of the draft. And that was a really hot take at the time. And so I went against you. And now with Malique Willis, it's the assumption is he's like Justin Fields. And I'm telling you there's a chance like he's really good and it's not priced in. And you're telling me, I mean, you love this guy.

You had a round one great on it. Yeah, I love, I mean, I've loved them. you know, since I first watched his tape, got to meet him in Mobile, which sometimes that's good and bad. Like I really like feeling out a guy's character and his personality, but you can also develop biases because of that, right?

But what I learned about Malik when I got to spend time with him was like legit, awesome dude. Like a super hardworking guy, nice guy. Just kind of really... I'm not trying to have a beer with him, Brad. I'm trying to win my fantasy. I know, but what that told me about him was that he'd be a guy who's going to work hard and work on his craft.

He knew he wasn't a finished product. And that was okay. And he has done that. He's put in the work. Obviously, linking up with LaFleur was probably the best thing that could ever happen to him. Going from a dysfunctional franchise in Tennessee to Matt LaFleur is quite the change. So, yeah, I've always loved him. And now I've seen the improvements he's made in his game.

And I'm pretty in love with the situation here. And it's kind of cool. We have a blank canvas at passcatcher. I know it feels nasty for fantasy. It's like, uh, Jalen Tolbert. Yeah, I don't think he's a factor. I'm looking at these young guys. One of these guys, to your point, is going to emerge as 100 plus target guy for sure.

Yeah, especially for a team that's like probably trying to draft Arch Manning next year. It's like, yeah, they're going to want to play their rookies. They're going to, so or they're young guys, you know, because Malik Washington's still rookie contract. Yeah. It certainly has more upside, I think, than Jalen Tolbert, who we know is at this stage of his career. I said earlier, I was praising Jackson Dart for averaging. 26 Brian Dable adjusted fantasy points per game. And so now we're going to talk about the other sophomore quarterback who now has Brian Dable as his offensive coordinator slash play caller.

How did Kim Ward look and what does that mean for our Cornell Tate shares? Scott, that's what I wanted to ask you at the end of this rant. Scott, I'm concerned. And I know it's we started the show by telling you preseason doesn't matter. but I'm telling you what we saw on tape in this preseason game on 14 dropbacks is worse than what he put on his rookie tape last year. And I don't know how that's possible. Right, right.

But bro, I could go play by play with you if you want. I literally wrote my thoughts on every play just because I was that concerned. Oh, boy. But it's, I would say the biggest issue is the pocket awareness is not there. He's not reading defenses. he's really slow to get to who his primary should be. So he's throwing the ball late over the field. He had multiple turnover-worthy plays in this game.

He took several unnecessary sacks, including a sack fumble for minus 16. It's like, oh, gosh, it's really bad. And then on top of that, the strength of Cam Ward's game coming out of college was his ability on RPO because he's got this wicked fast release so he can delay the mechanics of an RPO throw. because he can ramp up the velocity on a pass in really short time, right?

Despite that, he was making the incorrect read with the RPO's all the time, and he was turning down, you know, some plus one opportunities in the box for the run to take a throw into a contested window. There was one of the goal line where he forced the ball to Carnell Tate at the pylon on an RPO. It was an out route to Tate. The corner was playing outside leverage, literally taking away the pylon. Ward picks the ball and throws it anyways despite a this is the play right there

despite the main advantage in the box he had two two like double overhang defenders they probably easily run in for a touchdown even if they don't get a touchdown it's only second three so they probably pick up the first down and then get a fresh set of downs first and 10 and instead he's forces the ball into into tight coverage almost thrown a pick here's the minus 16 sack fumble literally bailing from a clean pocket for no reason just completely drifts off of his spot. There were out of the 14 dropback Scott, I think I wrote that he did something good twice. And that's just not good when you're a former first overall quarterback with the raw talent, the physical talent that he has. It's, oh, God. I was really discouraged. And for a guy who's been

just so bullish on Carnell Tate, I'm like, I'm a little nervous about this now, man. Well, so I was already pretty low on Carnell Tate to begin with. And this was a big reason why. One, I think it's a little bit overly optimistic on a guy who is going to be a really good NFL player, but maybe not the most fantasy-friendly skill set, at least based on the analytics. But it was also Cam Ward who, like, I kind of viewed this entire offense as dead. Again, I don't think Brian Davel is that great. But it's also like how awful this offense was last year. I think by like week 14, the highest scoring fantasy player was the kicker.

by fantasy points per game and like that hadn't happened since like 1943 um and cam ward had the fewest fantasy points of any uh quarterback to start all 17 games ever and uh yeah they're the higher highest scoring wide receiver averaged like 7.2 it was just awful it was just dead and barren and i don't know why we should be all that optimistic um and because this is sort of like the power law that you hear me talk about with players, but it's true for teams as well. It's like, yeah,

it's very well could be the case where I'd rather have four 49ers, four Jaguars than like two Titans. And so, yeah, I appreciate this. I think that was an excellent film breakdown. I wanted to talk a few more things.

So, so again, these are things I'm going to continue to monitor. And this isn't, I don't want people to think this is like, take lock, intellectual hubris. It's really like no one, no one takes their rankings more seriously than me. I take them too seriously. And I have a real process where I go

back and I look at my track record. I look at the changes I've made and why. And I say this to myself every year and like looking back to the results, it's you want to be slow to move. You want to be stubborn in August. The more you kind of close your eyes and plug your ears, the better off you're going to be. And so I don't I need another week before I do anything, but I am watching it. One was Tony Pollard and Taji Spears split basically 50-50. I would have assumed, you know, in a real regular season game, it'd be like 70, 75, 25. The other was Cam Scadaboo's usage was a little concerning, but I mean, he's not 100%.

And then Tyrone Tracy is already in the doghouse. Isaiah likely, when we mentioned it earlier, Greg Dulcich is another one. Steelers, tight end. I mean, those guys don't really matter, but Pat Friermuth ran fewer routes than Darnell Washington, which was interesting. And so that's that's about in on my list. What was your note on Dulcich? It's just his snap share was a little bit lower than I expected it to be. I thought there was a chance, you know, it could be like, you know, Darren Waller plus from a season ago.

He played every snap with Willis. Did he not? I thought he did. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I have to go back over my notes. I'll have to look. I wrote him, I had him down for,

I thought he played every snap with Willis, but it's possible I messed that up. It's not like I'm officially charting this, you know, so. Okay. Well, again, in either case, I need another week before it, it actually matters to me. I could have,

by the way, I could have just wrote the wrong name down or something. Scataboo's pretty much split with Tracy, right? For first team reps? I think it was a little less. less than Tracy. Tracy had one more snap, but Tracy was also playing some slot slash out wide stuff. But then Tracy also blew the protection scheme. And the thing that thing that's really alarming and like people might think we're overreacting that. He's supposed to be a third downback.

And he can't handle regular pass pro duties like without having a mental. He's also an awful fit for the Greg Roman system. That's for sure, sure. He's basically the run game. Like so I I'm still very bullish on If he was fully 100% healthy, I would be doing backflips for this guy. I would be taking him in round two. And again, I'm not a giant. You're burying the lead on Scataboo though. Go ahead. Coming off the ankle.

He looked good? Yes. Hell yeah. And in fact, he had two hard cuts off his right ankle, the hurt ankle, where he broke tackles from linebacker. Like people coming down filling gaps, hard cut off the right ankle, both, you know, moving to the right. I think they were both on duo, actually.

And looked completely fine, looked completely comfortable. I was actually shocked at the burst too off of the cuts. It was like, whoa, I think he's 100%. Like, I'd be a little more concerned with Judkins, actually. Not that we had him on the show sheet, but I thought Judkins looked a little unsure of himself

on any time he was working to his right. So. Yeah. Scataboo was just one of my guys coming out before he was, ever even drafted on like hey this guy's special and he's going to be great for fantasy he was top five in fantasy points per snap last year um 20.2 fantasy points per four quarters over his last you know basically five full games uh and so you know total heartbreaker for the exodia running back suffering that injury last year but still very blush also crack rock i don't know if you know

crack rock but guy with like legit sources what you don't know who crack rock is shout out crack rock uh c r k okay on Twitter. He hobnobbs with like the Trump crew and like NFL owners and GMs. And yeah, he's saying like scataboo is like 100% going to be the bell cow. He's going to be the primary pass catching back, the goal line back. And so yeah, it all really comes down to injury. Jeff Mueller is like somewhat optimistic. He's like, you know, a slightly elevated compensatory injury risk. Maybe not at 100%. But like, good enough and he wasn't ever a speed guy to begin with true um so i don't know i not a giants homer just just a big scataboo fan um oh one guy i wanted to ask you about is total hype darling

dynasty leagues deep roster formats mad harman's guy cyrus allen where are you out on cyrus allen who who legitimately looked good and kind of looked like he was being used in the rishy rice roll a little bit you're not lying he did look like that didn't he uh he was definitely playing some of the rishi rice stuff he's got way more verticality to his game than rashi too so there's there's some more i guess multiple type of usage available to him the thing i'll say about cyrus allen is i wish i wrote him up for the prospect guide i didn't get around to it and it i should have because i had mike renner on the show and renner came on and i asked him was like who is the one guy in this draft no one is talking about that you think is going to be excellent He said Cyrus Allen. He had a, I think he had a round two great on. Alan was something like his wide receiver four, something crazy like that. Like, dude, renters, renters nice, man.

I drafted Deontay Johnson in every single dynasty league. I'm in a ton of pre-draft, rookie draft dynasty leagues. And so I had him everywhere and it's because that was renter's guy. He was like, you know, everyone was saying that, you know, he's like maybe a late day three guy. He went a lot earlier. But yeah, that was, you know, I was like, no, that's my wide.

receiver two in this class. I had a I had a round two great on Deontay as well. He was a PFF guy in general. I pretty much everyone at PFF liked him. Yeah, um, Cyrus has some similarities, ironically, to Deonto Johnson for sure. The route running is insane. Um, really, really developed skill set already for that. So yeah, I mean, I, dude, you know how I feel about the chiefs wide receivers. They're not any good. So he could definitely carve out a role. One of these guys eventually has to be night, you know, the Elijah Moore's, the Justin Ross, the Cadarius Tony. One of these guys has to hit eventually. If you guys want a fun, like, waste some time study, go check out the amount of day two draft capital. Andy Reed is flushed down the toilet on skill players throughout his career.

It's worse than Kyle Shanahan. Going back to his time with Eagles. That's pretty tough to do. It is. He has some crazy hits in there like LaShawn McCoy and Tyree Hill. Jeremy Macklin, maybe. Yeah, Maclin was a pretty good prospect, but yeah. It was really good. Yeah. But just point being, he's, there's a lot of just absolute just blanks in there. round two and three and four so anywho you want to talk about giovante williams yeah i did because scott like you know i'm looking for actionable takeaways and we've we've heard buzz that there's a there's threats to givante's workload and maybe he's not the belk how he was last year but then i watched jaden blue in in phil mafa in the spree season game and i've just go

these guys aren't football these guys aren't nfl running backs just complete non-starter i I can't do it with either of them. I think Javante might have the biggest snapshot discrepancy of any running back not named Christian McCaffrey this year. Like it's that clear to me. Yeah. It's unbelievable Dallas didn't add somebody to this backfield.

Yeah. It truly is. And I like Javante, but like I don't think he's got it like that. He doesn't deserve that kind of workload. But for fantasy, he's going to get that kind of workload. I'm telling you Mafa,

and especially Jaden Blue. Jaden Blue is not an NFL running back. He's fast and that's it. So, so, um, so before he suffered a neck injury last year, Javante Williams was fantasy's RB9 by fantasy points per game. That was that was weeks one through 14. Uh, so clearly, you know, Shody could be productive with a Belcal workload in this offense.

He's sort of like the non-PPR friendly version of Chase Brown to me, where it's like a guaranteed top three offense that sure, it skews pass heavy, but tons of touchdown opportunities. And and yeah, look at it, look at the depth chart. There isn't a single running back on the team who's ever handled more than 55 touches in a single NFL season, nor a running back drafted before round five. If you, if you like listen to the coach speak, like it's clear they like Jane Blue. They're using quotes like, we want more of a thunder and lightning committee this year. Yeah. Or more of a one-two punch even.

but I'm with you. Like I thought Jane Blue was like nothing coming out. He went round five and then was in the doghouse all of last year. They can say they want Gene Blue, but they showed us last year. If Giovante is playing well, like they're not really going to take him off the field. Yeah.

And like I think Blue, sure, they could give him a couple carries a game. That's not going to impact Javante at all in fantasy. So I'm really not worried about that. And Phil Mafa is just possibly some pass protection duties at some point, but ultimately I, I just don't think he plays. So, um, let's hit, let's hit DJ more than get out of here. We go to that? Sure. Cool. Uh, I want to talk DJ more,

Scott, because I think there was like, well, now he's a little banged up, which is concerning, obviously, but from what we saw in preseason week one is like, hey, this is the primary on every one of their past concepts now. So I was really excited because like, I think the idea of Josh Allen getting a new Steph Diggs is really attractive. And I think that a lot of people were bullish on DJ Moore because of that. I don't, I don't remember where you were a more. I think you feel like maybe he's cooked a little bit, but I love the role that we saw in that small sample we got where I'm like, cool.

He's definitely going to be the featured component of this pass offense. And then Shakir and Kincaid will be ancillary pieces. And I think that's the way to build the offense. So I'm pretty excited for this. I can't agree. I'm going to be stubborn here. And it's really just like, every year we do this, we overreact to a really small sample where it's maybe like,

hey, we're going to interview Ryan Pagnetti, former NFL director of analytics, probably our next episode. But he talks about this is like, they're really smart coaches. What they do is they disguise their tendencies or they show you like something that's like not actually what they're going to be at all. And like we just, I don't know that's what they're doing. But like we have so much more of a robust sample size. of Joe Brady preferring to spread the ball around to an insane degree over the last two years.

And it was true when he had Stefan Diggs. It was, it was Joe Brady took over halfway through the 2023 season. Stefan Diggs went from over 20 fantasy points per game with Ken Dorsey to 10.3 with Joe Brady. And then the last two years, the wide receiver won is Khalil Shakir, who never finished better than, I don't know, wide receiver 40 by fantasy points per game, with a career high 71% route share team high 71. So he likes these like gross three way, four way wide receiver by committee situations. And then there's a very real possibility DJ Moore is just totally cooked and totally washed.

Over the last two years, all wide receivers with over 125 targets, 56 qualifiers, DJ Moore ranks bottom six in targets per route run, bottom six in yards per route run, bottom six and first downs per route run. Those are the most predictive staff. we had and that's with Ben Johnson the goate scheming guys open uh and so it's it's what about before Ben what about before Ben that was years ago there's an old dusty wide receiver Ben was there one year the thing with DJ Moore that skews all those stats he's a he's a soldier he plays through everything that's fair I mean you got to yeah yeah you know we kind of let off this episode

talking about that that's that's certainly true Tyler Lockett was like legendary for that who was like he he would just play through like injuries he should have been on iR with like weeks ago and he would just suck for a while and then baker mayfield's just like that and so so that very well might be true but i think still even if you factor that in it's pretty disappointing there were reports that the bears were going to cut dj more and then i think that's more of a salary discussion though that's not a reflection of the player you see good players get cut all the time brand and bean worst gm in the league should be on trial for war crimes the taco of your fantasy league would have more Super Bowls with Josh Allen than then Brandon Bean.

Yeah, gave him a second round pick, a bunch of money. Listen, I'm not saying you're wrong, Scott. Like, there's a chance. I mean, I might be wrong. I need to see more. I need to hear more. I need to see more. I'm open to it.

But it's going to take more for me to pun. It's also like coaches do introspective things sometimes. It's possible Joe Brady said, hey, the past game has really been limited because we haven't had a dude. So let's get a dude and run the offense through him. And that will help Kincaid. That will help Shakir be more efficient, although those guys have, you know, on paper, you know, really solid efficiency. So anyways, I just think I'm really intrigued by the idea of Allen having a true number one. I remember what it was like when he had digs. Obviously digs didn't, success didn't come with Joe, Joe Brady necessarily. But I mean, the pitch on DJ

Moore is is not hard to do. It's like, hey, this is the alpha number one for the best quarterback in football. Yeah. We all saw what Stefan Diggs did back in the day. So I get it. On a team too, by the way, whose defense is going through a transitional period who might not be that good. Yeah. Their defense hasn't been very good actually, but could really still be, you know, mid or worse this year. And I think that opens up a lot of us. By the way, Joe Brady had DJ Moore on his team. Yeah. In 2021. And that year, DJ Moore got outscored by both Robbie Chosen and Curtis Samuel, his teammates that league. So he was wide receiver three. Yeah. Is that the fact? Yes. That's fast.

Good Lord. I know. So I think there's something to the Joe Brady likes to spread the ball around thing. All right. Trey, cut this from the sheet. Get it off the show sheet. I don't want this in here.

That matters more to me than freaking 10 preseason snaps. But yeah, no, you're right. You're right. I just know DJ Moore is a really good player. So the reason. Was.

Was. I still think he is. I've made this argument before. When he was healthy last year, the tape was really good. Okay. So that matters. Yeah.

For me, it's like I'm not just taking, the 10 precincts and be like, oh, he's the alpha. I'm like looking at his career arc. Like he's been an alpha before. And I think they acquired him and spent what they did on him to make him an alpha. So it's like, I think the stars are aligning there. But I definitely think you could also be right.

He could be washed. Brady could be a, you know, a distribution of targets kind of guy. So anyways, all right. That's a great episode, Scott. You want to get out of here? Yeah, let's do it. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening.

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