Fantasy Football Daily - NFL First Read | Top-10 Franchise Cornerstones Draft

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Welcome to NFL First Read, the ultimate podcast for passionate football fans! Join your hosts, Brett Whitefield and Joe Marino, as they dive deep into the world of professional football, providing in-depth analysis, expert insights, and lively discussions on the game’s hottest topics. In this special series, Brett and Joe tackle a top-10 franchise cornerstones draft, where they break down the most indispensable players every NFL team needs to build a dynasty. From star quarterbacks to lockdown defenders, our hosts rank and debate the top talents that can shape the future of any franchise. Whether you're a die-hard fan, a fantasy football enthusiast, or just love the strategy and excitement of the game, NFL First Read has something for everyone. Tune in each week to stay ahead of the curve and get your first read on all things NFL. Don’t miss an episode – subscribe now and join the conversation! Subscribe to FantasyPoints for FREE - https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/ Where to find us: http://twitter.com/BGWhitefield http://twitter.com/TheJoeMarino 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

First read. We are your first read. This is a film analytics podcast featuring Joe Marino of Lockdown and myself, CEO of Fantasy Points. This podcast is powered by the Fantasy Points Data Suite. If you're an audio only partaker, we want you to get the best experience possible. This podcast does have a video element. So make sure you head over to the Fantasy Points YouTube page, click subscribe and turn notifications on. Joe Marino, sir. How are you today? Brett, I'm doing good, my guy. And obviously, We have a lot of football to talk about today on the show, some things that required some preparation. But I got to be completely honest with you. My mind is completely occupied by the fact that I have recently acquired a meat smoker. I got it a week ago.

And it, dude, I can't think about anything else. I'm preparing to smoke my first meat, which is going to be this Sunday. It's a turkey. And I've been researching recipes, how to prepare it, injections, like everything imaginable. and now I'm also preparing my future smokes. And so, like, football is king at all times, but I got to be honest with you, man. I'm thinking a lot about smoking meat.

I feel like this is taking over my life. This is the sole reason I haven't purchased a trigger yet is because I know the level of consuming it will do to me. Let me ask you this, Joe. Did you go the turkey route because it's like a cheaper meat? And if you mess up, not that big of a deal. I went to turkey route because I didn't want to do ribs or pork right away. I feel like that's just such a normal thing to do.

And it felt like I've always been fascinated by the different methods of preparing turkey. And I really like deep fried turkey. Of course, oven roasted turkey is probably the worst way that you can do it. But I still like turkey. So it's still good. And I really wanted to experience the smoke turkey. I've never had smoked turkey. And so like that piece of curiosity plus like I, I feel like I have a good idea for how to season the turkey.

Like, sure. That's what pushed me over the edge. Plus, and what's better than having leftover turkey in the fridge, dude? So I'm excited about that for the next couple days. You know what's funny is I was going to start this podcast by asking you if we could do an icebreaker. And the icebreaker was, Joe, how do you feel about icebreakers? Oh, God. But here's the thing.

You just segued us with smoked meat talk. That's an icebreaker. So you're pro icebreaker. If the topic is okay, I take it. Well, I always do my best with ice breakers. I feel like they're awkward for most people. And I've been through enough schooling and stuff like that where you do this stuff. And I just try to be creative and try to do something that people will remember and could be a conversation piece later on.

So I have my go-to things that I say. But generally speaking, not a fan of ice breakers, but I do embrace them because I mean, I generally want to get to know the people that I'm going to be working with or being around. For sure. All right. Well, I'll keep that in mind. We'll plan some cool, awkward ice breakers for weeks to come. Um, but yeah, thanks for bringing the smoker talk to my attention because this is what I've asked for for Father's Day for what it's worth. Father's day is in what a week and a half now.

I've asked for a smoker. Last year, I got a Blackstone. This year I want a smoker. So so you did your life's over. If you, if this happens to you and we're both smoking meats, we might as well just have a meat smoking podcast and put football in the back burner. You know what I mean? I mean, shoot. If it gets us to episode five, we've already broke trends here with episode four.

Joe. So, you know, we'll keep it, we'll keep it going. So all right, we got a fun game planned for you guys today. We're going to do a like a cornerstone NFL draft. I think, but before we do that, there is some breaking, I shouldn't say breaking news. There's some news. There's some news to get to. Justin Jefferson, Jalen Waddle, since last time we talked to you guys, they both signed big deals. Waddle came in as a high end wide receiver too, basically, next to Tyreek. And then Justin Jefferson completely reset the wide receiver market. Like significant jump. I mean, outside of like, I don't think we get sticker shock anymore, right? Because it's like that is, that is what happens.

People, the next best guy always resets the market. So what was your initial thought on Jefferson though? Well, my first thought was, did he get the 35 million APY that I was anticipating? He did. So the money came in exactly where I thought it would. My mind didn't really stay thinking about Jefferson. I'm comfortable with him and the fit in Minnesota, the long term outlook, how much of an asset he's going to be to T.J. McCarthy with Jordan Addison and T.

Hockey, all that's great. My mind went to Jamar Chase and CD Lamb. Exactly. And while I think for those parties, CD Lamb and Jamar Chase, allowing Jefferson to get his done first is great for them. Bad for the teams. Bad for the teams, right? Like to me, you had an opportunity to get this done and give them their moment in the sun where they get to be the highest paid receiver in the history of the league. And now that's, that's complicated. Now that's very, very complicated because I don't know that they're better than Jefferson. So my mind went to Lamb and Chase and kind of the domino effects there. For sure. And the thing with with Lamb, so you've had a couple insiders now say that they expect Lamb to slot in just under the Jefferson deal.

I don't, I don't see that. I think Adam Kaplan just said that on a recent show yesterday, maybe when the news broke. I don't, I don't know that that's true. I think Jefferson got the high end of the reset. And I think Lamb might go for $35 million and $1, AV. You know what I mean? He's got a case, man. He's got a heck of a case. Especially, you stack just the career numbers on like next to each other.

They're close. But if you look at like last 20 games, I think I mentioned that when we had the wide receiver discussion, Cidney Lamb blows him out of the water, really. Where does Chase fit into that for you now? Well, Chase has missed more time than both those guys with the injuries. So I think that's kind of the bummer there. I think the efficiency numbers for Chase are right there with those guys. So like he's, and arguably his tape might, you know, very well be more impressive than

those two guys. So pedigree too, fifth overall pick. I think that factors. So I think for the wattle piece of this conversation, he's getting paid a lot of money, right? Like was 28 and a half, right? So he's knocking on the door of that 30 million. I think he deserves it. He's a great young player. Where it gets interesting is now you have this like Tyree Kill dynamic where, you know, he's going to hold out of mandatory camp and force the needle. And it's like, to me, that's complicated. It's very complicated, where Tyrie Kill, like, has been the highest paid receiver in the NFL. He was the first 30 million guy. He's got three years left on his deal.

To me, that's a, that's a really fascinating situation that Chris Greer is going to have to navigate through. Tyreek wasn't just the first 30 million receiver. Wasn't he the first 30 million non-QB period? I think so. Yeah, I think that's true. And then you mentioned it a couple weeks ago, there is, Tyreek is on record saying he didn't want to play past age 30.

Well, he's 30 right now, brother. Like that's conflicting. You know, I feel like a team has to weigh that to some extent. Like, I really going to load up a brink truck of signing bonus again. Dolphins need a cap space. They didn't touch his contract, right? There's plenty of restructure opportunities with it. For sure.

That could be way to make him happy, though, actually. Tack a couple of void years, you know, kick some of the base salary into signing bonus. He gets his check today instead of tomorrow. He might like that. He might be into that. Yeah, I think they should take some of their future money. That's owed to him. Put it this year.

gets a bump and then not touch that contract and remain, remain flexible with your ability to get out of the deal or flip him or whatever you want to do. Because I mean, let's be real, man, like they're going to pay to a over 50 million a season. Are you going to have two 30 million wide receivers? You know, like, that's kind of what Philly has, but they've been fortunate to be able to kind of stagger those cap hits in a way that makes somewhat level of sense for them. I'm not sure if Miami's going to have that same opportunity because they're all due now. The difference is Philly. Those guys were like staggered in terms of years that those deals came through and then you know for for for you could work with fifth year options

and things like that with smith but that that's not really there for for miami all right joe let's get into our game of the day but before we do we got to take a quick break all right joe i kind of randomly had this idea there's been like you know we're in offseason content mode so there's a lot of companies producing content you know top 10 player list top 20 player list top 25 under 25 list so So I was like, you know what, you and I, we love talking roster construction. We love talking, you know, tape breakdowns. Let's do a corner, an NFL cornerstone draft where we kind of go back and forth. And we each pick five guys to start a franchise with.

And I thought I would, I would bless you with the first pick, Joe. So I don't know. What was your process when you made your list too? I think that's important to know. Well, so what I did is I went through and I considered every single. team and I thought about who their best player is or where their best players are. And if I would consider them, right, if they would like very strongly, yes, this person should be in that conversation.

I put them on a list. And that got me to 16 players. And that went from 16 down to 10 because we're going to draft 10 players. And I need to make sure that I have, you know, the ability to just follow my board. So I'm going to follow my board. Also keeping in mind here that we're not starting one. franchise each, right? These are in order of if I guess assuming we had 10 different franchises that we were starting because obviously I mean, my first I don't want to give away my board,

but there's a lot of quarterbacks, right? I'm going to draft multiple quarterbacks here. So just kind of clarifying that from the open here that this is not, I'm not starting five different teams or I'm starting five different teams, not one. Right. So here's my process was similar. I kind of looked at through the NFL. Obviously age is a big part. part of this, right? Yeah, of course. Um, I, I factored age pretty significantly with quarterback a little bit less, you know, especially because like the Mahomes tier, all those guys are roughly the same. I shouldn't say Mahomes tier. He's in his own tier. The next tier with Mahomes, they're all kind of the same age, like Burrow, Josh Allen. Um, I think Herbert might

be like a year younger than those guys, but Mahomes, they're all right in that like 28, 29 range. Yeah. I think Burrough and Josh Allen are like five months apart in age. Like it's pretty, pretty marginal. Um, I did some, something opposite to you though. I kind of, I didn't want to go all like because if the analytics guy, I would just take 10 quarterbacks in a row probably. I think the top 10 quarterbacks are probably more valuable than any other player. Of course. Of course. I didn't want to do that. I thought that would be a boring. It'd basically just be a quarterback ranking show. So I have a couple quarterbacks all draft for sure, but I also have some of these other cornerstone pieces. So why don't you, uh, why don't you start

us off? You want me to go first? So wait, if you go second, does that mean you snake? Are you going back to So are you going to go picks two and three? Or are we going back and forth alternating the whole way through? Since we're doing 10 different teams, I don't think we need a snake. All right. I just want to make sure because like you're just handing me over the number one pick. And it's like, that seems that seems too easy. It seems way too easy.

But I'll take it because I'm going to get the guy that won three of the last five Super Bowls has been to six consecutive conference championship games as a starting quarterback. It's Patrick Mahomes. That's the answer. I don't think that there's another option. If you're starting a team, the guy you want is Patrick Mahomes. I agree with you. I think that's the easy pick.

And I didn't want to make the easy pick because I wanted to sit here on the clock and ponder. Oh, number two is easy to Brett Whitefield. Is it? Oh, it's easy. Does he play in Buffalo? Sure does. You're out of your mind if you don't pick Josh Allen right now. So, you know, I'm known as an avid Josh Allen hater.

I will say that. Are you really? Kind of. I didn't know this. It only comes back to my pre-draft hate. on him. Oh, well, you don't have to cling to those priors. There's new information. I don't. Yeah. I don't think those priors, but people still hold me to those priors. Oh, who cares? Move on. Yeah. Yeah. So I will take Josh Allen here. I did consider another quarterback,

who's a lot younger, and I'm sure he'll get drafted in these top 10. But Josh Allen is, you know, you talk about guys that can absolutely take over a game and you win because of, you know, I think I've described how I like to sort quarterbacks. Like you have a tier of guys you can win because of a guys you can win with, with, you know, good circumstances and then guys that you kind of have to, you know, prop them up quite a bit. I think Josh Allen is in that top tier of like,

we can win because of this guy. So there's not many of those guys out there. And I think he absolutely is the next best guy to Mahomes. He can take over a fourth quarter and win your ball games down the stretch. So he would be my second pick. Defense needs to show up in the playoffs. I'll tell you that. Okay, that means I have the third pick.

I'm going Joe Burrow, man. Oh, yeah. I think Joe. Borough is so good. And the only concern I have about Joe Burrow, and it's a legitimate one, is that he's had injuries literally every single year. But I think in this, in this world of NFL football, where you're getting two high shells and they're daring quarterbacks to be patient and do the smart right thing with the football, nobody does the smart right thing with the football with more accuracy in the NFL than Joe Burrow. Like he is that dude, man. And that scheme doesn't help

him. That's just true. That's classic West Coast scheme, bro. There's very little. to play action. And I've heard Zach Taylor talk about that where he's like, I don't know, like, we think we, Joe Burroughs an elite processor in terms of understanding coverage rotations. And so we don't want to put his back to the, to the defense very often. Like, all right, that's pretty compelling. But point being, there's no, there's nothing cheap, man. There's nothing cheap in that offense. This dude reads it and rips it over and over and over and over again. I think he's special. You know what's interesting too is like Zach Taylor's a massive departure from that coaching tree. Like the McVeigh-Shannahan coaching tree, those guys are all

play action heavy yeah let's get the quarterback you know maybe he would be if he didn't have burrow though have you thought of that that doesn't it doesn't make sense to me if you can make brock purdy look like brock purdy look like why wouldn't you give burroughs layups as well don't make don't make burrow have to do all the work all the time and i i get i get what he's saying like you know we we like him getting through those progressions why would we put his back to the the defense is for me it's just about giving him some more layups you saw it with jake browning their their play action where it went right way up last year when jake browning was under center and they had really good results.

So, yeah, not to get too sidetracked there, but it is fascinating that Zach Taylor is such a departure from that coaching jury. All right, my next pick, I'm going, I'm going C.J. Shrout here. And I know you and I have both commented extensively on the flaws and him getting way with a lot as a rookie. I think maybe the success he had as a rookie was a little overblown by the media, but I still think he's 22 years old. He put enough on tape last year to give me a ton of confidence that he's a dude,

ability to read defense, throw with anticipation. Anticipation stuff for me is so critical. Like he can own the middle of the field. And I think that's really in the modern NFL where you're seeing a lot of saggy cover three and a lot of saggy, you know, quarters and cover six and rotating safety is like being able to dominate the middle of field is where you win in the modern NFL. So I love it. I love what he brings at the table.

He's my guy at pick number four. This is where it's going to get a little bit hard for me, not because I'm not just going to follow my board, but because I have a feeling that the way my board stacks versus the way that your board stacks, I'm going to have a disproportionate amount of quarterbacks. But I'm just going to follow my board. And I'll give you, I'll give everyone my full top 10 once we're done. But if I'm truly following my board, my number, my highest rated guy is Justin Herbert. And I, I'm not necessarily drafting against you. That's not my purpose here, right? Because if I was drafting against you, I know that I could get Justin Herbert later on. I know that you're not a

big Justin Herbert guy. I am, man. I think he's got, I think he's got all of the physical gifts necessary to be a truck. And I think, I think the Chargers have failed him more with coaching and weapons than I have. It's anything to do with Justin Herbert. And I'm excited to see what this looks like moving forward with Harbaugh. And I just think that there's not, there's just nothing he can do. He's had big moments. He's clutch. He can throw haymakers, man, like to me he's a really special talent. And he, I mean, he's my number four guy. So I've got my one three and four at this point. Nice. Um, we've, we've hit my thoughts on Herbert. Yeah. On the show before. So I don't want to rehash that too much. But I think he's a coach killer.

Hoping Harbaugh gets the best out of him. But we will see. Super talented guy. Um, my next pick, I'm going with the first non-QB in the draft. Any guess at who it is. Remember, too, I'm, I'm, I'm analytically minded, so I'm not, I'm focusing on valuable positions, positions I really value versus, you know, I'm not taking a running back, for example. I think it's a wide receiver. It's not. Oh, is it a pass rusher? It's not.

Oh, I know who it is. It's Penny Sewell. It's Penny Sewell. Penny Sewell will be my next pick here at pick, what, number six? Yep. Penny Sewell, offensive tackle, Detroit Lions. Obviously, he's had all success at right tackle so far. I think he's the best right tackle in the NFL.

Lane Johnson obviously makes a case for that still. He's just a little older. Penaise, he's not even, he's 23 years old right now, Joe? Yeah, he's unbelievable. Yeah. It's insane. He's already that good at that age. He's only going to get better.

I think he can't play on the left side also. So if we're talking cornerstone draft, I think you can slide him over the left side perfectly fine, and he's awesome. Yeah, I had, I had him down. I knew I wasn't going to get him, but I want you to know that he was on my list. See, this is going to, I got quarterback's last. left. I'm going to skip a quarterback and I'm going to take a non-quarterback here. So I'm not following my board. My second highest guy is Justin Jefferson, wide receiver, Minnesota Vikings. I just, he's, I mean, you're talking about taking over games.

Obviously, the NFL is telling us how valuable the wide receiver position is with what they're paying them. It's the market is accelerated there. And I just think Jefferson's like, he's a problem, man. He's just absolutely a problem. and gets open, catches a football inside, outside versus, there's just no limitations to him. He's true superstar. So he's my pick. Yeah, like a Jefferson is, he was 10th on my board.

So he made my top 10. So he, I would have drafted him at some point here no matter what. Love, love what he brings to the table. Talk about route running, getting open, separation, but he also has elite body control and ball skills and can win.

He can pretty much win no matter what the circumstances are, double covered, you know, tight window throws he owns the boundary like his his work on the boundary is just absolutely ridiculous so um i think he's awesome i have one receiver higher than him and that will be my next pick at pick pick uh number eight and that's jimar chase i think i think chase just offers more from an explosive playmaking standpoint i think he's a little bit more of a math changer his ability to win vertically and after the catch just making it's such an elite package to work with where it's not just route running and being a possession type guy.

Like he can win a, he can win big a variety of ways. So his work after the catch is just unbelievable. Really like it, his contested catchability. He honestly, he reminds me of a prime Stefan digs in a lot of ways, where he plays much bigger than his size. But he's also, he's developing as a route runner. He wasn't a great route runner when he was drafted despite going fifth overall.

But he's getting there. Like the chops are coming along. So I think he's as complete of a package as you will find. All right, my last pick again, I'm just going to skip over this quarterback. I'm going Nick Bosa, edge rusher from the 49ers. He's the young, like I have very closely rated a bunch of edge rushers. Yeah. Like Watt, Garrett, Bosa, my qualifier for Bosa was he was the youngest.

So that's why I picked them. But I wanted to make sure at some point in this draft, I got a pass rusher. So I got the best young one that I like. I feel you there. I have, let's see, Bosa was, yeah, he's in my top 10. I like Nick Bosa. I mean, there's one guy I would have taken before him, I think, as far as edge rushers, but he's, like you said, they're closely rated.

Similar to the wide receiver, like, you can make an argument for Jefferson, Chase, Cedley Lamb, like, you can make an argument for all those guys to be drafted over another, like Nick Bosa, same. Like him, Parsons, Miles Garrett, they're all right there to me. So, T.J. Watt, but the youth definitely stands out. I think, you know, if he gave you a little bit more in the run game, I think he would be my top guy at edge, but I just, a little, you know, little to be desired there. So my last pick, Dallas Cowboys edge rusher, Micah Parsons. I think he's probably the most complete edge defender in the league. He's 25 years old. I considered Miles Garrett there as well, but Garrett's 28 going on 29 already. So I'm going to take the youth. And I know Parsons is a little, little crazy potentially. A little bit of a screw loose, but I don't know. I'm looking past that for what he brings you.

Pass rush win rate, top of the league, awesome in the run game. I mean, he's phenomenal. You can use him a variety of ways. You can use them on stunts and delays and blitzes. He can play off the ball lineback a little bit. Love all that stuff. Love the versatility. So, Micah Parsons is my last pick.

So you got my 2, 6, 11, 10, and 14 players. Wow. I got my 1, 3, 4, 7, and 8. See, I got my two, my four, my five, my six, and my seven. So our boards were a little different, Joe. Yeah, well, that's, that should be, right? We're two different human beings. We should have different thoughts on, on things.

I'd be happy to give my full board. Yeah, here it is. And this is, I lied. I had 17 players that I considered. So this is them in order. One Patrick Mahomes, two Josh Allen, three Joe Burrow, four Justin Herbert, five, Jordan Love. six CJ Stroud, seven Jordan or Justin Jefferson, eight Nick Posa, nine Miles Garrett,

10 CD Lamb, 11 was Penae Soule, 12 Marvin Harrison Jr., 13 Jamar Chase, 14 Michael Parsons, 15, Aden Hutchinson, 16 Max Crosby, 17, TJ Y. Okay. All right. I did, wow, and I'm surprised Penay didn't make it in your top 10. Where was he as far as first non-QBs? Who's your first non-QB on your board? Jefferson. And he was what number? Seven. Okay. Was Penae your top O line? I don't remember off the top of it. Yes. Oh, I don't have another. Yeah, he's the only offensive line.

I just valued the edge rushers, I guess. I mean, honestly, this, this bucket of Jefferson, Bosa, Garrett, Lamb, Sewell, I mean, you could flip him in any order and I probably wouldn't fight you. My top 15, I think we have a lot of the same players, actually. It's just a different order. I don't know. You tell me. Patrick Mahomes won, Josh Allen, two. Joe Burrow 3, CJ's drought 4, Penae Sewell, 5, Micah Parsons, 6, Jamar Chase, 7, which is funny because I actually took Jamar Chase before Micah Parsons in the draft. But Sauce Gardner, I'd 8, I do value that cornerback slot quite a bit, Buffalo fan. Nick Bosa, 9, Justin Jefferson, 10, Lamar Jackson, 11, Miles Garrett, 12, Aidan Hutchinson 13,

C.D. Lamb, 14, and I did lie, I did have a second offensive lineman that's. Tristan Worf's at 15. I thought about Worf's and I thought about Lamar Jackson. So those are the two different players that we had. So we wound up having 19 different players in consideration for this Cornerstone project. I think it just came down to order, right? Like you were higher on some of the guys than I was. I was a little bit more eager on some of the quarterbacks, obviously.

I mean, I had Herbert. I had Jordan Love on mine. You had Lamar. So I like the project. I think it was a good thought exercise. I agree with you. And like I clarified earlier too, like, you know, I probably would go 10 straight quarterbacks if I really had to do. Right.

If I was starting a franchise for every team. So. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was good. All right. That's good.

Do it for us today. Remember to go over to the YouTube channel and find us on Spotify. The YouTube channel we've been putting up like the first segment of the show. So you can just get the first 22, 23 minutes of the show on there. Real cool way to get introduced. to the video aspect of the show. All right, folks, remember, no matter what develops, we will always be your first read.

Thank you for listening. We are out.