Fantasy Football Daily - School of Scott | Fantasy Football Upside 101 with Rich Hribar

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Welcome to School of Scott, the ultimate fantasy football masterclass hosted by Scott Barrett of FantasyPoints.com. In this episode, Scott welcomes Rich Hribar for a fantasy upside vs. floor breakdown. Where to find us: http://twitter.com/ScottbarrettDFB http://twitter.com/LordReebs Find Our Podcasts Here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/podcasts#/ Age Curves Article By Ryan Heath - https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/age-curves-when-nfl-players-break-out#/ Use promo code SCOREMORE for 10% off your subscription. Dynasty Video Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-kupTuz42SeHflK6fqOqKTxwqB2s46M6 Subscribe to FantasyPoints for FREE - https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/ All our podcasts are here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/podcasts#/ 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to the School of Scott. What is this? This is my new podcast where it goes up very infrequently, kind of whenever I feel like it. What are the topics? Just whatever I want to do. And what I want to do today is talk to a friend, but also the person I would say is the best fantasy analyst in the game right now. You're not going to hear me say that about anyone else because it's true. That's the great Rich Rebar.

And I'm super excited to get him on this podcast because, so I don't do a lot of podcasts. I just feel like my IQ drops like 15 points from my article version of myself to my podcast version of myself. But Rich is even more impressive on podcasts. He just can pull up with perfect recall. Who was the starting quarterback for the Browns in week six of 1979? He also talks a mile a minute. But without further ado, Rich Rebar.

How are you doing? Good, man. I definitely do not know who the week six quarterback for the Browns was in 1979, but I do appreciate the commentary. I mean, I definitely don't think that of myself. I'm just trying to, I'm just glad I have a little piece of the table, man, and I'm trying to keep up with all these people. I mean, you guys have a lot of good people over at fantasy points that are in the game now.

You're hiring all these young people that are trying to keep me on my toes. And more people have access to NFL data now. It's a little more gate kept. And it's still is gate kept larger than it. it should be, but we start to see it's like getting a little more accessible to people. Yeah, and that's a big part due to, I hope, Fantasy Points Data, folks at home, be on the lookout for ass. Average separation score, route, win rate dropping very, very soon. But yeah, I remember meeting you in Nashville for the first time and, you know, talking ball with you. And I was just like,

oh, wow, you're actually like this. Just talking like a mile a minute with like stats that I could only reference with a spreadsheet in front of me, you just perfect recall being so mind blown and impressed by that. Yeah, my wife's very impressed as well. So I'll let her know that you think so. But no, I mean, it's it's it's fun to have like this little. These jobs when I was, I'm a little bit older. So like jobs like this didn't, I didn't think were real like they ever existed. So I'm very grateful just to have the opportunity to do something like this. So I remember when your, your landmark Konami code article dropped, which is, you. you know, in the fantasy football Hall of Fame alongside.

Over 10 years ago. Zero. I can't believe it. I know. And it's still, still look, Jaden Daniels way too cheap. Why are we still doing this? Andy Richardson last year. But man, dude, I am so glad to have you on.

I'm legitimately so pumped. I have a little template here, a little format I've been trying to do with these shows. I just had Sean Siegel on. I have JJ Zach Risen on after you. First question, what is a topic you can't stop thinking about? what is one you've written about or maybe one you haven't, maybe something crucially important that the folks at home need to know, or just something you think might be flying a little under the radar.

What would that be? I don't know what's necessarily flying under the radar, but I just think my whole approach basically is, you know, trying to stay on par with what the NFL is doing right now and kind of where we can kind of take advantage of that right now. I mean, we all know that coming out of COVID, we've been in kind of a defensive meta, a little bit.

You know, offense the past two years has significantly sad, sagged coming out of COVID. And there's a multiple, like, pulling threads on why this happened. This isn't just because, like, two high safeties became a thing. Listen, cover two existed, you know, 40 years ago, right? Like, it's not like a new defense. And, like, the NFL doesn't know how to beat it. It's the augmentation of, you know, teams wanting offenses to go have eight plus

drives instead of giving up big a shot plays. It's the new in 17 games. forcing, you know, more injuries, more quarterbacks playing, more offensive linemen are playing than I've ever played in kind of like some continuity stuff. We've got more athletes playing quarterback than typical pocket passers right now. It still hasn't taken over where we've got more athletes than pocket passers, but that has had an impact on the game as well. I mean, even if you look at stuff like the last couple years where passing has been, you know, had basically historic lows in the 2000s, like since the NFL went to 32 teams, stuff like play action has still been

cheat code. Like absolutely been a cheat code. But what's limiting a thing like play action is we're getting fewer plays under center because we have more athletes playing quarterback. So not a lot of play action rates dropping, shotgun rates increasing. So like all these different kinds of pulling threads of like how the NFL is being played right now. And I'm trying to kind of dissect into that and try to use that to my advantage. I mean, obviously one is we can treat it as what if things just stay the same and how can we take advantage of that, right? Like the NFL's going to keep doing these things and offenses are going to keep structurally struggling in the areas they're struggling in. Well, everything kind of goes back to like, all right, we want a target

teams that now can punish you by being multiple offensively. When I say being multiple offensively, it's being able to beat teams with the run and pass out of, you know, singular sets. We, and there are teams that do this effectively. They mostly come from the Shanahan, Sean McVeigh coaching tree. There are little differences and nuances in between each coaching tree, but they kind of are split off from the original Shanahan tree. And then you kind of have like Ben Johnson is just kind of like a dude who's adopted stuff that those guys have had, even though he hasn't like. So we those teams are doing things to combat what the NFL defenses are doing.

And they're very good at it. So like we can focus on using some ADP leverage on some of those teams like the guys are just expensive because they're good fantasy players. But there are certain situations where you can take advantage of that. We have some coaching changes like from that coaching tree this season. And, you know, we've got, you know, Zach Robinson going to the Falcons. Some of that's price of a Drake London. Everyone still hates Kyle Pitts.

But we have, you know, Brian Callahan going to the Tennessee Titans. All those guys are cheap. Clint Kubiak going to the New Orleans Saints outside of Chris Olive. All the Saints guys are potentially underpriced. And then, you know, Bobby Sloak's guys are still kind of priced up a little bit outside of Joe Mixon. But if you just want to focus on if things stay the same, these, this coaching tree now makes up almost 13 teams in the NFL, basically, you know, over third of the league. And you can kind of say, all right, I can pick a, I can make a whole roster almost those guys. You don't have to, but you almost can.

And then you try to see like, all right, well, where can the NFL can kind of bounce back in some areas? And that's the toughest part because that's where like the impact is impacting fantasy landscapes in general. And you see this in draft. You've drafted an underdog. You already know it's a different game. There's so many wide receivers getting drafted over running backs right now. And that is just an ongoing process of running backs now because of mobile quarterbacks, more committee backfields. have lost touches per game in season.

Like it's just regularly dropping. I mean, last year, Derek Henry led the NFL in carries of 280 in a 17 game season. It was the first time since 1990. The league leading Russia and carries was below 300. It was the lowest amount of carries the league leaders had in a season since 1974 in a game where they played 14 regular season games. Derek Henry played 17 games.

Running back targets have dropped six years in a row per game. So like there's a reason why the landscape has shifted. and we see things being more like wide receiver focused versus the running back position. They're a finite resource. When you and I grew up, it was just like, hey, man, we're getting Ladanian Tomlinson. We're getting Priest Holmes. We're getting Marshall Falk. All these guys are filling the first round.

And now we're pushing guys like Marvin Harrison Jr. up to the one two turn because he's the wide receiver 10 because the RB 4 and 5 now don't go into the second round, which doesn't happen. So, I mean, I like to look at things from like the landscape of the NFL and the way things are being played. But, I mean, there's just so much more that we can peel the onion back on that, like, that comes out of that. But the landscape of the way the game's being played is the most important thing to me right now.

Yeah. So you just said a lot there. There's a lot to unpack, but I'm glad you did because now the listeners know exactly what I was talking about. Imagine being like a 25-year-old first year in the industry meeting your idol, Rich Rebar, a little too drunk at the bar. He's doing this.

You know, the stat about Derek Henry since 1990 off the top of the dome. But yeah, this topic is what I was hoping you would bring up. And I dug into this a little bit in my play caller's article. You should check that out. If you're a fantasy point subscriber. This Giving Tuesday, Cam H is counting on your support.

Together, we can forge a better path for mental health by creating a future where Canadians can get the help they need when they need it, no matter who or where they are. From November 25th to December 2nd, your donation will be doubled. That means every dollar goes twice as far to help build. a future where no one's seeking help is left behind. Donate today at camh.ca.ca slash giving Tuesday. Basically, like, I asked the question, like, how important are play callers in today's NFL, I think more than ever before? If there were a draft today where you could take any player in the

NFL or any coach in the NFL, like, at what point do we see Kyle Shanhan go off the board or or Andy Reid go off the board and or Mike McDaniel. And it's like, you can make the case that goes Mahomes, Allen, and then one of these elite play callers. It has a tremendous impact from an NFL perspective. Look at EPA per pass from 49ers quarterbacks with a bunch of nobody's or EPA per run from all of Mike McDaniel's UDFA running backs. It has a tremendous impact in real NFL football, but also, of course, from fantasy. If you look at league winners, and I defined league winners, like, arbitrarily based on, like, ESPN win rate. But the way I did it was, like, Sean McVeigh produces, like, 26% of all league winners over the last six years.

Something like that, never discount a Sean McVeigh offense or a Shanahan tree. Look at what Houston did last year. And what really, like, I think maybe the catalyst behind me writing this article, so important, obviously, was hearing. you talk about Chris Olavie and Rashid Shaheed, who I love in this new Cubiac offense and how there's going to be significantly more play action and use of motion. And so we've known play action has been an NFL efficiency hack, fantasy hack for a really long time. It doesn't matter how much a team is running the ball. It doesn't matter how effective the run game is. It's just a blatant fact. Last year, EPA per play on play action passes positive 0.9.

0.09, non-play action negative.06. Fantasy points per drop back. It's like a 20% boost. Motion, the new thing. And what's interesting is if you look at the teams who most frequently use motion, it's all the teams you would expect. It's all the forward thinking supposedly brilliant. It's all the best, most efficient offenses. And again, it's a big efficiency hack from an NFL standpoint and also a fantasy standpoint. My whole thing on Xavier Worthy when he was coming out, you know, talking about the BMI is, he's very landing spot dependent, but may God have mercy on our souls. If it lands in Kansas City, what are we seeing? It's being used in motion.

Brian Callan using Calvin Ridley in motion. And so, yeah, I think I talk about, you know, the power law distribution of certain players in fantasy. I think we're seeing that with certain offenses being exponentially better. I mean, well, like Arthur Smith, of course, you know, but like just like the middle of the pack offense is out there. And so, yeah, I think this is massively important. I think you're one of the best guests to get on to talk about it because I think you break down this, you know, shifting landscapes, uh, team environments better than anyone else. Yeah, I appreciate that. But yeah, I, I've played with the

ideas of like building just like all Shanahan tree teams. And like you add a couple teams like, you know, like said that like the lions are clearly, Ben Johnson is clearly borrowing for the playbook. All the things he's doing. You're like, all right, he's doing the, the motion stuff, the play action. He's even getting a little creative. Obviously, the Lions do a lot of cool stuff. And the cool things about the Lions, too, is they have, you know, Dan Campbell, who, the one thing about McVeigh and Shanahan, that's kind of a bugoo for all the gifts that they have. And these guys are so smart and they've brought so much, like, joy to our fantasy lives. But like, they're terrible at game theory. Like, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, man, you can never

have that perfect model. And like, you know, Dan Campbell, at least is hyper aggressive. And that's kind of cool about the Lions is like he delegates the offense to Ben Johnson but also it's like dude we're going for every fourth down we'll see if maybe they kick some longer field goals with that with Jake Bates you know the the dude that just kicked 60 yards at whim but that was always kind of the the one bugaboo at shanahan and McVay and both those guys probably would have more Super Bowls if they were better game theory head coaches you know for all the the good that they've brought to their offenses and maximize talent and maximize quarterback play you know outside of Matthew Stafford that's what been the one thing but yeah i mean the new hires i think are particularly the spots

especially like i talked about like the saints and the titans just because those are the guys that are like largely the cheapest in fantasy drafts and we're trying to you know maybe you know squeeze some extra value some guys that could that could hit a lot of ace obviously expensive but rscied chiqued is a guy that it's funny he's like i feel like he's like dontavian wicks but with like worse PR like you know it's like like everyone is like talks about don tavia and wicks right but like shehid has like been that dude for fantasy for like two or three years like where every like analyst likes him but like he his ADP like never moves like nothing ever happens uh he's gonna be playing in two wide receiver sets because this is a team that's going to really reduce their use of 11 personnel and

they've shown us by all the moves they made this off season and the saints have literally done next to nothing at wide receiver three you know you the ad sedrick wilson i think they added one other veteran that alludes me right now. But they're really going to reduce their use of 11 personnel. They have more easy buttons. I mean, this is a team that was dead last in use of pre-snap motion. They were dead last in play action. And these are, like I said, easy buttons for offenses, even in this defensive meadow

because you manipulate a lot of those linebackers. You're going to be playing in, like I said, two wide receiver sets. So personnel dictates like box counts, too. So if you're coming out, like this is why McVeigh system so good is because they could, they pound you out of 11 personnel. you have to come in in sub package and they're like, well, we're just going to outside zone run you to death. And they've just been able to just pick running backs like they're so good in their system. And guys that they haven't paid for outside of Gurley, right?

Like, you know, Acres was like a second round pick. And I think Darrell Henderson was a second round pick too. But then they're just throwing it at CJ Anderson off the bus like that one season. And last year they got Kyron Williams, you know, from the sixth round. We'll see what happens at Quorum. But that's basically in Shanahan's M.O.2 outside of, you know, adding Christian McAfric is they were always able to rotate in guys. But that's what we're going to see.

Like, you know, I lost my train of thought there. I was talking about the 11 personnel stuff with McVeigh. But the Coobee accolanges, the Shanahan tree is different. They're doing the opposite. They're coming out heavier, more two wider series. They're playing a fullback. And they want to throw out of that too. They want to, that's how they're creating their huge like YPA stuff and their EPA per

drop bag. It's how you see a guy like Jimmy Groplo or everyone knows Jimmy Groplo with eyeballs. are like, he's got some pretty big flaws. And then every metric, he's like top five, right? And we're still having the Brock Purdy discourse, right? Like every week. Like we're going to probably do that again, like forever with Brock Purdy. You know, how good is Brock Purdy?

But that's just because the system is so good, especially into this current defensive meta, they're able to exploit what defenses are doing. Whereas you've seen a team like the Chiefs last year. And the Chiefs probably had a little hubris, hubris from two years ago. They trade Tyreek. my home still throws for 45 touchdowns and they're like we can get away with this forever like we

have my homes we can get away with it then last year Kelsey's a little bit banged up company in the year you don't have 100% Kelsey you're relying on guys like Justin Watson and marcus val the scantling to kind of be like your primary like route runners and you're like oh this kind of doesn't work as good and that's why you know the the chiefs go out and they retool they get a guy like even if hollywood brown on the chief like we'll see what he happens when he comes back but getting worthy with a round one pick and then you extend what rishie rice was able to build off of as a rookie and we see that now they're like geared up here to kind of combat kind of what siphon them they choke themselves out last year that's what happened i mean you look at my

homes like he averaged fewer yards for passing touchdown that bryce young like a lower like that's that's not good man they don't want to see the chiefs operate in that capacity again and and you read is calibrating so i mean these are the situations that i say all right if nothing changes in the NFL, I at least know I can look at the 49ers, the Rams, the dolphins, the Bengals, the Vikings, the Falcons, the Saints, the Packers, the Texans, the Titans, and the Bears. And like I said, add the chiefs and lines of that and say like, all right, if nothing changes, I've got basically half the league, I can still attack in my fantasy drafts and say, like, I know that they're going to be put in an optimal position to combat like what the success rate for

defense is right now. Yeah, it's, it's very possible that like there are teams that support six fantasy the starter worthy players on offense and multiple teams that have zero, perhaps maybe the Patriots this year, or I like Romandre, but you know what I mean. And so that's so crucially important. And like this is a question that's continually being asked is like, who is this year's Houston Texans? And you hear, oh, look at what Ryan Grubb did in college and what he can do in Seattle or the Falcons, you know, anyone's an upgrade on Arthur Smith,

but more 11 personnel they're going to fix. You have a quarterback, Dave Canales and Carolina, Titans leaning more pass-heavy. But the one I wasn't expecting until I heard you say it, but it made so much sense when you did was New Orleans. And so I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into them just because, again, it was unexpected, but there are like a few players here that have been driving me crazy. You mentioned, I think, like, the crux of your argument is just how stuck in the past that offense was, how uncreative it was. You mentioned the increasing rates of motion for Chris Olabe. He ranks third among all wide receivers over the past two seasons and yards per route run with

motion. I think that's a huge boost. Both him and Shaheed were never getting targets against linebackers. That's another efficiency hack. You mentioned the absence of Michael Thomas. Both of their numbers skyrocketed with Michael Thomas off the field. And like Shaheed, I agree, like, super underrated. He's one of my favorite players because I added him on all my dynasty leagues when he took that first ball to the house. And then I nailed him in DFS every week just because his zone man splits were so egregious. But if you look at over his last 20 games with Chris Olavé, there's really not too much separating them, you know, 67 yards per game versus 52, both over two yards per route run. And so I'm excited about those wide receivers. If you want to

dig in any deeper onto those you can. But there's one player on the Saints who you are extremely high on, much higher than I am in my own rankings, but he's someone who has been keeping me up at night. And that's Alvin Kamara. So like an insane stat from my play callers article. So the offensive play caller there is Clint Kubiak, obviously comes from the Qubek scheme, his father, Gary Kubiak, crazy stat, ranked top 12 in rushing yards in 13 of 13 seasons as an offensive coordinator. Top 5, 10 of 13 seasons. Kamara historically horrible and outside zone.

Kendry Miller has never run it. Jamal Williams terrible at it. You have Taysam Hill there, potentially vulturing every single goal line touchdown. But the case for him seems so obvious. It's like, how does he not finish top five in XFP? He gets targets. It's going to get a bunch of carries. they don't like anyone else there.

Albert Breyer recently said there's been a lot of speculation over his contract situation, but he does have an offer from New Orleans. He's practicing full steam ahead. The coaches love him. They have some new ideas on how to use him. And that's kind of like what you want to hear if you are buying into Kamara. But still, for some reason, I can't get it. There's the counter argument of he's old and Tayson Hill and et cetera.

maybe it's not, I don't know, not going to work. But the pro argument, like I said, is easy as well. So help convince me on Kamara here. Yeah, I think it just, it's dependent on your format. I mean, I'm definitely still higher on him in the full PPR. Just because we talk about a little bit in the open, like running back targets continue to wane. I mean, eventually there's going to be a dead cat bounce. Like running backs won't get zero targets in the passing game.

But six years in a row running back targets for game have dropped. And it's created kind of a, there's like a new Konami code now with running backs. and like these guys that just catch passes, especially these full PPR formats, like, it's hard to ignore them, like the weighted production. And you know, you know this. You've written about the strength of a target versus a, you know, a handoff for running backs. And it's still just hard to see when you look at running backs, how does Kamara not get 60 plus catches, right? It's just really hard.

Like when you're making a list of guys there and catch 60 plus passes, it can be a finite list and he's going to be on it. And he goes like, I think in like half PPR and stuff. stuff like lower that's more touchdown weighted. He's definitely lower for me there. But these full PPR leagues, he just, he just gets so much weight of production. I don't see how he can go like RB 18, right? Like, it just feels like such, such a layup. Like you're just, you're, and especially with the context of how teams are draft this year, where you can potentially open up a draft at three to four wide receivers and then just get a running back that's going to catch 60 passes. Like it, it, it doesn't seem like right. Like the room's going to let you do that. Uh, I was in a fort.

team league in the King's Classic two weeks ago in Canton, I picked 14 out of 14 teams and I got him in the sixth round in a full PPR league. Like it's just, I just feel like that's the format you want him in. Now, when you start factoring in, you layer down the half point PPR stuff or if you're still in standard leagues. I don't know who's still doing those or touchdown base leagues. That's where Taysam Hill becomes a problem. That's where it becomes like the rushing efficiency becomes a problem.

I will say the rushing efficiency could just oscillate back. maybe this scheme is just good enough to where it makes Alvin Kumar good at the things he was bad at, right? We've seen kind of that happen to. The other aspect, too, that this scheme does is it, it mitigates poor offensive line play. And we've seen this with the Miami Dolphins, especially the past two years, you know, because the ball comes out faster in this system, like stuff like, stuff like offensive line talent isn't as much for things. Like, you still would want a good offensive line. But we've seen this system in the many iterations of it, like really mitigate bad offensive lines.

And that really helps the Saints out. Because that's like the one of the big problem areas on offense is you're like, all right, how's this offense flying going to come together? Especially with they already had a preseason injury to Ram check. So like, you know, they're already going to like Penning is going to have to play again. We thought he wasn't going to have to play. But again, look at the Miami Dolphins. And especially when you talk about like Derek Carr and people, because that's the other

tear down people have with the Saints. So like people are like, oh, well, it's a Derek Carr offense. We just talked about Jimmy Garapolo in this scheme. Like if you like Derek Carr is like definitely baseline functional to like have efficiency in this type of scheme. Like for think of all the players we've seen like come through like versions of the scheme and be effective. How much do you really have to squint to say like, all right, Derek Carr's not going to bonus here? Like is Derek Carr going to take us to the promise land? Probably not.

He's definitely not going to take the Saints to the Promise man. But from a fantasy stance in this system, can Derek Carr flirt with like a high YPA? Like absolutely like 100%. like how you don't have to like that you have to twist my arm to get there so that's another pro kind of for this offense if you get that maybe it opens up some run stuff but in full ppr stuff i just think if he fits kind of like a finite resource like i i feel like he's being ignored to a degree because of the age stuff and the red flags but you if you tell me i can have him the other guy i think too that kind of fits that mold in full ppr is erin jones and he probably has a little

more shared backfield than kamara but when you factor in no t j hawkinson for half the year potentially or maybe longer. We still might get a Jordan Addison suspension. Is Jordan Addison good? Like Jordan Addison lived on touchdowns as a rookie. We're now doing a Jalen Naylor as wide receiver three who like hasn't really had like a really NFL sample. So like Aaron Jones is a guy that could be heavily involved in the past game in Minnesota,

again on that coaching tree that we talked about. Those are two guys that I look in full PPR leagues and I get the why they're priced where they are. But in full PPR, like these are guys that can catch 50, 60, maybe even, you know, get a dealing outcome of like 70 plus receptions. And that's just too weighted. Like I said, it's a little Konami code hack in that format. Yeah. So I feel like we could have multiple conversations at once here. So crazy stat on Derrick Carr that like blew my mind. Over the last two seasons, he is as a deep passer, he has 22 touchdowns to seven interceptions. Patrick Mahomes has three touchdowns to six

interceptions. That blew my, like I always thought, you know, Derek Carr's shitty deep passer. Not really the case. He's kind of underrated there. I brought this up with Sean Siegel. And he was like, no, Derek Carr is better than he gets credit for. And Patrick Malm's only three deep passing touchdowns the last two seasons. We did bring that up before.

It looks like they're going to fix that with Xavier worthy, Hollywood Brown. The other thing you said was some optimism for Aaron Jones. And I'm fully with you as well. I just, one of the most efficient running backs, you know, we've seen in a really long time, always sort of a committee back and maybe he's older, there's injuries, maybe he has that, he just needs to be spelled. But, you know, I think there's a big talent gap between him and Ty Chandler. I think the coach, Kevin O'Connell, he deployed Dalvin Cook as a bell cow two years ago.

Alexander Madison, the first six weeks, was used as a bell cow. It just didn't last because he's terrible. And then even if he is just like a 66% snap share sort of guy, which is still like really good. Kevin O'Connell's made it clear as like we view him as an every down running back. So it's like he's just coming off of drives, but he's getting featured in the passing game. That's what he said. He wanted to get him involved in space. So I've struggled with him.

I just like, he's my highest own running back in basketball. But I just don't know if the ceiling is really there for redraft. I think the value is, but I don't know if the ceiling's there. Yeah, the Vikings are a team that we should expect, you know, top down, you know, kind of, you know, passing regression from. I mean, 80% of their touchdowns were passing touchdowns last year. That was the highest rate in the NFL last season. Historically, those teams have always had like regression to the mean and an increase like rushing touchdowns the other way. So you can just play that from a team, a top down thing.

And it's easier to get there with the Vikings because of the things we talk about in flux with the passing game, you know, the quarterbacks and, you know, no Hawkinson, you know, stuff with Addison. does he even get Hock, Addison could still get suspended still too, you know, for the DUI. It's still not out of the realm that he misses a couple games

during the season whenever. You said Hawkinson? You mean? Addison. Yeah. By the way, I'm not sure if he's good either. I was a big hater

when he was coming out as a prospect. But I still don't know if I'm right or wrong. No, I mean, it remains to be seen. And a lot of his splits were kind of wonky with and without Justin Jefferson on the field,

a lot of Target eight stuff when he was used. So how does that factor in? I mean, I know, we know Justin Jefferson's going to get a lot targets by hook or crook um yeah the other thing cool that's interested car we have like an evidence too with car that he supported like viable fantasy receivers we had adams a couple years ago we've had you know crab tree and amari you know from the from the Oakland days so like as much as

we hate derrick car we're not going to draft probably Derek car and his own merits for fantasy football he's plenty good enough and viable to support pieces being effective for fantasy football in an offense uh so i don't know a problem with that yeah Aaron jones is is another one these guys. I think this year in particular, just the way the landscape shaping up and how just different it is than previous seasons, we kind of have to, I think, be open to some of those guys, like the that profile, the Camaras, the Aaron Jones, maybe even James Connor. I don't know, probably not. Like, just because of the missed time, right? Like, that's the thing with James Connor is, like, you never want to use, like, draft cap on a guy. You're like, he's going to miss three games.

He always has. But those guys are just getting pushed down because we're building rosters differently than we have in fantasy football this year than previous iterations because the way the landscape is the running backs are pushed down further so like said you're now be able to get maybe three to four wide receivers and then get a belcow running back which you never could do and are they sexy belcow running backs like a joe mixon right or a rachad white but these are guys that are going to be on the field uh you know pending what you how you feel about bucky irving i know that's like the whole rashad white thing's the thing but but but we want to chase volume first we know this as gamers Like we want to throw a volume at the wall.

You were never able to get like a 300 touch running back, you know, like RB18 after getting three or four wide receivers in a draft. Sometimes five wide receivers you can get these guys. And just so structurally teams are built differently. There are tear breaks now at wide receiver that are just way off where the running back market is. Like you can't get me to draft Jaden Reed over Joe Mixin. There's just no way as a gamer. And I know I feel like you're more similarly in a boat with me where we haven't devalued running backs as much as the over. overall market. Because if you give me a shot that have 300 touches at a running back,

I know that they can create positional leverage. I just have a good runout. I think like structurally, we were unable to get running backs at those subsequent tiers, those types of running backs in previous, you know, seasons. And granted yourself at the mercy of, you know, some people will be like, well, not in my room. My league still values running backs. Well, then so be it. You know, your league better than I do. But, you know, I'm only going off of like, you know, average drafts and average ADP and things that I, you know, I'm doing as well. But being able to start with those wide receivers, the talent wide receiver, and then the types of running backs we can get where it used to be in years past, you would have to take an Alexander Madison last year, right?

Or a Zamir White maybe this year would fall under that thing like that archetype, like a traditional dead zone. But now you can get guys that have bucked the trend in the dead zone because when you look at historically, when drafting running backs in the dead zone, they are typically rookie contract players or guys that catch passes. And that's what we talk about. Like, you know, guys like Aaron Jones or Kamara, they're not rookie contract players, but they could catch 50 plus passes.

And then you got guys like Rashad White or maybe like a Kenneth Walker. This is the one thing you brought up Brian Grubbs earlier. And he initially, I caught red flags of Brian Grubbs early. I want to believe all the college stuff. But when he told me we want to get Kenneth Walker involved in the passing game, I'm like, you have DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Jackson Smith, and Jigba. If you're involving Kenneth Walker in a passing game, this is not the way to run your offense. Like if Kenneth Walker is getting any targets over any of those guys, we're not doing things the right way.

So immediately my ears perked up when I heard Ryan Grub say that. I was like, I don't know, man. Like this is what we want to be doing? So, but yeah, in short, it's just because the running back market because I don't want to be taking guys when I have an inflection point at wide receiver. I don't be forcing the position, like I said, guys like Jaden Reed, right? I only taking wide receiver 40 over RB 15 or RB17, especially when guys profile to get a lot of touches and catch football. All right. We're going to take a quick break here.

And then I'm going to ask you the questions everyone wants me to ask, which is who is your number one must draft play? and then a few more names beyond that. So stay tuned right after this quick little break. All right, Rebes. Who is the one player you're not leaving your draft without? Well, I think it depends on, you know, position in where we're going. I give you walk through a position. I think like you, you know, we play the quarterback position similarly.

And like, I think especially in home leads, you're just going to see Jaden and Daniels go probably way too late, especially when you get back. Like so these home leagues, he's probably going to be, you mean, like, go after a guy like Caleb Williams, right? even though in our day AEP like leagues we play and he typically goes over him. I mean, just the runout I think is going to be too pure. I mean, especially when you talk about the marriage with Cliff Kingsbury. First of all, Jaden Daniels, obviously 90th percentile rushing profile entering the NFL. But he can also throw like his passing acumen entering the NFL's passing profile is really good.

As a 19 year old true freshman, he threw 18 touchdowns of two interceptions, you know, at Arizona State. And you look at Anthony Richards coming last year. We knew we would run. He didn't answer any questions. as a passer and still average more points per dropback than any player in fantasy football. So we have kind of like that type of player to maybe have like a rookie season RG3 runout, which is kind of ironic given the landing spot for him. But then you talk about the marriage with Cliff Kingsbury.

And Cliff's not on that coaching tree that we talked about. But we already seen Cliff with a rookie Kyler Murray, you know, finished Kyler. Kyler was QB8 overall, QB12 and points per game. We're probably going to see Washington run a ton of plays. They're going to be fast. Under Cliff Kingsbury from 2019 to 2020, they ran 1,491 no huddle snaps. The next closest team was at 849 over that span.

So, I mean, we're getting just this, just an elixir of, you know, Konami upside as a, as a floor, paired with passing acumen entering the NFL. This guy won the He's been trophy. He can throw the football, actually, too. And then paired with just like play value, just like they might run the most,

plays in the NFL. Like that's just like a cocktail I want to be a part of is I feel like even if if he becomes a floor player, I'm fine. And then you just could have this everything line up to where what if as a rookie he does, his points for dropback are sensational. He has some of like the Justin Fields like red flags. And this is a very small sample. But in the preseason so far, he hasn't been sacked. Again, we're only talking about 15 dropbacks. But the one thing the horizontal rate is going to do. It's not the area. It's the horizontal rate. It's the horizontal raid is they throw the ball fast, man. The ball comes out.

So like on plays where he's, we're not getting a scramble, like he's going to be throwing the football. So I do like that he has taken zero sacks in the preseason. I know it's a very, very small sample. Running back's a little bit different like you. I think I want to play it inherently if I can get one of the big three guys that profile is like to do it all, the finite resource. Like the, you know, if you're my kids play Minecraft, right?

They're trying to get the diamonds in Minecraft. that's as far as my Minecraft lore goes. Yeah, shout out to your son who's a Giants fan. You picked the right team there in Cleveland. Yeah, he did. He was like, I'm just cheering for Victor Cruz. I ain't cheering for the Browns. I think they really cried.

It's probably been rough since he was born. Yeah, it's funny as he traded one worse for one, lesser of evils, I guess. Like, you know, but still, you know, living the Daniel Jones experience. But we'll see. He's excited about neighbors. Neighbors is going to cook this year. Oh, yeah.

But, you know, those guys that are a finite resource. And it's immediately fall off. Like those guys going round one, you have CMC, then like a little bit of a jump to the guys we believe are who are on the apex to become the next CMCs and Bejan Robinson and Breece Hall. And then there's immediate firewall. Like you start having questions immediately over the running backs afterwards. I mean, both Jonathan Taylor and Saquan Barkley play in systems with a mobile quarterback that could reduce targets,

could siphon some rushing touchdowns. They will breed rushing efficiency. like John and Taylor and Sakeland Barkley are probably going to have really good rushing efficiency, but do we get those touchdowns compromised by Anthony Richardson and the tush push and do those guys catch enough passes? I know Jonathan Taylor already has an RB1 scoring season under his resume, but it's like one of the lowest scoring RB1 seasons because it just didn't have a lot of receiving, you know, input into it. And now we've got guys that we know can catch the pass at the top.

Then you've got Jemir Gibbs, who shares the backfield. We know the contingency values they would try. Jemir Gibbs. Those four weeks that David Montgomery missed, who Jemir Gibbs was living his best life. He was scored almost 30 points per game, man. Like, we know that that being priced in. We also know that while him and David Montgomery are on the field in unison, they are a little more touchdown dependent. And it is rich for a guy like Jemir Gibbs. And then you got like Devin A. Chan, right? Like no one knows what to really do with David A. Chan. Literally the advice you hear on David Devon A. Chan is literally like the dude could be Jamal Charles or Chris Johnson so just

draft him, right? That's like as far as the analysis typically goes, but like under the hood. That's a great argument, honestly. It is a great argument, right? Like, you know, we want that upside. But like, you know, he's probably going to share, you know, touches as well. The Miami backfield's interesting because we, the Detroit backfield, we know how it wants to be split, right? We saw it for 10 games, the final 10 games throughout the postseason last year. We know all they want to operate. The Miami one, we still kind of don't have a clue because the rotation of when everyone was healthy last year kind of never lined up. You know, we had a span to start the year where A-chan is behind the eight ball and Moster was probably getting more work than we thought. Then A-chan kind of comes on and

we're like, he's, he's starting to get ramped up. Then most of it starts to get hurt. Jeff Wilson was never hurt all year. So if you want to sub in jail and write, like how much, like we just don't really have a clear kind of vision of Mike McDaniel saying like, this is what I intended it to be. last year was kind of on the fly for the Dolphins backfield on a weekly basis throughout the course of the season. I never really got a chance to kind of gel or settle. So we don't really know all that lays out. He was a guy that had a bunch of injuries. We got Kyron Williams.

So it immediately falls off. I want to get one of those three running backs if I can. If I'm in the top three? Yeah, those top three. Yeah. So maybe this is a hot take. I have the top three running backs top three overall. Okay.

Yeah. And I think I have no problem with that. I think if you're in, you know, a league that does not start three wide receivers or isn't which is like 80% of leagues for for most people. Then yes, I think you take one of those running backs just because of the leverage they can they can provide. So the gift and the curse of running backs, right, is there, they are more volatile than wide receivers. But landing in elite running back provides more positional leverage than landing an elite wide receiver.

And that's the gift and the curse, man. And now that they are more of a finite resource, you have to, you have to gamble on those guys, man. Like, you just have to. So I have no problem with that. So I do want to get one of CMC, which usually you can only get CMC if you pick in one spot. And then there's a little more nebulous kind of ADP

where you can get Bejean or Breece Hall, depending on what type of format you're in. But I definitely want to get one of those guys, build out my anchor, see if the room's going to let me land a guy, like I said, a mixing or something, a high touch guy at value. I do think Pacheco is one of these guys too.

and I don't want to put the Tony Pauler jinks on them that I did last year. But Pacheco is one of those guys. Like when you just look at Andy Reid's tenure and it's not just Jamal Charles and it's not Brian Westbrook and it's not Cream Hunt. Look at the Damien Williams, the Darrell Williams, the Carole Buck Halters, the Spencer Weir's, the Charcandric West, even Nile Davis when he got full workloads. Like any time an Andy Reid back has been a three-down player, like that dude has been a juggernaut for fantasy football.

And they've already asked Andy Reid point. like who's taking Jerich McKinnon's role and he looked everyone in the eye and said it's Pacheco Pacheco's going to take that spot this year. So I don't know how high is too high for Pacheco, but I honestly think when you look at the way Pacheco could be used this year, isn't it really outlandish to say he's a better pick than Taylor or Saquan? Like, man, I don't, I don't think so. I think he kind of belongs in that company. So I asked you something like you can't stop thinking about. This is something I can't stop thinking about it's not really impacting my rankings all that much and maybe i'm overthinking it with

pacheco in particular given andy reeds belcow track record and how awesome pacheco looked last season but it's just to me it's like there are these clear favorites to steam roll their way to another super bowl appearance in the chiefs and the 49ers and so it's like you're already saying you're going to go with load management on kelsey why wouldn't you do that with pacheco when, you know, chances are you're going to be in the Super Bowl again, and he's your only good. Like, he's your only competent running back. So why would he be getting, you know, 18 plus touches per game every single week?

And you kind of saw that like last year. Like I see a lot of splits on, oh, Pachecovers last X games, counting the postseason where, yeah, it makes sense to deploy him as a bell cow, or even like the last three weeks, we, Andy Reid has told us, because remember, he did the same thing with Jarek McKinnon, where he ramped him up over the final three weeks of the regular season, maybe even Kelsey last year, too. Like, that's kind of what he does. I know that's great for fantasy, the fantasy playoffs. I just worry, I worry we might see a load management thing with him.

Like, logically, it makes sense to me. And then I also worry about it with R-101. You know, it's Christian McCaffer. You have to have him 101 when he outscored any other running back by over 100 PPR fantasy points last year. But he also had 400 plus touches, regular plus postseason combined. he doesn't have the best injury history. He's getting up there in age.

George Kittle, too. You could say the same thing. And there's multiple teams we can go to. But those are definitely the top two that stand out most of me. 49ers, if not for Debo pulling a hamstring in the Super Bowl, George Kittle not being able to raise his hands above his head. Also losing their best player on defense, that game doesn't go to overtime. They win it by a margin, I think.

And so it's like what, what is, what do you fix if you're Kyle Shannon? It's like, yeah, we need our best players to stay healthy. So that's just something, again, like I can't stop thinking about. I'm worried about, but it's not impacting my rankings. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, I think when you go back to, well, one, for the first part, I will say use last year's 49ers as an example to kind of be like the reason why Pacheco might get more work is because if you go back to CMC when the 49ers acquired him

in 2022. They did that. They knew they were already making that playoff push. And we saw them kind of alleviate his workload. A lot of people used this kind of to pull him down last year. Remember in drafts? Like I mean, he, some leagues he went like 105, 106. Like you got the best player in football like a Supreme discount last year because people are like, oh, when the 49ers acquired him, they in fourth quarters would use Elijah Mitchell or they would kind of alleviate, you know, CMC's workload. And he didn't have that like pristine runout. You saw a lot of that like as a tear down of it's a pension. putting hairs like, you know, anytime we're having with these first round players, it's always going to be a thing in context.

And then last year, the 49ers, like, depth kind of never came together. Elijah Mitchell was really never healthy. Jordan Mason, they never really trusted. And CMC just ran into this awesome workload, right? And I think that kind of exists on the layout for the chiefs right now. Like, the chiefs just don't have much. Yeah, people trying so hard to talk themselves into Carson Steele, who may or may not be a fullback or generic prince or CEH,

Sure. We really do it's C EH again. So I mean, it's a great point. But inversely, the 49ers are maybe in a better spot. And maybe they aren't because Elijah Mitchell's already doing it's Elijah Mitchell thing, right? And then, you know, Jordan Mason's getting steam. But Jordan Mason was largely healthy last year. They never gave any touches. Like even when they were salting games away. Like the 49ers were blowing teams out last year. And McAfri was getting all these touches. It never happened. So I think that's probably the bull case for Pacheco is just like the rest of the depth charts just that bad. And maybe they do this 11th hour will, you know, we'll call.

the bullpen for McKinnon and bring him in. He's just waiting for the phone call, right? But that's probably the bull case. But like, the 49ers might be in a spot this year where they do have a better situation. You load management. Now, Grendo's been hurt and Elijah Mitchell's been hurt, so maybe it doesn't happen. Because you still have to win these games, right? Like, you can't take it for granted that you're going to be in this spot.

And I think that Andy Reid's learned that over the years when like their offense just hasn't been quite humming. Like they've had just some catty wampas seasons. Last year was it kind of in totality. but like two years ago they were fine and then the last year of tyreek the back half of the year they really kind of struggled to move the football to you and i just don't think that like they're going to take stuff for granted you still have to win these football games and you're in the afc like it's probably a little bit different for the 49ers because the nfc's a little softer but the afc like you can't

you got to get that one seed no it's a great point yeah so i i think you might be right uh that might be a player and i'm pretty high but where do you have them rich um which one pacheco or c mc Pacheco he's been climbing. I have him right now. Just like I have him at six. But like I think man, he like I keep going. So my argument with Pacheco is like because Pachco is one of these guys that could catch 50 passes. Does that make him better than Barclay Taylor?

Even if he's not as efficient running, even though the chiefs have a really good interior offensive line tackles more of a question mark. But the interior is very good. I want to say something sneaky really quick. Sneaky thought I just had. So we know Anthony Richardson could go the Shane Stike and Tush Push just like Jalen Hurd. So that's an issue for both quarterbacks. But you know who's been a sneaky touchdown vulture? Patrick Holmes, like his pass rate inside the 10-yard line is crazy.

He does those little cheap shovel pass touchdowns. You know, Tyreek Hill was always good for a bunch of those and Travis Kelsey. But yeah, I don't know. It just seems like a Nip. As Jerry's Tony is running jet sweeps. Right, right. But, I mean, it's like an offense that could easily lead the league in touchdowns. this year. So it's an amazing positive game script and all these other factors as well.

Yeah. I mean, so like those guys are always in my mind. I think Pacheco especially if I start like with Lamb or Tyreek right and like I can get Pacheco as like my at the two three turn. Like I've been getting him on those rosters, uh, especially more that one that that position also gets interesting because like sometimes like Devante Adams falls to that range and Devante Adams is another one of these guys. Like I kind of like have my hands in air. Like not particularly excited about like the Aaron Jones stuff or the, you know,

we talked about Kamara. But it's like there's like no way Devante Adams doesn't get like 170 targets again, right? Like did you, did you watch receiver? Because I just talked to Sean Siegel about this. Like Sean has Devante like wide receiver 30. And I'm like, I don't know. He's very low.

So he didn't watch receiver. And I'm like you're bumping him up after you watch receiver. It seems like like the head coach. coach has like a list of three priorities. One is to win football games. Two is to keep Devante happy and to get him the ball and feed it. And I really feel like that's, that's what's going on.

And you know what we saw, you know, Minchu's facilitated some at least catchable targets for guys. Like if you looked at Michael Pittman splits with him about Minchu, like they're night and day. I just look at it. It's like, all right.

So if I start my draft at Lamb or Tyreek or whatever, these are guys that are like literally pushing over 150 targets. Like let's say that is kind of like a healthy floor. Like, could maybe have like 175 plus Justin Jefferson even maybe like and then you're like all right I'm staring down the gun barrel and I'm like oh devante adams is still out here I could have 350 targets on my roster right now wow like a talented like it's hard to bypass it is it not yeah no seriously and then you just let jesus take the wheel because we know we want to draft

volume we we literally have it ingrained in our skulls like don't overweight efficiency don't overweight efficiency. I don't know, man. Devonthe Adams quarterback. Don't worry about them, but you're like, I have, I could have 350 targets right now. Yeah, I, I've struggled with him in my rankings. He's moved all over the place for me. I mean, it's like Drake London, like, do we, do we want Adams and 150 targets or Drake London? Like, I know he's good, but it feels like there's some wish casting there where it's like he's deserved better and now he has better. But it's, It's tricky. I talked to our projections, our Chris Wecht about this. And he was like, it's like, it's just so hard to do anything with the Raiders because like I've had people

tell me we're too low on Bowers, we're too low on Jacoby Myers. We're too low. And so there's only like so many targets to go around. And it does seem like a tricky situation. Brock Bowers is personally someone I've really struggled with because it's, you know, you want to bet on outliers. and this could be the greatest tight end prospect ever, but here's a dank stat for you. Over the past, I don't know, 15 years, there's only been two power five tight ends to have 800 receiving yards in multiple seasons. One is Brock Bowers. The other is Michael Mayer. And so, and that's the same issue with Duncan Kincaid as well, you know, he might not see enough playing time to really warrant, you know, what his ADP suggests. But at the same time,

You could also just be Buffalo's new Travis Kelsey. And so I know we were talking wide receivers, but that's, that's been good. Yeah, split it. Yeah, I mean, I'm in on Bowers just from the, we know historically, if we're looking for outliers at tight end, we want to bet on, you know, young players that are projected, be at least the number, at worst, the number two target in your offense. I still think he will be the number two offense. Yeah, can you expand on that?

I read that in something you wrote. I thought there was like a great little cheat code on how to identify potential, league winning tight ends or who to avoid even. Yeah, I did a whole series on like, you know, ADP trends and just kind of like, you know, under the hood of like, all right, well, this is where guys fail. But what types of players in these pockets of drafts that have been historical failures can we learn from and say like, all right, well, these guys are the exception to the rule. And I talked about the dead zone running backs, right?

Like rookie contract players are players that catch passes. If you're drafting players in the dead zone, they need to do those things. Tight end has like another like dead zone within itself. But the guys that have beat it are, you know, you want a guy. that, you know, is drafted, is the number two pass catcher on his team and or preferably first, if you can get it. But typically those guys all carry immense ADP, you know, like Mark Andrews and Travis Kelsey. And, you know, guys that are on their rookie contracts.

Like those are the two things. Like those are the exceptions rules. And Bowers checks those boxes. The other thing is we've talked about the defensive meta at the open of the show. What the current landscape has done and how teams are approaching playing defenses and dictating out teams play offenses. The middle of the field coverage. Yeah.

The new hip drop tackle rule. The middle of the field has been open more than ever. I wrote about this in a league trends article. That's a free article on the site where middle field, middle of the field open pre-snap has gone up each the last four years. And what in turn now, we look at, guess what else has gone up?

Tight end targets. League-wide share of targets. There's no coincidence, right? Like, it's why I was bullish on the rookie class last year, not just because they were talented, but I was like, they're entering the NFL at literally the right time to be utilized.

And it did happen for, you know, Sam Leporta. It did happen to a degree for King Cade. The counting stats were there. I think we can, we can, Hem and Hall, like how effective a fantasy player he was.

And then it didn't happen for Michael Mayer, unfortunately. He just didn't get the playing time. I would love to know exactly what happened, like, because he just didn't play. And, and, you know,

then they had Bowers. Like, what's going to happen with Michael Mayor? You talked about him, you know, coming into the NFL. But Bowers is a guy, he's a little bit different than Michael Mayor.

Because Michael Mayor wasn't, he won in like a lot of contested catches, kind of more of a throwback tight end. Well, Bauer's a guy like, you get the ball to it, the line of scrimmage as a tight end. Like,

he's breaking tackles. He's run after the catch. And it's like, that stuff like in today's NFL, like that's where everything's transitioning to. One of the other big changes we've seen over the NFL in recent seasons is, as the NFL started to expand 11 personnel usage and like, we know like 11 personnel is just based offense and Nichols based defense now.

But as more wide receivers were on the field, it was pulling target. away from wide receiver ones and things were starting to flatten out and now as things have kind of gone more condensed NFL teams have said you know what we're going to do with our wide receiver one we're going to move them around everywhere we've seen the slot rate for wide receiver ones and fantasy go way up and we're going to get guys the the ball at the line of scrimmage more than we ever have and that's what's happening and Bowers does that at tight end so that's what's kind of just like where i'm keeping the lights on is like he's young i've still projected

to be second team and targets you can argue that or whatever but historically he's getting drafted as the second pass catcher and that's been a signal. And then they can just get them the football in this current meta and just say like, hey man, go do stuff after the catch. So like that's why I've kept the lights on for him. Kincaid I want to talk to you about because I think it's interesting about Kincaid is there's not very many iterations where you play this thing out in the multiverse for the bill seasons. And you're like, there's just not many worlds where Kincaid doesn't have a lot of targets.

My question with Kincaid is how many touchdowns do we get? Kincaid didn't score a Red Zone touchdown last year. he had the same amount of red zone expected points as Dawson Knox. Dawson knocks are the same amount of end zone targets as Dalton Kincaid. And if those remain a bugaboo, then you're just getting expensive Evan Ingram. Like that's been Evan Ingram's like calling card. It's like, I'll get you a lot of catches. I'm not going to do anything else.

And that's a I worry about a little bit with that paying the iron price for Kincaid. Now, if you're an FFPC and you're getting that tight end premium, you got a guy that maybe could catch 100 passes. Like go ahead and exploit that. but in our traditional leagues like what if king kinkade has like 85 catches for 950 yards and four touchdowns like what kind of player are we like is that a player you want to take at a dp against a good running back or a good wide receiver and we don't know what's going to happen because there's so much influx the bills you know losing uh gave davis and losing stephan diggs

but uh that's like a wild card outcome here for kinkade yeah so that's kind of how i feel about Keon Coleman, where it's like, I didn't like the prospect at all, but like, I think there's a really good chance he gets double-digit touchdowns this year. Graham Barfield had a great stat. Diggs and Davis accounted for 81% of the team's end zone targets last season. So it has to go somewhere. So maybe it's, maybe it's Kincaid. Maybe it's, it's Kean Coleman, who, another crazy stat was, if you look at my prospect article on the wide receivers, as a high school junior, he had something like 23 touchdowns on 30 catches, which is so insane. And then like he gets drafted by Buffalo.

He lands off the plane and he goes to the stadium and he just like tells reporters like, I just scored seven imaginary touchdowns right now. The guy is, that's his calling card. And you know, we saw it in college and he saw it in his in his own head from an imaginary perspective. But yeah. So I want to, we'll end with this. We'll talk about a tight.

It ends from a macro perspective. And then I'd like to hear your number one target at the position because I sort of threw my hands up where I was just like, I just do whatever. It just, it doesn't matter. But I'll dig deeper into that. We're going to take a quick ad break and get back to that. Yeah. So there's been so much debate about when to draft an quote unquote elite tight end.

I think Ben Gretch, who does great work over at Substack. kind of brought this debate onto the map and then it's all people talked about it. It's mostly from a best ball perspective. But to my, he said there was like seven elite tight ends and you have to draft one of the seven. It's just like a massive advantage. And like my counter to that is like, I don't know that there's a single elite titan. I think there's a deeper upper class at the position. But I don't know that there's like a prime Kelsey, a prime Andrews.

even this year. Kelsey's getting up there in age, load management we talked about. Maybe Isaiah likely is more involved. And that's historically what you do at the position is you either draft Travis Kelsey, who is putting up mid-range wide receiver one numbers, outscoring the tight end three by like 40 percent, or you just full-on punt the position.

That's what you've historically done. So if there's not one of those elite guys, I don't know that the answer is drafting one of these upper-class guys. And like I said, Ben Gretsch had it. There is the top seven. But that might even be a little too low. Yeah, you look at all tight ends last year over their last seven games, including the postseason.

Evan Ingram average 18.1 fantasy points per game. So he's not inside that top seven. David and Joku ranked second, 17.2. He's not inside that top seven. And those are, there's like fringe wide receiver one numbers. So like that is elite production. And then Jake Ferguson was three. 15.5, not inside that top seven. And then it's Travis Kelsey, Sam Leporte,

Trey McBride to round out the top six. But I mean, Trey McBride, 14 fantasy points per game. Sam Leporta 15.3. That's that's not really, so maybe the upper class is actually 10 deep or whatever, but it's still, you question if that ceiling's there. And so historically, like, this is the position you want to be weakest at. It's even with quarterback if you count Travis Kelsey, if you don't, it's the position. you want to be weakest at. And so I don't know what to do. I was just talking to Jacob Gibbs about this. And his counter argument was like, yeah, but all these guys are young, young and exciting and have upside and the new hip trap tackle rule and blah, blah, blah. And so this is something I've struggled with.

So I would love to hear your macro thoughts than if you do have a favorite tight end, who is it? Well, in general, like I led in with the tight end positions being utilized more in this current landscape than it, than it was, you know, five or six years ago. And it continues to go. up and we'll see if he keeps approaching this way. Part of that is again, like Jacob said, like, you know, it's more young talent has been brought into the league and then, you know, pair that with the way defenses are playing and we're starting to see tight end ones get utilized more than ever. For me, that what you said, though, is the big kind of calling card that I've had this

season draft in the position is I don't think that there's a guy that I can say his head and shoulders just that much better than the field. And so, like, right now I have Sam LaPorter ranked as my tight end one. I think when you factor in, where he is in the age apex, he's probably going to be no worse than number two on his team in targets, plays all these game indoors. Like he's a great prospect too. And he did everything as a prospect like you expected him to do in the NFL.

And he did it in year one. So we expect him to build on that, right? But also, Sam LaPorteur provided no positional leverage. Like literally none. There was like four other tight ends that produced 90% of his points. He didn't even lead in points per game in PPR leagues. He was the first tight end. one overall score and full PPR over the past 30 years.

And I'd even be first in points per game. So like, and then you talk about like, could there be some regression for Sam LaP Florida? You know, 25% of his PPR points came from touchdowns. Only three tight ends were higher than am used to the most touchdowns over expectation for any tight ends. There could be some recoil there. And he did all that while even, like I said, not even providing leverage over the field. So I have him as my tight end one, but I don't ever draft the tight end one.

It's like taking the quarterback one to me. I just don't think you're getting enough leverage on the field. I probably run 12 deep, maybe 11 to say like these guys are all guys, but he's willing to take. So it's like playing quarterback, right? I said I want, I land Jaden Daniels the most. But I'm monitoring and fantasy drafts. All right, can I get Josh Allen or Jalen Hertz at cost I want?

Oh, I can't. All right. Well, is Lamar going to fall? Oh, Lamar's not going to fall. Well, where's Anthony Richardson? I'm going to keep my eye on him. Does he fall? All right, he didn't fall.

Oh, all right. Where's Kyler Murray? I'll see if he fell. Oh, I missed that on Kylie Murray. All right, Jaden Daniels. And you got kind of like an inherent, like the dude you wanted was your like six backup plan. And I feel like that is at tight end. Like, all right.

Does my, does my room depress tight end where I can get La Porter or Kelsey? Oh, they didn't. All right. Well, what about Mark Andrews? Can I see where Mark Andrews goes? I don't know. He's still going high. Oh, can Kate?

Are we pricing in all the bill stuff? No, no. I'm going to. I still am not catching value. All right. Kyle Pitts, baby. We're getting on this train again. Like, all right.

You know, like, because I, because to me, like, there's no reason. And like this whole thing, Kyle Pitts turns 24 years old in October, three months older than Sam LaPorteur. Already has a thousand yards. Travis Kelsey didn't even catch his first pass in the NFL until a month before he turned 25. Like to act like the book has written on Kyle Pitts's career because of these two seasons of Arthur Smith, like, dude, we're going to have a whole decade more of Kyle Pitt sample. Like this, we could look back on these two years and be like, oh, he played her, played with Arthur Smith, just had a poor runout. Though the dude ran off like seven more thousand yards seasons over his career. they're pricing in all this Atlanta Falcons like sealing stuff in obviously beje down for one reason

but like it you brought up Drake London we're just like we're pricing it in for Drake London. Why aren't we doing it for Kyle Pitts? Why not? Why not? So I'm looking at Kyle Pitts then. All right. Well, can I get Kyle Pitts or value? Oh, I can't like is am I getting a discount on George Kittle?

Oh, well, Jake Ferguson, right? Like I just moved down the line. I'm pretty comfortable with just playing the value game with tight end and any of guys. This is exactly what I put in my article and I know it feels like it kind of. hop up. But this is exactly how I feel. It's just whatever. It's just what don't don't it's the least important, you know, figure that out last. I mean, there are guys that I like. Like I said, I'll monitor. Like I would like to catch Andrews at like a wide gap, right? Versus where will Porter and Kelsey go. But if I have to take, you know, Andrews versus, you know, a wide

receiver three in my full PPR league, like, I need to keep getting wide receivers, right? Or like, you know, because I know I can still throw a dart at Kincaid or Pitts. or Kittle or Ingram, right? So even Jake Ferguson, and I know Jake Ferguson's kind of like a ham and egger, like from a talent perspective, people are like, ah, just not excited about him. Jake Ferguson already was the number, we brought up the number two targeting. He was second on the Cowboys and Targets, and they've done nothing to improve that target tree. Why should we assume he won't be second again?

And it's just hard to-Dalas could lead the league in pass attempts this year. Yeah, very, very much in their range of outcomes. So, like, I think he's a hard outright fade. some people are writing them off because, but like where he goes and drafts, I think he's, he still is on the board, man. And then you and the Injoku thing like in Joku, you, you've heard all the splits and Joku and Jokku splits and Jophe's split with an out of Deshawn Watson, but like still still very small sample like Kevin Sifganzi likes David and Joku.

Well, he dials plays where Kevin, like David and Joku is still like a high first read. Like he knows he's one of his best players. If the room is going to overpriced, you know, this small sample of Deshawn Watson, I'm just going to take a guy that's as talented at David and Joku at his cost and say, Jesus take the wheel. Football, Jesus take the wheel. Like, because he shouldn't, like, he shouldn't be as depressed as he is. And I get why in tight end rankings he is because we just named all those other guys. But I feel like there's still like some scared money with David and Joku,

a guy who's been a really good player in the last two years. Yeah, I don't know that you could put that genie back into the bottle after what he showed last season. Everyone talks about the flacco versus Deshawn Watson splits, but I mean, just the bottom line was the guy looked unbelievable. We were waiting a long time for that. I've got a must draft tight end for you. It kind of depends on the format, but TJ Hawkinson is like the tight end 14 on FFPC. And it's just like, are you telling me like him plus Conklin or him plus Ertz even to start the year doesn't like dramatically outscore. you know, Dallas Godder or a bunch of these players going ahead of them.

But that might depend a little bit more on the format. But I think you could throw him into that elite tight end tier where it's like, what, he ranked tied among all tight ends and fantasy points per game or points one behind. And it's like, yeah, a hobbled Hawkinson. And what if he's 100% come playoff time? So that's one of my takes that only developed. I thought you're going to hit me to taste them. I thought you're going to hit you to taste them.

Well, where is he tight? eligible like only nfc and that's it sleeper he's tight he's both quarterback and tight and eligible and um there's one other site i think too but i think it's all your league too like what if you're just commissioner makes him a tight uneligible right like be sick uh because he's a kind of a wild card it looks like he's the denny carter tasem's package is growing you know uh tweets you know it's time to make a uh full back mandatory in all leagues where you can you can take tasem hill Then you can get Carson Steele. Carson Steele, Ben Sinat, maybe.

He won the low man trophy last year. But that's a, yeah, that's kind of an interesting thing. We didn't talk about the chiefs is that the chiefs are probably going to go back to like, they're not going to full on use a fullback as much as like the rest of the league or anything like top rates of the league. But this offense has operated since Anthony Sherman in the different capacity. And I think they want to bring in some of that power running elements of when they get, like when teams is like, oh, do you want to drop back and play cover?

we're going to run it down your throw right now yeah yeah all right uh I don't have anything left Reeves I can talk to you all day any day is there anything else you wanted to hit on you wanted to talk about any player we didn't mention no I mean I just like you know the loose just riff on different things you know that are going on I know I eat up a lot of the shot clock and give long-winded answers and you know you can't listen to this on 2x speed either try to make it hard but you know no I mean I write up all these things in detail in the site. So just check it out. I got one question for you. No one. I promise. I promise.

Brandon Ayuk goes to Pittsburgh. Let's say it happens tomorrow. And throw out Pittsburgh. We don't have to talk Pittsburgh. Tell me what happens to this 49ers offense because you had what might have been the most mind-blowing tweet I've seen all offseason. Yeah, the Debo Samuels. What's up? Well, that's the the whole thing about these 49ers guys in general. Like, at face value right now is the whole offense kind of eats its own tail because they're so they relied on efficiency over volume and that's why the end of the season numbers always look better than kind of where these guys always look they're volatile they necessarily don't have the spike weeks you would love kiddle the exception because of the tight end position but both debo and iute kind

of cannibalize each other and are better when another guys off the field uh so since the 49ers have drafted Brandon Iyuk. Debo Samuel has averaged 4.94 yards per outrun. He's been targeted on 38% of his routes. And people are like, oh, yeah, it's a small sample. But we saw you miss a game last year. It wasn't just like him coming off the field. Because that's the thing, like the one cool thing is we can get access to is like, you know, now these splits are just like, what if the guy's on the sideline? He's not missing the game. It used to be the old road of his game splits app like a guy misses the game. Now we can actually just dissect it. One of the guys just off the field, not for that play. And we can see target trees. But Samuel ran 62 routes last.

year basically you know full games worth of routes in a little bit extra uh for like a high value offense like and he was targeted on 37 percent of his routes you know we saw iuk miss all of week three get it he had 35 percent of team targets in a game kiddle played like so i mean if iuk were to get traded and granted ricky per sol is not part of his equation either so like we have to factor that in but even if you shave that down i mean debo has to be like considered like especially in that conglomeration where it flattens out, right? We talk about the London's, the Marvin Harrisons of the world. Where do we do with Pooka now?

We don't even know what's going on with Pooka Nakua. Do we even know what injury has? Do we know? Like, it's just Pooka Nakua has a knee. Like, well, I hope he still has a knee, but like, what's wrong with it? We don't really know. So it's like, and I'm one of these people like, especially with rich draft capital. Like, I'm using that stuff to split hairs.

Like, I don't want to take the guy that Hardy has the. red flag when I was splitting hairs. This was like a Cooper Cup thing last year, like when he started the fall and granted the people that got that took Garrett Wilson over him had the the, the, the, the, the, the, the low runout because Rogers lasted four snaps. Your whole season got torpedoed. But, you know, if a guy already is, is hurt, like that's a red flag. Like, I don't want to get on this boat. I was on the Tony Pollard train last year. I didn't factor in Tony Pollard's offseason injury enough in his outcome. And Pollard came out and said, oh, I didn't feel like myself to week 12. We talked about Kyle Pitts. Kyle Pitts didn't feel like him.

himself kind of really the whole season. We had Travis Kelsey injured in the preseason last year, never really got on track during the course of the season. He had another ankle injury in the season. Cooper Cup we talked about had a preseason injury. Christian Watson had a preseason hamstring reagravated that. These guys that are already hurt, like the NFL is already hard enough. Like, so inside of tears, if a guy's already hurt, like, how am I supposed to take him?

Like, you know, so like that's tough with Pook. I know that you asked me about Debo in the 49ers, but Debo would definitely vault up to being wide receiver one range. I think even at face value, I've had him all offseason ahead of Ayuk because of their splits when both plays. And it's just easier for Debo to get touches, right? And the 49ers have made Ayuk like a hyper-efficient player. He's like the post route God behind Justin Jefferson.

But when Debo and him play, like those manufactured touches that Debo gets just still hold anchor for like kind of like fantasy smoothing stuff, right? And that's kind of we see. That's why I give him a little bit of the edge. And then I was factoring some of the costs like if, all right, we get this trade that they've been whispering about, which who knows even what's going to happen with this. I just wanted to be over some resolution with this brand. But it would nuke George Pickens, 100%. George Pickens is a guy I'm kind of optimistic on right now.

And it is a guy like we're doing the Arthur Smith thing. But like, so that's still a worry. But like I think that a lot of people aren't pricing in pickens enough with that tier of guys that we mentioned like the London's, right? like what's like the true gap between pickens and london he's been a better player than london through two years he's already been better and like his splits him without the without the ansie johnson around the field they're really good he's a guy that make a big he in devi leagues george pickens was a guy like people coveted and everyone was like we're out on george pickens like he came in with pedigree was has been like all right in the NFL like he but like from a yards per

outrun stance he had he had more inaccurate targets than alave he had more inaccurate targets than Garrett Wilson last year and still yards for outrun, Dusted, Dusted. You know, he was only behind a lobby of the year, two guys, but dusted London and Dusted Garrett Wilson. Like, there is some discount with George Pickus. I'm still willing to take when I can get him as my wide receiver three. If he has been my wide receiver two plus, I'm a little more hesitant. But he would be roasted though if I quit there because we haven't seen him earn targets

next to another target earner. And then Kittle would get a bump, but I don't know. There's a lot going on. Yeah, you just hinted at one of my favorite tweets I put out this on. off season in career games with a route share 60% or higher from the 22 wide receiver class christian watson 1 15.4 fantasy points per game olive 2 13.7 so big fall off gareth wilson 13.2 pickins 11 drake london 10.8 the guy who's going round 1 an underdog even um and so yeah obviously much bigger price discount on a pickens on a watson but yeah let me let me just piggyback

another question onto the Debo Iyuk thing. What about from an NFL perspective? Who stands out to you as being more valuable? Because I've heard it argued that for 31 other teams, Iyuk is clearly the more valuable of the two. But maybe for the 49ers and Kyle Shanan, Debo, the way he's used shredding too high coverage, Debo is more valuable to that team. See, I'm not even 100% sure that that's true just because the thing about Debo and you always hear this comp right it's like the josh allen thing like this guy could be the next debo but the reason why debo hasn't been able to be replicated by wandole robinson or rondel more or malachi corley let's just put him on the list now like is that debo is it actually good wide receiver and it kind of gets lost in the sauce and the debo

argument like you talked about like because the manufactured stuff and the for debo is like when when iuk misses like go back to that giant's game last year he's winning downfield he's winning actually with a route tree that a wide receiver gets because when iuk misses they don't give deba all that bullshit like they don't do that when iukes out the field like he just lines up and plays real wide receiver a lot of people forget devo can just play wide receiver and that's is why this has been so exploitable for the 49ers is the 49ers they show you we're going to come out in 11 personnel you have to defend this because we talked about this earlier show like defensive packages are dictated by offensive personnel the 49ers are showing 11 you know

whether it be jennings or pierce hall in the formation in the huddle you got to so you've got to sub-out and then this tick heads in the backfield you're like oh we came out and we came out in sub-package we're playing lightbox and debo samuel's in the backfield like what do you do now the 49ers is we got you and then if you say all right well we want to combat that we maybe we'll play a little heavier we'll go sub-package with an extra safety now dibo's lined up wide and is running a slant. You know, it's like, this is why the Debo package hasn't been able to replicate is the dude actually plays wide receiver well and it gets lost than that.

So I don't know if that's true. I think if you put Debo on a lot of other teams and they just ask him to play traditional wide receiver, I think he's capable. And he's absolutely capable of doing that. So I don't know. Debo for me, though, just does too many unique things where I think I would take him. But I mean, I used good. I think both are excellent football players.

But I think lost in the sauce. Devo is a good wide receiver. I love it. Yeah, I agree. He's not like maybe the best separator, but he's also what the best wide receiver in football after the catch. And he can play running back and do all. But yeah, he is underrated as a pure wide.

I mean, just look at what was it prior to the Brandon Iuke. So two years ago, he showed up to get, he had the holdout. He showed up to camp significantly overweight. Our insider told us to fade him that year. He was right. which, by the way, is another concern with, you know, all these wide receivers holding out now, giving like a Brandon Cook's the chance to establish a rapport with Doc Prescott, maybe eat into targets, but it's also maybe you're not in the best conditioning.

Your injury risk is higher. But that's a segue. The year before that, Debo IUC had one of the best seasons of all time, sanely productive for fantasy. And so he's proven he could be that wide receiver one. I think if this IU trade happened, he could vault up to, I don't know, wide receiver eight in my rankings, maybe even higher than that. Yeah, would you just be like after Wilson?

I assume like your seven is basically like the universal seven for the universal seven for sure. I was going to ask you, does a lamb thing, what's going on at lamb like especially now it's August 20th? We're two weeks out. Like, does that factor in if you're on the clock? You already said you want to take one of the running back, especially if it's not. But let's say it's full PPR, start three. wide receivers. Maybe there's multiple flex spots. Maybe I'm just trying to coax you into taking a wide

receiver. Are you taking Tyreek over Lamb right now? I think right now I still have at Lamb, but we're getting that territory where it's time to get nervous. But like honestly, this is something I'm always thinking about. Like I think about these black swans, I think more than most, maybe just because James Connor made me so much money that year Levy on Bell held out for the full year. I had them in every single league. And it's the chances of that happening again are so But there are other things that you have to factor into it. Like, you know, maybe he's in poor conditioning. It gives a hamstring his first thing back trying to do too much.

Or he's in the coach's doghouse or he just doesn't know the playbook as well. There's like a million different factors that no one is factoring in. But like, would it really surprise you if Brandon Cook's had this amazing season or if T. Higgins was way more productive than anyone thought? I don't think so. Yeah. And I mean, you talk about like the marriage. we talked a little bit about, you know, McCaffrey and Channahan, just kind of how their marriage is kind of made for, like, Tyreek and Mike McDaniel, like, what a song. Those two have sung for two years. Like, Mike McDaniel clearly understands the assignment. Yeah, you just made Tua Tago Velas so much money. Tarek and Mike, like, there was, give Brian Flores one more year and it's like, two is getting Gardner Minchu money. I think that's fully possible. Like, that was the narrative on him. But, all right, I was supposed to do a mailbag. We've already run out of time.

I just have one question that I personally would like to ask. I think this is interesting to me is who is your favorite player in the NFL today? Oh, I'd say my favorite player is Justin Jefferson. He's just too cool. By far, just, you know, the drip is that the kids, the youths would say. But he's just a cool-ass dude. Whenever I see him, I don't know if you guys are familiar with like destroying. He was the kicker that broke his neck in the UFO.

But he's always done like these one-on-one videos that I love because I grew up as a wider see. I played wider seeer. I played it all the way into my 40s. We won Nationals in 40s. That was my last swan song. But he does these like one-on-one like drills where it's wide receivers versus DBs. And Justin Jefferson came to one of those like incognito in disguise and like came out. He's just like a really cool dude.

He seems like really down to earth. It seems like a really cool dude. So I would definitely say Justin Jefferson. So fundamental difference here. I hate wide receivers or rationally. I just, they're so annoying and selfish and me first. So I, my favorite. players have always been asshole shadow cornerbacks that is like like a key to a dying a dying breed in the

i know i know chris harris jrars junior all-time legend undersized slot corner but could hang with anyone outside of antonio brown um maybe maybe sauce gardener is my new favorite uh for my answer it'd be either him or tessum or kittle uh i think as my favorite players in the nfl but yeah devon witherspoon might be your dude then. You might be watching some Devin Witherstone. Because Mike McDonald, Mike McDonald with the Tariq, Treek, Will, and Devin Wetherspoon could be dialing up some some cool stuff this year. All right. Reeves, such a blast. Thank you so much for coming on. Again, this is who I think is the best fantasy analyst in the game right now. So make sure you go on over to Sharp Football, get a fantasy subscription. I have one. Check out all of Rich's

work. He's a genius. He's the man. Anything else you want to plug? Anything else you've got coming down the pipe? People should check out. No, no. Too kind. I always love the whole team you guys are assembling over at fantasy points. You know,

I just started following Ryan, probably too late, but I'm bad at Twitter. I'm old. But I just started following Ryan. Love the stuff he's been putting out. Obviously, you and Graham, I have a great relationship with.

I had Joe Dolan on my podcast about a month ago, and we did like an auction strategy thing. I know that article finally came out on the site. Just a really good team of really good people over there at fantasy points. I'm glad that you guys are keeping me on my toes and pushing me to be better. Yeah, again, maybe not the best Twitter account, but the best articles you're fine. No one goes as comprehensive or in depth, but he is a boomer and is not as good. I mean, you have some banger tweets.

It's just the volume. The volume's kind of low. I'm bad at Twitter. It's what it is. It will always be Twitter too as well. The worst thing Elon did is it looks like a porn site now, like the app. Like X, when I see X on my thing, like, if you're like, I'm like, it looks like a dirty site. It looks like I shouldn't be going to it.

Or if my wife is looking at our like credit card statement, sees, you know, $18 per month to X. It's like X premium. What is it? What is this? Yeah. Yeah. Super boneheaded move is like, like, do you how much money people will pay for like that? Cause will pay for that brand recognition where like everyone knows the name.

It's ubiquitous. And then it's like, no, we're just going to change it. It's unbelievable. And people refuse. So this is why I haven't changed my avatar on Twitter is because, you know, I tried to do it once and I tried to change my handle. Everyone's right. O'Neves. Yeah. That was, yeah. The old people I remember. And I, you can't do it, man. You just can't change the brand. If it makes you feel me better, you're better at Twitter than my last guest, Sean Siegel. Or maybe we're just that is by default,

though, like by the fall, a very low bar. But two to two absolute legends you don't need Twitter to promote their work. But Rich, thank you again so much for coming on. We've got to do this again in season. Yeah, absolutely.