Fantasy Football Daily - Team-Building Through the NFL Draft | Take Talk Podcast

Episode Date: May 6, 2023

In Take Talk 53, Steve O'Rourke (@callmesteveo7) and Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) discuss the right and wrong ways to build a team in today's NFL, especially as it pertains to building through the NFL Draft. Interested in playing Best Ball in 2023? There's no better place than Underdog Fantasy. Use our code FANTASYPTS to sign up for a new account at Underdog, and not only will you get a 100% deposit match up to $100... but you'll get a Fantasy Points Standard subscription for only $5! https://www.fantasypoints.com/underdog --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Hello, everyone, and welcome into the Take Talk podcast. My name is Stephen O'Rourke, and this week we have Brett Whitefield back. The Man, the Myth, the Legend, has returned from his NFL draft, Bonanza. And yeah, just welcome back, man.

It's good to have you. Good to see you. Steve, you introduced me like a guest. I know. I feel like I've talked to you in like three weeks. I think it has been almost three weeks. Yeah, because I missed. So the last take talk, Chris subbed for me.

Yep. We didn't do last week's episode because of the draft. Yep. So, yeah, it feels good to be back. I'm actually really excited to be back. Chopping it up, talking ball. Yeah. man it's it's good we're recovered uh kind of so day two day two of the draft so like friday night

i'm on back-to-back six-hour live streams and my wife is texting me hey you know i'm not feeling so good all the kids are not feeling good either then saturday rolls around a whole house of strep throat breaks out oh so all four kids plus my wife my wife got it bad she had a fever of like 103 at times Holy crap. Yeah, she was, she was in rough shape, had to get the whole, like, we don't do antibiotics if we don't have to. And obviously with bacterial infections, it's like strap. It's very important to get them on.

So we had to go get antibiotics to everybody. And so the few days I was planning on taking to recover for myself, I was taking care of my family. Thankfully, I didn't get it. Not sure how, probably because I was busy doing live streams. I don't know. You were locked in a room. Yeah, weird, right? But, yeah, so I'm just now starting to recover, which it's been good.

Like, I went to bed at like 930 last night, so, which is very early for me. Right, right. Yeah. Getting back to, like, status quo, though, finally. Yes. At least until I invent something else to keep myself busy with. Well, there's always one, there's always something new. Yeah.

Can't just hang around. Yeah. Working on a deck project. Nice. I like that. I'm going to build a deck. So it's going to be fun. But yeah, man.

How have you been? What's shaking, man? Good, man. Just I'm just digesting the draft as a whole. And mainly just like coming off of and rethinking just draft ideals, how teams draft and all that, trying to like put it all in the sense. And then I've been watching just a ton of receiver film lately for that. the NFL so I'm excited to like I've been clipping a bunch of stuff and I'm excited to like just

start throwing that out there different stuff that I like didn't like and all that so I don't know it's like it's funny because this is probably like the one season where like every once in while it's like okay summer's here excited for summer you know we get a little break but like this year I just want it to be August right now I don't want to wait at all I feel you. The next stretch here is going to be miserable for football fans. It's it is. It's just the dog days of summer, dude, where it just, you know,

you're grasping for any type of news, any type of anything to just talk about, think about until August hits, or at least like July when guys start to report and, you know, rookie minicamp and all that. Yeah. Steve, this is like not related, but I wanted to ask you this question. Have you got into the show The Vikings? I have not. It's one of those shows that it comes across the feed all the time. You see it and it's like, that looks cool.

But I don't really think I want to start a new show right now. And then it's just that constant cycle of wanting to but never fully diving in. Did I already ask you this? I think I did actually. You asked Chris and I in the chat. Gotcha. I'll say your answer. sounded familiar.

Yeah, so we're in that time, though, where, you know, I mean, unless you're like a big NBA or NHL guy, there's just not a lot going on sports-wise. Right. The dog days of summer. So, like, my wife and I, especially she's been sick. So we just started the Vikings. We're like already into season two, loving the show. Possibly one of my favorite characters ever in a show on the show.

Wow. Lagertha. Yeah. she's she's awesome but phenomenal show we're like very excited we got into it it was kind of unexpected we've thought about it for like years probably like five last five years we've talked about doing that show and then finally just hey let's let's give it a try and then we just kind of sucked us right in so yeah yeah it always grabbed my attention because it was like I remember it being out or for somewhat prevalent like right around the time the game of thrones was ending

and you're like trying to go for anything that was like close to that and that was always one that like caught my eye of like that would be close I bet that would be like interesting and Norse mythology and all that stuff is all like really interesting and really cool too yeah for sure um yeah I like the the Norse mythology like getting a look at their culture so they it's always portrayed as so savage you know like right It's always interesting, but I could see the Game of Thrones vibes there for sure, too, because there's always like the jockeying for position amongst the earls and the yarls and the kings. That and sword fighting is just so fun to watch. And there is a mystical nature to it too because like the uniqueness of the North mythology, like Norse mythology, they bring that in to the show, obviously. and there's, you know, a lot of these mystical events that happen are kind of unexplainable, you know, be similar to any kind of like religious show or whatever where they're trying to portray a certain religion. It's right.

And so Game of Thrones, while it's not, there's not a religion involved, there is like a mystical nature of it, you know, with the drag. Yeah, exactly. But very cool. It's a very good show. But anyways, I thought I'd throw that out there. Since we're entering the dog days of summer, you should, you should check. it out. I think you and the wife would like it. Yeah, I'll have to, I will have to check it out because we're going to need.

It's like summer's also the time when like no shows really come out either. It's, it just all compiles into, I mean, it's nice because it forces you to go outside, but every once in a while you're like, I don't want to. And I just want to sit and do something for a sit and do nothing for a little bit. Yes. Oh, in the tie-in from Vikings to to the NFL is that there is a plan. player in this draft, Holton Ehlers, of Eastern Carolina quarterback, who is a direct descendant of Ragnar Lothbrook, who's the main

character of the show Vikings. That's a sick, deep nugget. That's pretty badass, to be honest. That's awesome. Yes. Ragnar is probably the most famous Viking of all time. You know, you even learn about him in history class. So pretty cool, though.

But yeah, he ended up signing as a UDFA for Seattle as like a quarterback slash athlete. And I hope he makes it just because he's got cool lineage there. Right, right. Yep. Right on. Steve, I know you want to have like a team building conversation. It kind of as we take a step back, review the draft. And one thing you said that was apparent. And I totally agree is that when you look at a team's draft in depth, it says a lot about how they view the direction of their team. Right. And worth that in the process. And some teams will be drafting strictly for the future. Some teams are reloading.

Some teams are drafting for right now. So I thought it would be cool to get some takes out of you as far as that goes. Yeah. So, I mean, we were talking about it pre-show, but basically the premises that, you know, I'm like, this is the last week where you'll really see like draft grades go out. That cycle's done with. And now you really like sit and start to digest the draft and combine it with free agency and just seeing where teams are going.

And I think after talking to a lot of people, just friends, random people about the draft, I kind of came to the realization that I think that people misconstrue and don't totally get sometimes what a team is doing with the draft. Like each team has a different goal and each team is drafting these players to contribute differently. Obviously, every single team is hoping that the guys that they draft are all pro, make it to the second contract, become pillars of the team, all of that. But at the same time, not everybody is, I feel like not every player is always meant for this long-term view. Not many teams have this ability to look beyond two, three, four years. Like this draft right now, a lot of GMs that are in the position right now might not even see these guys to a second contract.

And so it's just like I wanted to kind of talk to you about like your thoughts on that of like, I mean, like Arizona obviously is in a position where you're kind of starting a tear down and a rebuild. You paid Kyler. The question marks are there. But drafting right now, you have a new GM. You're looking to start to get like pillar guys, guys that are going to be like get to year four, year five, get to a second contract. You know, getting a 50 year rookie option, things like that. Whereas like teams like Philadelphia, you know, they can continue to draft for depth. And, you know, Howie Roseman has a lot of runway.

And these are guys that you want to see to second contracts and want to start to replace the guy, the older, and for like guys you've brought in from free agency and want to be like pillars of your defense. And because you can look that far beyond. Yeah. But not every like not every GM has that ability a lot. Like we've talked about many times before where coaches and GMs, you got like a three to four year timeline to be competitive. Yeah. And I even think that's been sped up a little bit. I mean, you're seeing a lot of coaches get canned after two years.

Right. If there's no – Yeah, if there's no demonstrable forward direction, like, there's no time to just sit around and say, like, oh, maybe next year's the year. Like, you got to get these guys out now and get, like, new coaches, new GMs, new people to come in with a new idea because clearly the last one didn't work. Yeah. And then there's also, like, interesting sidebars on that, too. So, like, usually a first year GM is going to take what they think. are safe players. They're not going to take any risks. Cardinals are a great example of this, right?

They new GM, new head coach. They identify Paris Johnson Jr. as their guy. He's safe on all accounts. Really good athlete, but also a really good kid. You know, all the high character stuff. He graduated from Ohio State in three years, got his degree in three years, which is in football, especially. Yeah. Very impressive. So this is a really smart, intelligent kid. they trade back, realize they're probably not going to get them, so they trade up and get him. You start to see decisions like that where it's like, you know, hey, early in our tenure, we're not going to take a lot of risk. We're just going to draft good players, maybe not at premium positions, and, you know, guys that we know are good kids.

Then the more confident you get like a Howie Roseman, the more you're really just, you know, hey, we're going to, our culture is established where we are who we are. we can afford to take on Jalen Carter because, A, we have the environment to make that work. You know, if he can't get it right here, where is he going to get it right? And then B, if it doesn't work, we're established. We've got good players everywhere. Right. You can swing and miss and sure, you're going to get chastised in the year that it, you know,

it flames out or it doesn't work. It's going to happen. But at the same time, like you said, the infrastructure is there. And, you know, it becomes this talking point a couple years from now. I remember when that guy was drafted. He was supposed to be this great player and he's not. I mean, historically what? It's like just about 60% or less than that of guys that make it to second contracts out of the first round.

This draft especially, it feels like so many pieces are being talked about as like contributors stepping in. I mean, we talked about the depth of the draft all the way through. But we still have to temper expectations and understand that. Not a lot of these guys are going to work out. And I think that's, it's a, it's an, or I feel like I notice it more this year more than ever where you're not really talking about a lot of guys that are going to bust. It's all a lot of confidence around first and second round players this year when that's not necessarily going to be the case. And you just like, yeah, you just like a lot of the, like some of these guys are viewed as contributors now. And I think that's the big difference is there is not a lot of guys that you view as like long term developmental guys out of the first round pick outside of like Anthony Richardson and a couple of the couple other guys.

A lot of these guys are being viewed as like plug and play day one starters. And I think that's just kind of it's it feels like it's skewed the perception of this draft a little bit. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I mean, I think some of that, too, is like, from like a content perspective, too, in the industry, it's like nobody wants to read a Scouting report that's just hammering a kid. So you, of course. Your shrink section is always going to be heavier than the weakness section. Right. You're not going to dwell.

Like, even I do this myself. And I would say I'm probably more willing to be critical than others in the space. When I'm writing a guy up, like, even if I think the kid, it's. He's got no shot of being a legit NFL guy. Like, I'm still going to focus or write more words about his strengths than his weaknesses. Right. Because that's what drives people's attention, honestly.

It's, so I think that is being hyper, like there's this hyper analyzing that happens because of that. And you can find, like, I would say qualified people on Twitter that like every prospect of the draft. Like, if there's a problem, you like, you can find somebody with a blue, well, the blue check's not a great example anymore, but you can find somebody with a large following that does this for a living that agrees with your take. So I think that contributes even more to what you're saying, where the perception of all these guys is,

hey, they're all going to be difference makers. They're all, there's no such thing as bad picks. I mean, shoot, I thought Breton Strange, the Jacksonville tight end pick in the second round was one of the worst picks of the entire draft. Yet somehow a couple days ago, I stumbled upon an entire swath of people. that thought this was an amazing pick. I saw that too. Yeah, and like the replies, the comments, like the guy who initially tweeted, it had like 50,000 followers.

And all the comments agreed with them. And I'm like, what planet do we live on? Like, there's not even, there's no consensus anymore, Steve. It's just everybody's good, nobody stinks. And, you know,

and teams are sort of drafting that way too. Find your echo chamber and then live in it. Yeah. That's basically what it is. And hey, I get it. I mean, especially, like we said, with summer coming up and you have to, like, feeling optimistic, pessimistic, whatever you're feeling about your team, at least you can find a way to convince yourself about every rookie that you took.

Yep. Yeah, and it gets even more convoluted in the fantasy space because everybody doing dynasty drafts, especially if you, like, tanked all year for picks this year and you're trying to build a team. It's like you got to come to terms of the fact that this class might let you down once you get past the first few picks. Right. They're like some of the sharps are saying that, but like I've done enough drafts now where

they might be saying that, but they're not actually living that out in the drafts. They're still trying to collect picks. They're still unwilling to trade their draft picks. So it's like, yeah. It's very interesting. It's because new is always better in people's eyes. Yeah, that's a great way looking at it. New is always better.

Why go for the guy that we go for the guy that we know what he can be when we can go for the guy who could be anything? Yeah. He could even be the guy that you thought about drafting there. Yeah. A good example. I'm in a Dynasty League, Steve. Chris is in it. A couple other industry folk are in it.

And my team is really old. I have a competitive team, but it's got like Devontah Adams, Derek Henry and Austin Echler and Kean now and it's just it's old and so last year I sold some pieces to get more draft capital this year I had like 104 107 a couple second round picks and going into this draft I wanted to trade Derek Henry and Austin Echler and I was specifically targeting people who have been crapping on the draft class this whole time like hey this draft class has no stars no fantasy guys cool so maybe they'll they'll want Echler or Henry nobody will give me even close to value for those guys.

So I'm like, so I pivoted the other direction. I was like, fine. You have C.D. Lamb and you have Nick Chubb, and I'll trade you my picks for your best players, and they did it. It's like literally what they're tweeting on, you know, on the internet and what they're doing in person are completely different. So I don't know why fantasy sidebar is a little different than real life. Let's tie this back to the NFL. But I think you're seeing overlap, though, in both.

arenas so and yeah so going back to the draft and what like what teams did you identify at like looking back at their draft classes are there certain teams that you identified as like okay they made a clear statement with this draft about where they're going oh yeah there's a bunch right um so obviously like the eagles are probably the easiest example because they're a veteran team. They have superstar talents at certain positions, and they seemingly just filled them all in with new potential superstar talents. So for them,

that draft was like a reload, right? Like Jalen Carter is the clear heir to the Fletcher Cox throne. Nolan Smith is a Hassan Reddick replica. Brandon Graham's getting old, so he's a clear replacement there. Keeley Ringo is like a high pedigree corner that got, you know, late in the fourth or whatever. take over for Slay or Bradbury at a certain point.

So for them, it was just, it seemed like it was a retool slash rebuild. Like, we're just keeping this semi-trained moving forward. I don't know that Philly got better necessarily this offseason, but they definitely didn't get much worse. And as those guys develop, Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith, like, that team will get better because, you know, Fletcher Cox is not playing the best football he's ever played. Brandon Graham's not playing the best football he's ever played. So that was one.

Another one is the Detroit Lions. I hate to always come back to them as our reference point, but this is, their draft tells you everything you need to know about how they feel about where their team is at right now. They think they're going to win right now. They think they're going to go win the division and make a playoff run. And they drafted to get guys in the lineup that can play literally right now. The Jemir Gibbs' Studd from day one. Jack Campbell, I hate the pick.

He's going to start from them for day one. he's an upgrade over Malcolm Rodriguez from last year. Right. Sam Leporta, clear upgrade for the tight end room. Did they necessarily need that upgrade? No, but it's like, hey, this guy gives us something special that we didn't have in the offense last year. Right. A legit run after catch receiver, tight end option, a mismatch weapon.

You could play anywhere in the field. He makes us better on offense right now. Brian Branch, same thing. He makes us better on defense right now and special teams for that. he's going to be a great special teams player. The only real future pick they took was Hendon Hooker. And even when you heard Brad Holmes talk about him, Steve, it wasn't about this could be the QB of the future.

It was, well, yeah, he could be the QB of the future, but also he's a better backup right now than we had. So, like, that's even like a right now pick for them, which is falling coming off an injury. But, yeah, I mean, that draft told you a lot about where they thought their team was. Yeah. Going back to the Eagles, that's, again, I think it's picks that maintain where you're at and gives you more runway. Like, they're seemingly safe picks that can cut that don't have to come in and contribute right now.

They can come in and contribute right now. They, like, at least we think. And, you know, if you don't get a ton out of them year one, that's fine. If you, you know, if they start to come along year two, year three, that's fine because that's about when you, want them to come along and be heavy stalwart on your on your defense because that's when you know like you said fletcher cox and some of those other guys on the defensive lines start to move out and i mean honestly i the eagles building their defense off of one of the best defenses in college football history is such a hilariously obvious but like nobody's ever really done it but it makes so much sense like

well, they all worked well together when we, when they were in college, why won't they work together well together in the NFL? And so I, like, I mean, they've been praised enough on and on. And so I don't think, I don't even think we need to really talk about it. But like you said, like Detroit is one where, honestly, Jemir Gibbs, you're not, you're not talking about a second contract with him. Like right now, like that's not your goal. Your goal is for him to come in.

contribute and be a difference maker in the offense this year and next year. Four years from now, he is what he is. And hopefully he's there. Hopefully he's great. Same with Jack Campbell. You hope the same thing. But like right now, they raise the floor of your team. And that's like, that's what some of these teams by a little bit.

And I mean, yeah, not a ton because, I mean, they just, they ran the gamut of the first four picks of, hey, what are the four least important positions on the NFL football field right now and they were like okay so let's just run down that list real quick i don't i don't see branches as that i branches he's a slot corner to me so yeah he's a pregnant position but which is which like yeah it's fun how they're building out that back end where it's just a bunch of amorphous guys that can plug and play in several different positions instead of pigeonholing yourself to each different guy and then you know like you have other you have other you have Other teams like Arizona, Atlanta, where it's even Carolina, I mean, Carolina going quarterback,

like your clock starts now for being competitive, but just trying to get guys in that can compete. Like you're not necessarily, like you're hoping for day one contributors out of the guys after you're after the quarterback. But a lot of these guys are, you're taking flyers on a guy to help bring this court, hopefully bring this quarterback along. Yeah. Like you don't need, I mean, you want superstars, obviously, but you don't need them right now. You need to get this team competitive. You need to get to see what you have in your quarterback and give us to,

at least give them a chance to develop and not hang them out to dry right away. You know who did the best example of that? Colts. No. Who? Green Bay. Green Bay goes. Pass catching tight end, wide receiver, pass catching tight end with three picks and

row to add to Christian Watson, Romeo dubs, and a pretty good offensive line. They're basically just saying, like, hey, we got to find out what we have in Jordan Love and we got to find out quick. And we're just getting weapons. I mean, imagine if Aaron Rogers had this team. I dogged on them on the clock podcast for the Tucker Kraft pick because I'm like, I don't love going tight end, tight end with two top 80 picks. But the more I step back and looked at it, I'm like, you know what?

Craft is very different than Musgrave. Musgrave is a explosive route runner. He's going to beat man coverage separation player. Tucker Kraft is a yard after catch dog. They're getting two very different players there. Jaden Reed steps in as like a guy who can just play in the slot. And then you have Watson and dubs on the outside. Like that's filthy.

They're the chance to be filthy, I should say. Right. Ed's and Aaron Rogers getting that opportunity. So better supporting cast he's had in a while. Yeah. I mean, we all, I feel like we all kind of set up. was going to happen too of the minute Aaron Rogers leaves, I guarantee they're going to go offense.

And sure enough, they fell right in line with that. Yep. And another team that finally potentially got their quarterback some help is Baltimore Ravens. Yeah, you got to praise them. You got to praise them. They got it done with Lamar. Seemingly played the market correctly. Yeah, for everybody that said he was completely screwing.

himself seemed to work out fine for him. Seem to work out fine for both parties. Actually, like Lamar got a really good contract. The Ravens didn't have to cough up a fully guaranteed contract either. I think the Ravens digging their heels in probably was the right call. You know, like, hey, we've got, we're still going to make you the highest grade quarterback in the league. We just don't want to give you $250 million guaranteed. They got close to, like $180 or whatever, but still, I mean, it seems to be.

like a good compromise and then they're what they're doing is just gosh if they would have done this couple years ago things would have been easier for them like they're rolling out a an offense of rachad bateman zay flowers and objay with mark andrews and isaiah likely and um the other tight end will be back this year too from iowa state that i liked i forget his name right now uh poor yeah yeah i mean they have a decent offensive line like this you know they got a chance to cook Lamar should have his best passing season ever. And especially since they brought in a new offensive coordinator. Yeah, Monkin.

Yeah, Monkin's a genius. He's a goat. A guy that is more apt to air it out than Greg Roman. And that's like a team that they had a seal. With Greg Roman, I think we talked about it during the season. They had a very defined ceiling. And you saw it several times. It was a good regular season offense, a good regular season team.

But when they got to the playoffs, push comes a shove, you need to throw the ball more. It just, it is what it is. And they could never do it. It was too easy for teams to come up with a defensive plan to shut down their run game and then force them to pass. And then that was where it was like, well, I don't really have much to work with. I mean, if you look at like the first round of the playoffs, almost every single team except for Baltimore had a positive pass rate over expectation.

Baltimore was the only team in the first round of the playoffs to not go positive and pass rate over expectation. It doesn't surprise me and it's also just LOL. I mean, it was exactly, that's how it had been for, like with Lamar every single year. And that's the change they signal to everyone is that we're not going to let that, we're not going to let that be our ceiling anymore. Yeah.

We need to be able to make a jump because it's a, you know, their defense almost always performs. And I actually liked what they did. They didn't have a ton of draft capital, but I liked what they did in the later rounds to get some depth and get some interesting guys that can help bolster that defense. but it's a team that showed that, okay, we're, they knew that they kind of, I think we kind of knew that they were working on a deal and we're going to sign Lamar right before the draft. And now, like, they ran with it. They ran with the mentality that we're not going to let ourselves be a run-only team that are not, or a run-heavy team that gets stuffed out of the playoffs every year.

We're going to be a team that has the versatility to be able to utilize Lamar for what he is while also, giving him the opportunity to throw to someone that isn't just Mark Andrews and then a rotating cast of retreads. They're going to give him actual legitimate weapons to finally start to work with something. Yeah, I think that's fair. I like what they did. There's the other, the flip side to this conversation, Steve, is there's a large swath of teams that just seemingly don't get it.

a couple I want to throw out there the Atlanta Falcons I don't I don't know what they're doing Steve they're drafting like they have time and this is Arthur's

third year they've disappointed so far they have no quarterback they draft a running back at eighth overall I don't I don't get it I don't know what they're doing and then they reach on a tackle

slash card yep And that's on a team that, what, they produced really well with a guy with a third round running back. I mean, I know we always say it, but like, come on. Yeah. And he was like a, I think he was a fifth round running back actually. But Algeria, I think he was fifth rounder last year. I just don't get it.

Like, and then the birdg round pick, like, I know some teams were talking about him in the first round. I just never saw it with birdg round. It felt like the Falcons were just so desperate to fill. a need. They just reached right there. And then Zach Harrison and the third, like, this was not a good pick. I just don't know what they're doing. They don't have, it's almost like Arthur Smith's been told he's got six years to build this thing. You know? Yeah.

It's weird. The other team that is super confusing to me is the Jacksonville Jaguars. Like, they really had an opportunity to do something. And they just, not only did they throw a positional value out the window, but they, they reached to fill needs. So like Anton Harrison in the first round. Again, another guy who was getting some first round hype. I just hated the pick.

It's like, oh, we need a left tackle because we're going to lose our guy for four games or whatever. So we're drafting a left tackle. I, no, you can't do that. You have to have a better plan than that. They left so much meat on the bone. Then Breton Strange in the second round, one of the worst picks in the whole draft. They come back with Tank Biggsby and the third round. I love Tank.

I think Tank's a great player. He's a running back. You have Travis Etienne, who was a first round pick two years ago. Yeah. It played really well last year. I get you want to get him help. Cool. Let's get a guy in the fourth or fifth round that has a different skill set.

Ventrell Miller, linebacker for Florida in the fourth round. No. Like all these picks are just reek of like, we have needs that we want to fill, so we're just checking boxes with players. Like they're trusting their evaluations too much. I think. Well, and it's interesting because Jacksonville's, like, they had a very defined need at a position that was seemingly pretty deep in the draft, and that's just the secondary in general.

It was a team that you felt good about that could get passed on quite a bit. Their defense, it was a lot of free agents, a lot of guys. Like, I felt like that was a team that needed to go into the draft and go defense heavy and start to get guys in there that are going to replace the free agents that are going to come off that team, or at least they're going to have to think about whether they're re-sign him or not. And now, you're right, like, again, I talked about, like, the Eagles extending their runway and their competitiveness window. Jacksonville kind of boxed themselves out in this draft, it seems like. They didn't really extend it in a team that, like, Trevor Lawrence, you can pretty much assume is going to make it to a second.

contract and he's going to deserve a big second contract. You have to start play. Like that's a team that needs to start planning for that. That needs to start, you know, bolstering the team to help them, help themselves going to run, build off of last year. And it just, it was a team that you would want it. You would like, you would have liked to see go get contributors now, but they just didn't do that.

Yeah, or even, not even necessarily contributors now for me, Steve, guys in general that can play football, like it or could have a developmental upside. I don't know that any of these guys do. And they don't play positions that move the needle. That's your first critical as people have been about the lines draft. Well, Jacksonville, minus the tackle, did the same thing. And they did it with lower pedigree players.

So it's just, it's frustrating because you want to see, like Jacksonville's not in a good division, right? They should win that division. Yeah. They're making it easy on their opponents. So. And you could like, they can't even give you the argument of, well, it's okay. They did it during free agency because they didn't do really anything in free agency.

They didn't really have a ton of money to work with. But just like overall, it was a team that you felt like could go into the draft of the plan. And they could again, extend their window and really push to make it to the conference championship, you know, compete with the chief. Chiefs and, you know, because they were, I mean, they were in the game with the Chiefs last year in the playoffs. And it just, the entirety of their free agency, I mean, really their big signing was Roy Robertson Harris. And then, and then franchise tagging Evan Ingram. And then in the draft, like you said, they took swings on a lot of guys that either didn't necessarily deserve to go where they went. and they're like developmental, hopefully they turn into something type guys

when you would have liked to see some more, not necessarily blue chip guys, but guys that you feel more confident about in year one, two, and three. Yeah, as it stands right now, I don't see a single rookie starting for them next year. No. So that's not great. When you look at the guys they pass on two, so like there's all, But all the rumors that they don't want to resign Josh Allen through edge rusher, well, they passed on Miles Murphy and Nolan Smith,

like right after them, right after that Harrison pick. The Breton Strange pick was one of the weirdest picks I can remember. He was like a consensus day three guy by just about like everybody. I'm trying to look at that really quick. Yeah, they just, they left so much meat on the bone with this draft. It was frustrating to watch. as someone who would like to see Trevor Lawrence do well and not get. I mean, the one thing they have is past catchers.

They got a lot of those. Yes. But they already had that in place, you know. Again, yeah, their offensive line needed a little bit of a little bit more juice. But then it was just a defense that really needed to be worked on. Yeah. The offense started to come around and I really like what Christian Kirk is turning into that offense. I do like what Evan Angram offers to that.

that offense. And I like their, you know, they're running backs and Zay Jones turned it on toward the end of the year. It's not like it was an offense that is set and ready to go. And you had a chance to really kind of just go all in on defense and take a bunch of swings there and get guys in, get depth, get, just see what you can make happen on defense because you're assuming you're going in with the top eight to 10 offense at the worst. And, yeah, like their first picks of developmental.

tackle in a draft where you know there were two two three tackles that you felt confident about like why why reach for that why not wait and go after you know even even wait and go after like a burser on or even like a freeland yeah their pick so the the breton strange pick like how much better do you feel out this draft and instead of that pick they go with a siddy brown db from illinois or edge defender drew sanders from arkansas he can play that josh allen roll perfectly um garratt williams corner from syracuse there there were so many options like right there

uh zach harrison who the who the falcons end up picking that would have been um Tucker craft Tucker Kraft's a better tight end prospect than Brent and Strange. He does exactly what they're hoping Brent and Strange develops into. Tucker Kraft already does those things. Yeah. I just didn't get that draft.

Before we got out here. Oh, go ahead. I was just saying one other team that I did, I do like what they're doing is Minnesota. The NFC North in general had really outside of the Lions is, I mean, I am coming around to their draft class as a copium

as a way to cope. But the NFC North, I liked what Minnesota did and I liked what Chicago did. And like we said with Green Bay, I like what they're adding to help Jordan Love. But Minnesota, they're setting themselves up to be seemingly the next team that might go after a quarterback in free agency or trade. One of those names that pops up after Kirk Cousins, they're setting themselves. up to run seamlessly, no matter who's at quarterback. And once we get our chance at that bad, quote unquote, potential big name quarterback to fill in for Kirk Cousins, off we go.

But right now, you know, they continue to set themselves up to be a potential playoff team. Yeah, I, I liked a lot of the NSC North drafts. I did not, Minnesota's was one I actually was pretty critical of. I liked their first pick a lot. thought Addison was a slam dunk for them. Yeah. Mackay Blackman was, this kid's not ready to play, not even close.

I thought spending a day two pick on him is wild. That's funny because in talking back to kind of that echo chamber, I saw a big Mackay Blackman group. I have to. I have to as well, yeah. And it's all revisionism, though. Like none of those guys had that take before the draft. and now that Mick Kai Beckman goes three rounds earlier than anyone projected him to go.

It's like, oh, well, let's go back and watch a tape and we'll post some highlights and show some things he's good at. Right. I could play that game all along. I mean, every player has good highlights, you know. Blackman just, he's too raw for me. He doesn't, he's kind of positionless at the moment, which sometimes is good because, you know, you can kind of mold him into what you want him to be. Yeah. Jay Ward, similar thing with LSU.

That guy is positionless as well. I do think Ward probably more ready to play than Blackman is right now. But, and then just their lack of premium draft picks in general was tough. They had the comp pick or whatever. Yeah. That they used for Blackman, but they didn't have a second round pick because the Hawkins and trade. Where did their normal third go? I thought the normal third went.

I thought that was with the Lions. I thought that was the draft pick that went to the lions. No, that pick, their third next year goes to the lions. Their second round pick went to the lions this year. That was pick 55 for the lions, which they ended up trading. Yeah, they sent their third round to the 49ers. For who? For 102, 164 and 222.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, that's tough. That was the trade that the 49ers went up and got the kicker. Oh, my God. Another horrendous decision. That was my favorite pick of the draft. I loved that.

It was so funny. Yeah, that was wild, actually. That was really, that was Minnesota's original. No, that was. Number 87. San Fran took Moody at 99, though. Oh, then it wasn't a trade, but they still traded the third rounder to two San Fran. Yeah, they took on Jaeger Brown.

That was in the Niners took with that pick. Another horrendous decision by San Francisco. San Francisco had a really bad draft, but I do, I love the Addison pick, though, for Minnesota. Like, getting Justin Jefferson a guy across him that can actually pull some weight. Yeah. And Addison is, he can crush single coverage. So I don't think he should ever see a double in his life. instead of having Adam Thielen just run a trackbeat all game,

get a guy that's going to actually garner targets aside from Jefferson. Exactly. All right. Should we go out here, Steve? Do you have any closing thoughts? Do you have any closing thoughts? Just that, and I'm very interested to see what this draft class becomes because, again, it feels like one of the drafts where,

consensus and what GMs did, it was so different. And like, it lived up to the billing. Brad Holmes had come out and kind of said, like, you guys are not as close as you think you are. And so it's just going to be interesting revisionist history at the end of the year, two years from now. Are we going to look back and say that the GMs knew what they were doing? Or are we going to look back and say, like,

I can't believe that they thought that they knew better than us. We had it pegged right. And so, yeah, it's just, it's an enthralling draft class in that there was just so much difference in what teams did drafting compared to what we kind of thought they were going to do going in. And so it's going to be fun to watch the development of the class and watch to see who steps up, who becomes the all pros, the pro bowlers and things like that, and how it differs from what was it. actually done in the draft and what, you know, what consensus, what a lot of analysts thought was

going to happen. For sure. Typically, the public is pretty good at predicting drafts, at least the first round. Yeah. I think this was one of the worst, though. Yeah, I mean, I was looking at, I think, like, they do a mock draft challenge every year and things like that. And, I mean, like, what?

I have like 40, high 30s, 40% was top of the, like top tier. Yeah, it was rough. Yeah. So, all right, let's get out of here. We'll be back next week. Probably going back to Thursdays, though. So that'll be good. Good for the sketch.

So going back to Thursdays. And, yeah, we'll have lots of fun off-season. We're going to have to work really hard, Steve, to figure out some off-season topics here. but we'll get we'll get there we'll grind it out we'll find we'll find fun stuff to talk about for sure all right that's going to do it i'm brett whitefield this is my co-host stephen or rourke make sure you hit us up on twitter check out the the prospect guide on fancypoints.com it's still free what i got to do is create a login and you can access that and then our data product is launching soon so stay tuned

for more info on that we are out thanks for tuning in to this edition of the fantasy points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform, and come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com.