Fantasy Football Daily - Tetairoa McMillan, Luther Burden, Colston Loveland | 2026 Year 2 WR & TE Breakouts

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

🎧 You’re already listening—now ⁠⁠⁠⁠JOIN THE FANTASY POINTS FAMILY!⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🏈 💰 Use promo code FFD26 for 10% OFF at checkout! ⬆️ 🚨 Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FANTASY POINTS FANTASY YOUTUBE!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🚨 📝 Podcast Transcription Here ⬇️ https://podsqueeze.com/embedded/transcript/EPfq4iUW37noqnX8gaUUL9 Where to find us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://twitter.com/⁠⁠TheOGfantasy⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://twitter.com/⁠⁠dwainmcfarland ⁠⁠⁠⁠http://twitter.com/⁠⁠FantasyPts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👾 Join the ⁠⁠⁠⁠FANTASY POINTS DISCORD!⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👾 On this episode of Fantasy Football Daily, Dwain McFarland of Fantasy Life joins the show to evaluate second-year wide receivers and tight ends who could swing 2026 fantasy leagues. The discussion centers on breakout cases, flag plants, and fades, including what it would take for Tetairoa McMillan to reach a top-tier finish and whether Luther Burden’s momentum is justified. Additional focus falls on Emeka Egbuka, Tee Higgins, and Hunter as Year 2 pivots. At tight end, the conversation turns to Colston Loveland, Tyler Warren, Ja’Tavion Sanders, and Harold Fannin Jr., examining whether current market valuations align with realistic Year 2 outcomes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Taking a look at the year two wide receivers and tight end classes. Theo Greminger with Dwayne McFarland, Fantasy Football Daily, right here on the Fantasy Points Podcast Network. Year two wide receivers, Dwayne, it's usually cut and dry. We're looking at guys who are potential big time breakouts, some guys who might be sleepers reflective to the ADP market, and then there's always a mix of bus. And last year, this last year, year two wide receivers got us in trouble. And we were head over heels for the 2024 wide receiver class.

Guys like Malik neighbors, guys like Brian Thomas Jr., guys like Ladd McConkey. And with neighbors, oh, and certainly Marvin Harrison Jr., year two breakout, that was sort of everywhere in the fantasy space. Last year, year two wide receivers got us in trouble. Neighbors looked like he was headed towards an unbelievable season, then got injured, missed most of the year. Brian Thomas Jr. Probably the biggest bust inside of the round one, early round two guys.

Ladd-McConkie, one of the biggest busts inside of the round two wide receivers. And Marvin Harrison, Jr., gets outscored significantly by Michael Wilson, sort of a undrafted teammate. So you have maybe a market that's ripe for a year two bounce back here, Dwayne. Let's talk about Tetero. Or a year three bounce back on some of those guys. Year three on those. that is a whole other show and that's a fun one.

Sort of the post type sleeper episode. We'll bring you back for that one. But the guy at the top, Dwayne, Tedaroa McMillan, who was drafted inside of the top 10 overall last year by the Carolina Panthers, by all accounts, looks every bit apart.

His early ADP is wide receiver 13 on underdog FFPC and on the underdog streets going at 31 overall. Then you've got a little bit of people pouring cold water. on that because of the fact that Bryce Young hasn't really taken that step forward. Where are you at early vibes, Tetero and McMillan heading into year two?

Well, look, I think that Tetero and McMillan's a really good player, right? And I think he does have wide receiver one upside. He could end up being a top 12 guy. I think the concerns around Bryce Young, like they're certainly valid. Like Bryce Young, I mean, we've got four years of a data here, Theo, and it's not like this is a guy that can go out there and just rip it for 250 yards a game on a consistent basis. And that's obviously a limiting factor. We saw what that did to Justin Jefferson last year.

At the same time, you get players like Garrett Wilson before he got hurt last year, playing with a not so good quarterback in Justin Fields. That was scoring fantasy points. So there's just, you know, there's so much nuance with these things. And they do all matter. And like when you look at them at a macro, like, yeah, holistically, like you would rather have a wide receiver that's on a really, it's very talented on a really good offense with low target competition, right?

Like that's like the mecca, good player, good quarterback, not a lot of other good players on their team to challenge them for targets. But the fact is, like most of these players, right, they lie somewhere in between. And so I totally get the understanding, right, around Bryce Young. I think the other big thing, like to note here is just that, you know, NFL passing yards per game reached their lowest point since 2006, 207 yards per game last year. So what's going on with NFL defenses, all the adjustments they've changed to 11 personnel when that became big, everything they're doing to try to limit big plays, whether that's more cover four,

or the too high or just how far the deepest safety is lining up off the line of scrimmage. The trend is clear, right? The defenses have fit. They've now drafted the personnel and built teams to try to stop this NFL, the previous, I guess it's the previous era now, Theo, of the passing game boom. And so what's the counterpunch going to be for these offenses? Well, I think, like, still their best players have to be involved. So, I mean, Tederoa McMillan's going to be one of those guys.

You know, it will come down to, like, can Bryce Young improve? that would obviously unlock things for Tet McMillan, but how confident can we be in that? At this point, are we really, with any confidence, can we project that suddenly Bryce Young is going to turn into this much better quarterback than what we've seen in the past. So I think where it becomes challenging is when you look at where Tet's going,

sorry, T-Mack. He doesn't want to be called TET, Dio. So if you look where T-Mack's going in fantasy drafts, I think the question you have to ask yourself is like, looking at the other players where he's going around them, And then, you know, I get it like in a vacuum. It's like, oh, man, going as Widerceiver 13, that's really tough. But then if you start to look at all the names that are going around and they have

similar questions like what we have around TMAC. So, you know, I understand people's hesitation. But once you get out of the top guys, which essentially check all the boxes that we talked about earlier, you're going to have questions on these guys. So I'm more, I still lean into the talent. I think this is a young, talented player. I know your two guys last year didn't necessarily perform well. but I don't think like the big picture takeaway is that we have to be lower on wide receiver two breakouts.

But we have to also understand that like, look, passing yards are down. All wide receivers, top six wide receivers, top 12 wide receivers, top 24 wide receivers, top 36 wide receivers. Like they're all down and they're scoring, right? And tight ends are up. So we know there are adjustments that are occurring, you know, and tight ends are getting more of these targets. It's target competition, all these things. But you, when you put it all together, that's relative to all the teams. all the teams have to deal with passing yards being down,

and we still need receivers on our fantasy teams. So I want to bet on the talent. So I want to bet on a player like T-MAC. Am I going to go like 80% in the paint, right? And try to be like, oh, I want this guy on every team. No, I'm going to mix it up. But he's certainly one of the guys that I like taking. Yeah, I think I'm with you.

And I think when we look back at last season that like the overall counting stats, big win for him. To walk away, we had 70, 70 catches, went over 1,000 receiving yards, 122 targets, Dwayne. So we're right in that wheelhouse where if the target volume can trend up just a little bit, you're talking about a player who could end up with 150 targets. When we were looking back at McMillan, sort of the ideal outcome for him from a profile standpoint,

was a guy like a Drake London. So could we end up with a Drake London-like scenario? Again, the quarterback play is bad, but I trust that McMillan can produce in that 145, 150 target range, And I think we're there. I also think that the, him becoming the offensive focal point where last year it was pretty running back centric at times, especially during the doubt, all breakout. I think that McMillan's the one they're going to lean on week in, week out.

So I think we're both sort of locked in and his ADP makes sense. Then we get down to the really fun players. And let's start out. We'll go dealer's choice here, Dwayne. Do you want to talk about Luther Burden where you were super high on last year during the rookie, during your time evaluating the rookie class? or do you want to talk about Emeka Egbuka, who's become sort of a polarizing click for many?

Yeah, let's just talk about both. But I think we'll go with Luther Burden, right? Like, he's definitely the buzzy name. So, like, when you think about, you know, projecting future fantasy points guys, like, you know, and the team over at fantasy points, you guys obviously do a great job of this. Ryan Heath, you know, Scott Barrett,

you guys put out a lot of content on that. So obviously, like, you guys can just check out the work there. But you know me, Theo. I'm very data-driven in my process. And so I'm always testing, like, what are the most predictive things in the next season? based on what a player did in the last season. And then we have context that comes into play.

Like, are they going to unlock new playing time? You know, are there other things that get us really excited about the player? But, right, their fantasy points per game the year before, right, is the number one thing. Then you have their percentage of first down targets that they get for their team. Then you have their target share, yards per route run, all these different things. And the thing is, like, when you really look at Luther Burton, while the fantasy points weren't necessarily there, we know it's because he didn't start getting playing time until later in the year. and he essentially took over the wide receiver three role from Alameday Zakias.

But I mean, I definitely think there's room there to expand. Like when we look at the underlying data points, like, we don't know for sure, like if Luther Burton is going to get a larger role. But I want to bet on that outcome. And the reason why 2.2.69 yards per route run, like you know, Theo, that's that's bonkers. That's elite. Yeah, it's insane. 25% targets per route run.

16% first down share for his team. 11% first downs per route run, right? That's, I mean, that's higher really than any. other wide receiver that we had last year that was a rookie, including T-MAC, who we just talked about. So while Luther Burdin was in a little bit more of a limited role, and it grew over the course of the season, I then look at DJ Moore and I'm like, what did DJ Moore do? Like, I get it. They gave him a contract a couple of years ago. They made the trade and everything, but it's not like DJ Moore was a great player. And then Romo Dunezay also had question mark, started off the season hot, got

injured. That was probably part of his fall off, you know, trying to play through the stress fracture and his foot and things like that. So there's certainly, in Colson Loveland, who we'll talk about here in a bit, he's going to have some target competition. But like the big path here for Luther Burden is, if you're betting on him, can he just take over DJ Moore's role, right? Can he be the wide receiver two or wide receiver one as far as playing time is concerned on the bears? We've got a quarterback that's on the rise. We've got an offensive coordinator that's the head coach there with Ben Johnson that we love. So to me, this is a great example of like there's going to be some uncertainty about his role to start the season, but he's definitely one of these clicks where

if you get it right, it could be such a smash for your draft. And even if you get it wrong, and let's just say his playing time goes up to 75% route participation rate, it doesn't get to like an 85 or 90, like maybe we hope for. If you look at the other guys going around him in drafts, like I still think you can make a case to still just go ahead and take burden. You might be getting a slightly lower floor, but I think the ceiling difference that you're getting is really the big thing given what he showed in the rookie super model, right? What we thought of him as a prospect, plus what he did in year one once he got his

playing time. Yeah, I mean, it's exactly the kind of profile that you want to bet on in fantasy football to take that big year two leap. He, because he's just electric with the ball in his hands. And we really trust Ben Johnson. And then Dwayne, when we look at sort of what the Ben Johnson offense in Detroit was able to do going from year one to year two there for him, if it's that similar trajectory, burden can end up being a huge beneficiary. We'll talk about Loveland a little later, but the market is steamed Loveland way, way up. With Burden, I'm getting him at wide receiver 22.

So that similar range, you know, you talk about some of the guys around him. What's an upside season look like for a Devontas Smith, a bounce back season for a guy like Terry McLaurin, whereas Luther Burden, I think with those other guys, we kind of know what they are. We know what an upside season would be for them. where Luther Burden, I mean, we whisper names like Amon Raus St. Brown.

And it's like, hey, maybe it comes together and Burden ends up giving you a top eight or nine scoring finish. So I think we're right there. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about Dwayne's research for the 2026 wide receiver class and rookie class in general and a potential, very interesting data metric that you've uncovered when researching wide receivers. we're going to talk about career contested target rate right after this.

All right, welcome back, Fantasy Football Daily. Theo Greminger with Dwayne McFarland. And Dwayne, you sort of had this reputation before Fantasy Life. I mean, you were in the redraft streets, get a big reputation, then you get over to Fantasy Life, and you've really become someone that dynasty managers really read and consume your content because you put a ton of work into your rookie supermodel. I know a lot of that.

is going to start coming out in these next upcoming weeks. You also just dropped a very interesting article that you can read over at Fantasy Life about a data metric that was very interesting, career contested target rate. Talk about both of those projects and what this metric could mean for Fantasy managers. Yeah, absolutely. So the rookie super model, right, I do it for running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends. It's a very data-driven model. And essentially, like, I've tested, you know, 150 variables for running backs, 124 for wide receivers, 124 for tight ends.

And I'm essentially testing all of these things to future fantasy production, to see if there's a signal. Right. And then so you're basically isolating these things down to find out where the strongest signal is coming from. And then the things that get stronger signal are getting a higher weight in the model.

But then the other thing you're wanting to cross test is, okay, great. You've got all of these components that may correlate to future fantasy success or production in the NFL. Really the same thing. It's funny how divisive we can be around. Oh, you're a fantasy guy.

Oh, you're an NFL guy. Don't all NFL teams just want wide receivers to catch passes and get a lot of yards and score touchdowns. That's fantasy points, right? So whenever you look at it, the other thing you want to really do is you want to be able to look for multicolinarity, right? So what you don't want is a model that you've got six different things that get a big weight, and they're really all telling you the same thing about a player. And so what that means is I do this research every offseason, basically from as soon as as the championship game is over, I have the full set of data for collegiate players,

you know, for about two to four weeks, right? I'm just researching back testing the model and I'm looking for any new variables where I'm like, all right, we now have enough data to test this. Mostly we're using pro football focus data. But if you look at it, contested target rate is something that they started charting in 2017. And I didn't really have enough data to test it against NFL production because if it starts in 2017, I need a full picture of a college player's career, right? So that basically means 2017 to 2020 would give you a four-year window. So starting in the 2021 draft class, I was able to at least start evaluating this, but now we have five years because we've got 2021 through 2025. And the really interesting part is about this,

career contested target rate does not highly overlap with the other components that I have that get big weight in the model. So that tells us that it's telling us something different about a player's profile, which is ultimately what we want. We want as many different views on a player around components that we know matter for their future production. What was really interesting around career contested target rate, and just for you guys wondering, career contested target rate, it's just the percentage of your targets in your career as a college player that were contested. It means you had a defender trying to swipe it away, trying to bat it. Maybe it's a 50-50 ball where you're jumping in the air. Maybe it's into double coverage, all those sort of things. But if we look at

career receiving yards per team pass attempt, Ripta, which is in a lot of models that are out there because it normalizes for volume for an offense and things like that without adjusting it. I've got a version that adjusts for age and schedule and all these other things. It's actually higher. But if you just look at raw career receiving yards per team pass attempt, it ranks 23rd out of the 124 variables I've tested. Whenever I tested career contested target rate, it came in as the 19th strongest variable. Okay. So it's stronger than career yards per route run. It's stronger than eight. It's stronger than career target share. It's stronger than that way stronger than athleticism, which ranks, you know, 72nd out of the 124 things that I've tested, you know, in the model. So it's, it was something that was super interesting because my gut told me, Theo, as soon as I cross tested it against targets and receiving yards per team pass attempt, there was going to be this high correlation between the two. And it was like, ah, we're really already capturing this.

But it really wasn't the case. You know, it was very low. Actually, its correlation to career target share was minus 0.01. So essentially neutral. So that means that we're getting one signal from players that are getting targets, but this career contested target rate is telling us something else about the players. So it just really hits the high notes that we want. Now, there were things that it did correlate very highly with.

And there are really things that honestly, when you test them for a model, they don't tell you much about a player and how they're going to forecast like individually, but wide alignment, right? So how often a wide receiver aligns wide, which makes sense. If you align wide, who are you probably playing against? The better cornerbacks on the other team. You're also, if your routes keeping you on the outside or sending you deep, you know that that's sending you into more coverage. You've got a safety involved.

You've got a cornerback involved. So the further the pass has to travel also increases the chance that the quarterback's going to be more inaccurate on the throw, which can obviously that creates contested situations. And more time the ball's in the air, the defenders have to react. So the other component, you guys probably already guessed it, it's average depth of target. So the two biggest thing that it correlates with is wide alignment and adjusted or sorry, average depth of target for a player over their career. But what it does is it brings those two data points to life because now what are we doing? We're adding the context of targets.

And if you think about it, players that can play outside and inside attack different levels of the field Theo and you're still getting targeted, it makes sense that that would carry a signal. And I think one other thing here that was in play for me and I'd love your thoughts on this was a hypothesis that I had, which is could this also just be telling us that like quarterbacks are basically saying, this is my guy. I really don't care what the coverage says on this play. I know this is my best player and I want to get the ball to them. So I reached out to some people in the industry. I didn't tell them my hypothesis, but I just told them what the data said, which is all the things I just told you. I was like, man, this is carrying, you know, a really strong signal.

Here's how it rates to the other things. So I reached out to Matt Waldman. You know, if you guys haven't checked out Matt, he's got the publication, the rookie scouting portfolio. And the, the beauty of Matt is he is so transparent about his process. He tells you how much. weight every factor that he does in film grading, how much it matters for a receiver, how fixable is it? What are the traits that typically they can't improve in the NFL? So really good stuff. And I just kind of gave it to him. And the first word he said, the first two words he said were quarterback trust. And this is something that he sees in film. And so interested in your thoughts here. It's nothing I can actually put right into a spreadsheet

to say, this quarterback trusts this guy more. But I think that the potential is, like the intent is the quarterback's just trying to get the ball to their best players. And they don't necessarily care that he might have bracket coverage or it might be a tougher throw. Yeah, I think that it's a great metric. I think it's very interesting. Matt Waldman, tremendous guest. He's come on Dynasty Life. We broke it down. I'm sure we will again sometime soon. But Matt makes a great point there where, yeah, especially at the college level, if a guy's an alpha, you're going to get him the ball no matter what. So I think any sort of metric that can uncover guys who are true alphas and potential true alphas, those are the sort of difference makers that we're looking for in fantasy football.

So make sure you go and check out Dwayne's article. This one's a free one over at Fantasy Life. And then when's the rollout for some of the supermodel stuff, Dwayne? You've been expected dates? Yeah. So real quick, like on this article, you guys can't check it out like Theo said for free, but I've also got a list of all the players. And this was something that would have moved Nico Collins higher in the model,

who was a third round pick. And I break it down by where these players went by round. and then if they had this attribute, how well that helped differentiate them versus draft capital alone, right? Because we know that draft capital is really, it's the biggest indicator in most models that are out there as far as future fantasy production.

So you can check it out. It's got Ted McMillan, Quentin Johnson, Alec Pierce, Michael Wilson's on this list, Nico Collins. And there are bus on there too, guys, like David Bell. Sorry, rest in peace, David. But an interesting name like for this year that we'll talk about in a minute probably is Trey Harris.

But you guys can't check it out for free, like the O'SED. And as far as the rookie supermodel stuff, is once we have the NFL combine data here in a couple weeks, Theo, we will be rolling out all the rookie supermodel scores and then my write-ups on all the players, ranking them and everything that will start to roll out afterwards. Yeah, and last year had an opportunity to talk to you about your rookie supermodel on Dynasty Life.

Maybe we'll try to do that again this year at some point, Dwayne. But really the supermodel is top notch. And make sure you check this article out. Yeah, we're going to talk about Trey Harris coming up. But before we do that, we've got to talk about a mecha egg buca. And it's so interesting, Dwayne, because if we would have, like, podcasted together in early October last year and tried to predict where the ADP marketplace was going in 2026, we might have said, hey, man, this is a Mecca-Buka guy. He might end up being like a one-two turn. Just as to remind everyone, 23 points out the gate in week one, 13 the next week, 14 and a half the following. Week four drops a 20-pointer against Philadelphia. Then week five, 31 points scored, Dwayne. And everybody is just like, this is it.

This is a mecca-egabuka season. And then after that, the points really started to trail off. Only one more game over 20 points scored. And then it gets even worse. After that, only one double-digit scoring week the rest of the season. I mean, we could point to a number of factors that led to sort of the decline here. But Zach Robinson hired as the new OC in Tampa Bay. He's immediately talking about a mecca-egbuka as.

a guy that he sees as a breakout candidate in year two. You're already getting sort of the coach speak coming in in a very positive light. And we have seen Egbuka put up big time fantasy numbers, albeit in a six-week sample size. Where are you at on Egbuka? Is his outlook going to be different for you if Mike Evans is playing elsewhere in 2026? Are you into a year or two breakout here? Do you have red flags because of the downfall in production? he's a difficult player to gauge right now,

and he's right next to Luther Burden. The market has him right around wide receiver 23 in early best ball ADP. Yeah, so I mean, I think when you, you name the factors. Like obviously it would change our view if Mike Evans were to leave

because that's going to be less target competition. It would just really be him and Godwin. And then some combination, right, of some of the other young guys, you know, that they have on the team with McMillan. We saw Tess Johnson flash a little. They don't have a great tight end. They could get their running backs more involved in the passing game.

You know, Rashad White will see what happens with him, you know, in free agency. But obviously, Bucky Irving is a guy that's shown he can be viable there as well. So if Mike Evans is back, like, that's going to be an obstacle. And I've thought a lot about Emeka, Buka and, you know, what happened over the second half of the season. And I think, you know, there's some different ways that you can look at it. One, you could, you know, wait that into your, and I think the market's doing this somewhat. You could wait that into your view of him, a view of him this year slightly more than like, what he did for the course of the season.

And I think it's fair, right? Especially if Mike Evans is back. But at the same time, I'd rather look at the full sample of data, right? I mean, there's so much variance in football and we get so few data points anyway, Theo. Like, I want to take every data point we have.

And he played 17 games last year, 1.75 yards per route run. That's just barely below, you know, what we were talked about, you know, with Ted McMillan last year. He was at a 1.84.24 targets per route run. that was actually above where Tett McMillan was for the season at point two, two. So you just have to remember that like these hot streaks and these cold streaks and things,

sometimes they mean something. Sometimes they don't mean anything. It's just variance. It's just the way the whole thing ended up working out. He just happened to have his good games, you know, randomly over the first eight weeks. And as bad games were over the second half of the season. Now, you want to be logical about it. You want to think about if there are factors like the defenses changes the way that they were approaching him.

Obviously, the better you're playing, the more attention you're going to get. So that's the biggest factor I think we can look at with the mechakbuka is once he got more attention from opposing defenses, is that really what caused his downfall in the offense? And to be honest, you know, he was winning downfield on a lot of big plays early in the season that weren't necessarily there in the second half of the season. And we didn't, when he came out of college, we thought there was the potential that he could be more of an intermediate threat, maybe, not just so much underneath. But I don't think anybody predicted that he would be doing the downfield stuff he did over the first eight weeks. So my answer really comes back to a measured approach. I still want to look at the whole season. That's what I care about the most.

But there is this logical aspect, which says, okay, once defense has decided, this is the guy we need to take away on the bucks. They were able to start doing that. And true alphas overcome that in their next step, right? And that's what happened to BTJ last year. They tried to feature him as their alpha early in the season, and he was not capable of taking that step. And then that turned into a limited role,

which turned into more outside, limited his route tree, and they started using other guys like Parker Washington and stuff. They got Jacobi Myers, they added, who became the intermediate target. So there's some stuff that's up in the air here. But the other thing you have to remember is we can't look at a mecca and Buka and what he did last year and just say that he's going to remain static. He could get better. So, I mean, it's a player that flashed out of the box.

So what if he overcomes the challenges that were there? Because it's not uncommon, Theo, for a rookie to hit a wall in some aspect of their game. It just so happened. He was so hot to start the year. Defenses had to start giving a lot of their attention to him. And he got a lot of attention right away. Yeah, he's a really interesting one. I've been drafting a lot. I mean, Dwayne, I'm a sicko out here.

I'm drafted a ton of early best balls. And I'm getting some Mekka, Gbuka exposure here. I'm sort of betting on, like you said, him getting better and more consistent. I also think that a change, a slight change in offensive philosophy with with Zach Robinson could be a benefit to him, again, because of the way that the season ended. If this was one of these players that had run pure towards the end of the year with Josh Grizzard, and then we had some OC change, then I'd say maybe a little apprehensive here, but I think just a fresh start, and that Mike Evans won, where Baker Mayfield,

it's the veterans deference. When Mike Evans is on a field with him, he's targeting Mike Evans. That will not change, even if Mike Evans has a little bit of age-based regression this coming year, If Mike Evans signs elsewhere, I like the idea of sort of a handing of the torch here with Egbuka getting more of those first read targets from Baker Mayfield. So as terms of target earning, if targets are earned, Dwayne, I've already got a season for Egbuka where he's 120 plus. If I told you before last season that Emeka Egbuka drafted 19th overall was going to have 120 targets, you'd say that's a major win for him. So I'll take a little bit of a glass half full. but yeah, the way the season ended, you don't love to see that.

You know, it's interesting, you've got sort of the big three that have developed out of this rookie class, or excuse me, the year two class. Then you've got a little bit of a gap. And then you've got some really fun names that we could call sort of year two sleepers. And Dwayne, hitting on some of these guys is really how you win in fantasy football when you're talking about year two breakouts. A first player I'm going to ask you about Jaden Higgins, who was drafted early last year, big senior bowl winner. Houston Texans take him early on. He's the second pick in the second

round. And he flashed last year. Ended up with six touchdown grabs. Over the second half of the year, we saw the production get a little bit more consistent and a little bit better. End of the year counting stats are not going to impress anybody. 525 receiving yards, 41 receptions. Looked pretty good in the playoff loss when Houston got demolished. But he did have six catches in that. that one. Your thoughts on Jaden Higgins and his ability to have a year two breakout as sort of the number two receiver in Houston potentially. Yeah. So I think with Higgins, what's interesting, right, is like he was okay in the rookie supermodel and I would say he was okay as a rookie. If you're just comparing him historically to wide receivers that go in that range of the draft

and then what they look like as a rookie, like it wasn't like there was anything here that stands out, like the yards per route run, target's per route run, first downs per route run, all those things. they're all fine for being a rookie second round pick, right? They put him in the ballpark of like, yes, he could take a step forward the next year. I think the really interesting thing here is when you start to look at the other factors of the offense, like, okay, like really who's going to challenge him, you know, for the wide receiver two role?

Like, are we, I mean, Xavier Hutchinson, can we still do that? The biggest potential challenge is we will get Tank Dell back, right? And we don't know how healthy will Tank Dell be. We also don't even know how the Houston, Texas view Tank Dell at this point. He's a very, he's just, look, he's way on the small side, guys, you know, for a wide receiver in the NFL. And so they could have concerns about Tankdale holding up. And maybe they just want him to be like their change of pace, third wide receiver they get on the field. But I say Tank Dell is the biggest obstacle.

But when you think about a guy that you can have on the field, play and play out, like Jaden Higgins to me is the top of the list for their team behind Nico Collins. But I will say this, like, I'm drafting Jaden Higgins, but I'm also drafting, you know, quite a bit of Tank Dell. That's really the only other two players I'm interested in and the Houston Texans. But I would say that I don't think there's enough data here to have necessarily a strong lean that we think Jaden Higgins is going to break out or not. Like I would say it's kind of one of those less than a coin flip situations based on his profile. But like you can paint a path for it. Right. And we'll see what they do in the draft.

You know, if they add competition to the room, free agency, not a great free agency class for wide receivers. We'll see what ultimately happens and where all those things shake out. But I think right now looking at it, like I don't. you know, my bet is that he is the wide receiver two on the outside with Nico Collins, right, when they're in two wide receiver sets to start next season. What was interesting about him this year is he got on the field most of the time when they were in two wide receiver sets. That's where they were using him. They were taking him off the field more often when they got into three wide receiver sets, right? So you could look at that as a bad thing because third, that's typically going to be,

you know, third and eight, you're going to want your three wide receivers out there, right? Not your not your full back and you're running back and tight in. But I think it's, it's tough. like to say that Higgins is a lot, but I think the path is definitely there. And I think the ADP is the key, Theo, like you're not having to, this is not a super expensive pick. Yeah, exactly. I think that's, that's really the most enticing thing about it is that it's, you're getting some upside potential without having to use a, a pick that's usually reflective for that sort of upside. Yeah, I think wide receiver 55 makes sense. But yeah, I mean, you talk about what he did being drafted in that range. When you compare him to guys,

like what Ladd-McConkey did in that range to what T. Higgins did in that range, it's pretty awful. But, you know, we'll give them a little, we'll say we're both relatively positive on Jaden Higgins due to his price being only wide receiver 55. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about Travis Hunter, who is dead and buried in ADP right now. Is Dwayne interested in Hunter heading into year two right after this? All right, Dwayne, you know, Travis Hunter has a smash week, then gets injured. It was sort of a terrible timing. It looked like fantasy managers were probably going to,

finally going to get rewarded with Travis Hunter. It was just terrible. Then you end up having, over the second half of the season, Jacksonville trades for Jacoby Myers. I'd say that was a win for them. They end up resigning him. Had some very positive moments for the Jaguars. And then the real story was Parker Washington,

who was about as good as it gets for, from his kind of profile over the last seven weeks of the year, including the NFL playoffs. It's created this marketplace where all the beat reporters and a ton of people who do what we do are saying Travis Hunter

is going to end up playing a ton of defense this year. Front office of Jacksonville sort of insinuated that as well. Are we overreacting? Is this an overcorrection to have a guy that was drafted second overall last year and had some really

really dynamite moments being drafted at wide receiver 61, or do you think the market is correct to be this apprehensive? And in fact, he will play a ton of defense this year and be maybe more of a sporadic best ball type score, if that in fantasy. Right. Yeah. So my thought is that he's going too late overall, but all the concerns are valid. But the question you have to ask yourself is if suddenly we get a surprise and they play Travis Hunter in a full-time role, give him, what his prospect profile look like and the rookie supermodel and the great work you guys do

over at fantasy points, as well as JJ Zacharison, and where we had this player ranked and where we ranked him, you know, against historical prospects, like, if you're wrong, like, it's going to be a big miss for you. The beauty is, like,

that doesn't mean you have to move him up. Like, I just have him ahead of consensus in my first draft of my ranks, right? So that's what I'm probably going to consistently do, Theo, is like if it starts to rise, I'll just slightly stay. ahead basically saying look when you can get your exposure to Travis Hunter do it there will come some

point where it probably becomes like you know okay where's the breaking point of where you're not going to stay ahead of market on a player like Travis Hunter because I do think there are legit concerns you know Parker Washington's breakout is one of them Parker Washington last year 2.06 yards per route run 21% targets per route run 0.9 first downs per route run I mean he was a freaking man killer 2.63 yards per route run against man 2.20 against your zone and Parker Washington, honestly, just watching him look like a different player. This was a guy that was, you know, not just attacking underneath. He was attacking downfield vertically from the slot. Great after the catch. And honestly, in the playoffs was the guy that, you know, Trevor Lawrence locked on to. So I think that's a challenge. But at the same time, like, we don't know for sure what they're going to do. And Travis Hunter is still a very talented player. Injuries happen, you know, knock on wood, we don't want this for any player. What if Parker Washington goes down, you know, in training camp? How much do you think Travis Hunter's, you know, profiles? Those are, those. those are the kind of questions you have to ask yourself because it'll really force you to start to think to yourself, do I think Travis Hunter is a good player? And if you think someone is a good

player, especially when you're getting them in the wide receiver 60 territory, like those are bets. Like, do you want to be making him? Do you want him on every best ball team? Probably not. Honestly, like, I'm good with him in manage leagues. Just letting him sit on my bench. And if things work out, great, I add him to the lineup. I'm honestly probably a little more cautious with best ball, just because if he does end up in a role where he's playing 80% defense and he's just a gimmick player on offense, like, we're probably not going to get very many usable weeks out of it. So I think when I look at it, like he is underrated right now based on his talent profile. We don't know for sure what the Jaguars are going to do.

We have leanings, but we shouldn't pretend that because we have those leanings, that those are 100% of the time the way it works out. There's a range of outcomes on how these things work out. And remember, the initial plan isn't always what the team ends up with by week five or six. Right. Things change. It's a dynamic process. It's so interesting, Dwayne, because he has so much talent,

but the talent is on both sides of the ball, where if there was an injury at cornerback in the preseason, that would sort of influence what they do with Hunter. And on the flip side, if there was an injury to Parker Washington or Jacoby Myers, then all of a sudden, you know, he's got that opportunistic chance to take on a big-time role and you've got a huge ADP win.

I just think it's so interesting, from a dynasty lens, if you want to hear about Travis Hunter. I had two recent Dynasty lives, one with Scott Connor, one with Jacks Falcone, and these guys are on complete opposite ends. Scott wants to trade for Travis Hunter.

Jacks wants to get rid of them, essentially cashing in for a second. And these guys are super sharp. So he's polarizing everywhere. I do think wide receiver 61. It might be a little bit of an overcorrection, but like Duane said, you can't take zeros in best ball.

You want usable weeks guys, whereas in a redraft league, getting access to Travis Hunter. If it doesn't work out, there's guys on the waiver wire that come through every year. Now, just getting back to your article. Let me ask you one quick thing here,

let's say there is a cornerback injury. Travis Hunter's ADP is probably not dropping much more than where we're at. But if there is an injury to Parker, Washington, or one of the Brian Thomas Jr. in the preseason, like Travis Hunter's going to climb, right? He's going to climb a lot more on news like that than news around what's happening with a

cornerback on their team because ultimately they want him to be a starting cornerback if they're going to play him on defense either way they're going to want to play in there so i think now is the opportunistic time to buy because i think in most runouts theo his adp goes up right if factors change not down and so i think now is probably some time to get some exposure to Travis hunter yeah i mean really besides a couple of the rookies like the casey conceptione types there's it's very difficult to find guys in this range of drafts that could raise up 20 spots in positional ADP. But like you said, all it takes is an injury to one of those guys. One training camp report. That's it. That's it. That he lined up in the first practice,

you know, as a starting wide receiver. He's going to move on that alone. It's, it's such a fun player to discuss. I mean, I keep bringing them up on podcast because of the range of opinions. I think, Dwayne, you're pretty spot on with your Hunter takes. Let's talk about just getting back to full circle with your article that you just wrote. But Trey Harris pops up on this list. You mentioned guys like Nico Collins, mentioned guys like Michael Wilson, Alec Pierce, sort of the good names here,

and certainly Teteroa McMillan on this list. But Trey Harris pops up here. And when we look at Trey Harris, you know, when we were talking about rookie wide receivers last year, Trey Harris was a guy that had a hive. There were fantasy analysts out there who simply loved Trey Harris. Harris. And then when we heard his name called by the LA Chargers and he got that round two draft capital, there were people that were just ecstatic about this. But a lot of people had the thesis that

Harris can overtake Quentin Johnston. Didn't happen like that. QJ played very well last year, had another year where he had about eight receiving touchdowns. Now you've got Mike McDaniel coming in. A couple of factors to mention, Trey Harris naturally should move up in the wide receiver pecking order if Los Angeles moves off of Keenan Allen, which I sort of fully expect them to do at 32 years. They should. Yeah. Let's stop holding these other dudes back.

Come on. So where are you out on Trey Harris here? To me, this feels like a player that with the change in offensive philosophy, with the profile they had, this is a guy that just simply being on an NFL field in three wide receiver sets would have a chance for a breakout. Yeah. And we'll see what Mike McDaniel does historically, right? He's going to run more of the two.

wide receiver stuff, right? And that helps your yards per route run, your first down share, because one of the people on the field is a fullback. They're not getting a target. Kyle, Kyle, Kyle used check, like he's one of the guys that does occasionally. But if you look at Trey Harris, what's really interesting about him, you know, last year, Theo, is he did get on the field towards the end of the year, how his role grew is he was the guy getting out there in the heavier personnel groupings. Sometimes he was the only wide receiver out there when they would run their three tight ends out. You know, whenever they went to their two tight end personnel or they went to a fullback, quite often, Trey Harris was one of the two wide receivers out there.

And if you think about, you know, really, you know, Harbaugh and how they're going to want to establish the run, McDaniel has also done that historically in his career. Like, this is going to be one of the better players on the team as far as being out there and base personnel because he can block, right? And he can also do his job as a wide receiver. His underlying as a wide receiver in rookie year were not like super impressive. 1.10 yards per route run. That's not good.

15% targets per route run. Also not good. First downs per route run. 10% not bad. But it's not like there's anything there like we can stake a claim to and say, man, like with Luther Burton, you know, where he was like, oh my God, like if this guy gets more playing time, it's happening. But again, we do see players and it comes back to ADP that are in this range that come

from a profile like this and they make that big leap. And you mentioned like, so his closest comp based on, you know, the research I've done around contested, career contested target rate was Michael Wilson. Now, Michael Wilson did not break out until later, but I will give, you. you know, Brett Whitefield, his roses here because he loved Michael Wilson coming out. I remember I came on on a show with him, and he talked about, you know, Michael Wilson and all the different things he could do. But a lower ADOP player in college had a higher contested target rate.

But man, as NFL defenses, like, continue to evolve, like, we need players that can make contested catches. We need players that can get the tough and gritty yards. You could also see a case where Ladd McConkey's off the field in two wide receiver sets. And that would open things up for Trey Harris. I think you mentioned the linchpin. Like, can we just move on from Keenan Allen? Yeah. Right. And the other factor is Arrani Gadsden. Do they view him as also playing in the slot?

Like, is that a competition between him and Ladd or does that create a three-way rotation between him and Trey Harris? You know, but I'll say this. Like, we like Quentin Johnson. He's fine. But like, is he an insurmountable object? If you have a really good camp, probably not. You know what I mean? I mean, Ladd-McConkey's a smaller player. So I could see it working out for Trey Harris. And I can't remember right now. Where's his ADP at right now on Underdog? It's dead and buried. Wide Receiver, 70s. So it's a, he's worth darts at that at that price. So yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting.

And also the factor of going from Greg Roman was the QJ sort of ascension of the last two years reflective of Roman. A lot of moving parts here. But again, I like getting access to this. I think that I haven't spoken to anyone who's been negative on the fact that LA is going to take a big step forward as an offense. I've made some big predictions on them, Dwayne, being a potential top five scoring offense, get back Slater. get back old. It's just an easy thesis. Healthy offensive line. You think you improve your coordinator. You've got a good quarterback. You've got young weapons. Which ones ascend, which ones don't like TBD.

But the ingredients are there for it to happen. 100%. Well, we're going to talk about Arronday Gadsden and a number of these year two tight ends right after this. All right, Dwayne, let's break it down. Unbelievable collection of talent from the 2025 rookie tight end class. pretty much all of us who were enthusiastic about this class were rewarded. And dynasty managers who selected these guys, I mean, you feel like you're set for life now. If you took a guy like Fanon, a guy like Loveland, a guy like Tyler Warren. Let's talk about the big three.

Colston Loveland settled in an early ADP as the tight end three overall. And he's joined by Tyler Warren at Tighten 4 and Harold Fanon at Tighten 5. So three of the top five tight ends. And of course there's many tiers here. Loveland's sort of on his own little island as Titan 3. And then Warren and Fanon is sort of right behind him? But is the market correct here, Dwayne? Is the enthusiasm levels for all three of these players warranted?

Are there any of the three that you sort of say, let's kind of slow our role here, things could be a little different in 2026 or is it wheels up for all three? No, I think it's wills up, right? There's a range of outcomes for all these players. But Colson Loveland, we saw it very. clearly. Once he took over the full-time role from week 16 through week 19, I'm going to week 19 guys wild card round, but if you look at week 20, he got hurt, which is the divisional round,

but 18.6 fantasy points per game and a PPR. He had a 100 utilization score, which looks at all the factors in season, right, that are the most predictive and the tide of fantasy production, all that kind of stuff. But man, once the guy took over a full route participation rate, like it was absolute wills up. This is a player that could score more like a wide receiver a low-end wide receiver one in fantasy. So he has a very unique blend. So think Jimmy Graham, Rob Grunkowski. He's not only a target earner guys,

but he can do it down the field, which unlocks the big gains, right? So some of these other guys we're going to talk about, like while they're still very valuable, a lot of it's underneath stuff. Colston Loveland also gets to work down the field. And if you even think back to the year that Mark Andrews kind of broke fantasy as a tied-in,

he was also one of these guys generating high-end, high-end target share, but also getting the targets down the field. So a higher average depth of target. And when we look at Colson Loveland, like he really checks all the boxes. The other thing that unlocks is massive upside in the touchdown department. And when you get a spike season and it comes through for you,

that's how you end up with a tight end that you're like, wow, this tight end could have been the wide receiver seven, right? And Colson Loveland checks those boxes. So I think he honestly, he deserves to be in a tier of his own. And honestly, I've got him ranked ahead of where he's going right now in drafts. I'm higher on Colson.

and Loveland. I think as much as he's steaming, he's still not high enough and where he should be going. Because I think really you should, the only reason we can't put him in the tier with Trey McBride and Brock Bowers is really we've seen those guys do it for multiple years, even though Brock Bowers, it was a small sample last year, got hurt, all those things. But you could argue it's Trey McBride and Colson Loveland and Brock Bowers should be in a tier together right after because we've got that smaller sample around them. So you have to be a little bit more, you know, careful with pushing them too high. But I absolutely love Colson Lovellum. I think the other two guys, Tyler Warren, when you look at him,

and then whenever you look at what we got with Harold Fanon Jr., they're more of the underneath kind of players, right? But that's okay. That's what most tight ends are. And the biggest thing is, are they going to get targets and catches, right? And then we'll see where the touchdown variance comes in. They're not going to carry the same touchdown ceiling as Colston Loveland, like if they run pure.

But they can still both catch 100 balls, man. I mean, whenever you look at Harold Fanon Jr., like I have Harold Fanon Jr. One spot ahead of Tyler Warren. I get it. Like if you want to say, well, I just like the Colts offense better, I can understand. But you also have Michael Pittman. You also still have Josh Downs.

You know, Alec Pierce probably going to move on, you know, in free agency. But you have plenty of other weapons to still deal with. And you have and you have a back who could lead the NFL in touches next year with Jonathan Taylor. So, I mean, I'm completely with you. Not to interrupt you, but I love the fact. that you're so enthusiastic about Fanon. And also, Dwayne, just when we look back at Fanon, the season as a whole, Tyler Warren coming from Penn State, led the Big Ten and everything,

set all those records of the tight end position, and then got that incredible draft capital. Him being this successful early on was a little less surprising than Fanon, who was one of the youngest tight ends in the NFL last year, was 21 years old, coming out of the Mac. And we've seen even some of the best players out of the Mac and like historically in the NFL took a season before they really took off. Fanon leads Cleveland in targets, catches, receiving yards.

I mean, and nuked David Njoku, who was banged up, but still nuked him, a guy who was a mega target owner for multiple seasons there reflective to the position. So like Harold Fanon Jr., complete wheels up. I actually, I love the Todd Munkin hire for him as well. Monk and a guy who I think maximizes the players around him. So love to see you there. So keep going. I don't mean to get in your Herald Fannan and you're cooking on here.

No, no, no, no, you're good. And those are all the points, right? The thing with Harold Fannan Jr. In the pre-draft rookie supermodel, which does not have NFL draft capital in, and it's got a 0.72 correlation to future fantasy success, which is actually even with draft capital, right? So without even having a draft pick in,

Harold Fannan Jr. is the third in the pre-draft model. he's the third best prospect back to 2018 in the supermodel. And then you have Colson Loveland, who's fourth, right? And the top two are Kyle Pitts and Brock Bauer. So these guys are just really an elite company. Tyler Warren, not quite on the same level with those players. But again, he plays on a better team. But just real quick on Harold Fanon Jr., like, you know, the yards per route run,

tardis per route run. I mean, literally everything that we would want to see from a tight end, like that they can control he was doing. Now, the offensive environment, like are we talking to Sean Watson? Shadour Sanders, like, are they going to potentially, do they want to carry four quarterbacks? Because they also have Dylan Gabriel, who they invest in some draft capital in. The quarterback situation is really scary.

So if people want to lean to Warren over Fanon, it's like, I get it, Theo. But I honestly think that Fanon, like, he's got just as good of a ceiling and just as good as of a floor. Like, if you made me put a bet on who's going to get more targets, I would, in a heartbeat, say Harold Fanon is going to get more targets than Tyler Warren next year. But could Tyler Warren score more touchdowns because he's in a better offense? and that ends up being the difference in him being better than Fanon, I can see that argument too, right?

So I think they're both right there together. The other added thing Tyler Warren has, and he showed this obviously in college, is like whenever they decide to use him, you know, inside the five, they decide the tush push stuff, or to get in these end-arounds. Like he does give you a little bit of added production in the run game,

but so does Fanon. Fanon was getting some of those opportunities in Cleveland. So they're really close. I think Harold Fanon Jr. is actually the better player, but I think that Tyler Warren's in the better situation. I think you nailed it with those guys. And I think those guys are pretty cut and dry for people. One tight end who has a complete hive right now in best ball, redraft, dynasty.

And then there's also people who are a little bit apprehensive. It's a Ronde Gadsden. And Gadsden flashed for us, had big time productive weeks out. And towards the middle of the season when he really started to break out, you had that week seven game where he was like 30 points against the cold. It was an incredible game. And then the following week follows it up with a 18.7 point week. Arronday Gadsden, the market went nuts for him in Dynasty.

People said this is going to be one of the waiver wire additions of the entire year. And then the production cooled off a little bit, had a couple of decent weeks, but really took a big backseat. Your thoughts on Arronday Gadsden comfort level with him being the tight end nine right now? Is this a Mike McDaniel comes in? And hey, we saw it with John who Smith. that year, Jonu Smith goes nuts, top five score for McDaniel. Or is this a lot of mouse to feed a lot of like sort of range of outcomes here with Gadsden,

I might lean with another player. Yeah. So look, I think the talent profile is still your starting point, right? And if we look at his yards per route run 1.66, Harold Fandon was 1.68, right? Tyler Owen was 1.63. So he was on the same level with those guys. His targets per route run were a little bit lower. but his first downs per route run were right in line with those two players as well.

So I think that there's promise here with Gadsden. I do believe the question is like how much are they going to rotate the guys for the chargers? Do they ever see Gadsden as being a guy that can be their inline tight end that can block? Because when Mike McDaniel runs, right, his 21 personnel, historically, what did that do? It pushed Mike Gaseki off the field because he wasn't a good blocker. And really, Aronda Gadsden is more like a wide receiver than he is a tight end. And so I think the biggest concern there is going to be like a limitation in the scheme they want to run that could really, I don't, I would be surprised. I'll say this, if Aranda Gasson had an 80 to 85% route participation rate this next year.

It's going to happen for Tyler Warren. It's going to happen for Harold Fannin Jr. It's going to happen for Colson Loveland. I don't have questions really about whether or not that's going to happen. Now, we don't know, though. So if something changes and they decide that, well, here's the way we're going to handle it. is we're going to run more two tight-in sets instead of 21. And that's how we get Gadsden on the field.

We're going to also use him sometimes as our slot guy. So there are paths to where the routes could still be there, Theo. But I think that's the biggest question. I think the talent profile definitely flashed. And he was a guy that was a very good receiver in college as well. So I think those things add up. The unknown is like, what will the playing time look like? So I think he belongs below those guys.

But I don't necessarily disagree with where the market is taking him. I think he's a low end tight-in one to borderline tight-in one. And I think he's in a tier of players there. I think drafters right now are drafting him at the top of that tier. It'll be debatable, whether that was the right answer or not. But I think he belongs in a tier of guys that are basically in that 10 to 14 range. But you have to say this, if somehow things did run pure and Gadsden did get an 80, 85% route participation rate, which is in the range of outcomes,

you're going to be happy that you have this player probably over a lot of the other guys going in there. range. I think that's a very interesting way to take it. And I think the fact that there is a little bit of lack of clarity in who the alpha is in this offense. I mean, people are assuming it's a Ladd-McConkie bounce back year. The ADP is sort of reflecting that. But Gadsen, 22 years old, we know Harbaugh really, really likes him. This could be a chance for him to really reward drafters. And tight end nine overall seems expensive, but again, you're talking about tiers in ADP. So tight end nine going very similar to like the tight end 10, 11, 12 range. A little bit of a gap between him and like tight end eight, Sam LaPorteur right now.

Talking about the rest of these tight ends very quickly here, brief thoughts on Mason Taylor. He's tight end 29. We have no idea who's playing quarterback for the Jets. Any expectations for Mason Taylor here is this sort of throwing darts at this point? Look, I mean, he earned a full-time role as the season went on. Like, that's about the best thing we can say about him. Like, honestly, the underlying data points weren't great, but to your point, he was, he was tethered to a very to a terrible offense.

It's like, how do you evaluate players? You have to account for the, the offensive ecosystem that they reside within. And, you know, his was one of the worst. But I will say this, like, they've got draft capital invested in him. And he did take over the starting role as a rookie. And I expect him to be the starting tie-in for the Jets. I think that's the most we can say.

And because of the draft capital and think that he wasn't a great prospect. He was fine. But could he be a top 12 tied in this year? Like, certainly, you know, one of the biggest predictors to be, a top 12 tied in is if you just get an 80% route participation or rate or better because there's so many that don't. I think he's a pretty strong bet to probably be on the field, 75 to 80% of the past plays given their roster. Yeah, Mason Taylor, I know is it's one of those guys that a ton of NFL teams really, really wanted. One of those red hot names we're heading into

day two. We fully expect this guy to be drafted in the first few picks, all these teams trying to maneuver themselves to get Mason Taylor. So yeah, I think he's a decent bet. And hey, the NFL lineage, that usually plays out too. Jason Taylor's son would be shocked if he doesn't at least have a couple of decent years. The other guys I'll throw into a bucket here. You got Elijah Royo, drafted inside a round two, incredible athletic profile, now has to deal with AJ Barner, who just caught a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Terrence Ferguson drafted in round two, again, super athletic profile on a team that runs a lot of multiple tight-end sets, but Colby Parkinson was more productive than him this past year. Then you've got Gunner Helm, who,

fell in the draft, but a poor combine sort of did that. When we look at his production at Texas, Gunter Helm was pretty good in Texas, Dwayne, pretty good player there. And Flash this year. He also has another tight end he played with in Chigacanquo, who could be gone as a free agent within a couple of weeks here. Of those three guys, who interests you the most? It's Helm.

I mean, at 1.45 yards per route run, slightly below the other guys we talked about, but that's in a range where historically you can be inside the top 12 tight ends, 22% targets per route run. That's actually in the mid-tight-in-one range. So I think the underlying data points on the playing time that he had were good. To your point, he fell in the draft because he ran a really slow 40-time. And if you guys saw the picture of his ankle when he ran the 40-time in the combine,

I mean, there's a reason he ran. I'm not saying Gunnar Helms fast, but he wasn't as slow. And so that was bait. You have to remember that whenever you think about where his draft capital ended up, which impacts all the models that are out there. So Gunnard Helm, easily the one. And to your point, like if Chig O'Conquo was gone, like he's certainly going to shoot up draft boards even more. I would say if I had to pick, you know, a second place, like,

out of the guys you name, like, Arroyo's, like, the intriguing one because of the profile, right? And he's just such a athletic tight-in, which we see some of these guys break out. The real challenge is, like, it's not like A.J. Barner played bad for, by NFL tight-end standards. He wasn't anything necessarily great for fantasy, like he was like a mid-range titan two kind of guy. But they seem to like him. And so do we see a path where Arroyo really? really just takes over the starting role. And again, guys, range of outcomes, we can't predict these things. But Arroyo is most likely just going to be a waiver wire ad.

If you're playing best ball and you want to mix them in Somnius as your last pick, like I think that's fine in the right stacks and correlation setups for Arroyo. Because if an injury happened to Barner, I think Arroyo, we would actually probably rank at the top of this list. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just talked about if you knew he had the playing time. Yeah, AJ Barner's good. And he also had that weird Tassum Hill like role for part of the year.

they like him as an organization, and it's the Michigan guy, you got the Michigan connection with McDonald. Barner they took on day three the year before. They've got a lot out of them. So, yeah, Royal was a player that I was really, really high on as a dynasty asset, but I didn't expect A.J. Barner to be able to hold him off

and then some. Same thing with Ferguson, where Colby Parkinson, which I know was sort of a fantasy villain towards the end of the year when a lot of people started him in tight-end premium playoffs, and he sort of fell apart that one week was like week 16. But the one week everybody started him. Everybody started Parkinson.

It was Parkinson week and he had a complete dud. And then he bounced back in the following weeks and caught his touchdowns. That's just, that's just fantasy football in a nutshell. But the Rams running like multiple tight end sets, I think is something that's going to be here to stay. But it also means it could be another tight end on the roster at this time next year. So like Ferguson stylistically helps the offense,

but I don't know if he's going to be able to help us on a weekly basis. Yeah. So look, Arroyo Ferguson. I think they actually have higher ceilings than Gunnerhelm as players. Like if you run pure with them, it's just more questions about them getting their playing time. But again, guys, you do have to remember range of outcomes. If you suddenly found out that Terrence Ferguson was going to be the tight end one next year,

even at a 70% route participation rate for the Rams, you would be pretty hyped. You know, Pook was going to lead the way. Devante Adams is still there, but, you know, deteriorating a little bit. We would be talking about of all the teams we've talked about, this is the best offense. and now you would have an ascending player on it. My gut says we're probably another year away

from the Terrence Ferguson breakout, but I could easily be wrong, right? That's just kind of a vibes base. But again, go back to what we talked about with Colston Loveland. He has that rare combination of not just being an underneath guy. He can actually get the targets down the field as well, which just unlocks massive touchdown upside for tight ends.

Loveland is an absolute monster. We could have spent a whole episode sort of talking about him. But Dwayne, this was so much fun today. I really appreciate your time and your takes. Really looking forward to that supermodel. Let me know what you have coming out and podwise where they can find your work. Yeah, you guys can check us out, you know, wherever you find your pods, you know, whether that's Apple or whatever, myself and Ian Hartett's. And we also have Matthew Friedman jumping on. So just check out the Fantasy Life show. As far as the rookie supermodel, the data, I've got all

the models and everything set up, done all the back testing Theo. Now we're just waiting for the rest of the data on the prospects from the combine. And once that's there, the rookie supermodel tables will get populated on the FantasyLife.com site. And then my articles will shortly follow in the weeks after that, you know, breaking down each one of the players. So next week, I'm actually going to be putting out an article about all the different combine tests for running backs, wide receivers tight ends, which things should we care about, which things have signal, which things are already mostly trapped, you know,

captured in draft capital, stuff like that. So if you're in a nerdy things like that, you can look for that next week on fantasylife.com for free. Yeah, make sure you check out all the work Duane does. make sure you stick with us here at Fantasy Football Daily. We're going to cover your entire offseason, multiple episodes a week, and check out our lady,

if you're watching this on Fantasy Points YouTube, make sure you check out our new YouTube channel, Fantasy Points, Dynasty YouTube. That's where you're going to find Dynasty Life, Dynasty Points, all of our strong Dynasty content is going to be over there. We're going to help you crush these dynasty leagues all off season long,

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