Fantasy Football Daily - The 2025 Fantasy Football Top Target Earners You NEED to Know w/ Graham Barfield Pt. 2

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

We’re diving into the messiest depth charts in fantasy and highlighting exactly where the value lies. From confusing WR rooms (like Detroit and SF) to shifting TE roles (like in New England), we’ve got the insights you need to capitalize on ADP inefficiencies. Then: We surface the biggest under-the-radar target earners who could smash their cost and tilt your fantasy season. Don’t miss these hidden gems and breakout bets! Where to find us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://twitter.com/TheOGFantasy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://twitter.com/GrahamBarfield⁠ Join the Discord here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/discord#/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to Fantasy Points for FREE: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Fantasy Points Website - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.fantasypoints.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NEW! Data Suite - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://data.fantasypoints.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/FantasyPts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/FantasyPts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/FantasyPts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@fantasypts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ #fantasypoints #nfl #fantasyfootball #dynastyfantasyfootball #FantasyFootballAdvice #dynastypoints #dynasty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Part two for our target spectacular. Graham Barfield and I broke down several NFL teams and tried to identify which players would be the number one and number two target. Last show was the easy one, Graham. We saved all like the difficult questions for this one. So we're going to try to get together and try to figure some things out. Like we talked about last episodes,

number three targets are really difficult bets to make in fantasy football. We dropped a number of stats to sort of back that up. Sam Leporta, he was a player that I guess you could have said was a number three target, helped you fantasy managers last year, was pretty solid. Rashad Bateman, again, wide receiver 40 level. He was the only wide receiver to be a number three target to make any sort of, even flex-worthy sort of argument here, Graham. and we're going to start out right at the top, a difficult team to bank on.

Travis Kelsey or Tyreek Hill have led Kansas City in targets in every season since 2015. Do we finally see the streak broken this year? Yes, yeah, we do. And I think we would have seen it last year had Rishie Rice not been taken out of the knees by Patrick Mahomes. Rishie Rice is just an absolute stud, dude. You basically look at the last 13 games in which Rice has played like a full-time route share. That's like 60% or more of the team's past plays.

He has 85 catches, nearly a thousand yards, averaging 17 ppr points per game. You know, that would have tied Brian Thomas as the wide receiver 10 last year. Rice, again, going in the third round of drafts. Yeah, I think a lot of sharp fantasy analysts are on Rice, but I think the public is still not all the there because yeah, Travis Kelsey still a stud, still going to get the ball near the end zone. Say, if you're worthy, obviously came along, you know, very nicely at the end of last year, especially into the playoffs, mainly out of necessity. Marquis Brown never really got going. But the Rishi Rice offense, and I call it the Rishi Rice offense for a reason,

it's because all they do is just like spam targets underneath. And this dude is just a freak. Like he's a Debo Samuel level player after the catch. As a rookie, dude, averaged 8.3 yards after the catch. That was second only to Debo Samuel. And then last year, across 29 targets, he had eight yards after the catch. I mean, it's just one of these things where, like, Mahomes and Rice have just absolutely destroyed teams underneath. And I was not expecting Rice to be healthy at OTAs. I was like, oh, you know, he had the PLC injury, he had the hamstring, it was kind of a complicated knee injury.

he's like oh we'll see him at training camp maybe he's not he's not like he's already healthy in june um rice is just like a slam dunk player for me i have him man like 15 i think literally 15 spots ahead of his 80p at 30 i think he should be a back end of the first round to like early second round player just strictly based on his profile and the final thing here that man is like even if it is really close like let's say kelsey like has a bounce back here certainly possible you could have a Tony Gonzalez type year. And it's pretty close between all three, these guys, Riceworthy and Kelsey. This is still Patrick Mahomes.

This is still an offense that has been top five in past attempts in, what, six straight seasons. It's been top three and five straight. Volume's amazing. So even if Rice is like capped, you know, capped, you know, scare quotes capped at like 25%. I still think he's just, he's a slam dunk player to me, man. I think he's really underpriced. Yeah. And when we specifically look at the first three games of last season,

game four, I believe we left the game early. So if we take that one out completely, then you're talking about some just absurd numbers for Rice. He was a 31.5% target share player through the first three games. And I remember I wrote the article for the athletic last year. And it was like big takeaways and things to know heading into the week. And it was Rashi Rice, the big picture of Rasi Rice talking about how he could be finished the season as like a top five receiver.

because all the usage metrics were there. I remember on School of Scott, Scott Barrett, like really victory lapping this one as he should have because Scott was telling everybody to draft Rashi Rice. Of course, disaster strikes and he gets injured. But we talked about the 31.5% target share, and that doesn't even really tell the story. He was 0.36 targets per route run.

First read rate was just absurd. 41.2% first read rate. and then the slot usage was plus 50%. So this was the guy that was going to really break fantasy points data. I agree with you. Slam dunk number one target in the offense. Now here's an interesting one. You reference Xavier Worthy,

and I've sort of been the, I think I've been the Xavier Worthy Apologist over at Fantasy Points. I'm sort of the guy who's always trying to make the pro Xavier Worthy argument. You've got Xavier Worthy who's pretty much, it's an eye of the beholder. ADP, I'd say. Like if you watched the end of last year and you say this Xavier Worthy is going to take a big step

forward in year two, then you might say, you know, Xavier Worthy at his current price tag of wide receiver 21 in ADP, that's a relative bargain because he has the unknown upside and the spike week ability to really drive the needle on my team.

If you are a glass half empty and you say Xavier Worthy really did all of this on an offense without Rashi Rice, he's going to take a step back. This is a guy that we can't bank on for weekly predictable targets. Then this might be an ADP you don't want to click the button on. And then you you compare that to Travis Kelsey where nobody really wants to draft Kelsey at this point. But he's tight end six on underdog. And he's going off the board at 97.9 overall. If you had to guess who has more targets

this year, would it be Kelsey or Xavier Worthy? Can Worthy? Can Worthy overtake Kelsey? as the number two target in this offense? He can. It's going to be close. I think we get into this mindset and fantasy sometimes. Like if it's a little too like binary, it's like, I love Rishie Rice, but I can also think Xavier Worthy is a pretty, he's a pretty good pick where he's going right now.

And, you know, I was talking to Ryan Heath about this a few weeks ago regarding Kelsey, specifically in best ball. I can get behind Kelsey for sure at his. price at 97 to, you know, especially when he goes in the hundreds, man. It's like, okay, we know he's going to start slow. We know that, you know, they just want to get him healthy into the playoffs, all of that. But week 17, they get the Broncos and the Broncos have not really fixed their coverage over the middle. Like, they've definitely tried to fix, you know, some of the windbacker issues, but like, it's a great matchup. And while Kelsey probably isn't going to return

the tight-in-six value over the course of the regular season. Like he's going to, he's not going to be a low advance rate player unless he gets hurt. In redraft, I could fade Kelsey again. We were fading Kelsey pretty hard last season here at fantasy points in redraft. And it's just one of those things where we kind of knew, right? With Worthy specifically in this offense, I think this is an important discussion to have because worthy is something they've really never had. And you go back, you watch the tape last year.

Worthy was a totally different player to start the season compared to where he was at the end of last year. I mean, just the subtle things and just in terms of just like his release package off the line of scrimmage, getting vertical down the field. But it's also like these Rice and Worthy are two totally different players. Went back and looked at this. Our charting team had Rishie Rice running a vertical route just 11% of the time last year. He ran 79 routes. Just 11% of those routes were vertical.

That was by far the lowest rate. among like qualified wide receivers. Chris Godwin, Amonra are two players that, you know, also run relatively low amounts of vertical routes. I'm saying all this to say, it's like, we have two players that are running two totally different route packages in a pass heavy offense. Like there's a world here where both hit.

And Kelsey continues to kind of fall by that wayside, but he still ends up being like maybe a decent pick in best ball because of his touchdown equity and because of where he's going. But in redraft leagues, you might not want to be. starting him every single week. Yeah, I mean, I'll take a step, I'll take a bold stance and I'll say that Xavier Worthy does out target Kelsey this year. I could see Kelsey taking a really big step back. Kelsey's going to turn 36 in October. And I know this is a guy that's aged like wine,

but we've seen the sort of the lack of athleticism recently. And some people will push back on that one, but he looks a step slow. Certainly he's a player that benefits greatly from the chemistry and connection that he has with Patrick Mahomes. He was sort of the first downmaker for years and years. Now you look at Rashi Rice. We talk about the first read rate. And you could check that out over at Fantasy Points data. Unbelievable numbers from Rice there.

But he was turning into Patrick Mahomes' sort of easy button target. So I think like taking those away from Kelsey alone takes away a significant amount of his targets. Now, again, Kelsey last year, this is a tough bet. to bet on a ton of regression. And certainly at the tight end position, 128 targets is really, really good. But then you combine that with the chiefs sort of figuring out what they were

before they unleashed worthy and trying to recover from Rice. They also were breaking in guys like Juju Smith-Suster, guys like Kareem Hunt. This is an offense that had to really change mid-season. And to their credit, they made another Super Bowl run, despite all of the transition during the season. But for me, Xavier Worthy, I'll take a more bullish stance on him than many. This is a guy that when we could look at the playoffs, and certainly some people will say, you know, this was garbage time in the Super Bowl.

But if we combine that game with what he did at the end of the regular season, you're talking about five of his last seven games of the year, including the playoffs, where Xavier Worthy had at least, I believe it was at least eight targets in every single game. and that's on top of the manufacturer touches he gets in the run game. So I'm big unworthy, and I agree with you. I'm sort of fading Travis Kelsey for better or for worse. Let's take a quick break. We come back. We're talking about another difficult team to project the Green Bay Packers.

Is there a wide receiver one to be found in this offense? Welcome back, Fantasy Football Daily, Theo Graminger with Graham Barfield. Graham, highly recommend the episode we dropped last time on Fantasy Football Daily. what else do you have going on this time of year? Yeah, it's best ball season. We got a bunch of underdog content coming out here at fantasy points.com. I'll have my players target and values coming out this week. Actually, it's June 9th.

Draft plan will be the following week and a stacking guide as well. And then I'm cranking, man. I'm on my tiers 150 article. That'll be out earlier this year. One with the Superflex draft guide. It's fantasy season, man. I'm super pumped. And, yeah, last show, you know, go back and listen.

If you didn't listen to the previous show, Thu and I broke down, what was it, man, 19 teams. Yeah. Those were the easier teams, right? Like kind of clear target hierarchy. This one is going to be a little more difficult. Packers, dude, this team is wide open. Again. Yeah, Green Bay is a super, super weird team.

They added Matthew Golden. This was the first time they drafted a first round wide receiver since I believe 2002. This is a team that really needs a player to just run with it. And we really as fantasy managers would love to see Matt LaFleur commit to a specific target. Like at this point, we don't really care who it is. Just commit to somebody and give us, you know, 125 targets so we can have some bankable usage. Last year, the team was just so wide open target-wise. Jaden Reed had a somewhat disappointing season, especially when you consider just how good he was in the opener in Brazil where he posted 30 plus ppr points, ended the year with only 75 targets.

That's a 15.7% target share, just not what we're looking for. Dantavian Wicks, who almost has become a meme at this point, shout out Ryan Heath. Dantavian Wicks had 74 targets and almost an identical target share. Romeo Dubs actually led the team in Target Share, had an 18.7% target share, 71 targets. And then we discussed Tucker Kraft last episode briefly because he was able to overcome being the number four target on a low volume passing team and still give you a bankable weeks of production at the tight end position. He had a 13.6% target share. And anybody wondering, Christian Watson, who's continually dealing with injuries, had. a 12.1% target share.

So let's take Watson out of the mix. Let's now add in Matthew Golden, who again, I think I have a type here, Graham, where I'm like a sucker for these fast wide receivers. And I always have a significant amount of pushback from, you know,

very smart guys like Scott Barrett. But I've been like sort of the pro Matthew Golden guy. We had a podcast where Scott and I drafted with Rich Harribar, and Rich and Scott were talking about all the reasons to sort of fade golden. And I'm like, but what if? and Matthew Golden, again, they committed this huge amount of draft capital into him, younger player, but he is an early declare player who was drafted inside of the first round.

So I understand that there's some like trepidation with the super fast guy at the combine, betting against the wide receiver who's the fastest one in the NFL draft historically has been a good one. You've avoided many pitfalls. But with Golden, I sort of look at him as a guy that if he was in this 2026, class. He'd be one of the wide receivers we'd be circling now saying this is going to be one of the highest drafted wide receivers who can compete for the wide receiver one overall. Now, there's some Debbie people out there would push back on me. There's a couple of cleaner profiles there. But if we look at what Matthew Golden did at the end of last season, the Arizona State game,

certainly the SEC championship against Georgia, sort of played his best football at the end of the year in some of the biggest games of the year for Texas. Only was at Texas one year. So, getting a little bit of a late start, especially when he's playing alongside of a more hyped at the time player in Isaiah Bond, and also an NFL draft pick tight end in Gunner Helm, and Jaden Blue for that matter, was also highly used in the passing game. I just look at Golden as, is this a team that's really, really searching for a player to sort of take a step forward and be an opportunistic wide receiver one? is there some value in targeting golden or is there another bet you like making in this passing game? So with Golden, it's tricky because, like, analytically, he was not a target owner, right? 0.18 targets per route run in his final season. His career rate at Texas was around there.

I said this with Xavier Worthy last year, but we got a grade worthy on a curve just like how we did with Matthew Golden. because Quinn Ewers was just that bad. Like, bro, I've spent way too much time watching Texas offense the last years between Jonathan Brooks and Jaden Blue and charting those two guys. Like, Quinn Ewers is not it. All of that being said, the Packers have not had a wide receiver with a target share above 19% each of the last two years. This is just not an offense that we are typically wanting to bet on

for consistent fantasy production. And I'm kind of running it back and feeling the same way that I did last. year. Outside of best ball, I really, I don't want any of these guys on my roster. Like, Jaden Reed easily led the team in targets, easily led the team in receiving yards and 11 personnel, but he doesn't play in 12. In fact, he ran four routes and 12 personnel last year. When there were two tight ends on the field, Jaden Reed ran a total of four routes the entire year last year. Packers didn't have Luke Musgrave for the entirety of the year, so they could run a little more 12 this year. LaFleur is just one of the best coaches of the NFL for a lot of

different reasons, man, but like just specifically week to week, he is so good at game planning against defense's weaknesses. It feels like this will just be another one of those offenses where it's like, yeah, Romeo Dobbs is the X, like we know he's the X. Tucker Kraft's going to play full time, but like they're going to rotate their receivers. The targets will depend on the game plan. And this is a pretty balanced offense, just in general. I mean, Josh Jacobs was pretty good last year, bounced back from kind of a bad year in 23 in terms of the efficiency. It's, going to be a pretty balanced offense. They've got a lot of good pieces, a lot of good, really good offensive line. Ryan brought this back up to me last, maybe one of the shows that

we did two weeks ago on our best ball stream about Jordan Love and his health last season. I'd kind of forgotten that Love was playing through a bunch of injuries. So if you want to make like a bowl case that Love, you know, maybe he's healthier now. They've passed the ball a little bit more. I could get behind that with Golden. I'm just kind of throwing my hands up here again. And like for redraft, I don't really want anything to do with these receivers again. Like I like Jordan Love late, like Josh Jacobs this year. But man, I just, I think it's too spread out. If I had to guess right now, I think Reed leads the team in targets.

I think Golden will be the two. Kraft, when everybody was healthy last year, man, when they had everybody. They had Reed, they had, you know, Watson, they had Dobbs, like all those guys on the field. Kraft was by far the lowest in terms of his targets per route run. I think he's the best football player on the team just from watching the games, but just watching the games and seeing the talent doesn't earn your targets. This is just too spread out for me. And the big question mark here is Christian Watson will probably return middle of the season.

You're coming off the ACL just to throw another wrench into this. I think we've all spent so much time on the Packers, Pass catchers, the last two years and it's kind of just all these guys are wide receiver fours you know so just by that very argument that you made and you made a really strong one just by that argument i'd rather take shots on matthew golden at adp yeah and jaden reed at adp because they're going side by side but at least there's a little bit of a mystery box element when it comes to golden whereas reed was a guy that was an unbelievable pickup for you in waivers two seasons ago and so certainly if you're a dynasty manager, like I had bags and bags of Reed because he was so cheap.

You're getting him in like the second or third round, despite being a second round pick. And when Aaron Jones went down, he was a guy that was a weekly flex play that really, really helped you in fantasy leagues. Last year, he was a sort of a miss at ADP. And a big shout out to the FFPC NFFC managers who saw that game in Brazil and were like, okay, now I need to cram in a bunch of these free look Jaden Reed's at a much elevated cost. Those teams are sort of dead

in the water. But Jaden Reed at 43 overall versus Matthew Golden at 42 overall. I'll take my chances on the rookie sort of all day long. And the Christian Watson one is interesting because they also drafted Savian Williams. It seems like Savian Williams is almost

insurance for Christian Watson. Big sort of gimmicky player, unbelievable athlete, very, very similar in terms of size with one another. Savion's a really, really big athlete. I know Brett Whitefield likes him as well. So that throws a whole other name into the mix.

And then Tucker Kraft, I might be more open-minded with him in a redraft setting than you are because last year he had sort of his breakout and it was year two for him. So asking the tight end to take a step forward going and seeing improved usage from year two to year three, we've seen that before in the past with a number of players and crafted enough where he's got that yak ability, Graham, where like he had seven touchdowns last year, had 70 targets, 50 catches, but the yak ability is exciting. And if there's a little bit of self-awareness about who they are, maybe they target the tight end a little more. So a lot to unpack there. I think we're both sort of all over the place. But I think Golden, if you want to take a shot, take a shot on Golden.

We're a little all over the place with this team, but that's what this team is. You know what I mean? I'm glad that you said that because that just clicked to my head. It's like, okay, if we're all concerned about who's going to get, you know, enough volume here, just pick the guy who has the ability to turn his four targets into three catches for 75 yards and a touchdown on a deep shot. That's Matthew Golden. So I think I'm with you. In my head, I've had it like back to back, Jaden Reed, Matthew Golden.

Now I think I'm going to flip it from that. And I'm going to have Golden ahead of read. Well, live on the air, ADP flipping. I love it. And then the other thing that you said that was super interesting, not to get two Packers centric on this, where this show could be two hours if we keep doing this. But we saw in 2023,

you talked about the balance of the offense. And I think that that's a really strong take. And I agree with you because in 2023, Jordan Love was awesome. I had a ton of touchdown passes, was really one of the best pickups you could have made off the waiver wire. and in some leagues he was going in like the 18th round. This was a team that passed the ball about 58% of the time.

Last year, they became so, so, so run heavy. And it worked for a while. They went on a real streak of winning games, but then were completely exposed when they played Philadelphia in the playoffs. Last year, they were the third most run heavy offense in the league behind only Philadelphia and Baltimore. Just a huge shift. for Matt LaFleur, certainly the most run heavy we've ever seen a Matt LaFleur offense.

So I think they're signaling to us that they want to get back to balance. Last offseason was a lot about getting things right with Jordan Love. So I think it's worth taking some shots, again, because these players are so cheap. And in best ball, I like the Jordan Love bounce back in best ball. He was a guy last year you had to take as a quarterback one. Now you're able to get him as sort of a mid-to-low-end QB-2. Yeah, that's the kind of argument that Ryan was making on our show a few weeks ago. It's like they're going to be balanced, but last year was kind of weird.

And, you know, they just released Jari Alexander this morning. I mean, their cornerback group is really bad. Like this, you know, they've got a good pass rush still. But I mean, this is a defense that might give up some points. They might have to pass more out of necessity. Love it. We love shootouts. Bring on all of the shootouts.

Let's take a quick break. let's talk about another NFC North team, the Detroit Lions, right after this. All right. So Detroit, we now have like a number of things to unpack here. We found out recently that Amon-Ross, St. Brown, had sort of a corrective knee issue that he had addressed. And a big shout-out to all those Detroit Lions beat reporters. Thanks so much for letting us know about this before we crammed in all those early best balls. That was really, really top-notch reporting from you guys.

really appreciate you staying on top of it. Instead, we find out sort of after the fact. And it's like sort of like just a little bit of a news dump. Like, hey, don't worry, our highly paid alpha wide receiver one who you're drafting inside the first round had a corrective knee cleanup. Do you care about this at all, Graham? Is this like a little bit of a whoa red flag or are you like, it sounds like he's going to be fine?

So I'm not, I'm trying really hard not to double count it. But I was already pretty concerned about Amman Ra just strictly from a profile perspective here at the back end of the first round. Like, dude, I get it. Over the last three years, like, Amonaraz nearly been at 20 PPR points per game. He's been at 19.5. He's the wide receiver three over the last two years.

However, we can all agree that this offense was way more spread out. Is maybe the word, not Packers-esque. We just got talking about the Packers. I feel like that's like a dirty word with this offense because it was still pretty condensed. But last nine games last year, including the playoffs, After Jamison Williams came back from the suspension, remember he got suspended for a few games, came back. So last nine games, including the game, or excuse me, excluding the game where Leporta missed.

Amonra, 23% target share. Sam Leporta, 18%. JMO, 17%. By first read rate, okay, yeah, Amon Ra was still clearly the first read of 31%. But Sam Leporter really came along in the end zone. He got eight end zone targets to Amon Ra's five in these nine games. the knee injury to me is it's like a it's a small very small red flag it sounds like it's just to clean up and as long as he's good by training camp i think we're all right i'm concerned that amon ra is no longer

going to be this like incredibly voluminous player and i've i've two more concerns on top of this like okay so the target chair dipped massively the volume was down by xfp in those nine games amon ra was averaging 15.3 expected fantasy points per game. That's based on where the target was, the volume, all of that. That was down two points from the previous season. He was a 17.3 XFP per game. Laporta and Jamo were both at 13.0 XFP PPR points per game last year. So again, it's like one of these things where we saw the targets get really condensed. We saw the roll kind of get a little more condensed for Amman Ra. And then we add in this layer of Ben Johnson's gone. And Jared Goff has come in.

off a 7% touchdown rate career high. That's going to regress way back down. Like first three seasons with the lines, he was at 5%. You add all this up. Like, I've got on Ron the second round and he has been a very, very hard player to click at like nine or 10. And I haven't even, you know, we, I don't, I'll, you know, I'll kick it back to you and ask you what you think about this knee injury because we, like you said, you said it tongue in shape, but we have no idea what it even is. I mean, I hate it. I hate it. Like, I hate hearing about this after the fact. I hate it. And at the information age where we know like where guys are going on vacation and where guys are eating in restaurants and we don't know that he's getting like a knee cleanup. That whole whole thing sort of blows my mind.

Okay. Yeah. You're right. You're right. I'm probably trying to blow it off is no big deal. But you're right. Yeah. I mean, and and like that so we'll take that away from it. But let's look at sort of last year compared to 2023. 23, Amon Ross St. Brown was unbelievable, 20.7 points per game. And he finished as the wide receiver four in points per game. Last year, wide receiver scoring as a whole was down, especially at the top. It was such a massive gap between Jamar Chase and then the wide receiver two that we didn't really notice. Amman Ross St. Brown was again, wide receiver four in points per game.

But he went down a full two points per game. He also had 22 fewer targets, and he played one more game. So in 17 games played, he had 142 targets in 2024. And in 2023, 164 a career high. So we already saw that number dip a little bit. Now, very efficient with his catches, still had 115 catches. But the yards per reception went down about a yard and a half. And the receiving yards went down about 250 plus.

He was very, very good. Like you said with Jared Gough, Amon Ross St. Brown had a career high with 12 touchdown catches. So there's a lot that I sort of don't like. And I agree with you that Amon Ross St. Brown, like by all means, we think Amman Ross St. Brown is really, really good? If I had to bet on, is he a wide receiver one? I certainly do.

But if I'm drafting a guy at the end of the first round, I want wide receiver one overall in the range of outcomes. And I just don't see it with Amon Ross St. Brown. then you factor in a few things. We talked about in our running back show, just how bullish we are on Jemir Gibbs, the talent, heading into year three with John Morton. If I'm a new offensive coordinator

trying to make a name for myself, I might just get Gibbs like a ton of usage. Then you got David Montgomery coming back. You still got a very strong offensive line. You now lose your center. Ragnow is retired. So for me, I'm sort of more focused in on the sense.

secondary lines targets where on Underdog, we're seeing James and Williams steamed up. We're seeing Sam Leporta settle in at tight end four. What's interesting is Sam Leporta last year, you were getting him at the two, three turn on underdog. Like this was a guy that was in most formats being drafted as a tight end one. He was the tight end one overall as a rookie. So this year, if you're taking a bullish stance on Leporta, you say that I'm getting him about 45. spots lower on Underdog than I did in 2024 and for a player that we think is very, very talented.

Now, James, wide receivers get steamed up on Underdog, but he's going right around wide receiver 25. I'm sort of in on Jameson Williams. I'm actually very bullish on Williams. I think that there is room for him to run this year. You also now add in the contingent upside that if you have any sort of regression with the knee or you have a chance of re-injury, which we really weren't considering

even two weeks ago, Graham. Like Jameson Williams has already gotten the positive coach speak. John Morton's talked about him having a breakout season. So I think I really like Jameson Williams this year. Your thoughts on that one. I'm with you. I was fully prepared to come into May, June, and just like, take my, like, pound the table.

Like anything I can get. Here, here's a notepad. Just pound the table. for JMO. But can we draft him over Travis Hunter? That's the cost. That is the cost we have to pay in the fourth round. I am praying in redraft. And this is the case in Sleeper. By Sleeper ADP, JMO is a lot cheaper. I'm praying that we can get some cheaper JMO in redraft. Brett was saying that JMO's put on a ton of weight this off season. We saw it last year. You saw like he looked rocked up.

Like definitely put on five, eight pounds of muscle compared to 23. If he's putting on more weight, that just signals to me that they want to get this guy involved as much as they can. We saw it last year. We saw him get way more usage over the middle. He is no longer just this deep threat. Like he's getting legitimate separation on, you know, crossers and horizontal breaking routes. Again, I don't want anybody to, you know, listen to this and think I'm like completely out on Amman Raw. It's just we play an opportunity-based cost game, right?

Like at the end, you know, we've got, I've got some legitimate concerns at Amman Raw. with Amun Ra at 10. And when you're making a pick, like you just said in the end of the first round, I want that pick not only to have the wide receiver one in his range of outcomes. I don't really want to have any concerns about this pick. And I think just analytically speaking, I mean, between Goff's impending regression, which, again, I don't want anybody to listen to think I'm out on Goff either. I think he's a perfectly fine quarterback.

It's just high touchdown rates we saw with Brack Purdy last year. high touchdown rates regress. It's just very hard to sustain a 6 to 7% touchdown rate year over year unless you're Peyton Manning. It just does not really happen. And I don't think Jared Goff is Peyton Manning. I've been I've been drafting GMO. Leporta, I know we've got to we got to move on man, but like Leporta is interesting too. You made a great point that like he's now what, four and a half, five rounds cheaper and not much has changed. Brett made a great point too. Like, I kind of forgot. La Porta got hurt at the end of 23 and he came into 24.

He was hurt during training camp. He had a foot injury. So he started really, really slow. And then everybody kind of remembers that, right? It's like something we do in our brains where we just remember the first part of the season a little better than the end of the season, especially with players that burned us to start the season.

His last nine games, La Porter caught 44 balls, 477 yards. He had six end zone touchdowns. Like, he was a tight end four. You know what I mean? Like, it's a perfectly fine. but with Amon Ra, I've just got some concerns. Yeah, and I think I'm with you.

I think like if we're predicting the top two target earners, it's Amon Ra at the top, Jamison Williams number two. And Jameson Williams last year was six targets per game. Leporta was 4.9. I think Leporta will move up a little bit. But I think that basically the Amon Raw St. Brown knee news and the fact that we think he's a little bit of a kind of being drafted at his peak,

not necessarily his peak, but not a whole lot of room to run off of, off of his current ADP. I think that the value is in attacking the second and third receiver. Then you add in sort of the, like, we haven't really had this potential contingent upside in this offense. Like if there's weeks that Amman Ross St. Brown misses, James and Sam Leporta would both go north of 20% target share and both be really, really fun clicks. And a lot of the Sam Leporta success where he was 100. 120 targets as a rookie was with James and Williams playing like a secondary kind of cardio role. So we've already seen Leporta be 120 target player.

Basically, end of the day, you're betting on two really talented, very young players. James, like, Leporta's entering year three. And James has only played, what is it, 33 regular season games as a pro. So these are young players with room to run, unknown upside when it comes to James. agree with you that Travis Hunter should be ahead of Jameson Williams, but I'm perfectly fine getting Jameson if I miss out on Hunter. Their ADPs are kind of converging. So again, a lot of times it's a head-to-head decision.

But if you end up with James, both those guys, basically both those guys, have the talent and potential range of outcomes to give you a wide receiver one season at sort of a low-end, wide-receiver-2, high-end, wide-receiver-3 cost. All right, so let's officially move on. We both like these guys. Let's find another offense and kind of focus in on that one.

And we talked about Green Bay. We talked about Kansas City. We talked about Detroit. Let's talk about another difficult team. The San Francisco 49ers. This is a team where last year we saw Joanne Jennings take sort of a big step forward and be really one of the waiver wire ads of the year. Jennings had a 29% air yard share, but it was the target share.

22.7% target share led San Francisco. George Kittle, absolute killer, one of the most efficient players that we've seen, had 92 targets. I think that those two are the safe bets to be one and two in targets for San Francisco, or do you want to make an argument on Ricky Purcell, absorbing a good amount of Debo Samuel's work, and potentially being the number three who could surpass both of them, and lead the team in targets.

So the big overhanging thing here is like when IUC gets back, right? I think we all kind of agree he'll probably start the year on PUP, but let's just like advance to week five and let's say IUC is back. How is Ricky Piersol getting on the field? Yeah. In three wide receiver sets. Because Juan Jennings will be their ex receiver. He is he's installed like he will be their ex receiver now.

Iyuk will be the two. It'll be kind of more of a flanker role, I think, this year. And for me, like, this is a team that is extremely diverse in terms of their personnel sets, right? Like, they still have a fullback. You know, Kyle Eusecheck runs legitimate routes, like plays a ton, and I know it's annoying, but, like, these are all things that factor into a projection, right? Ricky Pearsall, to me, is one of the most overrated, overdraft players in redraft. right now. I do not understand where people are getting this projection with Pearsall.

And I'm fully there. Like as a player, yeah, we were all in on Ricky Pearsall. Brett loved the guy coming out, like analytically had a good profile, gets drafted the end of the first round. Like maybe he was a little overdrafted, sure, based on the profile, but still, he's a first round pick. And we have to kind of throw away last year with Ricky, right? Like, didn't have a training camp because he got shot. Then he gets hurt, tries to come back, obviously look pretty good at the end of last year, but like we, we are in a projection-based business, and I am not getting at all where the Ricky Pearsall steam is coming from. To me, I said this on our show when we were breaking down on the backfields. Christian McCaffrey is like almost an all-in player for me, just because I think

he's the best suited 49er to absorb all of those or most of those Lossadebo looks. But George Kittle is an all-in player. Like, I don't know if I can fully get there with McCaffer just because the health, you know, and all the, you know, issues he's had staying on the field. But, like, Kittle, to me, is an all-in player. He just beat out Brock Bowers by fantasy points for game. He averaged 15.8. Brock Bowers have the best rookie season of it for a rookie tight end ever, 15.5. Kittle still beat him. Kittle has finished as a top three scoring tight-in in six out of the last seven seasons, Theo. And we were drafting this player in the 50s. Like, it makes no sense. This is the best setup Kittle has ever had to earn, like, alpha targets.

Like, he's always had to compete with Debo. He's always had to compete with IUK. And historically, Kittal's scoring has been extremely negatively correlated with Debo. So that means any time when Debo went off, Kittal, like, typically didn't or just didn't score very well. I looked at this. Over the last three seasons, Kittle played in seven games where Debo did not play at all. He averaged 19 PPR points per game.

And the other 24 games with Debo on the field, Kittle averaged 11.1. That's a difference of nearly eight points per game. And again, I'm not expecting Kittle to average 19 PPR points per game, but he did just average 15, 16 last year. He's an all-in player for me. I think, again, we're talking about this in the sense of like our game. It's an opportunity cost-based game, right? Brock Bowers is going in the middle of the second round,

Trey McBride at the end of the second round. And then you've got to wait three rounds for George Kittle in round five. And it's like, you know, Brock Bowers definitely profiles there. Like we talked about this in the last show. I thought he profiled as a round one pick. Trey McBride certainly profiles as like a round two, three pick. But like when I can get George Kittle in the fifth round, it makes it a lot easier for me to just kind of like,

not necessarily be like, okay, I'm mentally blocking out. Bowers and McBride, but it definitely makes that opportunity cost of like missing out on those two guys a lot easier. Yeah, and I, I'm completely with you on Kittle. And I think like this is a fun team where we don't need to make a decision between Jennings and Kittal. On the contrary, you can drop both of them in nearly every single draft because Jennings is a huge ADP discount at wide receiver 35. Now, the disparity between him and Purcell is starting to extend because Purcell has also got this hamstring issue. So, like, before they were basically side to side, now you're seeing a little bit of a gap. But I almost feel like Jennings is being drafted towards his floor at wide receiver 35.

And he's also like dynasty listeners. Jennings is also a really cheap get in dynasty startups and in dynasty trades. I think you're talking about a guy who could be 14, 15 points per game without really anything. changing. He's a really, really fun click in best ball. Now, Kittle completely agree with you. And Kittles won where he had eight games last year with 18 points or more. That's sick when you look at just the amount of games he played. So you're talking about the spike week ability is there. Then you also talk about the you lose Debo Samuel. Like if you're self-scouting in the building, you just gave George Kittle all of this money. And you're factoring in, let's keep Christian

McCaffrey healthy. Maybe we don't want to get back to Christian McCaffrey being a 17% target share guy like he was in 2023. Let's talk about like getting McCaffrey a reasonable workload. What's to stop San Francisco from saying, you know, this George Kittle guy, the last couple of years, he's gotten 90, 94, 95 targets. Why can't we target him 125 times and give him a Kelsey usage season? People push back on that one. But Scott and I had Max Tiscano on School of Scott.

We did a big tight end breakdown. And I've been asking everybody sort of what would happen this year if George Kittle does get 120, 125 targets? And people say that's not really Kittal, Theo, you know, this is a guy who's been super efficient. But we do have the one season. We go back to 2018. Kittal absorbed 135 targets that season. So like, can we have one year where Kittle just gets 120 gram? And if so, we'd sacrifice a little bit of efficiency with more target.

volume, what would that do for you with Kittle? That's exactly what I'm envisioning. By the way, that was the year I was all in on Kittle was 2018. It was a similar sort of setup. If you recall, their top two targets that year were Kendrick-born and Pierre Garsohn. And it's like, yeah, Juwan Jennings is way better than late career Pierre Garcone at that point.

Like, absolutely. Brandon Ayuk will be back. However, I mean, this is a defense that's regressed year over year. We know their cornerbacks aren't very good, like still pretty good. like still pretty good at front seven you know obviously fred warner's a g all that but like this is this is not a great defense anymore i think the niners are probably going to be a little more pass heavy than typical i just think everything kind of just sets up for kittle and then this price just makes it we live in a day and age now where you know fantasy football is

constantly covered everybody's got you know pretty good nuanced player takes but kittle is he is a fundamentally underpriced player to me. Let's talk about another team. Let's pivot over the New Orleans Saints. There's been a lot of success with Kellyn Moore led offenses producing wide receiver fantasy scoring. Certainly Keenan Allen two seasons ago when Moore was in L.A., C.D. Lamb, a number of years in Dallas.

And then last year, A.J. Brown continued to put up very strong fantasy numbers. but this year in New Orleans with Tyler Shuck at quarterback, I think we will both agree that Chris Alabe is going to lead this team in targets. Who's going to be the number two target? Last year, Alvin Kamara led New Orleans in targets, a year older in a very different offense. Rashid Shaheed has been sort of a player that a lot of people are very, very back in on, but does his game necessarily match up with Tyler Shuck and what Kellen Moore wants to do?

Who's your bet to be the number two target earner in New Orleans and any pushback on my Alave take? I have a pretty bold take here. Okay, let's see it. Are we sure? Chris Olavay leads this team in targets? Are we sure? Fairly sure. Fairly sure.

Okay. I'm going to make my Shaheed argument. In their five games together last season, Shaheed had more targets, 34 to 27. He had a higher share of the first reads at 32% to 25%. And this is not a fluke. It was based on usage. Shaheed has always been, at least previous to last year, just a vertical field stretcher who occasionally gets a design target, right? That changed completely last year. Shahid ran more horizontal breaking routes than vertical routes for the first time ever in his career, 41%. So that's like crossers, ends out, stuff like that. There is a six round difference in ADP. six rounds between Olavé and Shaheed. And there's like no difference in their production.

Last two years together, these guys have played 18 games together, mainly all with their car. And in those games, Olave is averaging 13.2 PPR points for game. Shaheed is at 12. And she has seen 44 to fewer targets. I'm not so sure that Chris Olave is a better receiver. than Rashid Shaheed. By yards per route run, Rashid Shaheed has been just slightly more efficient than Chris Olavé.

Alave does have the better separation score. He's a better by ass at fantasy points for data for sure. I just don't see a six-round difference in ADP, especially given, like you just said, I mean, we got this mystery box at quarterback, the worst quarterback room in the NFL. I just I cannot pay up for round six Chris Olavé when you know Rashid Shaheed is he was looking like a wide receiver too last year and we've got all of these you know all of this risk associated with this quarterback group like it's it's Alave is an extremely tough click maybe I've just been Shaheed pilled I don't know you tell me I think it's I'll go devil's advocate is this is the cheapest we've seen Chris Oliva in ADP since his rookie season.

And his rookie year got steamed up sort of at the end was a guy that was a very popular kind of breakout type pick. So I understand the trepidation. The scoring was close to one another. I think a lot of that was based on the huge, and certainly last year. And I know a lot of the metrics support Shaheed here. But Shaheed benefited from the downfield looks in the Clint Kubiak office. offense where he kept making big play after big play.

I think for us to project that, like him getting those sort of huge plays, it's them taking big downfield shots with Tyler Shuck. Do they do that? I'm not sure. I think it could be a way more conservative approach where they try to protect Tyler Shuck and utilize sort of a little lower A-DOT looks. I also think when it comes to Alave and Shahid, you can take a shot on both of them, because again, wide receiver 56 for Shaheed.

So if you want to go with Graham and then you want to go with my Lave take, still wide receiver 37. So we have a very best ball driven mindset now. But wide receiver 37 in redraft leagues when we get to the end of the summer, that's a price tag that's going to be a lot cheaper than having to necessarily use a sixth round pick. You might get a lobby in some leagues in like the seventh, even eighth round on running back heavy leagues. So I'm sort of there. I think they're both fine at ADP.

because the market is basically treating Tyler Shuck like he's going to be the worst quarterback in football with these ADPs for these two players. It's really, really low. My question to you is, go ahead. No, go ahead. He might very well be the worst quarterback, but like, what if he's not?

Right. And it's also like we're not really even projecting that. Like the Saints are implied to score 19.19.4 points per game. It's third worst. I mean, it's really bad. But it's five and a half win total. So it's not like this is a historical. Yeah. Yeah, there's enough talent on the roster. We've seen it time and time again.

And I think they're going to be bad. Don't get me wrong. But I think that like if they hit 19 points per game like they're being projected, then there's a chance that we're not talking about like the worst offensive football. Again, it's baby steps here. But why couldn't both of these guys beat their wide receiver price tag by 12 spots, 13 spots and get you a couple of best ball wins. Now, does either drive the needle for you in redraft? I think based on your take, Shaheed could be a guy that definitely could do that if you're

getting him sort of at this wide receiver five, low in wide receiver five price tag. It's almost a free look. So I love Alave's talent, but the ADP on him is is genuinely stupid. He's going in sleeper redraft leagues right now. So that's typically like you're two running back to receiver leagues. Alave is going at 60. That's ahead of JMO. That's ahead of Jalen Waddle. It's a head of Jordan Addison, who you and I just like absolutely love.

It's ahead of Tet. It's ahead of Godwin. Like the Olave thing is, it's too much, man. Like, Xavier Worthy is going one pick ahead of Alave right now and Sleeper. Like that, it's too much. Like, it's too much.

Like, what are we doing here? You know? So, and that just shows you to make sure you check your ADP because I'm referencing a lot of like FFC and FFC. Yeah. And I do too. I'm just,

I'm just bringing in like the redraft element of this. It's like I was, I'm with you. Like in two running back two receiver leagues, I would fully expect that Olive be going way cheaper. Like that's, that's how those leagues are played. And for what it's worth, Alvin Kamara is going like around the head of Alave right now in Sleeper.

So there is some like market efficiency going on with the running back first receiver thing. I'm just saying like I still think this Olave price is kind of wild. Yeah. No, and I agree with you. When you're putting the factor there, um, so I guess for it's more of an NFFC, FFPC argument where like Alabe's wide receiver 34 there where he's going well behind the

hunters, the Jamison Williams. Exactly. We're basically taking him alongside like Calvin Ridley, who we just talked about that Tennessee offense being another one we're sort of banking on. So we're both sort of making our own cases for the wide receivers very quickly before we move on. Alvin Kamara, target share last year led all running backs, led all running backs in targets as well. Target share targets. How much does he factor in this year in a Kellyn Moore offense?

I fully expected not to draft any Alvin Kumar this year, but he's actually like, besides Shaheed, I have a good amount, especially in best ball. You know, we're talking about the difference in prices, right? Like, it's super important to understand, you know, the games that you're playing. Like, on underdog, generally, receivers are going to be pushed way up the board. But if we're talking in Sleeper, redraft, it's like almost a completely different ADP environment. Kamara, you're going to have to spend, you know, fourth round pick in redraft leagues this year. And Underdog, it's round six. And I'm just taking all that bank of volume to the bank, man. Like, don't really care. This is a bottom three offense. They've got nothing behind him. Like, you know, Kendra Miller has been, you know, out of favor with,

what, two different coaching staffs now. They bring in Devon Neal. I don't really think he's that big of a threat. But, Kamara, you know, the efficiency has been falling off for him. But this is just strictly a volume bet. And I don't mind making the volume vets with a player who's, you know, historically been able to, you know, handle the volume. And then it's like, you know, usually passing game volume. So I think Kamara is still a pretty decent bet. I know he's an old man now. It's crazy.

But I think he's a decent bet right now in round six. Yeah, it's a player you want to fade, but the market is pushing down Saints so much that it's almost like you need to cram in a little bit at that price tag. Let's talk about another team where we have a clear alpha wide receiver one. We're all in on Ladd-McConkie at Fantasy Points. A player that Chris Wecht, our projections guru, is really pushing up the wide receiver board. I know Scott's high on him.

You're high on him. I'm high on him. We're going to spend zero time talking Ladd-McConkie. Let's talk about the secondary receiver in L.A. Last year, Quentin Johnston was the number two target earner, had 87. targets last year, had a 19.8% target share. This year they draft Tray Harris in round two. Is it as simple as Tray Harris can overtake Quentin Johnston, take that job away and have a very similar role? Or is it going to be a little bit more annoying and there might not be a number

two target we can bet on in the offense? I don't think it's going to be instant that Tray Harris takes them over. I think we can all agree that they want to replace Quentin Johnson. If you, you know, just follow what, you know, Greg Roman and the other. coaches are saying. They're all saying QJ is a starter. And it's like, right. Okay. Yeah. That's why you took Trey Harris in round two. Yeah, sure, exactly. I think it'll be Trey Harris. Whether or not it's like a fantasy relevant role, I think is massively up for debate. You and I were talking about this with the Chargers backfield. We were talking about our, we did our backfield breakdown show a couple weeks ago. It's, I'm in on the Chargers,

like not being a pass-heavy team. I think at worst, they're going to be balanced. And in fact, I think they might be a little more run heavy. This year, just this defense is pretty good. They're, you know, one of the top off offenses by implied points for game. They're favored Theo in 13 games this year by the look headlines. It's like just behind the elite teams. Like the markets are super, super bullish on this offense. So to me, it's lad.

And then, yeah, it's probably going to be Trey Harris by the end of the year. But again, I question whether or not the volume will be there. Yeah, I think the Trey Harris. Harris is one you want to stick to best ball only for your exposure. He's one that I don't mind taking on underdog, but certainly in redraft, I'm only interested in Ladd-McConkie. And then give me Omarian Hampton, give me a little bit of Najee Harris because of his contingent upside if Hampton is unable to stay on the field. And I'll say just a deep, deep, deep, dark throw. I'll say that Tyler Conklin is interesting just because they got a lot

out of Will Disley usage-wise, Greg Roman offense at the tight end position. And if you're looking at a like a final round best ball dart throw tight end, Tyler Conklin is right there. I believe he's like the tight end 34th, tight end 35, depending on what format you're drafting in. Let's go with another team with super easy to identify their top target earner. But there's a lot of potential mouse to feed identifying a secondary receiver. That's the Houston Texans. Nico Collins, without a doubt, is going to lead the team in targets, barring an injury.

Then you have Christian Kirk coming over for a seventh round draft pick, a guy who's had some success in Jacksonville, had some success in Arizona, has a wide receiver one season to his name, a few seasons back in Jacksonville. Then you add in, speaking of wide receivers that Brett Whitefield really, really liked in the process, you have Jaden Higgins going in round two. Inside of the top 40 overall picks, Jaden Higgins. Then you have Jalen Knoll, a player we were very high on at fantasy points collectively, falls to them in round three.

So you add in Higgins, you add in Null, you add in Christian Kirk. Is there a secondary target that you want to take shots on and which player eventually separates themselves from the other two and is the number two target earner in Houston? And I'll say what's interesting is a lot of people might brush this one aside and say it could be too jumbled. I'm not interested in it. But the number two, what, target earner in Houston in C.J. Stroud led offenses has been very fantasy friendly. Last year we saw Stefan Diggs average 15 points per game.

Certainly we saw Tank Dell have a bunch of big weeks. Even Noah Brown had some success. So we've seen a number of guys do it. They're also moving to a L.A. Rams type attack with a new offensive coordinator, a lot to unpack here. Yeah, I'm interested to see what this team's tendencies end up looking like because this was something I've been saying for two years with that slow look offense. It was so predictable on first downs. I mean, how many times you watch a Texans game and a first and 10 run go for one yard and they've already got Stroud behind the sticks, I would love to see the Texans just be way more aggressive on passing downs.

I realize that this offensive line is a huge concern. That's like the one big pushback. But I think there's some room to grow in terms of the pass right here. That's why I am insanely bullish on Nico Collins. I think for this year, though, man, I think Christian Kirk is probably there too. Long term, I like Jaden Higgins a lot for Dynasty. But for this year, Christian Kirk is still pretty freaking good, dude. by average separation score, that's ass here at Fantasy Points data.

Kirk had the third best score on horizontally breaking routes, and that's super important because that will be his role in this offense. He's going to run a ton of crossers, a ton of end-breaking routes. He was still really good on outbreaking routes to towards the sidelines last year. Third best ass, actually, you know, Brandon Ayuk was in a league of his own again last year, and, you know, before he got hurt on these horizontally breaking routes, but Kirk was really good, better than, you know, Zay Flowers, Mike Evans, Rishie Rice,

better than Tank Dell. He's still a really good football player. He's not going to be a full-time player in this offense, I don't think. I think they're going to be a little more of a rotation like always after Collins. But for this year, I think it'll be Kirk. And then from there, it is really wide open. I mean, they still, you know, Dalton Schultz is still doing his thing out there, moving like a big piece of wood.

But, hey, you know, he might catch a couple balls for them this year. I want a lot of Nico. That's kind of where I'm at with this offense. I think that might just be what I do is just draft all the Nico. But Kirk is pretty interesting and he's free right now. Yeah, Kirk is wide receiver 60. I think from a best ball perspective, he's way cheaper than Higgins. And he's got a lot of positive buzz, the veterans deference there.

Last year we saw them give up a seventh round pick for Joe Mixon and they used him a ton. I think Kirk's going to be on the field a lot early. while the younger wide receivers sort of compete with one another. I'm with you there. And again, just draft Nico Collins, really, really strong value. Carolina, another team where the number one target looks like Tet McMillan. This is a guy that I'm very, very high on Graham. And then we really don't know who the number two target earner will be.

You've got Xavier Leggett, it was a first round pick last year, some positive buzz with him. Carolina Panthers social media certainly loves Xavier Leggett. Any chance you get, you see Xavier Liggett doing something or other in the Carolina area. They're really, really time to hype him. You've got Jalen Coker, who had sort of a hive last year, undrafted free agent out of Holy Cross, was the guy that checked off a number of metrics, talented player, but again, battling the undrafted status, heading into year two.

And then you've got Adam Thielen, who was really good down the stretch, the preferred number one target for Bryce Young in a number of those big Bryce Young spike weeks. So all three of those guys seem to be competing with one another. And I'll throw out the name J.T. Sanders, who lost 10 pounds. Apparently the body is right there. And this could be really kind of a sleeper tight end for me, who have liked clicking in three tight end builds in baseball. Is there a secondary target you want to bet on in Carolina? Or is it as simple as draft Ted McMillan, draft Chuba Hubbard,

and let everybody else figure it out? That's where on that, what you just said, the latter there. No one wants to hear this, but it's going to be Adam Thielen. He was still so good last year. Like, he's always been a target earner. They draft Tett. That's going to allow Thielen to move back inside too, which is nice. Like, you know, he's still got the quicks, man.

Like, he's not fast, but he's quick. And he's going to be able to dice up those interior receivers. You know, Thielen last year, last five games was at a 28% target share across the full season. He was at 21%. his career target chair is 21%. So even though this might be, you know, glasteride for Thielen before he hangs up the cleats, he's still going to be out there earning targets.

Yeah, he was a big win for me last year on School of Scott and also on my Waver Wire show over on another channel where Scott and I were talking about Thielen. I made some big stances about him. And I had him as the number one waiver wire guy, add to add for like a couple of weeks, a guy was encouraging people to add. And you're right.

He came back and it was just so good. good. He had over 15 points per game in four out of the last six weeks of the season, timeless. I think he takes a big step back to Tet this year, but I think that you're right. He's the secondary target earner, not necessarily one we're going to put into our fantasy lineups, but sort of a guy that I'm okay clicking in best ball. Keep an eye on J.T. Sanders, though, low bar for that, that like sub tight end two range player to hit. And I think J.T. Sanders could do it. Let's talk about the Baltimore Ravens. Zay Flowers, I think, leads the team in targets.

Mark Andrews, do you think this is Mark Andrews as simple as he'll be the second target earner? Or are you sort of banking on a little bit more split usage with likely, which could open up the door for a potential Rashad Bateman's season? This is one where it's an unbelievable offense, tons of mouths to feed. You also now factor in DeAndre Hopkins is there. how should fantasy managers be treating this? Who leads the team in targets and who's the number two target earner? Yeah, it'll be Zay for sure. Easy.

Yeah. And then from there, like, I have this debate every year about Ravens. It's like, Lamar's awesome. Like, from my money, if I'm starting a franchise right now, Lamar is my 101. That being said, for fantasy, his offenses are not good, like, at all for fantasy. like period. Mark Andrews scores a lot of touchdowns, but that's like his.

Derek Henry, Derek Henry notwithstanding, that's a one year sample size. Sorry, I should have said passing offenses. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, dude,

the run offenses, dude, Mark Engram was like a back end Rube one. Like end of career, Mark Ingram. Yeah, the run offenses are sick. The pass offenses,

though, have just, there's not been a whole lot of fantasy value. Like, you're just chasing these touchdowns. So the interesting thing last year is like, Andrews was coming back from the injury,

started insanely slow. Apparently he got no car accident. You remember that in August? Yeah. Maybe that was a bit of a factor. Who really knows? But Rashad Bateman legitimately took a step forward last year. So Ravens like almost never play 11 personnel. So that's three receivers, one tight end. Safe Flowers led the team in targets when they were an 11 personnel. But it was Rashad Bateman easily and second on the team when the Ravens were in 11 personnel getting targets. The thing is, this is just going to be a lot of two tight-in person. personnel, they're not going to play a whole lot of 11. I think it'll be kind of close again this year. I could see Bateman taking another step forward, though, because he's gotten better every single

year. He stayed healthier every single year. Andrews is a really tricky click. Like, we're just chasing the touchdowns with him at this point because, you know, likely while he does have a slightly different role, you know, between Flowers leading the team and targets, Bateman getting better, Weikley continuing to get better. Andrews is somebody, that I've kind of like phased out of a lot of my draft plans. Yeah, I'm with you. And Scott and I are going to talk about players that are difficult to rank and sort of value. Andrews is one that's there.

But I think he might be one of the toughest, dude. One of the toughest. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because this is a guy that we know can put up spike weeks. We know can. And like we say it's a touchdown dependent, but it's a really, really good offense where he could catch a bunch of touchdowns this year. So for me, I'll take my exposure to guys like Bateman.

And Andrews and certainly a ton of Isaiah likely. I love clicking on him in best ball because he's shown us spike weeks. You also have the contingent upside if Mandrues missed his time and likely I think is somewhat affordable. But at the end of the day, this is almost like a Zay Flowers. You're absolutely sure that this guy is going to be like a 24% target share player on a really good offense, a little bit lower volume they would like to see. But Zay is only costing you like wide receiver 29.

So he doesn't necessarily have the room to run and give you a top 10 season, but you know what you're getting in Zay Flowers. I drafted him in the sixth round of an FFPC 350 redraft league. Like I'll take Zay in the sixth all day long, just park him in the flex. We did see some spike weeks last year in weeks where Mandruz was out and they committed to getting Zay more involved. So Zay's been a guy that's been, he's good at football. He clicks on, hits on a number of metrics.

And he's heading into year three, clear, clear room there. New England Patriots, how are we unpacking this one? Stefan Diggs signed a big contract. Looks to be the clear wide receiver one when healthy. Then you've got guys like Hunter Henry and Kyle Williams, who's become a really ascending rookie. You're seeing him rise up in ADP on several formats. And for people drafting their rookie drafts late,

Williams has moved way, way up. Like you were able to get him in the third round. If you were drafting, like, right after the NFL draft, now he's going inside a round two. Where are you at in ways to attack this offense? Also throw in Travion Henderson's name as a guy who could end up with a lot more targets than some people think. That's exactly.

You read my mind because that's the first player I wanted to bring up with this passing game. I don't want to talk the receivers. I'm done talking Patriot's receivers. Trayvion Henderson's the fastest player on this team. Like, they are going to, they are absolutely going to scheme up targets for him. He is an underrated bet to be second on this team and targets. They gave Diggs all that money. They're going to funnel 100 targets to Stefan Dix as long as he's healthy. That being said, it's still a question of like, do you want to bet on a 31-year-old player coming off an ACL who's

been declining for four years now? And I don't. The only pass catcher here I really want to draft, that's obviously not Trayvion Henderson, is Hunter Henry. Everybody's kind of expecting Drake May to take this second year leap. Patriots are implied for 22 points per game by the look ahead lines. That's right on par with the Cowboys. But nobody wants to draft Hunter Henry, who's going to be the end zone target guy who plays nearly every single down. I think this is more just a best ball take. Like, I don't see Henry. Maybe I'll be wrong. Henry ended up being a decent, kind of back-end streamer last year. Maybe he has a little underrated upside if May is better. but I love Hunter Henry.

Like he is, he's my top tied-in two target in my article. I think he's a fantastic pick in best ball. Again, question the upside whether or not he has, like, you know, true week-winning potential in redraft leagues. The last year led the team in targets was like the only consistent player in this offense. And again, we're looking for touchdowns at tight end. And Henry, every single year, you know, he's usually consistently leading the team

and targets in the end zone. Last year he did it again. He got six. Nobody else on the team got more than four. I think Henry's really the only guy I want to click here. I'll be honest. It's just, it's one of these things where, like, I think the Patriots are going to be very run heavy.

And, you know, like Diggs probably gets to 110. But like, I don't know if I see anybody on this offense once again, like with a fantasy relevant role because, dude, Patriots, defense is going to be pretty good this year. May obviously keep them in tighter games. I think they're going to be able to run the ball a lot more. I just question, I question the league winning potential of any of these past gutters.

Like it might just be just draft Henderson, just draft May. Yeah, and I'm with you. I think that you can get your, if you're a best ball listener right now, a Drake May, Trayvion Henderson, Hunter Henry stack is a really fun one because it's cheap besides Trayvian Anderson. And if you are a content creator watching us,

you can go ahead and write your blurb on Hunter Henry right now because he'll be a guy that's in a bunch of waiver wire articles because he's going to go undrafted in a lot of redraft leagues and he'll have like five catches for 60 yards in week one and they'll say oh Hunter Henry's the same as he was last year 87 targets I believe last year. Henry's just like perpetually underrated not really a needle mover for you if you're looking for a potential guy who can win you your league. but if you need nine or 10 ppr points to get by at the tight end position, Hunter Henry has you covered. And in weeks, he scores a touchdown helps you out a lot. Okay, we saved a difficult one for the last one here. We've unpacked every single team. And highly recommend you go back and listen to our last episode.

We're going on like three hours combined on wide. If you can't get prepared for wide receiver this year, tight end and identifying target earners through this, these two podcasts, then I don't know what to tell you. But let's talk about the Miami Dolphins. Miami's a really weird one because this is a team where if we're looking specifically at Spike Weeks, the best fantasy scoring numbers of almost any team in football for two straight years in 2023 and 2022, multiple guys putting up like 40 burgers, Mike McDaniel

offense just humming, talking about guys like Rahim Mostert, talking about guys like Devon A-chan, Tyreek Hill, Jail. Jalen Waddle, all four of these guys putting up massive weekly scores where basically if you just had exposure to the Miami Dolphins for those two years, you were crushing it in fantasy. Last year, it all caught up with drafters. Tyree Kill was one of the worst picks you could have made, was a top three pick in some of the highest stakes leagues in fantasy. Huge bust. Jalen Waddle, huge bust. Then you had ADP wins out of Devon A. Chan and Jonu Smith, was one of the better values of the tight end position last year. When we look at the team, Tyree Kill led them in targets, but it was a significant downgrade from his 2024 numbers.

The total targets went way, way down. You're talking about the target share dropping 10%. You're talking about the, like he was a 30% target share guy that goes down to a 20% target share guy. You're talking about the points per game going down 10% 10 points. I mean, huge, huge decline. Janu Smith was actually the second leading target earner with 109. And then of course, Devon A-chan led all running backs in receptions,

unbelievably efficient. He had a catch rate of over 91% special season out of Devon A-chan. So who, and then I'm not even mentioning Jalen Waddle, who's now going to be healthier, who was a wide receiver one earlier in his career, had a hundred catch season as a rookie, who's going to lead Miami in targets? Who's going to be the number two target earner? So I think it'll be Tyreek. However, I mean, we've got, I've got two primary concerns with Tyreek.

One, Ryan Heath, who runs the Fantasy Points Data account tweeted out, like, one of the dankest stats of the year. He posted Hill's separation score on vertical routes last year, and it just, it, like, dropped off a cliff. So he's 31. Maybe he's lost some speed. That's a humongous concern. And yeah, we're getting a little discount in round three. The second concern to me, dude, it's this offensive line. Like, they have completely punted. Like, Taran Armstead just retired. They're kind of screwed. Like, they have a bottom three offensive line. Like, I think it's in any order you want to put these four teams. You could, they're the bottom four. It's. They're the bottom four. It's. the Texans, the dolphins, the Bengals, and the Jaguars. Maybe the Bengals get a little better this year with Orlando Brown. But in my opinion, those are the four worst offensive lines in the league.

And Tua behind a shaky line that can't really protect him much longer. Like we know Tua wants to hold the ball, get through the progression as quick as possible. Like he does not want to be holding the ball at all. Like he wants to get the snap and get rid of it. But if he can't even get the snap and get rid of it, like, that is a humongous, humongous problem. We've got all these concerned about Tyrie Kill. We're taking him in round three. We're getting a huge discount on Jalen Wadle.

I mean, he's going at the end of round five and round six. I guess it's one of those things where like, I think Waddle could, there's definitely, you know, this is a projection for sure. Like, I'm not saying this is going to happen. But like Waddle could be a better receiver than Tyree Kill this year. Like Hill could continue to kind of slip a little bit. He loses a little bit of that down, you know, that downfield speed. Waddle's still in the prime of his career, very young player, still pretty efficient last year.

I'm just saying, like, I would rather bet on Waddle where he goes. The one guy I really want to draft here again is Devon A chin. A hundred percent agrees. Dude, this round two price is just is stupid. Like, I tweeted this out this morning, but like only four running backs have finished as a top five weekly score in at least 30% of their games. So that's like nearly one third of your games. I retweeted you on that one.

It was a great, great, great. Dude, he, he's, it's him, McCaffrey, Barclay, and Gibbs. Like, and those three guys all go in round one. Devon A.Cham profiles as a round one running back and you're getting him in the second round right now. He profiles not just from like a spike week perspective. Dude, Rheemostrat's gone. Jeff Wilson's gone.

Like it's just him and Jalen right now and Ollie Gordon. Like the volume is locked in with this. guy. The route share is insanely high. We've seen the huge spiked weeks. Like, I just, I'm just, I'm kind of like, A-chan is where I'm at. I'll draft some waddle for sure. I'm not fading Tyreek Hill in best ball. Like, I think there's definitely a case to make for him in best ball, but in redraft weeks, like round three to me is still too high of a price. Yeah, I'm completely out on Tyree Kill. in my top 50 rankings, which you can read at fantasy points.com, I have Tyree Kill at 45 overall, which I didn't even really want to put him there. I wanted to leave him outside the top 50,

but it gets to a point where it's kind of ridiculous. But he's a two, three turn guy in a number of formats right now. So if I rank him 45, I'm not going to get him anywhere. So that's fine. Jalen Waddle, I'm with you. Waddle's an interesting click. I was hoping you'd say that because I know we're not super high on Miami. He's wide receiver 31. So Jail and Waddle, wide receiver. for 31. He's finished ahead of that number in all seasons but one in his career. Miami gave him an absolutely huge contract last off season, and he's had a thousand receiving yards in every other season of his career besides last year. So Jell and Waddle just getting back to that level of play,

I don't think he's going to burn you at all this year where you have to actually click the button on him. And then if Tyreek gets traded or if Tyreek further regresses, I think Jeline Waddle's a really, really fun player to have on your roster. I'm also not out on Jono Smith. Johnny Smith, I think, took a big step forward. So if anything, I think that Tyree Kill's presence at ADP has created three positive price tags where I podcast with another podcaster the other day. I went on another channel and I talked about my enthusiasm for Devon A. Chan and he says,

well, you can't really be in on Tyree Kill and A. Chan. And I'm like, it's exactly that. It's the, like, the Miami offense is an Achan offense. not a Tyree Kill offense, but the ADP marketplace is basically saying we're getting back a little bit closer to 20, 23 balance. Another couple things to unpack with Devon A-chan

to keep trying to keep this show as short as possible, but we've got to talk a little bit of love for A-chan. A-chan's A-DOT last year was negative 0.5. If that number goes up a little bit more, that's an interesting outcome for him. A few more downfield targets, wheel routes, anything like that, opening things up for A-chan. And of course we love to see him in the screen game.

We love to see the quick hitters, get the ball in his hands. But that number was exceedingly low. The other thing with Achan is 14.4% target share. I think that number has room to grow. Why can't he get to an Alvin Kamara level? And then I know we're talking about target earners here, Graham, but Devon Aitchan had the, like, the all-time 7.8 yards per run, excuse me, yards per carry as a rookie.

And then last year, that number went down to 4.5. You talk about the offensive line concerns, but he's still such an explosive runner that that could get north of five yards per carry as well. So I love Devon A-chan. How do I think these targets are going to go? I agree with you. It's probably Tyree Kill. But the other three guys are all going to be so close that I'd love to take shots on the

running back who could lead the NFL in targets. I'd like to take shots on Jalen Waddle as sort of a hedge against Tyree Kill. And then I think Jono Smith is fine because he showed us last year, Mike McDaniel knows how to use him and he played at extremely high level. Ryan Heath, that was his comp, like high level comp for Kamara. It's a, like he could have an A-chan type here. And you're like you're saying it, Ryan's hand, that's just right. Like that that is the high-end comp.

And it's, you know, that A-dot stat you just quoted, it's a great one. And it just furthers my point about what this offense has become. It's in the NFL, man, you just cannot punt offensive line like they have. Like this is just, in my opinion, I am not smarter than Mike McDaniel whatsoever. I am not smarter than anybody that runs that Miami team. Like those guys know what the hell they're doing. But in my opinion, you cannot just completely punt offensive line in the modern NFL. Like the edge rushers these days, even the offball linebackers, the blitzers, like these guys are just,

freak shows now. You've got to have some dogs out at tackle. And they have dust, like literal dust. Like it's just, it's going to be a wild thing to watch. Like, this is going to be Tua getting the ball out as fast as he possibly can. And you play that in your mind a little bit. It's like, man, this is probably just the A-chan offense once again. A-chan. A-100%. Draft yourself some Devon A-chan. And make sure you go ahead and listen to the podcast, Graham and I dropped right before. Also here on. fantasy football daily where we broke down a number of these other wide receiver rooms. Graham, let everybody know once again what you have going on this time of year.

Yeah, this was awesome. Yeah, this was awesome. Really good. As deep as dive as you could get into basically every target hierarchy. So I hope everybody listening, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, all of my best ball content coming out in the next couple of weeks, I'll have a bunch of YouTube videos up on that as well. And then kicking off into redraft season, man.

tiers 150 everybody really loved that tiers article last year i'll have that out way earlier this year getting into the super flex draft strategy and a bunch of other draft strategy articles coming up deal man you are crushing the podcast feed i know you got some some articles coming out here soon too yeah a bunch of articles coming out um i'm trying to i'm kind of in the the middle of writing like two or three grams so they should all come out just drop the dynasty trades article over at Fantasy Points, you can find that. Dynasty trades I actually made. I'm going to have an update to my top 50 rankings.

That's going to become a top 100. And we've got a number of other articles coming out of fantasy points that can really help you crush your leagues. This was awesome unpacking all of these target situations in the NFL. I think I might have to give these a relisten this week, Grant, because they were so detail-oriented. And I'm going to have Andrew Erickson of Fantasy Pros. He's going to join me. We're making a couple bold predictions. for the 2025 fantasy football season right here on Fantasy Football Daily.

Make sure you check out School of Scott. Scott and I are going to be joined by Jacob Gibbs this week. Very, very sharp guy out of CBS. Breaking down some stats you need to know. I'm Dynasty Life as well. I'm dropping that every single week. Make sure you check out Graham and Ryan crushing the best ball content. We're everywhere at fantasy points.

We're going to help you crush your fantasy leagues this season.