Fantasy Football Daily - The Case for Anthony Richardson at No. 1 | On the Clock! NFL Draft Podcast

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) loves Florida QB Anthony Richardson, and believes he should be the selection for the Carolina Panthers at No. 1 overall on April 27. He and Chris Wecht (@ChrisWechtFF) make the impassioned plea for that to be the case. BRETT WHITEFIELD'S 2023 NFL DRAFT PROSPECT GUIDE IS FREE TO READ WITH A NO-CHARGE LOGIN AT FANTASY POINTS. Interested in playing Best Ball in 2023? There's no better place than Underdog Fantasy. Use our code FANTASYPTS to sign up for a new account at Underdog, and not only will you get a 100% deposit match up to $100... but you'll get a Fantasy Points Standard subscription for only $5! https://www.fantasypoints.com/underdog --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle. From numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome into another episode on the clock. I am your host, Brett Whitefield. And this morning we are joined by Chris Wecht. Chris, how are you, sir? I'm doing good.

We're getting awfully close. here to the draft. Yes, we are. Chris, you're a frequent guest at this point. Today, do you want to tell the people why you're here? Because you just sent me a message this morning and said, do you do a podcast and talk about some key beans? I said, sure.

Yes. Well, we love having Krasana whenever we can. And I'm dealing with this voice issue. And I just didn't think I could hold up for 20 to 30 minutes on my own. I have to hit my cough button quite a bit, then clear my throat. So, you know, you're always here. But I wanted to talk QBs. I know it's been a hot topic.

There's been a lot of debate about who should be the first overall pick or who is the best quarterback, yada, yada, yada. I've been pretty firm since, I don't know, probably middle of February that I think Anthony Richardson is the best quarterback in the class. and then obviously people started to join that trend once he did the combine thing, which is sort of funny because, you know, who didn't think he was going to test well, you know? Yeah. Why was the combine the turning point? Yeah, it should not have been the turning point.

I mean, it was, to be fair, it was, I'd say above my expectations of what I thought it could be. I mean, I thought it would be good, but it was really good. Yeah, I mean. That's fair. He went from, we kind of all knew he's a good athlete to he tested as the best athlete at the position ever. I don't think you should ever be expecting a guy to test as the best athlete at a position ever. Yeah, that's true. And basically he put up numbers.

He could play like any position he wanted to at his size. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it is still funny, though, because it's, it is a big part of what he does, but it's not like, it's not the only thing, you know? So you still have to do the whole playing quarterback bit, which. So it is just funny that a lot of people, I guess, came around. And a lot of people still are very adamantly against him as well. So that's kind of why I wanted to talk about it. But I don't know, Chris, if you saw, but I was on pride of the Detroit live stream last week.

Yep. Detroit Line centric podcast, our friends over SB Nation, Jeremy Reisman and company. And I did the pod. I do a every year, like two weeks before the draft, I get on there and do a draft show for them. And this year I went on going into the show, all of the fans were against Richardson, all of the hosts were against Richardson. And I kind of talked about it in a little bit of detail. And I feel like I was able to convert a lot of people.

So I felt like it'd be a good opportunity to recreate the same energy and make the same argument. Because I don't know if I myself have talked about these quarterbacks in detail on this show. I really don't think I have. I've done it on John's show. I've done it on other podcasts. I've had other people come on and talk quarterbacks. but I don't think I've actually ever sat here and talked quarterbacks. Yeah, the quarterbacks always end up being kind of the unsexy thing to talk about.

And I feel like in draft season, because we always have like a consensus order and nobody really strays from that order, basically up until the draft. And I mean, this year is kind of the same with, you know, everyone feels Stroud is going first and then Bryce Young. And then we don't really know what happens with Richardson or Levis. But like the order is more or less there in terms of how they're going to go. Yeah. So that that's actually a great. point. It's almost like people are scared to divert from the... Right.

That is, I never really thought about that because you look back at most classes, people don't really debate QBs a whole lot. I think the last one we debated was probably the Baker Mayfield class. I was going to say, it's the Baker, because that one, and we didn't see that, I mean, that was a late development where Baker was seen as the, you know, he might be the QB one off the board and then people discuss why and why not and, and then so on. But I don't know if we're going to get that this year like most years yeah baker that class was interesting because coming from pff we were in on baker as number one overall for a while it's kind of what the data said so we were just waiting for everyone else to wake up to that and finally they did and it was but

i felt like pff drove a lot of that conversation pushing baker to number one and i remember sitting down with baker at the senior bowl i actually ran into him at jimmy johns like in between practices or something and like we actually like had lunch together and I just remember talking to him thinking this guy he this is a cool dude like he's going to be the number one overall pick for sure just because of personality and then it's funny because then like five years later you're like wow that personality is probably the one thing that's keeping him from being successful he did he did feel like he was yeah yeah he felt it felt like he was super competitive when he came out and yeah it does seem like that is not he's still competitive

but the like take it to the next level drive is just doesn't seem like it's there yeah well it's it's it's his he let his competitiveness turn into pettiness i think yeah like he gets offended by everything and it's like no you use that for motivation but you don't freaking you know you don't turn into a baby about it and i think it's kind of what he's done and unfortunately just hasn't i think everything he's dealing with is between the years at this point you know he's obviously got talent so but anyways this quarterback class, Chris. Who do you like, by the way? I don't even know if I've asked you. What quarterbacks do you like? I don't, I mean, I don't think one of them stands out far and away better than the other to me. I, Bryce Young's size is definitely a concern for me. I don't know if I

would want, when you take a QB early in the draft in particular, you're making such a big stand for your, for your organization, for your team, for your job security. I don't. I don't. know if I want to hitch that to, you know, a very, that the day he has drafted will become the smallest QB in the draft and, and hope that he's an outlier. Yeah. Like, there, he, he, he may, may burn you. He may be the next Patrick Mahomes or something, but smaller, but to me, there's not a much, is enough of a separation from Bryce Young to C.J. Stroud or the upside of Anthony Richardson for me to want to take the dice roll on Young. So then for me, it really comes down to Richardson versus Stroud. And I just really, when it comes to them, I think it just the landing spot.

It really matters, like where you're at with your team. And Stroud is, Stroud can come in and play for pretty much any team. He seems like he has a high, you know, a high floor from a throwing perspective. And, you know, there's just a question of can he take it to the next level. Richardson, it just seems like he's got a floor with his legs and he can run a functional offense, kind of like what we saw Justin Fields do last year. But can he take it to that next level with his throwing? He's just got a lot farther to go in that area. Yeah. And when you're talking specifically for the Carolina Panthers as well, who trade it up to number one, I personally just have a hard time. Like you can make the argument Bryce Young is the

safest QB in the class from on the field perspective. But like you don't trade up to number one for safe. You trade up for number one because you're swinging for the fences. I feel like it has to be Stroud or Richardson. And I'm in a minute going to make the case for Richardson here. But does that seem like bad logic to you? Or like I just can't imagine trading up to number one like risking everything for an outlier. That just seems weird to me.

No, yeah. That's what I just said. It's yeah. The more and there's a lot of GMs are getting smarter and smarter about this. The draft is is so much more a game of probabilities than it is. is this, you know, black and white, this guy is good or this guy is bad. You're every pick that a team makes, they're betting on the probability that based on the draft capital, it'll pay off.

So the second you take Bryce Young one overall and trade up for that, you are now saying, I need the 90% outcome that Young is awesome. And you're just already putting yourself far away from that starting point. Yeah, that's kind of, it's weird to me in my head. I feel good about taking him second overall standing pat as the Houston Texans, but I feel terrible about taking him number one overall having traded up for that pick. I don't, it's just, it's so funny. It's one, it's a one pick difference, but I just feel like the due diligence for the Texans requires them to be interested versus the, the Panthers who are literally swinging for the fences with this move that they made. So I don't know, but let's talk about these guys individually a little bit.

We probably won't get into Levis too much because I think it's pretty consensus now that he's not in the mix for that top dog status, you know. So we'll probably leave him out of it for now unless we end up with extra time. But the case I want to make for Richardson is that everyone talks about how raw Richardson is from a passing standpoint, which I'm not going to deny isn't there. That's a thing. That's a legit thing. But I think all of these quarterbacks are raw in some way. So like Richardson has the accuracy consistency. Bryce Young has the insanely slow trigger.

And that's raw. Like that's a rawness to his game where he's not getting through progressions. He's not reading defenses quickly. And he's holding the ball forever. And we've seen Alabama quarterbacks do this. Tuo was one. Jalen Hertz was one. Mack Jones was another.

Kyler Murray did this a lot. Janele Hurts did this at Oklahoma as well. And it's caused a lot of those, Baker Mayfield, another one that we already mentioned him, but it's caused a lot of these guys' issues in the NFL. So there's a rawness to Bryce Young's game as well as Richardson, but for some reason, Richardson is the only one that gets talked about because Bryce Young throws a really pretty football, I guess.

C.J. Stroud also has raw elements to his game where he literally can't come off his first read, just like Justin Fields had that issue at Ohio State. and he completely folds under pressure. So how do you unpack what rawness matters and what doesn't? I think it's easy for people to pick on Richardson because like, oh, quarterback, your primary function is to throw the football. Right.

And so it's easy to say that that's, he's more raw because of that. But the reality is, I think accuracy might be the most fixable thing of all of the quarterback traits. Yeah, I could, I think I see where you're going. with this argument and I think I think you're going to make some good points that sway me into saying yeah if I have if I was building a QB from scratch and I had to take a weakness which one would I want and I think there's a good like pressure being afraid of pressure is not something you can just do to it to fix like the QB has to learn that to to build up a slow trigger you

could probably work you know that's just going to take time of him you know getting faster and faster and faster and reading, getting through reads. Accuracy, you could theoretically fix without the QB having to do anything. It's just the receivers on the team could be more open. The, you know, what passing schemes you're running can be more, you know, inaccurate, friendly, we'll call it. Stuff like that. That's exactly where I'm going with this is. So there's obviously mechanical issues with Richardson's delivery.

consistently. But even if we step aside for a second and, you know, not address the mechanical stuff, you can make him more accurate just by what you put around him. I know on the Take Talk podcast, we've talked about the Josh Allen thing a hundred times, Chris. You've been a part of those conversations, but it's worth pointing out. Josh Allen wasn't quite as inaccurate as Richardson coming out, but he was a complete mess mechanically, was not an accurate quarterback. He gets to the NFL and rookie season does not look like an accurate quarterback either. And then they slowly start to add guys whose game relied on separation. First it was John Brown.

Josh Allen gets a little bit better. Then they add Cole Beasley to the mix. He gets a little bit better. Stefan Diggs joins the team. Now you have Stefan Diggs, Brown, and Beasley. By the way, this is a prime Beasley, not the guy you have today. But this was a prime Cole Beasley. and oh, all of a sudden, Josh Allen's, like, accuracy deficiencies are just gone.

Now, did he fix some things mechanically? Sure, but they added talent to the mix. I think more recent examples, you have Tua Tagalogoa and Jalen Hertz. Tua, when he was at Alabama, played with four first round wide receivers. He was coming out of the draft, he was considered insanely accurate. Oh, the pinpoint passer doesn't have the best arm in the world, but he's never going to miss. and his rookie season, he was awful with the Miami Dolphins. Going from four first round receivers at Alabama who were literally always open,

like her, he or two and never had to throw into a contested window at Alabama. It was actually incredible. Gets to Miami with Devante, a bused up Devante Parker and Preston Williams and a bunch of slugs. And that accuracy just fell off the face of the earth. He was terrible. and then they add Jalen Waddle to the mix

and he gets a little bit better then they add Tyree Kill to the mix and all of a sudden there were moments last year people were talking about Tua as the MVP and we pulled some data about this too um Jared Gough was another one to throw in there because when Jared Gough joined the Lions

their receiving corps was bad like he had Tyrell Williams and Brashad Parraman and I don't even remember or what other ghost was playing. Caleb Raymond was it like their primary receiver. Obviously, towards the end of golf's first year in Detroit, you know, they ended up signing Josh Reynolds off the free agent wire. Amon Rao started breaking out.

Things got a little bit better before the end of that season. But they took another step forward last year as they added DJ Chark in Amon Rae St. Brown. But Tua and Hertz are great examples because last year, Tua gets Tyree Kill. Jalen Hertz gets A.J. Brown. and when you look at the amount of targets they're throwing to that are of guys that are open with a step or more of separation to a jump from 50% in 2021.

So 50% of his targeted throws were to receivers of a step or more of separation to 67.5 in 2022. That's an increase of 17.5%. So is, I mean, just think about the results that's going to yield. just simply by giving him better pass catchers, you are going to maximize the efficiency of that offense and that quarterback. Yep.

If that receiver is a decent receiver in any way, which we know Tyreek Wadill are, that's basically saying they have, you know, Tua can be a step off, a step behind, step in front, whatever, with his ball, and there still isn't even going to be a defender there to knock it away. Yep. Hertz was in a similar bucket. he was at 56% in 2021.

He gets A.J. Brown, he jumps to 61% in 2022. Goff was at 59% in 2021. And that was even with the Amon Ra breakout towards the end of the year, the Josh Reynolds breakout. And then in 2022, he jumped all the way to 67%. And now there's people talking about golf being the long-term answer for the Lions. Tua, if he didn't have the health concerns, people would be all aboard that. And Jalen Hertz is a legitimate MVP candidate.

probably from here on out every year. So pretty incredible stuff. I think the point I'm making is like, yeah, landing spot matters, but also teams need to do a better job of supporting their quarterbacks. And accuracy can look back. When you look at what Richardson had to deal with in Florida, he was throwing a ball to nobody. Like he had, I don't even know how many plays.

It was probably at least 50 dropbacks this year. with a nine-man protection where he's throwing the ball to one receiver downfield. If this is a guy you're claiming is inaccurate, well, you're definitely not maximizing his skill set by doing that. He literally has one option downfield. He's got a vertical route and a checkdown in some type of nine-man protection.

It's bad football, and you're not going to yield good results. So I think people are overestimating how hard it is to get the most out of him. and I know like immediately we're going to get a lot of responses like Josh Allen was an outlier Jaylen Hertz is an outlier two is an outlier but really those are they're not outliers anymore because this is the new NFL this is what the NFL has become yep yeah unless you unless you have Patrick Mahomes you don't you need to surround your quarterback with actual weapons yes and shoot maybe guys develop into that level quarterback where they you know as they grow and mature and get more experienced, they need less weapons around.

Yeah, I mean, Mahomes started with Tyreek and Kelsey. That's pretty much it. But, you know, that's two very good pieces to have to start with. And now, as we saw last year, was able to, you know, put more weight on his shoulders than relying on his receivers. Alan is going to have digs again. Gabe Davis hasn't really turned into anything. But he's not really a separator. So I wonder if that is part of the issue.

He's never really, because Alan isn't. the most accurate QB. He's gotten better, but he hasn't really taken that next step. Hertz is surrounded by guys. Like all the, Burrow is surrounded by guys. There's just, yeah, Burroughs a great one too. Yeah, that's how they all, that's how the NFL is trending right now. Yeah, Burroughs actually another good example. I didn't, we didn't pull any numbers on him, but, you know, great, one of the most amazing seasons that college football ever comes to the NFL, struggles a little bit as a, as a rookie. obviously gets hurt. And he had other issues too.

He was never an inaccurate quarterback, but the point being receiving help helps or receiving talent helps. They get Jamar Chase immediately vaults him into MVP territory. Yep. One of the worst O lines ever as well when he first started to. Yeah, and I'm sure if we dove into O line stuff too, Chris, we'd bear out some cool information here as well as far as like, you know, how protection plays into it all.

But the thing with Richardson that I really like is he does all of the other quarterbacky things at an extremely high level. Let's talk about pocket awareness and pocket presence. Like this guy, his understanding of what's going on around him, he intimately understands where the defensive linemen are, where those pass rush lanes are opening up, how to step, how to slide, how to back pedal if he needs to do. But he doesn't do that a lot either because he's really good about keeping his tackles clean. but he understands how to manipulate that pocket to buy himself time. And he is actually a throw first quarterback. Like when you see a guy with his athletic ability, you would imagine this is a dude running around trying to make plays of those legs.

That's not really what he does. He actually prefers to set his feet and throw in the pocket. And when he does, it's pretty. It's when that lower half and upper half get disjointed is when he gets a little crazy with the accuracy. But pocket awareness, A plus. I think he's probably the best quarterback in the NFL post-snap as well. Or did I say NFL? I meant in the draft.

Best quarterback in the draft post-nap as well. So, you know, having a pre-snap read, understanding when to come off it based on what the defense should be post-snap, and then, you know, delivering to whether it's a second read or making something happen with his feet, he's been phenomenal at that post-snap. And then throwing with timing and anticipation, which is, by the way, that goes into my accuracy bucket, but he has some of the most impressive timing

anticipatory throws in the class. I would say Bryce Young in bulk has more of them, but he also has a lot more dropbacks. Richardson probably does it at a higher rate, higher level, I would say. He's like, Richardson's legitimately thrown receivers open, you know, it gets very good defenses. We just don't know if it scales, basically,

because it hasn't, He hasn't done it enough. Yeah. Enough volume. Less than 500 career dropbacks at the college law. So if you're going to call Richardson Raw, call him raw because of that. Right. Lack of experience might make him raw.

Sure. But yeah, that's, so all those other finite quarterback things, he handles pressure insanely well. I don't know if you've seen some of the charts Kev Cole or PFF move been putting out lately. But sack rate in relation to how often you're pressured. Richardson is on Mahomes level, which is obviously for an athletic guy, you expect that, but that's not always been the trend. Like Hendon Hooker is the opposite side of the spectrum. He's a very athletic guy as well. He takes a lot of sacks. Some of that is that off of that Josh Hypo offense, the RPO heavy stuff, like the college game is charting him with sacks more often than he probably should be because they're technically runs. But I digress. Point being Richardson handles pressure insanely well better than C.J. Stroud.

I think he likes to deliver the ball on time better than Bryce Young as well. So from like an actual quarterback play standpoint, Richardson has actually really developed, in my opinion. And his throwing mechanics, the only real thing that gets him in trouble is that lower half. Like when his feet aren't set and he doesn't have that proper weight transfer, he gets really wonky. But when you look at the arm, especially for how long his arms are, he, you know, I don't know how well you guys know throwing mechanics, but there's basically five checkpoints. and he hits all five checkpoints in, you know, relatively smoothly. His delivery actually looks similar to Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes is a little more full, like between three-quarter sidearm where Richardson's more three-quarter delivery.

But they hit the same, they hit the five checkpoints pretty much the same and it looks very similar. Yeah, I mean, you're making all great points. It's definitely, you know, yeah, his downsides probably aren't as bad. as what people make them out to be. And just because throwing the ball is the main thing a quarterback does, it probably just stands out to people that, oh, like, this is raw, this is not good. But it really is fixable in other ways other than just the QB getting better at it. With that being said, is there teams that, you know, because of his accuracy issues that, you know,

it could not go well for him if that's where he ends up. Like we saw Carolina basically clear out their receiver room with getting rid of DJ Moore if he was the first pick is that they've probably got enough other stuff that it's okay. But like Houston, Houston has nothing at receiver now with trading Brandon Cooks. Yeah, I worry about Houston for Bryce because of that. In every mock I've done, I've paired Bryce with the receiver at 12 because I'm like I'm not I'm not giving an opportunity here to, you know, for a letdown. but I do worry about Carolina, to be honest. I don't think Thielen, the combo of what, they have Thelan, Chark coming off on ankle surgery,

and Terrace Marshall. It's just not enough for me, man. They've got a solid O line, though, too, that maybe that helps. Solid O line. And to be fair, those options are going to be better than what Richardson played with in college. Like, his supporting cast was legitimately criminal. His coaching was legitimately criminal.

Another really interesting fact, too, about Richardson that no one's really talking about, Chris, is he wasn't really groomed to play quarterback. He was a wide receiver, mostly in high school. He did play some quarterback. Like, he was rotational, but for the most part, his bread and butter was wide receiver. He was set up to play quarterback his senior year, and he ended up missing over half the season. So, like when you talk about some of these guys like Bryce Young and C. Desraub, they've been going to the elite QB camps their entire life to play quarterback. Yep.

So again, this speaks to the rawness of Richardson's experience. But like, for me, there's such a workable element here. That's crazy. And the thing we haven't touched on yet, Chris, is the floor that you get with Richardson because of that athletic ability. When you see what some offenses have done in the league with guys like Allen or Hertz, the ability to put second level defenders in conflict constantly with that quarterback run option, like fields and.

Chicago is another good example. The floor is really high. He's going to give you a pretty decent. Lamar Jackson's obviously a great example. It's going to give you a pretty decent. You can run a functional offense. Yeah. Even if despite talent or other,

I mean, Fields and Lamar are probably the best two examples. I mean, Lamar has earned multiple MVP, one MVP and been, you know, in discussions pretty much almost every year. And he's never had serious talent.

than Mark Andrews when it comes to receivers. Yeah, I think Hollywood's a fine player, right? But he's not a number one. Yeah, and he also just has had injury issues, like, pretty much every year. So there's been stretches where Lamar's always been missing him at some point. Yeah, and Fields had arguably the, I mean, the Bears had possibly one of the least talented teams we've ever seen last year. Just nobody, offensive line receiver.

They had Darnell Mooney, but, like, not a number one. And Chase Claypool, definitely not, you know, a super awesome talent other than, you know, a field stretch, a big field stretcher type guy. But we made it work late in the year. So like he had no continuity with the offense whatsoever. Yep. And they made it work though. And, you know, they didn't win a lot of games, but they, they did enough, you know, they did stuff on offense. Yeah.

And they're like, you actually had a game plan for them. Right. Like that run game could, you know, slash you pretty good if, if you were. ready for it. So yeah. It was really their defense that cost them most of their, their games. I mean, shoot, didn't they beat the 49ers last year, the Bears? That was the first game of the season, right?

Yeah, in the rain, yep. Yeah. But they gave the Eagles a run for their money. The Eagles had to come back late to beat them. It's just, yeah, if you're not. Alliance. Yeah, if you're not set up to stop that offense, it can get you. And with the Bears defense, it's just so bad that usually they're, they couldn't keep

themselves ahead in games. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, that's basically it for me on Richardson. I just wanted to put it out there. I haven't formally made the case for Richardson yet. I still do really like Bryce Young. I still really do like C.J. Stroud. Do you think the lack of experience can be a sign of better things to come in that you think he's advanced in terms of his feel for the game, his pocket awareness, how he anticipates their, like, when you say that, I would think. all right, well, if this guy can do this on 500 dropbacks, what can he do when he has 1,500, 2,000 dropbacks? Yeah. No, that's a great way of putting it, because a lot of people will throw out the Trey Lance stuff. Like, Lance is in the same ball, you know, same area.

I think he had less than 500 dropbacks as well when he was drafted. The difference between the two, one, Richardson's doing what he did at a SEC level, which is basically pro football. Obviously, Lance is coming from FCS. And then two, Lance wasn't near as competent in all the other facets of playing quarterback. He played in a really in a dominant pro-style system that dominated his level of competition even when he wasn't the quarterback. Like he basically, you know, walked into the best supporting cast situation you can imagine for that level and dominated where Richardson is having to do it with literally nobody. So I do think, like, it's tough because you have to, you do have to weigh.

the lack of experience with like, okay, this is going to require some developmental runway. And at what point does that run out? You know, I think one of the most impressive things Richardson's done too that no one, I don't hear a lot of people talk about is his sophomore year, true sophomore year. He's 19, 20 years old, barely played a quarterback in his life. He, the incumbent starter at Florida is a five-star player in his fourth season. And Richardson unseated him by the end of the year in four. him to transfer and that's emory jones now is jones the best quarterback in the world no you like richardson's

definitely a more talented guy than jones but point being with the politics that go on a college football you don't see that happen very often where a five-star quarterback in his senior season it's replaced by a lesser recruited you know quarterback that's like significantly younger than him right so that's a super impressive feat that tells me that is flawed as the florida coaching staff was they were able to see like there is definitely something special about this kid we have to try to figure it out right um they just didn't do a good job of figuring it out necessarily but yeah yeah and land i mean you brought up lance we don't know for sure that lance isn't good either like he like he still just hasn't been able to stay on the field so like the jury's still out on him i mean it doesn't

look great but you'd be crazy to say oh he's definitely bad at this point that's a great point And he probably landed in one of the better situations possible to, like, Kyle Shanahan with those weapons. Like, come on. Right. It'd be great. Put Richardson in that environment and I would bet on him a million times as well. Does Richardson need time to, like, if he got drafted by the Panthers or a team like

the Lions where he could definitely sit behind Jared Gough, is that better for him? Or do you think him playing sooner than later is what is best for his development? So it's tough because you're running into that same decade. where it's like, okay, he lacks experience. So the thing he needs to develop his experience, but there are some mechanical flaws that we want to fix probably before we put them out there. You mentioned the lines.

The lines are probably like, I hate to say, but they're probably the best landing spot for him, period, in the entire NFL because you have the great offensive line. You got a wizard calling plays in Ben Johnson. You have a good QB coach in Mark Brunel. You got weapons in St.

Brown, Jamo, you know, Reynolds as a three is not bad. Caleb Raymond's not bad. They're probably going to draft somebody in this draft. They got a really good run game. So he'd be really well supported in Detroit. And he's got Jared Gough to sit behind. Yeah, like that would, that's a slam dunk situation for him.

I would hate to see him go to a team like Tennessee who just spoiled across the board. Yeah. Yeah, him and Henry might be the nastiest run game in the league. But like Traylon Burks is. not cutting it for me as my number one for like traillan burkes has his own developmental flaws that he's trying to get through now you're going to add like he's a he's not a precise route runner is one example so you're adding not a good separator not a precise route runner to a quarterback that's struggling with accuracy like it's going to look like malik willis and trailon burkes you know like

yeah they'll connect on a 51 yard bomb but everything else is going to suck so um that that would be a nightmare i would worry about carolina but yeah ultimately You want to get him a situation where he doesn't have to play right away, but as soon as he's ready, you can unleash him. I'd argue the Lions are probably the best landing spot for any of these QBs in the draft. Yes. There is not a better landing spot for a QB than the Lions, just all the reasons. Yeah, at least not at the top.

But even, man, probably in the whole draw, I mean, I can't think of another later team that would necessarily be better either. Yeah. with, you know, a path to future starting potential anyway. Like, yeah, obviously it would be awesome to be on the Chiefs, but, you know, you're not playing. Mahomes is going to be the starter. No, for reasonable teams in the market. I was thinking maybe Tampa Bay, but their offensive lines probably scary enough to not want that.

But what kind of would be like Godwin and Evans. Yeah, that's a good one too. Play calling is a little bit, coaching slash play calling is a little bit. It's scarier there than the lines anyway. sure. Yeah, I'm trying to think, is there any other spots that would be better than the lions? It's like Washington, maybe Minnesota, but I would still take- Yeah, me and Richardson would be interesting together because of the Mahomes comparisons. Yeah, but I'd still take the lines over both those. Yeah, I don't think there is a better one.

Yeah, that's a good point. So you heard it here first, folks. Detroit, go get your boy. And it looks like he will be available at three. And realistically speaking, this is a draft podcast, so we might as well talk about it. But getting from six to three is... They have the capital. Yeah, that wouldn't be that expensive. And spoiler alert, we are doing the fantasy points staff mock right now.

And I was controlling the lines. And I did trade up to three for Richardson. So that is a spoiler there. But if the board does play out C.J. Stroud and then Bryce Young, I feel like there's a bunch of teams that need to call about three for sure. That's one last thing before we end. What is what is the chaos event in terms of because we already said like everyone's Stroud young and then whatever after that.

What is the what is the chaos scenario on draft night of the order these QBs go off the board? Like nobody knows what they're doing like like all the teams are now scrambling because so and so went first overall instead of Stroud or something. The chaos event is if the Houston. Texans have more than one guy they love and they take a position player at two and then try to trade up from 12. Oh, so you're saying it's not even, whoever, Stroud at one is not, it can still go at one and then it still be chaos ensue.

Yeah, so Stroud go one and then Houston Sego's Will Anderson Jr. Yeah. And like Lance Zerline actually kind of played with this idea in his last mock and he wasn't claiming it was sourced or anything. He's just saying, hey, this is an avenue no one's really talking about. but if you do if you like say they like Bryce Young and Will Levis now they remember early in the process they were linked to Will Levis of him being their guy which makes so much sense for reasons I won't get into on this podcast but um like that would actually make sense because what how high do they have to get for Levis like seven maybe from 12 yeah from 12 yeah they could do it if they fit all they might not have to move at all well that's true but I think they probably still would just to make sure because you can't can't risk not getting You'd probably want to leapfrog Tennessee just to be sure, at least. Yeah, leapfrog Tennessee.

But the chaos component that you're talking about. So now you'd have Stroud 1 and then all the other quarterbacks available at pick 3. Like Arizona would have 17 trade offers instantly. I mean, it would be absolutely crazy. See, I would think that would reduce the trade offers because teams now saying, all right, well, there's one more QB that has to come off before we can get to us now. teams don't think like we do like we look at our board vertically oh okay if brys young's not there i'll just take cditchard or whatever that's not teams aren't gonna they're gonna have one guy so everyone

that wanted brice young is now back in the mix because he's available at three right so if bryce young was their one guy now some teams might have two guys like you know we said but they're they're definitely aren't going to be teams that like all four you know that's just a fact um you know most most of people i've talked to league people on average teams have like 14 to 16 first round picks this year, which is low. That's a low number. So, you know, and that's going to be a different combination of players for every team. But point being, like, everyone's board is going to be dramatically different.

So I think the chaos, I think that would be the best way to unleash chaos on the draft was if Bryce Young didn't go second overall. Yep. And a position player went there. Yep. All right, Chris, that's going to do it. We're going to get out of here. That is the push for Richardson to number one overall pitch from Brett with the assistant from Chris.

And that's good. Yeah. So thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com.