Fantasy Football Daily - Top 10 CFF Wide Receivers | CFF Total Access

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

On this episode of CFF All Access, the guys talk about TE Risers & Fallers before deep diving into their top 10 CFF WRs for 2024. Evan Stewart has all the talent in the world, but can he put together for the Oregon Ducks? Kevin Concepcion was peppered with volume as the lone weapon for NC State, but will his production diminish with the Wolfpack adding to their arsenal? Enjoy this live stream and take your game to the next level with CFF All Access. Make sure to follow us for more valuable college fantasy football content! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, this is CFF All Access. This is the College Fantasy Football podcast of Fantasy Points. My name is Josh Havalli. I'll be hosting tonight. I'm at CFF Guys on Twitter. I'm joined by Zach Hall at CFF champs and Eric Froton of NBC Sports. The props got over here. We got them on this show. And so we're super excited to be here.

We are doing a daring feed tonight. We are doing a live stream 20 minutes before the start of, the national championship game for the men's. Luckily, it's not as big as the women's, so we should be all right. But, you know, here's the other thing about basketball. You only got to watch the second half of a basketball game anyways. Nothing really happens in the first half.

So we will keep you, we'll be your entertainment for the first half, half time I hit, and then you go back, watch the rest of that game. So excited to be with you guys tonight. We are going to get into our top 10 CFF wide receivers. But before we do that, we have a special segment tonight.

We want to talk to you guys about Titan, risers and fallers. And so Jared Palm Grim of Chasing the Natty and Campus Canton, he put out a bunch of tweets this week talking about ADP risers and followers, and he had one about tight ends. And so I'm going to share a graphic with you and then Froton.

I mean, he had some things that he loves talking about tight ends. If you get them on tight ends, he will rant. So we're going to give the floor to Froton and let him take things over from here. Yeah, well, I mean, if you notice anything about this ADP risers graphic, I don't know if it's up there.

yet or what our technical capabilities are at the moment. But the five names that we got, Bryson Nesbitt, Arande Gadsden, Tyler Warren, Penn State, Dalvin Smith, Western Kentucky, and Holden Willis of Middle Tennessee. Now, there's something that three of these five tight ends have in common. You've got three Tito's. Now, that's, as everyone knows, if you're watching this and you're a college fantasy football enthusiast,

that is a tight end in title only. And you have Gadsden, Dalvin Smith, and Holden Willis. At least Holden Willis had at least the respect of giving us 6% of his snaps in line, a mere 24 routes run of his 399 pass reps lined up for us. So that is the best of that group in terms of how often they actually lined up at the tight end position. yet they're being considered tight ends. And this is an artificial bump.

They shouldn't be tight ends. That's why they're going up in the ADPs because everybody went and took a look and said, all right, whoa, I can cheat the system with Holden Willis and with Dalvin Smith and with Aronday Gadsden. They should be outlawed. None of the three are actual tight ends. None of them hit even the 10% snap threshold

that I think should be utilized, which is the baseball model, which is at least if you hit 10% of your snap. from an inline position, and we have plenty of technology that's easy to do nowadays, then you should be considered a tight end. So I'm going to eliminate all of them. Tilo Warren's going up because it's the tight end legacy at Penn State. We started with Theo Johnson last year where he, my gosh, he tested like an absolute freak.

And they expect Warren to do the same. Had good per route numbers. The idea is hopefully he gets a larger target share, you know, where he isn't going to be in a 50. 50 situation with Johnson. You do have Andrew Repelia there as well, but Tyler Warren's looking pretty attractive, and I can understand why he's getting a bump. Yeah, I love that, man. I love your take. We got a lot of takes here in the comments. Shane said no Tito's over here. And, Steve. My man. I mean, if we're talking about the vodka, you know, from Austin, I'm a little, I'm a little biased there, but, you know, but, you know, for head-ins, whatever, whatever. But, yeah,

We got a- calling me out for not having a Tito song. You know what? That's a great point, Clint. You have to give it up to him. If anything, I guarantee you by the Fantasy Football Expo for karaoke, I will have a Tito song ready.

I don't care if I have to go Jackson-Five, go Tito Jackson, if I have to stretch it, whatever has to be done to get a Tito song on the stage, on the big stage at the Expo. Great call. There we go. It's been spoken into existence.

We will have a Tito. song by the expo. Be there, B square. There we go. There we go. Let's see what else we got here in the comments. Tideon U by Dan Brown. Now, do you have any comments on the fallers there that you wanted to talk about as well? Or was it just, you just want to talk about Tito's? Oh, sure. I'll talk about the fallers. Why is Mitchell Finn's a faller? What's going to? Oh, I'm sorry. All of a sudden, Notre Dame, Riley Leonard comes in. They're going to stop throw on the ball of the tight end. Right. Exactly. Evans was a stud. on a proud basis last year.

Nobody's given the respect he deserves. I'm upset that I'm talking about this right now live. Clint Carlson, the other guys in the league, I'm going to see, because I got him in the, I want to say, 18th, 19, 20th round in the last champions draft. All right, 7% of his snaps out wide, 48% in the slot. All right.

2.2 yards per route. I believe that is the fourth best yards per route average of, you know, all tight ends returning this season. if not, I think even higher than that. And we're talking about rarefied air of guys that are, you know, in that area. Obviously, it's Bowers, Eric Hall, Fannin Jr., respect Harold Fannin. He hasn't been going to. You know, typically the third tight end off the board, 2.6 yards per route.

Colston Loveland and then Mitchell Evans. So he's literally third in terms of returning tight ends in that vital metric. It's just a matter of being out there more. He got hurt, which allowed Holden stays to come in. But even still, you know, you know, Evans got in eight games, 40 targets, caught 29 for 422 yards in a touchdown. Now, with tight ends,

if I'll send out my tight end article from last year, the benchmarks I'm looking for are 40, 40, 40.004, the magic four lines. So can you get 40 receptions, 400 yards, and four touchdowns? And if you can't, can you make up for it in one of those others? Can you get 50 receptions? I think with Evans, if you just, I mean, we only see the trend line through eight games. we're giving him 13, you know, which is what most of the other guys that are in his class are being, you know, measured on, he's going to be at that 60 target mark, you know? And that's,

that's a magic number because only 10 guys, excuse me, 11 guys last season got 60 targets as a tight end. So with that, I can't, I can't possibly understand why you do that to my man, Mitchell Evans, plus broke 10 tackles on 29 receptions. Okay. Oh yeah, that happens all the time. I guess the 35% broken tackle rates is tight ends. Okay, 14 and a half yards for catch, come on. Stop the insanity. And none of the Champions League are allowed to take them. That's mine.

Yeah, incredible case that you just made from Mitchell Evans. Hopefully nobody's watching this. Actually, we have like 240 people watching this. Oh. You know, cat's on the bag at this point. Here we go. He stinks. Don't draft him.

This is great. This is why we're here. So, yeah, you have a lot of it. any comments on any of these guys, Zach, any guys that are falling or the risers? Not a lot here. I mean, the Georgia guys don't surprise me much that we're seeing those guys both drop

a little bit. Brand Kethe, I think that's an interesting one where he's coming back from injury. So I know he's a guy that projects really high for us, but it's really going to come down to how is he going to come back from that? I like, you know,

that they have cam-rising. It sounds like he's back. So I think that's only going to help him this year. He's a guy that that I kind of like with where you're getting him value-wise, where you can kind of wait just a little bit to get him. And some draft, some drafts he's going a little bit higher, but he was one that I guess surprised

me a little bit that he's falling here. But yeah, not outside of that, you know, I think Froton nailed it with what he brought tonight. So I will say just getting on to the rest of them since I only really addressed one. It's obvious with Delp and Eurosec. They're just cannibalized.

each other, I will say, with Eurasek. I'm slightly bullish on the fact that I don't think he can go down going to Georgia, because if you look at the way that tight ends were used at Stanford by Troy Taylor last year, Yurasek was and Sam Roush both. So Eurasek was there. He gets her. Sam Rouch takes over, and he is now the start over there. They were blocking on 40% of their pass rate. I mean, that's astronomical. And they were already kind of, you know, splitting. Rosh was already getting a decent amount of time and cutting in before EurSet came in. So, I mean, just when you're coming from a scheme that's run a block in 40% of the time, then you're going to Georgia, which is one more prolific tight end schemes in the country.

I mean, even, you know, for his part, Del, it was very productive on a per target basis. He got 30 targets, caught 24, is, I want to say second among returning tight ends, if not third. in reception percentage. So you can't argue with what he did on a printout basis. It's just a matter of how they'll be distributed. And even if you're just taking and halving what you got out of Bowers and Delp, because, you know, Bowers is still up there in the 800, you know, yard mark, you know, somewhere that reaches me, 717, they combine for 1,000 yards.

If you're having that, that's still, you know, you're in the 40 reception 500 yard mark with about four or five tight ends. You're still in a productive range. I will say with Keithy, really surprised to see that he's at 1512 here in the more public market. Where we're at in the Champions League, which we are in our third league,

and we'll literally draft in as we speak. I want to say we're in the ninth, eighth round right now. And Josh is on the clock as it would happen. So, yeah, it's on you. Jackson Arles and the 8th. So in that Bainbridge are sometimes guessed and when he feels like gracing us with his presence, 4-9 took Brant Keithy. So that is a full 11 round difference from the 1512 that we're seeing on on the public stuff that Jared has gracefully tabulated for us. So Bainbridge does not agree. And he's, I would say, probably going in that four to six range

in these sharp drafts. So could be a market efficiency there on Keith. as well as Evans in my opinion. Yeah, that's good. Well, here, let me, before you transition to wide receivers, I want to ask you guys a question. This is a leading question. No. But what were our feelings back in the day on Jalen Samuels?

Was he a cheat code? I mean, he was a cheat code, but was he a legal tight-in? Like, you know, Eric, I know you got opinions on who counts. Does Jalen Samuels, does he count as a tight-in? Jailen Samuels absolutely count as a tight-end. Huge, huge difference. between the Tito's of the 2024 generation and the Tito's of Yor. You see, with Jalen Samuels, he lined up in tight end most of the time.

He was kind of an H-back, you know, so he'd move around the formation. But like he's lining up in a pass, block receiving. At least he's out there taking passes. He's moving around the formation. He would switch in short-yarded situations to be that battering ram, you know, on the goal line or in very short-yardage. But then he flexed right out. you know, to be in a tightout.

So I feel like he had more of a case to be in that H-back style tight end, where, you know, you're still lined up sort of in line, but you're offset. He did a lot more of that than just being a straight up wide receiver like Holden Willis and Arande Gadsden-Smith are. They're straight-up wide-outs. At least, you know, you're getting backfield. You're getting all different types of formations and lineups out of Jalen Samuels.

I don't have the numbers offhand, but we can table that. Yeah. Well, so I have a high risk, high reward, probably a future Jalen Samuels for us today. I got Elijah Lofton from Miami. I don't know if you guys have been seeing the reports coming out of camp there. But this guy right now is actually the starting running back at Miami. He's going to come in the spring game and he's going to be taking all the running back reps. But he's not like a CJ Donaldson, right? He's not going to play there forever. They're actually going to be going after a running back in the portal. If Mark Fletcher's not healthy, if Mark Fletcher's healthy, he's going to get the carries.

But Lofton is going to get carries in this offense. And they're already saying he's a top 15 player at the University of Miami, which may or may not be saying much because it's the University of Miami. But Lofton's a guy that is going to get carries out of the backfield. He's going to be featured in this offense, even as a true freshman. And he basically only gets drafted by me at this point, which might be an indication that you should not draft it. I'm the only guy going after him.

But Elijah Lofton is a name that I think that people should know. because he's either going to score like 1.5 fantasy points per game and you can make fun of me on Twitter. So that's a reason to know him or there is a possibility that he may be the next Jalen Samuel. So just watch out for that guy. He's a guy for you to draft in dynasties. I'll be drafting him in CFF best ball leagues and you can either laugh at me or you can petition to go after him. Anybody else? I don't know if you guys have heard anything about Elijah Lofton. You've ever heard the name before. Do you guys have any comments about Elijah Lofton? I hear about Elijah Lofden about five times a day from Josh, text from Josh, where I feel like he's just wanting me to bump up that projection by quite a bit because I just keep getting text after text on him.

So yeah, I've heard of him. Sounds like that could be a good name to know though heading into the draft season here. Yeah, he's either good name to know or, well, I have a good kick out of me putting him as my tight in third. He's my tight in probably my tight in 23 or something at this point. but I make sure to draft them every draft. But remember that name, future Jalen Samuels, Elijah Lofton. There we go. You heard it here first.

I'm a man of the people. I promise this on Twitter. So here we are. We would transition now to the topic of the hour, which is top 10 CFF wide receivers. And so I got a graphic for us to put up here. I'm going to share my screen. And let's see here.

Oh, yeah, we're talking about top 10 wide receivers. and I am butchering this sharing the screen here. But top 10 wide receivers, you know, we're not very unique in some of our wide receivers, at least at the top three here. We have Tetrault and McMillan. We have Luther Burden and we have Tori Horton, right? And, you know, any way that you go with that, like we had some different orders here, but these are pretty much the consensus top three that are going in drafts right now.

now. And because all of us are long-winded, we literally spent the first 15 minutes talking about tight ends. We are going to skip those first three because I'm sure that many of you guys have a ton of information on them. Touch around McMillan is playing. I don't know if you know this, but he's playing with his high school quarterback at Arizona. So he gets a lot of targets. Luther Burden is a beast. So he gets a lot of targets. And Torrey Horton is absolute target monster at Colorado State. So there we go. That is all we're going to talk about with those three. But the rest of these seven, we're going to deep dive into a little bit more. And so each of us have taken a little bit, taken one of the, or two of these guys, and we're going to break them down here. We're going to

talk about a few different things with these guys, right? Their player profile, the play caller that they're going to be with. And then we're also going to talk about their team situation and then talk about them a little bit and have a discussion question for each one. So the first one that we have up here is going to be Evan Stewart. And so Evan Stewart is a guy that several of us know, whether you're a Debbie C2C, CFF, you know who Evan Stewart is. Right now, for many people, he is their Debbie wide receiver one. And I respect that for sure. He's a guy that is is Uber talented. But his first couple years at Texas A&M, the first year he came on at the end of the year, the second year, man, he started, he started out of the gate on fire, right?

I think the guy had like 23 catches for like, I don't know, 19 catches, 257 yards, like two touchdowns for over the first two games. And then over like the last eight that he played, he literally had 19 catches for 257 yards and two touchdowns. So same production, but a lot more games. And really the correlation there is that the first couple games, he actually played with Connor Wegman, who's a guy that he has. had a lot of chemistry with to end his freshman year.

And then they had a few different QBs that played there at Texas A&M. He has now transferred over to Oregon, right? They scooped them up in the transfer transfer portal after some like weird deals with Tennessee and Ole Miss backing off. And but he ends up landing at Oregon, lands in a really good opportunity. He has Will Stein as his OC. Will Stein has been an OC for two total years. one at Oregon and one at UTSA.

But those two years have been monsters for his wide receiver ones. Both have been outside wide receivers. Zakari Franklin, their ETSA, and then he had, who we all know, Troy Franklin this last year, who just had an absolute monster year.

But yeah, they averaged 22.3 fancy points for game, 124 targets, 88 receptions, 1,2106 yards, and 14.5 touchdowns. If we just counted Will Stein's two years as a play caller. He would be the highest, are the best play caller for wide receiver ones in our database at 22.3 fancy points per game.

So he's been unbelievable as a play caller so far in his two years for wide receiver ones. Team situation got a new QB, but it's a guy that's been around forever in Dylan Gabriel. They're Oregon, but everybody else returns, except Troy Franklin, which he's stepping into that role. And that's included.

including Tess Johnson. And so our projections have Evan Stewart at 110 targets, 80 receptions. We have 1,056 yards and 9 touchdowns for 20.9 fantasy points per game. He is our wide receiver four in our projections. But we have a 56% confidence rating on Evan Stewart, where every other player in our top 10, we really have in the 80% range almost. And so, Zach, I'm going to let you explain a little bit, what is our confidence rating? And then, Froton, I got a question for you right after that. Yeah. So just real quickly, we just developed this confidence rating as we're going through projections for guys where there may be a little bit more risky or, you know, maybe just lesser knowns about them. And so when you look at that confidence ranking for any of these positions we

have, taking into account player history, how well they've done, you know, not just last season, but prior seasons as well. Looking at play caller or system history, how well they use that certain position in their system. We're looking at experience in the system, which is a knock on Evan Stewart here just because he's new. So that's new. We'll kind of take him down a little bit.

We look at injury concerns. We're looking at this is a big one too, right? If a guy like Colin Lacey was one guy where he'll see his confidence low, well just because we aren't sure yet where they where they're going to be are they going to be that wide receiver one so we factor that in a little bit um transfers so if they're transferring up or down right a level um that's taken into account so there's a whole bunch of things that we're just taking a look at putting together and then saying all right here's here's where we feel like if this is the wide receiver one in the system and does what he's capable of this is what the projection is but based on all these

other factors where evan stewart just doesn't have a ton of production over the course of a season outside of a few games and he's in a new system. So that that kind of knocks him down whereas you'll see a guy like Tori Horton who he's added confidence in 95 just because we've seen him do it in that system right. So and a lot of a lot of familiarity there. So that's that's the a little bit behind the confidence that you'll see on the the rankings that we have. Yeah, that's really good.

So Froton what do you think are we you know what do you think the chances are that that Evan Stewart is a bust this year? Is it really kind of 50-50 like we've kind of proposed it in our confidence rating? Or do you see it as, nah, he's more of it. He's going to hit this year. Well, I mean, I think you could take a look at what Troy Franklin did last year. How was he's filling that role as Willie, prime time Willie Stein's X. 81 catches, 114 targets, 13, 83 yards, 17 yards per catch, 14 touchdowns in 13 games.

That is, in terms of yardage. accrued six amongst all wideouts. It's also six in yards per route, three point two yards per route. The question is, do you think Evan Stewart is up to Troy Franklin skills-wise? I think he's better, frankly. In terms of my 2025 from a Devi perspective, I think you could credibly say he's number two. I have Tederoa as my one. I need to see a little bit more downfield stuff from Luther Burton. He's great with the extended handoffs. You know, within 10. yards of the line scrimmage, but I want to see it downfield. I still think that's very much open between the two. So, I mean, when you're talking about a guy who's a top three NFL talent,

he's going into a prime time system, plug and play. I mean, it's all there. I feel really good. I feel like that maybe that's a little conservative on the 50% side. I might put it like 65, you know, call it two thirds. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you know, I picked him in this last draft that they were in the champion series that we're all doing together after you guys both passed. I took him the last draft. So what I was has confidence in them? No, that's good. Yeah, I got Tetaro McMillan, our wide receiver one here.

And then I got came around and got Evan Stewart. So I was very happy with that hall. I mean, look, like Tetaroa, or Tetrault, Evan Stewart, I can't imagine that he doesn't hit just because I really trust Will Stein. But I think these are things. I think everything that we baked into the confidence rating is something that you, you should be considering. And Evan Stewart, he's coming probably into a more secure system, but there's lots of guys that just because you see projections out there,

you need to understand that some of those projections do come with some risk to them. And so I just wanted to point that out as we talked about it. And then instead of talking about another Oregon player later, we're going to skip real quick to Ted Johnson. He's our wide receiver 8 here, but he's another guy that's in the system. And look, Ted Johnson is, was phenomenal last year, broke out, with his brother Bo Nix. And Will Stein, as good as he's been with wide receiver ones,

he's been crazy good with wide receiver twos as well. Tess Johnson had 18.9 fancy points per game last year. In the year before that, Joshua Seafas had 17.2. So in his two years, man, his wide receivers average in a thousand yards, 87 catches and eight touchdowns, 18 fancy points per game. That's right around right with Tess scored last year. We have an 88% confidence score because he's, been in the system for an extra year.

So my question for you guys, and either one of you guys can go first on this, but for a time, maybe you should go first since Zach went first last time. Would you rather have Evan Stewart at the end of round one, which is what his ADP is, or Ted Johnson at the end of round two? That's a really good question. No, no, go for it, Zach. I was just going to say that's tough because I've taken, I like Evan Stewart when you, I really liked him when you were getting him towards the end of round.

two. He's starting to creep up a little bit now, which I still don't mind him. Like, I still love the value that you can get. Like, I think Evan Stewart's going to have a great year. But now, just kind of where Evan Stewart's going now and how some of these drafts have fallen, I kind of like Tess Johnson more, getting him kind of at that back end of two. If you can get him in round three, then I love being able to do that just because, again, he did it last year. He's been in this system. I just feel like that's, he's a guy that he's kind of a sure thing there, it feels like. So that's kind of how I've viewed this. Evan Stewart, I loved him when you got him in the middle of the second round or even the end. And now that he's kind of creeping up a little bit,

I'm starting to like Tess Johnson. Yeah, that's really good. Hey, Frotan, before you answer, hey, in the comments, if you guys want to tell us who you guys got, Tess or Evan, love to hear that too. Go ahead, Frotan. Yeah, and speaking of the comments, props to Stephen Johnson, he's wearing his play college fantasy football shirt right now, supporting the cause. I will say this, man, it's a nice problem to have choosing between Tess Johnson and Evan Stewart because two of the top six yards per route leaders nationwide in the entire FBS. Two of them went to Oregon of the top six, Tess Johnson and Troy Franklin. So again, this is such an explosive system. Now, they're going the big 10. I know there's probably somebody out there saying, but they're going the big 10.

They're going to the big 10 for Oton, and you're right. And you're right. I am going to say, I would prefer Evan Stewart in the early second, which is where I kind of see him going, as opposed to Ted Johnson in the late second. And the reason why is simply, you know, it's the outside exposition and he's just simply a better overall receiver. I want the high end of what I think Evan Stewart could be, whereas Tedd Johnson is more of an extended handoff guy, you know, 7.6 A-DOT. All right. Now, he was top 10 in Yak, eight and a half yards after catch, you know, which is obviously a big deal, but only four contested targets all season long.

He got two contested targets. That's almost, I mean, it's unbelievable. I see him in the same vein that I see Brennan Presley, which is he is a volume-dependent guy, you know, in a big time offense that is having some, you know, change over the QB position from Bo Nix to Dylan Gabriel. It's a little bit different. Tess Johnson obviously was the, is the stepbrother of Bo Nix, you know, so it doesn't get much tighter than that.

And when you're a slot receiver, you know, you're kind of dependent on that rhythm. I just think there are more ways for Evan Stewart to be a outsized, you know, super profitable wide receiver who makes a, you know, you know, in every week impact, then Tess Johnson as a slot receiver who's going to be more volume dependent and, you know, he needs to get the ball in space. So I just think I'm going to go with the overall talent there, though I've drafted both of them. Yes, I love that, man. I love this comment from Chris Moxley coming with the random facts. Tess can deadlift 500 pounds at 150 pounds. Man is a minis. Oh, look, I'm picking them for that reason. I'm 150 pounds myself. So here we are.

Chris Mosley is a menace out there on the bird trails of South Carolina. Okay. Yes. He's all seen the photos on Twitter. You be careful. Do not get in that swarthy man's way, okay? If he is trying to get a shot of a particular bird. Yes.

Shout out to us too, man. Like we can get Kevin Concepcion's name spelled correctly on here, but Tess Johnson? Nope. No, no, sir. We cannot get that one right. No, we can't get Tess. No, we got to keep everybody on their toes. So real quick, we had a comment here before we go on to Jalen Royals, but why the F is no one

drafting Matthew Golden all of a sudden. Did he switch to table tennis or something? Carl Golf is coming hot at us right now. He's going on. And it's true. Was he a DNP? Was he a UDFA in our last one? I think he got, Golden got picked like mid 20s. Yeah, I will say after I took him in like the 15th round, I want to say or something in the first one and then quickly was like, oh, okay, I'm on a step with this. second team okay well let's back off that but that's right yeah he is he is being disrespected the problem is and i had this conversation today with with my good friend the cff coordinator joe caposie uh bill ricka's finest and a great defensive coordinator in his own

right uh where we were talking about matthew golden and it's like is he is he going to be the next jordan whittington that mid carter that just that just milked toast, uninspiring slot receiver in that offense who just does enough, turns out enough routes to be on the props list every week. And for me to be able to fade every single week profit from, I could from Jordan Whittington, legitimate all big 12 props performer. He was great. I miss Joy. I'm going to miss Jordan. This is gold, right? This is a great point. I love Jordan. I might say this is golden, but a lot of money out Jordan Whittington. You know that with Jacko.

Jackos. Oh, yeah. Yes, yeah, he's running a second team. That's basically it. DeAndre Moore's run the slot, cooking Bond are outside right now. So if he makes him move, we'll start drafting him again. Shane likes Sam Brown better. If he was still at Houston, Matthew Golden, I would also probably like Sam Brown better at this point.

Sam Brown went pretty late in the last expert's draft as well, you know, to complete line. And it was both them falling in favor. I wonder what that kind of accounts were because the number just sitting there being like, Sam Brown's still out there. All right. All right. Still got Sam Brown to lean on. And yes.

He ended up going. I'll control if it's stump for me here. There we go. Well, we got 28 minutes. If we're going to keep to our word of letting people watch the second half of this deal. So I'm going to let you take Jalen Royals here and run with them. He is our wide receiver five, Proton. Okay.

Not until I find Sam Brown. I can't find him. I can't find him. I can't find him. All right. No problem. moving on. It's my OCD.

I can't help it. It's why I'm a good writer. It's because I get locked in. I'm like, I have to find Sam Brown's ADP. I love it. Got to find his route numbers. Yeah, I'm a geek.

All right. Well, hey, Jalen Royals. Blake Anderson, everybody's favorite, right, out there from Arizona State. Made a legend out of our boy, Omar Blaylock. Was that, was that Omar Blaylock? Is that exactly his name? Right. Seventh round.

Somehow that guy squeeze into an NFL draft position, I think. He was actually taking it. end. You know, we had obviously the Corey Rucker explosion, the revival, who now would have an act two of Corey Rucker over there at Arkansas State, who isn't excited about that. But now he's over in Utah State. And he had had a chance to kind of turn this roster over and remold it in his image. And in doing so, we know what Blake Anderson wants to do when he's to throw the ball. not the super prolific on a per game basis last thing, 33 and a half pass for game. Not bad.

You know, we'll take it. It's in that 40 range. 254 passing yards per game. It's 44th. But productive, they cashed in. 35 passing touchdowns. That's actually the eighth most as a team in the FBS last year. It doesn't sound like much, does it?

You know, but that's as a team. So between Cooper Lagos and Company, that's what. they were to produce, 33 points per game, 26th in the country. So once again, you know, where Blake Amson goes, points follow. And so does, you know, pretty good passing game. That 253 yards per game is a little down from his, we've seen from him on a yearly basis. I mean, gosh, you remember some of those old school justice days, our boy justice. He was raining up.

They had the Bonner. They had the two-man weave at quarterback. back, like they were putting up 40 touchdowns a game. They were putting up well over 300. So that was a real boon to be there. Fortunately for Royals, no more Tyler Vons. Obviously, he was a different position. He lines up wide. 91% of the times where Avon was the slot. But hey, look, there goes 20%, 12, 26% of the target share, 120 targets are gone. For his part, lead outside X, Jalen Royals, 21% target share.

So I think we could relics. We see that bump. You know, he could maybe even get into that golden 30% mark. I mean, if he does, if he's getting 13, 140 targets. I mean, he could take the top off of the projection. As for last year, 70 of 99, just missed the century mark. 71% reception rate on a 13-yard ADOT. Not bad.

One of a rare club, which is 7013 club, which I will write about later. you guys, I'll kind of teach you on that. But that being said, really catch it in 15 touchdowns. Again, when you're putting up 35 passing touchdowns, that's what's going to happen. And that really kind of separates him from a lot of his peers and why he is a top 10 receiver, is that potential in their proclivity for passing the ball. As far as his overall grades, 79th percentile overall, 80th percentile receiving grade from PFF, as stated, 2.2 yards per route, 50.

out of 121 qualifying receivers with 70 plus targets. So, you know, this isn't an elite wide receiver on his own. He is kind of more of a system product. 13A.A.D. has mentioned six yards after catch, that's 56. Where he is particularly good. I mean, he catches, contested catches 17 to 23. 74th, 74% contested catch rate. That's fourth best nationally.

Pretty damn good. 23% missed tackle rate. That's 28th. nationally, Dodge 16th tackles, and a 142 passer rating when targeted. That's excellent. And 158 is perfect. So what I really do like about his profile to tie it up, 29% downfield target rate. So Tyler Vons wasn't getting that.

That's what Royals was down there doing. I did watch a couple of his games in preparation for this. And a couple of, I mean, what you're going to get from that scheme where there's so many receivers running routes is sometimes you get forgotten. And against Colorado State, he had three. touchdowns and two of them were just bare naked jail breaks. Not getting anything particularly amazing, he did adjust well to one of the catches, you know, in order to make it. But I mean, if you had to separation for you to separate and come back and then take it.

So, I mean, I see athleticism. It's good. You know, he has athleticism. He has skill. He will get, you know, 50% of, 45% of his targets were downfield, 55% were, you know, within nine yards of the line of scrimmage. He does have the ability to take it to the house or get downfield. field. So I feel pretty good about Royals' projection. Is he an NFL caliber guy? You know, probably not. But in CFF,

system matters. And he is in a place that you want to be. And he's the lead dog there. So give me the lead ex-wide receiver for Blake Anderson, Jalen Royals. Yeah, I love that. And, you know, I think one of the things you mentioned right with the vacated production from Thoreauvon's, one of the things that one that Zach and I've been looking into is it's always a slot and outside wide receiver that a wide receiver one and wide receiver two in that system and right now the guy that uh jared jared palm grim and i went i went on the show and i was we were raving about robert freeman the fourth string slot receiver that's come in there at utah state but that's the guy like that's the most dynamic guy in the slot at this point in my opinion and he's fourth or fifth string right now

in the depth chart and so it really is like jaylin roy and everybody else. So I think that's a really good point. Zach, you have anything on Jalen? Just real quick, you know, Froton already kind of brought it up, but just that target share, it feels like there's room for to grow there, right? Where we've seen some of these wide receiver ones in this system, especially on the outside get 28 to 30% of that target share. So definitely some upside on that piece. The one thing that really sticks out to me, though, is the 15 touchdowns. which I'm wondering if he'll be able to repeat that this year. We don't see that a ton in this system. 15's pretty much on the high end.

So that could be a little bit of a hit to his value, maybe this upcoming season. But again, still feels like all the production is going to be there for him. Yeah, and keep in mind with Blaylock, he got like 160 targets one year. Yeah. That's 63 more targets than one. what Royals got.

So yeah, I mean, will there be a regression in the mean? I think certainly, I think you can make that up and just volume, you know, because there's certainly room.

You only had 1,084 receiving yards. Yeah. And one of those, one of those quarterbacks is going to hit for sure. So, Zach, you want to take us on?

Yeah, you want to take us on to our next wide receiver? Yeah, Ricky White, wide receiver at UNLV. So last year, I am at 189 reception over yards and 8-10.

He averaged around 20 points. game, which put him at wide receivers. So really good year from him. He had six top 15 performances last year. Seven times he went over 100 yards, which is always good to see. I like to look at how many times they're targeted each week. Six times he had 10 plus targets. Two additional times he had nine. So eight times he had at least nine plus targets, which is what you're going to want in CFF. The other interesting thing, he only had eight touchdowns on the season, but he didn't have a receiving touchdown until week seven. So he did all of that in the back half of the year. And he really, really the difference was when Jaden Maiva took over that quarterback spot.

And I think they had that they had a pretty good connection there. He's currently going as the fifth receiver off the board, mid second round guy, ADP. We have him at 11.6. We have projected at 15.6 points per game, which is down from where he was last year. Looking at Brendan, Mary, and his play caller, we have limited play calling data for him, but he did have a thousand-yard receiver when he was O.C. at Howard. And as a passing game coordinator at Texas, that's where Wordby had 111 targets. There are 760 yards, nine touchdowns. He also had 2021. He was at Pitt with Jordan Addison.

as a wide receiver coach. So you saw 145 targets for 100 reception and 1,500, almost 1,600 yards there. So I like what where Marion comes from and what he did last year. He has a new quarterback, though, this year, which we talked about it, I believe, last week with Sluca and then Hodge, Malik Williams, right? Who's going to be that guy? Both of those guys coming from FCS. So what kind of quarterback are we going to get?

Are we going to get a guy that can get him the ball? That's kind of one thing that I guess jumps out to me a little bit, but they do have four starters back on the offensive line. They have some returning running backs as well. But I feel like he's definitely the centerpiece of this offense, right? As long as they get a quarterback to get him the ball, he's going to be able to put up close to those same numbers that we saw last year. and really took off with when Jaden Maiva took over.

So if they can get a competent quarterback in there, I think he's got a chance to have another really good season. But again, I don't know if you guys have thoughts on just that quarterback. What kind of quarterback are we going to get in this system? And are they going to run a similar system? We don't really have a ton of history on with Brendan Murray. And I think we have ideas of what he's going to do. but there's just not a lot of actually seeing him do it at this level.

Yeah, I mean, I talk to a guy that's pretty plugged in there, you know, V quite a bit about what their system's going to look like this year. And he was saying, you can see this, right? And the guys that they've got Hajman Leak Williams and Matthew Sluka bat on and out this year, that they're trying to go away from passing it so much. They felt like maybe I shouldn't be saying all this on there. There were reasons why they had to pass as much as they did. And they don't want to pass that much.

I think they want to be more like the go-go offense to running backs on the same side, more creative in that way. I think the emphasis that they had on Ricky White, they might want to distribute that a little bit more. So I was told, man, like, maybe he shouldn't be going as high as he is, but it's hard to ignore that production that he had over the last six weeks of the year. I mean, he was just flat out incredible. I don't know what you do with that.

I mean, sometimes the guy is just so talented that even he can overcome. you know, what coaches want to do. So what do you think, Froton? I mean, the thing that was great about Y2, normally was the ultra-productive, almost 1,500 yards, 135 targets. You know, I mean, that's insane. But he started slow. Bryant, week one, you had two catches for five yards,

then Michigan week two, two catches for 31. And he proceeded to just absolutely take the top off of every defense in the mountain west, pretty much. I mean, what a performance. But like you're saying, you know, is that something that's repeatable from year to year? Is that something they want to do is be forced to, you know, be vertical all the time? It got them to the conference championship game where UNLV stunk forever leading up to that. Just forever. No big deal.

So I don't know. I'm sure they want to get away from throwing it as much they did. But, man, it was pretty successful. Yeah, you have to turn over at QB, especially if Sluke is there, you have a lot. a dual threat, you know, more of it. But it's tough to look at these numbers and say, yeah, I'm not going to draft Ricky White in the top 10.

Right. It's tough to put you out of that top. That wide receiver won. You know, how do you look at them and say, no, I don't want to. Yeah, absolutely. No, you're 100% right. I mean, it's hard to not take the shots on them. So totally agree.

Okay, we're going to move on to Kevin Concepcion. When we first threw up this graphic, our top 10, And Steve had a comment. He said Casey overrated. And what I would say to you, Steve, is that our other two guys here would absolutely agree with you. I'm the reason why he is as high as he is. I had him ranked the highest.

I think Proton maybe had him at 10. And Zach had him at 8. And so, yeah, you know, but, you know, Casey, you know, Kevin Concepcion, he was unbelievable as a true freshman. He was one of my big calls the first week when they played Yukon. I was like, hey, listen. And DFS, this guy's going to smash. and then he had two catches for 34 yards.

I looked like an idiot. I just picked, you know, the wrong week to like him. Because every other week he was killing it, right? He had 19 fantasy points per game on the year, right? He had 71 catches for 839 yards and 10 touchdowns. And then he had 41 carries for, what, like 300 yards on top of that. And so we know Robert and I is his play caller. Robert and I is super creative.

He gets the ball on his playoff. makers hands. That's what he does. We talked about him pretty ad nauseum on a podcast that Zach and I did when Eric and Mike who's still missing were out at the bachelor party. So y'all can go back and listen to that. If you want to know more about Robert and I, but he's a guy that, you know, again, he loves to feature his playmakers. But man, there are a ton of them in this offense right now. They brought in Jordan Waters at running back. They brought in Gracie McCall to come be the QB because they didn't like what they had last year. And then they brought in Noah Rogers, a former five star. And then they also brought in Wesley Grimes, who was pretty highly rated on on three in their rating system.

And so a guy that's produced a little bit at Wake Forest. And so there's, you know, there's a bunch of talent now here at North Carolina State. So my question for you guys, like, can we trust Kevin Concepcion to produce what he did last year with all of this influx of talent at the wide receiver? and the running back position. I would say, I mean, you've got to remember with him a lot of his values derived from carries. You know, he was getting, he didn't get a single carry in any of the first five games last year. Zero. Yep.

He gets one in week six for six yards. And then he proceeds to go. They just decide that, all right, Jordan Houston, while we're going to keep considering him the starter so that we can have a props line on him every week. and we can take us under every week, you know, which we appreciate. I mean, Concepcion was the one who was driving the bus, you know, for that entire offense for the last eight games of the season. It's all there, and you can look at it, and it's all in black and white. I mean, they were desperate.

You said, they have restocked the cupboard, you know, in theory, like you said, bringing in transfer portal additions and what have you. So they shouldn't have to lean on this heavy slot usage. moving him all over the place like he's a souped up Devo samuelan he was getting six, seven carries a gain he was averaging over the second half. So I mean, that's just wild usage. We'll see how it goes for the season. I think he is more of a high end number two, you know, a good solid number two receiver as opposed to a one, just where we are here. But, you know, I put him at 10 and I'm going to stick with.

Yeah, I mean, I guess my concern here is they obviously brought in some other guys in that offense to surround him with. Tom brings up a really good point about those rushing attempts. He didn't see over nine targets in the last handful of games when he started to run the ball more. He did see more targets earlier in the year, but he, you know, I just don't see. I feel like this is one where he's going to be one of those guys where we look back. We're like, yeah, we overvalued him too early in the draft season. Not that he's knocking. I think he's going to have some good games.

I think he's a good baseball option for sure. But it's just really hard to see if they don't use him the same way they did last year, which I don't know if they will. It's going to be hard to get the production he needs to be, you know, a top receiver. So it'll be interesting to see how they use him. I'm really excited to see this offense. and what they do. I like them bringing in.

I think he's going to do really well in this offense, which is only going to help him in the passing game, I think. But it'll just be, I'm interested to see how they're going to use him. If they use him the same they did last year, he's just going to be out of the slot and look more like the first part of the year where the production was just a little bit down. Yeah, it does feel like maybe seven or eight is his ceiling. So, and, you know, to be fair,

we haven't projected at 14 in our projections and yet we put them you know me and Zach both put them at 7-8 so there's an element of there's an element of safety with wide receivers that there is a premium too that I don't feel like that's true it's a more plug-in-play sort of thing with running backs where you know okay Jordan James it's the running back you know he's off the depth chart in Oregon I know what that's going to look like so that's that's a really good point. Proton, why you take us on to our number nine, wide receiver? We talked about Ted Johnson earlier, who's our eight, and so now we're at nine with Sean Atkins, the former walk-on at USF. Yeah, Sean Atkins, the diet. Of course. I mean, USF, such a trendy team that

I'm sure everybody, the college fantasy football community has endeared themselves to, at least when it comes to Byron Brown. When it comes to Atkins, though, 510, 172, so he's light, and that's he's billed at you know how that can be 60 year guy all right so late bloomer took some time to get there uh but you know when they're in the usf offense 34 and a half passes per game 270 passing yards per game pretty good again this is year one of byron brown i think it's reasonable to expect a little uh you know bump from that 27 touchdown passes 34 94 yards passing again this is Alex Golish, the lieutenant of Josh Heipel over there at Tennessee, and he pretty much turned around this program after Jeff Scott pissed all over it. 32 points per game. That's 33rd in the country.

Seventh in returning targets, Sean Atkins, 118 targets last year, 26% targets here, those tops in on the team. You'd like to see a little more in terms of the touchdown production, only seven touchdowns, but caught 94 of those. 120 targets, a 78% catch rate, 1,069 yards, 11.4 yards per catch. Again, the same profile that we kind of see with Concepcion without the carries. And as we mentioned, Ted Johnson, he's got that sort of a slot profile, 91% slot rate. 78th percentile overall grade, 78th percentile receiving grade. Dodge 21 tackles, pretty damn good. 23% miss tackle rate. Cots 11 of 16 contested targets. Excellent. 69% of the top 10 countrywide.

2.3 yards per route. We'll accept it. Again, it's not great. 7.8 a dot, you know, right around that 7, 8 yards target depth. Classic slot profile, 5.5 yards after catch isn't quite dynamic like we see from Tess Johnson, you know, who's up there in that eight and a half, nine yards per catch. You want to have, especially as a slot receiver, I want to see him over six, at least. I want to see him over seven, if possible, but here we are. Five percent drop rate, excellent hands. It's just a volume with him. You know, he gained trust as the season went on. Double-digit targets at six out of his last eight games. I mean, that's a recipe for magic. But again, only a 10% downfield target rate. He's a straight slot. You know, it's the opposite.

what we saw with with jalen royals who was stretching the field and because of it you're seeing those touchdowns jalen royals 12 deep touchdowns sean actins just two so you know it just the the dichotomy between the two players they're going in a similar range you know what i'm saying a lot of times you're you're picking between royals or akkins important understand these profiles and why you're picking them you're not going to get it out of only 12 downfield targets out of akkins a lot more volume base here. Forty-eight percent of his targets were between zero and nine yards. So again, those manufactured touches short. Twenty-two percent of his targets were behind the line of scrimmage, all right? So that's a full 70 percent of his targets are coming at the line of scrimmage or within

nine yards of it. So you have to be able to break tackles and I'd like to see more than five and a half yards after contact with that profile. Ninthieth percentile PFF grade to all four levels though so he does win when he does go downfield caught half of those 12 down real targets Sean Atkins yep and I think the Jaylon royals point is a really good point because I think you need to know what your league scoring is and that can really determine right if you're going to half point ppr like Sean Atkins for me is not even a top two round pick I'm waiting third or fourth round because he's just not going to get a ton of touchdowns um whereas the jlin royals right he's downfield do you want a guy like that in your half PPRs?

It's outside guys where a lot of our top 10, just that are being drafted are slack guys. And so they are built for BPR scoring more than a half PPR or no PPR league. So I think knowing that is really helpful. Sean Atkins to me is the G5 version of Xavier Shepro. He's not going to be the most athletic guy on the team. But man, like he just, he produces. And I mean, I don't really know what you do with that.

Yeah. And for perspective on Atkins, last two Champions League drafts. Again, these expert drafts went 2-7 in the second draft and just went 211 in the one that is currently drafted in the ninth round. Yep, that's good. All right, Zach, what? Yeah, that's good.

Zach, bring us home, man. Our last one, we got Joey Obert that, I don't even know how you say his name. O'Bair, I'm guessing because of the Saints quarterback back in the day. I'm going to go with A-Bair. Yeah, we'll go with it, right? We'll get creative. Let's go. Joey.

Where are we going? We'll call him Joe. Joey, Hey Bear. I'm interested in Texas State. So last year, 99 targets, 76 receptions for 895 yards and eight touchdowns. He did that. And I had him in 10 games. I think he actually had 11.

I got a double-checked. Average 20 points for game. I am, I have the wrong. I'm reading you guys, Ricky White. That's amazing. You're Ricky White. All right, that's all right. You just have to switch.

Which page is? I just get a little. I was just don't press with Ricky White. I just wanted to roll those off again. Give me one second. You let me know when you're ready, but my man came from your talk. There are impressive numbers. Yeah, absolutely.

And he came with the passing game coordinator there that came down to Texas State. So he had 90, sorry, 92 targets. Yeah. Oh, maybe I did have some of this right. 92 targets, 71 receptions, 847 yards, and 8 touchdowns. Sorry, man, this really threw me off. He had six top 15 performers. is seven times he went over 100 yards last year.

Six times he had 10 plus targets. So again, kind of back to what we've been talking about, it's just a volume play here, right? He's getting a ton of targets here. Sorry, in the last seven games, he averaged 100 yards on eight receptions and 11 targets and had at least one touchdown in those games. So really towards the end of the year,

he really started to turn it on last year, four top 10 finishes in the last seven games. So really, really good end of the year for me. He did have one game there against Troy where he only had three receptions for 51 yards. But that second half of the season, he really turned it on. He's in the J.G. Kinney, MacLeftwich. So not a ton of history on these guys either, but we have seen Kinney with wide receiver one average and 17.2 points per game, which actually includes his year at Hawaii where he only had his wide receiver one in the

slide was only at eight points per game that year. So if you just take the last three seasons, he's at 20.2 points per game, which ranks really high over the last three years. So he has Jordan McLeod coming in, which I think is going to be a pretty good play there at quarterback in that offense. They do have Mottie, which we talked about a little bit last week, how he should be a top 10 running back. but because Josh, he fell out of the top 10.

Four starters back on the O line. So there's a lot to like about this offense. They're going to target this guy. The only other question I really have is Cole Wilson's back, right? And he had 90 targets himself. So are we going to see this kind of split a little bit? And that's the only thing, really, that gives me pause here. But he's a guy that he really excelled in this offense when they started to get him the ball from week four on.

And from that point on, I mean, he was pretty much locked in as a top 20 receiver outside of a few weeks. Yeah. I mean, I think, look, G.J. Kenny, the guy has proven to be just a savant when it comes to calling offenses. And Jordan McLeod is going to be an upgrade over TJ, who was there last year. So I just think the sky's a limit for this offense. And I think both those guys are going to eat. Cole Wilson's great value in like the 10th round. So I think I think I hope we're safe and I think Cole Wilson safe too. You got any final thoughts before we close this out for a ton? Yeah, I do think there's some upside in the offense.

33 times for game last year, 271 yards, 24 touchdowns, right, 3,500 yards passing. As stated, you know, in theory you'd get a bump, even though T.J. Finley is pretty good QB. But in theory, Jordan McLeod did have clearly better season than he did last year. Jordan McLeod was incredible last season. You would think that would be a bump. But when it comes down to Hobart, he's a slot receiver. You know, again, lining up in the slot 92% of the time. How do you feel about that?

It's that classic profile. We've got quite a few of them in this top list, you know. So just know what you're getting into. It's going to be volume-based. The touchdown's going to be a little bit variable. He got, like we said, just absolutely pounded with targets. You love to see. the volume, especially a guy who didn't start getting much early in the season, then those

targets ramped up. It's like Zach was talking about. What more do you want from that? I mean, we're looking for trends here, and that's giving it to you. But just be before warned, you know, eight and a half yard, eight a dot, six point two yards after catch. That's pretty good. Dodge 15 tackles last year. So he has an athletic profile for, you know, a slot receiver, but limit your expectations. He's not going to be hitting the home runs. You know, he's going to be getting a lot of targets and cashing him in and having those nice consistent, you know, 15-point games

where he's going to have a nice high floor and that's the appeal. Yeah, I think to wrap this up, right, like we have a lot, especially in the lower half, a lot of slot receivers here. And so, again, be mindful of your scoring, right? A lot of this is based on full PPR leagues. Yeah, if you don't have PPR scoring, it's going to drastically affect some of these guys' value, though, I mean, volumes, volume, and eventually you're going to find the end zone in college if you touch the ball enough.

Yeah, totally, totally. So, hey, we got 630 people in here. We've had a lot of comments in here. And so, look, we are so thankful that you guys would join us, especially on with the national championship for men's basketball on right now. And so thank you guys for doing that. Hey, if you guys want to support us in any way, you can like, subscribe to our channel. We're going to be on live every Monday at 8 p.m. Central, 9 p.m. Eastern time.

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