Fantasy Football Today - Big Minicamp Storylines: Rashee Rice, Jonnu Smith, Tony Pollard and More (06/20 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

With Rashee Rice apparently healthy, is he an easy third round pick now (3:50)? We spend a lot of time on the pros and cons of drafting him and then give you some more news and notes ... We're giving you the minicamp headlines you may have missed, beginning in the AFC (18:00). Jonnu Smith did not show up for minicamp, but James Cook did. What changes is Garrett Wilson making? What do expect from the Titans running backs? ... Minicamp storylines from the NFC (30:30) include an impressive first impression from Javonte Williams, injuries in Chicago and Sam Darnold struggling ... Your emails at [e-mail] Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shop our store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shop.cbssports.com/fantasy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  SUBSCRIBE to FFT Express on Apple: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-express/id1528634304⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow FFT Express on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/6qyGWfETSBFaciPrtvoWCC?si=6529cbee20634da8⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW FFT DFS on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/5zU7pBvGK3KPhfb69Q1hNr?si=1c5030a3b1a64be2⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FFT team on Twitter:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @FFToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @AdamAizer⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @JameyEisenberg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @daverichard⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @heathcummingssr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join our Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up for the FFT newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fan To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races and he stays on his feet. This is gonna go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath. Happy Friday Friday everybody. It is Friday, June 20th here on Fantasy Football Today. Adam Azer, Dave Richard, Jamie Eisenberg. We are going to talk about Rashe Rice. I think we're going to talk a lot about Rashe Rice as he's going to be full go for training camp. Some of the major mini camp storylines that you may have missed and your emails at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com.

Dave Richard is on location, sort of, on vacation, sort of, but he is joining us remotely from a different location. So he sounds a little bit different. Dave, let them hear what you sound like today. Hello, everybody. He's using I'm in my parents house in Galveston, Texas, their office

to be exact and happy anniversary to them. Their 54th wedding anniversary. That's all today. Really? 54 years of my mom dealing with my dad. It's unbelievable. So happy Annie guys. They're great people. We've met them. They're awesome. And happy anniversary to them. Is this your childhood home? Someone's asking. No, you grew up in Chicago. Not really. I grew up in Chicago, but this house has been in my family's possession since I've been alive, if not long before. So like I used to visit my grandmother here when she was alive way back in the day, and

she's not with us anymore, but the house is still, you know, it feels like childhood when I walk in. So to that extent, it is. I should also mention, like, this is where all of my mom, my mom's an author, and so this is where all of her stories are written right back there. So if you're into murder mystery novels, look up Sarah Lynn Richard online, or if you're into children's books,

she also wrote a children's book called Naughty Nana. I know it's one of Adam's favorites to read to his kids, but look her up online, palmcirclepress.com. Buy a book, will ya? You'll be smarter for it. All right, so that's Dave. He sounds a little bit different today, and that is why. Jamie, you sound normal, and you are in smarter for it. All right, so that's Dave. He sounds a little bit different today and that is why. Jamie, you sound normal and you are in your normal location.

Yes, everything is the same. Okay. And everything's great for the Kansas City Chiefs. So let's start with our news and notes. Rashid Rice and rookie offensive tackle Josh Simmons are going to be full participants in training camp. Simmons could compete for the starting left tackle job. Also, Andy Reid said he's not at the moment

looking to limit Travis Kelcey's snaps. He could reevaluate that if he needs to, but not looking to limit Kelcey's snaps. Rice, okay, let's talk about Rashid Rice because he is not coming off a torn ACL. He is coming off a torn LCL, and I really couldn't find, you know, this guy tore his LCL in week four. There's not a lot of precedent. I found some, you know, this guy tore his LCL and in week four, it's not a lot of precedent.

I found some, you know, some guys we should talk about who came off torn ACLs, but I did see some, a lot of Rashi Rice on a hype on Twitter or X yesterday and today because people are excited about this, him being full go for training camp. He was the number two wide receiver per game. If you don't count the four snaps he played in week four. He was on pace for 164 targets. He was on pace in the last six games of 2023 for 159 targets. And then in the postseason, three games or four games there, he was on pace for 140 targets. So since the last six games of 2023, we're looking at a guy who's probably been on

pace for about 150 plus targets, which is fantastic. Okay. Where is he ranked for you? Jamie, Rashid Rice. I think he's 15, right in that range. You know, a third round pick, somebody who you should be excited about excited about obviously there's Some differences to when he left the field to where the Chiefs are now I think Xavier were these emergence is going to be somewhat of an issue for him and I also think that if Marquis Brown's healthy, it's gonna be somewhat of an issue for him, but You just laid it out how great he was in the time that he's been on the field for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs And it feels as if he's the number one receiver and probably number one receiving threat for Kansas City right now.

So there's a lot to love about the situation for us. And Dave, how about you? Jamie says he's got him around 15th and you? It's exactly where I have him. And the exact same sentiment. This should be a high volume receiver who, I've always known him. One of my favorite things to say about him

is that he's got a knack for the end zone. He, we, we saw it at SMU, saw it in his rookie year, saw it in the four games he played last year. I think he can continue to be that guy for Kansas City and be a threat for double digit touchdowns. We, we, we talk a lot about, you know, year one, year two, year three receivers and you know, when the breakout comes. I'm just finishing up, I do it every year, the third year receiver story and I sort of

revisited some of the guys that I spoke to over the years and what Jerry Rice once told me, what Chris Carter once told me, what Steve Smith once said to me about this, and Quan Bolden. I've talked to a lot of guys, Hall of Fame caliber players about this and can he take another step in his third year? And obviously his second year was really cut short. The big growth year, forget about just the statistics. This is the year where you see everything sort of come into place for these guys, at

least the ones that had some pretty big seasons. Clearly there's a lot of rookie standouts. For example, I don't know if Pukin Nakula gets better statistically in year three than he's been in year one and year two. But this is a big growth year for a lot of these players. And I'm curious to see, you know, how Rice sort of taking a step back, obviously rehab was a big part of it. But you hear sometimes when guys get injured and they're just around, you know, the playbook and learning, you know, from their coaches and being in the room during meetings, how much do they learn and grow and develop?

And so it's going to be a good year for Rice, I think. So hopefully he's back, good to go. I think really honestly, the bigger story though for the Chiefs is the Simmons recovery, because had he been cleared for the draft, he probably doesn't fault them. Right, so this is a very talented left tackle or offensive tackle that they're hoping he can play left tackle.

Missed about half the season and fell to them late in the, very late in the first round. And yeah, being, I'm surprised. I'm surprised that he's gonna be full go from the start of training camp. Just gonna go ahead and, oh, we got Dave muted, good. Dave's got some stuff going on back there. Bye, Dave.

Yeah, it is a big deal. Yeah, and left tackle was a big issue for them, obviously, last year. So I just wanted to ask you a follow up question on Rishi Rice. If he were coming off a torn ACL instead of LCL, would it affect your rankings? As long as he's healthy and cleared and you know, look, taking part in minicamp is huge, you know, for a guy coming off a significant injury, you know, you asked me for some notes,

you know, for a minicamp note, you know, Stephane Diggs coming back from an ACL tear is huge. You know, the fact that he know already practicing good to go. So I mean, you know, you never know how guys recover from injuries You have the the best examples probably adrian peterson and you know If we want to talk about current players chris godwin what two years till he said he felt he was back to normal You know, so there's so many differences in how guys recover and age i'm sure is a factor You know the team that you're with the team doctor that you're with, you know, there's all these different things that go into it. So I think just the fact that he's

taking part in mini camp and cleared fully for training camp, it's extremely encouraging. And I'll just give you a personal example. You know, I was offered in our in our dynasty league, somebody really wanted Drake London, it's a super flex league, I was offered to a tongue of aloha and Rashi rice for Drake London. To me, that was a no brainer, I was offered to a tongue of aloha and Rashi Rice for Drake London. To me, that was a no brainer. I don't think if Rice is right, he's that far off from Drake London, based on what we've seen. And you gave me a quarterback that I could start on top of it. So I was happy to

make that trade, especially knowing that Rice was clear. Okay, Rice is a really interesting player because you are not going to find a top 12 receiver. I mean, I, I, Depot Samuel is the only guy who has had an a dot as low as him. I mean, he, he five yards basically is the a dot for Rishi Rice. First year, it was lower than that. It was a 4.8 yards. Last year it was 5.2 yards yards and yet he still makes big plays

because he's so good after the catch, but he doesn't make huge plays. You know, he's not a downfield threat. He's not, he's just different. I had doubts that he could be that good in fantasy again, cause again, it just, he had the lowest ADOT in football, I think in 2023 as a rookie. It probably would have been pretty close to that in 2024. So, you know,

it's a different kind of profile. He's a different kind of player. He's terrific after the catch. It's going to lead to a lot of catches though. That's for sure. All right. And then, yeah, I mean, Chris Godwin, Chris Godwin towards ACL late 2021. He made his training camp debut on August 5th. He was not ready for the start of training camp, but he had a pretty bad season by his standards after the ACL. Cortland Sutton tore his ACL in week two. And then he, I think he was ready for training camp, but they may have brought him along slowly.

I read an article that was written on August 8th from the Denver Post that said, Cortland Sutton appears to be regaining his Pro Bowl form of two years ago. Well, that year he had 776 yards and two touchdowns in 17 games. He wasn't that much better than two years after either. Saquon Barkley tore his ACL in week two.

Remember, Rashid Rice got hurt in week four, it was his LCL though. Saquon Barkley tore his ACL in week two. He started training camp on the puplist. He was ready for week one, He had a really bad year. He averaged 3.7 yards per carry. Saquon Barkley after the ACL. He was RB 30 overall.

He was RB 32 per game. And that's just the point. And you know where Saquon Barkley was in ADP? He was a first round pick. So the point I'm making is guys can appear healthy, but not really be healthy. And everyone buys into it when the reports are good, when they come off the pup list, when they're back, when they're ready for week one, we buy into it. Again, the big key for me is I don't know how severe this injury is because it's not an ACL. But if it were

an ACL, I would almost guarantee that he's not going to be as productive as he was in his earlier years. Can I give you another player coming back from injury that surprised us? Yeah. JK Dobbins. JK Dobbins. So he was coming off of what? The Achilles? Achilles. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, he did. I brought up that at all. He did. But he had two great games to start the year. And then after that, I think it was like 3.7 yards per carry, which is what Barkley was. Now overall, it's good. I guess just the fact that and granted he did miss four games for a different injury. Probably not the best example. But I'm just saying like guy got hurt. I was thinking guys got hurt early in the season and

We're ready to go for the next year. I Yeah, I'll go back to what I said. It's there's never going to be a Clear definition of this player this injury and will be ready to go on this day. It's just impossible It's absolutely impossible, you know, I mean the fact that Christian Watson is taking part in any level of practice is amazing. Yeah. You know, for the injury he suffered when he suffered it, you know, so all these guys are going to, you know, have different levels of when they're back when they're ready to go. I think just again, you got to trust what you're hearing what you're seeing and the fact that he's taking part in mini camp with no issues. It's great. But it's yeah, no, it's just I think you can run into trouble trusting what you're hearing and seeing, because I just read an article about Cortland Sutton appearing to be regaining his Pro Bowl form.

And you're always going to get these articles about how great these guys look. And then they're never honest about it until a year after the fact when they go, yeah, it wasn't really myself. I feel like like Javante Williams, Javante Williams is saying two years after his ACF, Javante Williams had a horrible injury, but he's saying now two years later that he finally feels like he's back to himself. You know what we need to do is we need to talk

to a doctor, honestly. Yeah, probably. It's also, you know, I would guess if Rashi Rice comes out and has a great start to the season, oh yeah, I felt great from the beginning. I'm good to go. If he struggles, it's easy for him to go back and say, and I'm not saying that this is the case or not, but it's easy for him to say, Oh, my knee was still not right. And this is why I wasn't putting up

these types of numbers. It just, there's no being around this for so long. You never know what's the, the true definition of when somebody's right, when somebody's not right, how quickly they're back, all those things. And you never know when someone could have a setback, like maybe the Friday before week one, and they are lost for the first 10 games of the season, like Christian McCaffrey had after he was limping along all training camp long, and then he feels good, and then all of a sudden, something doesn't feel right,

and he's gone for a while, and we've already drafted. So I feel like if Rashid Rice had gone on last year and played 17 games at the pace that he played at for the first three games, he'd be a first round pick. We're drafting him in round three. Is that where we're at with him right now? I think it's kind of baked in that there's some injury

downside and I'm fine taking him in that range. If he ends up not, I don't think he's going to be as great as he was in those first three. He had a 35% target per route run rate. No one has a rat rate that high over the course of the season. That's really rare to see. I don't think he's going to get that at all with Kelsey and Worthy and Hollywood Brown there. Like it's just not going to happen. But if we go through all of training camp

and he's practicing every day, seems fine. We're gonna see them play in the preseason, Reid plays these guys in the preseason. We'll see him in a preseason game. If he looks okay, you'll have the conviction to maybe even move him into late round two. I'm gonna just read from- Today your birthday?

Yesterday. Yesterday it was. That's why we didn't have a show yesterday. Oh. Happy birthday. Whatever your name is. Thank you. I'll tell you about the like 10 year old kid birthday party I threw for myself a little bit later in the show.

Anyway, just some more quick news items. Rob Demofsky of ESPN says Matthew Golden has good chemistry with Jordan Love and should get plenty of early playing time. That's good news. Nice Joe Mixon is going to be ready at some point during training camp, possibly the beginning of training camp, according to NBC Houston's Aaron Wilson. Mixon is dealing with foot and ankle issues. Remember, they just signed Nick Chubb. Baltimore signed former cornerback Jair Alexander to a one year deal that could be worth up to six million dollars. On paper,

they have a very talented secondary. They were easy to pass against last year, but they hopefully have upgraded that secondary with Jair Alexander in Baltimore. And Chaudhuri Sanders got cited for speeding twice in recent weeks. He failed to show up in court for one of those citations and he was going way over the speed limit. So come on, man, slow it down. All right, we're gonna take a quick break here

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I'm looking forward to reading those. And I think one of them is gonna be about a player that I think is one of the more underrated even though we know how great he is under drafted players in in fantasy this year as of terms of early ADP anyway we'll get to that in a moment fantasy football at CBS I dot-com that is the letter I if you want to send us an email all right so some minicam storylines I'm just gonna read it and you guys give me a quick reaction. James Cook showed up for Minicamp

amid a contract dispute, Jamie. I think it's huge, you know what I mean? For a guy that was considering holding out and has some questions about where he can finish from a performance standpoint, Heath has definitely brought up the touchdown regression for a guy that tied the NFL lead in rushing touchdowns last year. It makes some sense to maybe fade him a little bit.

Your point, Adam, which I think is also valid is like you want to have a player like this who's on such a great offense and it's still going to be the lead running back. But if he had not shown up and we had these concerns coming into training camp, which he could still hold out, then we're going to have some concerns. But the fact that he's seemingly wanting to be the good teammate and be there on time and says he wants to stay in Buffalo, I think this was a very positive scenario for James Cook and for fantasy managers who are buying into him.

Next step is to see if he is he a hold in or is he going to practice during training camp? You know, a lot of guys, when they've got a contract dispute, they show up and they'll dress for practice. They will not practice. They'll just stand there on the sideline. That's been their new, that's part of their new playbook as far as trying to get a new contract.

If he does that, he might as well be holding out. So we'll see. But the touchdown regression is what scares me the most about cook. The holdouts are kind of like injuries is you just don't know what the impact will be, but they should not be under they shouldn't be overlooked because who were the three guys that held out chase lamb. Last year, there was one more right? The holdouts, IUK.

IUK, and they all got off to slow starts. They were hold ins. Hold outs or hold ins, whatever it was, didn't practice. They all got off to slow starts. Obviously Chase turned things around. But yeah, I mean, and then Jacobs, two years ago, Jacobs had a pretty awful start to the season. He held out.

Jonathan Taylor held out, uh, two, yeah, also two years ago, he actually missed four games. So, and then he, you know, took him a little while to get going. All right. Well, what was it was Robert Turbin, right? Who told us on our show that could be a problem. I think so. I mean, if it was anyone, it was Robert Turpin, yeah.

And then I just remember, cause we do shows with Logan Ryan, who came back at the end of the 2023 season, right? For the 49ers to help them get to Super Bowl. So last year he did shows with us and he said, there's such a big difference between being in shape and being in football shape. And he's like, you can be, you can run as many sprints as you want.

You can run up hills. You can lift as much weight as you want. He goes until, he's a cornerback, former defensive back. He goes until that offensive lineman leans on you, you don't know what it's like. And so these guys are doing everything they have to do. They're obviously in great shape. They're doing all their off season stuff. Training has certainly changed. But I think this is a big part of it.

You know, when they're not actually doing their, their football stuff, it's a, and it's not something you could recreate unless you just have, you know, the ability to, you know, bring large human beings to, uh, train with you like that. But, um, in any event, uh, I'd like to see James Cook doing everything he's supposed to do because I would like him to have another strong season. Yeah. And I think, I, I think I would like him to have another strong season. Yeah. And I think I, I think I'm in close to football shape. I wouldn't, I guess I won't really know until you're not even in softball shape.

Okay. All right. So, uh, how 41. Oh, it's all downhill now. I wake up with sore ankles. You're not going to know why I'm wearing a compression sleeve thing on my ankle because it is sore. But I know it's from tennis.

John Smith did not show up for mini camp and he could be traded. There was some talk about him going to Pittsburgh and then that kind of cooled. But John Smith is holding out right now. And you know, obviously there are obvious implications to that we'll see. But Tyree kill. I wouldn't so just just small thing. I wouldn't say holding out a mini camp. He didn't show up. Okay, fair enough. He didn't show up again

contract related. That's more under the where there's smoke, there's fire category. Okay. Like why would he go and get himself hurt if he's about to get traded and potentially get a new contract along with it? Garrett Wilson is being moved around the formation for the Jets. He's, you know, about a 22% slot rate,

which is, you know, you're a true outside receiver. That's, you know, Marvin Harrison is in that range. I was just looking up some other guys, but it's not like he can't be good with that kind of slot rate, but that's pretty darn low for wide receivers. So Garrett Wilson being moved around the formation. Aaron Glenn also expressing confidence in Breeze Hall. Who should be drafted first Breeze Hall or Garrett Wilson? Wilson. I think Wilson should be drafted first. I think Hall will be drafted first.

Jamie, you talked about Stefan Diggs being on schedule in his recovery from a torn ACL and just participating in minicamp. What do you think about that? I mean, look, he's got an opportunity to be the best receiver for the Patriots. To what degree, we'll find out. He'll be 32 during the season, I believe it's November. 31 now. He was pretty solid last year for the Texans before he got hurt and I think this is the type of move that you make when you're trying to build around your young quarterback you know if he's that player but once upon a time he was for Josh Allen when he went from Minnesota to Buffalo and you know we saw the heights that Josh Allen started to get to because he had a legitimate proven guy so whether

it's gonna be Mack Hollins as the other outside receiver, or hopefully it's Kyle Williams, looks like DeMario Douglas is going to be the slack guy, I would be very surprised as to find digs if he's healthy, ready to go does not lead them to targets for as long as he's out there. Because he's the most proven polished receiver that the Patriots have and it's not close. 32 right? 30. He will be 32 in season.

Yeah, coming off the 32 in season. Yeah. Coming off the tour in ACL. Dave, CJ Stroud, the guy who used to throw to Stefan Diggs, he basically said, you guys were overreacting. My shoulder's fine. That was encouraging. You cool with that? It's going to be a checkpoint in the early days of training camp just to make sure that

he's throwing without issue and he doesn't have a bag of ice on his shoulder or anything like that. So once that happens, then we'll go from rarely seeing CJ Stroud getting drafted in one QB leagues to rarely seeing CJ Stroud get drafted in one QB leagues. Yeah. No, but you know, I think that being a pretty good waiver wire slash late round bargain. Simply because you look at what he was, how he performed, and he was a bust, there's no way around it. Top five quarterback based on ADP last year and struggled. But when everybody was healthy

in the beginning part of the season, he was hovering slightly over that 20 point per game range. I think it was more than half of his games. Or I'm sorry, not hovering. He had produced more than 20 points per game in like half of his games. The first six games when the guys were healthy. So before Diggs suffered the ACL, Collins missed a couple games in there with his injury, started his hamstring injury. I think that's kind of when it really coincided. If Higgins and Kirk are decent players, and we know what Kirk's track record has been and

obviously Higgins seems to be the second outside guy. Like he's going to surprise some people CJ Strapp. I still think there's plenty of talent there. Now will the offensive line hold up? Is the shoulder going to be okay? No one's going to draft him as a number one quarterback as they've said you know late round pick at best in one quarterback league. But I think there's still an opportunity here. The two guys that I think fall into a similar category, a lot of hype after 2023, disappointed 2024, it's Jordan Love and CJ Stratton. And there's easy paths to them bouncing back to being starting caliber fantasy quarterbacks that you can get for very cheap if you want to just wait and wait and wait in the position.

Yes, but in love because it's so obvious. He stopped running. He hurt his knee in week one and barely ran all year. Stopped throwing too. Yeah, and that was the other thing I was going to say. And then they just have to let him throw more. Okay, so one more, a couple more AFC notes. Tennessee head coach Brian Callahan wants to rotate his running backs. And I do think this is an underrated storyline because it was a pretty annoying split

when they were both healthy. So is anybody scared off of Tony Pollard? Because I heard a lot of Tony Pollard praise a few weeks ago, I guess since the NFL draft. No, I don't think so. I'm tired of hearing what Callahan has to say about his running backs. Because he has said one thing and then another thing ends up happening. Here's what I know. think so. I'm tired of hearing what Callen has to say about his running backs because he's,

he has said one thing and then another thing ends up happening. Here's what I know. I know that Pollard, when he gets the workload, has a decent fantasy average, almost 15 PPR points per game last year. I think the Titans team is just going to be better overall on offensively with Cam Ward there. But there's still going to be a focus on slowing down the run because there's a lack of weapons in that Tennessee passing game. And I don't think the Tennessee defense is that good. So it could mean that there's a lot of second halves where Cam Ward's gonna have to throw to try and keep Tennessee in games.

I like the value of where I'm drafting Pollard. I'm not spending a fourth or fifth round pick on him anymore. And so as long as that's the case, I might be getting Pollard as my number three running back. Love that. If I'm going zero RB or hero RB and he's my number two, I don't hate that as much as long as I'm drafting him in that right spot.

I think round six is when you start to think about Tony Pollard. And it's easy to get TaiJay Spears too. Like, you know, there was some games last year with Pollard where he was productive. There's clearly lottery ticket upside if Pollard were to miss any time and Spears is the guy there. Like this is, it's gonna be an offensive line that I think continues to improve, you know, with the coaching staff that they have there.

Certainly Callahan's dad Bill is one of the best offensive offensive line coaches NFL history and If cam ward is better the offense is better as a whole they'll score more points So you should be trying to get one of these two guys and they've said it best Pollard's an easy target Based on his cost and I think Spears is as well. I'm gonna I'm just, you know what I do, right? I'm gonna play devil's advocate. So Pollard played 16 games. I've got nine games with Pollard playing with a normal Tajay Spears snapshot.

Okay, nine games with Spears playing normal snapshot is a better way to say it. Seven games with Spears either not playing or playing 26% or fewer of the snaps. The difference was in those nine games with Spears either not playing or playing 26% or fewer of the snaps. The difference was in those nine games with Spears, 11.6 PPR fantasy points per game. That's RB 31 last year. Seven games without Spears or with Spears playing 26%

or fewer of the snaps, 13.8 PPR fantasy points per game. 2.2 more points per game. That's the difference between RB 31 and RB 21. And the carry, sorry, I'm sorry, last thing. Carries on pace for 236 carries with spears, on pace for 328 carries without spears. I think the thing that we're trying to say is you shouldn't be drafting Tony Pollard as a starter.

And if you're looking at where, I know where I haven't ranked, I'm gonna guess our consensus is somewhat close in like 27, 26, 27, 28 range. RB 26, 27, 28 in that range. So you're saying when he was at his worst, he was RB 31. When he was at his best, he was close to top 20. And that's the type of player I think you want in that range, right? There's easy flex potential there. There's easy RB 2 potential if you you, you know, build your team the right way, you know, here are being potentially zero RB, not invest heavily in that position early in your draft.

And then there's the, okay, now he's a must start because the other guy missed a few weeks. He's RB 29 Tony powered in our early CBS ADP and I think we can all agree if Spears were to miss time That 13.8 PPR fantasy points per game or whatever it was could be much better I mean they just this the feather offense is gonna be so much better I said this so many times they ran the fewest or second fewest plays in the NFL inside the five yard line and he barely scored touchdowns so that So he has much more upside, I think, than RB 21 if Tajay Spears were to miss time.

And keep an eye, just a name to know, Chargers tight end, rookie tight end, Arande Gatston, he's gotten some very good training, mini camp praise so far. Okay, Javante Williams, go to the NFC notes now. Javante Williams for the Cowboys, he's made a strong impression so far. Okay. Givante Williams, go to the NFC notes now. Givante Williams for the Cowboys, he's made a strong impression so far. And could he, could Givante Williams be one of the steals in fantasy drafts, Dave?

Yeah. I mean, I feel like there's a lot of hurdles for that to happen, but any, any running back that's going to be in a good offense and get a lot of touches is obviously gonna be huge for fantasy. And I suppose that Williams could have the opportunity to do it. What would these hurdles be? He would have to outperform everybody else that's on that roster.

I don't think that's asking for too much because it's Miles Sanders, it's Jane Blue, Phil Mafas, another running back that's there. So it's not like he's got the same type of competition that he had in prior years in Denver. And then if he's got that and he really just blows away the coaching staff and the other running backs aren't that good, then hell yeah, man. He's going to get like 15 plus touches per game. The next hurdle would then be efficiency. Can he, can he revert course on that

and be a much more efficient player? We already know that he's good on third downs. I would say you can use ink to say that he's gonna be Dallas's third down running back. I don't think they've got another guy that can do what he can do on third downs. It's about just how many carries he can get on first and second down.

And can he be the goal line guy? I think he can probably do that too. So there's plenty of upside. But man, if he if he looks like he's running in slow mo and Jane Blue is really fast and if anybody else can step up, maybe Maffa steps up, that's going to cut into playing time. And then you're basically drafting some Ajay P Ryan when you're drafting

Javante Williams is a third down guy who you'll be lucky to get 10 PPR points out of. They, uh, this is the second year in a row where they've kind of just said, okay, we're done investing in this backfield, right? You know, they, they went really cheap last year with Rico Dowdle and then bringing in Ezekiel Elliott, right? No, it was last year. Yeah.dle and then bringing in Ezekiel Elliott. Right? No, was he last year? Yeah.

They brought him back? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately. And then they cut him. And then you see what they've done this off season with, you know, day three running backs in the draft and Givante Williams and Miles Sanders. And if you're hoping for Williams to be good, you're hoping for him to be what J.K. Dobbins was, a veteran guy that had a lot of promise early in his career, dealt with some injuries, and now is getting an opportunity with the second team that there's no expectations

for. You're going to get great value on Javante Williams if he can be what he was as a receiver during his time toward the end of his Denver tenure, which was 50 plus catches last year, and then can get back to being the runner that he was, at least what we thought he was going to be in the beginning part of his career before the ACL tear. There's such a clear path to success here. It's easy to take him at his cost. There's always considerable coverage.

There's coverage for every NFL team, but for Dallas, there's always like huge cover. If the consensus from the beat reporters is, wow, Javontae Williams looks like no running back we've seen in Dallas over the last couple of years, then absolutely they're going to, you'll know about it before you go into your drafts. And right now I would take them around like pick 100, maybe a little bit before. If the drum beat gets louder and he looks like he's the guy, he's not gonna go that, he'll go in that same range as Pollard. I think he is now if I'm not mistaken.

Let's see what his ADP is. Looking at early CBS ADP, Pollard's going 81st, Gervonta is going 103rd. So it would be like Gervonta versus Tyrone Tracy, Gervonta versus Najee Harris. You know, you guys like him better than those guys? Tracy, yes. Najee.

No, not yet. Better than Tracy. Better than Najee. Would you take Brian Robinson Jr. or Givante Williams? Right now Robinson, but that's close. I think I have him back to back. It's especially close in PPR because Brian Robinson on a good week is also 10 or 11 PPR

points. More NFC notes. Chicago rookie wide receiver Luther Burden is dealing with a soft tissue injury for more than six weeks now. Yeah. And Colson Loveland isn't back yet. So those first two picks have not debuted. Jordan Addison could face a suspension for his DUI arrest.

The Saints have not settled on a quarterback yet. Sam Darnold, so I didn't really see this, Jamie, but Sam Darnold struggled in minicamp? Yeah, at least the early part of it. And Jalen Milro, not necessarily stepping up either as far as what I you know read so it was Mike McDonald saying that Donald's fine. He's our guy, you know, don't don't even question it and That's gonna be an issue one to follow because we saw how great Donald was last year and there's a lot of high

Expectations for Jackson Smith the jig but understandably so he was great once DK Metcalf got banged up last year and even to close the season when when Metcalf came back and you have Cooper Cup that you know people are still gonna buy back into it's uh it's gonna depend on you know how good Darnold is and if Darnold struggles and they do turn to Millroy which I'd be surprised I think probably Drew Lock will get the first opportunity to be the number two guy there but um it's uh it's it becomes a sliding scale for the pass catcher first. So nobody's drafting Darnold to be a number one fantasy quarterback. He's barely gonna be a starter in two pb and super flex leagues.

But I think the, excuse me, the concern would be is if Darnold does struggle. How does the JSN managers react? Must be the off season. Dogs barking, phones dinging. We're talking about Javante Williams for more than 15 seconds. Oh, man. All right. Kyler Murray wants to run more. That'd be cool. And Rams left tackle Aleric Jackson. We talked about this last week. He's dealing with blood clots. So they

they don't know what that's a pretty big issue to keep in mind for the Rams. Yeah. Now they worked around their offensive line quite a bit last year and their offense didn't really kick into high gear until that offensive line was close to right. And then they really did down the stretch. You saw some big games from everybody in that offense. So signing DJ Humphries, that was aaid, and we'll see how that turns out. But Jackson, I think, was a pretty good offensive tackle last year, I'd have to double check like PFF grades

and other data that we've got to justify that. But losing him, losing a left tackle when you've got a 37 year old quarterback in Stafford, it's kind of a big deal. Are you ready for some emails, Dave Richard? I am always ready for emails, buddy. Well, I am not. We got to take a break. When we come back, then I'll be ready for emails at fantasyfootball at cbsi.com right after this. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at

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Please play responsibly. Oh! Excuse me. Why are you walking so close behind me? Well, you're a tall guy. You throw a decent shadow when I'm walking in it to keep out of this bright sun. It hurts my eyes. Okay, well you know at Specsavers, you can get two pairs of glasses from $149 and, oh you'll like this, one can be a pair of prescription sunglasses. Sounds great! Where's the nearest store?

Not far. Come on. Let's hurry then. To my count. One, two, one, two, one, two. Visit specsavers.ca for details. Okay. This first email is from Henry. Where is he from? Henry is from Detroit, Michigan. When you hear the name Henry, what movie do you think of? Rookie of the Year. Yeah. Right. It's just automatic. Henry is just...

What, Roland Gardner? Yeah, that's it. What else could it be? When you hear the name Rock... Andy Barr. What movie do you guys think of? Okay, from Henry says, with the 101, I'm taking Jamar Chase. Is it worth a bit of a reach to take Burrow at 501 for the stack as opposed to waiting for the later round values? If he's there. Right. I don't think it's a reach to take him at 501 for the stack as opposed to waiting for the later round values. If he's there. Right. I don't think it's a reach to take him at 501. Joe Burrow. But this is a guy that I was referring to earlier. I really think Joe Burrow is incredibly underrated,

especially in six point for passing touchdown leagues. He has had basically two elite years of the last three. And in 2023. What the hell was this, it wasn't the appendectomy. He came in hurt or 2023, his calf, calf, and he got off to a really bad start. But then once he clicked, he was, he was so good. So I think burrow is such a good, such a safe, good player to draft. And if we could get him in 501, that's terrific. And I would have no problem with that stack. What do you think about him, Jamie? And he, even in four, that was the other point,

even in four point for passing touchdown leagues, he's been huge two of the last three years. Is it safe to say fantasy wise, because obviously there are a lot of guys can do great things throwing the football that he's the best non running quarterback. Oh, yeah. Fantasy wise.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Now, I don't think in a four point per passing touchdown league, I'm looking at his 2022 season, his 2022 season was in 16 games, 4,475 yards, 35 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, plus another five rushing touchdowns. So per 17 games for Burrow, you're talking more than 40 touchdowns rushing and receiving. You're talking probably 4,700 passing yards. Amazing year. Did not even come close to Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, and Patrick Mahomes in four point per passing touchdown leagues on a per game basis that year, that was 2022. So, you know, he's got, I guess, some upside issues there,

but in six point per passing touchdown leagues, he's pretty close. Let me just take a- He feels like the safest for 4,540. He's absolutely the odds Let me just take a look. He feels like the safest for 4540. He's absolutely the odds leader to lead the league in passing yards. Yeah. Now, are they going to throw less? They might throw less.

I don't know if that's happening. It's 600. Let's see. How many past attempts did he have last year? He had 652 pass attempts. Okay, he might throw a little less than 652 times, but he'll be over 600 if he stays healthy. That is 38.4 per game.

That's actually pretty doable. It's gonna be good times for Joe Burrell. Fifth round's great. All right, from Lewis, says, hi, new Adam. I usually wait to draft quarterback and I struck gold last year with Daniels I play in a 12 team half PPR league four point per passing touchdown here's how so then he listed where the quarterbacks were drafted last year and they started with Josh Allen with the second pick of round three and then three quarterbacks went in round four.

So he said, if I apply last year's draft results to your quarterback rankings, here's what I would get in terms of tiers and where they'd be drafted. And he wants to know, Lewis wants to know which tier you like best based on where they might be drafted in his league, right? Cause that's kind of a challenge for us

is we don't know how every league is going to draft their quarterbacks. Um, tier one, he thinks would be third or fourth round and it would be Jackson, Allen, Daniels, Burrow, Hertz. This is four point for passing touchdown. And that I would imagine will be the case in like every one QB league. I don't know. I mean, I still feel like there's going to be plenty of leagues where these guys

are going, some are going in the first round, some set. That's fine. But those are going to be the first five quarterbacks off the board. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Third or fourth round he thinks in his league for Jackson Allen, Danielsboro hurts. Do you like that? Or do you like this group in the sixth round? Mahomes Mayfield, Bo Nicks, Dak Prescott. Too soon. And then fields, Purdy, Goff, Williams, Lawrence, Murray, it's everyone else eighth round or later. Yeah, I'm looking for one of those first five quarterbacks as long as it's not a reach. Right.

Is Burrow or Hertz in round four better than pick your quarterback? That second tier in round six or seven I would say yes I think that yeah I felt like that one was kind of easy but is is burrower hurts around four of a 12 this is a 12 team yeah 12 team league better than your favorite quarterback you know after that second tier in round eight or later yes depends how late we're talking about but I would probably in that way. Okay.

And this is from Daniel. And where is he from, Dave? He's from New Brunswick, New Jersey. And he says, subject line, tears question, and I love New Adam. And then he says, New Adam actually scares me a little. I just said that in the subject, so you'd read it. Have you actually been New Adam yet? No, I haven't.

Just shut your stupid mouth. I'll try to be more eloquent than Jamie so I don't trigger another explosion. Yes. Thank you, Daniel. Anyway, you guys are great about breaking down tiers and emphasize emphasizing their importance. However, I think one thing gets missed is just how big of a difference there is between tiers.

This is maybe more for us auction people, but I think it's valuable information in snake as well. It would be helpful to get some qualifiers about the gulf between tiers and how to make that actionable. Like pick X number of non-wide receivers before the start of the next tier or the auction value drop. So do you understand the question here, Dave? And what do you want to say about tiers? Yes. And tiers originated from auctions for me anyway, some 20 years ago when I started to do some of the Scott White also did a lot of tear work for baseball way back in the

day. So I would look at it this way. Like we just talked about those first five quarterbacks that we really wanted to get and we want to get them at a value. What's the expectation for those guys? Obviously it's going to be a higher expectation than any quarterback taken after them. We're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 24, 25 fantasy points per game with gusts up to 28, 29, 30 fantasy points per game. Those are the high upside mega studs that can help you win your league. If you want to wait for one of those tier three types of quarterbacks, well now you're talking round nine or round 10,

that's fine, but those guys were mostly gonna put into like a 20 to 22 point bucket. And the guys in between will be right in between 22 to 24 fantasy points. If we got 24 fantasy points this year out of Patrick Mahomes, that'd be great considering what he's done each of the two years prior. And because you're drafting them a little bit later.

So the drop off from tier one to tier two, we're talking about maybe a couple of points on the floor, but certainly a lot of points on the ceiling. And then the drop off from tier one to tier three, well, now you know that there's going to be a big drop off, could be in the neighborhood of five fantasy points per game from the first tier to the third tier. That's a lot. That's something that I don't necessarily. I don't I don't want to target the late round guys if and only if I can get one

of those early round first tier high upside stud quarterbacks with a with a pick that feels like a good value. Not trying to steal them. I don't want to wait hope and cross my fingers that I get Lamar Jackson in round four because it's probably not going to happen. I don't want to wait, hope and cross my fingers that I get Lamar Jackson in round four, because it's probably not going to happen. But if I get him in round three, or maybe even late round two, I'm probably going to be okay with that.

That feels like a fair value for somebody that's got huge upside. So what's a bigger, let me go to running back tiers, for example, let's just say that we had a tier of running back that was Kyron Williams, Josh Jacobs, chase Brown, Bucky Irving and Jonathan Taylor. And then the next tier, we felt was Ken Walker, James Cook, Chuba Hubbard, Breeze Hall, Joe Mixon, Camara, Connor. Let's say like, okay, that's a

big that's tier two, again, Jacobs, chase Brown, Taylor, Bucky Irving, Kyron Williams, sorry, I mixed the order up. And then after that, Ken Walker, James Cook, Chuba Hubbard, Breeze Hall, Joe Mixon, Alvin Camara, James Connor. You could say maybe there's not a huge gap between those tiers, but then the next tier

is Henderson, Montgomery, Swift, Hampton, Judkins. Maybe you feel like, okay, now there's a really big gap between tiers. And then you then you sculpt your strategy around that and say, I got to make sure that I'm in that the tier two and three that I get at least one if not two. Now I'm not saying we feel that way. I'm just this hypothetical that we want at least one guy. It's good. It might be hypothetical and it really comes down to how each individual fantasy manager feels and that's why you've got to review a bare minimum tiers, rankings, whatever you find, whatever you trust before you go into your draft.

Because you might look at the tight ends this year and go, oh my God, after George Kittle, I don't want any of these scrubs. I don't care what the guys say about late round tight ends. And you know right away what you should be doing in round two or maybe round three is trying to get one of those stud tight ends. And then if you feel that way, then you know, okay, probably gonna wait on quarterback a little bit longer

and I'll take a loss there theoretically, or maybe I'll get two quarterbacks that have a lot of upside. Some people will feel that way. Some people are gonna look at wide receivers and they're gonna say, you know what, after the first eight or nine guys, they all look the same. So I don't care if I draft the 16th wide receiver off the board or the 24th wide receiver off the board, or even the 30th

wide receiver off the board. I got to get some of those stud wide receivers early too. And this is a choose your own adventure type thing. There is no one way that we might all have recommendations. I'm sure by August Jamie will have yours, Heath will have his, I'll have mine, Adam no one will listen to you. And we will all know which direction we prefer to go in. Yeah. But everybody kind of has to decide, all right, the position that I feel great with, with depth that's running back, wide receiver, maybe not so much, tight end, not so much, whatever it may be. And then you just follow suit with your draft plan that way.

All right, next question is from Jesse Kuroki from the bottom edge of wine country. And this would be Petaluma, California, Dave. I was just about to say Petaluma, California. I saw it, yeah. Got it, he says, dear Corey, Alex, oh, sorry. Corey, Alex, Paolo and Matt Keechie. And apparently these are members

of a heavy metal band named Trivium. Okay. I was just about to say Trivium. Also the comment here, where is it? I put it up. Did you see that comment? It was so funny. Yes.

Dave looks like, yes. Dave looks like he works part-time as detective and is about to solve a murder case. I mean, this is where murder mysteries happen, this room. All right, with Ash and Gentie in and around the first round of ADP, when was the last time you would say we saw a rookie in the early rounds of ADP

that matched their draft capital? Feel like we've been was the last time you would say we saw a rookie in the early rounds of ADP that matched their draft capital? Feel like we've been burned the last few years by Bijan, Breeze Hall, and Marvin Harrison. Right. He wasn't and he was not going to burn you either. He was having an incredible year during it. It felt it feels like Saquon. That's the first thing that came to my mind. There might be somebody in between Saquon and right now. But Saquon was the guy I remember watching. I just felt like he was so real deal, like a slam dunk that he'd be great and Bijon I did feel the same way about. And he kind of got Arthur Smith a little bit as a rookie and did not. He was an RB2.

He was like a middle of the pack RB2. So that kind of sucked. But I get the question. I do feel the same way about Gentie that I did about Saquon. But I don't think you have to take him with a first round pick unless you're in the middle of round one and you don't want to risk him getting to round two. Because I don't think he's making it to the middle around to. Yeah, I would say if we're just focusing on you know, guys who went in the first round and second round, then it's probably sake one. But Jameer Gibbs was a home run pick.

You know, he was a late third round pick, I believe. Sure. It did it did require a David Montgomery injury just to unleash him a little bit. but he was a great pick as a rookie. Najee Harris was Najee Harris was a top five running back as a rookie. He was obviously not drafted anywhere. That's I could definitely find running backs who outperform their ADP. But it's risky to take a guy that we've never seen in the NFL in the first round. At least I feel like we could say with Bijan, if it's not like he didn't perform

well, right? It's just he didn't get the work that he needed, but he was very good. Like you said, he got Arthur Smith. Yes. Okay. Um, and then, yeah, I'm just going to skip the DST question. I'm sorry, but just to get to some more questions here, this is what was the question? Well, then you're going to answer it. So I'm going to tell you, is he, I'm just wondering, is he looking for DSTs for week one already answer it. So I'm gonna tell you. Is he, I'm just wondering, is he looking for DSTs for week one already? No. So I'm like, okay, then let's skip it. Okay, yeah.

I don't have a name or a city for this one, Dave. Let's go with Dave from New Haven, Connecticut. Dear Rob, John, Brandon and Rickon. Jamie? Have you metal been in? What did Dan call it? Game of Thrones? Yeah, did he call us or did he call something Game of Thrones? Yeah, he called. I think he called something.

Didn't he just call it Thrones? He did call it Thrones, but he referred to something else. He's like, oh, those are Game of Thrones characters, I think. And they absolutely were not. It was very funny. In this email, Dave from Connecticut or whatever says that I have never seen Game of Thrones, which is false. Of course I've seen Game of Thrones.

Okay, best ball question. I'm in a long, slow best ball draft. Who should I pick for my fourth running back? A veteran like Austin Eckler, Jerome Ford, or Justice Hill, or a rookie like Dylan Sampson, Jarques Hunter, or Jordan James? I have Henry Camara and Rico Dowdell. Oh, with those running backs, I would want to go young.

I think you're looking at who's got the first path to getting featured work. And there's obviously a lot of names there that could go that route and then if they get that opportunity how good will they be because you're trying to win a tournament you know you're not trying to win your week you're trying to win a tournament and so you could you can handcuff Derek Henry which will not be the suggestion I would go with because you want to have two running backs that could potentially win you league as opposed to one.

Um, I think I go Eckler just to throw a name out there. I'd go. I mean, you can, but like older player. Yeah. Older player who needs Brian Robinson to miss a considerable amount of time for him to make him all of these guys do every single one of these guys. Sure, sure, sure. And Hunter would need Kyron Williams to like fumble four times in one game.

And then, and then he'd be out play Coram. Like that's the thing about. Yeah, I wonder if Coram might be like out of favor already. We don't know that. But, but I know pretty much for a fact that Austin Eckler is getting a big role on a great offense. I think it's not a bad pick here because all these guys that you're referencing, you're probably having an opportunity to get one or two of them around or two later. That's true. Yes, true.

And if that's the case, then maybe Eckler is the better pick. All right. This one is from Anthony. I'm very excited to be playing in the Scott Fish Bowl for the first time this year. Do you have any tips for drafting in the Scott Fish Bowl format? Should quarterback and top tight ends be my first priority in the early rounds? Quarterback for sure. Oh man, I meant to look up the rules. Do your first three. Okay, I think I have the 20-25 rules here. Six points for all touchdowns. Tight ends get an extra point for reception. So where's the, how many points for a regular?

Well, okay, it's full PPR on MFL and it's two and a half points per reception on sleeper. And it's one extra point for reception on a for tight ends. So if what I'm reading is accurate, then it's much tight ends are much more valuable on fantasy league than they are on sleeper. I would say Brock Bowers and Trey McBride are easy first round picks, right?

Cause their catches count double of anyone else's. Could you go with one of those two and two quarterbacks? Is he still doing a third round reversal? I think so. If he is doing third round reversal, try to get, I would, I get the late drafts. Yeah, I get a late first round pick to get one of those tight ends and then two quarterbacks.

Man, six points for a sack. Some IDP here. So, but you don't start IDPs. It's really only for Travis Hunter. Okay, so nevermind. Or Bo Melton. Yeah, my tips would, oh, half a point per carry. So that probably counts for quarterbacks too.

So the mobile quarterbacks, especially in, oh, it is six point per pass in touch. I'm like, Josh Allen, yeah, is a, he throws a lot of touchdowns and runs a lot. So he's so valuable. Okay, I've talked in circles, but know if you're on, obviously you have to know if you're on My Fantasy League or Sleeper.

It's a huge difference for that tight end premium. And it's two quarterbacks, so get the mobile guys. Okay, sorry, could not be more helpful there. I meant to look up the rules and totally whiffed on that. Uh, this email is from Mike and he's from Newport beach, California subject. New Adam makes good points. This email was sparked by Adam making a good point about how you should target top value at multiple positions in shallow leagues, even if it means giving up some value at another position. For example, taking Brock Bowers or Trey McBride in round two, to give yourself that huge positional advantage rather than going wide receiver,

wide receiver. Oh, I didn't, I didn't say that. I said something different. I know a lot of people do have that philosophy, but I said you target the, I guess the onesie positions as we call them, quarterback and tight end, if you have shallower starting lineups, not necessarily shallower leagues. If those onesie positions make up a higher percentage of the total points scored, they are more valuable to me.

If you are playing in a super flex league that starts three wide receivers and two flexes and all that, I don't care nearly as much about tight end because it's just, they don't score that many points to begin with. However, you guys, I believe think that, well, I know at least Dave, I won't speak for you in a 10 team league that it's more valuable to get an elite player at each position like those onesie positions. So he says, I'm pick, if I'm picking at 10, should I go with Malik neighbors and AJ

Brown or Malik neighbors and Christian McCaffrey or HN or would you go Malik neighbors and a tight end? Like what would you do if you had the 10th pick and he seems intent on taking neighbors? How many receivers do you start? Does he know? Two receivers, one flexed, half people. Oh, okay. You know what? I screwed this up. He was making two points. So he's in a 12-team league. He was saying that I was, about talking about taking like Bowers or McBride in a 12-team league.

Yes, it's horrible. This is my fault. Can you post Gamer Eric's comment about you? Sure, 12-team league. If you have the 10th pick, what are you doing? I'm taking the best player available. I want to see what's left in the running back and wide receiver positions. If there are a lot of running backs left that I like,

I will take a receiver. If there's a lot of wide receivers left that I like, I will take the running back first. Okay, so how does that change in a 10 team league? And how we've made it a good question. In a 10 team league that starts with two wide receivers, I would probably do the same thing. Okay. So how does that change in a 10 team league? And now we've made it a good question. And it's certainly that starts to wide receivers. I would probably do the same thing. Right. Okay. And if you want to prioritize one of the tight ends,

if you're picking in the backend around one, then you're taking your favorite of Bowers or McBride there. Cause you're not getting them in round three. This email is from Steve in New Jersey. Dear Brian, Shane, Liam and D'Amico. That's Oasis. Now those are AFC South head coaches. Yes, they are. Oasis. That was funny. Come on. What are we doing with Travis Etienne? I'm just picturing D'Amico Ryan singing Wonderwall.

Okay. Maybe- What are we doing with ETN? Maybe CJ Stroud will be the one who saves him. Yes. What are you doing with Travis ETN? I wanna take a shot at one of those running backs in Jacksonville, but excuse me.

I'm gonna guess that one, there won't be one that's great all year. You'll get one that's like good for a couple weeks at the beginning of the year, one that's good for a couple weeks in the middle of the year, and then they're going to mix and match them. The one thing that I think about is Liam Cohen is the guy that kind of helped guide Bucky Irving into his role in Tampa last year. And I'm sure he's the one that saw his talent in training camp and practice. And eventually the whole coaching staff said, all right, we got to get this guy on the field more. Who could be that guy? And I think you can make the case for literally every running back.

Well, the three T's, there's Travis, there's Tank, and there's Tootin. You can make the case for all three of those guys to potentially be that person in Jacksonville that can lead their backfield for the second half of the year. I don't know if it's going to be reliable. None of these guys are going to be early round picks. The one that's coming off my board first is ETN. But I've got, I've got intrigue for all three of those T Jaguars type running backs. You asked us about Tony Pollard and where he should go. I'm looking at fantasy pros

ADP right now. Pollard is in that range of guys with Pacheco and Robinson and Tracy, Najee, Jaylen Warren. Travis Etienne is 104th. It's so easy to take him. If he hits, we are still talking about like, we're sitting here and say, okay, Breeze Hall was a huge bust last year and you should buy back into him. There's similar situation for Travis Etienne. I think Hall should go significantly higher than Etienne. Of course. But you are talking about a guy two years ago Who was among the best fantasy running backs forget? I would got it done still produced at one of the best levels that we saw that year and was awful last year

Tank Bigsby had outperformed him, but there's there's still plenty of bounce-back potential Especially if toon can't hold on to the ball He's gonna fumble again in camp Then it's gonna be ETN and Bigsby. And Toon may never get that opportunity until ETN walks out the door and they can run him into the ground if they want to. Yeah.

There you go. Okay, guys. Jamie, question for you. Of one, two, so you, Dave, Thomas, Heath, and Dan, of those five, who were the two that wished me a happy birthday yesterday? Dan and Dave. We're half right. Dave and Thomas Schaefer. What a guy. What a guy. Usually I get a happy birthday from Jamie. Yeah I'm surprised I missed it. Off year for you. Off year. Well

everybody I hope everybody enjoyed my birthday, but more importantly, I hope you had a good Juneteenth, good holiday and are ready for a fun weekend. And can we get some good weather for once in the Northeast is unbearable so far. But summer is officially here. I believe today is the first day of summer. Maybe it's tomorrow. So we're turning the page, get some good summer weather. We will talk to you on Monday with a new edition. What did you have for your 10 year old birthday party? Oh, your 10 year old birthday party? Oh, my 10 year old birthday party. So I had plans to go to the pool

with like four other families and their kids. And I got there at two, 15, sort of one other family. And by the time all the others were going to arrive, it started raining, of course. It rains every single day. So, and also I ordered cupcakes and I was like, you know what, we're just gonna make them orange and green with rainbow sprinkles.

So I had everyone come back to our house and we had 20 people here, including kids. And we ordered pizza, we ate orange and green cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles. It was very funny. You had a hat. I did not have a hat. I meant to go to Burger King to get a crown, but I forgot. What kind of cool toys did you get?

I got a lot of clothes. My wife got me a lot of clothes. It's funny because my sister asked me what I got and I said, yeah, my wife said her name to my sister. She got me a lot of clothes because I just need like plain t-shirts because all of my t-shirts say something like Raruto on them. And what am I wearing today? I'm wearing my Raruto t-shirt. It's like, I just have all these stupid t-shirts like, like a Bushwood country club that I wore yesterday

from Caddyshack and Raruto today. So yeah, I got some clothes. That was it. You've got shirts with flair. Yeah, they're fun. And I have a lot of Draftathon shirts, like the one Jamie's wearing today. You have a lot of shirts like the one I'm wearing today. Yeah, I have a lot of my hurricane shirts,

like the one Dave's wearing today, exactly. That's right. Nothing is more than clothes. What'd you say? Sounds like you really don't need clothes. I need, I'm 41, I need like big boy clothes. Now, if the wife is buying you clothes, that means that she's not happy with your clothes.

She also bought me very cool shoes. That was a good gift. All right. Thanks everybody. We'll talk to you Monday. Have a great weekend.