Fantasy Football Today - Do Combine 40-Yard Dashes Matter? Ranking Prospects 13-24 for 2024 NFL Draft! (03/05 Fantasy Football Today Dynasty)

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Looking to dominate your fantasy league just like your redraft league? Look no further than Fantasy Football Today Dynasty hosted by our very own Heath Cummings! Download and follow Fantasy Football Today Dynasty on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you find your podcasts.  Fantasy Football Today Dynasty is available on the Audacy app and Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts! Welcome to FFT Dynasty with Heath Cummings; we are joined by Theo Gremminger from Player Profiler to unveil prospects rankings 13-24 for the 2024 NFL Draft. But first, we discuss the big news: Mike Evans (10:20) re-signs with the Buccaneers. What does this mean for (13:40) Chris Godwin? How where does Baker Mayfield (15:38) rank if he also returns to Tampa? Then we dive into the Broncos releasing (18:28) Russell Wilson; what are the best landing spots for him? Next, we analyze each prospect's potential impact, from high-flying wide receivers like Xavier Worthy (21:50) and Xavier Legette (40:00) to dynamic running backs like Trey Benson and Jaylen Wright. Lastly, Theo gives his favorite prospects Heath did not mention, Ricky Pearsall (49:20), Malachi Corley, and others. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection 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 Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ 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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Oh, what, just like that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable. Midnight snacks? Skip.

My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Uh, nope, you're on your own there. Could have skipped it, should have skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings, here with our two-time guest, Theo Grimmager. Theo, what is going on? You said in the pre-show this is the most wonderful time of the year for Dynasty. We finally have something new to talk about.

We've been diving into this rookie class for weeks and weeks and weeks, maybe discussing a little free agency here, franchise tags there, maybe discussing potential trades. But it's been 90% diving into the 2024 rookie class. And since the Senior Bowl, it's just been sort of like a slow drip chatter. Now we actually have a ton of information, a ton of things to actually react to and actually talk about that is new. So yeah, it's an amazing week. It's not one that you have to struggle for the same show sheet question every single week. I know I do a lot of pods, as do you. And now I have all these like, hey, what does this do for Troy Franklin? What does this do for Bucky Irving?

All these things we need to discuss. Absolutely. And we are going to talk about which of these things that you should be paying attention to from the combine, maybe which of these things you should be weighing a little bit less. But first I wanted to ask you, cause it's not just a great time for dynasty. It's a great time of year for player profiler, right? Like what do you have? What do you have going on in terms of new content right now? So we're doing a lot. We've, we brought over a lot of strong people on the dynasty side and also the redraft side. Josh Larky's back to doing a show for We've, we brought over a lot of strong people on the dynasty side and also the redraft side. Josh Larky is back to doing a show for us.

Cody Carpenter is back doing some content for us. Ian Miller, who was at the 33rd team is, is over here now. John Lobb, who a lot of, you know, from rookie analysis,

he's been doing content for us. I'm actually doing a mock draft with John Lobb this evening on future cast. And then all of our Dynasty shows are doing well. If you subscribe to our podcast network, Heath, I know I heard you with Jax Falcone. His show, The Undrafted, is on our podcast network, Sonic Truth. And then my show, Dynasty Life, where I've had Heath in there and he's coming back next week. So that show's going very well. I've actually tried to pump it up's coming back next week. So that show's going very well. I've actually tried to pump it up.

I'm usually recording about two a week now when we're in like the height of Dynasty season. And then, you know, the Sonic Truth Pod with Matt Kelly and Alan Cieslowski, we're doing that every single week now. In season, it kind of, you know, goes down to maybe twice a month, once a month. But this time of year, it's every single week. So it's Dynasty season and we're doing a ton of Dynasty content over at Player Profiler. Awesome stuff.

On today's show, like I said, we are going to talk plenty about what we saw at the Combine. We are going to talk about Mike Evans staying in Tampa. We are going to talk about Russell Wilson leaving Denver. We'll also talk about my round two rookies. Last week, I released an early top 12, tried to leave that top 12 the same. The order changed just a little bit. We're going to give the next 12 today and Theo can tell me where I'm wrong. So that will be lots of fun. I always love when I say I'm going to give my rankings and just let somebody else pick them apart. Tell me why I'm dumb. But we always start

with three questions for our guests. A lot of times these are kind of personal, but you've been here before. So we're going to make these three combine questions for you, Theo. What's the most important thing dynasty managers can learn from combine workouts? So for me, the most important thing is the running back athletic testing numbers. I firmly believe that this is indicative of where the draft capital is going to be. Certainly there's outlier players like Aaron Jones, like Kyron Williams last year that are not highly drafted and still are very successful for our dynasty teams and our redraft teams at the running back position.

But for the most part, we're talking about a position where if you're drafted on day one and day two, you have a much better chance of producing for us in fantasy. Last year, 11 of the top 13 PPR scores at the running back position were day one or day two selections. And this year we had that narrative that I never really bought into that this running back class, we're not going to see anybody drafted in round two, and there's going to be not too many players drafted on day two in general.

I think that our concerns got alleviated there. Also at the Combine, the athletic testing numbers for tight ends are very important. We don't want to see slow tight ends. It's really difficult for us to point out a slow tight end that's producing for us in fantasy. They don't have to be burners, but we want to see guys that are faster than four, like four, seven or faster at the tight end spot. And then I like to know the measurables for the wide receiver position. But Heath, it's one thing we got to keep in the back of our mind is

the reason the combine exists is for the physicals. So it's the most important piece of information, and we don't get to see it until we actually see where the guys are drafted and whether the NFL teams care about these old knocks. But I firmly believe in the athletic testing numbers. I think they're important. They're not the only thing. They're a part of the puzzle that we're trying to solve, but they're an important part of it.

So on the flip side of that, and I think that was a ton of good information that people can take from the combine, but it seems like I also hear a lot of people this time of year saying, I mean, you, you made a point to say, it's not everything. We're like, we're not saying it's everything. Some people are going a little bit too far and saying it's almost nothing. What do you think the biggest mistake that dynasty managers can make with information that comes from the combine? Is there something that they overreact to or something that you can really take out of context? I think the combine can really mess you up if you're looking at it as the most important thing. We've done so much evaluation of these

prospects and we have such an idea of what they are. We have all this game tape from college and then maybe one testing number shows up or one drill goes poorly and all of a sudden there's a little bit of negativity in the Dynasty community. I remember Garrett Wilson had a poor gauntlet and people were freaking out a little bit. So I think it's okay if you want to adjust on a guy like Troy Franklin based on maybe I wanted a little bit more at the combine, but it's not okay to kind of like nuke him

because of it. And I think you see that in these kind of reactionary, you know, new rankings where people try to move things up and down. It's difficult not to adjust things. I certainly did, but I don't want to go overboard in this new analysis based on what I saw from a guy in two hours of testing. And I thought one of the more difficult things was that if you were someone who was struggling, like I had Troy Franklin at wide receiver four.

He's still my wide receiver four for now. But if I was struggling with that 5-6-7 group, the Brian Thomas, the Adonai Mitchell, even Ladd-McConkie getting into that group now, and the problem in terms of moving those guys is they were all really good. The one I didn't mention ran the fastest 40 in combine history. Like all the guys in that, in that five through eight or four through seven range, depending on how you rank them, they all performed very impressively in terms of the wide receiver. So, so yeah, maybe Troy Franklin does fall just

because those guys pass him, but I didn't see anything that would make me want to just lower him for the purpose of lowering him. So for me, Troy Franklin was my wide receiver four. And I think that the one thing about his performance is I think that we were, we were trying to project him as a guy that would go somewhere in that 20 to 32 range. He was never going to be a guy that was going to go inside of the top 12, but I think that the chances of him getting drafted in that range go down a little bit. And certainly a round two wide receivers, they hit all the time. Right. But again, we want to see that first round draft capital. We wanted to see some of those landing spots. And then you bring up a number of these guys that had these fantastic performances.

So I don't know, for me, I think I might have to adjust Troy Franklin a little bit. But again, I like the profile a lot of what he did in college. And the guy ran a 4-4-1. He just happens to be super, super skinny. But the one thing about Troy Franklin that was interesting was when we look at the 10-yard split, sort of like how quickly you run the first 10 yards of the 40-yard dash, he was the lowest. So that initial explosiveness, I don't think that's like a death sentence. And there's certainly a lot

of data that drafting the slowest wide receiver, I think it was a Scott Barrett stat, but if you drafted the slowest wide receiver drafted in each round, you'd have better hit rates than trying to attack the fastest one. But I don't love seeing the 10-yard split. I don't know why. It's just that did not sit well with me, Heath. Okay. So I assume he wasn't the biggest, though.

Who was the biggest combine mover for you in either direction? It's got to be Bucky Irving because that was a player that I wanted to get really excited about. I don't know if this was kind of chasing 2023 in my process, but we had a number of these 190-pound running backs hit massively last year. The Jameer Gibbs, the Devon A-chains, the James Cooks, the Kyron Williams. And for a limited sample size, Keaton Mitchell gave us a couple of really exciting weeks. And Bucky Irving profiled to be one of these smaller backs. He led the nation in receptions at the running back position last year at Oregon.

And I thought that he was going to run very, very fast. And FanDuel, and it was funny, Heath, because FanDuel and DraftKings, they listed him in the players you could bet for to have the fastest 40. I'm like, okay, he's at 33-1 to have the fastest 40. That's pretty cool. Then he ends up running a very uninspiring 40. He weighed in at a low weight. We're going to talk about speed scores a little bit later, but he had a very low one. I think what we talked about earlier in the show with the draft capital for running backs,

Bucky Irving is the kind of guy that we would have been super excited about in the third round. It's really hard to get super excited about him in the fifth. I think the chances of him being drafted on day two are very slim right now, especially considering some of the numbers we saw out of some of these other running backs. Let's take a short break here. We're going to come back. We'll talk about Mike Evans. We'll talk about Russell Wilson. Then we'll get into some more combine data.

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Tampa Bay fans are fantastic. I had Joey Wright on this show two or three weeks ago, and he was almost in tears thinking about Mike Evans leaving his Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So I think as a Mike Evans dynasty manager, this is the best case scenario because we know this situation. It's very likely that Baker Mayfield's coming back. He's going to remain a high target guy. I wonder if you were a contender, if you see this as Mike Evans is one of those 30 plus year old wide receivers that you might want to buy because he's coming off one of the best years

of his career. I have no problem trading for Mike Evans if you have a win-now window, and this is your year to win the money and the championship. If your window is kind of an indecisive window, I would be hesitant. Father Time is undefeated. That being said, we would expect him to be the focal point of the offense once again. And I understand, like Joey Wright, I have some Bucs friends that I like. When you talk about Mike Evans, this is an all-time Buc. If you look at the best like six seasons ever by a wide receiver in Tampa,

it's all Mike Evans. There's no one else. Legend. And I would expect that they try to get things together with Baker Mayfield. It's the most logical thing for Baker. It's the most logical thing for the Bucs. And he had tunnel vision for him last year, Heath. We saw the big regression from Chris Godwin, and we had very predictive usage from Mike Evans and Rashad White. Dave Canales is on his way to Carolina, but I would expect it stylistically to be similar in terms of like

the high touch guys on the team. And Mike Evans is fine. Like he's being drafted as a wide receiver one now. I think he could give you another season of wide receiver one production, but when it falls off, it's going to fall off

really, really quickly. Whether that's two more years, three more years, I don't know. The guy seems unflappable. And that's kind of my point is that I don't have a problem with Mike Evans as a buy. I just don't want to do it right now. First off, the fact that he's staying Tampa, I think your chances of getting a discount are kind of passed because that uncertainty is not there. And I don't want to buy a player of his age.

You said when the drop-off happens, it's going to be severe. Let me see a month in 2024, or let's get a little closer to the trade deadline so I can make sure that this older wide receiver doesn't suffer an injury. If I'm trading for him right now, I'm not giving more than a second round pick. And I don't think that one second's probably going to get it done, especially today. Now, maybe during the rookie draft, somebody's on the clock and they say, oh, I really want this guy. Maybe you're able to get it done then. On the other hand, if I have Mike Evans and I think my team that was a contender last year is moving towards a rebuild, I'm trying to sell off of his news. And I'd be pretty happy to get that done. You mentioned Chris Godwin. It was a disappointing season for him last year. And he's a terribly difficult guy for me to value or rank in dynasty because we've seen that he has the ability to produce an elite top 12 fantasy season. He's 28 years old. This should

be the, maybe it's the second half of his prime, but he should absolutely be in his prime. But as you mentioned, like Baker Mayfield was all about Mike Evans last year. What does this do for Godwin's fantasy value? Are we sure that he's even a starter for fantasy purposes in 2024? We're not. And I think that these guys, if you find someone in your league, who's willing to pay you for Chris Godwin and thinking he could have a

return to 2022, I think that's the kind of deal you want to take. I think he's, I think he's becoming sort of like a purgatory player that's not going to drive the needle with big spike weeks. This is a guy that needs a lot of targets to produce in fantasy, and the chances of him returning to a massive target total, I think it's not a great bet to make. When a guy recedes, they think are not, it's not a great bet to make when a guy,

you know, recedes, they don't always bounce back. You know, that's a guy that we started for years and we were really happy to have them. But he, the problem with these guys that are on like that wide receiver to wide receiver three line is this class and last year's class for that matter, is going to nuke a lot of their values it's just there it's going to happen Xavier Worthy could have a good month in the NFL and all of a sudden he moves up to wide receiver 21 in in dynasty it's just we've seen this story a hundred times and Chris Godwin as a wide receiver a high-end wide receiver three dynasty value wise you can get something for that if he drops down to like wide receiver three four at 29

years old you're not going to get a whole lot so oh no right yeah it's your your days are numbered for being able to cash out big time for chris godwin yeah nobody would have guessed that a year from a year ago like a year ago he'd it was the acl season this next season's going to be great and now it's it's a real question mark whether we get to get that again. Speaking of question marks, you mentioned Baker Mayfield, my expectation. Now, just as you said,

he's, I fully expect he's going to be back in Tampa and not just as a one year bandage, but he's going to get a multi-year deal. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets more money than people are expecting right now. And so that makes him pretty interesting. Cause it was a great bounce back season for him.

I've almost forgiven him for what he did to DJ Moore two years ago. Where do you factor him in? Like once this deal gets done with Tampa in terms of the QB2 landscape, because I could see him approaching that QB18 type range in Superflex. Yeah. I mean, he finished as a QB1 last season. He set personal records in a number of categories. And it's funny because it's sort of like a Mandela effect where you think

about a guy being in the league for so, so long, and you've talked about him so much, and it's been sort of a roller coaster for us as fantasy managers with Baker Mayfield. Uh, and the guy's only 28. He,

so the guy's 28 years old. It seems like he's 35, but he's 28 years old. He had a QB one season last year and the market hasn't really caught up with, with his production last year. Now, do I think you should be paying QB one numbers? Absolutely not. But he's the kind of guy that you can get acquire for a low end QB two price. And I think that the chances of him beating his ADP are very, very good. They got back

Mike Evans. He'll have Rashad White again. Trey Palmer is a year older. We just kind of beat up Chris Godwin a little bit, but he's still Chris Godwin. And they also let him run the ball a little bit more last year. He wasn't necessarily efficient with those rushing attempts. But when a quarterback gets those sort of rushing attempts, then all it takes is him falling in the end zone three, four times, and we see the fantasy numbers go up. So everything's there for Baker Mayfield to give you, like you said, a mid QB two season. And if he does that, he's beating expectations in startup price. He's beating expectations in the trade market. He's a good guy to acquire for your super flex managers looking for a cheap starter. I just thought of this and it sounds crazy in my head, but

let's assume Baker's deal signed this afternoon. Tonight, it's your job to rank in Superflex value, Baker Mayfield, Chris Godwin, Mike Evans. You're sending a second round pick for any of these three guys. Which one would you rather send that pick for? Team context. Again, if I was going for the title this year, it's Mike Evans. But team structure averse and goal averse, it's Baker Mayfield. Because you say it's Baker Mayfield.

Absolutely ridiculous. But yeah, I think it absolutely is. I was looking at the values I had on my trade chart, and he's definitely the most valuable. And Chris Godwin now with Evans back is last, which is a complete flip of how we would have had this a year ago. Let's go to the other veteran, a guy who's also not as valuable as Baker Mayfield probably anymore. Russell Wilson, let go by the Denver Broncos. I am a noted Russell Wilson apologist, and I mostly blame Sean Payton.

And so you're going to have to be the realist here with Wilson. I, my expectation is he's going to go get his choice of a job and he's going to be about as good as Baker Mayfield is next, next year. He's just older. So that's why he's not quite as valuable. Where are you at on Wilson? I think Wilson is going to be the guy that we sort of, we'll see the free agents, quarterback dominoes fall, and then a market will be there for him a little bit more it's funny heath because he did not look bad to me last year right but it seems like the market is dead i don't know if it's because of you know he's sort of a guy that is associated with you know having a little bit of a circus around him he kind of goes by the beat

of his own drum uh in terms of his support staff, the people he wants in the building. I don't know if that's turning NFL teams off. I don't think that he's the same player he was at his peak in Seattle, but he had some impactful games last year, and he certainly, you would think, would be appealing for some of these teams in real dire quarterback problems. I look at Las Vegas. I think if it becomes apparent that Las Vegas misses out on this rookie class and they don't see a trade materializing, he would be a really good bridge quarterback if maybe they were able to, if a J.J. McCarthy fell, which does not look really apparent at this point,

or they simply were jammed at the quarterback spot and maybe ended up with a, with a, a Michael Penix or a, uh, excuse me, Michael Penix or a, uh, or maybe, I don't know. It's really difficult to say the scenario, but I think Las Vegas makes the most sense because they're a little bit further down, um, in the draft for trading up. They're picking 13th and Russell Wilson's coming from in the division. He's certainly an upgrade for, for Aiden O'Connell. So I look at Las Vegas, but I don't, I really, that's just kind of throwing darts at this point, Heath. I really don't know where he'll end up

being the quarterback. That's, that's one of three spots that I could see myself getting pretty excited about him. Because I think if you, if you give me Russell Wilson and Devante Adams, I'm going to feel pretty good about it. If Pittsburgh decided, you know what, he doesn't cost anything, so we're going to take on Russell Wilson and he gets George Pickens, and I'm pretty excited about that for both. I think that could be a match made in heaven. And then the third one is where we want basically every quarterback to go, is can he go to Atlanta? Now, there's been some talk about Atlanta is really going to go all in on Kirk Cousins.

If they do that, maybe they could force Minnesota's hand. He goes to Minnesota, I'd feel good about that too. Just give him a number one wide receiver. Give him an offensive system that's a little bit more suited to his skill set, which I don't think Peyton attempted

to do that at all last year. And, you know, he's a mid-range QB too. I was really impressed with the rushing numbers last year. Best rushing season in three years. So if you can do that also there, there's a, there's a chance for a low end top 12 season.

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measurement that's very predictive for fantasy success. Of course, it's not a perfect number, but when we see guys getting speed scores over 100, it gives them a much better chance of being drafted on day one or day two. All it is, is a weight adjusted 40 time. So these players, it's basically, I couldn't tell you the exact math of it, but I could give you a couple of examples. So Saquon Barkley basically broke this thing. His speed score was nearly 125, but I took a look at the backs that have been drafted since 2020 and pretty much all of the backs that have gone on day one and day two have had these speed scores that were around 95 or up. The lowest one was Javante Williams with 94.7 back in 2021. And then the highest one was Jonathan Taylor in 2020 at 121.7. But for us with this particular draft class, we had three players really, really show out in the speed score.

Trey Benson, who was six feet tall, weighed 216 pounds, gets 116.3 speed score. That puts him right next to Brees Hall, right next to Ken Walker, and a little bit below Jonathan Taylor because Jonathan Taylor was about nine pounds heavier at the combine. We also had Jalen Wright with a 114.1 speed score. We knew he was going to be fast, but for him to weigh in at 210 pounds and run that fast was very impressive. And I think he really needed to run that fast too, Heath, for us to get excited about him. Right. And then Marshawn Lloyd, who's been a meteoric riser since the Senior Bowl, weighed 220 and runs a 4.46, giving him a 111.2 speed score, which puts him above Jameer Gibbs, above Cam Akers, above Bijan Robinson, above Travis Etienne. So, again, it's only part of the puzzle, but it's a very cool stat, a very important one.

And then the one player that we sort of got a reassuring number was Blake Corum. Blake Corum gets a speed score of 97. This is fine. This is like, our fears of Blake Corum falling to day three, I think are out the window. 4-5, 3-40 for a player that productive and a guy with the high character traits that Blake Corum has. Blake Corum is going to be drafted.

I think he could be a late second rounder. I think some teams are going to fall in love with him. The way he's talked about is unfair. He's talked about as if someone who had a – I mean, it is true. He was more explosive earlier in his career at Michigan. And now everybody acts like he's a slug now. And he's, he's certainly like this speed score shows that I don't know. Like I was going to get into this when we got into my next 12, but in my top 12, I basically just said that there's one

spot for RB one. And for now I'm going to put Blake quorum's name in that because my assumption is that his college coach is going to draft him to the most desirable running back spots with the Chargers. And Blake Corham on the Chargers as a second-round pick, as you just said, is a first-round rookie pick, right? Yeah, I mean, Blake Corham, if he lands on the Chargers with Harbaugh, you're talking about a guy who's going to be a lock first rounder for us in rookie drafts. And not only that, Heath, he'd be a third rounder in redraft right out the gate. Yeah.

So it would be the nuts landing spot. This is a guy who Jim Harbaugh really seems to love and was a very, very successful player for him. J.J. McCarthy did not have a whole lot of passing attempts, and he's going to be drafted in the top 10 of the NFL draft because of Blake Corum, largely. So, yeah, that would be an incredible landing spot. I mean, that one is being circled by a lot of people as the best one.

I'll give you the wildcard landing spot, and I talked about this on another pod, is one franchise that we've seen, and this is not necessarily for Blake Corum. This is for whoever they view as their running back one but a spot that could be an incredible fantasy football landing spot for us in Dynasty would be the Philadelphia Eagles and they like to pay running backs very cheap contracts and what better way than to get someone on a rookie deal. They pick at 50 and 53rd. So they could view one of those two picks as a luxury selection and just, just get their running back replacement there and let Deandre Swift walk.

If he's not going to take a team friendly discount and just take their running back. And with, if the Eagles did that, I think that would be a spot that we would go nuts for. Baltimore at the end of the second round, Dallas at the end of the second round. There's a couple of spots that we can get super excited about. You mentioned the speed score, and one of the reasons I asked about this

is because you'd shared a tweet that had a lot of the information. You should definitely go follow him on Twitter, at TheOGFantasy. But what I loved was you shared that with me in a DM. I clicked on the tweet. lot of the information you should definitely go follow him on twitter at the og fantasy um but what i loved was i you shared that with me in a dm i clicked on the tweet it's like oh yes we're going to talk about this the top reply is our friend scott barrett and kind of super long shot but isaac garendo 125.7 so he was in that saquon barkley range a guy that most of the people I've talked to since he put up that number was, I didn't really know who he was before the combine. That's, that's the most common response.

So when it's these guys that, I mean, it's, I guess it's a similar to how Isaiah Pacheco kind of got himself on the map at the combine. Does this guy matter now? Is he, is he, did he just become someone who was going to be overlooked in rookie drafts and now he's a third or fourth round dart throw just because the speed score is so great? The way that I'm approaching him and certainly the speed score is off the charts. 220 pound back. He didn't test in everything though, Heath. He didn't test in every single thing at the combine, but the 40 and the vertical leap were all were insane that 120 uh speed score club is wild you see you know names like saquon names like jonathan taylor but having the highest speed score in the entire

draft class is not always it doesn't really mean anything. Right. Like last year, the highest speed score in the draft class was generic Prince, which was a guy that like, we kind of like, there was like a, like a generic Prince hive that was excited about him in dynasty, but he never, you know, had, had really any opportunity. And then you talk about like Kenny Nwangu of the Minnesota Vikings is a guy that was an absurd athlete, and it just never sort of translated. So the way that we should treat this situation is let the NFL tell you what they think of this player. If some team says, I want that athletic profile, and I'm going to select him in round four or round five, I think you can take some shots in your rookie draft. But if it's a seventh round pick, the hit rates go down and down. So let the NFL answer that question for you. We don't need to chase guys that... He had 800 rushing yards last year

for Louisville. It wasn't like he had nothing, but it's not a profile we need to chase just because he ran the 40 quickly. On that same note, now this is a different thing altogether because Xavier Worthy had a very good breakout age. He had lots of production in college. But how much should we care as fantasy football managers that he just broke the 40 record? As you said, the top speed score in the class is not always a good thing. It absolutely is not always a good thing it absolutely

is not always a good thing for a wide receiver to run a 4-2-40 we've seen a lot of those guys flame out I think worthy is a different type of animal but did that did that move the needle at all for you or was just kind of a fun fact we knew he was very fast but Heath when he weighed in at 165 then him having this sort of speed, it mattered more. And I will say it did move the needle for me a little bit because of draft capital. There's all these people projecting and some very smart people that I like reading their draft projections every single year. Across the board, you see people saying that he's going to be the 32nd overall selection

for your Kansas City Chiefs. I think the chances of him lasting until 32 are gone. I think there's more likely that he's be drafted at 12 than 32. I think that some NFL team is going to fall in love with having a player that can run this fast on their team. And when we talk about Worthy, like a lot of these very fast players did not pan out. You talk about the John Rosses, the Henry Ruggs on the field, not off the field, but on the field, he was not really an impactful guy. There's been a lot of them.

But at the end of the day, Xavier Worthy's different. This is a guy who had a 261-yard game as an 18-year-old at Texas against Oklahoma. He also had a 14-reception game as a freshman against Kansas. And he's third all-time in Texas history for touchdown receptions at 20 years old. So he's had big-time college production, and now we know that the athletic numbers are ridiculous. So I am more apt to be into Xavier Worthy. He was always a guy that we kind of liked,

but I think it's okay if you want to try to push him up to wide receiver four, wide receiver five, maybe before he was probably wide receiver seven land. If a player relies on his speed and then he runs that fast, then we're paying attention. Andrew in the chat with a sentiment that I think a lot of people are feeling this time of year. Me watching Tank Dell last year gives me extreme hope for Xavier. He broke out early.

Great sign. I am smitten with him. I think, and it's not just Tank Dell. Like Devontae Smith was too skinny. Jalen Waddell was too small. We've seen a lot of smallish type wide receivers have success going from college to the NFL in the last two or three years. We've definitely seen the trend. I know in the anatomy of a top 24 dynasty wide receiver series, there's talk about how those guys are getting smaller. It doesn't matter as much as it used to do you think like there's some big dudes in this class though do you think we see a bit of a swing back this year to the bigger guys mattering more or do you think we're just going to keep getting littler well the data will skew a little bit because we have marvin harrison jr and roma dunzey and now adenai mitchell and brian thomas who are all going

to get high draft capital um but i don't know i think it's i think think the NFL is willing to draft different kinds of wide receivers. And I think that one thing that's interesting is when these low BMI guys are drafted early, they've all been hitting lately. The Devonta Smiths, the Jordan Addisons, and then Takedale was a third-round pick, but he really, really hit. So I think if it's a very skinny profile like Xavier Worthy and the NFL is willing to pull that trigger early on, that should also tell us something. But yeah, there's some big dudes and some fast dudes in this class. I'm not ready to close the door on Keon Coleman, but Adonai Mitchell, wow, what a combine for him. Runs a 4.3-5 at 6-2, 2-0-6. And then Marvin Harrison Jr. didn't test, but he's an absolute specimen. But Roma Dunze, Heath, what a winner, what a win for him. Runs a 4-4-5 at 6-3-2-12. I mean, I can't, I, there's, I'm going to have Roma Dunze, like, uncomfortably high in my dynasty rankings for the wide receiver position, because I think I take him over any single wide receiver in the 2023 class right now, besides probably Puka Nakua.

And then the 2022 class, I think he's right up there, probably closer to Garrett Wilson than some people think. I think Roma Dunze is going to be a top 10 NFL pick. And I think that he's the kind of guy that profiles as an alpha wide receiver. One, he's, he's a really hard player to poke holes in. And he also averaged the most fantasy points per game of any wide receiver in college football last year,

mega producer on a winning team where he was the focal point of it. Yeah. I wrote just this morning when I was unleashing the top 24 that this looked before the combine like it could be a historically great wide receiver class. And if anything, I'm more excited about it today than I was last Thursday. So the things are really moving in the right direction.

We might have eight wide receivers from this class that rank in my top 40, and there might be three in the top 12. By the time we get to May, we'll just see if the NFL agrees with the way we're feeling about these guys. Let's take one more short break. I'm going to make Theo rank some guys, and then I'll give you my round two super flex rankings. Okay, so we talked about Theo. Speed score for running backs. We talked about theo speed score for running backs we talked about xavier worthy's 40 and how great this this wide receiver class is i'm going to put you on the spot who are your top five running backs post combine so i have a top six so i'll go a little bit of a pop out here i got to be able to put put one guy in but before before the combine i had Braylon Allen one, and I had Blake Corum two.

I think with Braylon Allen not testing, I'm going to have to push him down a little bit. If he runs somewhere in the four fives at 235 at Wisconsin's workout, then I'm all the way back in. But he certainly looks the part, but I can't rank him RB1 right now. I think for me, I'm going to move Trey Benson up to RB1. I think Trey Benson's profile is really solid right now with those athletic numbers. RB2 for me is going to be Blake Corum. RB3 right now is going to be, gosh, this is really tough. It's really tough right now. I'll say that I'll put Braylon Allen RB3, and then I'll have Marshawn Lloyd at RB4 and Jalen Wright at RB5.

Jonathan Brooks is the one that I want to discuss because for me, Jonathan Brooks could be the RB1 in this class, but I want to see an NFL team call his name on day two. I don't want to see him fall. I think that we are being very optimistic about him right now in the Dynasty community, and I'm taking a cautious approach with him. I'm willing to move him up to RB1 if he gets that round two draft capital, but I want to see it first, Heath,

because I don't trust recent injuries when i don't have to and i think this running back class is good enough that i don't need to push him up at this point but he's a really good player i think it's a really exciting six and i think at the end of the day we could see all six of these guys gone by the end of round three and i think that's a huge win for us as dynasty managers. I agree with you on like our top six are in a different order, but it's the same six. I would have Brooks as RB one. If it wasn't for the ACL, it's I said yesterday on the football guys show that,

that the most difficult thing about Brooks for me in terms of evaluation, actually pushing that button to draft him is that I'm don't really want to draft a running back unless I'm a win now team. And I don't really want to draft a player who's hurt if I'm trying to win now. So it doesn't, it says that he doesn't really fit well, but if you get to the middle of round two, I'm probably going to just forget about those things and just draft him. Assuming like you said, the NFL values and like we expect to let's talk about wide receivers now. And you can have six here if you need to as well. But who are your top five wide receivers post-Cumbine?

So the top three remains unchanged. It's Marvin Harrison Jr. It's Malik Nabors. It's Roma Dunze. I think if somebody's giving you somebody else in their top three, they're not really doing it right. Wide receiver four for me is Brian Thomas Jr. I think that there's a wide mix of opinions on him,

but I think that he profiles as a guy who's going to be a productive player in fantasy. The athletic numbers back it up. Wide receiver five, I'm going to move Xavier Worthy up to wide receiver five. I'm dropping Troy Franklin down one spot to wide receiver six, and then it's Adonai Mitchell and Ladd McConkie, both of those guys right in the mix right after. Call it a tie, if you will, not to be a cop out. But I think that that group of wide receivers

are all going to be first round picks. And I think all of them, besides Troy Franklin, who I think will fall into round two, but I just like his profile a lot. All of those guys I think are going to be first-round picks. I think we see the record broken this year, and I think that those are all guys that I want on my dynasty roster. And I will discuss Keon Coleman as a guy that I'm seeing a lot of people talk about as a combine loser. I don't think his game is really based on speed necessarily. We would have liked him

seeding 4-5-5, but him running right over the 4-6. The other testing numbers were impressive. He looked really, really good in the gauntlet, had a very high miles per hour there. I'm keeping an eye on Keon Coleman as well, but it's a really tough year to rank wide receivers, Heath. I like a lot of those guys. It gives me physical pain to put Ladd McConkie

where I just put him. You can make a case for McConkie at wide receiver four it's really that that tier of guys after the big three right if you have multiple dynasty teams invest in that group of wide receivers because there's going to be some very very effective players coming out of that and i think like and obviously we do i'm i'm going to diversify in that range yes like. Like I I'm not going, I had Troy Franklin still wide receiver for right now, but if I had the seventh pick in, in seven different drafts, I'm certainly not taking Troy Franklin and all of them.

I'll take, and I'm going to call him Troy Franklin all season long, but Troy Franklin. And I'm going to take some Xavier worthy. I'm going to take some Adonai Mitchell. I'm going to take some Brian Thomas. I'm like, I want to get a piece of most of those guys in that range.

Let's talk about my rankings now, and you can tear them apart. First, I want to review round one. I won't go exactly in order, but just to confirm with you, I think we're probably on the same page. In a super flex rookie only draft, I have four QBs in round one. Of course, everybody knows who those guys are. The order for me, Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels, Drake May, and then J.J. McCarthy with the first three pretty close together, and McCarthy at the end of round one. Is that pretty close to what you've got? Yeah, I think that those four guys are locked in. I would argue that J.J. McCarthy is probably going to be the 108 in Superflex

or the 107 if somebody wants to get spicy because I think the draft capital is going to be there the only problem with jj mccarthy is i think you're gonna have to wait a little bit longer to start him than those other three which are about as locked in as it gets they're they're starting day one in the nfl i did have one rb1 and some of my ratings i just put rb1 and don't even put a name but my rb1 is still blake Corum because I still think he's going to get the best landing spot. I will adjust that certainly, and I assume you as well. The running back rankings are probably the least sticky thing

from pre-draft to post-draft for me, especially this year. Those top six, depending on how the NFL values them, could move in just about any order, right? Oh, yeah, I think that's fine. I think that all six of them have a chance to be RB1 drafted by the NFL, and all six of them are super appealing for us as dynasty managers. And I think it's a little bit of a tear break between RB6 and RB7 right now. For sure.

And then I had, of course, the big three are in my top five picks at wide receiver. And then Troy Franklin is my wide receiver four. In the first round. I also have Xavier worthy and Brian Thomas. That's it for me in the first round, along with tight end Brock Bowers, of course, who I think is probably in that JJ McCarthy wide receiver for range going somewhere between pick six and picks and pick nine,

depending on the priorities of the teams that have those picks. So let's talk about round two. I have two wide receivers at the start of round two, Adonai Mitchell, Ladd McConkie, very good combines for both of those guys, two guys that moved up for me, in my opinion, because I'll be honest, I was a little bit skeptical about both. And they both, I thought, had really impressive weekends. Do you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. Ladd-McConkie, 4'3", 9'40", and he's literally the same in testing metrics as Garrett Wilson. I don't know if you saw that graphic, but it's absolutely wild. I didn't think that Ladd-McConkie would be quite that fast, and he just looks the part.

And I think the chances of him being a first-round pick in the actual NFL draft got a lot better after the combine. Absolutely. And then I've got three running backs, and five of my next six picks are actually running backs. I think the middle of that round, too, is where we're going to see a lot of running backs go. Maybe one more of these guys creeps into the first round based on a really good landing spot. But I've got Trey Benson, Jonathan Brooks, Marshawn Lloyd as my next three running backs. Then Michael Pennix kind of sliding in there as QB five. That's going to any

quarterback that sneaks into the back half of round one is probably going to be in this range, if not just a little bit higher. And then Braylon Allen and Jalen Wright. So that those five running backs who are all in your top six, all kind of early to mid-round two picks for me. I do have a question for you in regards to Allen and Wright. Because I'd probably be higher on Allen if we had his numbers. And I'm a little skeptical that the reason that he didn't test is because it wasn't going to go well. Wright's going to look better, I expect, based on the testing. But he's so unproven as an actual football player, a running back.

And I love those guys that have proven it on the field, like Braylon Allen. How do you kind of weigh those two things? The guys without quite as much proof on tape, but really great numbers, versus the guys who have been the alpha lead back. So Jalen Wright, I still think it's a little bit developmental as a running back but heath it's the the home run hitting ability for jalen right is insane the guy did have over a thousand yards rushing in the sec uh as a 19 slash 20 year old last year at tennessee and he's he's just it's incredible like you know the, the, the tape against Georgia where he rips off like

an 80 plus yard touchdown, I believe he had four or five touchdowns over 40 yards last year. Uh, so those kinds of home run hitters in fantasy, you need the NFL teams to trust them. But once an NFL team trusts them and trusts them and puts them on the field, they can be big fantasy scorers for us. So it takes a little bit more of a leap of faith for Jalen Wright because we want to see more usage and everything. But the 1-5-5 10-yard split is insane. That's faster than Devon Achain. That's faster than Jameer Gibbs.

That 1-5-5 10-yard split is about as fast as you're going to see from a running back in any draft. So that initial explosiveness for Wright, I think that there's people who have been questioning the vision a little bit. But if we see this guy go in round two or round three with this sort of speed, 20 years old, that's a guy that I'm interested in. But I do think Braylon Allen, it's a little bit of prospect fatigue,

like we saw with Blake Morham. You're talking about Braylon Allen is 19 years old. Braylon Allen was on a Big Ten football field at 17 years old. He has over 3,500 rushing yards, over 35 rushing touchdowns. This is a player that for whatever reason there's some in the dynasty community that don't want to buy into again i don't like the fact that he didn't test either but if we see an okay 40 at at wisconsin then you're talking about a guy that i think we want to bet on a little bit more than we really are at this point. Six, two, two 35. He looks the part to Heath.

Like there's not an ounce of fat on that guy. Not an ounce of fat. Like it seems, and I think that's the thing is we, there's two paths for a running back to fantasy upside. One of them is the Jalen Wright path is you can be an RB one on 12 to 15 touches a game. And one is you have the potential of earning 20 touches a game as rare as those roles are becoming. And those guys can average four yards for carry and still be the best running back in fantasy, but just because they're doing so much work.

And I think those two guys may illustrate those two paths a little bit. And we're all going to favor different angles there. I have four more guys that I have in my top 24, mostly because I only had 20. I feel like I get to the end of this running back group and to the end past McConkie and past whoever QB5 is going to be, and I don't right now have four more guys that I love in round two. So maybe you'll have some better answers for me. What I've got here is Roman Wilson, Xavier Leggett, Keon Coleman,

and then you mentioned athleticism for a tight end, Theo Johnson. I had to get a Theo in there, right? Oh, it's the greatest name in the history of fantasy football. Spectacular combine. He's like 6'6", 260, and just flying all over the place. So I think a lot of people have jatavian sanders in there as tight into that's fine he'd be right in the same range for me uh what do you think of this last group of four and do you do you agree that like you have a hard time finding that 21 through

24 at this point i'm a little bit more uh dug in on roman wilson and keon coleman being in this this range heath i think that xavier legette, certainly a really good combine for him. I think the chances of him being drafted in round two are very high. Theo Johnson, it's interesting. This guy has one of the most incredible athletic scores. I still would put Jatavian Sanders as my tight end too in this class, despite a kind of uninspiring combine. Jatavian Sanders I just think has a really good profile in terms of production at the

college level at a very high level like Texas. Played with Xavier Worthy. He has more receptions at the tight end spot than any Texas Longhorn ever. Theo Johnson was a guy that we're really going to need to bet on the NFL showing us sort of with the draft capital and landing spot. Incredible athlete though. And I'll throw Benson Knott's name in as a tight end that I'm interested in. He had the highest vertical among all tight ends there, led Kansas State in receiving yards, led Kansas State in receiving touchdowns, and then backs it up with that incredible vertical and actually a faster 40 time than JT Sanders.

I'm into him. And then I'll say missing from your top 24, a guy that I think could be there after the actual NFL draft, two wide receivers that are climbing a little bit for me, Ricky Pearsall of Florida had incredible testing numbers, was sort of a guy that if we're following last year's pattern of strong senior bowl, gets the draft capital,

helps out at our dynasty teams, Ricky Pearsall's sort of on that path. There's been like a Ricky Pearsall hive. Anytime I put out content, Ricky Pearsall people get in my comments and like, yo Theo, why is Ricky Pearsall not listed up here? It's starting to grow on me a little bit. That was Thomas, actually.

That's right. I'm sure there's... It was Thomas. You see the Ricky Pearsall people, they're strong. He was an Arizona State transfer, but he did have a nearly 1,000-yard season at Florida, probably had the catch of the year in college last year. And one player that's really growing on me, Heath, that I've been diving into a lot is Malik Washington. Malik Washington was a quarterback in high school, a really successful one at a powerhouse Catholic school

in the Baltimore area called Archbishop Spalding, then ends up going to Northwestern, has sort of okay production there, but they didn't really pass. Transfers to Virginia and just blew up last year. Ends up with 110 receptions last year at Virginia. Then has a really big Shrine Bowl. So while we're covering Senior Bowl, I keep hearing about Malik Washington ripping up the Shrine Bowl. The highlights look great. You're like, okay. And now Malik Washington posts a 4-4-8-40 and has an incredible vertical leap to back it up. He's a really interesting

prospect. He's short, but he's like 192 pounds, very thick, well-built wide receiver, like a miniature Debo Samuel type build. And this sort of production, this sort of athleticism. I think he ends up going in round three now. And he's a guy that depending on the landing spot, we could start getting a little bit excited about. Good, good stuff, Theo, as it always is. I do want to ask you one more guy. I didn't put him on the show sheet. So if you don't have much to say about him, it's not, it's not going to bother me. But somebody in the chat mentioned his name. And I was kind of, I mean, I watched a lot of this guy during the season

because I watched too much Conference USA football. But Malachi Corley, who was not at the Combine, I don't, I wish he had been because it would be very, very easy for me to get excited about this guy, especially if the NFL does. Well, now those Western Kentucky Liberty games actually help you out.

He's got a guy to talk about Malachi Corley is my guy. This is a guy that we actually have higher at player profiler as a site than, than I do. We have them inside our top 24 for single QB rankings right now, but Malachi Corley, we talk about that. I hate using the word Debo Samuel. You can't talk. I hate using the word Debo Samuel.

You can't talk about him without using the word Debo Samuel. No, I'll take it more realistic. I'll take a realistic player. And certainly different in how they were used in college by a country mile. But Curtis Samuel, you know, had a kind of a mini Debo Samuel usage season. Malachi Corley led the nation in yards after catch uh one one year at Western Kentucky and when you hear yards after catch you think of like this guy doing an incredibly beautiful juke move like gracefully spinning around somebody Malachi Corley had plenty of

yak yards which were broken tackle yak yards like he really, really fun when the ball's in his hands. The knock on him is he had the very low a dot, but Western Kentucky, that's what they did. It was low a dot, uh, looks right around the line of scrimmage for Malachi Corley. And he absolutely crushed it. He's also like, he appeared on Bruce Feldman's freaks list, um, which anybody who doesn't follow Bruce Feldman's freaks list, which anybody who doesn't follow Bruce Feldman's Freaks list, it's really cool.

You always see a lot of future fantasy football successful players on it. But Malachi Corley, that's a guy you wish he would have ran the 40 because he's going to be fast. He looks like a high 4-4s guy, and there's people at Western Kentucky who said he was like a 4-4 flat guy. So you always have to take that into consideration it's the college pumping their guy but he's very very well built very quick with the ball in his hands exciting player if he gets the draft capital in

the landing spot that's a guy who could be really really fun and i don't think like if everybody's saying this guy is devo samuel and he looks like Devo Samuel and he could be a low a dot should not be a discouraging factor should like Devo Samuel had a year I believe with a negative a dot no no yeah I think it's just more of a people want to poke holes especially when it's a guy coming from Conference USA if this Malachi Corley you know and and there's another stat about Malachi Corley is every single time the Western Kentucky played against, for whatever reason on their schedule, they played a lot of Big Ten schools. Not a lot, but every single year there would be one or two Big Ten schools. Malachi Corley had, I believe he never had less than 70 receiving yards anytime they played a Big Ten school.

He looked very good against Ohio State when they played against Ohio State. So it's a small sample size, but Malachi Corley did post the numbers when they played against bigger competition. So, hey, Bailey Zappi, he started a bunch of NFL games and he's coming from Western Kentucky. Where's the love for the Hilltoppers? That's exactly right, Theo. Fantastic stuff. As always, appreciate you being here. Look forward to talking to you on your show next week. You can put me on the spot.

Thank you to everybody who was in the chat participating today or listening on the podcast. We will be back here on Friday with Russ Fisher at Dynasty Outhouse answering your mailbag questions. You can just come here to the YouTube chat. We'll answer them there. You can ask me on Twitter. You can send us an email. We'll have a bunch of questions to answer.

We'll talk to you on Friday.