Fantasy Football Today - FFT Dynasty - Jayden Daniels QB1? Debates on LaPorta, Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson & More! (05/16 Fantasy Football Dynasty)

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Starting point is 00:00:52 Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash VI Porter to learn more. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings, and we've got a great show for you today. I wanted to kind of turn back the clock a little bit. When I started this show two or three years ago, one of the things I really wanted to do was bring people on from the Dynasty Fantasy Football community that I hadn't had conversations with before. The last month or two, it's been so heavy with draft prep that I've just kind of gone back to the same guys. We've got somebody new for you today. It's Tommy Blair from the Superflex Super Show.

Starting point is 00:01:36 Tommy, thank you for being here and tell everybody where they can find your work and what you've been working on. Heet, thanks for the invite, man. This is a really cool opportunity. I'm so glad to join you and your listeners today. Yeah, I'm Tommy Blair at FFTommyB over on Blue Sky. I am one half of the duo that does the Superflex Super Show, one of the DLF podcasts where we talk about during the non-point scoring season, all sorts of different stuff, physics and ecology, psychology, unregulated markets like really wild stuff and then when lineup season starts we're all actionability you know what moves to make what strategies to employ what you're doing if you're rebuilding contending somewhere in the

Starting point is 00:02:16 middle so it's a great mix i really love it i love being on with john hoag who's sort of a legend in the fantasy space you know one of the things I do when I have somebody on is I kind of go through their recent social media feed and see what they've been doing or what they have coming up. And I saw that you're going to be part of a 24-hour live stream next week. So tell everybody what that's about. Totally riding the coattails here with my good friend Justin with Fantasy Now Plus. He stays on 24 hours live, like continuous, to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network hospitals. And so he does a fundraiser every single year. He brings on all sorts of great guests. This is my first year. I got the 6 a.m. slot. So all those early risers that are your listeners, please join us, because it's for a great cause.

Starting point is 00:03:06 I mean, this organization that we're raising money for has raised like $130 million since its inception. And this money goes directly to kids, right? Like this is a legitimately great cause. And it's one of the best parts of being in the fantasy space and being an analyst is having the opportunity to join these types of causes to do good in the world.

Starting point is 00:03:26 I think that's something that the fantasy space has really been underrated in terms of its capacity to impact in a positive way our communities. Everybody, you guys know that I agree with everything Tommy just said. And I will say there will be a link in the show descriptions both in the podcast and here on YouTube. If you would like to contribute to the cause, I would love it if you could do that on today's show. It's kind of a selfish show. I've got some questions. I need some answers. Tommy's going to help me answer those questions. There

Starting point is 00:03:56 are questions about Jayden, Daniel, Sam Laporte, even James Cook. We will get to those shortly. We start every show with three questions for our guests. And since Tommy's a Superflex guy, these are going to be Superflex questions. And this is actually another thing that I've really struggled with in my rankings. Cause I think the answer is much different in 1QB versus Superflex leagues.

Starting point is 00:04:19 How are you handling the ranking or just roster management for these? We got three, I think really high upside, low floor quarterbacks, Anthony Richardson, Justin Fields, Jalen Milro. I think we all feel pretty confident if those guys start 16 games a season for the next three or four years, they're definitely going to produce like top 10 quarterbacks. We all also kind of feel like none of those guys may be starting quarterbacks in 2026. So how do you handle guys like that potential league

Starting point is 00:04:52 winners who in a super flex format could also really drag you down? I couldn't agree more that these assets are treated very differently in one quarterback leagues versus super flex leagues, right? So whenever I'm playing in a one quarterback league, it's upside at the quarterback position. And there's a lot of consumability to that spot because the values are so low. And so if you want to take a high upside bet on one of these quarterbacks in a one quarterback league, like you can pay pennies on the dollar and you can just roll with the losses year over year. You can churn the position if you need to and if you hit aces, if let's say Justin Fields does really well this year and gets a long-term contract, that's awesome. You know, you've got something for the long term and you can sort of pare down

Starting point is 00:05:34 the quarterback position around him. In Superflex, it's totally different, at least in how I play fantasy and dynasty. I really value certainty and longevity at the quarterback position because I think that can be leveraged in really interesting ways. And when I think of these three quarterbacks, Anthony Richardson, Justin Fields, and Jalen Milro, I almost think of the three little bears, Heath. I don't know if that rings true to you at all, where Justin Fields, he's sort of like the Papa Bear. He's been through the sort of ins and outs of the NFL. He's had multiple opportunities now, which I think is a good thing. I think it's reflective of his draft capital. When you take a quarterback who's been drafted in the NFL, in your rookie drafts, who is, you know, a first round pick, a very high first round pick, you see these multiple opportunities to not only

Starting point is 00:06:21 succeed, but to fail and get a future shot. That said, like how many starts would you say Heath are left in Justin Fields career? For me personally, I put the over under around 12. That's really sort of the bar that I'm thinking in terms of what I can firmly expect for the rest of Justin Fields career. Does that seem low? Does that seem high to you? You know, I think my biggest problem is in getting to that number because he could play eight really good games at the start of this year and have a new deal. Um, I think it's less likely like the separation for fields is in the

Starting point is 00:06:59 fact that unless he gets hurt, I think he's probably starting 17 games this year. Whereas Richardson still has to win a job. Now, I don't actually believe that unless Richardson falls on his face, Daniel Jones is going to take that job from him. How would you, I guess I'll finish with this. How would you rank those three in dynasty? Well, I put Anthony Richardson sort of a few years back from the career arc of Justin Fields and say that I almost expect him to fail, but the dynasty market is already assuming that Anthony Richardson is going to fail. I think there are future opportunities on the horizon for Richardson. He's the just right portion of this three bears analogy in that he could succeed,

Starting point is 00:07:42 he could win out and succeed. When you look at the early season returns on Anthony Richardson over last year and his rookie year, he was something like a one fantasy point per drop back player, which is near God status. That's elite of the elite. You know, a quarterback has a real difficult time sustaining that, but that's in the range of outcomes

Starting point is 00:08:01 for Richardson. And that's what puts him as my number one of these three quarterbacks. And then there's a second tier. It's really, do you wanna consume the starts that are left in Justin Fields? Or do you wanna take on the value upside of a Jalen Milrow?

Starting point is 00:08:14 Because I do think, although the draft capital is less for a Milrow, that there is the opportunity to A, accrue value, and B, to get those meaningful starts. Something like the Jalen Halen hurts career trajectory, you know Yeah, I've got it Fields and Richardson kind of right there together and Millrow behind them I may be factoring in a little too much certainty that Fields is going to start this the entire season this year Let's go ahead and move on to those sure fire

Starting point is 00:08:40 Starters because we have a couple of quarterbacks that were drafted this year. Jackson Dart actually got into the first round, but Tyler Shuck actually has less competition, it appears, to start as a rookie. And I'm wondering, especially if maybe you were in a rebuild, are there any veteran, you talk about how you value those surefire starters, but some of these guys are getting pretty old. Are there any veteran surefire starters that you would trade for a late first, early second, and a rookie draft to take dart or shot? We're in a really interesting time, aren't we Heath, in the Superflex Dynasty rankings at quarterback where the upper crust is in their mid to late 20s. There's a few guys

Starting point is 00:09:17 that, you know, when you get down into the QB2 range, you know, they're in their mid 30s. We're talking like Geno Smith, maybe. They're few and far between. If you look back a decade, if we were to rewind the dynasty calendar, we would have a lot of, you know, those aged quarterbacks. I'm thinking like Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, that's not part of the dynasty landscape right now.

Starting point is 00:09:39 And so finding elder statesmen quarterbacks to trade for these young players is kind of difficult in my opinion. Where I place Dart in rookie drafts is all the way up to like the 104 or the 105. Okay, but in the dynasty tiers I think he belongs somewhere with JJ McCarthy or Michael Pennex or maybe to a tongue of I lo it's it's all younger guys but that's sort of the lower QB to tier that I would place Jackson Dart. And then Tyler Shuck is a little bit below there. I would love to trade Gino or maybe Sam Darnold to get into Shuck today. Yeah, I've got Darnold just ahead of Dart and Shuck. I've got Gino right between them.

Starting point is 00:10:16 And then the one name you didn't say that is probably may just be a one year option. Like I'd be happy to trade Matthew Stafford for either one. Cause I don't know that Matthew Stafford plays again after this year. And that might still be a deal that if somebody has the 112 and one of those guys has fallen into that spot and they say you know I'd rather have Stafford this year than bet on one of these rookies that I'm not sure are that good anyway. So I think that's the range though. The Gino Stafford maybe Darnold range are kind of the

Starting point is 00:10:41 veterans you might target if you're trying to make that type of move. Finally, I'll just ask you, who is your favorite quarterback value in Dynasty Superflex leagues? Keith, do you think we've gotten tired of Patrick Mahomes? I know that like he's not, he hasn't been scoring over 20 points per game very frequently, except late in the year. But the consistency, the reliability, the longevity that we see in Patrick Mahomes, and I'll add Justin Herbert to that list now. I wonder if the dynasty market is chasing something that is a little bit sexier and maybe foregoing these reliable options that have not only proven to be stable assets,

Starting point is 00:11:21 but have very elite upside when they hit their ceiling outcomes. Yeah, I do think it's really interesting because obviously everybody for this year would rather have Josh Allen and Laura Jackson and I think for dynasty everybody would as well. But I've kind of had this question as Allen and Jackson approach age 30, is their game going to age as well as Mahomes does? And so I think you bring up a good point. I don't have him too far behind those guys in terms of tiers or overall value. And I think that you could probably get a pretty significant piece if you were

Starting point is 00:11:55 moving off one of those guys and going to Mahomes, let's take our first break. And then when we get back, we'll get to my burning questions. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life, but you can always be And then when we get back, we'll get to my burning questions. same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of minds you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is Calling. I want to say thank you to Matt in the chat. Always enjoy you being here and your comments. Why isn't Jaden Daniels the QB1 in dynasty Tommy? It's such a great question because the thing that we want to do most as a dynasty space

Starting point is 00:12:52 is inflate quarterbacks who show some upside in their rookie year. If you look at the profiles of any first round drafted quarterback, JJ McCarthy included, they tend to improve their value once the calendar turns over to January. Jaden Daniels was not only great as a runner, something like 800 yards rushing this year, he was excellent as a passer as well. And so I get it. So if we look back, let's say

Starting point is 00:13:16 over the previous four years, Jaden Daniels was 19th in fantasy points per attempt, which is really, really good, right? Like that's a, that's an excellent outcome. The only problem is if you look above Jaden Daniels repeatedly, you'll see names like Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, and Josh Allen. And so what we're looking at is, you know, do you want to make the bet of a younger quarterback, a 24-year-old quarterback, or do you want to add five years to that name and say like I'm taking the stability of the repeat hits? I think about Jordan McNamara's study where he looked at first round quarterbacks. What's the likelihood of them hitting? Half the time they tend to hit. Those quarterbacks that hit that have a top 12 finish, only 40% of them do it again where they're in the top 12 a second time. So my question to the listeners is, why take the risk?

Starting point is 00:14:08 If these are value lateral moves that we can make into a Lamar Jackson, into a Jalen Hurts or a Josh Allen, why would we inflate Jaden Daniels above those players until he hits the second time? Because let's let's talk about KTC values for a second. How much extra value can Jayden Daniels gain over the next year if he were to finish in the top six a second time? There's sort of an upper threshold that I've seen historically where, four firsts is kind of the ceiling for any fantasy asset that a manager will reasonably be willing to trade you.

Starting point is 00:14:41 We're already kind of near that upper limit already. So in my opinion, Jane Daniels is a great asset. Now is not the time to buy because when we see these KTC values, what we see is a spike, a plateau, a slight drop or a slight gain the next year, and then a second plateau. We're in a plateau phase right now. Let's just wait and see what happens. And if you want to get into Daniels, you can wait for injury or you can just wait a year, um, and, and sort of pay that, that gold price of four first. Yeah. I think the, the reason I asked that question is when I went through my first process of

Starting point is 00:15:14 putting together projections for 2025, the projection for Daniel's was for, and again, I'm projecting a little bit of improvement in some areas that he showed in the second half of the year. I've talked about this before. I think like full season statistics are much more predictive than second half statistics. The one place I make an exception for that is with rookies because we've seen a lot of rookie hot second halves turn into what they are in year two. Anyway, my projection came out very close for Daniels, Jackson and Alan for this year. And as you mentioned at the start of the year, Daniels is actually going to be 23, Jackson's

Starting point is 00:15:51 going to be 28 and Alan's going to be 29. Now they're quarterbacks, maybe they can play until 40, but we've not seen quarterbacks who rely as much on the ground as Alan and Jackson do last that long. And so, yeah, I, I would be happy to make that deal if I'm getting a significant piece in addition to Alan or Jackson. I think it's probably an unnecessary risk, as you're saying. I agree with that, unless you're moving into a window where you're going through the rebuild. And I actually think it's more likely that two years from now, something negatives happened to Jackson or Allen's value, but you know, we're just going to have to wait and see. I've got one more quarterback question before we get to the other positions. Drake may was thought by pretty much everyone coming into the NFL draft

Starting point is 00:16:40 last year to be a better quarterback prospect than Bo Nix, maybe everyone but Sean Payton. Bo Nix was clearly and obviously better last year than Drake May. Is there any reason for anyone to have any confidence in Bo Nix versus Drake May in dynasty? Confidence is such a difficult word in dynasty, at least in my opinion. I don't really have confidence in any asset beyond the top 15 or so, but I think they're a fascinating case study of one another, aren't they? Like, I think you're right. Like, these are sort of tortoise and hare assets where one had a pretty significant lead, but Bo Nix showed that he can play football and he can run, he can operate an offense. My co-host, John Hogue, mentioned to me, this was last year I think, he asked me the question,

Starting point is 00:17:33 has there ever been a head coach who has developed an elite quarterback who failed to do it with another first round quarterback? And we were racking our brains and the equals were really few and far between. And I think we probably should have had a little bit more faith in Sean Payton, the QB whisperer. You look at the numbers, you know, I'm an analytics minded person. They're pretty similar in my opinion.

Starting point is 00:17:57 If you're looking at, you know, likelihood of scrambling, completion percentage, those types of things that we're looking for in fantasy, where they diverged from what I saw at least was Sacre. So May was sacked 8% of the time last year, while Nix was only 3.7. And you look at the pressure rate over expected, some of that is due to the offensive line, some of that is due to the quarterbacks themselves, right? The line in Denver was actually blocking really, really well for Nix. He was a negative 5%

Starting point is 00:18:27 pressure rate over expected. May gets himself into trouble a little bit, but I think that there's a little bit more ceiling with May. If you're looking at touchdown rate, May was only at 3%. That's below average. Nix was right at average in the NFL for 5% for passing touchdowns. So I think if I were to have a slight lean at their current cost, it would probably be Drake-May, but I see them as very, very similar assets. What about you? I've got Knicks just barely ahead of May, definitely in the same tier.

Starting point is 00:18:57 And honestly, it's a big tier. It's one of the guys you mentioned beforehand, because I'm a little bit more concerned, I think maybe about Justin Herbert than you are. Kyler Murray, we have a question about him. We'll talk about him a little bit later, is in that tier. For me, Jordan Love, CJ Straub, Brock Purdy,

Starting point is 00:19:11 all in that tier. I think that tier gets rearranged multiple times throughout this season, and hopefully somebody emerges as moving up into the next tier. But that's kind of the group of QBs who right now we view as the group of QBs who right now we view as low end QB ones, maybe borderline QB ones in dynasty fantasy

Starting point is 00:19:31 football, I hope that Kyle Williams can actually be a number one wide receiver and Drake may actually has weapons. I'm a little skeptical about that as well. So yeah, I think that putting them in the same tier and not knowing who to rank higher is exactly how I feel about it, which is how we got to that question. I think that putting them in the same tier and not knowing who to rank higher is exactly how I feel about it, which is how we got to that question. I failed to mention earlier, I've got five questions today. We've done two of them.

Starting point is 00:19:52 So three more to go. That's how math works. I'm going to take as many of your questions after the second break as I can. As I mentioned, we already got a Kyler Murray question. We've got a Jalen Hertz versus Mahomes question. If you guys have questions specifically about quarterbacks, that's probably great. But anything dynasty related, go right ahead and put those in the comments. We will get to those in probably about 10 minutes.

Starting point is 00:20:15 Uh, I, you know, I've seen just a little bit on social media the last week or so about James Cook and how, you know what his volume didn't actually go up last year. What went up was the fact that he never scored touchdowns. And then all of a sudden he led the NFL in touchdowns. He doesn't seem particularly happy with his current contract situation and has been very vocal on social media about wanting to get that big number when he gets to free agency, which will be after this year. I've found myself a little lower on Cook,

Starting point is 00:20:45 both in Redraft and Dynasty. And Tommy, if you saw anything I did last year, you know I was a huge, huge, huge James Cook guy. Now this is what happens to us a lot. The thing that it gets flipped, right? We love the guy. Now everybody else loves him more than us. So we've got to question him. Is James Cook as a top 10 Dynasty running back just a huge risk right now? Heath, I can't thank you enough for turning me on to James Cook last year because I rode that outlier touchdown rate. If you look back over the previous four years, James Cook had the third highest touchdown rate per rush attempt in the entire NFL. We're talking like hundreds of running backs. And so the bet on Cook is an outlier, a Devon HN type outlier.

Starting point is 00:21:27 And you have to make an individual player take there because HN is available in a similar tier. I lean HN over Cook, especially because the contract status is up in the air. If you were to put Cook on, let's say, I don't know, the Carolina Panthers, a decent offense that supports running backs, would you anticipate the same levels of production? I certainly wouldn't. And so when those types of

Starting point is 00:21:50 situations arise, I am certainly willing to get out in a value lateral way. And I think there's a lot of opportunity to do so. I think you have to wait a little bit though, right? I think we have to wait for this contract tango to end for some type of resolution, because there will be a resolution. I truly believe this, something like a three year contract that will appease both sides begrudgingly. And once that happens, I mean, there's an old trope in the fantasy space, isn't there Heath, where once a running back gets his second contract,

Starting point is 00:22:17 that's the time to trade, isn't it? Right. Yeah, no, I wanna go through some names and you can just give me a one name answer. These are some of the guys that I have ranked very close to James Cook. You can tell me who you prefer. And let's start with the rookies. James Cook or Quintchon Judkins.

Starting point is 00:22:34 Oh, I love Quintchon Judkins, and that's that's entirely due to Zach Reed, the tacit assassin film study. When he's in on a running back to the degree that he is, I am also in. So give me Judkins. Cook versus Trevion Henderson. Henderson, love the pass catching ability. Cook versus Bucky Irving. Oh, that's so close.

Starting point is 00:22:56 Can I wait a month and give you an answer on that? I think that tells me. Oh yeah, sure, I'll make it more difficult. Cook versus Ken Walker. Oh man, give me James Cook in that case. I don't love the negative one, negative one, 45 yard type running backs. And that's exactly what Ken Walker is, in my opinion.

Starting point is 00:23:13 So those are the guys that I have just ahead of James Cook, the guys I have just behind him. It's hard to compare him to because they're all two or three years older. It's all those veterans that we think are RB ones this year, but we don't know if they're playing again. So a borderline RB one, a player whose skillset I love very much. I kind of hate the way the bills rotate their running backs. I thought there was too much Ty Johnson and it works for them.

Starting point is 00:23:37 I'm not saying that as a criticism of their offensive attack. It's very good for them. It's not, it doesn't make you feel all warm and fuzzy as somebody who's starting James Cook on a weekly basis if he doesn't score all those touchdowns. This is another one. I will, a precursor, Garrett Wilson is my most rostered starting wide receiver. I've got some low end round three picks I'm still holding on to, but I have more of, but my most rostered starting wide receiver in dynasty.

Starting point is 00:24:10 And I'm terrified. What is the optimistic case for Garrett Wilson? This is probably the most confusing asset in all of fantasy football, in my opinion. My co-host John calls me a numbers butt, so I dig into the analytics and I look at like the fantasy points data suite. They have an average separation score. Garrett Wilson is the best or among the very best in the entire NFL before the football is thrown. And he is so average after the reception is made. It's confusing. He's somewhere in between Antonio Brown and Deontay Johnson in like the

Starting point is 00:24:43 flattering and unflattering ways. So I don't really know what to do with him. He's an elite separator. He's a great player, but it reminds me of the Moneyball quote, if he's a good hitter, why doesn't he hit good? If he's great at getting open, why isn't he good after he gets open?

Starting point is 00:25:00 I'm just as confused as you are, Heath, I was hoping you could help me with this question. Well, I've got the pessimistic case because you mentioned a name, And so I'm just as confused as you are, Heath. I was hoping you could help me with this question. Well, I've got the pessimistic case because you mentioned a name and people who've been listening to FFT for a long time remember, I was always the guy who was kind of like, well, yeah, I know Deontay Johnson gets open, but what else is he good at? Deontay Johnson and Garrett Wilson are the only two wide receivers since 1992 to see at least 400 targets in their first three seasons and average less than seven yards per target.

Starting point is 00:25:31 You said he was between Deontay Johnson and Antonio Brown. I'm terrified he's just Deontay Johnson. If you look at their metrics, first three seasons of a career, Johnson actually averaged more fantasy points per game, more yak per reception at a much higher touchdown rate, higher catch rate. And the other numbers are very, very similar. And so, and I think it's easy to look at a guy like that and say, yeah, he just, but look at all the bad quarterbacks he's played with. And I would say, okay, who are the quarterbacks he's going to play

Starting point is 00:26:05 with in the next couple of years? Like Justin Fields or a rookie they draft in a couple of years. I, I am, I, I'm actively trying to see if I can get just, just maybe one, maybe two of those Garrett Wilson shares off of my rosters before the season starts. Cause I do think he's just like a consensus, no doubt about it, top 15 wide receiver for a lot of people. And I find myself a little bit lower. I don't know that we actually answered the case.

Starting point is 00:26:34 What's the optimistic case for Garrett Wilson? Maybe it's Justin Fields gets better at passing, or maybe it's they're terrible this year and then they draft a rookie. Garrett Wilson gets traded. I don't see an optimistic case for him as a must-start wide receiver this year though. We said the same thing about DJ Moore though. Yeah. When he became a bear and so I do think there is the upside of you know a top-six finish. I think that is in a reasonable range of outcomes. However, it's probably not in the median. It's probably an outlier outcome,

Starting point is 00:27:07 or at least that's what I'm anticipating. The trade rumors did get my juices flowing a little bit, though I was kind of excited about the possibility of maybe going to the Dallas Cowboys, let's say. Let's say the trade was different and Garrett Wilson was a cowboy across from C.D. Lamb. You would certainly, I mean, I don't wanna speak for you, I would certainly put Garrett Wilson back in my top 10 in terms of likelihood of finishing, you know, at the end of the year and probably in the dynasty ranks as well.

Starting point is 00:27:35 Yeah, I think that the difference I would say from DJ Moore is he had also really struggled with touchdowns like Moore has, but also he had a couple of 1100 yard seasons at this point in his career. He had averaged, he didn't have a year below seven yards per target until last year. Like every year of his career was better than Garrett Wilson's average. So hopefully Wilson can find a little bit of efficiency. Let's talk about the tight end position. Sam Laporta has produced one elite season. I don't want to badmouth that, but do we think that he's going to see elite volume in the near future? And I guess you could also kind of get into what do

Starting point is 00:28:17 you think this offense looks like without Ben Johnson? I heard Dan Campbell really talking up Jameson Williams the other day. I think it's a bad thing if you've got Jameer Gibbs on the team and Amunra St. Brown and Jameson Williams are both heavily involved for Laporta. My comp to Sam Laporta when he was coming out was George Kittle. And I think it holds true. So when I'm looking at pass catchers, especially tight ends, there's certain metrics that I'm looking for them to clear

Starting point is 00:28:41 to coin them as a lead. 70% route participation, two yards per route run, a first retarget share of 15-ish percent, and at least 0.1 first downs per route run. Like, these are like all of the good pass catchers clear these benchmarks, and Sam Laporta is right on the edge or hurtling those numbers in both of his seasons. And so I would argue that although the fantasy finish didn't necessarily show that, Laporte has had two good fantasy seasons. He's a good football player.

Starting point is 00:29:10 And when you have good football players in mediocre situations, it's just a matter of time before the decision is made or injury attrition piles up and they become a focal point of the offense once again. I'm really bad at predicting what an offensive coordinator is going to do during a switch. I think we all try. We all do our best, but we're not extremely

Starting point is 00:29:30 accurate when making those determinations. And so what I say is Sam Laporta is a good football player. Good football players throughout their careers have spike years. Is this going to be Laporta's peak season for fantasy production? I doubt it, but that means that there's a larger buy window and all I need is patience and sort of an iron fist to hold this asset and just wait for that peak outcome to occur. What do you think though? I think like what you said about Kittle is the optimistic side because he's like if I was looking yesterday at tight ends who have averaged 15 PPR fantasy points per game, playing at least 10 games in a season. And the median for targets for those guys is like 134 and a half.

Starting point is 00:30:17 And if you look at the bottom half, the guys who have done it on lower targets, you see several George Kittle seasons. He hasn't had 100 targets in a season since 2019, but because of what he's able to do recently scoring touchdowns and pretty much always with his YAC, that hasn't mattered as much. He's been able to overcome it. Personally, as somebody who kind of starts from the projection side of things, I always talk about how volume is more predictable than touchdowns. And Laporte has been a really high touchdown guy. He did have 120 targets as a rookie.

Starting point is 00:30:50 I don't want to sell that short. Saw that crash back down last year, but I think that the kid old comp is kind of what it has to be, or we have to see a target spike based on what we, what we saw last year and either one of those as possible, I definitely agree that he is, he is a good football player. It is also, I will just say, it's a little bit of pushback. The George Kittle path is a narrow path. Very few players can take that path

Starting point is 00:31:16 and be what Kittle has been. Taking this to fantasy, it's kind of interesting, though, because you have the tier of two. You have Bowers and McBride. And I think there may be two tiers there, to be be honest with you because if you try to move McBride into Bowers you get a lot of resistance. It's tough to trade into Bowers even with the number two tight end and dynasty but below that there's what half dozen tight ends and Sam Laporta fits in there and I think there's a lot of flexibility in that range to A, trade into tight end and B, trade amongst that tier. And so if you want to make a player take, you can do so really easy with

Starting point is 00:31:50 Sam Laporta. Let's take our second break. I've got seven questions from the chat. Good job, guys. We'll be right back. So we got one listener who's just doing a fantastic job. I don't know if it's salt or from let's say S4LT, but regardless, you tie in two of the guys we just talked about with a trade question. This is about as good as it gets. This is how you get your question read. Jaden Daniels, and we're talking super flex here, obviously, or Jared Goff, Garrett Wilson, and two firsts. Wow. What a trade. So I think format matters in this, don't you Heath? Like the number of starters probably matters, the scoring format probably matters, but the question really

Starting point is 00:32:34 is like how flexible do you want to be with your roster build? I think the points per game differential between Goff and Daniels is probably, I'm anticipating somewhere in like the four to six range. Am I overcoming that with Garrett Wilson versus whichever wide receiver was going to occupy that spot? And can I liquidate the wide receiver that was going to be starting where Garrett Wilson now sits? And then what can I do with those 26 and 27 firsts?

Starting point is 00:32:59 A lot of folks who are really savvy are getting into those 27 firsts right now because they're gonna provide flexibility that I think doesn't currently exist in the dynasty market. We haven't seen the appetite for firsts over the past, I don't know, nine-ish months that I think will exist next year, next off season with that first. And so as crazy as it sounds right now, I'm leaning on the golf side here specifically because I have the flexibility and if I can be an active trader, I think I can do more with the golf side than the Jane Daniels side. What about you?

Starting point is 00:33:31 Yeah, I think the shallower the league is, the more likely you are to take Daniels. If it's a 10-team league, I'm definitely taking Daniels. Just briefly looking at my trade chart, basically it's equal value for the 2026 first Wilson and golf for Daniels. So the 2027 first would be the extra, but you're talking a four for one deal. So you need those types of deals, especially when there's one obvious best player in the deal, you do need a lot of extra sugar on top. At 20-27 first is good. I'm not sure it's quite enough. I would have a hard time giving Daniels up for that, but in a 14-team league, it's definitely golf.

Starting point is 00:34:13 In a 10-team league, it's definitely Daniels. In a 12-team league, you're right. It probably depends on how many starters that you have. Here's a question that I think has been on everyone's mind, because most of us told you you should have done it before last season and that didn't work out so great is this finally the year to move on from the elder RBs I'm in a startup right now actually with a bunch of the football guys and someone took Derek Henry I don't remember is round eight or round nine and then the contract announced was

Starting point is 00:34:42 announced that he got an extension it's's probably an extra year, but we as a community, I don't, maybe you haven't have certainly doubted a lot of the Camara, Derek Henry, I think even Joe Mixon a little bit, James Connor, definitely. And they proved us wrong, but at some point they're not going to is now the time to move off those older running backs. It's such a great question, Joe. I think this gets into roster construction a little bit. There's a lot of accessibility to these elder running backs right now. There's a lot of really exciting prospects in your rookie drafts right now at the running back position. Can you blend the two? Can you give yourself enough runway by adding in a James Connor or a Derek Henry or a Christian McCaffrey, let's say, so that you're out the gate hot.

Starting point is 00:35:28 And once we see the inevitable switch of these backfields to where, yeah, Travion Henderson is now the primary guy in New England or Quinchon Judkins has taken on a 65-35 work share. Those types of situations tend to emerge around the midpoint of the season. I don't want to rely on my rookie running backs as much this year. They're more of a second half of the season into the following year bet. If I can gain accessibility at value, especially from my wide receiver position and shorten my wide receiver bench a little bit to get into one of these elder running backs. That's something I'm definitely considering, but I think it goes into the construction of your team

Starting point is 00:36:03 and what your goals are going into the 2025 season. Yeah, I'm going to lean on the side of yes, don't let last year fool you. Father time is still undefeated. We're probably going to see one of the one or two of these guys will probably succeed this year. And most of them are going to show the fall off that they should have already shown. But they're fantastic. And that's why they didn't. This is an easy one from M. Grade the trade. I traded CJ Stroud and 3.10 for Patrick Mahomes. M, I think you get an A plus, plus, plus, maybe extra credit. You know, I look at the high school GPAs now. I've got a son going into his sophomore year. And if you've got a 4.0, you're almost a bum anymore because they've got all these extra wages graded, great kids are rocking around with a 5.9 or something.

Starting point is 00:36:45 I think M gets the full AP college credit, full on a six points, is that right? I love the trade. It's a great trade. Get into my homes. But also in your other leagues, maybe get into some Stroud as well. Somewhere around you'd be 15 to 20 in terms of dynasty ranks. Probably a little bit underrated,

Starting point is 00:37:03 but at this point you've traded at peak value in my opinion to get into Mahomes with that CJ scout asset. Fantastic job. I promise this is not just because I have a Patrick Mahomes doll behind me. We do have a, you brought up Mahomes and we have a lot of questions about him. What about Jalen Hertz versus Mahomes? Which one would you rather have? And let's just say this in, in standard CBS leagues, passing touchdowns are worth six points. So I know a lot of other people play in four. Is that enough to make the distinction, Mahomes in six, Hertz in four?

Starting point is 00:37:31 It's such a tough bet. If you're playing the value game, I believe Hertz is valued over Mahomes. What I like to do is blend my quarterback rooms in Superflex, have two rushing guys and one pocket guy, or some sort of iteration of that. And so I think whatever complements your room best. If you can get an adder from Justin, excuse me, from Hertz and get into the homes, yeah,

Starting point is 00:37:51 go for it. I think that that's a great bet. And vice versa. They're to me a very similar tier. It just goes down to how you want your QB room to be constructed. We have three more questions and I think this is a great one. I briefly mentioned Kyler Murray earlier being in the same tier as Bo Nix and Drake May for me. Most of the rankings I've seen have him a little lower than where I have him at QB11,

Starting point is 00:38:15 but I still believe in the upside. I love the weapons and there's been talk that he's going to run more this year. At costs, do you agree with me that Kyler is more of a buy than a sell? This gets into the humanity a little bit. We see NFL players as assets and we probably should if we're going to play dynasty. I think the dynasty market views Kyler Murray as a young man still as a as a boy almost as a call of duty playing petulant sideline powder.

Starting point is 00:38:44 You know, I'm 46 years old. He's 27. He is still young man. as a call of duty playing, petulant, sideline powder. You know, I'm 46 years old, he's 27. He is still a young man. Totally. But I think we're sort of stuck with that framing of Kyler Murray and we're not allowing room for the maturation of this individual to become a more complete passer,

Starting point is 00:38:58 to become a wiser quarterback. And I think that that's happening and we're sort of missing the boat a little bit. So I'm on the buy side as well. I think that he is somebody, if you can move Bonex to get into Kyler Murray, that's something I'd be interested in doing. I get these kind of questions fairly often and I probably don't give satisfactory answers. So maybe you will. I already have Brian Thomas and Trevor Lawrence. It's a half PPR, it's super flex. Advice ongoing after Travis Hunter? Does my existing stack make the

Starting point is 00:39:30 quarterback risk greater? Do you have any... I just don't really have much feeling on stacking, whether avoiding it or targeting it in dynasty. It obviously adds more upside on a weekly basis and includes more risk on a weekly basis. But if you had Brian Thomas and you had Trevor Lawrence, and you were in that position in a rookie draft where you might normally consider Travis Hunter, does this give you pause at all? So I'm a Jacksonville Jaguars fan.

Starting point is 00:39:58 I'm gonna set that aside. First off, you know, it's amazing that you can have such a cheerful demeanor after the past half a decade. I feel like I've been shoveling my money, these season tickets, just into some furnace of like ineptitude and pain. But yeah, still here, still here, still going to the games excited about them, hopefully beating the Carolina Panthers week one, I'll be there. But to get to Jordan's question, stacking, right? Like, I am not a person who really cares about consistency. I like the upside. I like the variance of those ceiling outcomes.

Starting point is 00:40:34 And so if you want to get into, yeah, if you want to get into three assets on the Jacksonville Jaguars, sure, go for it. I think the Liam Cohen offense is really exciting and intriguing. The running game is sort of in doubt is really exciting and intriguing. The running game is sort of in doubt in terms of its effectiveness. The offensive line has been improved. And so all of that suggests, you know, a pass funnel to these two options. There's no longer Christian Kirk. There's no longer Evan Ingram. And so if you're willing to take on the risk of, yeah, maybe a Travis Hunter playing 40% at quarterback and maybe 65%, 70% at wide receiver. That's not a bad bet. All of the wide receivers don't play 100% of the snaps. Jamar Chase is an

Starting point is 00:41:12 extreme outlier at 92%. BTJ only played just under 80% of the snaps last year. And so you have to bet on a little bit of efficiency. But this gives you a ceiling outcome that I think doesn't exist at value really anywhere else in the NFL because Trevor Lawrence is pretty cheap. BTJ, if you got him in the 110 of your drafts last year, you struck gold. You may as well double down now. Yeah. That's a better answer than me because I mostly just don't even think about it. He's my favorite payer left. I'm taking him. I don't care one way or another. One more question, and it's a guy that we've had a few conversations about, but I'm not sure other than me intimating that I'm still lower on him than Consensus at wide receiver

Starting point is 00:41:56 26 in dynasty. How are we feeling about Chris Olavi? He falls into a tier somewhere around wide receiver 18 to 45 that looks really similar to me. You look at yards per route run route participation, first three targets are all those things that I was saying earlier. And there's I mean, like 30 guys that just blend right in. And so this is a matter of if you've got an arbitrage opportunity to get

Starting point is 00:42:22 into Chris O'Lavey, you're willing to take the injury risk. Great. If you want to move up into him, it better be at value because you can get so many different assets that look like Chris Olave in the fantasy game that don't cost Chris Olave prices and don't have the concussion risk that frankly we do have. Brandon Cooks has sort of proved the alternative case to that concussion worry. He played pretty well after getting several really horrific concussions, but you better be willing to hold Chris Olave for the long run.

Starting point is 00:42:51 He's a young asset, he's performed really well, high end wide receiver, two numbers. I'm personally a little bit lower as well, unless somebody is just trying to give him away because they're worried about the injury risk. Yeah, I think the injury risk and then also, it seems like a lot of people are kind of glossing over the quarterback risk.

Starting point is 00:43:09 And I know it sounds like you're pretty optimistic on Tyler Shuck, but it's still like not a round one quarterback anywhere in the vicinity of Chris Olave and probably a pretty bad team. So you're stacking risks with Chris Olave, especially if you're valuing them higher, I think, than a wide receiver 25. Tommy, fantastic stuff.

Starting point is 00:43:32 Thank you for being here with me today. We will definitely do this again. Please just tell everybody one more time where they can find your work. Yeah, at FFtommyB over on Blue Sky, Superflex Super Show, would love to have you talk some strategy. We've got a Discord as well that's always going off.

Starting point is 00:43:48 But man, I just really loved the chance to talk with you. It was really great. I appreciate it. And yeah, good luck. The rest of the non-point scoring season we'll see you in lineup season. That's exactly right. Thank you, Tommy.

Starting point is 00:43:59 Thank you, Thomas, for making everything work. Thank you to everybody who was active in the chat. We will talk to you next Tuesday. Paramount Podcasts

Fantasy Football Today - FFT Dynasty - Jayden Daniels QB1? Debates on LaPorta, Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson & More! (05/16 Fantasy Football Dynasty)

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