Fantasy Football Today - FFT Express - Toughest Players to Rank Before Training Camp! Rice, Addison, Godwin, & More! (07/24 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 There are a lot of players that are tough to rank before training camp. We'll talk about some of the toughest right now on fantasy football today. Express and welcome in everybody. Adam Azer and Jamie Eisenberg here. All right. So I'm just going to start with, with Rashi Rice and Jordan Addison. I think the conversation could begin there. Two guys that could be facing suspension and how are you ranking them as of now? Uh, Rice with the anticipation of three plus games is a high end wide receiver three. Uh,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the earliest I would consider him is round five. I would prefer around six, but it's one of those who just kind of play the board. So he's behind guys like Travis Hunter, Jerry Judy, Jameson Williams. Uh, I kind of have him almost back to back with Chris Godwin at this point, just with the idea of when's Godwin going to be back and how healthy will he be. Addison was always a tricky player for me to begin with because while I do like the fact that he's entering his third year, I do like the fact that he's in a very prolific passing offense. And I do believe in JJ McCarthy with TJ Hogginson back obviously just Justin Jefferson, there's some concern

Starting point is 00:01:05 that at the touchdowns aren't there for Addison, the production will not be great. So he was already a wide receiver three for me and now he's a borderline wide receiver for again expecting a three plus game suspension. But round seven is about the spot I would start to consider Addison. It's interesting. And then with Godwin, so we find out yesterday he also had an ankle procedure, a cleanup procedure. There's definitely some doubt that he's going to be ready for the start of the season. And his A, availability and B, production has such an impact on other players on the

Starting point is 00:01:39 Bucs. So how are you ranking the Bucs wide receivers right now and whether or not it affects Baker Mayfield? I don't know. You can touch on that too. Doesn't impact Baker Mayfield. He's still QB seven has an impact. Mike Evans who's still wide receiver 21 for me still concerned with the age and the addition

Starting point is 00:01:57 of a Mecca Bucca plus Godwin back because he's going to play at some point. I did bump up a Bucca. He was in the mid fifties for me, early 50s. Now he's high 40s, so he went up about five or six spots, almost like 20 spots though in the top 200 just because of where those guys were. So I had basically Abouka and Burden back to back, and I separated those guys significantly because of Burden's injury. So yeah, it will impact Jalen McMillan too. I just think that Godwin is not out for the year. And so more the curiosity for Godwin and Abucas who is going to play the predominant slot

Starting point is 00:02:35 role for the Bucs. And I think it will be Godwin still because I think both those guys could be interchangeable. Especially coming off the injury and being the older player, I think it makes more sense to be the slot guy, especially the success he had last year and the success he had with Baker Mayfield. But yeah, these are all tricky ones, injuries and suspensions. And listen, we're doing a lot of drafts now. I don't think the majority of our audience is drafting now, but until we get the suspension news and potentially the appeals that follow that, it may not happen until the beginning of September, right before the season starts.

Starting point is 00:03:07 So it could be very, very tricky once we get to those end of August drafts. Yeah. And Jaylen McMillan, I was looking at Jaylen McMillan's slot rate last year, it was usually around 30%. So he's an outside guy that can move around. But you do have to think about at least the possibility that if Chris Godwin's healthy, maybe Ibuka doesn't play that much. And he can play inside and outside.

Starting point is 00:03:30 Maybe he just takes McMillan's spot. Maybe McMillan doesn't play. I don't know, but we're curious to see how that'll shape up. To that point, Josh Grizzard, there, I think it's Grizzard. The new offense coordinator who was the past game coordinator last year was asked on the Ronde Barber podcast. This shows you how much year was asked on the Ronde Barber podcast. This shows you how much research we do.

Starting point is 00:03:47 The Ronde Barber podcast, who is the player who, I think it was who could be a breakout player this year, who's the player that impressed you the most in the spring? I don't remember the phrasing of it, but he did say Jalen McMillan. And he said, building off of what he did last year, you know, and he even addressed this. He said, everybody thinks because we drafted a Mecca, a buca that McMillan just pushed aside. He goes, that's not the case by far. Yeah, that's a great point. You know, he might be sleeping on him. I don't know if he'll be fantasy relevant. He might just be annoying for everyone. But I feel like he's going to be like

Starting point is 00:04:20 a Rashad Bateman, you know, score seven touchdowns or so. You never know when to use him. If there's an injury, you'll be more inclined to roster him, but could be on and off waivers a lot. All right. We're going to take a break and talk about some more players who are tough to rank entering training camp right here, right after this on FFT Express. No frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. All right, Jamie, who else you got that you're finding tough to rank right now?

Starting point is 00:04:58 The Bears, almost across the board for everybody. Caleb Williams, should he be a QB1? Where do the running backs make sense? Is Deandre Swift a surefire number two running back? Is he a top 15 running back? I know obviously our colleague Keith Cummings is very high on DeAndre Swift. It's polarizing on our own rank list. Dave has him and I haven't seen the latest updates, but checking a few days ago, Dave had him 29th and I think Keith has him like 15 or 16. For me, he's like running back 22. So I do think he's a number two running back. I think some of him like 15 or 16. For me, he's like running back 22.

Starting point is 00:05:25 So I do think he's a number two running back. I think some of his previous stops have left a bad taste in people's mouths in terms of his lack of production. But he did do well catching the ball last time he was with Ben Johnson. I think we'll see, especially the statement that Ben Johnson made about wanting Caleb Williams to be a 70% passer. Well, throwing to your running back is a really good way to go. And we're talking about Jameer Gibbs in this offense last year.

Starting point is 00:05:47 This has been exactly 52 catches each of his first two seasons, plus David Montgomery catching the ball. So this could be a 60 plus catch season for DeAndre Swift. So he's actually the easiest, I think, of the Bears guys to rank, to be honest with you. Who's the number two guy there? Is it going to be Roshan Johnson or Monogany? I think a butcher's name, Monogany, whatever. There's seven. Is

Starting point is 00:06:08 DJ Moore the best receiver because Romo Dunes are going to be better. Where's Luther Burden factor and what is Colston Lovell going to do? It's just a very difficult team to sort of nail down exactly until I think we see some more reports at a training camp. Okay. I'm gonna throw Joe Mixon in the ring here is tough to rank on the NFI list has been dealing with ankle issues. You got Nick Chubb coming back. Now you've got a horrible on paper offensive line. But also you got a guy who when he was healthy in games, he didn't leave last year was playing like a first round pick averaging about 19 PPR fantasy points per game. So I see everybody has Mixon ahead of Deandre Swift.

Starting point is 00:06:46 He's two spots ahead of Swift for you. He's two spots ahead of Swift for Heath. He's seven spots ahead of Swift for Dave. But I think Mixon's tough right now. Yeah, you know, I'm concerned. Also 29 years old. So could we start to see a little bit of a fall off? And it's not just they added one running back,

Starting point is 00:07:04 they added two. And I think that's more of an indication on their backups because Damian Pierce has clearly struggled since his rookie season, different regime. Dario Gumbuale is more of a pass catcher, special teams guy. So to bring in Nick Chubb, to bring in Woody Marks, I think that was just more, okay, we need to figure out our backup situation,

Starting point is 00:07:21 but it could matter. I mean, obviously if Nick Chubb has anything left, he's gonna take touches away from Mixon, who was number seven in terms of total touches of any player last year, over 20 touches per game when he was healthy. You mentioned the offensive line. So yeah, it's a little concerning. So like the spot in the running back list where I sort of get a little bit tripped up with in terms of do I want to even take guys from this group. It starts with Breece Hall. So it's Breece Hall. This is the round four or five running

Starting point is 00:07:48 backs for me. It's Breece Hall. It's Chuba Hubbard. It's Amarion Hampton, who I think I may even move ahead of both those guys, depending on how long this Najee Harris thing lingers. James Connor, Joe Mixon, like that group to me. One more guy. Kamara you have in there. I'm sorry, Kamara. Yes. Kamara's in that group too. They're older in case of Kamara and Mixon and Connor. They're getting more competition almost across the board for those guys and not outside of Connor. You know, everybody got somebody in their backfield this year. Hubbard got two guys. Hall got, I'm sorry, Hall did not get anybody else, but he got a new coach that expressed some interest in using the other guys.

Starting point is 00:08:25 But so you see there's like a lot of questions with this particular group of guys and you still have a lot of great receivers, the quarterback is going to be in the mix. Do you want to buy into this group of running backs? The ones that I'm excited about would be, you know, Breeze Hall if he's there in round four, I don't think he's going to necessarily be in the range where I haven't ranked. Kamara and Hampton, those are my three favorites. And Hubbard, those are my four favorites. All right. Anyone else you want to talk about? Tough to rank. 49ers. Okay. Severs. Yeah. Very difficult because I've gone back and forth on Jennings and Pearsall. Jennings was my favorite before, I don't want to say before camp, a couple of weeks before camp,

Starting point is 00:09:05 before he expressed concern about his contract. And then Pearsall was my favorite, and then Pearsall showed up on the pup list in Jennings practice. Now Jennings is back to be my favorite. I just know I would take both those guys over IU pretty consistently. I hope ADP starts to reflect that.

Starting point is 00:09:20 I know at one point this off season, it was still IU cause number one receiver for the 49ers. I doubt that's going gonna be the case, but to me, as long as Piersal continues to be out, Jennings is the easy guy to take as the first 49er receiver. How do you feel about those guys right now? I still go with Piersal because I, a guy who's not practicing on July 24th,

Starting point is 00:09:39 this is why we don't draft this early, but I go with Piersal. It was really kind of came down to watching the tape and just seeing, I feel like Pearsall is clearly a superior athlete capable of doing more. This is an offense that is so good at creating yards after the catch. And Jennings is a guy who ran like a worse than four, seven 40. So I don't think he's going to be great after the catch. Whereas Pearsall get the ball on his hand. I think he fits the 49ers so well. I like them both, but I like Pearsall better. If the injury lingers into August, then I think you've brought it up so many times. He's got the history of injuries that you just

Starting point is 00:10:15 got to start getting worried about it. But right now, I'm not going to let the practice status bother me yet. So I'm still going Pearsall all one and I, you know, I, you guys actually don't mind drafting, maybe even reaching around for, because you can put them on IR. You get that. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. You got to have some indication that that's going to happen, but you get that roster spot and then he becomes one of the best IR stashes, but probably around 10 for me or later on. All right. Thank you, Jamie. And we will, we will talk to you all tomorrow on Fancy Football Today with the Bust.

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Fantasy Football Today - FFT Express - Toughest Players to Rank Before Training Camp! Rice, Addison, Godwin, & More! (07/24 Fantasy Football Podcast)

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