Fantasy Football Today - FFT on CBSSN: Preseason Observations, Rookie Class Updates, & More! (08/19 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

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I'm Jamie Eisenberg. That's Dave Richard. That's Heath Cummings. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today. So, gentlemen, we had the second week of preseason action finally end. It's a little painful to watch, being honest. We're getting to that point, yeah. We need to see some real football with some real stars

and not exactly the bouncers and bartenders, as our buddy Pete Prisco likes to say. But we've got a lot to cover today, and I want to just jump right into it because everybody wants to know who's winning, who's losing, who's rising, who's falling. And I wasn't on our podcast this morning. I know we talked risers and fallers on fantasy football today. So I want to get a couple risers, a couple fallers from you. So, Heath, tell me about a couple of guys that are rising for you. Xavier Worthy, I know, was somebody that stood out to you this weekend with what he did with the Chiefs. Yeah, a couple of Chiefs wide receivers, really.

Worthy and Rice both going up. The Chiefs made a concerted effort to get Worthy involved in the downfield passing game, and it worked. It was nice to see Patrick Mahomes throwing the ball 40 yards downfield and somebody actually catching it. Worthy shown here as wide receiver 44. He's a top 40 wide receiver for me. He's been in that 8-9 range.

I think now we see him in the round 7 range. And then Rasheed Rice, like every day we get closer to the season and there's no suspension and you get to move him up a little bit. He has been absolutely on the field almost all the time with Patrick Mahomes so far this preseason. He's a top 20 wide receiver for me. Where is Marquise Brown coming to all this? He is third amongst the Chiefs wide receivers for me right now, just right behind Xavier Worthy. And still dealing with that shoulder injury. Hopefully he'll be 100%. We expect him maybe to miss week one.

They do open the season with the Ravens, which would be a fun revenge game for Marquise Brown, but probably not going to be out there. Dave, a guy that's rising for you is Romo Dunze, another rookie. And we're going to spend some time talking about the rookies just to kind of catch up fantasy managers on this rookie class. But Dunze making plays with Caleb Williams, looking really good. Making plays with Caleb Williams in this preseason game. Almost came close in their first preseason game and he's been doing it in practice all the way back

to minicamp. This is who Caleb Williams looks for when a play breaks down. And I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Romo Odunze finished second on the Bears in terms of targets, catches, and yards. And this is all because Keenan Allen, in the same preseason game against Cincinnati, could not get open against backup Bengals cornerbacks. That surprised me. And maybe we're just at that point where Keenan Allen's going to be kind of a de facto tight end. And the Bears already have a bunch of tight ends already. Maybe he's not going to be the guy that he was last year for fantasy managers when he was getting double-digit targets every single week. So DJ Moore is still my favorite there, but I think Romo Odunze is worth drafting

ahead of Keenan Allen. He's in that round eight, nine range for me. End of season, the best Bears receiver is? DJ Moore. Okay, so still DJ Moore, but Odunze. But I think the gap is now closing between Moore and Odunze and widening between Odunze and Allen. All right, so there's a riser for you, riser for you, riser for me would be Demario Douglas. We haven't really seen much from him in the preseason yet so far. But it's funny, there was a practice report that came out for the Patriots last week, and he missed a bunch of time with an injury that he was almost catching Jalen Polk in terms of the reception total in practice.

That's how quickly he's ascended and clearly established himself as potentially the number one receiver in New England. And look, we want receivers in good offenses. This is not a good offense. We don't know who's going to be the quarterback. Could be Jacoby Brissett, could be Jake May. But with one of your last round picks, Douglas was somebody we mentioned probably almost every week on the waiver wire. And I think we could see a situation where Douglas is going to be the number one guy in terms of catches, not big plays, not explosive plays, because that should be Polk. It should be Javon Baker. But Douglas is basically free. You're showing the ADP there. He's third from the bottom in our ADP as the 212th player.

There are at least 15 DSTs going ahead of him. You can get him free on draft day. Yep, and so just someone to put in the back of your mind that you could take with one of those last-round picks. Okay, so where there's risers, there's followers. Let's talk about some guys that are falling in our rankings. Heath, the guy that I know you're a little concerned about is Zach Charbonnet. Zach Charbonnet, I was viewing the Seattle situation as, you know,

we've got a new coaching staff, we've got a pair of round two running backs, let's see which one the staff likes better. They've made it very clear that guy is Ken Walker. They can't stop saying positive things about Ken Walker. They are not saying the same thing about Zach Charbonnet. Now he's also dealing with an injury or a little bit of soreness and not able to play in the preseason game when he was going to, but they rested their starters.

I had him in that same TyJay Spears, Trey Benson. You know, maybe they could overtake the starter. If something happens, they're going to be a must-start running back. He's actually dropped down to just pure handcuff rain for Chimney now. But we did see Walker miss at least two games each of his first two seasons, and Charbonnet did well in those two games last year when he was playing his rookie campaign. You still want to draft him, you're just not drafting him as high.

Not drafting him near as high. Okay, makes some sense. Dave, a faller for you is Stephon Diggs and Tank Deller. So is it Nico Collins ascending? Is it those two guys falling just because you're moving other guys up? Where are you sort of at now with the Texas Receiving Corps? This might be a me problem, but then I checked our ADP, and I realized that it also might be a bit of an ADP problem

when it comes to Diggs. He's still being taken on the 4-5 turn. I don't think he's going to come anywhere near the target share that he had in Buffalo all those years there, and that goes without saying. It's a different role for him. I think he's going to play in the slot. I do think he's going to be their number two receiver. I like him to finish second on the team in targets and catches and in touchdowns behind Nico Collins. I did not move Nico Collins. I still feel that Collins is a third-round pick. As for Tank Dell, love the upside.

We know that he's got that big play potential. I think he's going to have some awesome spike weeks. But in our ADP, he's going in early round six. I had him in round five, moved him back into round six, more in line with what the ADP is. And I think that that's a fair price to pay for Tank Dell. I think both these guys, aim to draft them both as number three wide receivers for your fantasy team.

If they end up being your number two wide receiver, it better be because you got some studs and some values at other positions earlier in your draft. And you're Diggs over Dell? I'm Diggs over Dell in full PPR, half in non-PPR. Give me Dell over Diggs. Dell over Diggs. I'm Dell over Diggs as well,

but I think a lot of fantasy managers can go either way with these two guys, and hopefully all three of them are great. Remember, it's not exactly something that happens on a consistent basis where three wide receivers are top 24 options Peyton Manning's done it twice we'll see if CJ Stroud could be the third guy to help support two three wide receivers in the top 24 for me it's kind of been a two-week situation here I've talked about this Christian Kirk falling uh you just don't see him playing in two receiver sets and that's frustrating he's still going to be in my opinion the guy who leads them in receptions but it's something I know you were on you and I were on the same page that we thought he was going

to be by far and away the best Jaguars wide receiver. And it looks like Brian Thomas is going to have a significant role. He's been awesome making plays in practice. And Gabe Davis, you're hearing reports that he's going to be moving around different routes, which is not something we saw from him in Buffalo. So that could open up some things for him as well and just continues to make Christian Kirk a little bit more of a safe number three receiver as opposed to somebody who can maybe jump into the top 20. So a little bit concerned about Christian Kirk. All right, there's some preseason observations from a rankings moving up, moving down situation. And this situation is going to move some rankings as well.

The news that we got about Jalen Warren injuring his hamstring in the Steelers preseason game over the weekend as well. According to reports, multiple weeks he's going to miss. So where are you at on Najee Harris? Where are you at on Jalen Warren? I didn't really move Najee Harris because I was already kind of a fan of him. It's like a low-end RB2. I'm not going to shoot him up into the mid-RB2 range now. And I think that there's going to be an opportunity to buy the dip on Jalen Warren.

I know he's going to miss some time. Might miss week one, might miss week two. But we know what his potential is. We saw it last season. By a tenth of a point, he was better in PPR on a per-game basis than Najee Harris, and we know what Arthur Smith's deal is as a play caller. He likes to be unpredictable. He's going to use both of these guys. So right now, I look at Jalen Warren as more of a round nine pick. I was taking him in round eight, but if I see him slip to round 10 in drafts this week and into the weekend

because of that injury tag next to his name I'm grabbing him up because I think he'll return better value than that I could have put the Steelers as my preseason week two loser because of how disgusting that offensive line looks how bad the quarterback play looks and now their most explosive running back got a hamstring injury and is going to miss week one Najee Harris was the only Steeler that didn't move down in my rankings over this weekend and so he's still a low end RB2 in that round six range about where Dave has him. But I'm really worried this offensive line is going to be so bad. It doesn't matter.

And Arthur Smith, I think, is still going to do Arthur Smith things. Jalen Warren going away doesn't mean Najee Harris is going to get 25 touches a game. It means Cordero Patterson gets the ball more. I actually did move him up. You know, I think the one thing that we have seen, and what I'm hoping for is we get a little bit more rookie Najee Harris because rookie Najee Harris was involved in the passing game and that's what

disappeared last week. Hamstring injuries, soft tissue injuries, they are recurring. And so Jalen Warren, one of my favorite players, I know we're all very excited about him. I think you had Warren ranked ahead of Najee. They were back-to-back for me and Warren has now fallen into the round eight range for me. I was taking him in like round six, round seven. I was taking Najee's same spot as well. Najee's

just outside the round five range for me. I think he's got top 20 upside for how long Warren's out, and who knows what happens. Last year, he closed the season very strong. Touchdowns were a big part of that. We'll see if he's able to do the same thing again for this week. You ready to take your victory lap? Yeah. All right. Gardner Minshew, the starting quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders. Is this what you expected? And what does this mean for this Raiders offense? I expected Gardner Minshew to be the starting quarterback for the Raiders. I wasn't so sure they wouldn't give Aiden O'Connell the week one start because he was

there last year and then let Minshew have the job after O'Connell fell on his face. But listen, it kind of happened in this week. O'Connell had the opportunity to go take the job and he threw a pick six. So this is what we all probably should have expected based on the Gardner-Minshew contract. It's not a great situation for Devonta Adams or Jacoby Myers or Brock Bowers. Neither one of these quarterbacks are top 20 quarterbacks in the NFL, but Minshew now safer to draft in Superflex and two quarterback leagues as someone who will start week one and i would guess he holds on to the job davante adams adp right now is outside of the first two rounds in full ppr 28.8 so an early round three pick do i i'd be okay with that because i still think he's

going to get 10 targets per game we saw minshu pepper michael pittman with targets 10 targets per game last year and he averaged 16 PPR points per game. If you settle on 16 PPR points for Devontae Adams as an average and an expectation, I'm slipping on this. Maybe I'm wrong on Devontae Adams after all. If you figure that he gets around 16 PPR points per game, I think he's worth it in round three. I don't know how many other wide receivers you can look at

and say they're going to get 17 PPR points per game in that round three type of range. I just don't think he's going up because 16 points per game would be up. Last year he was at 15 decimal points per game. Seems a weird year for him. Yeah, it was a weird year for him. But again, 31 years old. You said this how many times? When they start to show you that they're starting to slip.

It's not something that they. I don't think he was the one slipping last year. But this was my argument against him last year, that it wasn't just going to be him. And I don't know if Gardner Minshew, who was great for Michael Pittman, but did not get him touchdowns. Are we looking at DeMonte Adams

scoring four to five touchdowns being a late round two, early round three pick? I don't think that's worth it. I think that's the thing, is Pittman was great in terms of targets. He was great in terms of catches. The efficiency was pretty terrible. He didn't turn those catchesman was great in terms of targets. He was great in terms of catches. The efficiency was pretty terrible.

He didn't turn those catches and targets into a lot of yards, and he only scored four touchdowns. That was where the big drop-off happened for Adams last year. His yards per target fell all the way below eight for the first time in a long time. His touchdown rate fell all the way down to 4% for the first time in a long time. I don't think you can expect to rebound on either one of those things. But before we go to Jacoby Myers and Brock Bowers, because that's a big part of this as well, I've become a best ball junkie.

And typically what you see is the elite wide receivers are the first 15 picks. He's starting to slip into round three. And when you see that from that crowd, that tells you something, that everybody's starting to step back a little bit from Devontae Adams. And so I think round three is probably the right spot for him depending if you want to say early or late I know you're a little bit different you want him later but he is going to fall to where

he's a good enough value but I do think you should be expecting 15 16 points as opposed to the 19 20 which is what he used to give you so that's part of what he gave you at the end of last season when O'Connell was playing a little bit more free those last last four games, almost 20 PPR points per game. He was doing even better than that in his first three games with Jimmy Garoppolo. He's just being mired with bad quarterbacks right now. Luke Getzey is his offensive coordinator. They were together in Green Bay for a couple of seasons. And one of those years, he had a career high in touchdowns.

In the other one of those years, he had a career high in yardage. I don't think he's going to come anywhere near either of these careers. He also had a three-time MVP. That's true. But hearing four or five touchdowns for Devontae Adams, I think he's going to come anywhere near either of these careers. He also had a three-time MVP. That's true. But hearing four or five touchdowns for Devontae Adams, I think he's going to get over that. Was he going to get 10? I'm going to stay away. And that makes him a round three pick if he continues to get 10 targets per game, like I think he will. And Heath, just wrap this up, because I know this is part of your Devontae Adams slant, is that Jacoby Myers is still going to be a part of this offense at Brock Bowers as well. Yeah. I mean, they just spent this draft pick on Brock Bowers,

and he's been very impressive, and they're running a lot of two tight end sets. You're going to see some targets going to Michael Mayer's way as well, and I think if Antonio Pierce has things his way, they're going to play good defense and run the football quite a bit. I don't think it's a high-volume pass attack, and I don't have Devontae Adams at 10 targets a game. I've got him at 9. All right, so Myers, somebody to take with a late-round pick,

and Brock Bowers somewhere between tight end 10, tight end 12. A good low-end number one tight end, but not somebody I think you need to reach for. Remember, rookie tight ends tend to struggle, but hopefully we'll have some good performances with Gardner Minshew throwing in the ball. All right, we're going to take a break right now. When we come back, we're going to take a look at more rookies and tell you where some of these guys stack up in terms of fantasy drafts.

That's coming up next here on Fantasy Football Today. Welcome back to Fantasy Football Today. We're doing a little rookie roundup here. Again, you caught up on the rookie class of 2024 and what that means for fantasy managers because there are a lot of high profile players in this class we talked about a couple of them at the top of the show with Xavier Worthy and Romo Dunzay and we'll touch on them again throughout the rest of the show as well but I want to get to some of the other rookies that we haven't touched on and clearly the quarterbacks are making a lot

of headlines this preseason specifically Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams so have we now gotten to the point where they are locked in number one fantasy quarterbacks for fantasy managers to draft. Daniels is. Caleb isn't for me. And Bo Nix isn't there for me, unless we're talking about a super flex league. We'll get to Bo Nix later, but let's talk about the top two. Definitely Jay Daniels. I've seen enough. Saw him play in both preseason games. Saw him practice against the Dolphins. Read every report out of D.C. He looks like the guy that was crushing it at LSU. He's smart with the football. He makes good decisions. He looks like the guy that was crushing it at LSU. He's smart with the football. He makes

good decisions. He's avoiding the pass rush. He's got great speed. He's got all the things that you look for from a cheat code fantasy quarterback. He does have upside to get north of 800 rushing yards, 3,500 passing yards, maybe 30 total touchdowns. And you're able to get him after the midpoint of your draft in one QB leagues. I'll take both of them as top 12 guys. The way you framed it, I might push back a little bit because I don't feel like they have anything close to top 12 floors. They just both have top five upside. And Williams, I mean, he's not going to run for near as much as Jaden Daniels,

but he might run for 400 yards and he might run for six touchdowns. And he might have the best receiving core in the NFL and DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Roma Dunze. But again, I still want to pair Jared Goff or Brock Purdy or Trevor Lawrence or Tua Tungvalu. I'd rather have Goff so I can start him week one, see these guys in live action, and then hopefully start them the rest of the year.

Don't be afraid of starting Tua week one either against the Jaguars because that game's got shootout potential. I'm with you. I think they're top 12 guys right now. Jaden Daniels, to me, we just got finished talking about this on CBS Sports HQ. He could be a top five quarterback. I mean, he's definitely in his profile. If he runs like he did at LSU, and you spent plenty of time talking about this, I agree.

He's going to be one of the more polished rookie passers. He's older, and he showed us that at Arizona State a little bit. He certainly showed us that at LSU. And Williams looks like he's going to make a lot of plays. You're hearing Patrick Mahomes. To me to me is more like a bigger Russell Wilson. You know, early Russell Wilson of a guy that's going to use your phrase on HQ, do a lot of plays off schedule. He'll still be able to make

some of the magic happen. And we saw that in the game against Cincinnati. And again, I think that's the perfect strategy is you have to commit yourself to two quarterbacks, but there should be an opportunity here to maybe trade that second guy if one of these two rookies hits. Now, in terms of Bo Nix, it's pretty clear he's establishing himself as the third rookie quarterback that fantasy managers will draft. But is he now established himself as a starter in super flex and two quarterback

leagues? Are you comfortable enough to take him as that second quarterback? I'm getting comfortable enough to take him at the second quarterback if I've really, sometimes in a super flex flex league the quarterbacks fly off the board and I end up really strong at other positions he's not a top 24 guy he's not someone I want to start but he's someone that if I get to that point where I'm like you know what I just want to take another wide receiver I want to take another tight end I can take a Bo Nix I can take a Gardner Minshew I could even take a Daniel Jones and I think Bo Nix is going to keep his job he's going to that's the point he's going to run enough I'll like him a little better in four point per pass touchdown leagues than six because I think Bo Nix is going to keep his job. He's going to run enough. I'll like him a little better in four point per pass touchdown leagues than six, because I think he may be better in terms of passing yards and rushing yards than he is at actually producing touchdowns.

Yep. He's going to hopefully be named the starter at some point soon, but this Broncos offense not looking as horrible as it may have looked a couple of weeks ago before training camp started. So Bo Nix doing a very good job. And obviously J.J. McCarthy out for the season with a knee injury. Drake May may not start week one. And Michael Penix Jr., despite getting maybe some respect, not playing in the preseason game, not going to start unless her cousin gets injured. Dave, let's move on to the running backs here.

And Jonathan Brooks is the number one rookie running back still, despite the fact that he's going to miss a couple of games. Any update that you can give fantasy managers, and what's the strategy with the Panthers? Because Chuba Hubbard did return to practice. He should be okay. How are you approaching the Carolina backfield if you are going to invest in Jonathan Brooks?

Well, first of all, I think it's a mistake to invest in the Carolina backfield. I think if you fall into drafting Brooks or if you take the chance on Chuba Hubbard with a late-round pick, that's one thing. But I don't think anybody's looking at this Panthers backfield and say, I've got to have a piece of this offense. I don't think it's going to work that way. I actually love drafting Chuba Hubbard with like a round nine, round 10 pick,

because he might be good enough to start for you for those games that Jonathan Brooks misses. And then I think it's going to take Jonathan Brooks a little while to get acclimated to the speed of the NFL. He didn't participate in training camp. Chuba Hubbard has. He's been doing this for a long time. 12 games last year in Carolina, and it's a different offense. It's a better offense now. He averaged 12 PPR points per game in those 12 matchups. So there's a chance that Chuba Hubbard can be a fantasy helper for the first quarter to half of the year, and then Jonathan Brooks could take off after that. If you draft Jonathan Brooks, you're looking in the round seven range if he's there, and you're hoping to hold on to him, and then when the second second half of the season comes he's a difference maker for your fantasy team

I don't really want to draft Jonathan Brooks if I haven't drafted two running backs already I'd like for him to be my number three guy But if you compare him with Chuba Hubbard or if you compare him with Jerome Ford Then it maybe works out okay to where you've got a starter until Brooks is ready I do still think like he's clearly the best running back this class. If everything goes right and he gets back to himself, he could be a league winner in November and December. And a lot of people are saying Brees Hall did this last year coming off the ACL. It's not the same.

Brees Hall had one of those magical seasons. Think more Javante Williams, who was good. He wasn't great. Obviously, youth is on Brooks' side, so hopefully he'll be ready to go. But I like the fact that the Panthers are being cautious with him, mostly because I have him in one of my dynasty leagues. Let's talk about the other two guys that are going to typically go next, Ethan. That's Blake Corum and Trey Benson.

You mentioned his name earlier when you were talking about Zach Charbonnet in terms of Benson. He hasn't been fantastic so far in the preseason. Corum we have not seen. They are playing behind two established running backs. What's the approach with Corum and Benson? I thought Benson looked a lot better in week two than he did in week one. And I will draft him over Blake Corum for a couple of reasons.

One, I liked Benson a little bit better coming out of college. Two, James Conner misses three or four games every single season. James Conner is 28, 29 years old at the age where we could see a real drop-off. I am more concerned about the injury risk and the drop-off risk for Conner than I am for Kyron Williams. So I would draft Benson first. Kyron Williams has had like four or five lower body injuries since he's entered the NFL. He even had something during the offseason. He missed four games last year. I look at Blake Corum through the exact same lens as I do Trey Benson. The difference being that Blake Corum is on the Rams and that's an offense that I'd rather invest a running back pick in with one of my late rounders. I like Corum

better than Benson. They're very similar. Look, there are two guys that are starting to slip into the double digit rounds, you know, that you can take as handcuffs, not necessarily guys that you want to draft to be contributors right away. But to your point and both your points, actually, you know, the injury concerns and the age concern for Connor is definitely there, which is probably why these teams invested in these two running backs. So we'll see if they do get an opportunity to play. All right, so there's really no consensus number four running back in terms of this class. You got Jalen Wright, who I know you like.

Bucky Irvin, you and I both gave that as our answer for this question. You got Marshawn Lloyd, who might have been the guy had he been healthy. Tyrone Tracy, you know, he's also battling injury. So Jalen Wright for you is the fourth rookie running back. Why? have been the guy had he been healthy. Tyron Tracy, you know, he's also battling injury. So Jalen Wright for you is the fourth rookie running back. Why? Because I think that there's two backs in front of him, but he only needs an injury to one of those guys because it's going to be a two back system in Miami and his speed and Mike McDaniel's system could just print fantasy points instantly. He could be a 10 to 12 touch per game guy that's scoring you double digit fantasy points.

You know, I've been to Dol double digit fantasy points. You know I've been to Dolphins practice a few times and I've looked at this guy and he looks like the real deal physically. Big upper body, bigger than Devon Achan and he can run just as fast. He's a great fit for this offense. Heath is exactly right. If you draft him though, you just got to be patient. You can't draft him and then after two weeks, ah he's not doing anything, I'm going to cut him. No, don't do that because when something happens to Mostert or A-Chan, like Heath said, you're going to want to have Jalen Wright on your team. Bucky Irving is going to play a little bit in Tampa Bay. He's a decent pass-catching running back. We've seen him start for Tampa in both of their preseason games.

I know Rashad White's going to be the guy and I expect Rashad White to get a lot of numbers, but I think Bucky Irving is not only just a handcuff for White, but someone who might be able to contribute anywhere between 8 to 12 PPR points for fantasy managers that get a little desperate at running back from week to week. So I like going after him after those first few running backs are gone. And the difference for me between those two is there's one player in front of him. You said it. There's two. They will use Jalen Wright if there is injury. We hope because Jeff Wilson is still on the roster. So just keep that in mind with the Dolphins. But yes, if something happened to Rashad White, we could see Bucky Irving in a starring role

and could be very good for his fantasy value. And looking at the wide receivers now, again, we talked about Odunze. We talked about Worthy. Heath, did Malik Nabors do anything to change your mind? Because Daniel Jones was awful. Right. But Nabors was not. He's open all day long.

And we saw it doesn't have to be Daniel Jones playing great for Nabors to have a lot of fantasy value. So has he moved up at all for you? And have you changed your opinion that he's still going to be a bust? I thought that, well, first off, I'll say he's not going to be my best article this week because I use CBS ADP and he's a round six pick. Round six is where I've got him. He is so incredibly talented. And I've said that all summer long. I also said that Daniel Jones can really absolutely impact that. And we saw that when the Texans had their starters in. So I thought it was something where you saw both the risk for neighbors and the upside

for neighbors. I'm leaving him where I've got him. There's big time upside, but he's not going to get very many quarters against backups. That is true. But we'll see just if the talent starts to shine through. I'm very excited that he's going to be 130 plus targets and what that will mean, even if it's Daniel Jones throwing him the 130 targets. So Marvin Harris Jr., the number one receiver neighbors most likely the number two receiver

number three is going to be a mystery for a lot of fantasy managers so the number three rookie wide receiver for you should be who I think it should be Keon Coleman in Buffalo when you've got the chance to take the number one target potentially the number one target for Josh Allen you should do something like that because Stephon Diggs once upon a time was that guy and I watched him in the preseason game with Trubisky under center against Pittsburgh. He got open at least four times in that game. And he's taken every single snap with every single starting quarterback. I have to be a little careful saying that because it's not Josh Allen.

Last week it was Trubisky. But whoever the starter was for Buffalo, he was on the field with them. He's getting reps. The Bills are seeing what he can do. He's a little bit quicker than I gave him credit for in the draft process, and I think he's got a very good chance to lead Buffalo in targets and catches and receiving touchdowns. I'm happy to take him once those first few receivers are gone. I'm with you. I kind of go back and forth on who it's going to be, and the guy that you're going to talk about is actually my number one guy, but I gave a different

name. But Brian Thomas Jr. for you is your third rookie receiver. Yeah, third rookie receiver you should be drafting. Yeah, I go back and forth on Brian Thomas Jr. and Xavier Worthy because I think they're kind of the same guy. It's just that the target competition, not quite as stiff for Thomas as it is for Worthy. He is going to be the best downfield wide receiver for Jacksonville. I think he has a really good chance to just take pretty much all of Calvin Ridley's opportunities from last year,

and that role was extremely valuable. It's just that they had a lot of drops. They had a lot of pass interference penalties. They had a lot of catches that were caught with two feet standing out of bounds. If Thomas can just capitalize on that opportunity, he could be a top 25 wide receiver this season. And he killed the Bucs in the joint practices last week. And just getting rave reviews is just hard to overlook.

And this is kind of why, again, Christian Kirk falling, because Brian Thomas, at least for me, why Brian Thomas is rising. I'll go back to Odunze. You touched on this. Is he just eating too much deep-dish pizza in Chicago? What happened to Keenan Allen? I don't understand. And so Odunze just continues to make plays.

It feels as if Keenan Allen is falling out of favor from what they expected him to do, and Odunze is just continuing to rise as a playmaker for Caleb Williams, which makes sense. Clearly, number nine overall pick. But Odunze right now, it's back-to-back between Thomas. Thomas is my third receiver at 41. Odunze's 42. Coleman's like 44.

And Worthy's like 45. They're all bunched up together. It's funny because I think probably all of us were thinking Ladd McConkie could be that guy, and he's just kind of fallen back with Justin Herbert. That's a dip you can buy, by the way. But there's all these players that you can get as your number four. For me, the way I draft, I know some of you guys do as well.

Some of your drafts do as well. Your number five receiver. So it's a great situation to be in to get one of these guys that you can just sit on your bench and then the upside just hopefully elevates them into your starting lineup. There's a lot to like about this. So just quickly, real quick, your last round pick, you're taking a rookie wide receiver. Who is it for you? I'll go with Jermaine Burton. We've seen

T. Higgins miss a lot of time due to a variety of injuries. We've seen Jamar Chase miss time. If Joe Burrow stays healthy and one of those guys goes down, there's immense upside for Burton in this offense. Just Burton or Yoshevis? So I think if both those wide receivers stay healthy, then Yoshevis is going to be the best Cleveland wide receiver amongst those two. But if one of them gets hurt, Burton has the most upside. All right, I butchered his name, you butchered his team. It's the Bengals, not the Browns. Andre Oshivas is his name. He'll probably be the guy that starts the beginning of the year,

and then when Burton gets acclimated, starts winning in practice, you'll see him. I think Jalen Polk's a starter for the Patriots right out the gate. And I know that their quarterback situation is murky, but I wonder if he could end up leading that team in targets. He was actually an outstanding wide receiver at the University of Washington, and you can get him dirt cheap on draft day. 61 catches in the projection, I think he can beat that. I don't know if the efficiency is going to necessarily be there,

and certainly the touchdowns is a huge problem. But we're talking a late-round pick and someone who could be a biweek replacement for you at wide receiver. Jalen McMillan's a guy for me. I just look at his role being the third receiver for Tampa Bay. He's not going to lead the team in targets. He's going to probably need an injury. Could be Mike Evans.

Could be Chris Godwin for him to actually have the opportunity to be a relevant fantasy option. But Evans is 31. Godwin's had some injury concerns over the last couple years. I like the profile. I think he was a little underrated coming out of Washington. I think we could see Jalen McMillan make a lot of plays for Baker Mayfield this year.

All right, that'll do it for our rookie roundup. We're going to take a break right now here on Fantasy Football Today. When we come back, we're going to get exposed. We're going to tell you who we have the most exposure to on our fantasy team so far. Hopefully, they'll help you with your fantasy drafts that are coming up. Welcome back to Fantasy Football Today, presented by BetMGM. I'm Jamie. That's Dave. That's Heath. We've been doing a lot of drafts, right? Whether it's mock drafts, regular drafts, best ball drafts, rookie drafts. I'm doing a baseball draft tonight of six, seven-year-olds

with my buddy Mike who's watching, so I'm sure he'll enjoy that. But a lot of drafts going on. In any event, we want to show you the players that we're drafting a lot of because obviously we like to be transparent and show you that if we're going to draft these guys, you should draft these players as well. So, Dave, let's take a look at the players you've been most exposed to so far. Here are the six guys that you gave us that you're drafting the most of. Isaiah Pacheco, Josh Jacobs at running back, Brian Robinson as well,

Trouba Hubbard you talked about earlier, great value. You got Terry McLaurin at receiver and Brock Bowers at the tight end spot. Let's talk about the two commanders because not a lot of people are saying, I got to get commanders, but you like McLaurin and Robinson. They should be. And if you've watched them in the preseason, you would agree that Jaden Daniels has looked the part of a poised, effective downfield thrower. He takes really good care of the football, and you've seen him connect with Terry McLaurin multiple times. And think back to what he did at LSU with Malik Nabors and Brian Thomas. He put the ball in perfect placement for those guys at LSU, and he's done it throughout training camp for Terry McLaurin. I think this is going to be

Terry McLaurin's best year, and I think Brian Robinson's got a chance to be an RB2 this season. Certainly the best guy to work at the goal line for Washington, a physical running back for them, and also a sneaky good pass catcher out of the backfield. I know that we're going to see a lot of Austin Eckler mixing in with Robinson, but Robinson's role is rock solid, and his efficiency should spike because he's working with a Russian quarterback in Jane Daniels.

I like going after Robinson in round seven. I'll go around maybe a round and a half earlier than that for Terry McLaurin in full PPR. Good options for those players based on their roles on their respective team. Heath, six guys that you're looking at here. I know one running back that has just really, you know, solidified your opinion of him is Javante Williams. He's on your list along with Raji Rice. You talked about him, Trey McBride, your number one tight end. Brian Thomas, we spent some time talking about, Jane Daniels as well.

But tell me about Tee Higgins first because he could be the best receiver in Cincinnati. We got at least the report from ESPN's Adam Schefter who spoke to Chad Ochoacinco that said that Jamar Chase may play out this holdout into the season, which will be awful, but Higgins looking very good in camp, very good in the preseason, and you like him. Well, I think it would be awful for everybody except for T. Higgins,

who might be a top five wide receiver. And you look at these projections here, it's so difficult to look at what T. Higgins has done over the last couple of years and project it out because there's so many games where he played a couple of snaps and then something went wrong. But it's not like he has one or two major injuries. It's just kind of been some bad luck, in my opinion. I don't view him as somebody that you have to worry about missing time going into

this year. And when he's been healthy and on the field with Joe Burrow, he's been a 15-16 fantasy point per game guy. 15.6, really. Just about over two or three year sample size. That's a number two wide receiver and a high end number two wide receiver at that i like t higgins is like a round four value he's available in round five round six i think i took him to scott fishbowl in round eight like he has just all summer long he's been too cheap and you have two guys that are fitting a similar profile from being drafted late to see their value start to rise with rashi rice as well uh giovante williams another guy that's seeing his adp rise because they got the reports this offseason he's not maybe making the team,

and now he's the starter and looking good. Two years removed from the ACL. Julian McLaughlin, probably going to be a little bit of competition. Maybe. Audrey Gastame. But we're seeing Javante Williams kind of locked in. Well, that's the thing. They're definitely going to share touches amongst the Denver running backs.

They have to because there were 506 running back opportunities for Broncos running backs last year. There's no way Javante Williams can handle all those. They led the NFL with a 32% target rate to the position. It's absolutely possible for him to be a top 20 running back and Jaleel McLaughlin to still be a good flex. We've seen that in Sean Payton offenses in the past, most notably with Mark Ingram and Alan Kamara.

It's going to be fun to see how it actually plays out when they're facing real competition, how game script will matter. Will they use McLaughlin more on third downs? There's still Samaj P. Ryan, who looks like he's going to be the odd man out. Remember, there was some talk about maybe one of those two guys getting cut. Most likely feels like P. Ryan, which kind of lends itself to the list that I'm about to show you, and one guy that may be prone to a problem if Samaj P. Ryan joins the Bengals again, which could be Chase Brown. But Drake London's one of the receivers I take early in round two. Chris Godwin,

somebody that I take with a mid-round pick. Dalton Kincaid, one of my favorite tight end values. Brown and Dowell, we'll talk about in a second. And Kyler Murray, I think he's got top five upside if things hit for him because of Trey McBride, obviously because of Marvin Harrison Jr. But Chase Brown has been on a lot of my fantasy rosters. It was early in the process when we thought Zach Moss was clearly the starter. Now he's getting a little bit too expensive. But Chase Brown has been on a lot of my fantasy rosters. It was early in the process when we thought Zach Moss was clearly the starter. Now he's getting a little bit too expensive, but if he falls to the right value, I'm still going to take him. We have not seen these two play together. We don't know how this is actually going to work out. The first preseason game, Moss was dealing with an illness. So we'll see if maybe Chase Brown is just kind of giving us

fool's gold a little bit. I'm buying it, unfortunately, but again, I'm buying it only at the right price. And then for Rico Dowdle, we're not surprised at all if he's the best running back for the Cowboys. Ezekiel Elliott, at his age, the last two years, has been completely awful. And Dowdle, so far, seems like the best bet in this Cowboys backfield. Not going to be the same Cowboys backfield. Not the heyday of Ezekiel Elliott, not even the best of Tony Pollard. But Dowdle can still be a potential flex. And if the touchdowns are there for him, we'll see what Jerry Jones decides to say about that.

But we can still see Rico Dowdle maybe in that top 30, potentially top 24 conversation, if he hits as the lead guy for Dallas. All right, those are the players that we have the most exposure to. We're gonna take a break right now here on Fantasy Football Today. When we come back,

I'm gonna give you some quarterback strategies you can follow if you're drafting early at the quarterback position, middle or late, how to build a team based on where you draft your quarterback. That's next on FFT. Welcome back to Fantasy Football Today, presented by BetMGM. So we get asked all the time, where do I draft my quarterback?

Should I take one early in the first couple of rounds? Should I wait to take one at the best value? Or should I wait until one of the last number one quarterbacks is on the board? So we're going to show you three ways that you can look at a fantasy build, taking a quarterback early, taking one with a mid-round pick, and taking one with a late-round pick. So, Dave, you're up first. You put together a team.

You don't agree with it. Definitely not. You put together a team. You don't agree with it. Definitely not. You put together a team drafting a quarterback early and Josh Allen is going to be one of the top three quarterbacks taken. So here he is going in round two of this fake team that you built in our fantasy football fake world. Brees Hall, number one overall. You did this from the fourth spot, if I'm not mistaken. Something like that, basically. I don't like this team, Dave. Neither do I. All right, so Josh Allen with the second round selection, that's probably where he's going to end up settling with his average draft position. Why don't you like this? Because I think it's too soon. You can get a great player at a different position, namely wide receiver or running back, with that spot, and you can wait a little

bit on quarterback. You can probably get a quarterback nearly as good in round three instead of getting Devontae Adams in round three. Or you could wait until round seven and eight and get a quarterback that might not have the same type of upside as Josh Allen, but still be very good for your fantasy team in that mid-round range. You want to wait to draft a quarterback until you feel like you're stealing him from the rest of your league. That's my rule for a 1QB league. So I will just say in defense of Dave's team or in defense of this strategy, if Josh Allen has returns to 29 or 30 fantasy points per game as he has in the past,

or if Patrick Mahomes does, or if Lamar, if one of those guys does. That's three names. They are worth a round two pick. Like if one of those guys does that, that's especially with the way that our current consensus rankings are set up. We've got 17, 18 guys that we all three agree are worthy of a round two pick.

And then we get to the end of round two and we're like, eh. Like if one of those, but the problem is, we saw it last year. Mahomes falls to QB 10. Allen falls to 26 fantasy points per game. That's not worth any work. Oh, but it's even worse than that.

It's the Mahomes situation. It's Joe Burrow getting hurt. It's Justin Herbert falling off and getting hurt. It's those type of things that really scare you. Josh Allen falling off a little bit, you can deal with. You can still make your team work. There's other guys getting hurt. So it's really against the quarterbacks are safe argument.

They get injured too, and they certainly can miss some time. All right, Heath, you built a roster with a quarterback going in a mid-round pick here so let's take a look at your roster and how you put this team together did you have a draft slot in mind or did you just kind of go based on adp no i i was thinking it was probably around pick four or five so somewhere in that range and i went actually went with a combination that i often do at the beginning of a draft bijan robinson and james cook just to highlight that there's a lot of wide receivers in that round three through six range that kind of fall in the same tier for me as guys that go in round two. Mike Evans, Rushie Rice, now both top 15 wide

receivers in my projection. Calvin Ridley is a number three wide receiver, but a high-end guy with a lot of upside at that. Trey McBride, I always draft him. I took Kyler Murray, who I think we all love in round seven with that top five upside. And then you look at that round eight, round nine selection. That's something I do in a lot of drafts is take a pair of rookie wide receivers, whether it's Worthy and Thomas or Adunze and Coleman. Maybe even throw J.S. in there if you still like him. There's some really exciting upside wide receivers.

So I've got my three starters, and then I've got some upside behind them. You're cheating on Javante Williams by taking Julian McLaughlin there. You like this better. Of course, because look at what Heath was able to do. He got a great player in James Cook, another one in Mike Evans. Those were his round two and round three picks. He's not chasing the rest of the league, trying to fill those positions. And he's still got Kyler Murray. And by the time this year's over, yeah, Josh Allen's probably going to be better than Kyler Murray, but it might be by two fantasy points per game, three fantasy points per game. If they both stay healthy, they both do well. I wouldn't want to take that quarterback early. It feels like it's a reach. Yeah. I would tend to follow this strategy

as well. Again, I think that's where we're all coming from. But again, like you said, Heath, if Josh Allen or Mahomes or Jalen Hurts, those guys hit, you're going to say, why didn't I take that in round two? I'll show you the last approach here is just waiting on quarterback. And this was probably something that you would wait a little bit too long. Caleb Williams, actually, his ADP is slightly ahead of this, but I did it just a little bit more for the exercise, dropped him down basically a round based on his ADP. But he's the 15th quarterback off the board.

So you see here, this was I did it with the approach of picking 11 or 12. So going running back receiver. I would usually tend to be a little bit more wide receiver heavy. So that's why you see Waddle in round three. We don't expect him to get to the back end of round three, but that's his ADP. Metcalf, Higgins are probably going to see their values sort of fluctuate a little bit. Higgins mostly based on Jamar Chase and what's going on with him. Taking one of Dave's favorite guys there in round seven with Brian Robinson, Devin Singletary, you know, so if you go receiver heavy or a hero RB build round seven, round eight, round nine, you want to kind of get some running back

for just good value at wide receiver. And then if you wait on quarterback, you're not looking at one of the top eight or nine guys most likely. You're looking at maybe QB 10, 11, 12, or in this case, Caleb Williams. Now for me, he's number 12. I think for you, he's number 12. For you, he's like 13, 14. Yeah, so right around the 12, 13, you know, 14, 15 quarterback range. Again, 15 based on ADP. So if you go this route,

I think we'll all agree, we kind of said this earlier in the show, you want to take a second quarterback. So just keep an eye on how many bench spots you have and understand that the guy you draft first, you said this Heath, you'd want to take one of these guys with Jared Goff and play Goff in week one just to see how these rookies unfold or play unfold or just the performances based on some of these uncertain quarterback situations. If you swap out Williams and you put Tua in that spot, you can still take two guys just to see how it, you know, again plays out and maybe go with the upside guy later, like a Trevor Lawrence, who could bounce back after a disappointing 2023 campaign, but waiting on the position. So, Heath, do you like this strategy better or the strategy that you had with the mid-round quarterbacks? You know, I like both strategies pretty much even. I think

what really it comes down to is if Williams upside hits, because I don't think that the Jared Koff or Lawrence or Tua guys can get to what Kyler Murray can, but it is possible Williams or Jaden Daniels could. It's just their floor is a lot lower than his. And you want to take another quarterback that's got that safety, and I think Goff is the perfect guy for that, especially since this year, ton of games indoors. Addition to the offense, Jameson Williams looks like he's going to play a lot more. You already know what you've got with Amon Ross, St. Brown, and Sam Laporta,

the perfect type of quarterback to pair with Daniels or Caleb Williams. I hope you took Goff in round 13. I was just about to say that we're all fighting for Jared Goff. You know, who would have thought that that was the player that we're going to have the biggest, you know, arguments over is Jared Goff

on our fantasy team. Sorry, we're going to take a break right now. We come back. We got your questions. Send them to us on Twitter using the hashtag AskFFT on X.

Using the hashtag AskFFT. We'll answer your questions next here after the break. wrapping it up here on fantasy football today presented by bet mgm thank you for sending us your questions on x king koopa 88 wants to know rank these three wide receivers, Justin Jefferson, Amara St. Brown, and Jamar Chase in half PPR Heath. Who's your top three? I will go with ARSB, Chase, and then Jefferson. I'll take Chase first, then Sun God, and then Justin Jefferson.

But that answer might change in a week if Jamar Chase isn't signed to a new deal. Yep, we're not helping anybody. I would go Jefferson one, Chase two, and... You like Jefferson with Darnold. I have no problem with him with Sam Darnold. He's getting 15 targets per game. Next question. I hope so. In a 12-team, three wide receiver, one flex PPR league,

would you feel comfortable taking four wide receivers with your first four picks? Dave. As long as you're not jumping over... Just say no, you know you're not doing it. Well, look, I like to get a running back with one of my first two or three picks, but if there's great wide receivers there and I want to take them, I want to go with zero RB, heck yeah, I'll go for that. Probably not.

There's just so many good wide receivers in round five and round six. I would do it. I just think it's – You have done it. I have done it, yeah. It's something that you could still get good running backs also in round five. I would not do this in half or non-PPR by the way it must be full people 100 all right next question the fantasy football guy wants to know keeper question salary cap draft full ppr use the num

dollar amount uh next to the players out of a 200 budget and uh kyler six dollars dalton kincaid for five dollars tank dell for five dollars i'll just start with that one first. So League 1, Kyler for $6, Kincaid for $5, or Dell for $5. Who are you keeping? I'll take Kincaid for $5. I'll take Dell. I will take Kincaid as well. League 2, TyJ Spears for $5, Chase Brown for $5, or Dak for $7. Chase Brown for me.

Ugh. Dak. I'll go Chase Brown for $5 as well. All right, next question. I was curious why Jacoby Myers hasn't been mentioned and if when to draft, but hopefully you're watching the show earlier when we touched on it with the Gardner Minshew.

Quarterback news, when are you drafting Jacoby Myers? Remember those exciting wide receivers we're taking round eight through 10 after that. So 11 or later. Late round pick, someone to be a bench receiver. Yep, hopefully he still produces at a high level, but tough to trust in this offense. Next question. Who won the trade?

Anthony Richardson, Kenneth Walker, Tank Dell, Ford, Jordan Love, Brees Hall, and Christian Watson. I assume Christian Watson, not Deshaun Watson. So, Richardson, Kenneth Walker, Tank Dell, Jordan Love, Brees Hall, Christian Watson. I think Brees Hall is the best player in this trade. I'm going to say Brees Hall

with Love and Watson. Yeah, I'll go best. I'll agree with it. But, man, I like the other parts of the other deal a lot better. The receiver is better on the Richardson side. The quarterback is better on the Richardson side. I'm going to take that side of it just because I think Walker will have a big year. Not that Brees Hall won't, but I think there's just a little bit more safety

on the other side with the quarterback and receiver. Next question. No more questions. All right, we're done here on Fantasy Football today. So we have a busy week. Check us out on our Fantasy Football Today podcast. We're getting you set for all of your drafts. And we obviously have another show coming up here

for us on Thursday. Any drafts coming up for you this week? Yes, absolutely. I've got my 12-team keeper league, and I'm starting to plan out one of my dynasty leagues. Which keepers are you keeping? I haven't even looked at it yet. Haven't even thought about it.

You're not helping me fill time here. Too much going on. I'm sorry. I have my home league, the Harrisonville League. It's been around for over 20 years. On Saturday, I never win that league. It makes me so angry. And then Sunday night, I've got another Kansas City league.

So yeah, we're going back to,. Not going back there, but I'm drafting with the Midwest people this weekend. I had my first father-son draft this weekend with my soon-to-be 10-year-old. He's 9. 14-team PPR league. We crushed that draft. We absolutely crushed it. It was a very heavy receiver, but we started with B. John Robinson, the little hero

RB. Unfortunately, Jalen Warren is our second running back, so we'll have to make do, but the receiver should cover us. All Alright, that'll do us for now on Fantasy Football Today. Check out our Fantasy Football Today podcast wherever podcasts are found. We're helping you dominate your fantasy leagues. For Heath Cummings, for Dave Richard, I'm Jamie Eisenberg. Thanks for watching.