Fantasy Football Today - Heath Cummings' Dynasty Tiers: Position-by-Position Breakdown! (1/24 Fantasy Football Today Dynasty)

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

In this episode of Fantasy Football Today Dynasty, Heath Cummings breaks down his latest dynasty rankings and tiers for each position, helping you gain an edge in your dynasty leagues. Joined by fantasy football experts Dave Richard and Dan Schneier, they cover all positions: quarterback (3:40), running back (27:00), wide receiver (43:00), and tight end (56:00). Whether you're rebuilding or competing for the championship, this episode is packed with insights to keep you ahead of the competition. Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday SUBSCRIBE to FFT Express on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-express/id1528634304 Follow FFT Express on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qyGWfETSBFaciPrtvoWCC?si=6529cbee20634da8 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837 FOLLOW FFT DFS on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5zU7pBvGK3KPhfb69Q1hNr?si=1c5030a3b1a64be2 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." Visit the betting arena on CBSSports.com for all the latest sportsbook reviews and sportsbook promos. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey Spotify, this is Javi. My biggest passion is music, and it's not just sounds and instruments, it's more than that to me. It's a world full of harmonies with chillers. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings,

joined right now by Dave Richard, joined in the next 20 minutes by Dan Schneier. That's right, it's a three-man show, Dave. I can only presume that Dan is currently finishing up the coldest round of golf known to man. It's either that or else he forgot about the show, overslept and was like in his PJs eating frosted flakes when he realized, oh man, I'm on Heath's dynasty show today. And now he's racing to get ready to go.

And we've got our YouTube poll. Is Dan going to show up in his pajamas or in his golf attire? Probably the answer is neither. Well, in today's- Well, it's possible that it's the same attire either way. He just sleeps in his golf clothes or his golf- I mean, would you put it past him? The guy used to do shows in his bathroom. He did used to.

He was Dan on the can. Now he's Dan without the plan, but he's going to be here in just a little bit. We are on today's show talking about my dynasty tiers. I update dynasty rankings once a week during the season, once a month during the off season, and a few times a year I put together these dynasty tiers. And Dave, you've done tiers for decades in terms of redraft content. decades in terms of redraft content. Um, and I always find it interesting, the discussion of like, what are you trying to do when you tier players? There are some players that put them together kind of by archetype.

Um, these are the guys who, uh, the, the young running backs who could be workhorses and the old running backs who may only have one year left and and so on and so forth. There's some people I know when you you talk a lot about like ADP when you're putting together your tiers. I am kind of with mine searching for like who do I value the most similarly for the purposes of trades. So you will see rookies in the same tier as 30 year olds. Does that make any sense? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's important to highlight how you go about your tiers. I do like to put players of similar value and expectations in the same tier. And I think

that's a lot harder to do in dynasty. But I think if I did do Dynasty tiers, it would be, all right, here, here are the players that are going to play, they're going to be like Top 5 wide receivers for 5-plus years. I don't want to look further than 5-plus years. All right, so that would be the first tier. And then the second tier would be, all right, here are the players that might be elite for 3 to 5 years. And then just right on down until we get to a tier where it's, here are wide receivers. So as long as it's that type of layout, as long as people can understand what you're going for, I think it's important and I think it's good. So I think we'll, we'll just start before we even take our first break, I want to get to the quarterback position, because I think that how you tier players and what, what your goal is of

this operation really comes into play. When you look at that position and the way that it stands right now, um, in, in dynasty fantasy football, this, this top tier for a long time has included the name Patrick Mahomes, this top tier, I think for a lot of people might include the name Jayden Daniels after the last couple of weekends, but tier one, Dave, I have just Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. And it's basically like, if I was going to define that tier, it would be quarterbacks who have shown us truly elite fantasy upside and we're elite this year. Um, like the Allen and Jackson are kind of the only two guys that fully

meet that we've seen them both be over 30 fantasy points per game. Nobody did that this year. They were the two of the top three quarterbacks in fantasy football this season. Is that first tier too small though? I think you're missing one name. I think you're missing Joe burrow and maybe you're missing burrow because you're worried about, you know, his injury history. This is really like the first year, it seems like ever, but really the first year where he's played every game, no issues, seems fine. Maybe you're worried about what his receiving core will look like. But I still, he's the same age range as Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson.

He still has plenty of upside. He's a phenomenal thrower. He's going to have Jamar chase for the next five plus years. He's going to play the next five plus years. I'm not saying I would put him ahead of Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson, but this would be one of the players that I would put into that top tier along with Josh and Lamar and I owe Baker Mayfield owe Baker Mayfield an apology because he was actually ahead of Josh Allen. Allen was QB4 this year in terms of fantasy points per game. But I guess if I was pushing back on Burrow at all,

it would be one, the T Higgins question. Because he has been a different fantasy quarterback when he's had both Jason Higgins versus when those guys have missed time. Um, and then the second thing would be like, we'd agree this was the best fantasy season of Joe Burroughs career. Uh, we don't agree that the stats say it. So he in, in this, and as a rule, like if you're five years into a guy's career with the four years, maybe, um he just had, no, five years, he just had his career year.

Like we don't necessarily think this is just the new normal. He's probably gonna be somewhere between this and what he's been in the past. And that career year was 27 fantasy points per game. Well, we saw Lamar score 30 fantasy points per game this year. We've seen Lamar do that in all the other seasons. We've seen Josh Allen flirt with that 30 number. He was only at 25.5 this year. We've seen Patrick Mahomes give us a season over 30 fantasy points per game. I guess if I was, and Jaylen Hertz has gotten closer than Burrow did this year,

but I guess if I was just looking at tier two with Mahomes, with Burrow, with Hertz, and with Jayden Daniels, for me, the reason that Burrow belongs there is I'm not sure that he actually does have as much upside as Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. We did see Joe Burrow average 26.3 fancy points per game in 2022, I view T. Higgins as a huge catalyst for Burrow, I agree with you. But I don't view T. Higgins as an irreplaceable player. Meaning that I think the Bengals could eventually, I'm not saying they're going to be able to do it immediately in 2025, but maybe by 2026 have a wide receiver who steps up and is 80% to 100% of what T Higgins has been. So I, again, I'd like, I'm really, I'm a big believer in Joe Burrow and I think he can elevate his past catchers as well. Not really that concerned about him falling off to a

level where he's at. What was he at last year? It was like 17-7, but that includes game healthy and throwing as much. And then just by comparison, Lamar Jackson averaged 23.7 last year, 22.5 the year before that, 21.6 the year before that. And so he's had a string of years where he has, he's had moments of monster games. But he really hasn't been, you know, as consistent as Josh Allen, let's say, where Allen and Azers talked about this on the main Fantasy Football Today show. 26-plus fantasy points per game each of the last 4 years, 5 years, something like that. I think that's the gold standard. I think Alan is the gold standard. And we can talk about Lamar Jackson and how amazing he was this year, but it's

his first year in four where he's been north of 24 fantasy points per game. And Burroughs done that in two of his last three. Yeah. I think that's like the thing we've talked about a lot with Lamar Jackson throughout the years. He is the poster boy for Azerstats because of the partial games, because of the time that he's missed with injury. Burroughs had the same problem. I think when you look at that tier two, it seems to be a general consensus that Patrick Mahomes is a tier two dynasty quarterback.

It seems to be general consensus that Jalen Hurts is a tier two dynasty quarterback. It seems to be general consensus that Jaylen Hertz is a tier two dynasty quarterback. You argued for Burrow in tier one. We had a question from Joe in the chat. He says, if Jayden does what he did this year, next year, would he belong in that first tier? And I think it's worth just, again, I like to have the numbers up

in front of me so we can just talk about what just happened. Jalen Daniels finished this year with an average of 23 and a half fantasy points per game. Awesome for a rookie spectacular. If you just want to look at week one through 17, it's 24.7. So even better. I'm not sure that that does get him into tier one though. Like we need to see something closer to what Joe Burrow did this year, right? Would you care to know what he did in his final six games and then getting even more granular his final six games if you throw out week 18. So five of his final six games.

Right. So his final six games. Right, so his final six games, he was at 30.4. This is when he was recovered from the rib injury. The offense was much more open to him as far as passing the football. I think they did more no huddle toward the end of the season as well. And they started to get some good play

from other wide receivers other than Terry McLaurin. And then if you just, if you chop off Week 18, now it's 5 games, it's 35.6. Like that's how bad Week 18 was. I don't know how much they were really trying in that game against Dallas. Say what you will about Week 18 now. I do think that if the commanders add another wide receiver and they bulk up their offensive line a little bit more, I think you can make the case for Jayden Daniels to belong in that first tier. I think he's got the upside to be around 26 fantasy points per game over the course of 17 games, not just for 5 or 6 games toward the end of the year. And I think there's no question that he's, he's a great passer. We saw this. We were talking about this, Heath. You tell me, March of last, of 2024, just how good of a thrower he was in college, and now

he's brought it into the NFL, knows what he's doing out there, and he can run. So there's a lot to be excited about. I would say this. If you're in a dynasty start of any point in the next six months, you will see people go and take Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson first and second. Do not be surprised if Daniels goes third because people are betting on the upside based on what we've seen this year. And honestly, what we saw from him

as he developed in college. Now, he was better from a fantasy points per game basis than CJ Stroud was as a rookie, but we did see CJ Stroud ranked right in this range tiered right in this range after his rookie season. Any concern at all about a sophomore slump from Daniels? You have to be concerned about some sort of slump, but here, here's where I think there's, there's a very obvious difference. And there's a very subtle difference. The obvious difference is CJ Stroud doesn't run, Jaden Daniels will. So that's going to add the floor to

his fantasy production as long as he keeps running. I think the subtle difference is we saw the commander's offense evolve and get bigger and get more aggressive as the season went on. I don't want to tout Cliff Kingsbury too much, and I think he's going to stay in Washington and be their offensive coordinator into 2025. But I am fairly optimistic that they will be able to develop their offense and add layers onto it that make, that make a good example being they do what the Texans just did, which is add these wide receivers to make their offense even more explosive. Hopefully those wide receivers don't have offseason issues, don't tear an ACL in the middle of the year, and hopefully the offensive line doesn't regress. I felt like the Texans' offense kind of changed for the worse for CJ Stroud. I don't think that the play design was quite as good. I think the offensive line had injuries and also just wasn't as good. And I think adding

Joe Mixon, just for the games that Mixon was there and healthy, I think that impacted what CJ Stroud does as a thrower, too. And, and those differences, if those come to pass in Washington, then yeah, Daniels could be worse in the second year. But just like what I'll say about Stroud is that I think Houston can go back to the drawing board. And I think that they can build off of all their mistakes this year, and possibly have a bounce back year for Stroud next year. I'm not ready to write off Stroud. And if Daniels has a down year in his second year, I wouldn't be ready to write off Daniels in his third year. That's the top six quarterbacks in Dynasty, Tier 1 and Tier 2. Let's take a short break. We'll get to Tier 3 and Tier 4 right after this.

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iGaming Ontario. This is really, Dave, where things already start to get a little bit haywire in the tiering process. I've got five quarterbacks in tier three, Caleb Williams, Justin Herbert, Jordan Love, Brock Purdy, and Kyler Murray. There's a wide range of skills and abilities in this group. And I don't know how I would define it necessarily, but what stands out amongst those five as he should be higher or he should be lower? So the first thought in my head is how many of these quarterbacks are still going to be starting and effective for their NFL teams in two years? I would say all five.

How many of them are still going to be there in three years? I think I'd say all five, but I, I'm not a hundred percent locked in on love or Kyler, what about five years from now? I think the only quarterback in tier three, the names you just said, Caleb, Herbert, Jordan Love, Brock Purtty, Kyler Murray, the only one that I'd feel really confident in still being a factor in fantasy five years from now is Justin Herbert. It's the only one. And so I'm not ready to say that like, oh, he should be in his own tier or Justin Herbert should be in tier two.

I just think that he's probably the best of this group that I would trust if I'm starting. I'm gonna reference this a lot, Heath. If I'm starting a dynasty team and I can't get one of the first six quarterbacks that we named, Herbert would probably be the guy that I would look at seven. And it's interesting.

And Dan is here and we're all so excited about it. And I'm not sure I want to give Dan an impossible task to welcome him onto the show, Dan, because I don't know how many people will get this right. But when I go look at the fantasy points per game of these five quarterbacks in 2024, fantasy points per game. How do you think they ranked? Okay, fantasy points per game, the five in tier three, I assume. Okay. Um, hmm. I think points per game, we'd have Brock one. We'd have, this is where it gets tricky. We might, no, We might have Caleb too. It's weird as it

sounds but I'm not going to put it there yet. He had so many big games too, Caleb. People don't remember. But he did have some really bad six point games too. All right. We're not going to do that. We're going to do Brock one. That's easy. Kyler Herbert love Caleb. I switched up the Caleb. You nailed it. Nailed it. 20 and a half fantasy points per game for Brock Purdy. The clear QB one of this group, Kyler at 19.8, Herbert at 19.1, love at 18.5, Caleb at 16.9.

I love the fact that you were like debating was Caleb QB2. And then when you actually put them in order, it was just clear that Caleb was, so I think it makes sense. Like he's by far the youngest. He was a rookie. We're just kind of washing that away. Dave was making the case for Herbert kind of at the top of this tier because he feels the best about his long-term future as a NFL starter. I guess my only question is like, we watched the tape of Justin Herbert and people who evaluate tape of Justin Herbert are very confident that he's a very, very good NFL quarterback, but that hasn't actually translated into

very much NFL success and in the same way it's been kind of lacking in fantasy success recently as well. Do we actually get Justin Herbert as a starting fantasy quarterback again soon? Uh, I think, I think he's probably going to be fringe for a while, just given what we have at the top of the position and how many players we have above him who run and add value via the run. Even players I see behind him, Bo Nix, Drake May, there's a possibility like they both outperform him from a fantasy points per game standpoint next year just based on the fact they're both going to be running a lot.

It makes such a difference in fantasy. We've talked about this at length throughout the years. So he did run a little bit toward the end of the season when he was healthier and then got rebanged up. Kind of the question comes down to me, like, will we ever see a fully healthy Justin Herbert again? He's had so many injuries throughout his career Because if he is I think that that system if they're gonna keep it and I think they will with the Roman and Harbaugh Does lead itself to some upside for the quarterback position running the football and we saw it a little bit at times

So to me it kind of comes down to that. Will we see an evolution of his game in that regard from a fantasy standpoint? Will you run more? Without it, it becomes a situation where, you know, you're back to all of these pocket guys like CJ Stroud this year, probably the biggest miss in fantasy at the quarterback position by far. And when you look at it from a whole, it's like, well, was this really that difficult for us to see? Sure. On one hand, he had all three receivers and it looked great on paper. On the other hand, it's a quarterback, you're two in a system. They're going to take away concepts and he doesn't give you that rushing floor. It just, when you don't have that rushing floor, I feel like it's very difficult to maintain your

value and fantasy at quarterback. Yeah. And I, if you thought it sounded like I was being too hard on Justin Herbert, like just in terms of fantasy points per game, he was QB 17 in 2022, four tenths of a point behind Daniel Jones. In 2023, he was once again QB, he was QB 10 in 2023, tied with, looks like, my homes. So a little bounce back up to QB 10 last, last year falls back down into that QB 15 QB 17 range. Um, I, I'd love to see another year like we saw in 2021. He was QB 16 last year, half a point better than Russell Wilson. Dave, what tier

four? It's, it's the young guys, but I don't think you could have a real strong certainty that any of them are going to be a starting quarterback in five years yet. We think Drake May is probably the most likely, but Drake May, Bo Nix, and then two guys that are just impossible to tier, Anthony Richardson and CJ Stroud. Do you have a strong preference in this group, Dave? I think this is where you might look for a quarterback if you take the last quarterback in Tier 3 and you want to get a second guy that might have more long-term upside, I think May and Nick's offer that. I'm not ready to write off C.J. Stroud because of one bad year. I worry about Anthony Richardson being a starting quarterback two years from now. starting quarterback two years from now. Yeah. Like if he's terrible to start next season,

the cult might bench him and not bring him back. 100%. And so there's so much, I've got him on one of my dynasty teams, so much risk with him. And the reward, it's great because of that rushing floor. We can keep talking about it, but everybody knows what it is, so let's not.

Can he win games with that rushing floor? He's got to become a better thrower. This is the make or break off season for Anthony Richardson. He's probably appropriate in this tier four range, but I still like Drake May a lot long-term. And Bonix too. I don't know if he can ever be anything better than what we were talking about with Justin Herbert.

He could be around 20 fantasy points per game for the next five years. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, but I don't know if he can evolve into being any better than that as we move forward. I guess the way I'd say it is, I think it's really unlikely that Anthony Richardson finishes in a similar range as Drake, Mae, Bo Nix, and CJ Stroud in the next three years, but

he has the better chance in my opinion, all of them to be a top five fantasy quarterback and a better chance to get replaced in the middle of the 2025 season. And you've got to tier those guys somewhere. I would say Richardson moves up. Um, if you're talking about a one quarterback league, cause I don't care what the floor is and he moves down. If you're talking about a super flex league, because the floor really matters a lot and he has almost no floor.

I want to get, we're going to quickly turn the page, Dan tier five. Shares almost nothing with tier four. It's three old performers, Jared Goff, Dak Prescott and Baker Mayfield. You have any concern, Dan, about the next two to three years with any of these three quarterbacks? Good, interesting question. Concern, I would say least concerned about Goff

despite losing Ben Johnson, the infrastructure there really has me excited about just a safe, a safe, I guess, floor for him. Um, Dak and Baker, that's interesting. Baker's already proven he can kind of make it work despite losing his coordinator. He lost Canalis. Now he's going to lose Cohn. It looks like I don't think that's official yet, but it's close.

Um, with Cohn going to Jacksonville, Mike Evans will retire soon, so he'll lose that. Godwin, we don't know the status of that and if he's gonna move forward with the team. Seems like Baker's done a good job though utilizing receivers like McMillan, even Sterling Shepherd at times. So I don't think that's a big reason for his success, the receivers he's had.

It is, of course, but I don't think it's a, I guess a crutch. So I would say the one I'm maybe most concerned about would be Dak Prescott. Just so much of what Prescott does, he wins with his mind. He wins with the processing, the post snap processing. And when I watched the Cowboys, a lot of it is just quick game, or it was this year at least, um, which is great and it works. It doesn't really provide that much of a fantasy ceiling. I don't think. And I said this, I guess three years ago now on FFT, once he

had that first ankle injury, I said they will not use him as their zone read runner in the red zone anymore, and they haven't. His touchdowns as a runner have gone down significantly since that injury, and his running in general has gone down. So he fits into the billing I was discussing before, like he has to do it with his arm to have fantasy success. We have enough people who are running at this point that like you really gotta throw 35 TDs, 4 4k yards to get into that QB one status. I don't really feel like that Prescott has a

good opportunity to continue that moving forward so he would be the one I'm most concerned with. Oh tier six I'm just gonna ask you both a rapid-fire question because if we take this long on all four positions we're gonna be here for two hours. Dave, Trevor Lawrence, Michael Pennex, Tuah, JJ McCarthy, Bryce Young, that's tier six. I kind of call it the $20 scratcher group because there's certainly some upside there, but they're not, it's not a cheap scratcher. Like these guys all still cost something and they could all still go to zero very, very soon.

Pennex is the one that I'm targeting just because he's the youngest. As far as talent goes, McCarthy might might actually be younger than Pennix. McCarthy is like six years younger, I think. Yeah. Um, I would probably rank it. Pennix McCarthy, Lawrence young Tua. And I know that sounds crazy, but I think if we're, if we're just strictly looking at long view, I think that's kind of maybe not crazy because we don't know how much longer

Tua is going to play. Is Tua about to embark on a make or break year with the Dolphins? I would argue that he is. And so putting him in tier six, if he has an awesome season, Dolphins actually make the playoffs, win a playoff game, then he'll be a factor for a while. But the other thing I'll say is how many quarterbacks do we name before we even got to this tier? Has to be 12, has to be probably in the neighborhood of 15. So a lot of these quarterbacks, these are backups in a 1QB league. I don't know if I'm really thinking about

Bryce Young or Trevor Lawrence as a backup quarterback, one that I would prioritize anyway, compared to somebody like Pan-X and McCarthy. We're at 19 through 23 with this group here. And that was just for the record, Bryce Young also I think at least a year younger than Michael Pinnix. Trevor Lawrence, a couple months older than Michael Pinnix. He's old. Dan, who's your favorite of this group? For me, it's actually Trevor Lawrence. Look, I'm excited about Liam Cohen going there. I know it's been bad for him. I know really it's banking on just one stretch

of good fantasy success. It started with that Baltimore game tour, I think three years ago now at this point, or two seasons ago, two full seasons ago. So it's a little hopium, but I just look at the arm talent and I look at the ability upside as a rusher, if that can be a part of his game.

But the other guy for me would be Bryce Young. The strides he took on tape in the second half were phenomenal. He was one of the best anticipatory throwers in the entire NFL. To me, that's the trait that stands out. It's a trait that keeps you with a starting job. It's a trait that leads to explosive plays in the passing game. So if they can figure out a way to get him some more explosive weapons and a better line

to kind of operate behind, then to me, he has a chance to be that rare type of quarterback. Because we know one thing with Bryce Young, we learned this year, he's willing to and able to get you points with his legs. And that's something we saw this year. He's really agile, lateral, laterally agile in a phone booth to make defenders mess. So Bryce and Lawrence would be my two guys, Bryce, maybe even one. Let's move over to the yesterday. Just for a quick second, could it be a good

strategy in a startup to target one of the value older quarterbacks? You could talk about golf or Baker Mayfield for this example, get one of them and then maybe get two of J.J. McCarthy, Bryce Young, Michael Panics and throw Trevor Lawrence in there too since he's effectively the same age as Panics. And then you've got a guy for now and a guy maybe for later and somebody who could be very good later on. I like that idea. Yes. And it's not a bad strategy.

It is pretty cheap. Let's go to the running back position. And this is like this position going through this process really kind of shocked me just because we like, thank goodness we've got 20 NFL running backs coming in the next draft class because man do we need them the first two tiers three running backs Bichon Robinson and Jemira Gibbs in tier one Devon Achan my only running back in tier two this is probably not enough names for the top Dan who am I missing I mean the idea would be you could potentially be missing Breeze hall.

That's the, that's the question, right? Because going into last year, this time, if we'd recorded this, this time last year, Breeze hall would be tier one. You wouldn't even be a consideration for tier two. Now he's not in one of tier one or tier two. Um, of course things seem to have changed a lot for Breeze hall from year to year. They are using more running backs.

Braylon Allen looks really good there. Um, they even worked in, I forget who toward the end of the season, who looked okay in that backfield. So maybe as we move forward with Aaron Glenn's coaching staff, we don't really know exactly what that's going to shape up as obviously he's just hired and we don't know what the offensive direction is going to be, but it might be a multi-back system, which takes away a lot of that upside. Bijan's kind of operating in a multi-back system Jamir Gibbs is at least for now

Devon HN kind of is wasn't really from a usage standpoint this year So you can make the case that all these guys no one really has the full backfield at this point But we didn't really see the splash plays from Brice Hall this year either We didn't see the operation in the passing game, which we saw Be a big part of his fancy success in past season. So there's just a lot of uncertainty, but that would be the guy would put up there just from a pure talent standpoint. That's the thing is like, we've re he'll be 24 before he plays another football game.

And that's not old running back. He's just entering his prime. That's great. But he's also entering year four and he does not have a 1000 yard rushing season. He does not have a 10 touchdown season. And this team looks like it's probably going to be awful offensively once again. And so Dave, as we turn the page to tier three, we find Brice Hall in the same tier as Kyron Williams and Jonathan Taylor. And immediately it feels like people look at the names, Kyron Williams and

Brice Hull in the same tier and they think, Oh, I want Brice Hull gross. I don't want Kyron Williams and Kyron Williams has been so much better than him the last two seasons. Why does everyone hate Kyron Williams? I think they don't like him because he doesn't have the pedigree. And I don't know. He's a year older than Breeze Hall. I don't think it's totally that just because of the pedigree.

At least my opinion, because I'm extremely low on Chiron from a dynasty standpoint. And I understand what the other side of it is, but it's also just the idea of like, when does this Rams restart thing restart? Because if Stafford's done there, I just- Yeah, they might be as bad as the Jets next year. That's the thing, or worse. Or they're back in playoff contention again, because Stafford's not going away. And that often is pretty good. Everything is good, but I just personally can't underestimate or overestimate Sean McVeigh in that regard, as far as if you don't have a quarterback in this league, I just think you go nowhere in the NFL. And you just have no,

they have no solution for getting a quarterback if Stafford does move on from this team and retire. They won too many games, like that's it. Like you can maybe hope to get lucky, but that's not really how the draft works. I guess you can hope for like Jameis or something like that, who can keep an offense from a fantasy standpoint on a little bit of a track in that regard. If I'm talking from a fantasy standpoint with

Kyron, but if Stafford's gone, like what do you have for Kyron at that point? You have the O line, but you have no offense. And with the, it's not just the pedigree with the history of injuries. There's a lot there that I just don't love about Kyron. Yeah. I mean, what I'll tell you is like, if you're looking for it, I don't know that elite running back production from a 24 or 25 year old has ever been cheaper. Like if you like normally you cannot find 24 and 25 year old RB ones that people are just like, man, please give me a first. Um, and like normally you gotta pay two or three first to get that. So it don't hesitate to take advantage of that possibility.

In tier five, we're already squirrely. Like the first six running backs, or I'm sorry, tier four, the first six running backs, I feel pretty good about all those guys. I know Dan doesn't like Kyren, nobody likes Kyren. I'm fine with that. I love the top six. We get to top number seven and we already have a 28 year old running back in Saquon Barkley and tier four is Barkley, Bucky Irving, Chase Brown,

Ken Walker, James Cook, Dave Irving and Brown are the two types of backs that for the last couple of, or at least the last decade, I've heard people in dynasty beware of that day three or UDFA running back who just had a great rookie year. You mean like last year? Like Kyron Williams, like Isaiah Pacheco, like James Robinson, like Michael Carter. Um, like there's been a lot of them that didn't work also, but we've seen Kyron do it two years in a row. So can we just cross our fingers and hope Bucky and Chase Brown do too?

You can cross your fingers and hope so, but I think there will be some complications. Uh, their cases, the chief among them being they're going to get company. Heath, you mentioned earlier, there's like 20 running backs in this draft class that you love. Dan, I'm sure you'd back that up and say that this is a very deep class running back. Here we have two running backs that helped carry their offenses to the finish line. One got in the playoffs, the other one fell just short, but they were sharing. And now there's, there's so many players that could end up sharing with them that are coming into the league right now.

And that makes me a little bit nervous. It's going to be easy for Cincinnati to find another running back if they're going to just move on from Zach Moss. You know, that wouldn't be surprising. It might be a smidge of surprising for the Bucs to move on from Rashad White, but you can see it happening. Rashad White hasn't been an effective runner for two seasons now. And Bucky Irving is effective and he's proven that he can do it. So I get a little nervous about them being any higher than this. I think they're appropriate in tier four.

I'm glad you're not rushing them up the ladder a little bit. And you've got them in the same tier as Saquon Barkley and, and I'm not ready to write off Saquon. And we got a little technical difficulty there with Dave's sound. I think we lost Dave, but I can hear Dan and Dan as much as I agree with Dave's concerns about Bucky and chase Brown, they aren't even the two running backs who make me the most nervous in this tier. It's Ken Walker. I don't want to know what to do with a guy who's explosive and has the upside that Walker does, but also Zach Charbonneau looked better at the end of the year.

Yeah. I mean, just looking at the offense, the offense runs better with Charbonneau in there because of the way that he runs, but Walker gives them the upside of the explosive play that Charbonneau may not give them. So it's really pick and choose. The best coaches will probably find a way to utilize both. But that gets me to some of my concern with some of the players we discussed.

Cause I would agree. Look, Walker's probably the most concerning, but Bucky and Chase Brown, those guys would scare the hell out of me. Me if I had them and I was valuing them, or if I was trying to trade them and value them in a tier like this. To me, Bucky, love what I saw. I thought his college tape was, I thought his NFL tape was better than his college tape despite playing against lower

defenders in college and worse defenders in college. That's how good I think he'd be. But I'm concerned when you lose Liam Cohen, when I read stuff like Sean McFay saying, wow, you know, this is the core. This is my system with Liam's running at the core, but he's doing stuff in the run game that shocked even me when I watched the tape. And so now you lose that from the run game in Tampa, right? And then on the other hand, it's Chase Brown, who was never built to be a workhorse back.

He had one season where he did it at Illinois and kind of did it, I should say. But you know, there's no guarantee that's gonna be the case moving forward. As Dave mentioned, stack loaded class. The plan for Cincinnati originally wasn't to make him a workhorse. It was Zach Moss until he got hurt.

So those guys scare me more. And Dave was getting to the point, Heath, but I gotta say, I'm with Dave. I don't know if he still was getting running, he's gonna get here with his point, but I'm with Dave. Barkley to me doesn't really belong in this tier. Barkley belongs in a tier above,

and maybe even a tier above that for me. I understand he's 28, but I think we're over, you were over emphasizing age here when we're talking about a two, three year difference for what is a generational player versus a non-generational player. Like we've done this with Derek Henry for the last four years, and he's just a freak of nature that defines all physics and all logic and Barkley is the same thing. I know he's had more injuries in his history than Derek Henry, but one of those injuries just pure luck. He's running a route over the middle

and steps on the foot of a Dallas defender and it ruins the season. He had an ACL as well. And then he had an MCL sprain. Like outside of that, he was fully healthy this season. He had a fully healthy season for the Giants in 2022, essentially. So it's like, I would say that Barkley, when I look at this just as a whole, I don't really like to see Barkley in a tier with these guys. I just couldn't value those guys the same personally. He's the only workhorse. He was the only workhorse in any of these tiers, really. Well, yeah, it's really about how much like you couldn't have said this about Saquon Barkley

coming into this coming year. Right. But maybe you should. Well, no, I think what we saw is how much Saquon Barkley benefited from the situation. Right. Like I am so, I, I, let me just Heath rant for a moment here because we've heard all week long about how the defensive plan is just make Jaylen hurts, beat you and just take the ball away from Saquon Barkley.

And the Eagles would be nothing without Saquon Barkley and Jaylen hurts is just along for the ride. Jalen Hurts was going to Super Bowls before he had Saquon Barkley. Jalen went to a Super Bowl and was going to the playoffs all but one year. Saquon Barkley played two playoff games in six years before he joined Jalen Hurts. Saquon Barkley was averaging 4.4 yards per touch over the last four years of his career and then goes to Philadelphia and all of a sudden he's averaging six. Like this situation this year. I know what you're saying that the narrative that Barkley has is the reason for that team is ridiculous. I mean look at it even more like

be smart about football and understand it's Jeff Stoutland and the five offensive linemen there. They bring in McKay back then all of a sudden he's one of the most dominant right guards in the NFL. Cam Jergens, they draft him before they need him. He's immediately amazing at center. Landon Dickerson has an ACL so he falls to round two. He's immediately one of the best guards in the NFL. Jordan Maillolta, seventh round pick that goes to Jeff Stoutland University. He becomes one of the best left-hounds in the NFL. And Lane Johnson very legitimately has a case to be made. He's the best right tackle in NFL history, literally NFL history.

So that's five of those guys, Jeff Stoutland and a quarterback who can run. And when they run zone read, you can't crash down on Barkley. So the Barkley narratives were good. I'll agree with you on that. The rant's over, Aaron, you're right. This is what grinds my gears.

But we do need to get back to the list because what you said, Dan, I think could be very much true about the next tier. We get to tier five and this is a place where I did kind of go with archetype over, um, over just strict value, but we have Josh Jacobs, Joe Mixon, Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Camara and Derek Henry. Like these should be your win now backs, but I feel a little bit less certain about them than I do Barkley, which is why they are a tier behind him.

But I just wonder, like, let's say you've got a true contending roster, Dan, and you have Bucky Irving or Chase Brown, how many of these backs, Jacob, Mixon, McCaffrey, Kamara and Henry, are you trading those much younger backs for? Great question. I think without a doubt, Jacobs, you know, I'm much higher than you are on him and dynasty. Adam, I'm big on him. He just signed the contract Green Bay. They,

I don't see that changing anytime soon. Jordan loves under contract, great infrastructure. So definitely Jacobs. The rest of them is where it gets interesting. I think I'm definitely way more willing to trade chase Brown than I am Bucky Irving. Bucky Irving looked much better on tape to me than Chase Brown. Bucky Irving looked like he could legitimately be a star on tape. So that's the one I'd be scared to trade. But as far as Chase Brown goes, I'll give him up for McCaffrey in a heartbeat. I'll give him up for Henry if I'm contending, not Kamara, maybe Mixon.

And do not like seeing that bangles not Kamara, maybe Mixon. And do not like seeing that Bangles graphing X and Mixon though, great job. I don't wanna take a shot at Thomas, he's the man, but we had one. We don't want to. Dan, have you, is this your first video show? You don't say that, it gets fixed in post

and then it looks good later. Come on, Dan, let's take a short break so Dan can recover from that. I need to recover from that. Club and we'll get to tier six after this. My eyes deceive me. Tier six is the mega tier and maybe the last tier that we're going to talk about running back today.

Chuba Hubbard. That's hilarious. David Montgomery, Isaiah Pacheco, Travis Etienne, Tank Bigsby, James Conard, Yandere Swift, J.K. Dobbins, Brian Robinson, Aaron Jones, Najee Harris, Tony Pollard, and Ramandre Stevenson. And yes, there's like five or six young backs you might really like that I put in the tier below because I don't even know if they're going to be starting running backs next year.

So we're just going to talk about this tier six. I want you to kind of look at the names. How many of these guys do you actually feel comfortable will be like an RB two next year? Great question. I'll say, so first I want to start with James Connor, who I would put more in the veterans here above him, especially since they resigned in Arizona and everything we saw from Drew Pratzing and the health of that run game.

Um, so that would be the first one for me that I feel comfortable with. I want to say Pacheco. I mean, could they really bring back Kareem Hunt? Maybe. If you're Kareem Hunt, if you're the Chiefs, you can probably find a good reasonable contract there. And I don't see why Kareem Hunt would want to play anywhere else. So that scares me a bit.

I want to bring two guys to the front, to the forefront here though. It's tough because I don't know which one will have more value. I'll go with my guy though. The guy I think is more talented and a better runner on tape and it's Tank because I don't know which one will have more value. I'll go with my guy though. The guy I think is more talented and a better runner on tape and it's Hank Bigsby. And why am I excited about him potentially as an RB2? Because Liam Cohen's going over there and Liam Cohen designed one of the best run games in football this year behind the Lions and maybe a couple others. So that gets me excited about a guy who's been really talented on tape, had some injuries.

So I want to throw Hank Bigsby in there. J.K. Dobbins will be dependent if he resigns. Bryan Robinson, a little bit lower on. Tony Pollard, how about him? He's under contract, just signed it last year. The expectation, the hope, is the Titans will improve at quarterback. That I don't know about, and I can't say for sure,

whenever you're drafting a quarterback, you even do. But I will say this, the offense that Callahan brought in, I'm talking about his father, not, I'm talking about, yeah, they blocked well. And Latham played unbelievable this year. As did Skoronsky who took a big jump from year one to year two. So that O line is going to become one of the 10, maybe even top eight, seven best in the NFL over the next year or two.

I want to have a running back in that offense. Just really, really quick. Deandre Swift gets Ben Johnson. Is that a positive because he gets Ben Johnson or a negative because three years ago, Ben Johnson just played Jamal Williams over him. Yeah. Great. Great point.

Uh, I'm going to go with negative just not. Yeah. Negative is fine. I think it's pretty much net neutral. I don't, I'm not a huge fan of Swift. Let's jump to the wide receiver position and get Dan fired up right away. Cause I did it's pretty much net neutral. I don't, I'm not a huge fan of Swift. Let's jump to the wide receiver position and get Dan fired up right away. Cause I did it.

I put Jamar chase in a tier of his own, all alone. It's been him and Justin Jefferson for the past three years. I've gone back and forth on CD lamb was definitely a part of that group for about 15 minutes. But I, after the year we just saw with the quarterback question marks that we have for Jefferson, I I'm putting Jamar chase in a league of his own at the wide receiver position. I think that's fair.

I think what we just saw from a dominant standpoint, the idea that Higgins might be gone, that could lead to even more production, the rapport that just continues to build between Burrow and chase. And then most importantly for me, just looking at some of the breakdowns this season of what Joe Burrow did, that wrist injury did impact him more than people realized, but he worked with his quarterback trainer and found a way to utilize more of his lower half and generating force from the ground to get that arm strength back that he may have lost or

just playing through the injury. And from what I saw, this was actually the best version of Joe Burrow this year. So I'm excited about what he's going to do moving forward. So yeah, I like that pick with him, him in his own tier. I've got six wide receivers in tier two, which is more than there used to be. Justin Jefferson, Malik neighbors, Pooka Nakua, CD Lamb, Amun Ra St. Brown and Brian Thomas Jr. Any of these guys not belong, any of these guys should be lower or you agree with this group? Heck no. I completely agree with this group. Maybe the order we could debate on and have fun with. This is an elite group.

Let's get to tier three and tier four then. Real quick, is there anyone in that group? Obviously, we're not going to talk about tier one that you would, would you take a running back? Okay, maybe Bijon. Would you take any running back? Not in your tier one, would you take any running back? Not in your tier one? Cause there's only two players over anyone in that group. Um, yeah, yeah, I would. Okay.

Um, actually I take it back. I was just looking at my trade shirt and it actually does go exactly in order, the first seven wide receivers and then Bijan's almost Bijan and Gibbs are almost tied with Brian Thomas Jr. But now I've got. Yeah. I think I don't know if I would take any, any of those running backs over any of those receivers though. That's how good I feel about them longterm. Maybe over Puka. Not that I don't like Puka's talent. Again, I'm just really worried about what's going to happen in that Rams quarterback situation.

I will say that I would take three running backs over tier three wide receivers, which is what we're going to next. And I've only got two guys there and I don't feel confident in how I broke these two groups up. Let's just talk about them together. Tier three. I have Nico Collins. I have Jackson Smith and Jeff tier four, lad, McConkey, Marvin Harrison,

Jr, Jordan Addison, Drake London, Garrett Wilson, and AJ Brown. I would say the AJ Brown one almost needs an asterisk because this wide receiver position has gotten so young. I know. There's not a wide receiver who will even be 27. Wow. This year in my top 14, AJ Brown is 15th and he'll be 28 next year.

So two years older than any other wide receiver we've talked about so far, three, four, five years older, six years older than some of them. So that's why he's so low. If you're a true contender, he certainly needs to be higher. But first off, like where I drew that line,

is this just all one tier or should I draw in the line somewhere else? I would be okay with moving this to one tier if we move Nico up to tier two. Nico Collins to me belongs in tier two for sure. Just a phenomenal player. His yards per outrun was historically good and he has CJ Stroud tied to him. The rest of them I'm okay moving into their own tier. I would be lower and higher on some players but I think it makes sense and I think it does make sense to keep AJ Brown despite his age in this tier.

I will say with Nico, like I have come around on the idea of how elite he is. He doesn't, he hasn't yet seen the target volume, maybe necessarily to put him in that tier two. Okay. Like even last year he only played 12 games, but 99 targets. The year before in 15 games only had 109 targets. It, he would actually be challenging with his efficiency numbers that you've mentioned to be amongst the most elite producers, if we could see 10, 11 targets per game from Nico Collins. Like we see from a lot of the guys in the first two tiers.

Um, Dave is back, Dave, you, you see this list here. 11 targets per game from Niko Collins. Like we see from a lot of the guys in the first two tiers. Um, Dave is back, Dave, you see this list here. We've got Lad McConkey, Marvin Harrison, Jr. A couple of rookies in this tier, but the, the one I get the most question about is Jordan Addison, Drake London, and Garrett Wilson all in the same range, because we've had a couple of years here where we just, as soon as Drake London gets a quarterback, he's going to be a top two or three tier guy. Garrett Wilson, as soon as he gets a quarterback, Jordan Addison doesn't necessarily have a quarterback, but he's out produced these guys the last two years.

He's also got Justin Jefferson. And I think back to when the night that Jordan Addison was drafted, I think it was you and I heat that, that we're, that we're talking about him, uh, that he was always going to be in the shadow of, of Jetta and that means thousand yards or so seven touchdowns or so. And he's been better than that. And I just feel like he's never going to be that number one guy. And maybe it's a little too much to put them in this high of a tier. I'd probably push them back at least one tier knowing that everybody else in

this group has upside to be better than a thousand and seven. When you talk about he's never going to be, he's already made it through two years of that contract. He's still younger than these guys. He may just be that guy in two to three years. If Minnesota can't afford to pay just two elite wide receivers, the same problem that Cincinnati is getting ready to go through. Sure. But yeah, I guess that could be an issue. Am I willing to wait for that and cross my fingers for that knowing that there's plenty of things that can happen

between now and then that could drag down Addison's value? And the answer to that is no, I'm not willing to, especially with, I don't know how many names exactly you have in Tier No. 5. But I know it's more than what you've got in Tier No. 4. And that means between these two tiers, I've got plenty of options ahead of getting Jordan Addison on my team and this patiently waiting 24 months to see what happens with this contract, which by the way, he could end up resigning in Minnesota and still being the number two receiver there. Um, we'll, we'll, we'll see how that goes, but we're not going to know it for 24 months. Yeah. I, I guess the 24 argument is fair. we'll, we'll, we'll see how that goes, but we're not going to know it for 24 months.

Yeah. I, I guess the 24 argument is fair. I think he can produce like Garrett Wilson has had a chance to be that number one and has produced a lot like Jordan Addison as a number two. I agree. Um, so maybe, maybe both Addison and Wilson should be in a lower tier London at least looks like maybe he's figured something out. Let's get to tier five, which I guess would be the mega tier for this discussion. It's a lot of names T Higgins, Jamison Williams, Xavier Worthy, Devante Smith, Zay Flowers, Roma Dunze, Rashi Rice, Jalen Waddle, Terry McCloran, DK Metcalf and Chris Olave and Dan, I'll just go to the name that made Dave say, wow. It's rice.

There wasn't a name that made me say wow. Just how many was list of names? It's it's rice. I think is currently one of the most difficult wide receivers to rank because he's, I don't believe he's obviously not fully healthy yet, or he'd be playing football for the chiefs in the playoffs. And we've got a potential suspension that we expect to happen this season. Right.

And like Xavier Worthy is kind of taken the same path that Rice did as a rookie and become a focal point in the offense in the second half of the season. And so I think there's a little bit of question whether Rice will see the same target volume he did at the beginning of this year, now that Worthy is more acclimated. How close would you value Rice and Worthy today in dynasty? That's an amazing question.

I was so high on Rice before any of the news happened with the suspension and obviously the injury. I'm not going to hold against him because players get injured and they would come back from it. But I loved Worthy coming out too, we talked about it with Dave. When I watched his tape at Texas, he wasn't just the John Ross one trick pony. And we're starting to see that with the chiefs. He's really improved.

I would probably have them about where you have them, but I might have rice a tad bit lowers where I would probably be at with it. Dave T Higgins, hopefully back on the Bengals, but we don't really know for sure. I don't think it's happening. You think that they won't franchise them again? I don't think they'll franchise them again. I think that they're going to let them roll and there will be a line of teams ready to sign them.

So let's like, here's my concern. I think some people look at that and think, Oh, T Higgins is finally going to get to be a, go be a number one. I think if he just goes to get the most money, he's probably going to go to a messed much worse situation. Does he go up or down if he goes to the new England Patriots? So I'm, I'm going to measure this tier at the same type of range that I said for Jordan Addison. And just to be clear, Jordan Addison does have 10 touchdowns in each of his first two

seasons, but he's under a thousand yards in each. So that general range, it all comes out to like the same amount of fantasy points. When you look at it, I think T Higgins can be a thousand and seven in New England as soon as next year with Drake May. But I don't know if he'll ever be thirteen hundred and ten with the Patriots. I just don't know if he's that dynamic of a wide receiver. Big bodied perimeter type guy, high volume capability. Yeah, he's got those things. But I don't know if he's got, I don't know if he can be like a top 10 receiver in the NFL and get to that level of 1,310, like we would want him to get to. And that's why he's in Tier 5. So he probably wouldn't even be my favorite wide receiver in this tier. I think Odunze might have a little bit more upside longterm.

I want to say Waddle and Olave have more upside longterm, but it's tough to really envision that. Yeah. Olave is someone I've pretty much been lower on for the last few years in dynasty and one of these years, he might make me look ridiculous for that. Dan, we look at tier six, last wide receiver tier we'll do today. George Pickens, DJ Moore, Josh Downs, Khalil Shakir, Quentin Johnston, Devo Samuel, Jaden Reed, Keeon Coleman. I'm sure Quentin Johnston is gonna be

everyone's least favorite. Who's your favorite wide receiver in this tier, Dan? For me, it's George Pickens, the guy you have up at the top. He's the only one I look at of this group and say this could be the Alpha X Dominant fantasy receiver like a chamar chase who in the right situation with the right quarterback will be a top three top four Fantasy option, I guess you could still say DJ more has that upside I don't personally believe it despite having Caleb Williams who I do believe in tied to him It's too much competition key on Coleman's there's somebody we've talked about in the past somebody I'm higher on the consensus, but not in that range. So it would be Pickens for me.

He's shown the ability to win at all three levels. Even when they started to use him in quick game on those slants and just winning off the line of scrimmage with his release, he was able to do that. And on some of those, he took those slants and then housed them or took them for big gains. He has like post-catch upside that is not often discussed when it comes to George Pickens. Just from what I've seen on tape, he's by far the most elite receiver of this group. I'd even put

him above the tier four from a talent stamp or tier five from a talent standpoint. Just situation still unknown. Well, I think that's the real risk is like we might be two months from finding out that Russell Wilson has gone to Las Vegas to join Pete Carroll and Justin Fields is George Pickens quarterback for this season. And he's probably going to see his value even fall from this. Dave, Debo Samuel is a guy who has speaking of fallen has fallen plenty in redraft and dynasty ranks. Does he need a new home?

In the NFL or in your tears? NFL. Oh, um, no, I don't think he's going to necessarily get one. Maybe he's a cap candidate. So maybe. But 29 years old, frequently injured last year, he played through injury. He looked terrible in the second half of the season, maybe started to get it back a little bit toward the end of the year. in the second half of the season, maybe started to get it back a little bit toward the end of the year. I know you're not showing Tier 7, but names like Godwin, Devontae, Tyreek Hill, Mike Evans, I know the shelf life isn't long for them. It's not long for Depot Samuel either. And I'd still rather have all those other wide receivers than Depot Samuel and Dynasty. than Debo Samuel and Dynasty. Let's get to the tight end position. And like one of my favorite things,

and I will say like if Dave mentioned we didn't get to tier seven, we haven't got to tier seven in any position, you'll be able to see tier seven on CBS fantasy probably next week, maybe later this evening if some of those get put up, but we will have written content with all of my tiers. So if anybody you're missing, you'll be able to see that later on the website.

But one of my favorite things about tiers is they're so much better than rankings, except Dan at the tight end position, because the first three tiers are exactly the same as rankings. Brock Bowers in a tier of his own. Trey McBride in a tier of his own. Sam Laporta in a tier of his own, Trey McBride in a tier of his own, Sam Laporta in a tier of his own, especially for dynasty purposes. Um, let's assume it's not a super, not a, not, it is super flex, but it's not a, uh,

not a tight end premium league. How high is too high for Brock Bowers and Trey McBride. So wait, repeat rephrase that for me. How high overall are we talking? Yeah. High is too high for Brock Bowers and Trey McBride. So wait, repeat, rephrase that for me. How high overall are we talking? Yeah. In a non premium, non super flex. Now I was having this debate, I believe with Adam about redraft.

So for dynasty, I think his value becomes even greater. It goes back to like part of my old strategy, like two, three years ago Heath, when I evaluated Kyle Pitts' film out of Florida, I thought he was the next big thing just based on his tape. And I was like, this is the guy I'm gonna make aggressive plays to get in dynasty. Because if I get him, I get such an advantage on a weekly basis at the tight end position.

Now that's become Brock Bowers, who by the way had better tape than Kyle Pitts and was an even better version of that. If you watch him at Georgia and actually look good in year one, unlike Kyle, Kyle Pitts or Kyle Pitts was okay. I think he had a thousand yards, but not like Bowers. So I'm going to double down on the strategy and I'm going to say this. I think you could take him at the back end of round one. Brock Bowers is my number 12 non QB in dynasty.

We have the same exact idea on this. Trey McBride is number 24 for me. And Sam Laporta is somewhere in round four. Let's just jump ahead, Dave, to tier three and tier four. Cause I think that's where actually it's going to matter to people. I do put Laporta in a tier all of his own, but then tier four is where it really feels like,

man, is it just win now or bust? I have Sam Laporte by himself in tier three, tier four is Mark Andrews, George Kittle, TJ Hawkinson and Dalton Kinkade. I think people know what Kittle is. He's your Derek Henry of the tight end position. If he remains himself, he's a league winner. If he falls off, well, he's the age where he could fall off. Where are you at on TJ Hawkinson? Are you holding last year against him at all? Do you think he bounces back? Cause he was

a pretty clear top three tier guy for a long time. And I, on one hand, I don't want to hold last year against him, but on the other hand, how do I vouch for a guy who might be third on the Vikings and targets with a new quarterback? You know, if I'm going to poo poo Jordan Addison and say, well, we know what his ceiling is going to be. I kind of feel like we know what the ceiling is going to be for TJ Hockinson. And we saw it in 2023. I would not spend tier four type capital on TJ Hockenson. 28 years old, that's two years older than Dalton Kincaid. Third fiddle in the offense. We don't know for sure if he's ever going to be his old self. There's just, it's a great offense to be in, and I'm glad he's there. But there's too many questions to put him up this high. I don't think he belonged. I think he's a little too, he's in a tier too high, if not two tiers. So I was going to ask Dan to make the case for Dalton Kincade, but it sounds like, because I

could understand saying that Andrews and Kittle should also get their own tier and maybe like tier one through 12 should just be 12 tight ends. But I don't, Dave, do you have a case to be made that Dalton Kincade is more desirable than TJ Hawkinson? Because I have like, there's nothing that Dalton concaded has done. That's been encouraging in the NFL. And this is another player that had great film coming out of Utah and. Was an interesting player in the draft and he, you know, high draft capital to go to Buffalo and for whatever reason, Bills just have not committed to them.

We saw it now, 91 Targets is a rookie, 75 and three fewer games in his second season, four total touchdowns, doesn't seem to be the explosive seam buster that we thought that he would be. I don't think he belongs in tier four either. I think giving him the benefit of the doubt after 29 regular

season games and a couple of playoff games would be a mistake on draft day. I think I'd rather get Kittle and then either draft another tight end in a Tier 5, Tier 6, or just wait a year to get another tight end or pick somebody off the waiver wire. If I'm building out a dynasty team. There are looks like 67 players, Dan, since the start, 67 non-running backs since the start of 2023 that have seen at least 150 targets, that have seen at least 150 targets, 150 targets over the last two years. Here are the players who have averaged fewer yards per target than Dalton Kincaid. There's a few of them. Dalton Schultz, Tyler Conklin, Jake Ferguson, Evan Ingram, David Njoku, Elijah Moore, Wondale Robinson, and then this is going to make you terribly

sad. Garrett Wilson. Um, just like the, the, the most NF, because I hear some people say that Dalton Kincade has really not been given a chance yet. So we don't really know. Um, he's just been really inefficient with the chances that he has gotten. Do you have a lot of hope still for Dalton Kincade? It is, I think is a big blind spot in the way I build out dynasty and just the way I approach

fantasy because I looked at that list and I said to myself, I would not trade a single one of those. I would not trade Dalton K for a single one of those players listed above him. And then I heard Dave's analysis and I was like, this is a blind spot because you have to at some point put away what you saw on tape at college and Understand that and I'm not saying this is gonna be the case with dolphin Kincaid. I want to make that clear It's only two years into his career, right? But it is possible that the speed of the game is different for him the tape I watch of him at Utah against that level of play those defenses

He faced every similar situation with Zach Wilson when he played at BYU. It's a very similar, reminds me of a similar thing. It's so different than the end of the speed of the NFL game. And I haven't seen on tape that player against NFL competition. Now I think there's other issues. I don't think this Joe Brady system is good at all for Dalton Kincaid, literally at all.

And it's gonna be here and it's gonna stay. There's nothing, no sign that he's not gonna be back next year, maybe he'll get a head coach up. I don't know. But you know, if he's back, which I think he will be, that's bad news for Dalton Kinkade. This is not how I envisioned them using him when they drafted him. This is not at all how Utah used him in their offense.

So this, in this system with what I've seen on tape so far from an NFL standpoint, I have to adjust and I have to just look at this thing. Like there's enough evidence. Cause this is otherwise I'm going to fall into the same trap. I fell into with Kyle Pence and I'm to just look at this thing like there's enough evidence because this is otherwise I'm gonna fall into The same trap I fell into with Kyle Pitts Envisioning it happening again, and I don't want it to happen again, so I don't want to defend Dalton G right now Okay, you don't have to defend Dalton can cage right now. You don't have to but let me ask you this Have you seen enough of Tyler Warren to make a decision on Warren?

Who's gonna be a rookie this year in the NFL versus Kincaid? Yes, I would take Warren over Kincaid for sure. I think I would too. Warren reminds me of somebody brought that's not my comp, but ever since I heard it, I cannot get out of my head. A little bit like Jeremy Shockey and Jeremy Shockey was such a fun player when he was in his prime with the Giants and a little bit with the Saints. Yeah, total bully.

How could we have ever guessed Dave that it would have been a Giants tight end? How could we have ever guessed Dan? Dave, thank you for being so generous with your time. Thank you to everybody who was active in the chat. Appreciate Thomas with those fantastic graphics. I don't know what Dan is talking about. And just really appreciate you guys supporting the show. We're going to wrap this up again. You can go find all of my tiers for

quarterback running back wide receiver on tight end. They'll all definitely be up by next week. Other than that, we will talk to you next Tuesday. The Paramount Podcast.