Fantasy Football Today - Impact Rookies & Best Fits! Aaron Rodgers to Jets Reaction (Fantasy Football Today DFS podcast)

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Download and follow Fantasy Football Today DFS! You can find FFT DFS on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else podcasts are found. Sia Nejad previews the 2023 NFL Draft with special guest Derek Brown, and gets you caught up on everything you may have missed! (3:50) - Aaron Rodgers REACTION  (16:00) - Rookie Running Backs (33:02) - Rookie Wide Receivers  (46:10) - Rookie Tight Ends (50:30) - Rookie Quarterbacks 'Fantasy Football Today DFS' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT DFS team on Twitter: @FFToday, @Mike5754 @SiaNejad Watch FFT DFS on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday 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 DFS on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash businessplatinum. Welcome, everybody, to Fantasy Football Today, DFS. My name is Sian Najad, and I've got a really cool surprise for everybody. I'm here with Derek Brown from Fantasy Pros, otherwise known as D-Bro. D-Bro, how is it going, my friend?

See, it's a good day to be alive, baby. The NFL Draft is right now peaking over the horizon, so all the smoke, all the shade, people can put that all to rest because we're about to get picks, and it's about to go live, dude. I'm ready. Yeah, there's going to be some truth-telling tomorrow for the NFL Draft, and we're about to get picks and it's about to go live, dude. I'm ready. Yeah, there's going to be some truth telling tomorrow for the NFL draft.

And we're going to touch on this show. We're going to touch on the NFL draft just a little bit, but really we're going to touch on the guys that are being drafted. What I really want to do on this show, Derek, is not talk about necessarily where B. John Robinson is going. I want to talk about B. John Robinson. I want to talk about some of these receivers, tight ends, and running backs that have the skill set, or at least we think have

the skill set to not only succeed in the NFL, but maybe to have an immediate impact. So that's really what this show is for. We're going to talk some DFS at the end too, in terms of maybe a couple lessons learned from 2022 that we can apply to 2023. And speaking of, we're going to have our whole off-season series. It's all systems go. I mean, we've had sort of one show per month as we've gone through the February, March, April months, but it's going to be two shows per month. And then we're going to get going because a lot of stuff is happening. Derek, I don't know if you know, but the NFL schedule. So of course, we have the draft. NFL schedule is right around the corner.

We're a couple weeks away from that. That makes it real to me. Oh, I'm so ready for that. Yes, I have that earmarked on the calendar because if you're out here doing these early best balls, that's what you want to know. And it's going to tell you, OK, some of these early ones because of bye weeks and such. Are some of my teams already dead that I've already drafted? Right. Right. And I want to know, too, because I know Fantasy Pros does a ton of stuff, and it's not just football related. You can correct me if I'm wrong. You guys cover all the major sports, if not more than that. But best ball is something that, Derek,

you cover as well and some of your team at Fantasy Pros? Absolutely. And myself, Er team at fantasy pros. Absolutely. And myself, uh, Erickson, Matthew Freeman, Thorpe, like we're all in the weeds for best ball. I've already been doing a ton of early drafts. I'm waiting for certain best ball drafts to drop, uh, or at least open up as far as these large field tournaments right after the NFL draft. So I'll have my action all throughout the off season now and closer to, we get to week one because I just can't get enough of it.

I think it's the best live action responses with people actually having skin in the game to ADP news and stuff that you can get. So if you really want your finger on the pulse of all things going on in the offseason, that's really where you need to be. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, one thing I always push for in my year long leagues, even before like DFS got super, super popular was, Hey, let's start, let's have our draft in May. Let's have our, like our actual draft in June. And, you know, we can make some, some sort of concessions for if a player gets injured, we could have a deeper draft. We could do a lot of different things. Um, but the point was, I just thought, you know, back then I had my finger on the pulse in May and June, and I didn't want to wait for everybody to catch up in July and August and basically kind of have all the same information or allegedly have the same information.

So I think best ball is a really good cure for that. I can tell you on fantasy football today, DFS, we're going to be having some guests on. Maybe maybe, Derek, we'll have you back in a couple of months just to talk some best ball. And we actually had Andrew Erickson last month as well. But we're going to be gonna be talking best ball we're gonna be talking game theory from a dfs standpoint i'll tell you in a couple weeks i'm not gonna tell you the date right now because i want to make sure it's ironed out but adam levitan from establish the run he's gonna be on with me just in a couple weeks so that's gonna be amazing um first time i've been on a show with him and i'm honored to have him on just like derrick i'm honored to have you on before we get to some running backs you love some receivers you love tight ends and quarterbacks can we talk about

Aaron Rodgers real quick your reaction your reaction to listen we kind of knew Aaron Rodgers going to the Jets it's not exactly breaking news but I guess my question for you is how you feeling about the Jets in terms of their standing in the AFC? And from a fantasy impact standpoint, it does seem to me that all the skill position players get a pretty big bump up here. Maybe I'm wrong. I mean, right now, if you're looking at some of the fallout of this from betting markets and stuff, they're minus 150 to make the playoffs. They're plus 225. They're not the favorite in the East. I could see maybe them getting to that point with all this steam around

Aaron Rodgers. I think the Jets are going to have a fantastic season. Now, do they win the East? That really goes, I think that still goes through Buffalo. And the other part about this is I think people are sleeping on the Dolphins. So with everybody kind of gravitating to the Jets with all the new toy syndrome of Aaron Rogers being in New York. I really still will put Dolph Miami dolphins as a better, well, more well-constructed team over the jets. This is not me shading the jets, but with Aaron Rogers landing there, we don't know if he's going to be there for a year or two. I think it definitely does help the offense because good Lord, like as long as Zach Wilson is not taking snaps, then we're in a better place than we were last year for the New York Jets.

And I think it's a boost for all the parts and pieces of this offense. Now, if we're looking at this from a DFS or a fantasy angle and stuff like that, really still, I mean, my only concentrated interest in that offense goes with maybe a little bit of Aaron Rodgers, but not a must. But really, it's Garrett Wilson and Brees Hall. And for those two players, I think a lot of the offense is going to run through them now how high are people see i know you're out in the twitter streets just like me and i've seen the takes man it's like people are fighting themselves like to who can get to the top of the ladder of the garrett wilson hype train it's like oh, I think he could be a top wide receiver.

Oh, well, I could do you one better. I think he could be wide receiver one overall. And I'm like, he's Jerry Rice. I like Garrett Wilson, and this is not shade at him, okay? But unless this offense is going to run a whole lot different than what we've seen under previously with the marriage of Aaron Rodgers and Nathaniel Hackett, Garrett Wilson is going to have to soak up a Devante Adams level target share to get to that level of height that people are putting out in the space only because the Jets again with this

we've seen how this works see ya like they run slow as hell legit Aaron Rodgers and Nathaniel Hackett paired together are just like molasses. They stick together. They stick to the field. They're going to be slow. They have been slow. And what I mean with that is the play volume is going to be bad. They've been bottom three, bottom five and neutral script pace over the entirety of those two being joined at the hip. And so with the jets for these players to really pay off and to hit these types of ceilings that people are putting out there with Aaron Rogers landing in New York,

you're going to need massive touchdown equity, which could happen. You're also going to need them to soak up a ton of the work, which again could happen, but that's already being baked into some of their ADPs and the hype and stuff, man. So while I like these parts or pieces for the Jets, if the hype gets too heavy for these guys,

both with we're looking at week one DFS pricing and when that comes out, or people's ADP and expectations in the off season of best ball, if they get pushed up a little bit higher than other people on the board that I like just as much in the same tier or hell even maybe I have them a tier higher then I'm more likely just to veer and go the other

direction when everybody's like let's see how much steam we can push on these guys and get them as high as we can like then I'm just gonna play the market then I'm out yeah and that's that's the the whole trend of really fantasy anything including football is you want to grab the new piece. And in this case, the new piece is the connection of Aaron Rodgers to Garrett Wilson, the number one receiver. FOMO, baby. Yeah, don't forget that there's other guys there. I mean, Alan Lazard is there.

Of course, they traded for or they got McCole Hardman. Corey Davis is there. They got C.J. Uzama and Tyler Conklin. You know, that's not exactly competition for Garrett Wilson, but the targets will go around. And again, the pace issue, if you're kind of wondering, well, why did he bring up Nathaniel Hackett? Maybe some people kind of forgot. When Nathaniel Hackett won, you almost couldn't have forgotten because I think this Aaron Rodgers thing was in place immediately when Nathaniel Hackett got fired by Denver, but he is now the OC for the Jets. Of

course, he was the OC for the Green Bay Packers during most of Aaron Rodgers' run. So yeah, the pace is going to be slow. They're probably going to lean on, hopefully, Brees Hall is healthy, but they've got a full complement of running backs too. You know, what's really interesting about Brees Hall is I don't know how healthy he's going to be week one. I don't know how healthy he's going to be week four. I mean, that was a pretty problematic injury. And you got Zonovan Knight, you got Michael Carter. I think even if he is healthy, I don't think he's going to get a full compliment of snaps because why would you do that that early in the recovery process? Your thoughts on that Brees Hall situation there? No, I agree with you. And especially these early drafts, like I don't

look at Brees Hall's ADP as going down, especially with the Aaron Rodgers news of him landing in New York. So people are going to push him off the board. Then I'm probably going to be underweight on Brees Hall as far as like looking at him for redraft purposes or best ball at this point, because just the points that you just made, everybody is assuming week one, he's good to go. And while that might be the case, that's being baked into or will be baked into his ADP. So if the opposite is true,

then some people could be a little bit disappointed and very sorry that like they chased the dragon all the way up the board. Yeah, one last thing before we get to some of the rookie class that I really want to talk. Some guys, especially at the receiver position, I'm so intrigued by a few guys and I want to get your opinion. Of course, I've scouted your Twitter. I know your opinion

generally on some of these guys. By the way, everybody's scout. If you're not already following Derek Brown, it's at D bro underscore FFB, a really, really good Twitter follow, extremely accessible. I'm probably in the DMS, but also in Twitter spaces and things like that. Derek is just one of the, one of the good guys of the fantasy football industry. There's a lot of good guys, by the way. And Derek, you're, you're at Derek, you're at the top of that list. But there's a flip side of this coin with Aaron Rodgers. By the way, you mentioned you don't know how long he's going to play. He's 39 years old and he turns 40 in December. So he turns 40 this year. So it's interesting. Not everybody's going to do Tom Brady and go to 45 years old or whatever it was.

But Jordan Love, let me tell you this. I'm not the scout that you are. I would never claim to be. But I watched a lot of Jordan Love when he was at Utah State, particularly his final season. I cannot tell you how unimpressed I was with him. And so when he got drafted by the Packers at the late part of the draft, I was genuinely shocked. I even was hosting a live draft show for Windy Lee Sports at the time. And I said, this is Brett Hundley 2.0. And I just, I didn't see it from Jordan Love, but the jury is still out, right? Because I could be wrong still. I just didn't see anything.

His final year, granted the year before that Jordan Love was pretty good, but his final year at Utah state, I didn't see it. Can the Packers survive and string some wins together, maybe be a wildcard team with Jordan Love? It's possible, but I'm not going to put them there yet. I think that you're looking at a division that's also improving around them. And we recently did team standings stuff for fantasy pros as far as podcasts and things. And I put the Packers at the bottom of the rung just because, and it's not because this

roster still isn't talented but these this often still has a lot of questions like outside of Christian Watson you got AJ Dillon Aaron Jones what pass catchers do you have and we're probably going to get a lot of those questions answered after the draft now it would be the most Packers thing in the world that as soon as you get rid of Aaron Rodgers you go and draft a wide receiver or something like a pass catcher in the first round which honestly I think is really live to happen. So yeah, absolutely. Totally. I think they've been connected to either JSN or Dalton Kincaid. Um, and I think it's very telling that for this Aaron Rodgers trade to have gone down, they're switching spots with the jets.

So not only did they hop the jets in the first round, they hop the jets in the second round too. So really, if we're looking at two teams that have kind of comparable boards, where the first round, they're both been slightly connected to not Dalton Kincaid, but JSN in the first round, second round. If that's where one of these teams goes for offensive line, tight end, what have you, then you're also looking at the bargaining position for the Packers is better than the Jets because they're sitting ahead of them as far as pick-wise on the board. So I look at this Packers team as interesting.

I still think that the Lions have made improvements all throughout their roster. I look at them as the favorites to go and take the NFC North. If you're looking at a team that could surprise, I think the bears are possibly in that wheelhouse and no, I'm not crazy. If you look at the bears, could they take a big leap? As far as from an offensive standpoint, Justin Fields, willing them to two to three extra wins that they maybe would not have if they had a pocket quarterback it's possible we've already seen Justin Fields his ability to elevate that entire offense and put them on his back now that they've given him real weapons and we see the Bears they could change this franchise even

further grab some more picks I think that they are a perfect candidate to trade down for the top 10 so right now yeah I can't look at the Packers as being even at best the second team in that division. And really, I think that if the wheels fall off, if they go defense and they play the long game and they invest in the trenches and their first few picks, this offense could suffer. This team might not win as many games as all the Packer and Cheesehead hopefuls are really hoping for this year. So there's no way that I could put the Packers higher than maybe second, really third in this division. Yeah, I'm probably going to have them third, but I understand the argument where they could

fall below the Bears. Absolutely. So Derek, we're going to get into the incoming class, not necessarily the teams they're going to, but just the skill sets, because I think people really need to understand why some of these guys at the running back wide receiver tight ending quarterback position are so sought after. But before we do that, we're going to take a break and hear a word from our partners. Did you know 66 percent of utility damage is caused by not requesting a locate? Don't let your project become part of this statistic. A quick locate request can save you from unexpected downtime, financial penalties, and keep you safe.

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before we went live and we were talking about the new Scream. And I confused that movie for a different movie because I was saying I haven't watched a horror movie since Scream. It wasn't Scream. It was the one with the girl with the long brunette, the long brown hair where she just like staring at the camera. It was like a big horror film in like 2005. Oh, the ring. Oh, the ring. I was like, is he talking about the ring? Yeah, it's the ring. So I just chose after watching the ring. Not that I thought it was scary. I just thought the imagery was scary to me. So I just decided, you know what? I'm going to hang it up on horror movies and roller coasters. I got to date myself. Um, scream that reminds me of high school and stuff

like that. Cause it was really, I was in high school whenever that entire franchise came out. So again, dating myself a little bit, but, um, I don't hate the preview. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. Speaking of previews, let's talk about the running back position. We'll start there. I think the wide receiver position is like the most interesting of this class in terms of high impact. Well, I shouldn't say that. I just think there's so many guys at the wide receiver position where there's questions

and I really want to get some answers from you. But the running back position. Now, I went on your Twitter, Derek, and you basically were kind enough for all the people that follow you. What it looked like to me was at each position, skill position, you posted your top 15. Okay. And I saw, of course, Bijan Robinson was at the top. Zach Charbonnet was number two, I believe. You had Jameer Gibbs, number three.

Evan Hall, Tajay Spears. And then it goes on from there. Johnson, and we can kind of go through the list. Can you maybe talk about some of these guys? I mean, I don't know how much we need to talk about B. John Robinson, but I do want to start there because I think people, when they hear the number one running back, they don't know whether to think, well, this is just another kind of like the top running back in the class, or this is another Adrian Peterson or LaDainian Tomlinson or Saquon Barkley, something like that. So I tried to give context. I had a tweet a few

weeks ago. I went on JJ Zachary since podcast and talk running backs and JJ and I were talking about how you compare this guy against other elite prospects over the last like five to 10 years. And it wasn't until I delve into that and comparing Bijan versus Saquon, Dalvin, all these other guys that have come out and been monsters in the NFL and really kind of see where Bijan stacks up. I mean, see, he, he popped off the damn page, man. I mean, he was top 10 in everything that I looked at. It was a sample size of 14 running backs over the last few years. And Bijan was like first in multiple things that I care about. Yards after contact per attempt, best season PFF elusive rating,

collegiate PFF elusive rating. So for all the things that you hear out there about Bijan Robinson is a top 10 talent in this class, top five talent in this class. He is a monster. He's going to be awesome in the NFL. Believe all that hype. Let it soak in, marinate in it because it is real. The numbers back it up. The dude is going to be a fricking stud from day one. And that's, I mean, that's really the beginning and the end of the Bijan conversation. We know he's going to be really fricking good.

It's, it's a question on where he's going to get drafted at. I think he's going to be airdropped. And people ask me, it doesn't matter where he goes. No, it does not matter where he goes. He's either going to be the dude from day one, or he's going to be the dude in a committee. I mean, even if you send him to Dallas, Tony Pollard's on a one-year deal. You're looking at B. John Robinson is going to be the truth.

He's going to sit here and carve out at least 50% to 60% of that work. When we saw that team last year, still really high-end production out of both running backs. So I don't care where Bijan goes in the first round. He's going to go in the first round and he's going to be a stud this year in fantasy. Well, let's be really clear about what it means

to draft a running back of all positions in the first round. It means that running back is getting the lion's share. You don't invest that type of draft capital. It doesn't matter. Yeah, Tony Pollard, it could be anybody. The reality is that that running back is going to get 60% to 70%,

maybe more of the touches if you're going to make that investment. But I've heard the same things about Bijan Robinson. What intrigues me though, is you have Zach Charbonnet at number two here. And I think a lot of people just have Gibbs up there at number two. Definitely different types of running backs, in my opinion. Why Charbonnet at the second spot?

Because we're all talking about like volume is king. So, yeah, like we talk about this in DFS. You talk about weighted opportunities. You talk about it in fantasy. Hell, from a real life NFL perspective, teams want a guy that they can lean on for volume and you could build that case that narrative a hell of a whole lot easier for Zach Charbonnet versus somebody like Jameer Gibbs who's only 199 pounds and people look at like the the cutoff of 200 pounds or 210 pounds as being arbitrary it's not arbitrary at all. If you look back over the last five to 10 years, the NFL

teams are not giving full workloads, workhorse level, bell cow level workloads to backs that are below these weight thresholds. And so we're talking about this from an NFL perspective and fantasy perspective. I have Zach Charbonnet as my RB2, and you could put that for any type of realm that you want to. You can apply that to fantasy, dynasty, real life NFL. Zach Charbonnet is a guy that has the build, has the athleticism to walk into an NFL backfield. I think he goes in round two of the NFL draft. And people, the biggest thing that I hear about Zach Charbonnet, he's boring. He's not athletic. And I'm like, what are you talking about? This is a guy that legit, I know his RAS score was like not in the nines.

He was not an above 90th percentile as far as this goes, but you're still looking at a guy that also his explosive testing metrics, his vertical jump, his broad jump are both above 80th, 82nd percentile or higher. You're looking at his overall raz score still puts him in the same type of phylum as we're talking about he is in the same address the same area code as cam acres giovante williams isaiah pacheco all of these running backs when they came out nobody was questioning their athleticism. Nobody was questioning how they tested. And you marry all of this, Sia, with a guy that also popped off the page in numbers that I give a crap about.

As far as he was 14th in yards after contact per attempt, 13th in PFF receiving grade last year. So you're telling me not only does he check the boxes of athleticism, boom. He checks the boxes of elusivity and tackle breaking boom and he has the size to sit here and not leave the freaking field on all downs so yeah that's right versus like looking at jameer gibbs and saying oh well i wonder how much volume he can handle and well is the team going to feature him in the passing game because that's because how many times we've we've made the assumption of rational coaching and we say well josh jacobs is a really good receiver blah blah blah deandre swift is a really good receiver blah blah blah and those things don't

come to fruition and people are like oh then they're all in their feels and their heart and they're wondering staring at the at the wall and why did this happen? I don't think that you have to worry about that with Charbonnet and him coming into the NFL, assuming that both of these guys get similar capital in the second round, then yes, Zach Charbonnet is my easy RB2 over Jameer Gibbs. And I know that's not consensus, but dude, I don't care about consensus. I don't care about the echo chamber that forms in the offseason. I do not care about that. I don't care about the echo chamber that forms in the offseason. I do not care

about that at all because is the echo chamber going to be right on a lot of different things? Absolutely. Am I going to bust my process and change how I view these players and how I'm diagnosing them just because the echo chamber says, no, I don't believe that. I don't see it the way that you do. I was told that I was insane for saying that Jalen Hurts was a possible MVP candidate at one point early last summer. I was told that I was insane in saying that the Eagles are possible Super Bowl candidates. How did that work out, Sia? Yeah, well, I think you were on this very show saying that because we had you on this

show in the preseason. I was a big Eagles guy. I wasn't that big of an Eagles guy. Like I had them winning the NFC East. I was marketing that bet. And speaking of bets in the echo chamber, can I just say this? This is a really wise thing you said. And I think it applies, by the way, inside and outside of sports when it comes to the echo chamber. What people don't realize is subconsciously is they kind of fall into what the echo chamber is saying, whether they're consciously aware of it or not. I can tell you, Derek, the last 12 months or so, not only have I had my best DFS year, well, I should say DFS year for the last like six months, which isn't saying a ton. I don't like wager tons of

money or whatever, but I'm a very avid DFS player across pretty much all sports. But in betting, I've had my best betting year and I've been betting for over 20 years. And my process has been my process. But part of my process this the last, I don't know, eight to 12 months was literally ignoring Twitter. Literally, when I see somebody like putting out a bet or like a DFS like recommendation, I literally just scan right past it. Not because I think those picks are bad necessarily, because I know it's going to affect my process, even if I don't realize that I know it's going to sink in. So I love what you're doing with this because, you know, most people would

come on this show and they'd be like, well, listen, I really like Zach Charbonnet, but I just don't think I can put him ahead of Jameer Gibbs. I like Zach Charbonnet too. And listen, what I love about what you said, first of all, I like the passing grade that you pointed out. I think he could be a three down back, correct me if I'm wrong. But what I really like is that he's going to stay on the field inside the 10 and five yard line because of his vision and because of the fact that he runs north-south. Well, north specifically. I just think he's one of those guys that especially like if we're talking DFS and I know we're really talking more like long-term stuff, but he's a guy that if he starts making an impact week one, week two, week three, and we think he's getting like a split carry guy with whoever he's on the team with,

well, he might be the guy that actually gets the important high quality carries. And I know we don't project that rookie running backs too often, but it absolutely could happen with a guy like that specifically. I love that call. And that's the other part or piece of this is that you don't have to squint and look sideways and tell yourself a story about how Zach Charbonnet gets red zone and goal line carries. You don't have to tell yourself that. Like he goes into a position, he gets draft capital, he has the size, he's going to get that

work. You've got to sit here and do some delicate and very interesting backflips to sit here and tell yourself a story that Jameer Gibbs would be locked into a red zone role from day one. It's the same conversation we've had with DeAndre Swift, same conversation that we had in previous years with Austin Eckler. I mean, I'm old enough to remember, Sia, when we were like, does Austin Eckler get the goal line work? Is that going to happen? Those were real concerns. And just because we've seen it happen two years in a row, people forget about that. And they're like, oh, it's going to happen. That's tried and true. That's definitely going to happen if some team throws the capital behind him.

That's an assumption you're making. That's not a certainty to happen. Yeah, absolutely. So the next, I want to talk about two running backs specifically, but one we've kind of already addressed. So we can maybe lay off here a little bit, but Jameer Gibbs and Tajay Spears, I think are really interesting after these two running backs. Maybe we'll just talk about one or two that you think are kind of sneaky. And then we'll go to a wide receivers where I just have a ton of interest, but Tajay Spears, Tajay Spears is

really interesting to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you go to the senior bowl every year and he was there and he was pretty impressive, right? Yes right yes uh my second year in a row of being at mobile watching these guys live every single practice and i like my colleague matthew freeman always likes to joke with me about because i reference constantly but there is something of merit to having boots on the ground seeing these guys live it's the reason why i came out of last year's mobile senior bowl of being over the freaking moon on Christian Watson after watching him be the dude, they're all freaking weak and nobody could guard him. Legit Tajay Spears had himself a freaking week, man. He looked fantastic. He looked explosive. When you see this guy on the field, he put on weight, which is not something we definitely

see in the process all the time. How many times are we sitting here waiting for people to weigh in at the combine, at the pro days and saying, oh, oh, please, Lord, baby Jesus, please be over the 200 pounds. And these guys come in at 197, 196. They don't put on the weight. And Tajay Spears said, nah, man, I yoked up. I got to 204. I want to show teams that I can put on the weight, keep on the good weight. And the guy looked explosive, looked like he had not lost a step. He was throwing linebackers into the damn shadow realm on whip routes in Mobile. So he looks like a guy that

could be a three down type of back in the NFL. And he's, he looks like, I mean, the projected draft capital and Tajay Spears looks really good right now. He's separating himself in early mocks and stuff as being the possible RB4, RB5 coming off the board in the third round. At that type of draft capital, considering his explosive ability, I love Tajay Spears. I think that he could be – I don't know if he's going to get necessarily the workload of like being a workhorse back, but you can name those types of guys in the NFL. See of like on one hand these days, can he be a 60 to 65% or be the one a in a committee, get the passing down work and maybe get spelled a decent amount because the team doesn't want to run him into the ground.

Yeah. That's kind of the file on where I put Tajay Spears at and just kind of rolling down the board. Do we just want to bring up guys that I think are interesting in the ground. Yeah. That's kind of the file on where I put Tajay Spears at and just kind of rolling down the board. Um, do we just want to bring up guys that I think are interesting in the draft? Yeah, absolutely. Um, the ones that, that really kind of pop, I know people looking at my ranks. We already talked about him once. I I'm curious where his draft capital comes in. I have him ranked aggressively and people think that I'm, I'm insane, I'm drunk when I make my ranks, but Evan Hall is my RB4. I think firmly if Evan Hall would have gone to a helmet college, if he'd gone to an SEC school, if he'd gone to a place where people would have loved to hype the hell out of him, then he would be getting a hell of a lot more love than he's getting right now.

He's had top 30 visits already with Minnesota and the Packers. His former position coach is now in Denver. So there are a lot of outs for Evan Hull, even just in that small distribution of facts that I just gave you. Even in that realm, he's got three teams right now where he could go in the round three, round four of the NFL draft. It could shock many. It sure as hell won't shock me because this is a guy that if you compare his testing metrics with B. John Robinson, and go out there and check me, people. Fact check me. You compare his testing metric with B. John Robinson side by side, they are almost the exact freaking same. Same 40, vertical, broad jump, all these different parts of pieces. The guy's athletic, and he proved last year that he has that type of special sauce

to be a main cog in the passing attack. He led all FBS running backs in receiving yards, top 10 in yards per route run. I think his draft capital could surprise people. It's not going to surprise me. Two other guys I want to bring up here off the hop are Roshon Johnson and Israel Abandakanda Abandakanda blew out his pro day chart like was off the charts as far as uh athletic ability I think that that alone could probably buy him three round three round four type of capital I don't

think he goes higher than that in the NFL draft but if you put him into a scheme like a Miami I'm not going to say for San Francisco because they have CMC. Basically, a team that is going to run wide zone, going to put him in an advantageous look where he can center and run down the line, get lateral and then explode upfield. That's going to be a really good fit for him, as well as I think that Roshon Johnson is also a really, really good candidate to go higher than people expect. I get that he was overshadowed by B. John Robinson in college. That shouldn't surprise anybody. B. John Robinson is a legendary talent.

So you're looking at this guy got stuck in a situation where he had to play the second fiddle to a legendary prospect. Roshon Johnson absolutely could be a workhorse at the next level. He pops as far as like if you're running models and stuff like that. I've been a model guy. I watch film. I look at efficiency metrics for these guys, and I try to build the best complete picture that I can for all these players.

Roshon Johnson pops in every elusivity metric that you can possibly name. So I think teams, as well as he tested well, he performed well in pass protection drills, both if you look at PFF pass blocking grades and in the senior bowl before he broke his hand and had to leave after day one, he was blowing dudes out of their freaking cleats and pass protection drills. Those are two running backs that I want to earmark for people that they need to pay attention. I think they could go in the third or fourth round and have honestly could be one A's and committees from day one. Yeah. You're going to want to know when the season starts, which of

these rookie running backs has good pass blocking grades, because that's really, really important. When you're talking about protecting the quarterback. All right. So we got to get to the wide receiver position. A few guys I want to ask you about, including JSN, who we've already brought up a couple of times on this show. But before we do that, one more break. Word from our partners. We are back on Fantasy Football today, DFS. My name is Sina Jhaan and I'm with Derek Brown from Fantasy Pros. One of my great friends in this fantasy industry. He doesn't know that, but he is. So let's get to wide receivers, Derek. I think there's like four guys here, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think there's four guys here that are like guys, maybe three. And then I think there's a slight drop off. That's

just me from my kind of viewpoint, but you're the one that's like a little bit more tied in. I'll tell you, I think of the top four that you have. Now, your top four, so everybody knows, and you can find this on Derek Brown's Twitter, Jackson, Smith, and Jigba. Of course, that's JSN. A lot easier to say JSN. Zay Flowers, Jordan Addison, Quinton Johnston. I think my top three of those four, I would probably just move Jordan Addison down below Quinton Johnston. But again, I'm coming at you from a perspective that isn't, admittedly, isn't as tied in. So I've seen these guys.

I bet a lot on college football. I watch a lot of college football. But that's about it, especially this year. Normally, I'm a little bit more tied into the NFL draft, but a lot more going on. So let's talk about all of these guys. But let's start with JSN and Zay Flowers. When I watch Zay Flowers film, I am like kind of blown away. I'm like, this guy is an absolute game changer. Get the ball in his hands at any point in the field, short area or otherwise.

And he is like, it's house call season. He just makes people miss. I heard, who was it? I think it was Ryan Wilson with CBS Sports, who I think he has a podcast with us, with CBS, with the first pick. And he compared him to Antonio Brown. And I thought that was such a good comp. Regardless of the comp comp you're obviously really big on Zay Flowers not as big as you are on JSN let's talk about those two guys JSN and this is one of my biggest pushbacks about this draft class I think that again we're talking about the echo chamber we get so much into the weeds and we want to hype up future draft class and we're like okay this draft class is okay next year's draft class is the class and and that's what we heard about this 23 class and now that we've gotten closer

to it everybody's like it's not that good it's not as good as you think it is and i'm like it's one of my biggest pushbacks man it's like people like, there's no elite wide receivers in this class. And I adamantly disagree with that. Jason is that duty is elite. He is the guy that I have a really hard time envisioning a scenario where Jason does not command a 20 to 22% target share in an NFL offense from day one. He's done everything that we care about, man. Like he's popped in a loose, like as far as efficiency metrics, he's crushed it both with talented guys and earned targets. Like we've seen this

and I'm not going to make a Justin Jefferson comparison, but we heard the same types of things when he came out. Oh, he's just a slot only. Oh, he's just, maybe he's not that athletic he's probably slow because oh some high school 40 that he ran and stuff like that all of those types of narratives have been floated around about Jackson Smith and Jigba he's played with talented guys we know they

are super talented we've seen Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave ball out in the NFL and you're telling me JSN earned earned in target chairs, running routes right next to both of them. And when they were out, the roof got even higher for JSN. Jackson Smith and Jigba is going to be a stud from day one in the NFL. I think he could play. Obviously, he's going to be a stud in the slot. I think you're looking at a guy that's going to be about a 60-40 guy, 60% in the slot, can play the outside. And some of this is, yes, some people can go check the receipts, like talking even to Brian Hartline, the Ohio State offensive coordinator. He's like, I have no questions about his ability to win outside.

And I'm like, hey, look at that, man. I got no questions either. So I love JSN. He is the undisputed elite wide receiver in this class. And Zay Flowers is right there on his heels, man. He's my wide receiver too. And people could shade Flowers a little bit because the level of quarterback play that he had to deal with at Boston College was dog water, absolute dog water, terrible. If you were to put Zay Flowers and he had offers or possibilities to leave there

and go to another college, he didn't do that. If he had gone to another college, like say Jordan Addison did, and end up at Alabama, an SEC school, balled out there, people would be talking about Zay Flowers because his numbers would have been better, Sia. His numbers would have been better across the freaking board. Zay Flowers is not a slot only wide receiver so get that out of your five like get that out of your vocabulary when we're talking about zay flowers nobody not you but the consensus needs

to not talk about zay flowers in that realm he is an ex-wide receiver he can win on the outside he's got route running chops for days again we're talking about a guy that tested extremely well even after putting on 13 pounds of weight before he weighed in showing teams that yes i can get up to that 180 pounds i haven't comped him to antonio brown but the two places that i have landed on as far as comps is i i've described him as either the next coming of Steve Smith or EY Hilton with true yak ability. And that's really where I put the type of error that I put Zay Flowers in. I think he is going to be a stud in the NFL. Yeah, I like that.

I actually like both the Steve Smith and T.Y. Hilton comps. And honestly, I would think a combination of those two would actually be Zay Flowers. So I think that's an interesting way to look at him. Let's talk about Addison and Quinton Johnson. And again, these are guys that I think are going to have, we don't know, we're going to know tomorrow what team they're on, but I think they're going to get high enough draft capital. And I think they're good enough to have impacts, whether it's your best ball or your fantasy football or your regular fantasy football leagues, or even in DFS, if it's the right situation and they've got the right,

you know, good mini camp preseason, these guys are going to be high impact. And I think these next two guys, Addison and Quentin Johnston are like those dudes. So talk to me about why you have Addison third and is Quentin Johnston firmly fourth or these guys like Josh Downs and, and,

you know, Marvin Mims, some of these guys like kind of right there with him. So Addison is going to be a locked in first round pick I think unless somebody hops them as far as far as a trade he's a future Los Angeles Charger he's the only wide receiver that the Chargers took that's projected inside the first round or hell even the top 50 picks that they took a top 30 visit with so you can connect a lot of other dots as far as coaching and things like that with Jordan Addison going to LA. So I really think that he is going to be shoehorned to the Chargers unless somebody beats them to the punch. Like you have a Buffalo or

somebody like that that trades up in front of them. Then I look at Jordan Addison as a future Charger. I love his game. He gets open will he could play outside play inside the only knocks on Jordan Addison a little bit are you're looking at his size and his frame and his testing um diving through that real quickly he didn't test as well as we would hope for he wasn't as fast as we would hope for so does that knock down some of his ceiling a little bit possibly the other part about it is if you're you're comparing him versus other guys that have come out and being able to play the outside, a la Devonta Smith of previous years, and they were talking about size, weight, things like that. Devonta Smith, and that's my comp to him because

it's the closest I can get to Jordan Addison. But the differences between those two players, even though that is my comp, the nuance in their games is Addison can win on the outside. But where you see the difference is Devonta Smith played bigger than his size both of the catch point and both strength in his routes and Addison plays more to his size like he's a 170-ish guy that plays about like that size he can get bumped off his routes he's not a a huge guy as far as strength at the catch point and after the catch. So if you're looking at small slivers of differences, those are big things. And with Quentin Johnston, I really think he's going to be a guy

that has to further growth to do in the NFL. He's got parts to his game he has to continue to hone in on and to polish. And part of that's route running strength at the catch point um the ability of both of routes and nuance he does not stack corners well on the outside that's part of what leads to his issues at the catch point but quentin johnson another i think that i put him a tier lower than say jordan addison because there's also rumblings that we're hearing that quentin johnson could fall out of the first round and end up at the second round. He was not invited to the NFL draft. Take what you want out of that, but him not getting invited versus other guys like Keon White, other ones that were invited

to the NFL draft for round one, I think it's absolutely possible he could foul out of the top 31 players selected. I like QJ. I still see the upside, but his range of outcomes is a lot wider to me than even somebody like a Jordan Addison. Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. So the rest of this list, maybe one or two guys that you think let's, let's lean on this. Maybe that are like, feel like they're NFL ready to, and may be able to make an impact early. So, um, I could usually bring up, you know, if the next few guys down this list, the Josh Downs, I think he's a slot only guy.

I don't see the ceiling as being massive for him. I'm going to go down the board a little bit. I'm going to discuss real quickly a tier of these guys because I think everybody in this class, we're all looking for size wide receivers because this class has a ton of guys that are 5'9", 5'11", and weigh anywhere from 170 to 180 pounds. But if you're looking for guys that are 6'2", that are 190 to 210, there's a really interesting tier of guys here being Xavier Hutchinson,

A.T. Perry, Rasheed Rice, and Cedric Tillman. In that file, you're looking at guys that if you look at deeper metrics, Xavier Hutchinson is a guy that I want to see in a big slot role. If you're looking at he can win and he has one on the outside versus zone and man coverage. So how I'm tiering these guys out, Xavier Hutchinson can win versus both man and zone. A.T. Perry is another guy that can play the outside. His metrics really screen that he is much better versus man coverage. So is he going to be a guy that can win versus zone? And a lot of these teams are going to more zone coverage looks.

I do have some questions there, but I do put him in the same tier. Rasheed Rice is an elite player versus zone coverage. He grades out extremely well, but you see problems with his physical strength and at the catch point playing versus man and press coverage. But if he gets to a place where he's going to see a lot of teams that play zone coverage, or a team is going to say, look, we could play you at a 50-50 role, roll you into the slot some to get transition you to the NFL level. Then I'm going to bump up or she a little bit post-draft and Cedric Tillman is another guy of like Xavier Hutchinson that can perform well versus both

man and zone coverage. And his, I don't look at his, his, his ceiling being extremely high because his prospect profile just screams. He's probably a low end wide receiver to probably more likely a high end wide receiver three at the NFL level. I like him, but he's somewhere in the middle of this tier of the bottom of that tier. If I'm looking at all these guys and I want to give you one deep gym because

I keep talking about him. I will not shut up about him. Puka Nakua is going to surprise people. I know his draft capital is not expected to be great. He did not test good, but this guy can play freaking football. And when we're talking about diagnosing wide receiver play and really how many of these guys that we see see on a yearly basis come out and they test out the damn gym. They run fast as all get out. They're lightning. They get hype. The Mecole Hardman's of the world, the two, two at-rills of the world, and they get draft capital based off of the speed. Puka Nakua is the opposite side of that coin. He is where you talk about winning with nuance, winning with grit, winning with toughness, winning with your abilities to play the wide receiver

position. That is Puka Nakua. My comp for him Dava store Debo Samuel. He offers you utility in the running game. He, he showed that in college. He, he blew it out as far as inefficiency metrics, both in yards per route run PFF receiving grade. And while he might go on day three, that's probably where he's going to go. I'm going to be massively exposed to him in dynasty formats. You need to keep an eye on him, even in redraft, because he is a guy that i think is going to outplay whatever draft capital he gets and if he gets a real opportunity to really show an nfl team what he can do he could be a starter in three wide receiver sets in week one and i don't think a lot of people believe that in the uh consensus yeah it's a good point about just

staring at metrics right because i mean if you were just staring at metrics, you probably would have missed out on Cooper Cup. And I could, I can name probably 10 wide receivers or running backs for that matter, right behind him. Let's go to tight end real quick. I just want to touch on a couple names. And if you want to spring another name, like a Sam Laporte on me, feel free. Oh, I will say we're talking about the ball game just to say, okay, good. So Dalton Kincaid, I think, is a very interesting prospect. I don't know if I should be worried about the back issues that kind of popped up somewhat recently on him,

but I watched him play a good amount. This guy catches everything, and he was such a target monster. I think I'm a Commanders fan. I think he'd actually be a great fit there. But any team that needs a tight end, I mean, this is a guy that I think can have an impact pretty much immediately. And of course there's Michael Mayer as well. Let's address the tight ends just as a group real quick. And then we'll move on to, um, I want you to rank the QBs for me. We're not going to be, we're not going to have time to like talk about HQB because that's a whole

different episode, but we'll touch on tight ends, touch on QB. And then I have a DFS question to close the show. Yeah. So there's four guys I'll bring up real fast. They're all tier and I'll bring them all up in a foursome because I look at them as all tier one prospects for me. And that's Michael Mayer, Dalton Kincaid, Sam Laporta and Tucker craft. Now everybody knows about Michael Mayer. I'm I don't need to really dive into that. He had a fantastic collegiate career. I think he's gonna be solid, but I don't know if he has the type of ceiling that a Dalton Kincaid or a Sam Laporta has in this class Dalton Kincaid and I thought I was drinking the Kool-Aid see I but I'm sitting here shooting texts as I'm watching film on him to my colleague Thor Nystrom who is fully in the college weeds 24 7 365 and I'm like look man I see shades of Travis Kelsey

with this dude yeah and I don't want to say that I'm a crazy but then I go to Twitter and I'm like, look, man, I see shades of Travis Kelsey with this dude. And I don't want to say that I'm crazy, but then I go to Twitter and I'm like, I'm not the only person saying this. So it's good to know that I am not insane. I'm not buying into the consensus, but again, you go back and you kind of check your homework against other people and say, okay, I'm not totally just like insane here. Am I like, I didn't get a bad batch of whiskey and my brain is melted. Don Kincaid has that type of upside. His movement skills are special.

I'm not worried about the back injury. He had a fractured vertebrae. He has been fully cleared. There was no problems with that. So anybody worried about that? Don't worry about that. I think he's going to go in the first round of the NFL draft. I love his ceiling.

Michael Mayer is going to be a solid three down tight end from day one. The guy that I really want to talk about and spend a lot of time here on semi-ball games, Sam Laporta. I think he goes inside the top 60 picks in the NFL draft. He tested off the damn charts and everything that you care about. He showed out as well last year for Iowa, who again, we're talking about just terrible, terrible situations for a college prospect to be in. He was their freaking offense, man. He played 20% of his snaps on the outside as an outside wide receiver. So you're telling me that this guy is going to make his bread and butter.

He's going to sign and cash his paycheck in the NFL by his receiving ability. And he can play the outside. And he got the most man coverage targets in all of college football amongst tight ends last year that had 20 or more targets. Yes, I love Sammy Ballgame. I love Sam Laporta. He could be a number two, like, and I'm talking about earning targets as a number two, threatening to be a number one option in a passing attack in the NFL.

I'm not saying he does that in his rookie season, but does he possibly make that jump in year two? And is that his ceiling in the NFL? Absolutely. I mean, listen, this, for those of you that play dynasty, uh, there's a lot of really good, valuable information. You know, I think it's valuable somewhat from a DFS standpoint. Of course, we're going to, we're going to have to let that grow and see what, where these guys end up getting drafted, but, um, really interesting. And by the way, Dalton Kincaid, I watched him enough. Cause I watched a lot of Utah last year. Anytime they needed to be bailed out. Sometimes there was just no window for Dalton Kincaid. Like he's doubled and he would come down and he'd get rocked. I mean, that's, you know, hence the

fraction vertebrae. That guy got hit around a little bit he caught every single thing yes that was thrown his way it's just unbelievable how much he he bailed um the utes out so i just think he's just one of those i think the travis kelsey comp is completely fair what's unfair that's one of the hallmarks of being a dude sia in the in college and it's like if the if the opposing defense knows that you are the offense and they still can't stop your ass, then that shows you he can be that guy. That's the exact reason why I love Devonta Smith coming out. You knew if you played Alabama in his final year, you were going to get a heaping dose of Devonta Smith, and still people knew it was coming, and they couldn't do anything to stop it.

Nothing. Yeah. Well, you literally just described Travis Kelsey. And you know what I mean? Like, you know where it's going for the most part. You know where the ball is going. On certain plays. And he's especially inside the red zone.

It's just like he's just going to be the target. The QB position. Now, listen, we could spend a whole show on the QB position. I know from looking at your Twitter, I mean, I feel like CJ Stroud is kind of your guy. I could be wrong, but you know, I think it's just so interesting, the Will Levis rumors. And I think Will Levis could be, could be a really good quarterback. I'm not like super huge on, I mean, Bryce Young, I'm not super huge on any of these guys. I don't think any of these guys are, not that people are saying this necessarily. I don't think any of

these guys are necessarily like generational talents. I'm intrigued by the fact that Hendon Hooker hasn't really gotten a lot of publicity relative to some of these guys. That's just me, though. Maybe give me your top five quarterbacks. It's going to be in the way that I have them ranked, both from an NFL perspective and some, and fantasy too. I think you can make a case for Anthony Richardson being your number one quarterback, even with the warts and the worries and stuff like that. That's not where I'm going. CJ Stroud is my unquestioned in a tier by himself, QB one in this class. And really this comes down to, and people can miss me with your damn ass two scores. We don't have a long enough history of that that test being around

to know that the true predictive validity of that test so you can miss me with that i do not care what happened with wonderlick they just decided that wasn't a good guess not i guess i guess it wasn't so wonderful anymore but looking at the test like i don't care about that because when i tell you like cj Stroud pops as far as both metric wise and from a film perspective the guy has special special balls ball placement and accuracy ability you see him lace big boy throws on the damn regular in games and so I think he has a higher ceiling than what he showed in college both if we if they get him on the move his ability to play outside of structure.

I know that's been talked about, about a lot, excuse me, but I think his, his ceiling is much, much higher than people give it credit. That's why my comp for him, because if you look at the narratives that are surrounding him,

the shade that's been tossed in his direction, it feels so fricking similar as far as from a talent perspective and the narrative of Justin Herbert. So that's my con for C.J. Stroud. Then you go down the board. Right now I have Bryce Young as my two, Anthony Richardson as my three, and Will Levis is just bringing up the tail end as QB four, hooker as five. And I like Anthony Richardson. I love the ceiling. But again, he has got a lot of things that he needs to clean up in his game. Most most importantly, touch passing everything that this guy right now is a fastball.

That's why my my comp for him coming out is Colin Kaepernick. I think that the talent is absolutely there. He can process. He can go through progressions. You see more nuance in his game when you really break down his film. But he does have things he has to clean up some more things as far as from a touch perspective, he has to grow as a passer. Bryce Young is going to be a really high floor quarterback in the NFL, both processing and playability. I like him. I don't love him like I do CJ Stroud. Will Levis, he scares the bejesus out of me. I think that he's a possible landmine.

I think that everything, you see the intangibles, but as far as field progressions, all these different parts of pieces, as far as from a play to play and down, down to down perspective from ceiling and floor, he's got to raise his floor a lot as far as consistency of play to be an NFL starter right now. So he's got a lot more questions that I think that people are putting out there in the space to answer for me that maybe others need to see. And Hennon Hooker, I'm not buying any of this first round buzz BS. I think this is all teams throwing smoke,

really trying to get another team to trade up for him or trade into the first round. I think he's going to go in the second round. I mean, what do we have to say? See, the guy is going to end his rookie contract being freaking 30 years old or being older than that. That tells you a lot of what you need to know as far as from a ceiling and four perspective from him in the NFL. Not even if we want to dive in. I could talk to you 25 minutes about the offense.

He ran at Tennessee, his ability, both how much the rushing translates to the NFL and his ability to go through progressions. There's a lot of questions he needs to answer coming off the ACL. You add all this into the bag of him as being a prospect and it pushes him a tier lower. And I can't even fathom how a team talks themselves into him being a first round prospect in this class or even in other classes right now. Yeah, that's fair. Real quick on hooker. If he hadn't torn his ACL, would he be in the conversation? It would have be a top five instead of a top four. No, not necessarily. No, I'm not. So when I evaluate him, I'm not weighing the acl as far as how i'm ranking him um his acl terror was clean so i'm not bumping him down from that perspective when i'm ranking him in my quarterbacks he still

would be qb5 for me yeah totally fair okay so i got one question to clue and sorry i had to shortchange you on quarterbacks because that that it's a couple of shows there. I even wanted to ask you about Dorian Thompson Robinson, just like yes or no. Um, you know, late flyer on DTR. My late flyer would not be on DTR. I see more limitations from him as a passer than I would like to project. And I don't think the rushing upside translates as well. If we're going to go late flyer status, I'll look at Tanner McKee as the guy I would toss my chips in on. Um, He's not going to be flashy. He's a pocket quarterback, so you're not getting the rushing utility. But if you're looking at a guy that could be drafted in round three or four and walk away being a mid-level tier starter in the NFL, I think that's Tanner McKee because he has the ball placement. He has the ability to go through progressions. He has the arm talent to both, I think, grow as a passer in the NFL and present a really, really high floor for an NFL team

from the jump. So let's talk about real quick. I have a question about DFS 2022 last year. I mean, I'm going to, we're going to get just so everybody knows that's listening to this show or podcast that, you know, we're going to get way more into sort of DFS game theory, probably with Adam, when he comes on Adam Levitan, when he comes on in a couple of weeks, but also with the guests over the summer, because I think that's going to be important going into 2023,

but because this wasn't really a DFS centered show, Derek, I do want to ask you at least a DFS question. And the question is, and you were very accessible, not just to all the people that follow you, but to me as well, we'd have some conversations like fantasy football today, DFS, we do two shows per week. I do it with Mike McClure. Um, sometimes we have an additional guest as well, but I lean on

Mike quite a bit, but sometimes I'll just ask some people in the industry that I respect. And, um, I always found it very, your, it takes were always very interesting. And I, and I kind of felt like you were very much willing to go, um go in contrarian directions, which I think is really like sort of how you win in DFS. How you win. That's how you win. But when it comes to what might have worked, maybe that's the answer. In 2022, is there something almost like a centerpiece where you were like, this is kind of what I leaned on and it worked for me last year or the last couple of years? So every year, and I'll take it this way.

Every year in DFS is different. Every year in DFS is totally different. As far as there are certain building blocks on how I'm approaching the season, but how the, how the year is playing out, how NFL backfields and really the NFL as a whole is playing out. Like, are you going to, cause I mean, come on, see, I'm like, you know as well as I do, you used to, you'd barbell these bell cow running backs back in the day. It was team jam them in is what everybody called it.

Like you jam in the high price bell cow running backs and then figure out how the hell do you sit here and take the rest of your salary and build out at least a competent lineup. And you're taking shots on these minimum salary, cheap freaking wide receivers that if they hit a ceiling, you hit the ceiling with your stack, then it's Yahtzee baby. Well,

now we're looking at an NFL that your bell cows are like, you can count them on one freaking hand. And really also we're looking at a dfs field man that is sharper because this is not two to three years ago even like there are so many good places that are putting out really sharp content so many more people using optimizers so many people that are so much more researched and they're not falling for the recency traps of this guy busted last week. So now it's flop lag and nobody's going to play him. That's not happening in DFS now. And it used to be, okay, how contrarian can I get? And if I get so weird

that I can get these guys that are 2% play 3%, 1%, 4%. That's really hard to come by these days, man, because there's so much sharp content. And really last year's adjustment for me was, was kind of two different things. It was being okay with playing the chalk. Like you don't have to full fade guys just based off of, okay, he's going to be 35 35 that doesn't make him a bad play in the sense that you're with the dfs fields getting sharper because of better content you were going to see more popular plays and just because the popular does not mean you have to auto fade these guys but it's how are you getting different and really prioritizing the overall roster percentage of your lineup and not individual players. We saw it all last season, people taking down contests with 35% rostered

running backs, 40, 50% guys, and playing different stacks over stacking games, heavily game stacking certain games. And they go off. like one of my best weeks man was playing um it was the that week i i qualified i took down multiple tournaments i qualified for multiple seats at king of the beach the live final and stuff like that was playing um a game that was that ended up going off was not it did not end up being popular but playing Dak Prescott it was it was the Cowboys versus the Packers and I played Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, Dalton Schultz and I ran it back with Christian Watson and then I was heavy heavy on that game that week it was not popular but I played a lot of the chalk around it and the chalk hit and then that game stack goes the hell off and buried

the field and i won like everything that week so this is all to say that in previous years you got to the top by full fading a lot of the chalk and a lot of super popular plays and you could still do that in certain instances. But my whole thing, and I want to leave people with this is it's okay to play the chalk. You just need to sit here and concentrate on how chalky is your overall lineup and not really get so tied to how chalky an individual player is. That's such good advice. And honestly, that's advice you can take in, in PGA DFS and a lot of other sort of DFS streets,

if you will. And Derek, we're going to leave it there. First of all, thanks for coming back onto the show. Thank you for having me, man. Like you're too damn kind.

Like you put it all out there. Like, like you're so gracious of me giving you my time. Hell, thank you for having me. I'm glad you came knocking at my door because I love hopping on these shows with you. See, I think you're one of the best hosts in the industry.

So hopping into this and being able to talk ball with you for me is a treat. I appreciate that very much, actually. So listen, you can follow Derek Brown at dbro underscore FFB. He's all over Fantasy Pros. A lot of good content at fantasy pros. Go visit them. We just had Andrew Erickson on, so you can catch his content. You catch Derek's content and a lot of other people.

We'll be back in a couple of weeks with Adam Levitin from establish the run. And we're going to be doing our off season series, really focusing on a lot of DFS game theory that you just heard from Derek Brown, among other things. We've got the schedule coming out on May 11th, which, by the way, is my birthday. What a birthday present. Thank you, Roger Goodell. Super sweet of you.

But listen, that's all for now. This is Fantasy Football Today, DFS, and we'll see you next time. Weight loss. It needs to be fast and sustainable. Noom GLP-1 starts at just $149 and ships to your door in seven days. Take it from Clay Vossier, who lost 35 pounds on Noom. It's a psychological thing, too. They're definitely teaching how to live a better, healthier lifestyle.

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