Fantasy Football Today - Lessons Learned from a 2019 Draft (05/18 Fantasy Football Podcast)
Episode Date: May 18, 2020Sometimes it is helpful to revisit history. Today we'll look at a PPR draft we did just before the start of the 2019 season and see what lessons we can learn. First, we read an email comparing Mike Ev...ans and Amari Cooper (2:55) and as "The Last Dance" has come to a close, we reflect on what made Michael Jordan such a captivating athlete (6:15) and of course debate Jordan vs. LeBron ... Quick news items (13:31) on the WAS WRs, James Conner and more before we get into last year's draft! As we look at Round 1 (16:08) we wonder who will become this year's Dalvin Cook. In Round 2 (21:05), the RBs were largely disappointing but the TEs were not. Round 3 (27:15) makes us question the value of small sample sizes when it comes to RBs and Round 4 (30:30) brings up a discussion about TE depth ... What can we learn about RBs who rarely catch passes as a few of them were drafted in Round 5 (35:31)? And as we look at the rest of the draft (41:00), we discuss rookie RBs, drafting WRs who have a chance to be the #1 guy on their team, the best players to take late and plenty more ... Your emails at fantasyfootball@cbsi.com 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow the new FFT Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/FFToday Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @YardsPerGretch, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter 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
Transcript
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This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports.
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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.
Welcome to your Monday edition of Fantasy Football Today.
We are looking back at a PPR draft that we did last year. In fact,
it was the Fantasy Football Today League.
And this was the last starting
lineup that I submitted. You can tell
how my team went. Sam
Darnold, Todd Gurley,
Ronald Jones, Keenan Allen,
DK Metcalf, Sterling Shepard,
for some reason, Gerald Everett is
starting a tight end, Stefan
Diggs, and the Titans DST.
I don't know who they were facing.
I did not have a very good year in this league.
But you won your final game.
I did?
It says in the standings that you have a one-game win streak.
Yes!
You finished 6-7.
All right, 6-7.
Almost 500.
Congratulations.
You were worse than Pete Prisco, though, so that's not something you want to tell people.
And he took the Jaguars in the ninth round.
Dave lost in the finals.
Heath, you had a horrible year in this league?
If you wanted to do a show called Let's Make Heath Look Like an Idiot,
reviewing this league from last year is the league you would use.
I took Juju Smith-Schuster ahead of Michael Thomas and Delvin Cook. I dropped Raheem Mostert, and I traded Aaron Jones for Cooper Cup right before he was removed
from the Rams offense. Thank you for that, by the way. That worked out for me. And we're going to
see what we can learn, the lessons we can learn from looking back at this 12-team PPR draft that
we did last year, the comparisons we can make going into 2020. And we don't have a lot of news items, but we do have a note on James
Conner. Your Tuesday episode is going to be about potential workhorse running backs that might not
be very good anymore. And James Conner might fit that bill. Todd Gurley, maybe Melvin Gordon,
Le'Veon Bell, maybe Leonard Fournette.
So we'll look at those guys, an interesting range of running backs to pick from
and try to figure that group out.
And then we're going to look later this week at year two wide receivers
and the trends we've been seeing with year two wide receivers.
I missed it. Did the Bulls win last night?
Not in the last decade.
Well, it depends how you view it.
I didn't see the episode.
I'm like five behind.
They definitely won, but then they lost.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Well, Dave is decked out in his Bulls jersey on,
and he's got like a red undershirt.
My black Jordan jersey.
Yeah.
It's the same one I wore at my kid's bar mitzvah.
We all wore Jordan jerseys at his bar mitzvah party.
That's awesome.
You would have known if you had been there, Adam.
I don't remember why I couldn't go, but I know I couldn't go.
All right, so I got a follow-up question about the last dance.
After we read the email of the day, it comes from Dwayne.
Dear Michael, Mia, and Lawrence.
Not Bulls.
Oh, one of them is.
These are UNC stars,
Michael Jordan,
Mia Hamm,
Lawrence Taylor.
Oh,
all right.
Wondering why you guys are so tough on Amari Cooper.
Could be characters from Bad Boys.
From Bad Boys?
Well,
one actor,
one character.
Martin Lawrence,
Michael Lowry.
Yeah,
it's a stretch.
Why are you guys so tough on Amari Cooper and seem to give
Mike Evans a pass?
These guys' game logs are basically the same the past
few years. Furthermore, most of the receivers ranked
in your top 12 average the same amount of single-digit
fantasy point games as Amari Cooper.
Just curious, why are you so tough on Cooper
and you give Mike Evans a pass?
I have Cooper ranked higher
than Evans, so good for
you, Heath. I like that Evans has been more
productive on a per game basis so each of the last two seasons Evans is is adding Gronk to his
offense and he's getting Tom Brady but Dak is getting CeeDee Lamb and he's catching passes
from to Zach I think it's close between them probably closer this year than the stats from
the past two seasons would suggest.
But I think we're going to see Evans be a little bit more consistent.
I'd rather have the player that is better and is in a better offense.
I actually don't know who you're talking about.
I don't either.
Evans is better than Cooper as a player, and he's in a better offense than Cooper.
I mean, the Cowboys were the best offense in football last year, I think, yards per play.
That was last year?
Yeah.
See, I think one question, and I know, Adam, you call Dak a bust.
Easy, easy. If you're asking me, like, Patrick Mahomes has been taken away, and the Chiefs can only have one quarterback for this season.
I'd rather have deck.
Oh,
but then everyone,
or then Brady.
Okay.
That,
no,
that's,
that's fair.
Um,
I think if you posted a poll on that,
you'd be surprised how many people would take radio for that answer.
Oh,
probably.
I'm going to do it.
Yeah.
I'm interested.
So,
well,
are we giving Mike Evans a pass though? Cause I feel like he's been going kind of late.
They basically go in the same spot.
One goes middle round three. One goes round four.
I mean, you know, it's maybe 10 picks apart.
But probably like three receivers apart.
Yeah. I guess that's not insignificant.
All right. Anything to add, or we can move on?
I get, you know, how many catches you got from Mark Cooper?
Last question.
85.
All right.
Well, that's 80.
Yeah, that's not great.
And that's what that's what you should expect from Mike Evans based on basically every year he's in that range that one year with 96 catches. Other than that, his 16-game pace in his six seasons,
73, 79, 96, 76, 86, 82 catches.
He's a yards-per-catch guy, but he's not a big catch guy.
So if Cooper doesn't have that over him, then what's he got?
I don't have Mike Evans at 85 for sure.
What do you have, Matt?
I would say 75 for him.
Yeah, 70-75 probably.
Well, if there's a five-catch difference,
the yard should certainly be in Evans' favor,
and I think the touchdowns were in Evans' favor.
Okay.
All right, then.
Follow-up question.
Been wondering this.
What is it about Michael Jordan that makes him so captivating?
I'm sure there are obvious answers.
But I just feel like, I don't know.
I hated Michael Jordan when I was growing up.
I sports hated him.
But you were a Knicks fan though.
Yeah.
And yet I can't.
And now I'm fascinated by him.
And I know he's kind of a jerk or he had been in the past.
But I just can't take my eyes off of a Michael Jordan documentary.
There's just something about him.
He's probably the most interesting athlete ever.
What is it about Michael Jordan?
He said in some interviews leading up to this that he's going to come off as a bigger jerk in this because of how he's going to treat his teammates and people are going to view it that way.
And I felt the exact opposite.
I thought it was more compelling to hear some of the things that happened behind the scenes.
And obviously his teammates are going to speak favorably.
The one thing that I saw was Luke Longley refused to talk for this.
Part of it was because the camera crew wouldn't go to him because of cost and
everything that was going on.
But there were some stories that,
you know,
he took it the hardest about,
you know,
Jordan coming down on him because he was replacing cart,
right?
Stepping into that role.
That was Jordan coming back and having to deal with that whole thing. I thought Andrea Kramer in episode 10 said it
best that he became global before social media based on just his play and the aura of him.
And, you know, you always get the comparisons of the Bulls to the Beatles, you know, that that
was the feel anywhere they went and they went to Parisis to start that season in 98 and it was just like you know that they were taking over
europe at that point um that he he you know the the perception of him probably would have changed
if there was social media with all the gambling stuff and you know how that unfolded for him and
maybe the criticism there but i mean he mean, he's Teflon.
You know, there may be some things that have happened,
but he's untouchable.
Yeah, and I think he just has this grace on the court, right?
Like, LeBron is a bull, and Jordan is just glide.
He's like on ice.
And I don't know.
There's just something about that for me that I just always marvel that,
just the way he played the game.
Like he was, I don't know, just on a different surface.
Maybe that's weird, but that's the way I saw it.
There was a grace to his game that is unmatched.
We hear athletes talk about,
just in following the documentary,
it's Jordan, it's Brady and Tiger.
Just when they smell victory, you know it's happening.
Dave, what about
you, Chicago man?
He was a winner on
the court and he carried
himself magnificently off the
court.
There aren't a lot of
documented times where he was rude
to people.
Everybody in Chicago seems to have a Michael Jordan story.
Except for his teammates.
He was plenty rude to them.
Yeah, but you know what?
Think about it like this. Okay, so he gets into a fight with Steve Kerr, and he punches Steve Kerr in the face.
And does he not call him that day and apologize for it and say, listen, I lost my head?
He did. The best thing about that was he goes, listen, I lost my head. He did.
The best thing about that was he goes, I had to get Steve Kerr's number.
He had no need for Steve Kerr's number before he punched him in the face.
That's true.
But at least he did that.
He apologized for it.
He killed Scott Burrell.
That's pretty obvious.
Oh, yeah.
He hated Scott Burrell.
He hated Jerry Krause.
He was really mean to Jerry Kraus.
I know, Adam, you haven't seen this. I thought it was pretty
cool that they gave Jerry Kraus credit last night.
I hope they did.
I hate to say this,
but they
couldn't overpay Rodman and
Steve Kerr and Doug Bushler and all that.
Pippen probably deserved to be overpaid.
Just what he gave the team,
and that he would help keep the Bulls playing well.
But he was breaking down.
And so Michael was still great,
but really it came down to Phil did not want to coach that team anymore.
And Michael wouldn't play for anybody else
until he was compelled to play for Leonard Hamilton.
Heath, I did a poll a few days
ago on Twitter asking people
where are you on this, Michael Jordan
or LeBron James? Did you vote?
No.
78% said Michael Jordan.
And that really surprised me.
3,200 votes. Me too.
Well, it's a little bit like
the documentary had an impact on that. It does, right?
Somebody said only 21% say LeBron James because of recency bias.
Actually, the recency bias would definitely favor Michael Jordan.
But a year ago or two years ago when LeBron was in the finals, I guess he's been in the finals pretty much every year, not last year, obviously.
But it would have been a much closer poll if you had taken it then.
I mean, I'm sure this is going to surprise nobody,
but I would have voted for LeBron when he...
I was always Jordan,
because people have debated this forever,
and a lot of people were coming onto the LeBron side.
I was always Jordan
until LeBron basically single-handedly
beat the Warriors in the finals.
I know he lost to them like three other times, but that finals, I couldn't believe what he did the last four games of that finals.
And I was, I just, that's it.
I was like, that's it.
He's the best I've ever seen.
I think we're going to maybe have a similar discussion in 10 years when one of these young quarterbacks has won two Super Bowls, maybe three, and is clearly going to surpass
all of the Breeze Brady accomplishments.
And I think the best way to say it,
like it is with Jordan and LeBron,
like Michael Jordan's still the GOAT,
but LeBron's the best basketball player ever.
You think so?
I do, yeah.
I don't.
I think LeBron might be the best professional athlete ever.
That's Babe Ruth to me.
Really?
Babe Ruth was out homering teams.
He was the most ahead of his time ever.
Well, that's because his time was nice.
That doesn't make him a great professional athlete.
He was definitely a great professional athlete.
It was a diluted talent pool. You know, it was, but he wasn't the only one. He was playing against a great professional athlete. Oh, he was definitely a great professional athlete. It was a diluted talent pool.
You know, it was, but he wasn't the only...
He was playing against a bunch of guys.
No, it wasn't like that.
It wasn't the only...
Like, he was the only good player.
I mean, he was so...
All right, well, anyway.
Anyway, thank you.
That was a fun argument.
Thank you.
Fun discussion.
Our Facebook group, join it.
We talk about...
Well, we don't really talk about stuff like that,
but we could.
I could post something about that today.
Search Fantasy Football Today on Facebook or click the link in the description.
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News and notes.
Washington wide receiver Cody Latimer was arrested.
Hey, in each of his last three games with more than five targets,
he's had 10 or more PPR fantasy points, 17, 10, and 15.
Of course, he's only had three of those in the last two years.
But anyway, who's going to take targets away from Terry McLaurin in Washington?
I love Antonio Gandy-Golden.
I think it's a big opportunity for him.
Steve Sims is somebody I think you take a look at late.
He had a good finish to the end of the season last year with Haskins.
He'll be their slot receiver, most likely.
And then keep an eye on Thaddeus Moss.
That's somebody that
is intriguing. I think he would have
probably got drafted if he didn't have the foot injury
that he dealt with, I think, post-Combine.
Yeah, hearing
those names makes me like Terry McLaurin
even more. I think there's
a chance for Sims and for Thaddeus Moss and Gandy Golden
and Kelvin Harmon's in his second season.
But this looks like a team that's got one very good receiver
and a lot of other guys that might be 600 yards.
Okay.
Mike Tomlin says James Conner is a featured guy
and a proven runner when he's healthy. Tomlin said that he
favors featured backs.
It's interesting because Conner, before
the Miami game in week 8, he had
23 carries. He went 11 straight games
dating back to 2018 with
no more than 16 carries.
In only one of those games, he had more than 15 carries.
Then he had 23 carries against
the Dolphins and he missed the next
two games with an injury and was basically hurt the rest
of the year so I don't
want to get too into James Connor
because we'll talk about him on our next
show oh but
Heath give me a quick
thought on on James Connor
I'm gonna go full circle on him I think I
started out with him as a top 15
back and then had him all the way outside of my top
20 and at some point he's gonna to be back in my top 15.
It's almost by default, right?
Who else belongs in the top 15 at running back?
Those last few spots are going to be cycled through quite a bit,
I would imagine.
So does that mean he's ahead of all the rookies
not named Clyde Edwards-Elair?
He is for me.
Yeah.
Okay. Look, he was on pace for
just over
1,400 total yards and 14 touchdowns.
And he was averaging
3.4 yards per carry last year.
He should be better.
It's just two years of not being healthy
and they seemingly want to replace him every offseason.
And finally,
the saints signed
running back ty montgomery so with that said let's go to our ppr draft from last year the
fantasy football today draft what can we learn from this draft and let me pull it up all right
here we go round one was saquon Barkley 1 to me
If I had just taken Christian McCaffrey
I would have had a much different season
Saquon Barkley 1
Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara
DeAndre Hopkins 4 to Dave
Ezekiel Elliott
Devante Adams
Juju Smith-Schuster to Heath at 7
Julio Jones
Dalvin Cook 9th to Pete
Michael Thomas to Jamie at seven. Julio Jones, Dalvin Cook, ninth to Pete. Michael Thomas to Jamie at 10. Good pick.
Tyree Kill and then Odell Beckham, 12th. Barkley, McCaffrey, Kamara, Hopkins, Zeke, Adams, Juju,
Julio, Dalvin Cook, Michael Thomas, Tyree Kill, Odell Beckham. Pretty solid first round. The Dalvin
Cook pick stands out to me, guys. He only played 11 games in 2018.
He wasn't even a top 20 running back in non-PPR on a per-game basis.
He was 18th in PPR.
He was sort of splitting with Latavius Murray after he came back from an injury.
So it was a leap of faith for Pete to take him ninth overall.
And it was a home run.
So what can we learn from that?
Who is Dalvin cook this year i uh i asked pete what made him do it and pete says that he just he refuses to look back when it
comes to running backs and he likes to project forward because not only do you take dalvin
cook in round one he took leonard fournette in round two and both those picks turned out great
for him it's it's a shame that his team barely made the playoffs when he had those two running backs but he he he doesn't consider
past injuries or anything like that so like if we're applying it to the james connor
conversation pete's not thinking about the the shoulder injury or concussions or anything else
that happened to james connor he's only looking forward. He's projecting forward.
And he saw it with Dalvin Cook when he went to Minnesota's camp two summers ago when he was coming back from the ACL and he looked good. So a year off the ACL surgery, he was zipping around
just fine in camp. Pete took the chance on one round one. I don't think cook was a consensus first round pick last year no way
no so this was like a big bold pick by pete and it absolutely paid off in spades
yeah heath who's who's someone that maybe you could compare him to yeah i mean you i know who
you want me to say so so I'll just say it.
Like, Miles Sanders is obviously one of the candidates of a guy that we've seen do it very well in limited workload. And we hope that this year he gets a full workload and stays healthy through it.
I think you could probably slide Kenyon Drake into that as well.
One of those two guys that are probably going to be drafted more in the second round than the first.
But if you really want them and they hit, taking them as early as ninth overall could work.
I'll give you another one.
Just based on injuries.
I'll give you one more, and this will make Jamie smile.
Clyde Edwards-Alaire.
We're projecting. He're projecting the comparison though,
though,
of a guy that,
why?
Because he wasn't hurt last year.
He didn't play last year,
but if we're going solely on what Pete does,
which is projecting forward,
good running back.
We all very good.
I don't think that's a unique thing for Pete.
I think the idea is to always project forward.
I'm telling,
I'm just giving the lesson that Pete gave that I think everybody should try and remember.
Yeah, but that's exactly what you're doing.
That fits the comparison of Dalvin Cook.
Edward Solaire doesn't qualify.
OK, well, but then unless you take it one other way and you say, hey, if you're going to be an elite running back these days and you're not Derrick Henry, you've got to you've got to catch passes.
Dalvin Cook caught 53 of them in 14 games.
And that was a big part of his game.
He had 519 receiving yards,
and he didn't even score a receiving touchdown,
so maybe he was a little unlucky there.
But that's why I think it's harder to make the case
for Josh Jacobs in the first round
as it is for Sanders and Drake,
even though Josh Jacobs' name did come to mind.
No, I think just Jacobs is a guy that you hope to see more from
after battling some injuries.
Like, had he not dealt with that shoulder injury,
remember, he came back to play
after the Raiders were eliminated from playoff contention
because, or no, I'm sorry, he came back to play
when the Raiders were still alive in playoff contention.
So if he doesn't get hurt,
I don't think he has a 50-catch season.
I don't think he may ever have a 50-catch season.
But, you know, he could still be one of those type of players that,
oh, I'm a little skittish on because of maybe what happened.
But again, if you're looking ahead,
you're seeing that he has the potential to be not a first-round pick
but a first-round caliber player,
and probably more so a non-PPR than PPR.
Does David Johnson fit this?
David Johnson?
Yeah.
Not that we would take him in the first round,
but player that got banged up last year.
No, let's move on because we're about to talk about David Johnson.
Wasn't consistent.
Let's go to round two.
Travis Kelsey is the first pick of round two.
Remember, this is a year ago.
Our FFT league, it's three wide receivers.
It's PPR.
There's also a flex, so it should be fairly wide receiver heavy. Maybe
after the top 20 or so. I don't
know. Kelsey, then look
at this run of running backs. Four running backs in
a row. Le'Veon Bell, James Conner,
Leonard Fournette, David Johnson.
Fournette was the best of the bunch
because he got so much work, but he was RB
13 in PPR.
Bell, Conner,
Fournette, David Johnson.
I mean,
that's what really stands out to me in this round.
Then he took Mike Evans,
then Nick Chubb,
Joe Mixon,
Dave took George Kittle,
Zach Earths,
Antonio Brown,
and Todd Gurley.
So,
uh,
that's a really bad run of running backs.
Yeah.
I think like I noticed when I was looking at the first round,
I thought,
you know,
the argument for taking wide receivers late in the first round is that they don't have maybe the same upside as the running backs, but they're so much safer.
And you look at the receivers last year, at least in this draft, that went in the first round, and there were definitely more receivers letting us down than there were running backs letting us down.
That's because all the running backs that let us down went in the second round of this draft.
Oh, yes.
We also had Nick Chubb and Joe Mixon in this round.
They were more interesting.
But Le'Veon Bell, James Conner, Leonard Fournette, David Johnson.
Is there any theme that these guys have?
And Fournette was fine.
David Johnson was doing well for fantasy
before the Kenyon Drake trade, before his injury.
But I don't know.
They weren't great picks, obviously.
So what can we learn?
Well, Connery got thrown out too with Roethlisberger too.
Who knows how that would have gone.
With Conner?
Yeah, I mean, obviously he got hurt too.
But the whole team goes out of whack.
So were these bad picks?
I don't think they were bad picks.
Replace them with guys that we're talking about this year.
So who are the second-round running backs?
So Sanders is a second-round pick.
Eckler is a second-round pick.
Nixon's a second-round pick.
Chubb and PPR is a second-round pick.
Henry's a second-round pick.
So those are the guys that we're looking at here.
So which of these guys fit those molds?
You know what?
I'm not going to sit here and manufacture a lesson learned.
I'm not sure any of them do.
That's the thing, though.
These are the guys that are going in round two.
Why were these guys going in round two in this particular draft?
Bell, there was concerns.
Connor, okay.
We had high expectations.
I think a lot of people were taking him in the first round,
so he probably fits in here.
Fournette, same thing.
David Johnson was kind of a, okay, hopeful with Cliff Kingsbury,
if you go back to what the conversation was with him last year.
Kyler Murray coming in.
And Chubb and Mixon, I think, probably have the same same scenarios this year that they were a year ago.
You know, guys that are young, that have plenty of potential, that are in, you know, offenses you hope can rebound from a previous down year.
I think those guys you probably throw out, but it's the lesson you want to learn from from Bell, Connor, Fournette and Johnson.
And, you know, for for Bell and David Johnson, you know, they're older running backs by the nature of what position they play.
What about the fact that all four guys were on?
I'll say bad teams because none of them made the playoffs.
The Steelers were actually amazing to finish eight and eight, given all that happened to them.
Is that a thread that we can look at?
Yeah, I think any lesson we're trying to learn, we should probably just take James Conner and almost the same thing with Juju.
The Roethlisberger entry, just like...
You're right.
But you could say, sure, the Jets, Jacksonville, Cardinals,
we didn't really have any expectation
for any of those three teams to be over 500.
You're right.
So does that matter?
But I think we did for the Browns.
Does that mean Joe Nixon?
I think we did for the Browns.
I mean, the Browns were the players.
The Panthers weren't over 500 either,
and McCaffrey had a huge year.
Yeah.
It hasn't mattered as much lately because the way running backs catch the ball.
But I don't know.
I mean, Nixon comes to mind.
They're not going to be a 500 team.
But I don't know.
You know what?
It's fine.
This is a unique situation.
Let's talk about the tight ends, Dave.
You took Kittle, and then the next pick was Ertz.
Why did you take him? tight ends Dave you took Kittle and then the next pick was Ertz I remember
I remember thinking last
year that if you wanted to just not deal
with the headache at tight end
you got to take a stud early
and I banged
the drum to get Kelsey or Kittle
or potentially Ertz
in round two I think I would have preferred
Ertz in early round three
but I was
gung-ho on Kittle last year.
How did that work out for me? It was great
because I had a tight end that I didn't have to
sweat in my lineup week in and week
out. Now, I also drafted
Darren Waller in this league.
And big surprise, right?
And
I ended up trading Waller
to Heath for Devin Singletary,
which I think ultimately did not work out for me,
given all the catches that Waller had.
When did you trade him?
It was in the middle of the year.
Okay.
Not a bad pitch.
And maybe I could have gotten more for Waller,
but I also remember having all kinds of running back problems.
I did a bad job drafting running backs in this draft.
I drafted five of them and only one hit and ended up trading the one that hit in week two, so it didn't even hit for me.
Because I was chasing running backs, I kind of had to give up a little bit more to get Singletary, and then I ended up trading Singletary with something to get Aaron Jones.
We talked about it, but I'm getting way off base here. The bottom line is that I had my problem solved at
tight end and I didn't have to really worry about it the rest of the year. And that's what you
should have. It worked out theoretically because I had a tight end that I didn't ever bench,
didn't think about sitting down. Whatever lumps that Kittle gave me early in the year, I just dealt with.
And I don't know if I feel exactly the same way about them this year
because I think there's some good depth to the position.
Okay, we'll get into that in a few rounds, round four.
Let's go to round three.
Keenan Allen is the first pick.
And Kerryon Johnson, Adam Thielen.
This is not a great round.
Keenan Allen, Kerryon Johnson, Adam Thielen. This is not a great round. Keenan Allen, Kerryon Johnson, Adam Thielen,
Damian Williams, Stefan Diggs,
Brandon Cooks, Julian Edelman,
Devante Freeman, Patrick Mahomes,
Robert Woods, Chris Carson, Chris Godwin.
All right, strong finish to this round.
First question here.
Keenan Allen is the first pick of round three
he ended up being the sixth best receiver in ppr uh he had 104 catches 1999 yards six touchdowns
he had 149 targets um was this a was this a good pick heath or bad pick was it a low upside pick
because this is a guy who's who since his year, has not had more than six touchdown catches,
usually doesn't get more than 1,200 yards.
He's not usually a league winner, Keenan Allen.
But 25th overall, how would you rate that pick?
And the guys I would maybe compare it to are like Allen Robinson
and maybe Tyler Lockett, who might go in round three this year.
And perhaps they don't have first-round upside.
Your thoughts?
I mean, I think Keenan Allen is a very low upside pick in non-PPR,
or would have been last year.
Now he might just be a low upside pick across the board.
But I don't think you can say that in PPR
just because the catches have such an impact, not just at wide receiver, but how he would place even amongst the running backs.
I think he would have been the number seven running back in this format last year.
So you get that in the third round.
You should feel pretty good about it.
OK.
It's a great pick.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It was my pick.
Carryon Johnson and Damian Williams were picked here.
And this is a small sample size kind of thing.
We didn't see much from Kerryon Johnson.
We didn't see much from Damian Williams.
But we saw greatness in small sample sizes in 2018.
We took them in the third round in 2019.
They both were disappointing.
And for Johnson, it was so frustrating because he averaged 5.4 yards per carry in 2018, 3.6 in 2019.
It was hard to see that coming.
But, Jamie, are there small sample size running backs that could let us down?
Do you think that might go in this range in 2020?
Or earlier or whatever.
And there's one that comes to mind for me.
It's Miles Sanders.
Well, I mean, I was going to say the guys that we spoke about already.
Small sample size from i don't know if there is anybody that fits the same mold aside from the rookies you know the rookies are certainly going to be guys that we're taking in this range uh you
know taylor with the workload edwards hilaire a little bit earlier or maybe in this range um
with the you know damian williams factor um you know i i think
there's a little too soon for the acres swift scenario but you know similar similar situation
i don't know there's anybody else uh you know small sample size you know carson could lose work
because he typically does if everybody's healthy he'll'll be in this range. Maybe Le'Veon Bell
now, but that's certainly not a small sample size.
No, no. Okay.
Patrick Mahomes goes 33rd overall, which is
not unusual for
our league. So we go to round four
and round four starts
with Tyler
Lockett. This is a
good round. Basically, anyone who didn't
do well in this round, any player that didn't do well was mostly injury-related.
Tyler Lockett, Evan Ingram, Josh Jacobs to Jamie,
Calvin Ridley, Amari Cooper, Aaron Jones to Heath,
Mark Ingram, T.Y. Hilton, Cooper Cup to Dave,
Kenny Galladay, A.J. Green,
and then I had the only truly bad pick of the round,
the only guy that was bad without being injured.
What?
Right, sure. Without being injured. I mean, A.J. Green
ended up being a pretty bad pick. Yeah, it was O.J. Howard.
And I had the last pick of the round, but still,
O.J. Howard. So, Evan
Ingram goes here, O.J. Howard goes here,
and then next round, you actually had Hunter Henry.
Your next pick was worse.
O.J. Howard, Josh Gordon. That was a great turn.
Great turn right there. You were OJ Howard, Josh Gordon. That was a great turn. Great turn.
You were super gambly in this draft.
You took all kinds of chances.
Well, you kind of have to when you're on the turn.
A little bit.
Like, you're not going to pick again for 22 picks every time.
Right.
So you could go the route that Adam did, or you can take one safe player, one risky pick, or two safe players.
It really depends on maybe what you do with your previous picks.
I don't fault you for Howard, but the Gordon pick.
No, I don't agree with that.
Who was the next wide receiver?
Tyler Boyd?
No, it's not that.
It's just like, you know, this was your draft because, you know, Gordon was going to be
the guy for the Patriots, but I don't know if we were taking him around five.
I think you were very high on Josh Gordon.
I was.
You know what?
I don't fault you for either pick, Adam,
because your first three picks were Saquon, Gurley, and Keenan Allen,
and those are like cornerstone players for a fantasy team.
And so you took some chances with the last pick and four
and the first pick of five.
I'm just looking back at what I had on.
Oh, okay.
I had three games without Rob Gronkowski in 2018 for Josh Gordon.
He had 100 yards.
He had 130 yards and a touchdown, and he had 81 yards.
He averaged in non-PPR the eighth most fantasy points per game in ppr the 15th most
fantasy points per game in three games without gronkowski so i thought that would carry over
to a degree sure no i i understand why you did it but this goes back to when we were talking
about him as one of the one-year wonders like we've been chasing it for 2013 since 2013 yeah
and that's another that's a that's a small sample size guy that uh that i don't know if i took him
too early but it certainly didn't work out.
All right, so anyway, my question was about tight ends.
Ingram, Howard, Hunter Henry.
When you look at how well Henry did, which was good,
it was great for a stretch, then he kind of faded.
Ingram was, forget about the injuries.
He was like up and down.
What does that tell us about round four, round five tight ends
and how they compare to the round one, round two tight ends? So in this case, it would probably be
like Zach Ertz and Mark Andrews and Darren Waller. Do you see similarities between them and what we
thought of Ingram, Howard, Henry last year? And I think the way we thought of those three guys last year was they could
challenge the elite guys.
They could break into that group, and they didn't.
So what can we say about that next tier of tight ends in 2020 compared to the
top tier?
I think this is a good lesson learned, and that's why you're seeing Ertz and
Andrews in this range as opposed to the round 2-3
range.
Yeah, I guess the
difference for Waller and Andrews
and Ertz is we've
seen them crack that tier already.
Like Darren Waller
was the second best tight end in
PPR. Zach Ertz has been elite for a long
time. Andrews was
elite last year.
Yeah, he was elite.
It's a little bit different than
with Henry and Ingram where we were saying,
if everything goes right, these guys could be top
three guys. We've seen these guys basically do it.
These guys feel like
Higby,
maybe Henry again.
I'm trying to think of who else is going in that range.
Hayden Hurst, maybe?
Who are you talking about for this year?
Yeah, Hayden Hurst.
I mean, guys that we're projecting forward.
And so, like your running back question, small sample size,
Higby's the perfect player to compare.
Not necessarily running back,
but you're chasing a small sample size with Higby.
With Hayden Hurst, you're chasing the potential of what he could be, you know, which is probably,
you know, maybe Ingram. Um, but hopefully you're not drafting those guys this early.
No, but, but, but again, you know, these are the guys we're saying have the chance to be
X, you know, like I know for Dave was Waller, you know, I was, I was excited about Andrews,
the preseason reports were, were killing him, but you know, we were, we were talking about those two guys as these could be very good tight ends,
and they ended up hitting.
Okay, round five.
Great pick, Josh Gordon, to me.
Tyler Boyd, David Montgomery, Sonny Michelle, Marlon Mack, Duke Johnson,
Hunter Henry to Heath, Deshaun Watson, Jared Cook, Tevin Coleman to Jamie, DJ Moore.
Great pick there.
And Melvin Gordon was the last pick.
Remember, Melvin Gordon was holding out.
Jack took him with the last pick of round five,
and then he took Austin Eckler with the first pick of round six.
I remember loving those picks at the time.
Yep, and he won the league.
So good job by Jack.
I thought it was really interesting.
Sonny Michel to Dave, and then Marlon Mack to Will back to back.
Both of them in PPR leagues, you know you're not getting much in terms of catches.
You know you're getting a lot of carries.
They had the same amount of carries.
And they had such different years.
And I don't know if there's anything to take away from that,
but they both had 247 carries, Michel and Mack.
Mack averaged 4.4 yards.
Sonny Michelle, 3.7 yards per carry.
Mac had almost 1,100 yards.
Sonny Michelle had 912 rushing.
They had basically the same receiving stats, which was next to nothing.
Mac had one more touchdown.
So they go back to back.
They get the same amount of carries.
They're within the two catches of each other, and Mac just has a much better year. What do you think, Dave? Just better offensive line? Was that the difference? provide some numbers certainly some touchdown potential and sony really did not have a good
year at all it was a bad pick and i doubled down on it i took damian harris later on trying to get
you know a big piece of that patriots run game hoping one of these guys could be a number two
fantasy running back and it was uh it was it was a grenade blaster to my number two running back spot in my team.
But there's also like, even with Mack being, I guess, significantly better than Sonny Michel,
he was, with things turning out pretty well, a low-end number two on a per-game basis in this format.
Yeah, he was RB22 per game in PPR.
He was RB16 in non-PPR. He was RB 16 in non PPR. But I think that was,
I think that was a good pick.
You know,
uh,
what was that?
Fifth,
like 53rd overall,
Marlon,
I'm not saying it's a bad pick,
but if you're saying that like for that type of back,
generally,
if it's not Derek Henry,
um,
if this is the range of expectations,
like max,
the way it turning out well,
and Michelle's it turning out poorly,
it may be a little early. That a great point so who who is that and david montgomery is in here too
and you know he went right before sony michelle and marla mac and what did he have last year he
had uh 25 catches which is a lot more than mac and michelle but not very good. So, yeah, what does that say about the workhorse running back
that catches no passes?
Wait on them?
Yeah.
And who is that?
This, I think, is the point where,
and I don't remember what Dave did or Will did,
but you're probably searching for a number two guy that's going to get work in whatever capacity.
Yep. And I think it's going to be that way in drafts this year too.
And again, to piggyback on what Jack did,
we didn't expect...
Eckler's got a shot the first four games, but nobody saw him doing this to this level
of what he did last year.
And he took both guys with the hope of, OK, Melvin's going to hold out.
But because we did this draft the last week of the preseason leading up to the start of the season.
OK, he's going to hold out, but maybe he's going to be there week one.
You know, so he took a risk that, you know, ended up working out for him.
But I think, you know, you get to the point in round five, Montgomery, Keyshawn Vaughn,
the other rookie, those two are probably a little bit later.
But Akers and Swift, for example, Jonathan Taylor, he's probably the perfect one
because he's Marlon Mack 2.0, a better version.
But a guy that doesn't profile as a big pass catcher,
but may get 200-plus carries if things work out well for him.
So,
you know,
that's,
I think what you're looking for when you get to this point in the draft of,
okay,
substitute Duke Johnson with three Cohen.
You know,
if you want to go the other route again,
too soon,
but that type of player.
Yeah.
Way too soon.
But you know what I'm saying?
Like,
you know,
that that's,
that's why I think Kaiser took Dick Johnson because he was supposed to be
the lead guy for Houston at that point.
Yeah.
Um,
right.
And Carlos Hyde went much later,
ended up being a pretty good pick,
I guess.
Uh,
in round six,
Eckler,
best pick of the draft so far,
James White,
Aaron Rogers,
Larry Fitzgerald.
So Pete Prisco likes to just only look forward. I don't know what he saw in Larry Fitzgerald. So Pete Prisco likes to just only look forward.
I don't know what he saw in Larry Fitzgerald.
I remember when he thought that this was going to be Kyler's guy,
and this was going to sort of rejuvenate Larry once again.
Alshon Jeffrey, Kenyon Drake to Heath.
Did you keep Kenyon Drake?
What happened?
He was on my roster final week of the season, yes.
Nice, All right.
Curtis Samuel, DeeDee Westbrook, Alan Robinson, great pick by Dave, Sterling Shepard, Jarvis Landry, and Phillip Lindsey.
Great pick by you?
No.
Not really.
And around six for what these backs are coming off?
Yeah, I guess.
I guess.
Yeah.
So we got Eckler was a great off. Yeah, I guess. I guess. Yeah, so we got...
Eckler was a great pick.
James White was solid,
number 18 running back in PPR.
Allen Robinson,
number eight wide receiver in PPR.
Jarvis Landry, number 12.
This was a pretty good pick.
A pretty good round, I guess.
But there are some terrible picks in here
like Fitzgerald and Curtis Samuel,
DeeDee Westbrook.
Yeah, I don't know.
This is a bit of a ho-hum round.
Any quick takeaways?
We can move on.
I think a lot of people taken in this round were expected to be at least reliable, solid
starters, which is common for round six.
That's what you're looking for by then.
You've got the basic nucleus of your team through the first five rounds,
and you're picking up guys that can be number two
or number three receivers or running backs
or starting quarterback here.
Okay, round seven.
Will Fuller, Tariq Cohen, Miles Sanders, Derek Henry.
Dave took Derek Henry in round seven.
Amazing.
Pretty good.
I wish I could take a bow for that one,
but I traded him.
I did.
It's terrible.
Huge mistake. I probably would have won the league if I had just held on to Derrick Henry.
You may not have, though, because of how the season ended
for him. You may have been with a hamstring injury.
I don't know, dude.
I started Mike Boone in the championship game.
I started Deion Lewis in a championship game
where I had Derrick Henry, too.
I lost.
MVS, Robbie Anderson, Latavius Murray,
Sammy Watkins, Christian Kirk,
Matt Breida, Mike Williams, Darius Geis.
This is round seven.
You should be proud of Pete.
He did the friendship strategy just for you.
He took Christian Kirk?
Yeah. That's good. And then Dave, by the way, dion took uh dion oh no no i'm sorry pete took dion lewis the next round um but what i noticed about this round you have fuller you have uh mvs
you have robbie anderson who's probably a number one receiver uh sammy walkins christian kirk mike Sammy Watkins, Christian Kirk, Mike Williams. You've got five number two receivers on their teams
in Fuller, MVS, Watkins, Kirk, and Mike Williams.
And then you've got the one number one receiver, Robbie Anderson.
So that was interesting.
They were not successful, though, really.
This is a bad round of wide receivers,
and I wonder if they pretty much all failed.
That's probably just bad.
Funny that Fuller's ADP probably didn't do anything.
Yeah, we should have probably waited until the later rounds
and taken those number twos like Michael Gallup and Courtland Sutton.
Right.
I don't know if there's anything to take away from there.
Are we at a point in the draft where we're taking names we know?
No, we're just Sanders.
Sanders is a rookie, projected to be at that point the backup.
So Kirk was coming off a mediocre rookie season.
Sanders is only the third rookie running back selected so far.
We're into round seven.
Yeah, it's not going to be that way this year.
Montgomery went in round five, and Jacobs went in round three.
And yeah, it's not going to be that way this year.
Why do you think there would be such a difference?
Because I think we like the running backs a little bit more
as far as season-long upside this year compared to last year.
Plus the lack of... It felt like there's this year compared to last year.
Plus the lack of – it felt like there's more running back depth last year compared to the rookies that were there.
I don't know.
It feels like there's a lot of depth this year.
I would say that this is Vaughn's range.
Round seven is where you're going to see probably Keishon Vaughn come off.
And maybe if you're somebody like Ben Gretsch,
aggressively taking J.K. Dobbins in this range too,
if you're talking just rookie running backs.
But this is also where you're going to start to see the rookie receivers come off the board.
And we definitely did not see that last year.
Okay, Dobbins went in round eight in one of the – I'm looking at one of our recent PPR drafts.
And I'm sure it was Ben.
It was Ben.
Right.
Round five, though, we had DeAndre Swift and Cam Akers.
Round four, we had Jonathan Taylor to Ben.
Round six, we had Keyshawn Vaughn to you, Jamie.
Yeah, I'm saying six, seven is Vaughn.
Five is typically Akers and Swift.
Four, five is Taylor.
And two, three is Edwards-Sler.
Yeah.
Round eight in this draft from last year,
I think we had one good pick, and it was Jamie's,
and it was Marvin Jones.
Here is the rest of round eight.
Emmanuel Sanders, Darwin Thompson, Marvin Jones,
Deion Lewis, Corey Davis, Rashad Penny, Darrell Henderson,
Vance McDonald, Tony Pollard.
There was a Zeke thing last year, right?
Yeah, Zeke was holding out.
And so at the time that we did this draft, Zeke had not signed.
And I took Tony Pollard thinking, all right, well, if Zeke holds out,
this will be a starter for me for the first few weeks of the season.
Three days later, Zeke Elliott signed.
Baker Mayfield, Delaney Walker, and Royce Freeman.
I know I took Freeman. Holy crap, Marvin Jones was the best pick in the round. There's a very all the time. Baker Mayfield, Delaney Walker, and Royce Freeman. I know I took Freeman because I took Freeman.
Holy crap.
Marvin Jones was the best pick in the round.
There's a very good lesson here.
There are only seven rounds of good players?
No, you should draft Marvin Jones.
Yes.
Maybe Marvin Jones with Matthew Stafford.
He was on pace for 84 catches, 1,070 yards, and 12 touchdowns on 114 targets.
He did have a four-touchdown game, but
114 targets. That was his
pace with Matthew Stafford. That's pretty good.
And then let's see how many good picks
there were in round nine. Geronimo Allison,
nope. LaShawn McCoy, no,
not really. Tyrell Williams wasn't
bad. John Brown was great.
That was Dave. Justin Jackson,
Carson Wentz, Dante Pettis
to Heath, Peyton Barber,
the Jaguars DST to Pete,
Jalen Samuels to Jamie,
Justice Hill to George, Ronald Jones
to Jack. It's a solid
pick. It's an okay pick, I guess.
Tyrell Williams. Okay, so this is what I
noted about round three. There were three wide receivers
that had the chance to be number one guys
on their team. Tyrell,
John Brown, and Dante Pettis.
John Brown was a smashing success.
Tyrell Williams,
I think that's a good pick in round nine.
Even though he didn't have a great year, but
you get like... He started him
for a month and he scored every week.
He didn't hurt you.
Well worth a round nine pick.
Dante Pettis, obviously, no.
But I thought to myself, who are those guys this season?
Who are the guys that are going to be taken to this range
that have the chance to be number one receivers on their team?
And Henry Ruggs came to mind.
Crowder.
The Jets guy.
Yes, whichever Jets guy you choose.
Darius Slayton came to mind.
Thoughts on this sort of comparison?
Debo was a little too late for him, but...
Well, yeah, all the Giants, right?
I could see Sterling Shepard going a little bit higher in full PPR.
But if you get him in round nine, sure.
Yeah.
I mean, I always look at
which giant would you take first
in PPR Shepard
does Preston
Williams count
why would you think he's going to be the number one receiver
because before he got hurt
last year he led the team in targets catches
and yards and now he's coming
off a serious injury and Devante
Parker just went nuts.
But you know what?
Maybe if Tua transitions,
maybe, I don't know.
I mean, yeah, to be fair,
most of Williams' numbers
came with Rosen.
Could Jalen Rager go here
and be considered
a number one receiver?
Very good one.
Yep.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think round eight
and round nine
are the perfect times
to start taking,
you know, high upside shots.
Part of the pre-draft process everybody should have is finding guys that you know won't go in the first 70 picks who you want to have on your team.
And even if it's guys that we say they've got an ADP of round 10, wait till round 10.
If you really want them, take them at this point. I always
like to say that if you can hit on one player
from round 7 on,
it's going to help your team so
much. That's all you have to do.
One. One of your last
six picks.
Your roster at the end of the year is going to look so
different than the one you drafted.
The waiver wire is going to be huge.
If you go to round 10, look at just how different the fate of you drafted. The waiver wire is going to be huge. And if you go to round 10, I mean, look at just how different,
just the fate of fantasy football.
The first two picks of round 10, the guy who won the league,
Jack Capitordo, took Lamar Jackson.
And the next pick was Cam Newton.
And wouldn't all of us have taken Cam Newton over Lamar Jackson a year ago?
I know I would have.
No.
No?
Well, that's when Heath and I were fighting
to see who was going to have the ranked higher.
Oh, God.
Well, I certainly would have been wrong there.
But obviously, George couldn't have taken Lamar Jackson.
He went one pick ahead.
But Lamar Jackson and Cam Newton,
and it's just, that's how it works out.
This is a solid round, though.
You get Lamar Jackson, Jameson Crowder,
Michael Gallup, Kiki Cutie, Devin Singletary,
Dante Moncrief, Matt Ryan,
Damian Harris, Jordan Howard,
Kalen Balazs, and Jared Goff.
I mean, solid round for round 10.
Another lesson is draft Jordan Howard.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Maybe.
And Crowder, too. Crowder falls into that, too.
Yep. Well, Heath, you. Crowder falls into that, too. Yep.
Well, Heath, you took Devin Singletary,
who was, I guess, a less ballyhooed rookie running back.
Is there a rookie running back that could go really late
that doesn't have a lot of buzz
that could end up being one of the better ones?
What?
Zach Moss.
Oh, yeah.
Does that count?
I give you two. Josh Kelly and Darringrenson evans and i think um like i
think a lot of gipson aj a.j dylan will be there in round 10 of some drafts for sure yep yep yeah
i didn't do round 11 and beyond i just said the best late round picks were courtland sutton
dave took to sean jackson and he had a huge week one and
then wasn't healthy rest of year. A lot of quarterbacks, obviously, Jameis Winston.
You had Marquise Brown. He wasn't really a great pick. Austin Hooper was great. Russell Wilson was
great. Drew Brees. DK Metcalf was top about 30th overall. Kyler Murray, Debo Samuel, Darren Waller,
Mark Andrews. Both of those guys were taken in
round 13. DJ Chark was a great late round pick. Dak Prescott, Carlos Hyde, and the Patriots DST.
So yeah, I made this point last week, but a lot of good quarterbacks and tight ends go in this range.
And maybe worth taking some backups there. There were some good young receivers,
Cortland Sutton.
Or starters.
DJ Chark.
Yeah, or starters.
All right.
Any final thoughts?
I just want to hammer that point home
that quarterback is real deep
and there are a lot of talented young quarterbacks
who they don't exactly fit the mold of Lamar Jackson,
but they run.
They're going to give you some
rushing numbers on top of what they do through the air. Heath's guy, Garner Minshew qualifies.
Drew Locke qualifies. Tyrod Taylor isn't a young guy, but we expect him to run. He's got great
targets. He would qualify. I think that this is a good year to either wait on quarterback and draft
two or draft two anyway, and hope that you hit with one of those
young guys as this year's lamar jackson where you're drafting them in the double digit rounds
and they end up being a top five fantasy quarterback i think you could certainly go
for that with two quarterbacks this year i know it's not it's kind of like a faux pas to draft
two quarterbacks in fantasy but i think it's worth taking the chance no i just I just want to add one thing because I think you're right in one regard.
But I think the one thing is know your league.
Because if nobody takes second quarterbacks, don't waste the pick.
Just kind of play it, waivers early in the season.
But if everybody's taking two, then you want to take two.
All right, guys.
Let's read some emails.
Fantasyfootball at cbsi.com.
This is from Josh.
Rookie Dynasty. I sent pick 205, 2.5, for Hunter Henry.
I have Hawkinson, Uzama, and Nick Vanette since I let Gronk be.
What?
Winner.
Winner?
Big time.
Big time.
You'd rather have Hunter Henry than the player who went?
2.05?
Absolutely. Well, it was Brandon Ayuk player who went? 2.05? Absolutely.
Well, it was Brandon Ayuk.
Great. Great trade.
Really? For a first-round pick rookie wide receiver?
Yes. Yes.
I have Ayuk higher than 2.5,
but I think I still have him below Henry.
That was a pretty good pick, by the way, Brandon Ayuk at 2.05.
I think the thing we see more and more is still have him below Henry. That was a pretty good pick, by the way, Brandon Ayuk at 2.05.
I think the thing we see more and more is after round one of a rookie-only draft,
it's such a gamble.
You may hit on A.J. Brown and Terry McCorn,
guys that were in the second round
or later last year,
but go back the year before.
Andy Isabella, for example,
was somebody that was getting a lot of buzz.
Akeem Butler, a lot of buzz just for their landing spots.
We may see it from Deontay Johnson, who was a second-round pick,
but still has to prove himself.
It's just rare.
These guys go in their first few picks for a reason.
If you can get a proven commodity, especially, I don't know if this is a win now team, which I'm assuming it is, you know, you have to make those type of gambles.
This email comes from Clinton Miller.
I'm trying to come up with a way to make Dynasties more interesting and inclusive.
I wanted to give a dollar amount to the different rounds, and of course, every manager would have a salary cap.
The prices would fluctuate with the ADP.
The rookie picks would stay constant for two years before changing. You're so close, Clinton.
I like the salary cap deal. I thoughts would be great. You're so close, Clinton. I like the salary cap deal. I like
the increasing prices. I like holding
it steady for rookie
picks for two years. You don't
need to assign a dollar
amount to ADP. You just need to have an auction.
Right,
but he's already got his dynasty
rosters filled.
Do you just let go of the entire,
you know,
talent pool and do an auction starting from scratch?
Like,
I think,
I think he's got to do a salary cap because then,
you know,
when you're trading players,
you're trying to make things fit under the cap.
Yeah.
But I would do it based off of the independent IDP source,
whether it's ours or somebody else's,
you don't have your league assign what each player
is worth.
I just start
over.
Or you just don't do this idea.
But if you're starting a dynasty league
and you want to have a salary cap type of a
format, do an auction.
You should do auctions anyway. They're better than
any draft process.
This is from Rusty.
Darrington Evans was picked at pick 3.6,
and I was trying to trade for that owner's pick,
but he didn't want to trade.
After he made the pick, I told him that was who I wanted to draft.
He tells me that he will trade Darrington Evans away
for my second round rookie pick next year.
I hear next year's draft is going to be weaker.
I don't think you're right.
Do you think I should make the trade
or wait until next year to see if he'll be willing to give
him up for cheaper?
He could be
a dud next year or he could be
an absolute star.
If you think you're going to be a competitive team and you're going to
have a pick at the back end of the second round, I'd make that trade.
If you think your
team is going to stink, then
you're going to have a pick in the early part of the second round which again could be very good or it could be a another guy that
you're just you know reaching for but i would probably take that gamble i would because henry
is on the franchise tag um you know they they could conceivably extend i was reading this this
morning they could conceivably extend him for the next two years under the franchise tag,
and he'd be getting paid essentially what Zeke is getting paid now,
which is what he asked for on a year-to-year basis.
So if that's what he wants, and they decide to do that,
but for, what is he, 27, right?
Or is he younger than that, 25?
Get a little Henry.
But we know bigger backs coming off heavy workloads.
It's not going to be.
History tells us it could be bad.
So I would make that deal.
I mean, this just sounds like a player you wanted to have really bad.
If before the pick was made, he said, give me your second next year for my third this year,
you probably would have said yes so that you could take Evans.
And now if you make the trade, you have a whole season to try and trade somebody off your roster for a second round pick next year
in your rookie draft if you like evans that much make the deal evans was a third round pick
in the nfl draft which is pretty good that's a good range for running backs you get a lot of
good ones in the third round from just a good one-cut runner he he could fit into that offense
decently if uh if given an opportunity just Justin says, I acquired Michael Thomas in a trade involving my 1.2,
but I'm very upset at not having a pick to acquire Dobbins or Swift
as I am out of picks in the first two rounds.
So how much is too much in giving up to acquire one of these picks?
I have four top 24 wide receivers on
my team and michael gallup is my fifth but i lack depth at running back is tyler lockett and a 2021
first round pick too much for picks for a pick in the 1.3 to 1.6 range if you were getting third
fourth fifth or sixth in the first round would you you give up Tyler Lockett and a 2021 first?
I'd rather have the Lockett side.
If you're...
See, that's the thing, though.
If somebody were to tell you right now, you'd be
trading Tyler Lockett and a first
in 2021 for, let's
say, it's what Miles Sanders
becomes. Oh, I see what you're saying.
Well... Yeah, that would suck.
No, but you would take that though, right?
Yeah, sure.
So that's the game you got to play.
So it's like Lockett's probably going to start to regress.
I don't think he's going to continue to build just the type of receiver that he is.
These are probably his ceiling numbers that we're seeing.
I don't think he's going to ever break through where he is right now.
Disagree with me if you want to, but for me, I think this is his ceiling.
Whereas if you're able to hit on the next potential star running back,
that's worth it.
Yeah, I'd take the Lockett side.
I'd probably, if I'm trading Lockett in the first,
I'd want another pick back in return, like a second.
So like one point something this year and a second next year.
It's really hard.
I wonder how common it is to get like a franchise fantasy running back
after the sixth pick of the first round.
Because you don't know where your pick's going to be next year.
And if you're guaranteed a top six pick this year,
you know, if you end up with 110 next year,
you don't have a great chance of getting a stud running back,
in my opinion.
Am I crazy?
No, you're not crazy.
Most of the studs are going to go in the top six, top seven, eight picks.
Okay, Anthony from the Bronx, our last email here.
Hey, CD, Jerry, Denzel, and Brandon.
Wide receivers.
Yeah, rookies.
Rookie wide receivers.
In a regular PPR 1QB league with $210 as the budget,
I am keeping Lamar Jackson and Austin Eckler for $1.
I can keep three.
So here are my options for my
third pick.
DeAndre Hopkins for $31.
Darren Waller for $4. Aaron Jones
for $6. I can keep all three
of them for up to four seasons.
So you can spend $8
and have your starting quarterback
and running backs locked up.
Yeah.
It's got to be Jones, right?
Do it.
Yeah.
Do it.
Yeah.
I mean, the problem with Waller is his age.
All right, Anthony.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Okay.
That's it.
That's a great show.
Thank you, guys.
Much appreciated.
Next time you hear from us,
we'll be talking about crappy running backs
who get a lot of carries.
Some of them aren't so crappy.
So can't wait for that discussion on tomorrow's episode of Fantasy Football Today.
Don't forget to check out our Twitch event Tuesday night, 7 p.m. Eastern.
Twitch.com slash FFToday.
For Dave, for Jamie, for Heath, I'm Adam.
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