Fantasy Football Today - Lessons Learned From a 2021 Draft (06/06 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

Looking back at our 2021 Fantasy Football Today draft, what can we learn and apply to 2022? Dan Schneier says "avoid the running back dead zone" but Adam and Jamey see things a little differently (1:50). And let's fill you in on some news and notes (10:00) with a Deshaun Watson update, a James Robinson update, a Jarvis Landry item and a long talk about the Vikings offense ... More lessons from the FFT draft (3-WRs, PPR)! Don't overdraft tight ends who may not be special talents (25:00). Don't overreact to preseason injuries (30:30) and beware of the RB/RB start to your draft (31:30) ... What can we learn from the Jerry Jeudy hype of 2021 (35:00)? And what lessons can we learn from the awesome seasons from Leonard Fournette and James Conner (36:30)? We also preview what the 2022 RB Dead Zone will look like (45:15) ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." 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

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for?

Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this? It's a no-win game. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races, and he stays on his feet.

He's just going to go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. What can we learn from last year? For me, maybe don't go RB, RB, wide receiver, bad wide receiver at that, RB in a three-receiver PPR league. And if we look at the winner from last year, we should definitely draft Devante Adams, Cooper Cup, and Debo Samuel. That was a winning strategy in our Fantasy Football Today League. Don't mention his name, though.

Do not mention his name. Well, I did mention it, but you talked over it, so maybe people didn't hear. Don't. We not give that man credit. We'll call him. I'm with Jamie. He never deserves credit.

We'll call him. Until he shows up on time for one thing. Yeah. We'll call him Bill Winson. We'll just use it. Technically, his name is Bill. Bill Winson. Yeah, it is, I guess.

All right. Anyway. Congrats, Will. You, just use it. His name is Bill. Bill. Yeah, it is, I guess. All right. Anyway, well, you're the greatest ever. He had an incredible team and an incredible year with with terrible picks in rounds five and six, which is another thing you learn right off the bat. You go look at some or some draft results from last year. A lot of bad picks. It's OK. It's not over on draft day.

It's not even close to over on draft day. I'm Adam Aza. You heard Jamie Eisenberg. The other guy you heard, Dan Schneier. What's up, Dan? Happy to be back here, Adam. Happy to have you. Dan's filling in today.

And he actually wasn't cool enough to be invited to the Fantasy Football Today League last year. He's hoping for an invite this year, JB. I'm still bitter about that. By the way, Dan, when you looked, I sent you the draft results. When you looked at it,

give me a lesson learned from last year that we might be able to apply to 2022. A lot of things stand out, but the first one I want to touch on because it's been such a big topic and big talking point already in drafts. This preseason is you hear a lot of, wow, I kind of like the running back dead zone this year, right? Like I I'm hearing a lot of people like, I really like what I'm getting at running back in rounds three through five,

but I'm here to tell you the dead zone is alive and well, don't fall into that trap. They're going to look good now, but they're not going to look good on your roster two months into the season. And we look at this draft and this was a hell of an ugly dead zone. I mean, we've got miles Sanders, miles, miles Gaskin, Gus Edwards. That's an injury situation, but even so there, I mean, looking at a lot of these before you go there, what round are you talking about where it starts around four? I'm starting around three, even here, I think, or no, I'm sorry.

I'm starting around four in this one. Correct. Yeah. So I should have said rounds four through six because in round three, it was a little – well, actually, in round three is when you got James Robinson, which, again, I don't want to totally call a bust just because there was an injury situation there. No, he was great. So it's like, yeah, he was great when healthy, but obviously that's – so we can call that no bust.

He scored a lot of points. But in Clyde Edwards' lair, that's a trap that a lot of us fell into. But if you look starting in rounds four and then going through four through six, that's when it starts to get really dicey at the position. I mean, even you mentioned will the winner of this league, Adam,

well, two of his worst picks in this draft were in that running back dead zone in rounds five and six, right? He took Mike Davis, but, but, but you,

you, you're talking about all these running backs and you started with miles Sanders, miles gas, and you did leave Miles Sanders and Miles Gasson. You did leave out the one who went right before them. I did leave out DeAndre Swift, because there's always going to be one hit in the running back dead zone. There are more than one.

Josh Jacobs and Damian Harris were fine. Josh Jacobs was a volume. All right, I guess you're right. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. What you're giving up, though, when you're taking. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. What you're giving up, though, when you're taking a player like that, you're giving up T. Higgins, who goes a few picks later. You're giving up the upside of an actual impact wide receiver there.

It's a tough conversation to have because you're not wrong. In a vacuum, here are the wide receivers. You got Cooper Cup, Julio Jones, Mike Evans, Tyler Lockett, Deontay Johnson. There were some... Shan, you're going to have to... You don't have headphones, huh? Because I can hear me on your speakers again. If you can maybe lower me.

That will be fixed for the next one. Okay, thank you. You do have, you know, and you have like Lamar... I don't know. You do have a lot of wide receiver busts here too. I kind of, I kind of think Jamie, you might be with me.

I kind of resent this idea that the running back dead zone is so bad because it, it sort of ignores that there are players picked at other positions that were bad as well. And I think we're a little hard on the running backs in the running back dead zone. Sometimes there are some, there are some success stories here. I think, I think we should, well,

first we need to put this in context. It's the three receiver PPR league. I think you might've said that already, but we did this draft right before the start of the season. This is usually the last draft that we do. You know, there's going to be some names that we mentioned that, you know, some, some unfortunate injuries, one in particular, you know, in this range is Gus Edwards.

You know, we draft, you drafted him Adam right before he got hurt. You know, so, you know, some certain things, you know, we draft you drafted him Adam right before he got hurt. You know, so, you know, some certain things, you know, happen. But I think that, you know, this isn't a really strong argument against the dead zone. Yeah, I don't think like like I think it's about identifying which guys are going to be. Is there a lesson to learn? Don't take Miles Gaskin, Mike Davis. I mean, is there something that separates... When you're chasing the pure volume guys like Gaskin and Davis...

It's also chasing the one-hit wonders that you can see the pitfall. Right. You know, so it's kind of those situations. Well, there's a few hits in here. Would you say, Jamie, that there's more... Wouldn't you say there's more hits at the wide receiver position? I mean, you're getting big-time hits like Higgins, DeJohnson, Cup. You mentioned one.

In terms of Josh Jacobs versus T. Higgins, Jacobs was a better fantasy player than T. Higgins was last year. Now, there may have been more highs for T. Higgins. I don't know in terms of how the season broke down, but just in terms of total points, and even points per game, it was close. But in total points, Jacobs was better. So for what you're getting at that position

versus what you're getting at Higgins, and again, you could play it out. What the Josh Jacobs manager did with his receiving core, and the T. Higgins manager did with their running back core. That's, I think, how you balance your team, but in any event, you know,

getting Josh Jacobs in, in round five in this league, I think was pretty good. Here's another question to spin on this. Are we dead zone here? I, and I understand that if I'm looking at round five ish, I'd rather have a wide receiver there than a running back in a vacuum.

But if I already have three with my first four picks, what do do do i go do i go quarterback i mean do i just ignore a running back you know it's i don't see why you can't keep going wide receiver you're still trying to win the flex the until you fill out all the starting positions and even after that i'm still skeptical but i never believe that you have to kind of fill this thing granular like you got to get your running backs you got to get your receivers you got to get your quarterbacks you're trying to score the most points here and you're trying to get the best chance of breakouts because like even if you look at it like I agree with you Jamie you're right in a vacuum Jacobs and and Higgins were comparative even on points per game basis where Higgins did beat him out

but then you look at the round before that that's where you really have the chance at the league winning picks like the Cooper Cups and theontay Johnson's. I'm just not seeing that at the running back position there, even with a guy like Deandre Swift, who had a great year. And you're not really seeing like, when's the last time we've had a league winning running back pick in that range? I can probably tell you that. Um, right. Yeah. I mean, eventually you get to, to well that's the other lesson to go when you go down to the four nets and the james connors which is like invest in good offenses at the end of the draft second running backs and good offenses both those guys hit in similar profile like you know

they were counted out in their offense chase edmunds was supposed to expect to be the starter there obviously and then obviously ronald jones there was some hype around there but i feel like that's when you get deeper into the draft. When you're talking about these players like Swift and these players who are going Sanders, Gaskin, these players going around three and four at running back, I'm not seeing the league winning potential that I see with a guy like cup or Deontay Johnson or some of these other players going off at that position. Okay. Jamie, any lesson that you want to talk about from last year's FFT draft? Bring it to me. I mean, in general, I think, you know, Dan hit on a good one in terms of, you know,

getting good players from good offenses if you're going to take some swings at that position. I know for me, you know, and this is probably just a very small sample size because I do so many leagues. But like I this was our last draft and I was taking players that I just really didn't have a lot of exposure to. And that was a huge mistake by my part. You know, like Dan mentioned, you know, Clyde, it was like, I don't think I had drafted Clyde at that point. So I was like, I'm gonna reach from a little bit. I reached for Kyle Pitts at that point, you know, which wasn't around four. I was just taking players that I didn't have a lot of don't do that because it

was not a very good draft. I was able to manage my way into the playoffs, but it was just a very, very ugly team. I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about our teams. But yeah, that was the biggest lesson I learned looking back on this. Yeah, that's an interesting thing to do. I don't know if you care about,

I don't want to have too much exposure to any particular players or anything like that. I think that's maybe what you were getting at there. But all right, it didn't work out and you did get the four seat, I believe. So even though you didn't have a great start to your draft, you still were able to cobble together a good team. All right, we got to talk about some news and notes here and we'll get back to the draft in a little bit. I want to remind everybody we have live streams on YouTube, Tuesday afternoon live streams are going to be typically at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The best way to learn about these is to subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday, youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday. And please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts as well with your fantasy question after a nice little comment. We'd appreciate that. Injuries, news, and notes. Deshaun Watson's attorney, Rusty Hardin,

said there's a good possibility that the NFL will make a decision that Watson will not like. So I don't think that'll be a huge surprise, Dan, but what are you bracing for with Deshaun Watson and how would that affect the rest of the Browns? Yeah, it's hard to really put a prediction on this type of news,

but I think we could be looking at an eight-game suspension. It just seems to be what I've been reading about. And if he is out for eight games, it's going to change the way that Browns offense looks. First of all, we don't expect Baker Mayfield to start here, so maybe we'll get something like Jacoby Percet. But honestly, if he's not starting, I'm going to downgrade the entire offense.

You could still expect that Kevin Stefanski run game with that offensive line to produce for players like Chubb and Hunt. But overall, you got to downgrade everyone there, especially Amari Cooper. Hopefully we can find out pretty soon what's going on. Colts head coach Frank Reich said they are definitely pushing rookie wide receiver Alec Pierce to compete to start. Jamie, do you think Alec Pierce should be drafted in a, let's say, 15-round draft, 12 teams? If you have... Yeah, he's in the conversation.

I think if you start to look at dart throws, because this receiving core clearly is Michael Pittman and then a bunch of question marks. If you are looking to get just somebody who has a chance to probably be in the 100 target range um you know we'll see if they bring back ty hilton there's

still some conversation about that but you know when you're talking about paris campbell and alec pierce and the guys that they have on the roster right now it's just pierce has the best shot i think to a stay healthy and b be productive you know i was fond of him coming into the nfl draft process you know so he's somebody that I will definitely be taking a flyer on if I need another wide receiver, you know, fifth wide receiver type of player. But he also could be somebody that you want to, if he goes undrafted, you know, keep an eye on for early in the season waiver wire ads. James Robinson has resumed running as he's recovering from the Achilles injury.

Jamie, if Robinson is ready for week one, not saying he will be, if he's ready for week one, which Jaguars running back do you draft first? Still ETN. You know, you got to take a cautious approach with Robinson. You know, we got so lucky to whatever extent you got out of Cam Akers, you know, for anybody playing in playoff leagues or, you know, for postseason fantasy football, DFS, et cetera. You know, so I don't think you can expect Robinson to be back

and getting that type of work because, look, Travis Etienne is a first-round talent. They didn't have the luxury of having somebody that they trusted to that same extent. I think Sonny Michel, who knows where they were at in terms of the Rams, I'm sure the Jaguars want to be cautious with James Robinson to make sure it's 100%. Different part of the season.

Yeah. Okay, we got Jarvis Landry. According to New Orleans.football, I didn't know you could do that. Can I make my email? Can I make an AdamAzer.football email address? Does that work? I don't know.

Sure. Jarvis Landry is dominating at OTAs. What do you make of that? I mean, you know, whenever we get reports like this, you got to look at the scenario. And so you have no Michael Thomas, so he's not there. And then you have a rookie in Chris Olave, who by all accounts is having a good offseason as well,

you know, with OTAs. But Jarvis Landry is a veteran. You know, I mean, he's going to, you show him a playbook, it's not going to take him long to know what he's doing. You know, whereas a rookie coming in is going to be like, you know, learning a different language. So I'd be surprised if Jarvis Landry was lost. I'd be surprised if the reports weren't positive.

You know, I mean, he's a guy that's been in several systems at this point and, you know, should be able to handle things. I apologize if you hear the coughing in the background. My son is a little sick. Yeah, I apologize if you hear Bluey in the background. My son is a little sick. I apologize if you hear Bluey in the background. My son is a little addicted to Bluey. Headphones. The headphones are broken.

You guys watch Bluey? You watch Bluey? No. It's really good. It's really good. My four-year-old right now is playing NBA 2K on his cell phone. What are you playing? Or a baseball game he's addicted to baseball game um and he has uh cars on his uh ipad so he's he's double technology great parenting over here i love it man all right like i love the screen time uh justin jefferson said minnesota's offense is moving to a new generation, basically,

as well. And that's what you've been excited about with Kirk Cousins. So I just we know we know things are going to look a little bit different there. The Bucks are optimistic that Rob Gronkowski will resign before training camp. And Zach Wilson is reportedly struggling with accuracy in camp. So does that matter to you? Because Zach Wilson's a pretty important player for other players.

You know, we need him to be good. Maybe he could be a good fantasy option. Can't rule it out. But obviously there are a lot of interesting guys on the Jets. So what do you make of that? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's going to be frustrating

if you invest in Garrett Wilson and Elijah Moore and obviously Brees Hall or Michael Carter, you know, and Corey Davis. You know, like you said, there's a lot of names there. So hopefully he gets everything straightened out. I'm cautiously optimistic because I do think that he'll be better in his second year, but accuracy issues in the offseason are not good. Great question here from Patrick. Will Jamie's kids be in the offseason are not good. Great question here from Patrick.

Will Jamie's kids be in the podcast league? I mean, if they're not, I'll make room for them. We're out of spots already. Schneier's back. Hey, Dan. Can you hear me, Dan? You got to be kidding me. Terrible about this.

If it's not Dave, then it's Dan. Dan, can you hear me? Your name starts with a D. I can hear you. can you hear me? Your name starts with a D. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you, but,

uh, that's not working great here. Dan, you wanted to say something about Justin Jefferson, I believe. So I have a little bit of a contrarian take that I want to get both of your thoughts on. So we hear about this Jefferson,

all of the talk about the Vikings offense is things are going to be great. We're moving to a new direction. We're taking our offense to the next level, but I'm a little concerned with this offense in general, specifically with the run game with Dalvin cook, because they found so much success with Kubiak last year in a zone based run blocking system that we know has had success with a lot of different offenses over the years through his dad,

Gary Kubiak, but a lot of success with the Texans. And then it's really a Shanahan based run, run game, his own blocking game. Now we move forward with this, you know, Sean McVay disciple. And we saw something similar happen last year with Shane Waldron in Seattle, where we thought that offense was going to go to the next level and be taken to the next level. And I'm almost concerned with how this will impact both cook and Justin Jefferson, because the Kubiak offense, while I agree with him, what he's saying, it was very old school. It was based, you know, old school principles, very old school cadence, things of that nature, but it did run through

the X and the Z, the two number one and number two receivers on the outside. And then the running back in the zone run, run game. And I'm not so sure this is definitely going to be an upgrade that they're going to throw a lot of new things at him we've already seen some of these sean mcveigh disciples not have as much success as the others and so i'm almost a little bit more concerned with how this often is going to impact alvin cook because both cooks james cook and dalvin cook are perfect fits for the zone blocking run scheme and i know they're going to do a lot of that with uh o'connell now in this offense but it's not going to be the exact same offense and so i'm not so sure that this offense from a schematic standpoint is going, is going to take some,

is not going to take some time to kind of hit the ground running and it's not, I'm not so sure it's going to run through the same players that ran through last year at such a high volume. Uh, well, I, I do think it's going to run through the same players because they, you know, I, I think the one thing that that's a huge plus is that O'Connell and cousins have a track record together. They're with each other in Washington.

So the terminology may be a little similar, which should help Cousins, which I think if the quarterback has everything under his fingertips, that's going to help everybody else. I think the biggest thing, though, is it's not necessarily comparing O'Connell to Kubiak. It's more comparing O'Connell to Kubiak. It's more comparing O'Connell to Zimmer and the philosophy of I'm going to be conservative. If there's an obvious run situation, we're running. If there's maybe an obvious passing situation, we're still running, you know, because he's just so afraid of his own shadow. And it felt like a little bit in terms of letting your cousin make plays insert cousins joke here. Uh, here uh so you know we'll find out

um i i do think that would just be a little bit more of uh welcome to 2022 for the vikings where you know i don't know what their run pass ratio has been right i want to point this out they've had last four years with cousins and zimmer and that's off the top of my head they've had two years where they've been almost at the bottom of pass attempts, around 30th. Maybe one year where they were dead last. One year, I believe they were fourth or something like that in pass attempts. They had a high,

that was three years ago maybe. And last year, I think they were 11th. So I don't know that they're actually going to throw more. But Dave pointed out why he likes Adam Thielen because he can really rely on the touchdowns with Thielen more than most players because there's such a track record of Cousins throwing the ball to Thielen because he can really rely on the touchdowns with Thielen more than most players

because there's such a track record of Cousins throwing the ball to Thielen in the end zone or inside the 10-yard line. Another thing he pointed out was when they got inside the 10-yard line, they ran so much. It's not necessarily, and it's kind of what Jamie's alluding to, it's not necessarily about the raw numbers. It's about the philosophy. They ran the ball so much near the end zone. Dave is making a a case for feeling that they're going to, they could start throwing the ball more near the end zone. And then you could get even more green zone red end zone targets for feeling. So it might be that, you know, maybe you won't see more pass attempts,

but kind of like with Russell Wilson, let him throw on first down more. You know, when they, when they did for eight games, decide to let him cook or whatever. So it could just be philosophy and not necessarily know, when they did for eight games decide to let him cook or whatever. So it could just be philosophy and not necessarily throw more than they did last year because they did throw a lot. Just to tie in Thielen a little bit, Thielen definitely has a big opportunity.

First, he's got to stay healthy. That's the biggest thing because when he's healthy, he's great. But I think we're going to see a little bit more three-receiver sets. I think they'll line up a lot more trust in K.J. Osborne because of what he showed last year. I also think the presence of Irv Smith is going to probably hurt Adam Thielen and his touchdown potential, because that's such a strong player in, in the red zone, such a strong player that they can use that they didn't have last year.

I just want to think all that makes sense, but I think none of that quells my concern for Dalvin cook. I guess that's where I'll focus this. Now I'll take it a little bit off less. What's going to happen with Jefferson in that passing game, but more with Dalvin Cook because he's going away from his bread and butter run game, that outside zone scheme. That was just perfect fit for his skillset. And like you mentioned, Adam, there's going to be less red zone opportunities there. I know he's supposed to get an uptick in receiving volume.

We didn't necessarily see that play out with, again, Shane Waldron in Seattle when he came over there. I'm not that always, I feel like that always is a little more amped up in the preseason around this time. And it's not always definitely something that translates. So I guess that's where my concern lays more. I'm, I see a lot of people pumping up Dalvin cook because of the potential receiving volume upside, but I think it's going to, he's going to be hurt based on what you said in the red zone. And then overall in that run game. So a couple of things. One, I really can't comment on how a guy fits into scheme. And that's honestly one of the reasons why I like having you on the show. Different analysts at CBS focus on different things. Dan's really good at those types of

breakdowns. So I can't comment. I can say, though, that I was a little worried about Justin Herbert last year, because if you looked at the end of Justin Herbert's rookie season 2020 wasn't playing as well and if you looked at his air yards per pass attempt yep they were going down and he wasn't throwing the ball downfield as much and they bring in this new offensive coordinator who came from from the Saints and had one year as the coordinator of the Lions and Lombardi. And he had a terrible year with Matthew Stafford because he tried to change Matthew Stafford. And he tried to, Saints, you know, make him like Saint-sy. And I was really worried about Justin Herbert in that regard.

Like he's got, in his rookie season, didn't do as well when he was throwing short. Coordinators got this track record. This doesn't look, I wouldn't say I was really worried. That's actually not the truth. But I was a little bit worried about that and it ended up not mattering. So I can't really, for me, I can't really feel comfortable

getting into the whole zone versus man, that kind of stuff. I just, I like Dalvin Cook as the lead guy in this offense. One thing we don't know though is no matter how good Alexander Madison was, they would not use two backs.

Would this coaching staff be more willing to make it a 70-30 split on a more regular basis? Or 65-35, something like that. No idea. And we've seen that coaching tree use multiple backs in the past. So that's a big concern there, too. Also not use multiple backs in the past, so that's a big concern there too.

And also not use multiple backs in the past, right? When they have a guy, I mean, Gurley's clearly the best example of it. When Gurley was at his best, he was the best in football. And Daryl Henderson was a feature back, I'd say. Sonny Michel did not do that much before the Henderson injury. Well, I think Akers was when he came back too. Sure. But we're focusing more so on

mcveigh you know and so it's always different when you get uh disciples as dan said you know so you know shane waldron you know again it's it's hard to say a guy going to an established head coach a defensive-minded head coach you know p carol who's going to win those battles again conservative right you know not conservative all right so let's take a break here great point when we come back lessons learned from a 2021 fantasy draft by from bill winson after this on fantasy football today what does possible sound like for your business it's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. And the ability to reach further

with access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right, here we go. Lessons learned from last year's Fantasy Football Today draft. It was a 12-team, three-wide receiver, full PPR league with a flex.

So one quarterback, two running backs, three receivers, tight end, flex, kicker, DST. And as Jamie mentioned, it was one of the last drafts we did. So you're not going to see any J.K. Dobbins in there. I believe we did it Monday before the opener. Okay. And I love it. I mean, I love that draft. We've done so many at that point.

But this one's like, you know, all the guys we work with. Everybody who has the same sleepers, breakouts, and busts, you know everyone's tendencies and who they're going to draft. But I do love this league. Wow. Make me feel worse about not being invited out. Yeah, basically all the A-listers. The A-listers.

So, Dan, did you have any other lessons? I know you had a few that you wanted to talk about. Anything else you want to discuss from that draft? So a couple other things I was thinking about looking at this draft. I think this is going to happen every year now, just based on the scarcity of the position and how

we're always just so desperate to find some points there at tight end. There's going to be one guy that gets pushed up boards and you'll see it really at its peak at the end of the draft season, like right in this style, you know, this range of draft right before the season. That player last year was TJ Hawkinson, a player who really didn't have a track record of too much dynamicism from an athleticism standpoint. He didn't have a track record of too much of a receiving option, even dating back to Iowa. He was an okay receiver.

He's kind of a two-way tight end. And I worry that this year, I don't want to compare the two, but I worry that there's already an emerging player this year in that mold, and that would be Dalton Schultz, a player who I'm not going to be drafting much of, I don't think. Because I think there's a lot of an assumption that with Cooper gone, Schultz is going to take those vacated targets. But if you really look how that Kellen Moore offense works, and ever since they moved away from Jason Garrett there in Dallas,

it hasn't really operated through the tight end very often. And they're, they're replacing talent at the wide receiver position. It's not like they're not, they went and drafted a receiver this year who they're really high on and Jalen Tolbert, who a lot of people really like as well and thought if he played at a bigger school, he would have been an earlier draft pick. And they're bringing back talent at receiver too. Obviously, the thought right now is that Michael Gallup is doing well in his recovery and he'll be back sooner than expected. So I'm just worried about pushing up tight ends just to get a tight end. If you look at this draft, some of those tight ends that got pushed up at the end, TJ Hawkinson is the best example, but then you have Noah Fant and all these guys who you're

taking in a range where you could be taking swings at wide receiver. You could be taking swings at the AJ Dillons of the world. And so what round did Hawkinson, Logan Thomas went in this range? What round are we talking about here? Cause I, cause I love starts with Hawkinson. He was always the one who went above, above the rest and Hawkinson goes off the board around five. And then you start to see the, the fans and the, um, Logan Thomas's in round six and seven. Okay.

Cause I love Dalton Schultz right now. He's, he's one of my favorite draft guys. He's going in round seven. And I will say this about Hawkinson. He was on pace for 119 targets. So I don't really have a ton of regrets. It's obvious to me that he's not quite, I mean, in my, in your opinion, in my opinion, 119 targets. So I don't really have a ton of regrets.

It's obvious to me that he's not quite, I mean, in your opinion, in my opinion, not quite good enough. And you knew it last year. I think I realized it this year. Not quite good enough to be a star. But if he was on pace for 119 targets, I think he would have at least returned seventh round value, maybe fifth round.

I don't know about Schultz in the fifth round, but Schultz in the seventh round to me is great value because we do have a little bit of a track record with him. I mean, he was really good last year and he was good the year before when he got the opportunity and you could say they're replacing Amari

Cooper, but Jalen Tolbert is not replacing Amari. You know what I mean? He's not replacing Amari Cooper. I think you're right about round five, but I think if Dalton Schultz keeps going in round seven, I'm all over that. And I'm not so sure it will be Schultz,

but there will be a tight end who will be moving up into that round five range by the time this is all said and done, I think. I mean, it could be Goddard. It could be Hawkinson again. I don't know if there's anybody else in that range just because it's a clear top five barring injury right now. Gronk. How about Gronk? It could be Gronk.

It certainly could be. Probably more so in non-and-half PPR than full PPR. I think the thing about Hawkinson, which I was as guilty of this as anybody, was just looking at the lack of targets and the lack of players essentially for Detroit, you know, and hoping that he would take that next step forward. You know, like Dan said, there, there wasn't a huge track record of sustained success, but you can certainly see a path to success, which is the same reason why I like the Mount Rushmore Brown, which eventually, you know, materialized at the end of the season.

I think in terms of Schultz, first off, uh, Adam, you know, you missed the news on this one this morning that he, uh, is, uh, staying away from the team, um, despite signing his franchise tag. So he's upset about the contract following the David Najoku deal. So that's something we got to keep an eye on. Also, you missed the biggest news over the weekend is that the greatest quarterback ever retired. Um, and so, uh, I, I think just looking at Schultz, for example,

yes, the Kellen Moore offense probably is not going to feature him, but I think that goes back to the quarterback, though. The quarterback is going to feature him. Dak Prescott is very much, I think, in love with Dalton Schultz. I think that had to do with the reason they allowed the Amari Cooper trade to happen. Finance is clearly a big part of it, but they felt keeping schultz

was a little bit more of a priority anyway are you talking about ryan fitzpatrick by the way of course i talked about that i talked about that on uh sorry a little cameo there for my son uh i talked about that on friday so you know we we spent we did it on thursday i maybe friday morning but whatever it was yeah we did a on Thursday. I may be Friday morning, but whatever it was. Yeah. We did a whole 30 minute bonus podcast on Fitzpatrick, Jamie. I'm sorry. All right. So Dan, that's a good lesson to be learned. They're reaching.

Don't read for that tight end. Jamie, I just want to get this one out of the way real quick. I don't think we need to harp on it, but we're going to keep bringing it up. I'm sure there were some preseason things that led to some overreactions and led to DeAndre Swift being drafted in the fourth round, Jamar Chase going maybe in the eighth round. Jamar Chase was dropping the ball. DeAndre Swift had an injury. Jonathan Taylor dropped a little bit because Carson Wentz got hurt

and Quentin Nelson got hurt. So I think we're going to try to take advantage of these overreactions to preseason injuries. That's a big one for me. I mean, we talked about these though when they when they were happening you know it was you're going to get these players out of value and you just have to understand you know for you know it's obviously case by case uh taylor was the one that stood out the most though because you knew at some point wentz and nelson

will be back and so at what point they're back you feel pretty good about the situation for you know mostly for nelson but you, you feel pretty good about the situation for, you know, mostly for Nelson, but you know, you feel pretty good about the situation for Taylor, knowing that he's going to have the guys around him. And so, you know, it was first the instant overreaction of, oh my God, don't take him until round two. And then it was, he should be a first round pick. It doesn't matter where you take him in the first round. Uh, the other two were just silly mistakes on people that panic. Um, How about the teams that started RBRB? So Dave had the second pick, and he went Dalvin Cook, David Montgomery, and then Justin Jefferson in round three, and then he took Deontay Johnson in round four.

So not bad picks. He made the playoffs. He got the five seed. I started RBRB. I did not make the playoffs. I had Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, Robert Woods, and Gus Edwards as my first four picks. RJ

had picked nine. I had the eighth pick, by the way. Derek Henry fell to me, and I didn't anticipate having him, but I did. And then I was like, all right, let's take Barkley. It'll be fun. It wasn't fun. RJ had picked nine. He took Aaron Jones and Joe Mixon. That's a really good start. They missed the playoffs.

He had Patrick Mahomes in round three, Myles Gaskin in round four. Not really sure there are any takeaways there, but three teams did go RB, RB, and the highest finish was fifth. Well, RJ's a good one because his first receiver was who? I don't know. Let's take a look. He went Mahomes round three, Gaskin round four,

Hawkinson round five. So this is the Claypool claypool round six man that's i and then jacoby myers round seven i'll tell you a lesson i would never i don't think any of us would ever wait that long to take a wide receiver in this format three receiver ppr round six yeah Yeah. If he had gone, let's say he takes my homes around three. Cause you know, that's the range he was going. If he, he took miles Gaskin over Cooper cup,

you want to look back and punch yourself. That's Robert Woods over Cooper cup, you know? And I love that pick. I was so excited about it. Obviously one of the things you learn when you look back at a draft is that just a lot of things you can't predict, right? It makes things fun.

I got a lot more lessons here to talk about, but Jamie, anything you want to bring up? I haven't really gotten to you. You know, I mean, it's a lot of the same things we've been talking about. You know, it's a matter of don't panic with some of the preseason stuff. You know, like Dan said, as I said before, you want to attach yourself to good offenses. It's always a good thing when you're looking at some of these players late

um i think rj just proved another thing that i will always avoid you know we talk about this a lot and you know we might see a little bit more i think with people that go tight end early and still won't take quarterback if you take a quarterback and a tight end early in the first five take a quarterback and tight end the first five rounds you know you better make sure you're hitting on your other positions. So, yeah, and they're really, if you look at it a bit like closer, there really wasn't any value. It was almost the opposite for all these teams that went early at quarterback. It started off with my homes that went by a back-to-back with Josh Allen. Good job on Josh Allen.

George definitely got value on that, but really looking past that Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson coming up, I believe, all in round five. I mean, those are all regrettable picks that you're giving up. You're, you know, you're giving up the chance at a T Higgins, for example, there, or an Adam Thieler, whoever it may be, a receiver or a running back potentially, but most likely receiver. I mean, Jamar Chase went like seven picks later after these quarterbacks. What did you gain from them? I don't think any of those quarterbacks really outproduced some of these guys that hit late, like Jalen hurt the next two after that,

which were three rounds later where Jalen hurts or two rounds later, Jalen hurts and Justin Herbert. So I'm just not so sure in these one QB leagues, there's just any value to taking these quarterbacks in them after the big guys, you know, in that five, in that round five range. It's so much fun to look back and go, Justin Herbert, round eight. Yeah. How about like what happened here with Jerry Judy going ahead of T Higgins

in round five? It was a lot of Judy height last year around this time. It was Dave, but there was a lot of Jerry Judy height, especially on FFT. Dave was as big as Judy fan you'll find. Yeah. And it's always interesting when Dave does this, because then he goes the complete opposite direction whenever he gets burned by a guy.

So he's like very, very good. So now he won't draft them at all. I mean, look, it's it. And this is kind of, I think, you know, what we were, we were mentioning in terms of TJ Hawkinson, you know, what, what Dan's point was about not a proven track record. You know, sometimes when you look at these players and, you know, you can attach it to Amara St. Brown this year, you could attach it to, um, you know, Elijah Moore to an extent this year, you can attach it to, if you want to, to even somebody like, um, Hunter Renfro,

you know, who you could see, uh, uh, you know, who's been in the league a few years, but you could see, you know, the spike and why the spike happened and now why there could be some potential downfall. So you see the path to greatness for Jerry Judy even last year. And this isn't a knock on Dave taking him at this point last year. He was a little overexcited about Jerry Judy, but you can see why. But it's also going back to, okay, where's the scenario? Is there a good quarterback in play there? And you want to talk about maybe DK Metcalf

and Tyler Lockett this season, you know, where those guys are with their quarterbacks. You know, look at who's getting these guys the ball. We could say target volume is going to be big. It's a potential reason to, you know, get a little concerned about somebody like Deontay Johnson, for example, you know, somebody like that. So, you know, attaching your receivers,

especially early round picks, to guys that don't have good quarterbacks or don't have proven track records, you know, attaching your receivers, especially early round picks, to guys that don't have good quarterbacks or don't have proven track records, you know, unless you're pretty confident there's a breakout coming, these are the pitfalls. Is there a lesson to be learned from James Conner and Leonard Fournette? Conner went in round nine in this draft. Chase Edmonds went in round five. Leonard Fournette went in round 11. And Ronald Jones went in round eight. So both these guys were drafted significantly after the other backfield mate.

And they both finished as top 10 running backs. They had tremendous years. Injuries definitely played a role for Conner because he wouldn't have had that tremendous of it. He would have been good, but not amazing if Edmonds didn't miss basically six games. And then Fournette just won the job and just kept the job. And Giovanni Bernard didn't matter. It was really weird. I'm hesitant to say there's a lesson here and that, you know,

that this... Well, spin it forward. Spin it forward. So, you have... The first scenario that comes to mind for me is Javante Williams and Melvin Gordon. We are over the moon about Javante Williams and understandably so if he gets the lead role.

He's going to be a superstar. We saw it in that Chiefs game when he was involved in the passing game. You can see this offense getting significantly better with Russell Wilson. You certainly can see what he can do on the ground and the upside there. But it's a big but. It's a guy that's been proven that's not necessarily done yet in Melvin Gordon that they brought back for a reason. And so I keep closing the gap on those two. I'm certainly taking Javante Williams first.

Most likely I'm not getting Javante Williams because the more and more I look at it and where you have to take him, he's falling out of that range for me. But it's not just necessarily that team. It's Seattle potentially. You know, Ken Walker and Rashad Penny. It's the Jets, Brees Hall and Michael Carter.

It might be Arizona the reverse, you know, with Darrell Williams and James Conner. It might be Tampa Bay again, you know. What's the lesson, though? I mean, what's the, is it target running backs on good offenses? Is it this was just an injury situation? Like, I don't even know how to frame it. I think the lesson would be is that if you like a backfield

and you like to get a piece of that backfield and it's just a matter of cost. And so like, I love Aaron Jones set up. I mean, you know, I, I mentioned it with the bowl predictions, you know,

he could lead the team in, in receptions this year, but there's that other guy. That's a pretty good running back too. And you can get in probably three or four rounds later. And you know, if you want a piece of the Kansas city backfield, Dan mentioned,

you know, we, we fell victim once again, last year to Clyde Edwards, they brought in a guy that, that has a track record when healthy on a very good offense. If you want a piece of the Kansas City backfield, Dan mentioned, we fell victim once again last year to Clyde Edwards-Lear. They brought in a guy that has a track record when healthy on a very good offense. Now it might be the best opportunity he's ever had in Ronald Jones. Get him later. Get Melvin Gordon later.

I'm going to draft a lot of Alexander Madison. I love the Vikings offense, and that's going to be somebody that I look at. It's a matter of if you like backfields, you like offenses, you don't want to pay the cost of what the starter is going to have to, you know, cost you. Take that other guy a little bit later and just hope for the best. So for me, for me, it's, it's a focus on like, why, what did these backs have in common, Connor and a four net? And to me, the number one thing they had in common was they were on a high scoring offense. The number two thing they had in common, they were on an offense that actually was willing to run the ball a decent amount in the red zone to give them opportunities, specifically in Connor's case. But, you know, a lot of form that's value in the end of the year came from some increased

passing game work. But if you can find a back and it's going to be tougher this year, like I was looking through the guys this year, you mentioned some guys in the email and I was thinking like, who fits this mold, right? Like on a really good offense and has a really good chance to be the pure red zone guy. Because if you look at it like Edmonds the year before, it was a little bit unpredictable because Edmonds actually was pretty efficient in the red zone the year before in 2020 and was used a decent amount there too. So it's a little bit hard to predict that, but you had the track record with Connor being

used in kind of a three down role in Pittsburgh as well as in the passing game. So if you can find these backs that are on really good offenses being drafted second in their backfield and have a good chance to have that red zone role, I think those are the guys you want to target in these later rounds because they have so much more scoring upside than, you know, even, even the volume guys that go early, like the Mike Davis's of the world and the miles Gaskins on these bad teams. Yeah. They have a lot of, they have a path to volume. They're projected to have all this volume. But the volume can change really fast. But the actual offense, I feel like, are easier to predict before the year

than maybe the volume. I do want to say I was pretty much out on Myles Gaskin last year, but I don't think it's crazy that people were in on him. Because if you go back to 2020, Myles Gaskin was very good for fantasy. He really was.

We keep crapping all over him, but he was great. Mike Davis was too for a while. I was totally out on him because I think a lot of people kind of read the tea leaves there. Guy was getting old. He had finished really poorly. Atlanta didn't look great, but whatever.

I don't know. I'm sure what the lesson is for Miles Gaskin. I think in both cases of Gaskin and Davis, though, Adam, they were both guys that in some ways didn't have the draft capital, didn't have the track record, came out of nowhere and had a small sample size of production. Yep. That's absolutely right. And they didn't exactly like, you know, tear it up.

Both Fournette and Connor had a little opposite, you know, on not only those, those big seasons with Pittsburgh, but had decent draft capital. And for net had really good draft capital and really good early career with Jacksonville. Well, let's also not forget though, the, the situations. I mean, there's a reason why for net was going behind Jones because everything coming out of Tampa Bay was Jones is going to be their leading rusher or give the opportunity to be their leading rusher. Giovanni Bernard was brought in and we know what that was to Tom Brady in terms of that type of player and fournette was going to kind of be

the swing guy and it turned out that fournette was just the best player for both roles and it worked out connor was he's going to supplement or compliment chase edmunds and edmunds didn't get the touchdowns and then edmunds got hurt and connor was a superstar youner was a superstar. And I just want to go back to what I said before. The flip side of that is when you want to get those pieces of those backfields, don't overlook the stars going in, the top tier guys. But again, it's just a matter of what you want to spend. And so like how Dan was saying, taking some of these premier receivers, if you're going to go that route, that's when you start to take swings

of defenses at those other positions, and that's when you start to take those running backs. I other positions, and that's when you start to take those running backs. I'm looking at Brinson's team. Bill Winston's team. So his final roster was pretty close to... I just want to see what he drafted.

You know who he played in the finals by any chance? Because if he played George, that would be a cool twist. No, he played George, that would be a cool twist. No, he played Marone. Anyway, his final roster was Aaron Rodgers, drafted. Najee Harris, his second-round pick. Cooper Cup, CeeDee Lamb, Devontae Adams, Debo Samuel,

drafted all of them. His RB2 was Devin Singletary, who was drafted by George, and George ended up being the two seed. So I thought it would have been a little cruel if he had drafted, if George had drafted Devin Singletary and then lost to Devin Singletary in the finals. And then Dawson Knox was his tight end in the championship game. So that's really impressive. One of the funny stories about this league was uh i believe will only lost one game yeah

double check that almost positive on that yeah he lost to pete priscoe who is terrible at fantasy and in the week that he lost to pete um he was losing like at some part of the day sunday but will's team was just a juggernaut and And so Pete would various times during the season not change his lineup to put in guys that were even, you know, like if a guy was questionable, he wasn't really bothering because he was out of it. This was like, you know, toward the middle of the end of the season. So we were sitting there on Sunday and we said, oh, we should, I think Pete, as a matter of fact, had Jalen Hurts.

And I think it was like a Hurts, whoever his quarterback was. we put in Hurts who had a good like one o'clock game and like we just messed with his lineup a little bit to to see if Will would notice we were going to change it back it was not going to be anything that we were going to do to uh to have it happen but Pete's actual lineup ended up winning Will was like you you you screwed with my team my my perfect season he was saying that I didn't want to be in a league that somebody had a perfect season. He was going crazy. Will went 15-1.

Pete went 3-11. That all sounds right up Will Brinson's alley, so I don't deny. I believe all that story, Jamie. Yeah. All right, so don't push up tight ends who aren't worthy of a fifth-round pick. Don't overreact to preseason news.

Don't wait until round six to draft a wide receiver in a three-receiver PPR league. Don't get too hyped up taking a guy like Jerry Judy over Tee Higgins, especially when the quarterback situation is so different. Try to attach yourself to backfields. If you want a piece of a backfield, maybe it's smarter to take the guy who goes later. And the running back dead zone, Dan's not a fan.

Jamie and I are kind of okay with it based on last year. I mean, it's a good one to revisit real quick, just in terms of who are the guys that are going to go then for this year. And I think it's some of the similar names, Clyde Edwards, Hilaire, Miles Sanders, you know, I think, you know, you see Ezekiel Elliott's in there. Want some ADP?

Want some ADP? Sure. All right. Starting in round four, 38th overall. This is ADP on NFC since May 1st. Brees Hall, Antonio Gibson, David Montgomery, Ezekiel Elliott Josh Jacobs J.K. Dobbins

Travis Etienne Elijah Mitchell and then all the way down to 70th overall gap of like 16 picks A.J. Dillon and then you know Ken Walker Clyde Edwards-Elair

they're in round seven a lot of names I wouldn't mind on my team honestly a lot of names I don't mind on my team, honestly. A lot of names I don't want on my team over receivers. Who are the ones you don't want, Dan? All right, let's do it again. I don't want Brees Hall. I think that's a volume-based projection there,

so I definitely don't want Brees Hall on that offense. Antonio Gibson. Gibson. Gibson definitely do not want. That's an easy avoid for me. Keep going. David Montgomery. I can. Montgomery has been proven to have success without a good offense, but it's just not some,

I'd rather a receiver there too. So I'm probably not taking David Montgomery. Ezekiel Elliott. Zeke is the one I can get on board with because I see a path there. If he can be, he was playing injured last year and that's a good offense. So I'm good with Zeke. Josh Jacobs. Hell no. Hell no. And that new offense jk dobbins i don't even believe i see it because we have the points in front of him you sent the uh the csv adam but i don't believe that josh jacobs scored this many points last year i just don't i think this is like a typo or he's another one where you know you it's it's it's, it's, he's going to lose. Do you ever want him in your lineup? He caught all those passes when,

when Drake and Waller were hurt. Right. But he should score more because the offense should be significantly better. Right. But is he going to be the past? They didn't pick up his option. They drafted another running back. Uh,

shall we keep going? JK Dobbins. Dobbins. I can get excited about, go ahead. Travis ETN. Not in on ETN.? J.K. Dobbins. Dobbins I can get excited about. Go ahead. Travis Etienne. Not in on Etienne. Elijah Mitchell.

Definitely not in on Elijah Mitchell. And then all the way at pick 70. Once you get to pick 70, I think you've got some leeway here. Dylan Walker. I like the guys who have the good offenses and the talent. I just don't like the guys who are being pushed up based on volume, projected volume, because we know that that changes so frequently.

Yeah. All right. Well, but Brees Hall has got the talent. I'm a little surprised that you're just out on Brees Hall. Brees Hall has the talent.

He doesn't have the offense. Brees Hall. It's probably not. All right, guys. Thank you very much. Yeah. Not ready to commit to the Jets yet.

No. Thanks to Dan Schneier. Thanks for coming on, Dan. Thanks for having me. It was fun to be back on. Love your headphones, by the way. Great, great show. Yeah, there will be improvements for that from this point on.

This will be the last time this happens, I promise. All right. For JB and Dan, I'm Adam. We'll talk to you tomorrow when we talk about year two and year three wide receivers. Great values historically. So these are some players that might be able to win you a league. We'll talk to you then on

Fantasy Football.