Fantasy Football Today - Mock Draft Review! When Were the Rookie RBs Selected? (05/04 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

It's just another Mock Draft Monday, and today we're breaking down the first six rounds of our 12-team, PPR draft and of course spotlighting the rookie RBs. Ben Gretch's team (1:50) is heavy on rookie RBs, but did he go too far? ... News and notes (14:00) including thoughts on Leonard Fournette, James Conner and Le'Veon Bell. And then we put a bow on our research about how rookie WRs affect veteran WRs (21:05) and what it will mean for Amari Cooper this season ... On to the mock draft (33:25), we give our takes on each of the first six rounds. Topics include: Travis Kelce vs. Tyreek Hill (34:15); Clyde Edwards-Helaire vs. Austin Ekeler (40:04); Tyler Lockett at 26 overall (42:33); Jonathan Taylor vs. Melvin Gordon and Chris Carson (46:44); more rookie RBs to consider (52:30) and when to take catch-machines Julian Edelman and Tyler Boyd (57:30) ... Email us at [e-mail] or tweet us with #AskFFT '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

This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. Here we go! Email us at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Here we go! It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Let's go! Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Welcome back from what was hopefully a fun weekend for everybody,

and welcome back to Fantasy Football Today. It's Monday. It is May Football Today. It's Monday. It is May 4th. It's Star Wars Day. Perhaps I will find time to finally watch The Empire Strikes Back. I've been planning on doing that for over two years since I DVR'd it. I'll get to it at some point. I'm Adam Azer.

Dave Richards already watched Star Wars this morning. Hey, Dave. I've got kids. Okay. Ben, Dave. I've got kids. Okay. Ben, you have kids. Ben Gretch, have you watched Star Wars today? I've not watched Star Wars today.

I'm aware that my wife and oldest daughter watched one of them in the middle of the night because my daughter couldn't sleep sometime last week, which I thought was kind of a funny thing to find out in the morning. Yeah. I didn't know that helped people go to sleep.

And, Jamie, what's up, man? I'm pissed off. What did I do? Not with you. That Ben Trager is inside and we can't see the fly. Oh, my gosh. I wish we had video of Ben swatting the fly. It was epic.

All right, everybody. It was a podcast producer who swatted a fly Ben swatting the fly. It was epic. All right, everybody. It was a podcast producer who swatted a fly. He swatted a fly. It's Mock Draft Monday. We're reviewing our post-NFL draft PPR draft. PPR mock. I was going to play the Bengals and sing. It's just another Mock Draft Monday.

I don't have the capabilities. So just pretend I did it and it went really well. Much better than, say, Ben Gretsch's team in this draft. And, yeah, I do want to sort of start with this. I told Ben, like, I got excited to rip Ben's team on HQ last week. Now I get my chance. Ben? I mean, I would be excited if I was you.

I had a bad draft. And, you know, I draft a better team than you in every other draft. And probably this one, too, even though it wasn't my best effort. So if I was you, I would be jumping out of my seat. Yeah. Well, I guess it's just your running backs. Your starting running backs are J.K. Dobbins, Jonathan Taylor. And if you're like, well, maybe I won't start them week one.

I'll just start Philip Lindsay and Rashad Penny instead. So I guess, how are you going to survive with J.K. Dobbins and Jonathan Taylor as your starting running backs? What kind of a strategy is that? Why are you taking backup running backs to be your starters? So we talked about this on the show last week. And the huge mistake that I made in this draft, because it was a mock draft and I wasn't paying very close attention, was I took Evan Ingram, I don't know when, seventh round or something like that, in a draft where I had already drafted George Kittle in the second.

I don't typically take a tight end early this season. I like to wait. And so I saw this value on Ingram and grabbed him. And right after I took the pick, I said in the chat, oh, I forgot I took Kittle in this league. Not something I would do. And I had already drafted four receivers at that point as well. So, yeah, I mean, that pick would have been a running back. I wouldn't be looking at Phillip Lindsay as my running back three.

Who would it have been, though? Because your next pick was J.K. Dobbins, your second running back, unless you had already taken Lindsay at that point. Like, there were no good, there were no, like unless you had already taken Lindsey at that point. There were no starting running backs at that point. Yeah, I think if you look at the draft, it probably would have been someone like Darius Geis. It wouldn't have been good, but

this team isn't terrible. I mean, Kittle is a difference maker at tight end, right? It's Tyree Kill, A.J. Brown, Stephon Diggs, who I'm a lot higher on than any of you guys, and Tyler Boyd as four, I think, really good wide receivers. Matthew Stafford, my my favorite quarterback so then you just have to hit on your favorite of these upside running back plays your favorite like your favorite late round quarterback matthew stafford yeah yeah yeah cost cost considered quarterback i'm pretty much drafting

him in every draft right now i don't think the lions have said that matthew stafford is their favorite quarterback yeah i mean i'm hoping he's going to be their starter but assuming he is no he'll be their starter but they just don't seem to love him yeah like you do yeah i mean the new offense really changed his uh his average throw depth we've talked about that this offseason uh it shot up. It skyrocketed last year, and that really helped him put up much bigger passing numbers than he has in several seasons. And the pace he was on last year, I think, is going to be closer to what we see in 2020 than the previous years. I don't think it was an outlier because I think it was a fundamental change

in how the offense ran. I guess the big question is, why didn't you take David Blau? What? To back up Matthew Stafford now. Okay, well, I think I'm done making fun of your team. I just think having a starting lineup with J.K. Dobbins, Jonathan Taylor in there, it's going to be lucky. If you go 4-4, then you might be set.

You might cruise through the second half, but you're going to have trouble with those starting running backs. Let me just go back to your Inram uh that that point in the draft because obviously let's say you had taken dobbins in the ingram pick in round seven yeah and you said you were you would have taken darius geist in round eight would you give would you have given any consideration just because you went in that round to Marlon Mack and just have the Colts back to locked up there? Probably not because when I'm committing to Jonathan Taylor as high as I would, I'm, I'm,

I'm essentially like, I don't see a scenario where Mack is the lead back. And so I'm, I'm committing to that not being a split. I'm committing to Taylor taking over and maybe not in week one, but at some point he's just such a, but no, I'm with you. Everything we talked about with Taylor, but, and, and I, I would also take Taylor in the same range that you did and, and, and not consider taking Mac, except for maybe this scenario, just to make sure you have at least one potential guy from the

beginning of the year, because you could, we could get to, and again, we're doing this in April when we did this draft. We get to August and Taylor's hurt. Or best ball scenario I guess I'm looking at or start-up dynasty leagues that are doing now. More so not necessarily your team. But I think you just sort of lock up that backfield in a good range, round four, round eight. That's not bad for what those guys could be if one is the guy yeah no i think um the logic makes a lot of sense and i would be more likely to do that it's just not something like like in this scenario like you were saying it's just not something that i'm likely to do ever but the logic makes more sense when you're drafting this type of team for

sure um but i wanted to mention because we did a magazine draft the next day and i had the same pick and i took tyree kill in the first round instead of kittle i took dj more in the second but i had the same three four turn which was taylor and aj brown i had um tyler boyd in the sixth in both drafts they look remarkably similar these two teams but i didn't take that ingram pick and i also hadn't taken kittle and that team i wind up with acres and taylor instead of dobbins and taylor as my first two backs but because i didn't feel the need to start kind of pressing it running back because i didn't make this bad tight end pick because what i did after that tight end pick was then i took um lindsey and penny at the-10 turn in the magazine draft.

I wound up getting Penny in the 14th round, even though they're, you know, same draft slot and everything. But that team, I wound up with Akers and Taylor, and I wound up with a bench of Geis, Ronald Jones, and Penny. And I really liked this running back group for this type of team build. So I think this is kind of shows the way that it it can go well because yeah we can't bank on any of acres taylor geis jones penny talk about like looking at proven production in the past this is probably the worst running back group as far as proven production in that draft in that league um and and pretty much one of the worst ones you can build because none of these guys have really done anything but acres and taylor we love their spots we think they could leave those backfields they're they're good bets to be

potentially the next big thing at running back and then guys jones and penny are the types of bench backs i like to draft because they all have strong draft capital they have teams that were at least at one point very committed to them they're all first or second round picks and they're all guys that i think could be uh at least have have the right factors lined up to be kind of delayed breakouts. And Penny in particular, he's the one I want to talk about because he looked really good for a couple of games before he got hurt last season. And Seattle didn't really add that much competition.

So he's a guy that I really like as a late round guy. But is he going to be ready? Is he, and he's coming off of an ACL and we know that it takes some players a little while to really get back into the full swing of things when he's coming off of an acl and we know that it takes some players a little while to really get back into the full swing of things when they're coming off of an acl sure they said that he's a candidate for the public i mean you know it's not it wouldn't be a surprise if he's out for the first six weeks yeah which doesn't necessarily make him a bad pick but you you need him to come back from the pup list and play like he's really barely played in his career in order to justify drafting him late, stashing him on your bench, and then utilizing him when he is ready in week seven, eight, whatever.

But I think it's just like you've got all these running backs with potential, but for the first few weeks of the season, might not really have any production at running back, and none of these guys, like, okay, Jonathan Taylor, maybe Cam Akers, but Jonathan Taylor, J.K. Dobbins, Darius Geis, Rashad Penny, Ronald Jones, this is a PPR, these are PPR leagues we're drafting.

None of them are going to be high pass catchers, so I don't know, just the strategy of like, yeah, you've got all these good gambles. I think, Ben, personally, I would love the strategy if you had just taken, instead of a wide receiver or a tight end early, just take a more sure thing at running back. So you don't have to start two rookie running backs who we don't know what their role is going to be,

who may not pay off until week five or something like that, or week 10, whatever it is. Why not take one steady running back and then load up on these high upside guys that you might have to wait a little bit on? I mean, I agree with that. And part of the reason I wanted to bring up the magazine draft is when I got to the end of that draft, I was thinking in my head looking at this team

because obviously the upside to doing this is you wind up really deep at receiver. This is a start three wide receiver plus a flex leak. And in the magazine one, I have Tyree Kill, DJ Moore, AJ Brown, Tyler Boyd, who I still really like with Cincinnati, Will Fuller, Nikhil Harry, who I think is going to get all the chances in the world to get plenty of targets for New England this year, and LaVisca Chenault, who I love as a potential rookie impact player. That's a really deep wide receiver team for me or something that I feel very comfortable with because I like all those names. And by the end of that draft, I was thinking I shouldn't have taken Tyree Kill in the

first round, but the way that this builds out and rather than trying to say, oh, I can deal one of these mid-round picks, I would probably immediately put Tyree Kill on the block in this league because that's a guy you know you can trade. And that's a guy I probably would trade. I said to somebody that I was chatting with on the team, I can't remember who, but I would probably trade Tyree Kill off this roster by week two just to get a stable running back, like you said. Gotcha. I think just one thing, I mentioned this last week, and this kind of applies to this team. If you think that you're going to be good middle to the end of the season, you do something similar like this zero RB type strategy that a, if you get off to a slow start, you're going to be first on waivers. If it's a waivers league and you're going to have your

opportunity to pick up maybe one of these guys that has an injury in week one, another backfield situation that you could find available. It's not the best way to go about building your team, obviously, but it is potential. And so if he does hit on these guys by week four, by week eight, by whatever, like you said, I mean, if he's four and four, he could steamroll the league if his receivers are playing like they're capable of. So it's risky. And I think you guys made the point correctly that you rather have one stable guy, but it's not a bad approach if you do think that they could find guys available on wave, especially if it's teams with short benches, because you know there's going to be a lot more talent available on waivers once you get to the first couple weeks what one thing i want to ask you

guys is because i don't like the the later half of drafts and that was a big reason i went this way um are there any running backs outside the top whatever it is five or six and miles sanage we can even throw in there now because he's going higher. I think he went higher in one of these drafts. Dave, I think, made him a first round pick. Yeah. And I think that's fair right now. Are there any backs after that point that we feel that comfortable with?

After what point? After the first round? Like late in the first round, yeah. I see what you're saying, especially in PPR, because you got the Chubb, Henry Mixon, Aaron Jones. You don't know what their catches are. I mean, I like I like Kenyon Drake a lot. I'm sure there are plenty of guys that you guys like. Yeah, I think those guys are tough to take.

I think those guys are tough to take over a top five receiver. And then after that, it's funny you mention that because that was, I think, the biggest complaint. We talked about this on HQ. And, you know, I posted a poll about Dave's selection of Sanders over Adams in particular. And so you can put Tyreek in that conversation. You can put Julio in that conversation. It's kind of at that point in the draft after the first really six running backs, five running backs, five running backs, you know, the Camara Cook,

wherever you have them ranked, where people are almost inclined to lean toward wide receiver in the middle of the first round. When you get to the back end of the first round, you could clearly make, I think, a better case for Sanders there, a case for Eckler there, a case for Mixon, whichever guy you want to throw in there, Henry Tubb, whatever the case may be. But yeah, Ben, I think, you know, you have a point that if you're picking at the back end of the first round in a three receiver PPR league and you're staring at Adams, Hill, Julio, maybe Godwin, Hopkins, if you're still in that boat, Kelsey, it's hard to pass on

what those guys do as pass catchers and the safety and security of what they typically provide year in, year out. Let's move on to our news and notes here. We'll come back to the draft in a little bit. Dave, the Jaguars declined Leonard Fournette's fifth year option. I asked on our Facebook page, and please everybody follow us on Facebook, go to Fantasy Football Today. Just go to Facebook, search for Fantasy Football Today. You can also click the link in our episode description. But I asked, you know, look, they were trying to trade him. They declined his option, but they don't really have a backup plan.

They haven't invested heavily at the running back position. What do you all think about Leonard Fournette? And a lot of people said they're going to run him into the ground just like the Chargers did with Melvin Gordon. What do you think about Leonard Fournette right now? I think that they'll do that until they get disenchanted with him, and then they'll give Rock Armstead a try. And they signed Chris Thompson, who is a Jay Gruden favorite,

and also a low-end PPR bi-week replacement option. So you can say bye-bye to him catching 50-plus catch balls this year. It's not going to happen. And I think he's on thin ice. They'll try grinding with him, and if he struggles near the goal line or he doesn't ball out trying to get a new contract,

they'll sit his butt down. And I still wouldn't rule out them trying to trade him before training camp starts, before the season starts. If there's an injury to a team's running back, before somebody else's team's running back, before the season starts, they'll dish off Fournette. Yeah, like we saw with Carlos Hyde and LaShawn McCoy last year. I also wonder with Fournette,

if he's slightly banged up, does he play through it to show that he's a warrior trying to get a new contract? Or does he say, I'm going to protect myself because I don't want to get hurt and cost myself the chance at a contract? Remember, this is a guy that in college didn't play in a bowl game because he wanted to secure his NFL stature and not risk injury. And, you know, we've seen him, you know, some questionable situations where he may have been able to play and he didn't in his, uh, his first two years in Jacksonville. A lot of players do that though. I think Christian McCaffrey did that. I'm not, I'm not faulting him for doing that at the time. I'm just saying like there, there's a pattern of I'm going to protect myself. And so if he's hurt, like, you know, hamstring is bothering him. I

could play through it in most situations. I'm not going to risk blowing out my hamstring and hurt my future earnings, which is not a bad thing for himself either if you're looking at it from that standpoint. But obviously, if we're drafting him, it's something I think you want to be a little concerned about. All right. Well, Rykel Armstead did go in the 11th round of this draft. Not a bad pick. He was a fifth round pick.

It was also before the Thompson signing too. He was a fifth round pick in the NFL draft in 2019. More news and notes for you. By the way, Leonard Fournette was the number seven running back in PPR last year. Just so many touches, and that was with barely scoring any touchdowns. The Bears declined Trubisky's fifth-year option. The Bengals declined John Ross's fifth-year option. Then you got some running back news.

Adam Gay said he thinks the Jets have some running backs who can lessen the load on Le'Veon Bell. And Frank Reich sees Marlon Mack and Jonathan Taylor as a one-two punch. That's not a... You said that backwards. What? Don't put the back up before the starter. Jonathan Taylor and Marlon Mack. All right.

Ed Bouchette of The Athletic believes it's not likely that the Steelers resign Juju Smith-Schuster after this season. And Bouchette also thinks that the Steelers will reduce James Connors' carries. So you look at the Jets news with Adam Gase saying they want to lessen the load on Bell. The Steelers news where the beat writer thinks that James Connors' carries will be reduced. You know, we're losing a couple of potential workhorses there, I guess. I think it makes them good value where they'll fall. Well, but you have to tell me where they're going to fall.

Le'Veon Bell's a third-round pick right now. James Conner's a fifth-round pick. What do you think? I have no problem with Conner in the fifth round. And Bell? Same. Bell, I think if you get him toward the end of round three, he's fine. He's better in PPR than not in PPR.

He showed us that last year, too. But the offensive line is better for the Jets. I think the system will be better for the Jets because Darnold will be healthy, hopefully, for 16 games. There's better weapons there all around. And Ben, you have this dilemma with running backs after the top six or so. If you wait until round three, you're looking at maybe Le'Veon Bell or Leonard Fournette. Or you can just take those rookies like you've been taking. So what do you think about that group of running backs with Melvin Gordon, with Todd Gurley,

with Jonathan Taylor in your case? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of uncertainty with every back, like every back, even top backs. We don't know what's going to happen. They get hurt at a higher rate. Saquon Barkley and alvin camara both dealt with high ankle sprains last year and disappointed fantasy managers but yeah i mean not not that extreme the top guys were usually a little more confident in but pretty much every back there's a lot of uncertainty and

we feel more comfortable when we're drafting with a guy like levi on bell or james connor who's done it before but fundamentally one of my biggest philosophies in in fantasy drafting is don't pay for past production at running back because guys do get over the hill at a certain point and not a lot of guys who do you know every year we can sit and talk about oh David Johnson could come back or this guy could come back we don't we talk about these guys every year and how many of these backs that that fall off or have injuries start to become a thing and don't look as explosive how many of them come back around and have elite seasons you know what let me interrupt you because i want to do basically

a full episode on this topic okay uh about that third fourth round pick and those workhorse running backs the ones you expect to get a ton of work, and how good they can be for your team. Best case scenario might be like Todd Gurley last year. Maybe worst case scenario is Le'Veon Bell last year. I don't know. But I think it's a really interesting discussion. I'm hoping anyway. So we'll

have it on an upcoming episode. The Cowboys signed Andy Dalton, which means we probably can't make fun of Heath for his Gardner Minshew love. Come on, Cam. You're openly rooting against Gardner Minshew? No, he's openly rooting against Heath.

It has nothing to do with Gardner Minshew. It has everything to do with Heath. One fewer obstacle for Gardner Minshew. And right now the NFL plans to start on time. They expect to have a season. No international games, most likely, but... Schedule's supposedly coming out this week. Yeah, so far, so good.

Looking forward to reacting to that. Also looking forward to twitching on Wednesday. We got another stream on the Fantasy Football Today Twitch channel. Wednesday, May 6th, 7 p.m. Eastern. We'll be broadcasting live from our new Twitch channel as the whole FFT crew completes a PPR mock draft. You can follow along as we analyze picks

live and answer your questions. Go to twitch.com slash FFToday or search FFToday on Twitch to follow us ahead of time. We're also going to put the Twitch link in the description for this episode. Alright, I've been dying to get this out of the way,

so let's talk about the wide receiver research. Can we draw any conclusions? Do rookie wide receivers hurt veteran wide receivers? Good veteran wide receivers? Very good veteran wide receivers? Typically, no, but there are some examples. A guy named B Don on Twitter,'s a Razzball fantasy baseball analyst and obviously knows his fantasy football as

well the B underscore Don I believe is the Twitter handle he gave me a whole bunch of names I selected some of them Randy Moss and Chris Carter Chris Carter was 33 years old in Randy Moss's rookie season or maybe he was 32 but he yeah he yeah 33 so he went from 158 Moss's rookie season, or maybe he was 32. But yeah, he, yeah, 33. So he went from 158 targets before Moss

to 125 targets the next year. And Jake Reed was on those teams too. And Jake Reed actually missed five games in Moss's rookie season. So Carter's target share definitely went down or his targets definitely went down. But he actually had a great year. He still had a thousand yards and 12 touchdowns,

barely worse than the previous year, just fewer targets. Carter's three most efficient seasons, yards per target, were age 33, 34, and 35, and those are actually with Randy Moss. So he might have made him more efficient, but he did hurt the targets. It's almost like playing opposite a threat helps you because the coverage is much looser. It can be, yeah. Vincent Jackson, I think, was a decent example

of being hurt by Mike Evans' rookie season. And I got to say, Randy Moss had an unbelievable rookie season. He had 69 catches, 1,300 yards, and 17 touchdowns. So you're not going to see that. Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans. Vincent Jackson was 31. Mike Evans comes in, has 1,051 yards and 12 touchdowns. Vincent Jackson goes from 159 targets to 142 targets.

Again, good production, but 200 fewer yards, five fewer touchdowns. This one definitely hurt. Julio Jones and Roddy White. Julio Jones comes in and has a huge rookie season. Pretty big. Yeah, considering he's only 13 games, 959 yards, eight touchdowns on 96 targets,

that's a pretty damn good rookie season. And Roddy White, he actually had one more target, 179 targets to 180 targets, and he still had almost 1,300 yards and 8 touchdowns. He wasn't as good as the previous year, but he still was great. And those are pretty much, those are the biggest examples.

Andre Johnson, he actually had 19 more targets the first year of DeAndre Hopkins, who was just kind of meh as a rookie. I don't know, I think you're looking at Vincent Jackson and Chris Carter as examples of veteran receivers who were hurt by rookie receivers.

And in those cases, those rookie receivers, Randy Moss had 17 touchdown catches. Mike Evans had 12. Randy Moss had 1,300 yards. Mike Evans had 1,051. They both had about 70 catches. So, I don't know. Any final thoughts? I don't want to beat a dead horse here.

Are you trying to compare these guys to, what, Cooper and Sutton? Cooper, mostly. You think Cooper's in the category of Chris Carter and Julio Jones? I think Cooper is certainly in the category of a 31-year-old Vincent Jackson. Fair. I don't know. I don't think he's in the category of Chris Carter. He's not in general, but maybe a 33-year-old Chris Carter.

I would take Chris Carter now over Amari Cooper. But again, I mean, it's like, okay, Andre Johnson wasn't affected. Joey Galloway and Brian Blades was actually one that was given. But who's the third receiver on those teams? Because Gallup is no slouch. Yeah. was actually one that was given. But who's the third receiver on those teams? Because Gallup is no slouch. Yeah, I think that Amari Cooper loses production because Dak Prescott's not going to throw for 4,900 yards again. I don't think it's going to be because of Jerry Judy.

Or CeeDee Lamb. CeeDee Lamb, sorry. I mean, okay. But if Dak loses, then they're all going to lose. So, I mean, look, Cooper is a good talent. I don't know if he's an exceptional talent. I don't think he's in the category of Julio Jones, 33-year-old Chris Carter, or Andre Johnson.

It's not Julio Jones. It's Roddy White we're comparing him to. Okay, I'm sorry. Roddy White. I apologize. I just think that he's still a very good... He's still their best receiver. He's still their first fantasy receiver that you should draft. We're probably nitpicking on if he's a mid-third round pick, a late third round pick, or a fourth round pick because there's probably 10 selections that we're going to say he should go.

So I think he's going to come down to whatever level because of Dak or because of a better pass catcher. There's a lot of targets available. I think Sutton should be in this conversation too, though. I mean, we are still talking about a guy that was by far and away the best receiver on his team, not even close. And now they added two weapons there. It makes me want the quarterbacks of these teams even more.

Because you're telling me, Adam, you're telling me that Chris Carter's numbers didn't really fall off, but they added Randy Moss and he went crazy. Yeah. And Roddy White's numbers didn't really fall off, but Julio Jones in 13 games had almost a thousand yards and almost 10 touchdowns. Well, that's pretty damn good for the quarterback. So moving Dak Prescott to three, I think that was an obvious decision for all of us. I almost wonder if he's worth targeting. He's not going to go in regular drafts. There's no chance he's going in round one or round two. We know that Jackson and Mahomes are going to go in round one or round two in pretty much everybody's draft.

I don't think so. You don't think so? Well, I just finished writing this whole story on Lamar Jackson for our magazine, and I went back and looked at the average draft position for Patrick Mahomes. Do you know what his ADP was last year? Last year? Was it around the 1-2 turn? It was 13.

So, I mean, if he went 13 after 5,052, I don't think we're going to see two quarterbacks in the first round. I think we're talking about maybe 10 through 14 as both of those guys are going. That's what Dave was saying, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Round one or round two? I'm sorry. I thought you said round round. I think we're talking about maybe 10 through 14 as both of those guys are going. That's what Dave was saying, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said round one. I apologize. I don't know if any of us would take him in round one or round two in a one quarterback

league. I'm pretty sure the answer to that is no, but does Dak Prescott have potential to be mentioned in the same breath as those two by the time we get to November? Yes. I think the answer is yes. I need to clarify

the question. Does he have potential to have the same type of season that Mahomes had in 2018 and Jackson had in 2019? I'm thinking more along the lines. To be in 2020 in their same?

That's what I was answering. Right. You can't compare him to a historical season. I think all three of these guys have potential to average north of 25 fantasy points per game. And that might be low. It might be low. I mean, Dak did that last year. Dak was over 25 last year.

So if Adam's saying he's going to come down despite getting CeeDee Lamb, I would say he's in that same range. I think the yards are going to come down. Maybe the touchdowns go up. I think Dak is 100% the best value on draft day of those three guys because you should get him later. But I think, you know, you put... I put Jackson and Mahomes in reverse order

on a totally different plane than the next three guys, four guys. I think it's those two guys. Then you get to tier two and it's Prescott, Watson, Kyler and Russell Wilson. And those four guys can all be potentially better than the two in front of them if things go as they have for the two guys we just talked about. Mahomes and Jackson, if they have those type of seasons. But you're talking about two guys that were over 32 points per game last year who had record-breaking performances for two different reasons. One was a 5,050, and the other was 3,000, 1,000.

Those things don't happen often. So if anybody's going to make the mistake of drafting Prescott anywhere close to those other two guys, unless it's just you have such a desire to have a quarterback on your team and those two guys are gone and you have to get that guy next, then you're making a mistake. Because the thing that we've seen from Jackson and Mahomes each of the last two years, they were drafted outside of the top 12. That's how you win your fantasy league,

and you dominate your fantasy league when you get those guys. Again, they're record breakers for a reason because they were special. So you don't go searching for it. It's similar. I agree with what Ben said about running backs. I think it applies to quarterbacks too. You don't go chasing past production, especially when you're talking about a guy that was just significantly better.

And I've said this multiple times. Maybe this is just the point in Dak's career where it's clicked for him, where they're adding more weapons, guys are playing better. Gallup had a breakout season last year. That was a big the point in Dak's career where it's clicked for him, where they're adding more weapons, guys are playing better. Gallup had a breakout season last year. That was a big part of why Dak was good. Cooper played 16 games. That was a big part of why Dak was good. And so now you're adding another piece to it. Hopefully he just

maintains where he is, but I don't think he's going to catch those other two guys. I think he could. I think he could get, if not catch them, maybe a point or two less per game than them so he's going to be a 30 point per game score no but but maybe no because i don't i don't know if the homes and jackson are going to get 30 points per game but i think they'll all i think all three of them i said 25 let's call it 28 i think all three of them if they stay healthy can

be right around that range and if you're getting Dak Prescott two or three rounds later than where other people in your league are taking Mahomes and Jackson, that's how you win your league. There was one guy over 25 points per game last year, and he was a record-breaking performance. I don't think we're getting multiple guys over 28 points per game. Okay, whatever. He's splitting hairs.

But can Dak Prescott on a per-game basis be as good as Lamar Jackson and Mahomes and Dave thinks that it's possible yeah I mean when you talk about potential that's what I was answering to Dak Prescott has now a vertical passing offense he has some of I think the best three receivers in the league and he has rushing ability and we talk about the upside there all the time so his rushing numbers were actually down a little bit last year he had six rushing touchdowns each of his first three years i don't know what it was last year i think it was only three or something he had three and and fewer fewer

rushing yards i think as well right i don't know do you have those numbers up yeah i think he's usually around like 350 at 277 last year yeah so like he could bump up a little bit of his rushing production as well like i think when you talk about potential, yes, he has the statistical profile that can post that type of season. Does that mean he will? That's a little bit harder to say. I don't know if they'll throw as much like Adam's saying. They were in a lot of negative game scripts last year and added a lot of garbage time production. But I do think that they want to be vertical

with their pass offense and they have so many good weapons that he he still has plenty of passing upside oh jamie sad news coming in yeah uh terrible um i mean uh absolutely terrible uh don schula passed away uh legendary head coach. Most regular season wins, total wins, perfect season. You know, Mount Rushmore of coaches. Yeah. How old is he? 90? He was 90 years old.

That's a pretty good run. I'll take that. I think we all would. Yeah. First coach I grew up watching. Got a chance to be around a little bit when I started my newspaper career. Uh, just sucks. Any interesting stories, Jamie, about that? Um, you know, I mean, he was, uh, he was already done at that point. You know, it was, it was the year after he retired when, when I was there. Um, my first year covering

the dolphins was Jimmy Johnson's, um, tenure with, uh Jimmy Johnson's tenure with Marinos last year. So I wasn't around them that much, but clearly that was the guy I grew up watching on the sidelines. Yeah, just getting a chance to be around him a little bit was just an honor and experience and something I'll never forget. You get guys like this once a generation, coaches like this, Belichick, Shula. You put the best of the best up there at Lombardi. He was an innovator in his time and a legend. All right.

So Don Shula passes away. Sorry to hear the news. And let's talk a little football here. Let's talk about our mock draft. So, it was 12 teams, PPR, three wide receivers, and a flex, as is what we typically do around these parts. And, you know, we haven't really gone through our drafts round by round, so I think let's do that as much as we can, kind of the abridged version. I have some questions for each of the first eight rounds.

Round one, McCaffrey, Barkley, Zeke, Michael Thomas, Dalvin Cook, Alvin Kamara. There's your top six. Dave takes Miles Sanders, seven. Devontae Adams goes eight. Tyreek Hill, nine. Julio Jones, ten, to Jamie. Chris Godwin goes 11th Travis Kelsey 12th

so again the last six are Sanders, Adams Hill, Julio Godwin and Kelsey and my question for round one is Tyreek Hill versus Travis Kelsey who do you guys take and why

PPR I'm taking Hill and it's not versus Travis Kelsey. Who do you guys take and why? PPR. I'm taking Hill. It's not to slight Travis Kelsey, but Hill's younger, faster, a little more explosive, and I don't think people need to reach for a tight end this year like

they might have last year. Remember last year, tight ends were coming off of a monster season in 2018. We all saw that the three big guys could have been huge. And the whole idea was there are these top three tight ends, and then everybody else at tight end isn't the same. There were three other tight ends, Ingram, O.J. Howard, and Hunter Henry. These guys might jump into that top tier, but really there was no difference between those top three and the rest of the class. Well, now there's a fourth tight end

that we lump in with them with Mark Andrews. And I think the depth of the tight end position is maybe the best it's been ever. So there isn't as much pressure to draft a tight end that you'll feel good about starting. It's just a matter of whether or not you want a tight end bad enough to take one in the early rounds. And the first round just don't think qualifies i can't bring myself to take a tight end in round one uh jamie you said hill yeah i just think uh a lot of what dave said is is is on point um you know you you look at um what tyree kill is capable of doing when he's on his game especially in a three receiver league makes a, makes it a little bit different. You've talked about this a lot, Adam, that it kind of devalues tight ends a little bit.

I don't know if it devalues a player like Kelsey, but it certainly puts a premium on them. If you can get one of those top five wide receivers, top three wide receivers, potentially for Tyreek, it changes, changes i think the the outlook of your team just as good as he could be ben yeah i think the guys hit on it hill played fewer than 20 of the snaps in two of his games last year he played only 50 and it has the first time he came back from injury some of his per game numbers last year don't look as good but i i just think when you step back and you think big picture,

Kansas City's offense, Patrick Mahomes, that peak season could be pretty special. Okay. Well, I will say that if you look at the last three seasons, in 2017 with Alex Smith, Tyreek Hill scored six more fantasy points than Kelsey in PPR. So they basically tied. 2018, Tyreek Hill scored 33 more fantasy points than Kelsey.

2019, they didn't play the same amount of games. Kelsey averaged.14 fantasy points more per game. So 17 and 19, they were basically the same per game. 2018, which was everybody's best season, Tyreek Hill was about two fantasy points better per game. So let me say, if I told you that Tyreek Hill is two PPR fantasy points better per game than Travis Kelsey,

knowing what we know about wide receiver versus tight end, and even if tight end's deep, it's still tight end, and Kelsey's still the man there, if I'm giving you two points per game for Hill, what would your answer be, Hill or Kelsey? Hill. I think there's a chance you can get Kelsey in round two. per game for Hill, what would your answer be? Hill or Kelsey? Hill. Hill. I think there's a chance

you can get Kelsey in round two. Well, okay. Let's say you have the 12th pick. I mean, I guess... Okay, then I get Kittle. Right. Oh, sure. If I have 12,

then I can get them both. One thing I want to say about those comparisons is Hill is four and a half years younger than Kelsey. Yeah. So the age difference is, I think, it's larger than I realized kind of until this offseason.

But Kelsey's going on 31 already. Hill's 26 and going into his prime. So I would expect those two to be moving differently in terms of their production. All righty. So anything else in round one? We good with Chris Goblin at 11? You want to talk about Miles Sanders or have we covered that?

We did that last week. It's specifically Sanders versus Adams. So I'll punt on that. I do have an email about that that I plan on reading Wednesday. By the way, we have Mike Wright of the Fantasy Footballers joining us for Wednesday's show. We're going to have a Dynasty episode on Friday with a special guest. So we've got a fun week coming up here on Fantasy Football today. Everybody good with Chris Goblin in

round one, 11th overall? I think that's too high still. Who would you have taken over him? I'll take DJ Moore over him. Less competition for Tar... I mean, they both have plenty of competition. Christian McCaffrey's huge competition for more, but,

feel a lot more confident that he's going to lead his team in, in targets. I think there's a lot of projection of the way Brady played in Belichick's offense into Godwin being the slot guy for him with Tampa, but that just discredits what Mike Evans has done. He's a 26 year old. Who's put up. So such big numbers every year of his career.

I'm not as comfortable putting Godwin so firmly ahead of Evans as I've been seeing in drafts. I'm not comfortable taking Godwin ahead of some of the running backs that win in round two. Eckler being one of them. Drake being another. I'm worried about the target share. I don't know if it'll be as high in 2020 as it was in 2019 they're adding gronk they're adding uh well you're not adding evans but you've got brady they're now throwing the football i think he's more of a round two pick i think if you the reason why i can see why george maselli is the one that took godwin at 11

there were three wide receivers taken in front of him. George might not be as big of a fan of DeAndre Hopkins as I am. He didn't want to take Cooper Cup in round one. And maybe he was just dead set on taking a wide receiver in a PPR league. Godwin might have been the best available player. And that's why he took him. It's the only thing I can think of of why you would take Godwin in late round one. Well, he took Cooper Cup in round two. So let's go to round two. And I wanted to focus on the

running backs here. But round two is Eckler, Cup, Clyde Edwards, Elair to Jamie, Kittle to Ben, Nick Chubb, Hopkins to Dave, DJ Moore, Derek Henry, Joe Mixon, Kenyon Drake to me, Aaron Jones, and Juju Smith-Schuster. We can go through some of the names again. But, all right, we got Eckler, Clyde Edwards-Ziller, Nick Chubb, Derek Henry, Joe Mixon, Kenyon Drake, Aaron Jones. That is seven running backs in this round. And, Jamie, Eckler was off the board.

You took Clyde Edwards-Ziller over Chubb, over Henry, over Mixon, over Drake, over Aaron Jones. Question is, would you have taken him over Eckler if you had the choice? I would have. So you're not buying any of this stuff from the coaches? No. Not that you should. Not that you should.

They lied to us like crazy last year about their – I think what we've seen from Andy Reid is last year they tried to replace Damian Williams to a certain extent by getting LaShawn McCoy. They drafted him at 32 overall because they're in love with him, because Patrick Mahomes wanted him, because Eric Biennemi wanted him. And i think you're going to see talent went out here uh it's it's not going to be a clear path to elite production right away but i think it will be by uh fairly early in the season but certainly by the midway point ben what's your take on all these running backs here do you like any of the values in particular do you dislike any of the values um chubb i think we're a little uh collectively a little bit low on i mean he's the one i feel the most comfortable with uh we talk a lot about how

his receiving just completely fell off when when kareem hunt showed up his touchdowns also fell off and i think that was a little bit more fluky we know touchdowns are a little bit fluky and so i think those production splits are a little bit too aggressive if you kind of take Chubb's full season touchdown rate and expect that and still recognize that he won't have a big receiving role. He's such an efficient runner. He's a very talented runner. They're going to run a lot of two tight end sets.

They just added two new tackles. I think the Browns are actually finally going to be a little bit better. And I think Nick Chubb's going to potentially lead the NFL in rushing. I think he's going to have a big year on the ground. Okay, guys. Let's go to round three here. Josh Jacobs off the board. Remember, the wide receivers in round two were

Kup, Hopkins, DJ Moore, and Juju Smith-Schuster. And then you had George Kittle in there as well. Josh Jacobs is the first pick of round three. Tyler Lockett, second pick of round three. Adam Thielen, Allen Robinson, Mike Evans. So Mike Evans going after Lockett, Thielen, and Robinson. We have our first quarterback, Lamar Jackson, sixth pick of round three.

Kenny Galladay, Patrick Mahomes, two picks after Jackson. A.J. Brown, I don't have to tell our listeners who picked A.J. Brown. You can guess it. Le'Veon Bell, Leonard Fournette, and Amari Cooper, last pick of the round here. So for round three, I did want to ask you guys about Tyler Lockett. And we're going to bring on our special guest producer extraordinaire, Shraggy B. Ben Shrager, who about Tyler Lockett. And we're going to bring on our special guest producer extraordinaire, Shraggy B. Ben Schrager, who took Tyler Lockett ahead of Adam Thielen, Alan Robinson, Mike Evans, and

Kenny Galladay and others. All right, Shraggy B. Justify your pick. Well, I didn't see Mike Evans on my board, so I would have taken Evans over him, but I would have taken Lockett over everyone else. I think he has a ton of upside, and I don't see Russell

Wilson not being in the top five, and I don't see DK Metcalf being a top 15 receiver, giving me Lockett as a top 10 receiver. What do you guys think? Did he go too early? It's just a little bit earlier than we're used to seeing him. What is that? 26th overall for Tyler Lockett.

I'm totally good with it. Me too. We've seen the efficiency. I think the targets could go up for him this year. I've talked about how Seattle's defense could be a problem for them, and I think Russ is going to throw a decent amount, maybe a lot more than what he has in the past. So more targets for Lockett should mean, you know,

candidate for 85 plus catches. I don't know exactly how many he had last year. He probably had a bunch. It could have been right around 85. So Lockett at 82, but right. You look at his catch rate last year. You mentioned his efficiency.

It was 74.5%. The year before it was 81.4%. Now, if you want to play the splits game with Tyler Lockett, his first nine games before he got injured, he actually had an 82% catch rate. Maybe that is his real efficiency. Maybe he is basically Michael Thomas,

and he was on pace for 105 catches in those nine games. That's not his real skill set. You have to look at the depth of the throw, which dramatically impacts the catch rate. His catch rate is too high. Even as good as he is and especially as accurate as Russell Wilson is as a deep ball thrower, I think he's the most accurate deep ball thrower in the league, you can't expect 80% catch rate at a deep average depth of target like Tyler Lockett typically has.

Okay. What else from round three, guys? So were there any picks that you did not like, Jamie, in round three? Jacobs, Lockett, Thielen, Robinson, Evans, Lamar Jackson, Gallaudet, Mahomes, A.J. Brown, Le'Veon Bell, Leonard Fournette, Amari Cooper? I mean, in hindsight, Fournette, but, you know, in looking at the backs that he went around after Le'Veon Bell,

I had to talk to early, and Gordon and Taylor, I wouldn't do that. But I can understand at the time maybe why George Maselli did, simply because they had still not decided on his fifth-year option. They had not picked up Chris Thompson at that point. So his outlook was a little bit better than it is a week later. He's a guy that's been trending downward. To take him in round three

is just too soon. It doesn't look as bad as reviewing it now compared to when he actually made the pick. Let's go to round four. Keenan Allen first off the board. We have a lot of running backs in this round. At least in these next picks, right? Todd Gurley, Melvin Gordon, Jonathan Taylor.

That was Ben Gretsch's pick. Jamie took Melvin Gordon. Calvin Ridley. Dave took Chris Carson. Robert Woods. Odell Beckham. Zach Ertz. T.Y. Hilton.

Cortland Sutton. And A.J. Green, 48th overall. If you look at the running backs, so Jamie, you have Le'Veon Bell and Melvin Gordon. So you've got two guys who should get a lot of work, haven't been super productive on a per carry basis. I think they're probably in different stages of their career. I don't know that I want to make too much of a comparison between Bell and Gordon. But you took Gordon, and then the next pick was Taylor,

and then Dave took Carson. So I want all three of you to defend your picks, and I'll start with, let's just go in order, Jamie, Melvin, Gordon in round four. I think DeBronco's offense is poised to be dramatically better than it was a year ago with all the receiving talent that they had and Drew Locke being better in his second year. I think Gordon, comparatively to Taylor and Carson, will be a better pass catcher because he's proven that

and so i think you know all these guys are going to end up being in timeshares um gordon probably has the best talent behind him in philip lindsey but i think what we're hearing out of denver is i don't know if that's going to matter very much so i have the most confidence in Gordon in PPR by comparison to those other two guys. Van Gretch. Yeah, I mean, I kind of covered at the top of the show. I won't go into it too much more. But I think that every running back is, you know, not someone that we can trust. Chris Carson behind Taylor, I think we can think he'll be Seattle's lead back all year. But I don't feel confident in that at all.

But I do feel confident that Taylor will be productive in some way during the year and essentially as confident that he will get as much productivity this year as Chris Carson will. And I think he has more of a ceiling from that. And that feels like a weird thing to say. It feels less comfortable comfortable but it is actually when you sit down and project out those offenses that's what i believe i believe that jonathan taylor is going to play and get touches and be very good behind this colts line uh and that they upsize immense for the second half of the season if if he does take over the whole backfield i would imagine that most people if you were to say right now jonathan taylor is the lead running back for

the colts and marlon mack let's say, is traded, you would probably have more people taking Jonathan Taylor over Chris Carson. I would. And I took Carson. Alright, so Dave, you took Chris Carson in the middle of round four. Go ahead. He was top 10 in consistency in PPR last year.

Top 12 overall in 15 games. We saw his target share go up. He had 37 catches. Seattle told us in the draft that adding another running back wasn't a high priority for them. I just didn't want to miss out on having a capable number two running back in my lineup. So there were other players that I probably had ranked ahead of Chris Carson

when I was up in round four. I just didn't want to fall behind at running back and be stuck with somebody like David Johnson in round five. So I, I, I think Carson is going to get the opportunity that Ben is laying out that he, that he hopes Jonathan Taylor will get in the second half of the season. Well, Carson's got it now. And yeah, I think Seattle is going to throw a lot more. I think Chris Carson can catch more passes and I think he's going to be their solution at the goal line and certainly their lead back. So Carson's got it now, but how confident are you that he's going to keep it all year?

Because last year, fumbling problems. Before Penny tore his ACL for two weeks, Penny really cut into his workload. Penny had 45 PPR points over a two-week stretch right before tearing his ACL. And they like DJ Dallas. They do like DJ. DJ Dallas is exactly the type of running back that they like.

He's almost like the Chris Carson of 2020. Physical running back, late round pick. I totally see DJ Dallas fitting in. If Carson can't hold on to the football, then they're not going to have as much patience. I think they had to give Carson work for as long as they did, even though he was fumbling. I don't think they liked it one bit. And then Penny started to take off and then you saw what, you know, Ben, you covered what happened next. But I still think that he'll be given the chance first. And if he just learns

to hold on to the football, I don't see how Penny coming back in midseason or DJ Dallas cuts into his workload a lot. Ben, if you're, if you're looking at the second coming back in midseason or DJ Dallas cuts into his workload a lot. Ben, if you're looking at the second running back in Seattle, why are you taking Penny over Dallas? Because of what Penny did right before he tore his ACL. But I mean, forget about that, though. Because he's right. Because he's smart. If he's out for six weeks. He might be out for six weeks. He might not.

They're saying that's a possibility. I think it would be irresponsible to not recognize that's a possibility when the guy tours ACL in December and we're talking about nine months uh to the start of the season that doesn't mean that he's definitely going to be on PUP DJ Dallas though not athletic not productive the only really the only thing he has going for if he was on any other team I'd say he's a non-prospect but the only thing he has going for him is that everyone talks about how physical he is and how he keeps his legs churning and he loves contact and that's exactly what pete carroll wants but um his his prospect profile is not very good i don't know but his opportunity could be great

yeah the opportunity and that's all that matters running back so don't get me wrong dj dallas could could end up being sales best back in fantasy this year. It's not out of the question, but I just don't like that talent very much. No, he's... But I think he actually, just to make one excuse for Dallas, and I don't think he's a great talent, but he was a pretty good recruit.

Horrible offensive lines. So that's been a big problem. If we're going to make that excuse for Cam Akers, I think Miami's line was better than FSU's. But he didn't get a lot of help there. But he's not like Rashad Penny's a better prospect for sure. I mean, Rashad Penny's got some injuries, obviously, that he's dealing with. Okay, let's go to round five.

Yeah, so round five. Is this where the rookie running back should be going? Round five was Mark Andrews, David Johnson. Dave, you wouldn't have been able to get David Johnson if you hadn't taken Chris Carson. You wouldn't have been able to get David Johnson if you hadn't taken Chris Carson. You would have probably been able to get David Montgomery, but not David Johnson. That's good because I really don't want to take David Johnson.

Mark Andrews, David Johnson, Terry McLaurin, James Conner, DeAndre Swift, Devin Singletary, DK Metcalf, Cam Akers, Stefan Diggs, DJ Chark, Devante Parker, and David Montgomery. When you look at the running backs, you do have a mix of veterans and rookies. You have David Johnson, James Conner, Devin Singletary, your two guy, and David

Montgomery, and you also have DeAndre Swift and Cam Akers. So I guess how do we make the decision to go with Swift and Akers versus these older running backs that we're not really that excited about, and then Devin Singletary and David Montgomery, who are your two running backs that we might not be that excited about. It's a tough group here of players who are in different stages of their careers.

Yeah, and it's all different types of risk. I think you're driving home the point that I've been making on the show right now. It's all different types of risk. I think you're driving home the point that I've been making on the show right now. It's perfect. We don't know if DeAndre Swift or Kim Makers is going to be their team's lead back. We haven't seen it from them before. But when you step back, you know that they're going to play something. The team's invested a heavy pick in them. And then we don't really know that the other guys are going to play as much as they have in the past.

It's different types of risk, but all these guys have very similar profiles in terms of like floor-to-ceiling touch range and for the full season, because some of these guys have the potential to lose their jobs mid-season. David Johnson, I think that is underrated, a possibility for him if he's just not effective again. So yeah, I think there's just different types of risk

and comfortableness with the names and who's been productive before or not but when you step back and look at 2020 these guys so similar ben would you have taken acres if he was there or dick i very well could have taken acres i think i took acres in the may one uh sorry the magazine one uh in round five right there i did yeah and digiggs had gone earlier in that draft, but certainly think Akers is an option right there. How about everybody gives their top three? So the running backs in this round were David Johnson, James Conner,

DeAndre Swift, Devin Singletary, Cam Akers, and David Montgomery. Two rookies, two second-year guys, and then David Johnson and James Conner. Dave, who were your top three? From those running backs, I would take Conner first. Then I would hold my nose and take Johnson second, Swift third. Okay. Jamie, your top three. Conner, Akers, Swift. And Ben.

I'm pulling up my rankings. I have David Johnson one spot ahead of Akers. And I believe I have those two the highest. I have them over Singletary. I have them over Montgomery and Swift. I have Swift higher than Singletary and Montgomery. Who's the other back we're talking about here? Connor.

I have Connor right ahead of Swift. So I go Connor, Swift, Singletary, Montgomery in my rankings back to back to back to back. But it would be Johnson, Akers, and Connor to answer your question in that order. All right. And then the wide receivers in this round, how are we comparing? We've got Terry McLaurin, Metcalf, Diggs, Chark, and Parker. McLaurin, Metcalf, Diggs, Chark, and Parker. It's a PPR league.

Let's get your top three from those five, starting with Dave. Metcalf, McLaurin, and Diggs. I believe I've got that right. Give me the names one more time, Adam. Metcalf. Metcalf, McLaurin, Diggs, Chark, and Parker. Yes, that's how I have it. Jamie?

McLaurin, Metcalf, and Diggs. Okay, same three, slightly different order. And Gratchy? I must have deleted McClurin from... Oh, there he is. I couldn't find him in my ranks. I have Diggs the highest by a full tier over the other receivers. And we'll get into Diggs another time, I think.

But I think everyone else is way too low on him. And then I have Chark and then McLaurin and then Metcalf, and then I'm very low on Parker. So he's by far the lowest of that group. All right, let's do one more round here. Hopefully we got to talk about some players today that we don't typically talk about.

One of them here is the first pick of round six, and it's Sonny Michel. This pick really stood out to me. Yeah. Right? First pick of round six, and this is 61 overall. Sonny Michel, he's followed by Jarvis Landry, then Keyshawn Vaughn, Tyler Boyd, Darren Waller, Mark Ingram, Julian Edelman, Hunter Henry, Michael Gallup, Kareem Hunt,

Dak Prescott, and Marquise Brown. Sonny Michel goes 36 picks before James White. Who would you just straight up rather have in a PPR league, Michel or White? White. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry.

I think Sonny Michelle is an early candidate for worst pick of the draft. True, false, fair, unfair? It's a candidate, yep. Okay, bad pick. And ironically enough, the fantasy manager who drafted him, his last name is White.

You would think he would stick with his namesake. And his first name is Sony. So Tyler Boyd and julian edelman go in this round and i just want to highlight the catch difference that you might get might get from these guys and basically every other wide receiver taken tyler boyd and his two seasons has been on pace for 87 and 90 catches julian edelman is always around 100 catches the next four wide receivers selected were Michael Gallup, who was on pace for 75 catches, Marquise Brown on pace for 53 last year,

Marvin Jones on pace for 76, Deebo Samuel on pace for 61 catches. Certainly, I'm not saying that just because that's what they were on pace for last year means they'll be on pace for again this year, but in round six of a three-receiver PPR league to get a guy that could have 90 or more catches, that's a big deal. And that's Tyler Boyd and Julian Edelman who went to Ben and Andrew Balmer, respectively, Boyd and Edelman in round six. And I guess the question is,

do you think they're going to get 90 catches this year? I do. I take Boyd everywhere. I want to hear these guys. Yeah, I think he can. It's just a matter of how much they're going to spread the ball around with all these other options now. You know what I mean?

He played last year in Zach Taylor's system without A.J. Green and without T. Higgin. Yeah, and he played, obviously, two years ago with A.J. Green and had good numbers in the eight games he played with A.J. Green. This is Tyler Boyd. And then just, Jamie, goes kind of back to the conversation we had earlier. Is T. Higgins really going to have that big of an impact on these wide receivers? Not on Boyd because Boyd's a slot receiver.

No, but touchdowns. Yeah, sure. That could be one or two that go away from Boyd to Higgins. I think it's just something you have to factor in. You also have, you know, we've talked about this a lot, that what is the rapport going to be with a rookie quarterback in a shortened offseason with all of his receivers? So did you like the Boyd pick? Oh, I think it's perfectly fine.

You know, it's a matter of, you know, you're shooting for upside there. He is a slot receiver. We saw what that was for Burrow at Lsu it was a clear weapon for him so i think whenever you talk about this like i with with what ben trager did with with tyler lockett in comparison to theelin and mike evans and and alan robinson those other guys in that same range and what uh you know ben is doing here and even like you know even like Dave taking Sanders in round one and me taking Edwards-Solaire in round two. If you have a feeling on somebody,

if they're in the range of where they should go, there's nothing really wrong with it. It's just a matter of you're not going to get the guy in the next round. So if this is the spot you feel you have to take him, you take him. And so if Ben Gretsch likes Tyler Boyd better than Edelman, better than Gallup, better than the other receivers there, you absolutely pull the trigger on him there. Yeah, and I'm just saying, do you?

Yes, I have no problem with it whatsoever. Dave, I'll let you finish. Boyd and Edelman going ahead of Gallup, Marquise Brown, Debo Samuel, Marvin Jones. How do you feel about that? Perfectly fine. I think Boyd's going to continue to get peppered with targets as the slot guy in a pass-friendly, not necessarily pass-heavy. Could be pass-heavy in Cincinnati, but pass-friendly for sure.

And I think Edelman's just going to get a lot of cheap catches inside of 10 yards like he's been getting his whole career. Jared Stidham isn't going to turn into Gardner Minshew and start chucking it deep all the time. I think the Patriots are a little more reined in offensively. At least I think they will be with Stidham at quarterback. So the dink and dunk offense that they run, they're going to keep running it. I think that's going to help Edelman in PPR, just as it's helped him his entire career. Final question, round seven.

What's the worst pick, Sonny Michel in round six or Alan Lazard in round seven? Sonny. Michel by far. Lazard was an aggressive pick, though, and I love him. It was an aggressive pick. It was. Before Brandon Cooks, before any of the rookie wide receivers. Kind of interesting.

Well, that was a good show, guys. Thank you very much. Dave, Jamie, Ben. Thank you very much. Dave, Jamie, Ben, Shraggy B. Have a great Star Wars day. We'll talk to you in a couple of days. Mike Wright of the Footballers joining us, and Jeff Haverlack of Dynasty League Football

coming on for a Friday show. We're also Twitching. We're streaming on Twitch on Wednesday night. We'll get the terminology right this time. I'm 50% sure of that. I'm Adam Azer. Thanks for listening, everybody. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na!