Fantasy Football Today - News, Mailbag and Regulators! (08/21 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

We've got plenty of your questions to get to, but first let's start with the NFL news you need to know (1:50). We touch on the DET backfield, the PHI WRs, a rookie WR who is getting some negative buzz right now and plenty more including some training camp risers that you need to be drafting (7:45) ... A bunch of your Apple Podcast questions (11:15) with our thoughts on how to draft in a startup dynasty league, who to draft in Rounds 6 and 7 and if Zero-WR is a viable strategy among other topics... On to your emails (27:30) which include questions about Dallas Goedert, Curtis Samuel and Austin Hooper. Then we've got the return of the Fantasy Regulators (39:30)! ... Your emails at [e-mail] '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

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. Very happy to be spending my Friday late morning, early afternoon with my good friend Jamie Eisenberg, two-man show. Adam and Jamie here for you on a bonus episode of Fantasy Football

today with a lot of your questions via Apple Podcasts and email. Plus, we're doing some regulating today. Jamie, happy Friday, sir. I've spent so much time with you this week. I feel like we're living together. You're welcome.

You're welcome for that. And I would like to thank you for Twitch last night when you brought your cousin Jesse Eisenberg on. It was like a career thrill for me to kind of just chat with him for 15 minutes. That was awesome. I hope it was great for the Twitch followers as well. So thank you, Jamie.

Yeah, it was fun. That was awesome. I hope it was great for the Twitch followers as well. So thank you, Jamie. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. You know, I've done maybe like five or six things, you know, professionally with Jesse now. And that was one of the least formal ones.

So it was fun, you know, I thought you asked him some good questions, you know, about himself, which, you know, some of it was brought on by the Twitch user subscribers. So that was cool.

Thank you guys for watching and listening. Next time you see him, watch Die Hard with him, for goodness sake. Wow. Alright, so we got news. Yeah, he's never seen it. He's young though, right? Kind of young? I think he's your age.

My age? Okay. Alright, no excuse then. Well, all right. No excuse then. So we got news and notes and we got your questions. Let's get right to it. First of all, Ron Rivera has cancer. Plans on coaching. Seems to be one that he can have under control, which is great.

We wish him the best. We're sorry to hear the diagnosis, but we wish him the best. Absolutely. We're rooting for him. What an absolute season has been so far for Washington's football team. And it's not even week one. I mean, yeah,

obviously thoughts and prayers with him. And on that subject, how convinced are you that Dwayne Haskins is going to be the week one starter? I think the week one starter is probably safe. The 16 game starter. That's probably the bigger question because I'm going to guess that they give him every opportunity to win the job. If there was preseason games, you know, maybe Alex Smith has a chance to unseat him, but any sort of struggle

where they feel like, you know, maybe they have a chance to win or be competitive for the season. You know, that's when maybe Alex Smith comes in, but what a story it would be if he's able to start, you know, a handful of games for that team. You know, you could basically pencil him in right now for the comeback player of the year. But you don't buy the Kyle Allen knows the system could start. No, I don't think Kyle Allen's going to start at all. I'd be very surprised that's the case. Like, what do you gain by that?

Yeah, right. Detroit Lions senior writer Tim Twentyman said, quote, it's expected that Swift and Johnson will share the backfield in a running back by committee approach. It should allow both players an opportunity to stay fresh. Yeah, I mean, I don't. It's funny, you know, again, I say this a few times, but I'll give you guys a peek behind the curtain. I do most of the programming for our HQ show, and I didn't even put this in the notes to talk about for us because it just feels like a non-story. So I understand why you're bringing it up because it's relevant,

but we have more time here to dedicate to some of these things. Yeah, I think they should share carries. Why would you not want to try and keep carry on Johnson fresh and work in the talented rookie that you have on the team? All right, so you know what? Why don't we just do this? Why don't we fire through the notes to give me a quick reaction to everything? Jared Stidham on this Friday early morning has a leg issue,

may not practice today. And Ryan Fitzpatrick missed practice for personal issues. That's one I want to keep an eye on because, you know, any opportunity that they get to see Tua with the ones, you know, maybe he's ready to go and they make a decision or fast track him to be the starter. So that's one to keep an eye on. Tyreek Hill has a minor hamstring injury. So are you dropping him at all in your rankings? No.

Okay. Bruce Arian said that Rob Gronkowski looks like he did five or six years ago. That's great. Is it going to play him like the Patriots did five or six years ago? That's the bigger question right now. Deebo Samuel may be ready for week one. Not buying it. All right. But still, I think he's based on where he's gone in our recent drafts, which is like 120th or later. Massive steal, I think. You are drafting him as a lottery ticket wide receiver. I think the key is expect

him to miss week one. Go in with that mindset. Pup list is the question. If he's out six weeks, that's the range he should go. Right. Okay. But if they're talking about him maybe being ready for week one, why shouldn't I be thinking, all right, maybe he'll be back in week three at the latest? Yeah. I mean, it's sounding encouraging. You know, they could not put him in the Pup List, and he's still out six weeks. You know, it's just a procedural thing. So I think round eight is the earliest I would consider him in PPR. Round 10 is probably the sweet spot.

Okay, that's Debo Samuel. Philadelphia rookie wide receiver John Hightower is having a good camp. He's a fifth-round pick. Jalen Rager is having a good camp. Let me just say that the rookie— John Jackson is having a good camp. He's a fifth round pick. Jalen Rager is having a good camp. Let me just say that. The rookie reports, though, have been very glowing, and that's not surprising. You obviously want to say good things about your rookies right now.

For example, there's a report in The Athletic that Zach Moss' potential impact in Buffalo this year may have been undersold. Stop on that one for a second. The guy who wrote it is Joe Buscaglia. We had him on HQ with us. And he said, Moss is going to be more of a complimentary guy. And so the fact that the way that he phrased it as more of an under, what is it? Undervalued. Undersold. Undersold role. I wonder if that was his own sort of belief going in that maybe Singletary, because he was glowing about Singletary when we had him on our show.

And so I wonder if it was, let me see what Zach Moss can do before I oversell him. I'm speaking for Joe. I hope I'm not speaking out of line. That's your interpretation, right? I expected Zach Moss to have a role, you know? And so when he told me that I was surprised. So I think, you know, Zach Moss is one of my favorite

mid-round, and I don't want to say late-round because he's a single-digit guy, but mid-round players to target. What do you think the carry split is? 60-40 single-target. Okay. And then when you get a bad report about a rookie,

it should, I think, be know, be a slightly alarming. And this report from the athletic about Justin Jefferson, not going great right now. He's number three at practice behind Adam Thielen and BC Johnson, and wasn't exactly dominating against the second teamers, I guess. So that's got a, at least for me anyway,

that's a bit of a red flag for Justin Jefferson. Your guy. Yeah. I think you should approach Justinerson as a long-term play not a short-term play you know this is a guy that if you're going to draft understand you might drop him early on but there's still a big opportunity here and so i also look at it as there was a report a couple days ago that which is what we expected jefferson to be the slot guy well they need another outside guy and that's BC Johnson. Right. Right.

So even though he's playing with the twos and two receiver sets and they're going to run a lot of two tight end sets, you know, I expect you know, Jefferson to eventually, you know, make some, take advantage of some opportunities there and keep in mind, he was on the reserve COVID list. So he's really working his way back into you know, being part of the team. Jamie, in case anybody's drafting this weekend, which ordinarily would be happening in great number,

but it seems like people are waiting longer this year. Are there any like training camp risers so far that you think need to be on people's radars and drafts need to be drafted? In a 15 round draft? Yeah, 15, 16. because like there's a couple guys that you know late late round picks brian edwards has certainly improved his stock for a late round pick in a deeper league scott miller you know if you're talking about really deep drafts but i think you know it's the we we've talked about this a little bit i know i mentioned on twitch last

night but um bryce love clearly damienian Harris, clearly. Those guys are putting themselves in position to be in good spots. I've talked a lot about Joshua Kelly and have kind of ignored Justin Jackson personally, but I've put those guys closer together. I'm still taking Kelly first because I think the long-term play is Kelly, but the short-term play is looking like Jackson. So those type of players, I think, are in the conversation from what we've heard from training camp.

Yeah. And Paris Campbell gets drafted. Michael Pittman. Michael. Okay. Yeah. Um, I'm just trying to look,

do you know who the chargers play week one? They play the Bengals. Oh, so that, I mean, that's a great chance for Justin Jackson to score a touchdown. If he's got that role, I will say this,

the front four for Cincinnati is going to be nasty. The front four for Cincinnati. going to be nasty. The front four for Cincinnati, is it? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, let's get on with the show. We had an email from Patrick. A revelation about the Green Bay quarterbacks.

Do you realize the Green Bay quarterbacks are A-Rod and J-Lo? That's great. Thank you, Patrick, for enlightening us. Now, Patrick and the rest of you listeners out there, do you shop online? Of course you shop online. Everybody shops online, especially now. What if I told you that when you buy things online, you can have a special little helper just giving you promo codes to save you money?

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So get Honey for free at joinhoney.com slash FFT. That's joinhoney.com slash FFT. We start with Apple podcast questions. This is from Vinal Star. What's up, Craig, Smokey, Debo, and Big Worm? Friday. Oh, nice. Never seen it. Yeah, no, that's bad. I have the 11th pick in both my drafts. Would you stick to the same strategy or try to make your teams as

different as possible? Are they both the same format? I'm going to guess we don't know the answer to that, right? Right. So if they're both the same format, I would probably try and switch it up a little bit, especially since you're going to get four picks in the top 15 so why not you know take at least you know try and take maybe a different combination of players especially if you're you know sort of let's say torn on mixing jacobs chubb henry uh julio tyreek you know switch it up a little bit just to you know have a little bit of variance. But, you know, I think we talked about this on Twitch maybe, that if you have a strong conviction on the player, you know, it's not that bad to do it.

But as you pointed out, you know, maybe the early players is where you want to have a little bit of difference. Yeah, I wouldn't mind having Travis Kelsey on one of those teams. Sure, not a bad option also. This is from Jay Becci in a Minnesota city with the best water in America. Minneapolis. Apparently Duluth, according to Google. That sounds like a water place.

Duluth? Yeah, you're right. I can see a nice bottle. Yeah. Dear Rio, Tokyo, Moscow, The Professor, and Denver. This is money heists. Don't know what that is either. I'm in a 12-team PPR Superflex Dynasty startup salary cap draft.

What is your salary cap strategy for a Dynasty startup? It's Superflex, it's PPR, it's Dynasty, it's startup, and it's salary cap, which is what we're calling auctions now, by the way. Salary cap leagues. What's your strategy? For me, it's probably going to be the same where I want to get as many good borderline number one, number two players as I possibly can. But if you're in the mindset of you want to have one or potentially two studs, then spend the money on that.

But I think your objection should be – objection? No, your objective. Objective, Your Honor. Your objective should be to try and see how many guys you can get that are going to have roles in 2021 at cheaper options. So the A.J. Dillons, the T.iggins, the, you know, how about like, how about all of the rookie wide receivers, you know, you could go heavy. This was a really good rookie, rookie wide receiver class. You could get CD lamb and Jerry Judy and Jalen Rager and Henry rugs,

maybe three of those four for the same price that Michael Thomas might go for potentially. I don't, I don't know how that would work. I think the higher end guys are going to go a little bit more expensive than you think. The bigger name guys, the higher draft pick guys. The higher name rookies, you mean? Yeah. Judy and Lamb and those guys. I'm looking more at the guys you can maybe get at cheaper prices. We spent some time a little while ago talking about guys that may have bigger roles in 2021 so like you're going to spend more in a startup dynasty draft on jk dobbins a startup dynasty salary cap league on jk dobbins than you would on a redraft salary cap league on dobbins you know

because he could be just an absolute stud next year um yeah and you know some people punt first year if you think this dynasty league is going to... I'm not saying you should do this, but you could. If you think the Dynasty League is going to be around for a while, you got a dedicated group. Some people kind of tank week one and take all rookies and all long-term upside plays and just try to set themselves up to have an incredible...

I think I might have said week one. I meant year one. Incredible rookie... Incredible Dynasty team for the future. I'll give you an example. The dynasty league that Heath started, we're now entering year four. That was actually my approach on the draft. It's just how funny, how dumb luck has worked out. I had pick 10. No, 11. Pick 11. My first pick in round one was Des Bryant because I thought, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to go big and try and win this year. You know, my round two pick was who Michael Thomas. Yeah. Good job. Yeah. You never know. All right. Let's go to our next theme. Uh, Apple podcast question from camera guy 14.

I'm keeping miles Sanders, Keenan Allen, and Zach Ertz. I have the number two pick, uh, Clyde Edwards. He there will probably go number one. So I'm looking at Bell, Connor, Gurley, Galladay, Juju, or Cooper. Who should I take? Bell, Connor, Gurley, Galladay, Juju, Cooper. And who are the players that they're keeping in? Sanders, Allen, and Ertz. Yeah, I'm still going to go with the receivers. So I would take either Juju or Galladay.

Joe from Indianapolis. Can you talk me through your running back strategy from the two spot? Well, Adam hates this pick. So I guess I'll answer. No, if Aaron Jones makes it back to me at 23, then I love it. But he doesn't. So then that screws up my running back strategy. Well, it depends.

I mean, our pick-by-pick series as we went over yesterday, I got Aaron Jones at 24. So you did because Heath likes James Conner a lot and took Conner. You're saying that would be Aaron Jones. Yeah, most people would take Aaron Jones. But that's it.

Look, maybe some people are taking Mahomes and Jackson there instead. Like, we don't. And Aaron Jones does fall. So he's just a really important player. If I can get one of the top, I think it's 12. What's Jones for you, 12? 14. Oh, it's 14? Okay.

We typically see 14 guys go in the first round. Alright, so if there's a second running back in the top 14 available, 23rd overall, then I'm thrilled. It just never happens, basically, in my drafts. We're also in half and non PPR higher on Eckler. He typically falls to this range. Oh, that'd be great. Right. So, you know, it depends on what

you're looking for. Drake is going to fall closer to this range. All right. So Jamie, what, let's say you don't get a top, a second top 14 running back. Let's say Connor, a girly Gordon, um, bell that group is the best. And you took Saquon Barkley second overall. What's now what's your running back strategy. So then I, I, I take the mindset of I'm taking the two best wide receivers, you know, and that's going to be the group of DJ more, Chris Godwin, Deandre Hopkins. Uh, that's on the higher side. Um, Juju, uh, the Rams guys, Robinson, you know, depending on format. And so I take two of those guys and then it's rounds four and five.

And you got to be comfortable with the next group of backs. They're going to be there. Ronald Jones, Devin Singletary, David Montgomery, Kareem Hunt, you know, and I try and take two of those guys, you know, so if I can come away with two top 12-ish wide receivers, one of the top two running backs in fantasy, which is typically going to be Barkley, and then two guys that are borderline top 24,

I'm fine with that. Okay. This is from Kyle. Would you rather keep Darren Waller or Dak Prescott in the seventh round? In a PPR league, I would rather keep Waller. In non or half, I'd probably go with Prescott in the seventh round? In a PPR league, I would rather keep Waller. In non or half, I'd probably go with Prescott. From JB3CHY,

12-team PPR Superflex Dynasty startup this year. It is a, yeah, Superflex, as I mentioned. There's a reward for winning two years in a row. What would your, hmm,

this is very similar to another question I read. So... What do you do to start up? Yeah, this is a... Yeah, startup dynasty. Well, I guess with the Superflex. The last one wasn't Superflex.

Yeah, it was. Oh, that wasn't. It was the same question, I'm sure, Adam. Yeah, it seems very similar. Just don't know if it was... Okay. Well, sorry, we already answered that. From Edward.

I have the fourth pick in a 12-team PPR league. I really want to take Michael Thomas, but should I go with Alvin Kamara or Derek Henry instead? I would go with Alvin Kamara for sure. From BS Entertained, 12-team PPR snake draft, 11th pick.

I have 11 and 14, and then I pick again in the end of round three. I love DJ Moore. I feel like he pick again in the end of round three. I love DJ Moore. I feel like he's going to be gone late round three. Can I justify DJ Moore with the 14th pick? I mean, if you have that strong a conviction on him, I think, I don't want to speak for them, but I believe Ben and Heath have him near five overall, that receiver.

So assuming the top two guys are gone in thomas and adams which they certainly should by the time you even get to 11 and there's a chance julio or tyreek go as the third or fourth receiver off the board you're not reaching that much you're just passing up on probably some good running back talent there so uh but if you have that stronger conviction and you're not sold on the non-pass-catching running backs, Jacobs, Mixon, Chubb, Henry, then sure, take him at 14. This is from Kevin Jeffrey in Riverview, Michigan.

But I also think you should gauge maybe he does get back to you in round three. Yeah, it's possible. That's why I probably wouldn't do it just because he might get back there. Kevin Jeffrey in Riverview, Michigan. My quarterbacks are Cam, Cousins, Locke, and Darnold. I could redshirt two of this season.

Which two should I dump to address other needs? Cam, Cousins, Locke, and Darnold. Is it drop two of those guys? I guess so. This is Dynasty, obviously. Yeah, I would hate to drop Drew Locke because of what he might become.

I would hate to drop any of them. Right. I mean, first off, I'd try and trade. You know, if you have that many quarterbacks, somebody could probably use a backup.

Yeah, I guess. I may be dropping Cousins. Yeah, but now he's got to drop two of them. Cousins has the least amount of dynasty appeal, I'd say. Right, but he's probably your safest starter. I know. You're in trouble, bro.

Make a trade. All right, sorry. For the love of football, wants to keep two. $200 budget. Mahomes for $4. Sanders for $6 budget. Mahomes for $4. Sanders for $6. Chubb for $7. Metcalf for $2.

And Kareem Hunt for $2. Who would you keep? I lean towards Sanders and Chubb just because the value is so good. Okay. But it's hard to throw back Metcalf at $2. Sanders for sure, right? Yeah, I would probably just...

I mean, Sanders and Chubb for $13. That's pretty fantastic. That's pretty good. Jerry from Salem, Oregon. Who are you targeting and getting a lot of in rounds six and seven? The wide receivers would be,

that's where Will Fuller comes into play for me. Marquise Brown comes into play for me. You know, Tyler Boyd's in that range. Uh, Michael Gallup's in that range. Those would be the wide receivers. The quarterback typically would be, you know, whoever's left of the super six. Uh, typically for me, it's Watson because of, uh, drafting with all you guys.

Um, but you know, Murray or, or Wilson will be there. I don't, I don't think we'll see Prescott there. And then the running backs are typically that group that I just mentioned before Montgomery Ronald Jones. You know, it's, it's, it's weird because in drafts with us, Ronald Jones gets pushed up, you know, Dave usually takes him early or, you know, you take him Ben takes him, George Maselli takes him, you know, there's,

there's a handful of our guys that like Ronald Jones, certainly around five. And I would draft him around five myself. But I think round six, he'll be there. Singletary, Montgomery, like I said, Kareem Hunt, you know, those are typically the backs. And then the tight ends, that's a good spot for if you're so inclined for the Waller, Ingram, Hunter Henry group. I wouldn't take Tyler Higby that soon. This is from Angry Pete Pablo, dear Tammy,

Tammy, Tammy, and Ron. All right, everybody, there's your chance to hate me again. I love Parks and Rec. I think it's an all timer. So I'm just want to say that season seven, the final season was awful. I don't know how people feel about it, but it was like homework is like, I have to watch this just because I felt like I made a commitment. That's a brutal season, but a great show. So please don't hate me for that. I have the number one pick. I'm often going with McCaffrey, Mahomes,

and Kelsey or Kittle, and then four straight wide receivers. Is this crazy? Should I fade the QB in tight end position for more depth at running back? But this is kind of what we got back to with the Barkley conversation, right? So the running backs that you're looking at

at the 2-3 turn aren't great. Yeah, especially if Kelsey and Kittle and Mahomes are all there, then probably means there was a run on running backs. So let's assume Kelsey's not there, right? Yeah. Because that's probably a stretch. So is it 12 team or 10 team?

Because that may be where... I don't know. So 10 team, it may come into play, but let's assume 12 team. So you go Mahomes, Kelsey – Mahomes, Kittle, DJ Moore. Who are the receivers? So I can tell you from the flex draft that we did – I'm wearing the T-shirt, by the way. I had the first pick, and I took McCaffrey, and then I took Kittle, and I took Juju.

Mahomes was on the board. That league is a little bit different because you have to start more running backs and wide receivers. There are two flexes. Makes the quarterback a little less valuable. I don't think I would have taken Mahomes there over Juju anyway,

but I wouldn't have minded that start. I mean, I honestly feel like if you go McCaffrey, Kittle, Mahomes, yeah, okay, so you might be a little weak at running back or receiver, whatever, but you have elite players. It's fun. I mean, I would love to try that out and see how it works. But again, you've got to be comfortable with, and I am. I think you probably are.

I know Heath and Ben are. Dave is not. You know, your two starting running backs are potentially Montgomery, Singletary, Ronald Jones. Well, no, you have McCaffrey. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. The one thing I wouldn't do, though. Your second back.

Your second back. I wouldn't go four straight wide receivers. I would take maybe three receivers and a running back. You know, like I did. I have Devin Singletary in that league. So, okay, let's,

we got a couple more Apple podcast questions. Then we have emails from aunt Silva, nine, nine, nine. Oh, this is fun. I laughed at this one.

We can, we can laugh at this, but maybe don't take this example too seriously. Best fantasy football pod pod. I advise everyone to listen if they want to win their league. To be honest, I never talk about this pod to my friends because then they will steal my edge in fact I spend a lot of time talking about how CBS

gives bad advice and persuade my league mates to not listen I'm a terrible person but it works kind of like a reverse jinx alright a little extreme but I appreciate the kind of support and we have an origin story from It's a little extreme, but I appreciate the kind of support.

And we have an origin story from Lucas North, who is in our Twitch League, by the way. I was a baseball basketball player through school and never woke up early enough on Sundays for football. And being an LA homer, the teams that had left the city during my adolescence. When my son was born in 2010, I was 22 years old. All my hobbies had crashed and burned.

My friends, who had all dispersed across the country, had this idea to start a fantasy league. I didn't want to at first, but out of spite against a friend, I decided to play just to pick players from his favorite team, the Chargers. We played each other week one, and I beat him by two points, and it was on.

I would spend the following years pushing my kids in the strollers laughing at your friendly banter, touch down there and have people thinking Die Hard was a Christmas movie. It's not. Just wanted to say thanks for the decade of your useful and entertaining content guys and being with me during

the tumultuous and beautiful seasons of life and football. Would love to beat you all in the Twitch League and he's in it. And if not selected, you guys are still the greatest, even Heath. So I thought that was a nice Apple podcast review

and I thank you very much for that, Luke. And thank you to everybody, by the way, for all of your emails and all of your support on Twitch and the pod. Like, it's just overwhelming.

The Facebook group, Twitter, ask us, ask FFT, by the way, is the hashtag you want to start using on Twitter. Thank you to everyone

out there. We're going to do regulators. Jamie's going to hop off in like 10 minutes. We'll do regulators at the end of the show. We've got one issue to regulate. Shraggy B is going to join me at some point. But Jamie, let's see how many emails we can get you through. This is from Jonathan. How come there is no Dallas Goddard breakout hype?

I just don't know if you could break out with the receivers that they've added. You know, I mean, if Hightower is getting buzzed and Rager is getting buzzed and Jax is getting buzzed and at some point Jeffrey is going to come back and Ertz is still there, where is he breaking out? So this is a great, by the way, he's a great buy in a startup dynasty league. Right. They don't pay Ertz. Who would you pay more for in a startup dynasty league, Er don't pay hurts who who would you pay more for her to start up dynasty league hurts or got her uh i would probably i wouldn't pay for it that's the thing right yeah let someone else do that uh from nick i understand the arguments against austin hooper

this season but i'm seeing him fall way down the board in mock drafts. While he may not have the upside he had last year with the Falcons, I've been able to get him as a backup tight end in round 10 or 11. That kind of discount for Hooper seems crazy to me for someone who put up the numbers he did last year. What do you think? I think that's a smart move to get him as a second tight end. I've taken

the approach a couple of our recent drafts of targeting one of the young upside guys that I like and pairing them with either hooper or cook just to see you know you kind of know what you're going to get with hooper and cook you just don't know where the ceiling's going to lie with those guys um i got you know i referenced this a few times uh nathan zagura joined us on on hq our former colleague here at uh fft and he said you, Hooper's numbers are going to come down. Just hard to imagine them going up. But he said the touchdowns could still be, you know, in the 7-8 range.

And if the yardage is not tremendously bad, you know, then he's going to, you know, still be in that top 12 conversation. I just think the tight end position, you know, it's a risk. But the guys basically, you know, after Gronk on anybody's rank list, Gusecki, Fant, Janu, you know, Jarwin, Herndon, you know, all these guys. Throw Goddard in there if you want to. Can be great. And that's where I think where Hooper and Jericho belong.

So there's a group of like 10 to 20 that could all have good seasons. Irv Smith, especially with Justin Jefferson struggling. Those are guys that I think you look for. I took Fant and Hawkinson in a mock draft yesterday. Hawkinson, yeah, great one too. Two late picks. Hopefully, one of those guys breaks out. It's a mock draft, but I would have done that in a real draft. The question is

how much patience are you going to have if they don't get off to blistering starts? It just depends who's available on waivers. I think if you see Jack Doyle sitting there and he gets off to a good start Herndon, I don't think it's going to get drafted to the level. I think he could perform at. In all likelihood,

if I drafted two tight ends, I'd drop one of them for a different position, you know, because there's going to be hot wide receivers and running backs on waivers. Probably what I do. Right. But the last thing you want to do is,

and this probably happened to a few people, drafting TJ Hawkinson, you know, maybe listening to what we said about Mark Andrews and Darren Waller, and I don't remember what those guys did in week one, but you know you weren't dropping Hawkinson after week one. Yeah. No, I think they both had good week ones.

I can double check on that. This is from Marshall. Yeah, I don't know if that's the best example because all three guys probably did well to start the season. Yeah, I mean, week one for the Ravens was that Dolphins game, and I think Waller did well too. From Marshall,

Dear Sean, LaDainian, Phillip, and Antonio, those are chargers, 14 and 2 chargers. Do you think Curtis Samuel could be a post-hype sleeper? He can. I got asked this question. I did the Fantasy Pros. They're, I mean, they're called a pod-a-thon.

They were on the air for like 10 hours. That's right. And they asked me who I thought was better of the two non DJ more guys. And, you know, we had Joe person of the athletic covers the Panthers on HQ. And he said that Samuel is not just going to be the downfield guy anymore. He's going to run a lot of underneath routes and stay closer to my scrimmage as more of a slot type receiver. And I think we could see his numbers certainly bounce back from last year.

You know, he was the biggest victim of the quarterbacks. So he struggled with just uncatchable balls all over the place for the Panthers last year. So, you know, he's somebody that I have at the end of my top 60. And, you know, when we get to those wide receivers that you're looking at, rounds 12, 13, 14, that's not a bad option at all. All right, here we go, Jamie. Let's knock out as many as we can before you have to leave for HQ, which is live noon Eastern, Monday through Friday.

Check it out. This is from Trevor. Can you dive a little deeper on Fournette? All right, we're not gonna be able to go as deep as we want. But yeah, I think people think we might be too low on him. What do you think? I think round four is the perfect spot for him i would not draft him in round three i would love to get him in round five okay this is from no name here a dear aj troy antonio and marquise those feel like wide receivers oh browns the browns there you go

and they are wide receivers how viable is a zero wide The Browns. There you go. And they are wide receivers. How viable is a zero wide receiver strategy? Couldn't you load up on seven to eight running backs, almost guaranteeing you one or two will hit and then draft someone like Edelman, Crowder, Shepard to give you a safe floor? Okay.

Maybe this is the 10-team league because you're not getting Edelman and Crowder in round nine. Well, actually, you're not getting Edelman. Non-PPR. You might non-PPR. Maybe. I don't know. Zero wide receiver.

What do you think? Well, Heath did that, not to this extent, in our pick-by-pick thing that we went over on our last show. He started three straight running backs with Barkley, Carson, and... Connor. Connor. And then his top wide receivers were T.Y. Hilton, Keenan Allen, and Julie Nettleman.

And so that's not a bad route if you get three guys like that. But again, if you're waiting that long, you got to, the thing you got to do if you do that is Will Fuller, Marquise Brown, uh, Deontay Johnson,

you know, all these guys that have, uh, huge upside and just understand that it could have a very, very bad floor, uh, based on what we've seen from the potential of some of those guys. Pete from Seattle, are you more inclined to

take a later round high upside pick on a wide receiver or a running back? It depends on how my roster looks. Again, Fuller, Johnson, Deontay Johnson, Jalen Rager, those type of guys I think are certainly worth taking chances on. But at the same time, Daryl Henderson, Zach Moss, Bryce Love, Damian Harris, you know, those guys could, if they get the opportunity to start in their backfields, Alexander Madison, Chase Edmonds, you know, those type of guys could be amazing. Taylor from Georgia wants to know why he should take Saquon Barkley number two instead of Ezekiel Elliott. It's a matter of, I guess, personal, you know, feeling. You know, hopefully, you know, hopefully again, the Cowboys offensive line is going to be good. Allow Collins gone to car X yesterday. He's expected to be fine.

Tyron Smith left practice. I haven't seen an update on him. And if Travis Frederick, as we know, is gone, that's three key members of that line that are missing. Barkley is going to be more involved in the past game. I expect. I was shocked to see our projections on sports line, have Zeke for 72 catches. That's that would be amazing if that happens. But, you know, it's like 2A and 2B. You know, they're both exceptional.

I think in PPR, Kamara is actually better than Zeke because I think he's going to have more receptions. And he could get back to scoring, you know, 15 touchdowns. Okay. And finally, for Jamie, we'll keep it going with Ben. Daniel from Indianapolis. Which rookie wide receiver will see the most targets in 2020? I say CeeDee Lamb. My friend says Justin Jefferson.

Settle the debate. Which rookie wide receiver gets the most targets in 2020? At this point, you'd probably say it's Ruggs or Rager, just given some of the hype for those guys. If I had to pick one, I would probably go, I'm going to go Ruggs. Ruggs, okay.

All right. Yeah, those are the two that came to mind. You want to be in a high-volume offense that's going to throw a lot. So there's that. The Vikings are not that. No, but you have, you know, some circumstance like Iuke, if, if, uh,

Samuel's out for the six weeks or has a, you know, relapse with his injury. Yeah. You know, again, not a high volume offense, but if he's the,

you know, we had this conversation, you know, I know Dave says four guys could get over a hundred targets as a rookie. There's been four rookies that have gotten over a hundred targets. I forget what the season was, you know, so it's not a,

it's not going to be a huge number of targets. The number you're hoping for is like 90. 90 targets. Yeah, that'd be great. And we saw that from what? Metcalf, McLaurin. You know, the rookie wide receivers last year did not get a lot of targets. And they did well

even without that. They were on very run-heavy offenses. The best rookie wide receivers. I don't know what the targets were. A.J. Brown was under 100. McLaurin was under 100. Yeah, none of them got to 100. Metcalf were under 100. Metcalf would have gotten to 100.

I think he missed the game, right? No, he did not. McLaurin missed two. McLaurin would have been the one. I think McLaurin may have been on pace for like 105, something like that. Yeah. But I could be so wrong about these numbers.

These are all off the top of my head. Jamie, thank you for your time. It's a pleasure, Adam. I hope to not speak to you again until Sunday. Yes, two full days of not speaking to me, which won't be true. We'll be texting and talking fantasy baseball and things like that.

That's right. That's Jamie. All right, Ben, get your butt on here. What is up? There he is, Shaggy B. All right, I got two emails for you and then regulators here we go this is a tough one from garrett who wins this trade in a half ppr dynasty league team a amari cooper and will fuller or team b mike evans evans and cooper are very very close

for me in dynasty fuller kind of makes it an even deal, but I also see in the email, I'm looking to deal Cooper since I also have Michael Gallup. So I'm taking this deal. Give me Mike Evans so I can pair him with Gallup and get rid of Cooper and Fuller. Yeah, Cooper might not be on the Cowboys in 2021. That deal was structured in a way

that I think makes it sort of easy for them to get rid of him, which might not be a bad thing. But I tend to decide with Evans too. And that's interesting. All right. This last one is from Trevor from a city two hours northeast of Detroit. I believe the city was in Canada, and I don't really know that many Canadian cities. So I'll just say Toronto, which I know is not the answer. Dear Adam, Morton, Gary, Jason, and John. No clue. Those are some of the best kickers ever, Shraggy B.

Morton Anderson. Morton Anderson, Gary Anderson, Adam Vinatieri, Jason Elam, John. I should probably know this. Yeah, John, I should probably, I should probably know this. Yeah. John Wick. Can you explain why you hate kickers without saying it's just too random or some variation of that?

We stream DST. We play wide receiver two and three based on matchup. We even stream quarterback, but there's never talk of streaming kickers. My thought is that every advantage counts and that includes kickers. I agree with the streaming kickers. I don't hate kickers as much as Heath does. There are certain things you can look at with kickers. You want a team that's going to be scoring a lot that day. A lot of times there's a passing yards correlation with field goals kicked, but it is super random. So it makes it tougher to stream than a defense. But my kicker mentality is get a stud like Will Lutz

or Harrison Butker or stream kickers, if you want to call it that, and get a guy with a good matchup. But it is very, very difficult to predict and super random. So yeah, didn't want to use that as an excuse, but it's just how football is. It's very random. I think it's ridiculous.

Just play with kickers. This whole like, oh, ban kickers. I think it's childish and doesn't really make any sense. And I cannot figure out who the John is.

John Carney? John, John, John. I'm looking at the career leaders in John Carney would be the best. John Casey. John Casey?

I don't know. Whatever. Well, we're almost done. I loaded some new sounds into my mixer. We have the Heath size. We have the compilation. That was it. This is just how we want to start our Friday afternoon. I think there's more to it.

This is just how we want to start our Friday afternoon. Yeah, and then we have Regulators, the new version of the Fantasy Regulators. Oh, yeah. Here we go. Sorry, I'm just dancing. This is from Adam in a Canadian city north of Seattle. Let's go with Vancouver. Dear Sandler, Wainwright, Vinatieri, and Scott.

Those are Adams. I'm in a keeper league with nearly 10 years of playing in the league together. We have an issue with how our draft order was set. When setting the order, I posted a live video revealing the draft order in our group chat. After all 10 picks were already set, I noticed that the name Mack was entered twice instead of one Mack and one Matt. The name Mack got both the first pick and the fifth pick. So now there is a majority of the league saying only the first and the fifth pick need to be redrawn between Mac and Matt, where another league mate is calling a void draft lottery and a complete redo, saying that an illegitimate draft lottery calls for an entire redo of draft order.

So, Ben, would you only redo picks one and five between Mac and Matt, or would you redo the entire draft? Yeah, you're just redoing those picks. One of them was supposed to be Mac, and one of them was supposed to be Matt. So you randomize those. You could probably do something fun with it. It doesn't just have to be a randomizer

or a flip of a coin, but it's just those two picks. Oh, yeah, Shraggy B. Way to lay it down. And that's how we're getting into the weekend. It's so obvious. Okay, the one person who wants a redraft of the entire draft is obviously unhappy with where he's picking.

He has the seventh pick. He hates it. No, I think he has the tenth pick. Did you say seventh for a reason or were you just guessing i just don't like the seventh pick oh no he is the 10th pick out of yeah come on so relax mac and matt will settle this make them do something fun to settle it i'd say and uh we're out of here everybody have a great weekend we will talk to you either sunday night or monday morning with our next podcast uh for ben schrager and jamie eisenberg i'm adam azer Have a great weekend. We will talk to you either Sunday night or Monday morning with our next podcast. For Ben Schrager and Jamie Isenberg, I'm Adam Azer. Have a great weekend. See you later.