Fantasy Football Today - Offseason Buys or Sells with guest Jagger May of Footballguys! (Fantasy Football Today Dynasty)

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Jagger May of Footballguys joins Heath Cummings on FFT Dynasty to discuss buys and sells, players we're higher or lower on than consensus, and more! SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and your loved ones financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters. Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations, or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada. Insurance designed for life. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings, joined today by a very special guest, Jagger May. From Football Guys, you can find him on Twitter, at Fantasy Blue Chip. Thank you for being here today.

Glad to be here, Heath. Yeah, yeah. I've maybe set a record for the number of Football Guys on a podcast that's not a Football Guys podcast in the first year of production. That's where I came from about, geez, is it nine years ago now? I think nine years ago in March was when I joined CBS Sports, and I got my start with Sigmund Blum and Joe Bryant and Jason Wood and all the guys back in the day. Just a fantastic place to be. Did I see correctly, you actually just became a full-time staff member. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I completely sold out now. That is fantastic. Well, we are glad to have you here on the show. On today's show,

we are going to talk about some post-season Dynasty Risers, or maybe guys that I think could be post-season Dynasty Risers. We'll see if you agree. A couple that came to my mind, Baker Mayfield, Khalil Shakir, and then there's some guys I have some questions about as well. We're also going to talk about off-season dynasty buys. Now, there's lots of ways that you can frame this. For me, I just went and looked for guys that I'm considerably higher than consensus on, but I would give a couple of qualifiers. I'm, for the most part, not buying running backs this time of year unless there's a significant discount, and I'm definitely not buying veterans this time of year unless there's a significant discount. And I'm definitely not buying veterans this time of year because a lot of things can go wrong in the next six months.

So you'll see mostly younger guys, but there are a few running backs on the list. As always, we're going to start this show with three questions for our guests. And this is a question I ask almost everybody, at least their first time on the show, because we want to a lot of people listening to the show thinking about starting new dynasty leagues. I want to help them start those in the best way possible. So you're thinking about starting a new league. You're talking to your friends about it. You're fighting over rules. What's the one thing that's non-negotiable for you? We got a little little pause here, maybe a little little freeze in the video that happens

to me all the time so literally not a problem either that or i'm frozen and and i think that i'm the one that's talking now i'm here so i'll tell you what his answer was because he did a great job of actually sending me his answers before the show and uh it's super flex and i i mostly agree like i do have several dynasty leagues that are not super flex i think one of the reasons it's so important to get that right is that there are certain rules that you cannot really change midstream like we started this yolo dynasty league nick costas and i approximately six years ago. Um, and I've thought in the last three years that, you know, it would really be good if we could change this to a super flex league. There's no way to do it though, because some guys have three or four quarterbacks already

on their roster. Some guys like me have Patrick Mahomes and literally no one else. I'm not interested in changing to a super flex league. So I do think that's one of the things that you have to get right from the very start. And I think you're right. Super flex is the best way to do it. Yeah, easily for me. Like again, I like dynasty because it's the closest thing to simulate kind of like being a real GM or anything like that. And I know some people think that's like lame or a loser because I actually enjoy the sport of football, but that's what it's all about to me. And it also, it gives you a little bit of flexibility as to how you can build your team a little bit, because you can like think about this year,

if you did a startup and you faded quarterback, and you got like CMC and B. John Robinson or Jameer Gibbs or something like that, and then you went and got Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff as your other QB. Honestly, I think that your team probably made the playoffs considering that you had what some would consider weak quarterbacks at the beginning of last season. Yeah, I think you're exactly right in that it values half of the league at the most important position that gets completely devalued

on a one-quarterback league. Guys like Baker Mayfield, who just had a career year, maybe didn't even matter in a one quarterback league this season. So let's go to question number two. There's four teams left in the real playoffs. Who are the top five players in a super flex dynasty league in your rankings? Lamar Jackson. And I know this is a hot take, but I have him over Patrick Mahomes and then Jameer Gibbs, Brandon IU, which is probably another hot take but i have him over patrick mahomes and then jameer gibbs brandon iuk which is probably another hot take i have him over cmc and the reason for lamar jackson this has nothing

to do with patrick mahomes i'm not the people who say well patrick sucks now because he had to throw to mvs you know like i'm not i don't believe that it's math you know again we do like this is uh based off a real sport but again it is a game off a game so it's just a math question lamar jackson i think has the upside to be the highest score weekend and week out it's just without question patrick mahomes does have a little bit of a rushing floor but lamar jackson put up 100 rushing yards in the playoffs and ran for two through for two and that's right and and it looked slow at the beginning of the season, but that was just us waiting on Todd Malkin's offense. It's just not a question to me. It's been so interesting watching this answer evolve for the industry when it comes to Josh Allen versus Jalen Hurts versus Patrick Mahomes versus Lamar Jackson.

I think if you look at consensus rankings, you look at ADP, Mahomes is actually still QB one. But I understand if this past regular season and seeing that, you know what, he's not necessarily an elite fantasy quarterback if he doesn't have any wide receivers, which he did for the first two, which in fairness, what quarterbacks are basically just Lamar Jackson because he runs so much. So I think that's a fine answer. Having those two at the top, fairness what quarterbacks are basically just lamar jackson because he runs so much so i think that's a fine answer having those two at the top brandon iuka number three is super interesting

though because it's not just over cmc but it's also over among ross st brown um to be honest like you caught me i hate i forgot how did i do that um i think i think i answered my favorites because to be honest, Alvin Ross St. Brown is like – I think he's going towards the turn on a lot of 12-team mocks right now. So to me, he's like a staple. What I like Brandon Ayuk is that – let's put it this way. If he wasn't on the 49ers, which he's already performed really well, he would be, to me, Devontae Adams.

So he's just a guy that I just want because of the talent alone. And I don't know if he's going to stay in San Francisco, but literally almost any other team where he could get at least a portion of the volume that some of these other studs like Amon Ross St. Brown would get. To me, he's in the Justin Jefferson category of skill, in my opinion. So I don't know, that's a hot take, but I love some Brandon Ayuk. Well, I mean, we had this same type of discussion with Stephon Diggs before he got to Buffalo with Josh Allen. So I think that the right thing to do as a Kansas City Chiefs fan, the right thing to do for Brandon Ayuk is just pair him up with Patrick Mahomes and you solve

both problems. Patrick Mahomes has his number one wide receiver. Brandon Ayuk becomes the best wide receiver in football, right? Heath, if that happens, I'll send you a six-pack of your favorite beer. Because I have so many shares. I'd love that so much. That's fantastic. Now, what are your impressions we're we're getting into it we haven't talked about the 2024 rookie drafts or rookie class yet and just to be honest that's because i spend most of my time from september through december thinking about redraft fantasy football i host this show once a week but i don't get into the college game too much until right about now and so i'm i'm catching up on a lot of these prospects. And so I want to ask you, I know you've already

tweeted some stuff out about some of these guys. What, what are your initial thoughts on this 2024 draft class? I know what we heard last year when it was about this time is that, Oh, the 2024 class is going to be so much better than the 2023 class. Does that still feel true? Yes. And the only thing that the only big difference is where the value is positionally last year we had to me, I think 2023 was an excellent class as far as like the, the usable pieces that we got and the tight end Renaissance. That's been wonderful when we were all talking about cutting the position in the off season. But, uh, and with this one, it's all about the QBs and the wide receivers.

And then to me, the running backs aren't as bad as people are saying. If we look back, when we got Damian Pierce, granted, he's kind of dead now. But in that draft class, we got a couple of guys that turned into something. And a lot of that is just where they land. And a lot of teams could use a running back. So I'm not particularly worried. And to me, like second and third round picks are incredibly valuable right now in comparison to where they were in the past. Because you could have really good wide receivers like A.D. Mitchell. Now with like – people are talking about Brian Thomas being a top three wide receiver. And by people, I mean I'm people.

So like even that pushes someone like Troy Franklin down. And then like, to me, I saw Braylon Allen going second round and a super flex mock. And then that's with, with quality people with like Pat Fitzmore. So, you know, guys that know what they're talking about. And to me, Braylon Allen is a good prospect for running back. That if he lands in a good situation, we're going to be talking about him as a top 10 dynasty asset.

So to me, the answer is just depth. I wouldn't trade – I'm going to get rid of a couple of fours to go pick up an old veteran who hopefully maybe – I'm not going to do that. I'm holding them all. So I think that's interesting because I mean, obviously the value of those second, third, fourth round picks is so much different in a league full of analysts than it is in a league full of normal human beings. But what I've seen when trying to make trades here recently is that like the, the impact that tank Dell and Puka Nakua had this past year, I wondered if there would be an overreaction and people would be more interested in those types of picks where I've not seen that at all. People are still treating those third, second and third round picks as if they're not worth much at all and so i do think that this time of year heading up to the draft and then even in

the draft if there's guys you like going and getting those picks is not going to be that difficult now we do have a bonus question for every other guest it's always been three questions this one i i'm ambushing you with i didn't tell you it was coming but i there there is a tweet from a couple of days ago please don't invite me to your house if your dog is a couch licker couch licker is capitalized uh this isn't quite my house but it's kind of my show my dog is a couch licker. Is that okay still? It is okay still. It is okay. At least warn me that your dog is a couch licker.

I'm like, okay, cool. I'll pull up a kitchen table. No, I make no – I apologize for my dog as soon as people walk into the house. Partially for the couch licking. Many other things though. What happened was we had a wonderful dog and it passed away about eight years ago. And so I think seven years ago, week one of the NFL season, my family knows that like Sunday during the NFL season, you're really not going to get much from me.

Sometimes my wife likes to take advantage of that. And so about one 30 hour time, the games have just started. I started getting texts from her and she has my seven-year-old at the dog place looking at dogs and she comes home with a Chihuahua. And the great thing is that Chihuahuas live for like a hundred years. So this was not a decision that we made that we're going to deal with for four years or something. We're going to have a chihuahua for the rest of our lives, probably going to outlive me and definitely going to my couch. Fantastic. Let's take a short break here and then we'll get into some of our off-season buys. What does possible sound like for your business?

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downtime financial penalties and keep you safe don't let avoidable damage cost you time and money click before you dig ensure your next project is safe visit ontarioonecall.ca it's free it's easy it's the law data sourced from the orcga 2023 dirt report okay so we've got uh you know i sent you a request tell me who you're looking to buy this offseason i don't know what your methodology was in selecting those guys if it's just guys you think everybody else is too low on or they're going to be a lot better next year than they've been in the past but i see the first name on your list definitely one where i think i'm higher than the industry on him kyler murray you certain he's going to be in arizona or hopefully he's going to

be in arizona with marvin harrison um i don't care where he's going to be at let's put it that way but i definitely want him to stay in arizona because i love the idea of michael wilson marvin harrison jr and trey mcbride like right away like like to me we're back baby arizona is back but like a lot of people got into the narrative that Kyler Murray is going to be – they thought he was going to be a backup to Bryce Young this past year. Imagine that. Imagine that world or something. So granted, Caleb Williams is twice the prospect that Bryce Young is, three times the prospect.

But even if Kyler Murray goes to, let say Atlanta I still like him and again it's a question of math at this point he's a Russian quarterback and very dynamic and even in his like I'd say disappointing games he's still giving you 13 or 14 points and I know that isn't that that's not like sexy or exciting but when you consider that Desmond Ritter's bad games were like eight points you know I think that we kind of uh I think we underappreciate some of these quarterbacks because we watched Tim Boyle play. We watched Tommy DeVito play. We watched Jake Browning play. Kyler Murray, you should be buying him because you're going to appreciate him probably week seven when everyone's scrambling for quarterbacks during injuries.

Yeah, I do think with rushing quarterbacks, they're obviously held to a different standard, partially because they can set the bar so much higher early in their career. Like Kyler comes out and averages 22 fantasy points per game, 23 fantasy points per game, and anything short of that is failure. And then also because the quarterbacking aspect of when things go bad for Kyler, it looks ugly.

And when he doesn't have a number one wide receiver like Patrick Mahomes didn't have this year, things can look a little bit ugly. So I agree with that. There's a guy on my offseason buy list who I think is in the same neighborhood. I've got Kyler just a little bit ahead of him, but not a lot. Justin Fields. He's down to QB 12 now in terms of consensus ranking within the industry and i got all those from fantasy pros this week try to bounce around to different sources so we're not always giving the same information but i kind of feel the same way about feels like

i i don't think he's going to be in chicago but i definitely think he's going to be a starting quarterback next year i'd love it if he goes to atlanta and has those weapons i'd be perfectly fine if he goes to the raiders and has davanteae Adams. I don't see a situation where Justin Fields loses his starting job, but it does feel like that's being priced in because if he was a guaranteed starter, I have to think he'd be a top eight dynasty quarterback. Yep. I kind of thought, I loved your pick as well with Fields because it's in the same range. What I've been doing, the three startups that I kind of tried and got to make some picks in before they blew up was if I got to the fifth pick or the second pick, I'm trading back and picking up an extra rookie pick. I even told someone, you give me a 201, this pick is yours. Like I said, I love second round picks right now. up an extra rookie pick. I even told someone, you give me a 201, this pick is yours. Because like I

said, I love second round picks right now. And I'm going back to the turn because I'm getting Justin Fields, Kyler Murray. And then I even saw Kyler Murray work its way all the way back to the other end of the turn one time. I was like, I didn't even really need to trade because I could have got Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray if I wanted to. So, and again, this is a, there's very few spots where Justin Fields could go. And I think it would be worse off than where he's been at with the bears, including this year, when you consider the offensive play calling and the structure that he's been playing in or lack thereof, maybe the Raiders. I heard someone say the Raiders and that kind of felt gross. I didn't love that. Well, you know what I like a lot less than the Raiders is the Patriots going there with no identifiable offensive system and Demario Douglas. I love Demario Douglas. We're gonna

talk about him in just a second, but him as your number one wide receiver, I would not love that situation for Justin Fields. Now I think Fields and Murray are a couple of guys where it's pretty obvious. The industry is a little bit down on them, especially relative to where they've been. Your second dynasty buy, off-season buy, is Tajay Spears. And this is one where they're definitely seeing some steam. You've got company on this bandwagon with Spears. I assume the hope is that Derrick Henry's gone. You think he could be a workhorse back, or he's just going to be so good in a 12 to 15 touch role that he's worth it um i'm hoping the first but it's one of those things where the second is perfectly is a perfectly good hedge bet if he's going to be the change of pace guy that gets 15 touches i think

he's going to be great and then now that we have the news of brian callahan i see what he did with chase brown over there at the Bengals. And I'm like, Hey, I think Tajay Spears is a better running back than Chase Brown. You know, maybe not quite the juice, but he's got the scat I'm all in on. And this is kind of how also to give the audience a little bit of a disclosure, just how I build my teams. I'm a running backs. Don't matter that much unless you have CMc and the top guys so like last year i was buying jerome ford and stuff like that like like these guys who can get receiving roles or have an immediate um immediate place where they could you know be a starter in the future that's who i'm

trying to buy because like you you made a great point at the beginning of the show you're not really buying running backs or anything like that i'm not not either, unless they're like, I can get Tajay Spears by selling a vet and picking up a pick extra. Like I think I sold remind Ray Stevenson and got Tajay Spears in a second right now that looks pretty good. And I like that. So now speaking of buying running backs, I saw this discussion in the chat, like Matt, who's a good friend of the show asked, I I just offered someone 202 for Saquon Barkley. And he hears, he says, wait, you're telling me not to do that, huh? I think what he said was I'm not buying veterans or running backs unless they come at a discount. 202's probably not quite enough of a discount, but it's not that far either like if i could get 202 and a third or if i could get

saquon barkley and a third for 202 then i think i feel pretty good about that and yeah that's to me i would do that if i had an extra second type thing because like this is why i tell everyone with dynasty like like i'm not just gonna say like don't solve for 202 if i'm a contender and i have an extra second and i need a running back, I might pay that. If I don't have a second, I'm not going to buy Saquon for that. So I don't know. I definitely would not pay that if I wasn't like in the semifinals or the finals this past year. I don't want you thinking you were a contender and buying Saquon Barkley. You need to be definitely a contender if you're buying Saquon Barkley for a second round pick. Now,

you had Tajay Spears. I've got another running back who I think is on the same spectrum. We talked about this a lot this past season. The Devon Achan, Keaton Mitchell, Jaleel McLaughlin spectrum. Tajay Spears probably second on that list. But the difference is, obviously, McLaughlin rightly is extremely cheap i think he's rb69 by current consensus you could pretty easily get him for a third round pick i have no idea who sean payton is going to make his feature running back but he does possess some of those big play abilities some

of those passing game skills would you give up a third for her gobbling or do you think that's going to be full giovante williams next year no i'd give up a third would you give up a third for a golf winner? Or do you think that's going to be full Javante Williams next year? No, I'd give up a third. I'd give up a third for him because when we've seen enough Sean Payton to know that he will utilize two running backs. And I don't know, and I don't know if the Russell Wilson issue caused some problems while we kind of didn't see Sean Payton offense in a sense,

but like to me that's a good bet right there and again it's the same like you said same category this is a guy who was a rookie um who has an easy path for touches and like when Javante went down Jaleel McLaughlin was a was a useful player you know like he was a low end RB too so I'm way in with you and as you're saying that now I'm making myself a mental note of like, go get Jalil. And it was it was the it was the year of the little guy this year in terms of this rookie class and proving that that doesn't necessarily matter. And we've seen a little bit of that over the last couple of years. But this game is getting to the point where small is OK as long as you can make people miss and you're fast and you know how to avoid those big hits and so i think we'll be okay with those guys moving forward

in the future your wide receiver a man after my own heart i have so much johan dotson it was such a disappointment the fact like what i hate about this is like a good argument is curtis samuel's leaving curtis samuel was not supposed to matter for john dodson and so like are you optimistic that in the same way that you were before this past season or you think okay his values dropped enough now might as well throw a dart at him yes to both where like like like to me the big divide i guess in the fantasy space is that if you are strictly a stats and numbers analytics guy, you've hated Jahan Dodson since he was drafted in the first round. You just don't like it. Me, I'm a big film grinder.

Yesterday, I think I've watched a total of 16 college games, all 22, of wide receivers on there. I think Jahan Dodson is a talented player. I think Jahan Dotson is a talented player. I just think that Sam Howell is not very good. You know, like, I mean, you got to really think that when Logan Thomas and again, Curtis Samuel were your leading targets consistently, that means you're not throwing the ball downfield a whole bunch. And Tara McLaurin was even disappointing. So to me, we've seen the floor. Like, i don't know how it could get much worse so i'm willing to buy that discount like to me my only mistake is i didn't wait long enough to buy johan dots and i could have gotten for even cheaper so so i mentioned it earlier my my cheap wide receiver was to mario douglas i think now we'll see how much the patriots offensive system

changes but i think he fits that jacobyoby Myers role so well all the way down to also not scoring touchdowns. I'm very good at getting open in short, short area spaces. I don't know. Like, I think he's definitely more of a PPR by than anything else, but I assume with the higher of Mayo,

there's not going to be too much of a change in the Patriots offensive philosophy. And they've got so many other holes to fill. I'm not sure they're going to add a true number one wide receiver. I would assume they're going to take a quarterback. Now, if they draft Harrison, obviously this changes. But again, kind of like McLaughlin, he's wide receiver 70 right now, Douglas is. I think there's been a lot said about buying the Sky Moore or Quentin Johnston types,

the guys who we were excited about in year one, and they completely flopped, buying them going into year two has historically been a bad bet. Usually, if you were really highly regarded coming in and you're awful as a rookie and it's not because of injuries or anything else, things aren't going to get better. But these guys who were completely overlooked and showed us a little bit but not quite enough to have a huge increase in value, those are the kind of guys I like to buy low on what do you think about douglas i love pop douglas full disclosure heath i'm a patriots fan so when you said that like if dresdell fields within the patriots like my heart got excited because i'm like oh

oh baby we're we're trying something new but like you said um i told everyone like everyone at football guys you know we're all speculating in the group chat you know i was just like i loved rod mayo he's one of my when i started watching the patriots he was like the guy you know but i just want to be done with the bill bill i just i just want to be done i i want to see a real offense i don't want to see this like look i bought this outfit on timu or she in you know or something like that like like this do-it-yourself offense i want to see something real i will say what gives me hope is that he went outside of his circle to hire defensive coordinator you know right you know

so like like maybe i'll give him the benefit of the doubt but to me the same thing i've tried to buy to mario douglas and i love him I still won't pay more than a third for him. So he's in this weird purgatory, at least for me, where I want to buy him. I love him, but I can't give up a second rounder for him yet, and no one will accept a third. So hopefully you have better luck because I'm all in on Demario Douglas. I think he's good. He just had Mac Jones.

I do think that he showed enough to where it's gonna be really hard to get him for a third i think if i'm coming off of a season where i've got the 10th 11th 12th pick i'm okay giving up the second now i might get to the point in evaluating this class where there's two or three guys that are falling to that point like i couldn't stop drafting tank dell last year if there's a guy i feel like i did about tank dell then obviously i'm not going to be doing that um i unfortunately wasn't as in on puka nakua but there were people on this podcast who were so you guys still got to hear about them looking at your tight end by i love this one as well michael mayer of the raiders um i wish we knew who their quarterback

was going to be or what the system was going to be but he he he popped enough as a rookie tight end for us to believe he's going to be every bit as good was going to be but he he he popped enough as a rookie tight end for us to believe he's going to be every bit as good as we thought he was right yeah and and to me michael mayer was my he was my tight end four and i know that sounds bad but that i mean again like the three above them are just really really good so and it's like you said uh to even flash at all as a rookie at tight end it is something that you should take note of. And right now he's about a third or a second. And to me, how hard it is to get a good tight end, especially if you play tight end premium,

that you probably should consider forking over a second now because it's going to get to where he's Trey McBride and you can't afford them later so to me it's a no-brainer especially with his draft capital and and and where he's at especially in a team i think antonio pierce is pretty old school where they're going to be running a lot of running the ball a lot and then a lot of like tight end banana stuff you know after the play action i could really see him being a a quality piece later that you could have bought for incredibly cheap well with a tight end i was really surprised when i went and looked at the consensus rankings um cole commit not a top 12 tight end off with the pedigree that he has coming off of the season that he's had with the expectation he's either gonna have another year

with justin fields or in terms of a passer, a quarterback upgrade. Where do you think Komet should be? Are you interested in buying at that cost? Or am I just a little too high on Cole Komet? I was a known Komet hater. And then I think I put out tight end rankings. Someone said, you're too low at Komet. I'm like, no, I'm not. And then he balled out for the rest of the year.

And I'm like, well, I guess I should come to Jesus on that one. Cause like, to me, he's gotta be top five or six. Cause I still think, no, you gotta keep Mark Andrews there. Yeah. Yeah. Top eight. Let's say it's like top eight. I was about to say, I forget about Mark Andrews, George Kittle and stuff like that. Even Evan Ingram, I think is someone of note, but like Cole Komet. I mean, I wasn't even ranking him in the top 12. And now, let's put it this way, fields there or not,

he's the number two guy until further notice. And if he's the number three, I only think that's going to open up the offense because this notion that there's too many mouths to feed, I think it gets taken out of context when you don't consider how much more efficient an offense runs when they have more options yeah and i think it's probably a different discussion too if it's justin fields who runs as much as he does and which is going to keep that pass volume down like the number three option for justin fields probably not going to work unless you're just extremely hyper efficient the number three offense in a normal passing offense that throws the ball 600 times or 575

times it's probably going to work okay especially at the position like tight end I do think it's interesting comparing commit and this is another one that's changed just in the last three or four days to Travis Kelsey like I Kelsey probably wasn't a top six or seven consensus tight end a week ago he might be two more good games being right back in the top three going into next year yeah and to me it's what exactly what we were talking about it you could hyper focus you take away Kelsey and then and what what are you going to do you know and then that's kind of what how we saw them finally force Rashi Rice into the conversation then is because teams were taking away Kelsey.

So I think you're right that I don't think he'll ever be top five anymore, but this notion that Kelsey's cooked, I don't think that's true. When you, again, like tight end is kind of like quarterback. I'm like, do you guys not remember how bad it gets after you know the top guys i think he's gonna be all right you know well i think the other thing is this influencing some people's rankings right now is there's still a little bit of a chance that they win the super bowl and he rides off into the sunset with taylor swift like he might be done. So you have to discount him. If they get done with this season, he says,

I'm definitely playing next year. I think he automatically gets a little bit of a boost in his dynasty value. There's some concern that he's not the same guy or not still good. There's also some concern that he just doesn't necessarily want to play football anymore. We'll find that out in a couple of weeks, hopefully, maybe three, three and a half. I had three more three and a half. I had three more off-season buys. These are higher-end guys. We've been talking about guys who are really good values. These guys aren't going to be cheap at all, but I do think that the consensus is a little low on them. One of them really shocked me. I just kind of want to

get your opinion on these guys. CJ Stroud, currently qb5 in terms of dynasty rankings um i've got him at qb3 i think you can make the argument for him even higher than that but again it's one of those situations where you don't want to put too much on his rookie season was this so he's definitely going to be even better in the future but man this dude was awesome yeah i mean he kind of he literally put up a Joe Burrow season in like his rookie year. And I'm where you're at where I think he could get a little bit more efficient. I think the touchdowns could go up.

And we could argue he could be like a 5,000-yard guy. But, I mean, you got to think that at least with fantasy terms, he has sort of kind of hit a ceiling. So I have a hard time ranking him higher than five when, again, rushing does a lot for me. You got Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson there. So it's hard for me to put him too high. But right now, again, in startups, CJ Stroud, if you're in that three to four to five range in startups, he's the trade bait. You put in that chat, who wants CJ Str stroud and then people are willing

to pay up and i kind of like the other side of it right now a little bit more but like to me it's one of those things if you got him um you're probably not letting him go and he's probably too expensive to buy right now to be honest somebody you said trade bait now this was something i was kind of thinking about you You've got the 101, and somebody in your league is just completely in love with Caleb Williams. Would you take Stroud for the 101? Yeah. Yeah.

So you'd Stroud over any quarterback in this class at this point. Yeah. It's a total bird in the hand scenario. And I mean, like, I should say baby chick. He's a year or two KB at this point. Well, he's probably younger than some of these guys. year two could be at this point so well he's probably younger than some of these guys that are there yeah for sure so yeah uh at running back by my high priced i don't i thought he was rb1 by consensus just like two weeks ago but jameer gibbs shows up at rb4 in the fantasy pros consensus dynasty rankings definitely behind

bijon definitely behind breeze hall um i think he's also behind mcafree but that won't last once we get to the offseason i still have him as my rb1 i understand if somebody wants to have bijon over him where do you have gibbs i have my rb1 yeah again he's like one of the you name the four running backs i will go out of my way to draft travis ctn has pushed his way in that category for, but he's the only guy I'll click the button in the first four rounds for. And most of the time I miss him because someone else likes him. But I think some people are really, really high on Brees Hall and I get it because Aaron Rodgers in that offense, it immediately ups his high leverage touches because they're actually could

you know play some football in the red zone stuff like that you know so i i kind of get it especially when you consider the lifespan of a running back but to me jameer gibbs why don't we put him in the same category because i think the lions are right now the ones who are playing in an nfc championship so i think they're going to be pretty good. The other thing that I hear a lot of as well, when Arthur Smith's gone, we're going to see Bijan's role really expand. I think probably that the rookie who has been spectacular is probably going to see his role expand versus the 27 year old. Who's a bit of a plotter. Like I think if you're asking me same number of games played for

montgomery and gibbs next year percentage of touches i would just i think it makes sense to me that the young guys touches are going to go up a little bit in year two so i don't think that we just saw the upside for jameer gibbs i do think there's still some meat left on the bone there wide receiver jordan addison listed as wide receiver 23. I don't know how you can be arguably the number two wide receiver in the class, come out and score double digit touchdowns playing in this offense with all the quarterback situations and not be a top 20 dynasty wide receiver. I think he's a top 12 dynasty wide receiver. I don't know where you were out on Addison coming into the year, how that's changed throughout this year, but I absolutely love him, and there are not very many players

in this class that I would take over. Jordan Addison was my wide receiver three coming out. I had Zay Flowers ahead of him. And now it's kind of the nature of the offense. Maybe if Odell Beckham Jr. and something happens next year with Zay Flowers, they'll be close to the same range. But I'm with you. Jordan Addison fell into the perfect situation. The reason why I had him as a wide receiver three is I thought that he would be the team's, a team's perfect wide receiver two.

You know, maybe if you ask him to be the wide receiver one, he can't be as consistent as other guys, but he even proved when Justin Jefferson is out that he's not a KJ Osborne, you know, where you're like, Oh my God, this is the week. And then he puts up like four points, you know, he was consistent. And right now you can get him in the fifth round. So when you consider where, how young of a wide receiver that you're getting in a startup, I think he's arguably a buy. And even I like talking to you right now, maybe I'm too old. I got to put him into my life. Hey, here's who you should pay attention to notes. Yeah. I, I, I, I think you hit on a good point there. Like some people will say, yeah,

his numbers were inflated because Jefferson was out. I really liked seeing him perform like that when Jefferson was out. I like seeing that, that, that potential wide receiver one upside is there. I'm still mostly, I think it's possible people are discounting him because of quarterback uncertainty in Minnesota for the most part. I think it's going to be kurt cousins again next year we'll see if that's true if if it's a a backup quarterback situation then maybe this year's bad and we're really looking at buying next year the final higher price but not too high priced uh by i'm i'm not getting off this train i went two years of his career calling kyle pitts a redraft bust and now in my second year of calling him a dynasty by his consensus ranking is tied

into eight i still believe if they get him a quarterback he's going to be an elite fantasy option i don't believe he was anywhere close to healthy this year hopefully he's 100 next year yep it's like you said it came out that he i think it was a pcl injury that he was dealing with most of the year and he's also dealing with an arthur smith injury for his entire career so like to me again it's one of those players where it it's so low so bad that like it's like it can only get better i heard heard someone say that like, if, if just the fields of bill Belichick end up in the, in Atlanta, that's not good for any of the assets.

I'm like, how could it be worse? It's not going to be worse. No. Yeah. It's like, and to me, he even still had some quality games kind of sprinkled in there without,

without, you know, the upside that we all wish that he had so to me again i'm still drafting him and i'm probably overdrafting him i'm like basically i'm looking to get sam laporta train mcbride and then i'll take kyle pitts over dalton kincaid right now and i know this is crazy but he's still he's younger than kinca. And I think he has, it's undeniable, he has more physical tools and more potential upside. It just gets harder with every year that we don't see that put into actual fantasy production to believe that it's still there. But I do believe it's still there.

Now, if he comes out and I see a preseason game where he's running like he was running this past season, then it might turn into a Juju Smith-Schuster situation where he just that guy's not ever going to run the same way that he used to because he didn't look the same this past season we'll hope that he gets fully recovered let's uh let's take a short break and kind of change gears here i want to talk about some of the guys who have impressed us in the postseason and how they've changed their dynasty value so i think when we look at this postseason, the guy, and maybe it's just because he even led his team there, but the guy who has rejuvenated his career the most this season

has to be Baker Mayfield. Most people did not think he was going to be a starting quarterback in the NFL after what happened with Carolina. A lot of us thought that he was going to lose the competition to Kyle Trask because why wouldn't Tampa Bay just see what the young guy can do? And Baker Mayfield went out and had the best season of his NFL career and then performed pretty well in at least his first playoff game in an Island game. It seems undeniable that he's going to be a starting quarterback next year. But not just that.

Mike Evans is talking about how he earned a big contract. It's possible somebody's going to give him a couple of years guaranteed. So the first question, I want to hear your thoughts on Baker this year. But if you have to bet one side or the other, is he a starting quarterback week one of the 2025 season? Yes, I think he is. Okay, so does that make him, what, a top 20, top 24 dynasty quarterback? I think he's a top 24 dynasty quarterback.

And to me, it's the same thing. Quarterback is – it's hard to play quarterback in the NFL. And I think what we've got to consider, and I'm interested in what you think of this analogy. I think he's term orchid, orchids are high-maintenance plants that were very beautiful, but they need the absolute perfect situation and environment to bloom. And that's what Baker Mayfield is. And he just has found his perfect environment. Jared Goff took some time to find it. Brock Purdy happened to find that with his first team.

And some people are going to hate that, but I think Brock Purdy is also an Orchid quarterback. But there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that not everyone's Patrick Mahomes and can make MVS look like a starting caliber player. Not everyone's like that. And Baker Mayfield is someone that I think they know the system. If you get him a wide receiver like Mike Evans, if you get it in the ballpark, he can make a play.

And then especially a system like David Canales has, I think that he could thrive. And again, I think the bucks got their guy because they're out of obviously out of the QB range, unless they're paying a ransom for it. So he's going to be a buck for till probably 2025 at the very least. I know I bought Baker for a in in a couple of leagues as a desperation play and now i mean i couldn't be happier you know because next year i got a starting quarterback that i bought for nothing considering the price right yeah and i think

that's another thing is people who've played in one quarterbacks leagues predominantly they hear i bought baker mayfield for a second they're like but you can't get a in most of my leagues you can't get a starting quarterback for less than a first. Or you're going to have to get a first and maybe something extra with the quarterback. But yeah, so a second round pick for Baker Mayfield sounds fantastic right now. I might, I'm going to try really hard

not to steal the Orchid quarterback thing, but that is fantastic. I love it. I do have to ask a follow-up that's going to make a lot of people mad. Is Trevor Lawrence and Oregon quarterback. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Like, like to me, it's a, he's in that what is he category? Because to me,

the reason why I don't want to say he's an orchid when I say he looks, but he does some things that are just incredible. He'll roll out and then on the opposite side, throw it 30 yards across his body and, you know, say what you want about Baker Mayfield, but he can't really do that. Right. You know? So I think I question Doug Peterson more than Trevor Lawrence. So maybe he is an orchid. Maybe I'm saying the right,

maybe I think he might be an orchid. I do. I do just want to go and i i bang this drum all the time so i won't do it too long because the listeners here are enough but i talked about how like that the way that running the standard that running quarterbacks have to live up to and we we have held trevor lawrence in terms of actual fantasy production to an extremely low standard i think you might still be right. I think maybe we should hold more quarterbacks to that same standard until they get a little further progressed in their career. The best non-quarterback in terms of increasing their value might be Khalil Shakir. Flat out looked

like the best wide receiver on the bills in the playoffs. there any chance that he's josh allen's number one wide receiver next year yes because i don't the bills team building philosophy sometimes doesn't make sense to me the question is should he be the wide receiver one and that's no because like like i think he's a very good wide receiver too where like like to me well i say you remember you were there emmanuel sanders i think that's where i kind of put him at well like as a team's wide receiver too he's fantastic you know but if if he continues to be the wide receiver one i think the bills will have a problem but like you said on value i kill i've loved kill a little shakir since he was at a boise state i

believe it was um and he's a guy him and nico collins i released into the wild because i'm like well so long partner i gotta make room for some new and now here i am looking back and i'm like why did i ever do that right yeah yeah i think i think he is firmly in the in the the gap between johan dotson and mario douglas probably yeah although i'd say closer to douglas it's gonna be really interesting i don't know that the bills actually can do anything with stefan diggs i will say speaking of the bills and diggs i i wrote about my wide receiver tears earlier this week and the prospect of if you're not definitely a contender it's time to see what you can get for tyreek hill and digs is the reason why it's not because i necessarily think

tyreek's going to be bad next year it's because one misstep like what we saw two months of digs and all of a sudden the value just craters you can't get anywhere close to what you used to be able to get for stefan digs uh i think we should talk probably about the Packers as a whole. Jordan Love has convinced people that he is the real deal. I think probably hitting a lot more people talking about him over guys like Trevor Lawrence, Kyler Murray, Justin Fields, and Dynasty. I'm not quite there yet, maybe with Lawrence. But the bigger question, I have no idea who his best wide receiver is like none at all christian watson completely disappeared jayden reed had a a six-week stretch

where they look like the number one wide receiver romeo dobbs was the best wide receiver on the team in the playoffs rank the packers wide receivers from a dynasty perspective for me. Jaden Reed, Romeo Dobbs, Don Tavian Wicks, Christian Watson. I'm a known Christian Watson hater. I've never, I don't, he could be good. It's just that maybe it was injury, but he was out there during the playoffs and he was clearly an afterthought. You know, like two notes I took from the Packers is that Tucker craft is

probably the guy, not Luke Musgrave in that, like, I hope you sold Christian Watson because to me, I think, uh, um, I think Matt LaFleur did a great job of saying here, I've got these young guys, you guys go out there, compete, whoever's going to be out there every week and make a place, those are going to be my guys. And I think they've built the rapport and the trust with Jordan Love. And I don't know if Christian Watson is there yet,

and I don't know if Dontavian Wicks is quite there yet. But Romeo Dubs has flashed this last year. And then Jayden Reed was someone I was high on, and I think his role is – one i i have jayden reed stand out is he's clearly in a different role than where dubs and wicks are you know and then he's gonna have his place so that's kind of where i put him as a the quote-unquote you know number one wide receiver so i mentioned those four quarterbacks, Lawrence, Fields, Murray, Jordan Love. How would you rank those four from a dynasty perspective? I'm going to take Fields, Murray, Jordan Love, then Lawrence.

And it's two things with Jordan Love. Matt LaFleur is a good coach. He had an Aaron Rodgers problem for a long time where he couldn't do where he wanted, he couldn't do what he wanted. So I'm going to take, um, who I think is going to set up for, uh, I guess another hall of fame career. Man, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. Before we get out of here, I'd like for you to just take, take a minute or two, tell everybody where they can find your work, what you've been working on, what you've got coming up. Uh, where, where can the people find you?

Everything at Football Guys, and I'm always running my mouth on Twitter. So if you follow me on Twitter, you'll find all my stuff. We're working on our off-season content right now. I've been grinding rookies, getting ready for that, and hopefully getting head coaching news here pretty soon that is a positive for fantasy. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm full blown off season mode. Well, I'm glad that you view the Patriots head coaching decision as a positive for fantasy, or at least a positive for you. I hope it's a positive for fantasy as well. Again, thank you

very much for joining me. We will do this again. We're going to do a startup together as well, and nobody's going to quit in the middle of it. We're going to do the entire startup. I mean, no problems, no hiccups whatsoever. Thank you for everybody who followed along on YouTube, listening to the podcast. Please rate, review, subscribe. That really helps us out. And we will talk to you next Tuesday. Thank you.