Fantasy Football Today - Preseason Winners and Losers: Titans RBs, Rookie QBs and More (08/12 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Want to be in our next mock draft and have a shot at being on air? Check out our St. Jude Draft-a-Thon Store here: https://tiltify.com/@fftfundraising/fantasy-football-today-draftathon-2024 Fantasy Fo...otball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts What did you miss and what do you need to know from the preseason? We've got you covered and we begin with Fantasy Superlatives (2:10) and talk about Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams, Khalil Herbert, Justin Fields, the Titans running backs and more ... Our biggest rankings risers (13:10) and fallers (19:35) after Preseason Week 1. Jamey made a change atop his wide receiver rankings and he moved Ty Chandler up as well. Obviously we moved Rashee Rice up in the rankings while Curtis Samuel was a rankings faller ... We get to the big news (25:35) and talk about the Chiefs passing game with Marquise Brown getting hurt. Then we've got more rankings risers (31:15) including Khalil Shakir and Calvin Ridley and fallers (39:00) including Marshawn Lloyd and Christian Kirk. We talk about kickoffs (43:30), more news items (47:10) and everything that might be Fantasy relevant from the preseason games. We're looking at playing time, who played in 2-WR sets and plenty more ... Your emails at fantasyfootball@cbsi.com Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts 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

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for?
Starting point is 00:00:38 Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600.
Starting point is 00:00:59 BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you
Starting point is 00:01:18 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. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this?
Starting point is 00:01:39 I had no idea. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races, and he stays on his feet. He's just going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, presented by BetMGM. We are recapping preseason week one. Adam Azer here with Heath Cummings and Jamie Eisenberg. That was fun, Heath.
Starting point is 00:02:06 Wasn't that a fun weekend? It was a lot of fun. We had all kinds of very important things to react to. Nothing that we're going to react to is going to turn out being an overreaction three weeks from now. It all matters a lot. We also have some big injuries to Marquise Brown
Starting point is 00:02:22 and hopefully not to Malik Neighbors who Brian Dable just said is... I think he's okay. It doesn't look like he fractured his ankle or anything. We don't think it's a fracture. We don't think it's a fracture, yeah. Wouldn't you know by now? Not if the swelling's too bad to get a good x-ray.
Starting point is 00:02:38 Oh, okay. There you go. There you go, Doc. What's up, Jamie? Hello. Yeah, we had a decent amount of starters i thought the broncos running backs that was an interesting uh interesting one to watch deandre swift barely playing played two snaps or maybe three khalil herbert played 14 was that an audition uh we'll
Starting point is 00:02:58 talk about all the rookie quarterbacks and all those things rankings risers and followers and we do have hopefully time i'll make time for your emails. These are St. Jude draft-a-thon emails at fantasy football. Actually, these would not come through fantasyfootballatcbsi.com, but the other ones do fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. And today is FFT open day, eight o'clock tonight. Go to tinyurl.com slash draft-a-thon 2024 and sign up to be in one of our leagues. We're all commissioners. There are 12 different CBS commissioners. You can join commissioners. There are 12 different CBS commissioners. You can join a league. There are 11 spots in each league.
Starting point is 00:03:28 It's $250 to join at all benefits to St. Jude. We will be raising $33,000 for St. Jude, hopefully by the end of the evening. All right, let's start with some superlatives here. Were you more impressed by Jaden Daniels or Caleb Williams this weekend?
Starting point is 00:03:47 Jaden Daniels or Caleb Williams this weekend? Jaden Daniels. Yes. I was really happy that like 10 days ago, I just looked it up. I had written that, man, I was too low on Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels and I moved him up. And after this weekend,
Starting point is 00:04:00 I wanted to move them up again. Like I, I just want to drink. That's the top four quarterbacks. And then it should be Kyler, Anthony Richardson,on and these two they're awesome the upside's incredible oh wow okay wait top four quarterbacks kyler anthony richardson so you put caleb williams and jayden daniels ahead of joe burrow i didn't do it i'm a coward but that's i said that's what i want to do okay okay uh yeah so let's recap. So Daniels played against the second string Jets,
Starting point is 00:04:27 played without his offensive tackles, but the Jets sat their defensive starters. He went three of four, two of three, pardon me, threw a very nice deep ball to Deami Brown. 45 yards. He also had a three-yard touchdown run. Caleb Williams just has an absolute cannon. Boy, does he make some crazy
Starting point is 00:04:45 already is making these great throws. He was four of seven, 95 yards, no touchdowns. He ran for 13 yards. All right. Any final thoughts on that, Jamie? No, I thought they both look great. You know, I mean, it shows you the upside of what they can be. Like he said, you know, it's, um, uh, I initially had Calebiams my first rankings following the draft at 12 and daniels at 11 i believe daniels i've kept inside top 12 caleb i have at 13 i i might make that switch and put him ahead of purdy um depending on what happens with the 49ers situation right now but um i would have no problem with either guy as a starter and i'm with heath like i have daniels right now so my my rankings five through nine are richardson five murray six stroud seven burrow eight daniels nine
Starting point is 00:05:33 and man do i want to put daniels ahead of those guys well it's i mean look it's hard to look at what cj stroud did on one drive and and put jayden daniels ahead of him right i mean no no no i i mean look it's it it's clearly format matters. You know, we talk a lot about six points for passing touchdowns versus four and six. Excuse me. In four points for passing touchdowns, Daniels would be ahead of those guys just because it would not shock me
Starting point is 00:05:55 if he runs for 1,000 yards this year. Okay. Were you more discouraged by Justin Fields or encouraged by Joe Burrow? Probably more encouraged by Joe Burrow? Probably more encouraged by Joe Burrow. Encouraged for Russell Wilson? No, it's probably... It's just the sacks and the fumbles with Fields. I think he's a backup quarterback
Starting point is 00:06:24 unless Russ gets her anyway. Yeah. You would rather Russ start? Well, I think he's going to. No, I don't disagree, but you would rather for our purposes, for fantasy, you'd rather have Russell? Well, yes, because I have a lot of George Pickens
Starting point is 00:06:39 and a lot of Pat Fryermuth, and I think he'll be better for them. I'd rather have Justin Fields as a starting fantasy quarterback in my quarterback rankings, but for everybody else, I'd rather have Justin Fields as a starting fantasy quarterback in my quarterback rankings, but for everybody else, I'd rather have Russ.
Starting point is 00:06:47 Okay. All right. Fields, fields did go five of six for 67 yards. Um, buddy, you, you know,
Starting point is 00:06:53 fumbled twice. I think he was sacked twice and Joe Burrow, five of seven 51 yards in a touchdown without Jamar chase. And just, I would say generally looked pretty good. Looked pretty healthy. It's throwing the ball. Well,
Starting point is 00:07:04 uh, are you more concerned about sharing snaps for Brian Robinson in Washington or DeAndre Swift in Chicago? Are you more concerned about sharing snaps for Brian Robinson or DeAndre Swift? I'm more concerned about Robinson because I think Austin Eckler is a much better player, if he's healthy, than the guys behind DeAndre Swift. We knew Brian Robinson was going to be sharing. I'm not going to say neither.
Starting point is 00:07:32 I don't think the Swift thing really mattered, and Robinson-Eckler I expect to be close to 50-50. Okay. It was the first time we really saw it. Eckler played five snaps. Robinson played six snaps. What did you think of the Bears' backfield? Because Swift barely played. Khalil Herbert got a lot of run. Yeah, I think Swift's
Starting point is 00:07:52 last play was a 42-yard catch and run on a little dump off, and then Herbert came in, had three straight carries. Roshon Johnson did not play. Jamie, are there any takeaways from this? I think whenever you see a player do something significant in a preseason game that you know what their role is, like what more did he have to do that day? You know, so I really wasn't worried about, um, about Swift's usage too much. You know, I think the fact that he's with the starters, that's what you expect, you know, so Herbert was going to play, you know, Roshan is going to play, you know, so again, if we're comparing, you know, if, if the topic is concerned and who you more concerned about, I'm more concerned about if you buy into either one of Robinson or Eckler that those two guys are going to share much more so than I think Swift will share. All right.
Starting point is 00:08:39 Cause Herbert did play with the starters too. It was, it's just hard to know like if they're splitting even 60-40, I think that's a problem, especially if Herbert's a short yardage guy. Well, I can't imagine DeAndre Swift's gonna, like,
Starting point is 00:08:52 he's, I don't think he's a 20 touch per game guy. No. So a 60-40, I think is a pretty good guess. Would you rather have DeAndre Swift
Starting point is 00:09:02 or Tony Pollard? Pollard. Pollard. Pollard right now. All right. Let's talk about that shortly. Oh, this one. Last superlative. More annoying, the Titans backfield or when you've been waiting all day to watch a show with your spouse and he or she falls asleep five minutes into it?
Starting point is 00:09:19 The latter. Very annoying, right? Happens a lot at this house. Yeah. So you don't just keep watching it? Sometimes. I mean, it's gotten to the point. First of all, it's not always her that falls asleep.
Starting point is 00:09:35 Sometimes it's me. But it has gotten to the point where I think we now have permission. We've realized we're never going to get through any shows unless we start watching independently. I can't remember the last time I fell asleep watching a show that I wanted to watch. Oh, it happens every night to me, basically. You're a TV-off kind of guy when you sleep? Oh, we don't have a TV in our bedroom. Whoa.
Starting point is 00:10:01 Wow. Stone age. No, it's just that... I'm a big TV guy. Big TV guy. All right. Listen, Stoney Pollard and Tajay Spears. Are you guys viewing this as a big win for Pollard in this battle? Not a big win, but I thought he looked good. He looked real good, yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:23 You go back to, again, we've said this quite a bit. Last year, he said he felt healthy around that Carolina game. And from that point on, he performed much better, you know, coming back from the broken leg that he suffered in 2022. And so if he's back to his old self and probably doesn't get overworked, which seems like it's going to be the case, then he may get back to being that efficient level runner that we saw, which everybody coveted,
Starting point is 00:10:48 you know, at the end of the 2022 season and certainly into 2023. So I wouldn't run away from Spears. I wouldn't panic about it. Obviously, he got the touchdown, you know, so that's positive for him. But the way Pollard ran, I thought looked like the better of the two.
Starting point is 00:11:03 Yeah, it's pretty, but would you say the usage was pretty much even, you know, just in terms of they both played on third down, Spears got in, they both were in near the goal line. It didn't really look like there was one who was favored over the other, except Pollard did start. Yeah, I mean, that's what we expected though, right? Like we anticipated both guys being used, like they didn't lie.
Starting point is 00:11:26 In the first instance of seeing it. They said from, I don't know if it was the first comment or certainly when Pollard signed, but I go back to the owners' meetings at the end of March when I spoke to Callahan myself, and he said, we're going to use both of them. Every assistant coach, we're going to use both of them. That's what you should have anticipated, and that's the case. Pollard falling may end up being a discount and Spears is kind of not
Starting point is 00:11:47 really moved very much. So he's maybe just appropriately priced. So I've got in my projection that I didn't change it. Um, but I've got 204 carries for Pollard, 160 for Spears and 58 targets for each of them. Okay. Does that sound right?
Starting point is 00:12:05 Yeah. I mean, the carries may be closer together, but sure. All right. Well, those are some superlatives. We'll talk about who's moving up and down in the rankings in just a
Starting point is 00:12:14 moment. The FFT open, as I mentioned tonight is the night. Everybody go to tiny URL.com slash draft. Athon 2024, tiny URL.com slash draft. Athon 2024 at 8 8 p.m. Eastern and join one of our leagues.
Starting point is 00:12:29 The FFT Open is 144 teams in 12 different 12-team leagues. You got to win your league. If you win your league, you get into the tournament at the end, which is a two-week playoff, and then we will crown an FFT Open champion. This is the second year. Last year was a big success. This year is going to be even better. Also, if you want to join a mock draft with me on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. Eastern, we're going to do a live stream of that mock draft.
Starting point is 00:12:54 You can do that at tinyurl.com slash draftathon2024. There are a few spots left in Jamie's mock draft, which is Thursday at noon. My mock draft is Tuesday at 8 p.m. Jamie's Mock Draft, which is Thursday at noon. My Mock Draft's Tuesday at 8 p.m. Jamie's is Thursday at noon, Eastern Time. Join those. It's $50 to join. And again, it all goes to St. Jude. We're doing all this to raise money for an amazing cause. And if you nominated us in Podcast Awards, I want to thank you. We are on to the next round. If you get an email from Podcast Awards, they could be asking you to vote in the next round where you can help us win this year. So keep an eye out for that. We're going to take a break. When we come back, the biggest risers, the biggest fallers for Jamie and Heath after preseason week one.
Starting point is 00:13:32 And we'll be right back on FFT. Did you know that across Ontario, utility damage happens 19 times a day? That's over 4,222 incidents a year. Don't let your next dig be one that causes costly delays or safety risks. Before you break ground, make it a point to request a locate. It's not just the law. It's a step to keep your team and community safe.
Starting point is 00:13:54 Visit OntarioOneCall.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. This is a very busy show. I have a ton of notes. We haven't even gotten to the Marquise Brown news yet. We do have to talk about that Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. I think Jamie should start because he sent his list in first and he had the best names. Um, I'm going to have to find out what the exact names were. So give me a second. I got it.
Starting point is 00:14:29 I moved a lot of guys around. I will say I did. Adam probably pulled up. Um, I did make one move at the top. I moved a Tyree kill over seat lamb. I know we talked about that last week. So I moved till to the number one receiver,
Starting point is 00:14:41 you know, just with the drama going on in Dallas. Um, I always like to, you know, play it out as if I'm drafting today, who would I rather have? And while Lamb could still be amazing, um, Hill feels a little bit safer right now, but here's, here's some risers as you see on YouTube page. So, so Ty Chandler, these weren't like significant, like dramatic moves too much. Um, but guys that didn't move up. So I moved Chandler up a few spots. I liked the way he ran. Um, I know no walk new, had a big run and looked explosive. And so, you know, who knows what happens if
Starting point is 00:15:07 something happens there in Jones. Um, but you know, you never know Braylon Allen. I moved up kind of in that, uh, handcuff range for me, which is like right around running back 50, you know? So if you were looking to, or lottery ticket guys, I shouldn't say handcuffs, but lottery ticket guys, if something happens to, uh, Brees Hall, I thought Allen looked really good as well. You know, given the fact that he um you know seems to be the clear-cut number two guy there rice obviously was a byproduct of the hollywood brown news khalil shakir um let's stop let's where are we what are we doing with rishi rice where are we moving him up to uh i put him at wide receiver 26 um so just outside the top 24 um i don't anticipate Marquise Brown missing too much time.
Starting point is 00:15:47 So I don't want to overreact to that. Same with Xavier worthy, not moving them up so much, but clearly any missed time is going to help those other two guys. And for rice, the biggest thing is clearly no suspension. So if he does not get suspended, then you're going to get a very good player still at a discounted price. Um he's now part of the, you know, he's moved further up in the blob of, you know, like wide receiver 20 through 32, 33. That could easily be a top, you know, 20 caliber player. Shakir, like I said, I had him a little bit too low. So I moved him back up to where I think I originally had him
Starting point is 00:16:18 when I first did my rankings. And then Myers, I had outside of my top 60, like 61, 62, and moved him up to like 52, 53 range just because I think we're going to see him back in the slot, which will benefit him. Oh, actually, I was going to say, he was a lot better last year when he wasn't playing in the slot, Jacoby Myers.
Starting point is 00:16:38 His first six games of the year, he was a monster. He was on pace for 159 targets, over 100 catches, nearly 1,100 yards, 14 touchdowns. This is Jacoby Myers talking about for the Raiders. And his slot percentage there was 25%. After that, it was 32%. Not a huge difference, but he was really bad. His best stretch of his career was playing in the slot in New England. Well, yeah. So last year was the first year of Jacoby Myers' career where his slot rate was below 50%.
Starting point is 00:17:14 And at the start of the year, it looked like they had sort of found something. They made him an outside receiver, and he got off to his best start. And then you could say he moved back into the slot. The difference was Garoppolo stopped playing. And he just had no connection with Aiden O'Connell. They didn't really throw that much. I don't really know what to make of that. But last year was by far his lowest slot rate. It was even lower earlier in the year when Myers was great. But he has been a top 30 wide receiver per game two years in a row. I will point that out. And he has 14 touchdown catches over his last two seasons. Jacoby Myers had two touchdown catches in his first three seasons combined.
Starting point is 00:17:48 So where did you move him again? Let me take a look. Sorry, Myers. It just was like a clutter of receivers that I had, like, you know, 50 through 60. And he's now higher up in that group. He's 55. I put him in the notes because, yeah, first of all, they're raving about him. They say he had a really good camp.
Starting point is 00:18:03 And Devontae Adams didn't play in this game, obviously. But what if he gets traded? It's not completely out of the question. It's just a matter of, and I don't want to get too excited about it, because like you said, no Adams. I thought Bowers looked great as well. And they're going to use Mayer also. And don't overlook deep, deep leagues.
Starting point is 00:18:20 And certainly, if he's available in Dynasty, Trey Tucker. He's going to have some opportunities to make some plays too you know so one of these guys that will pop up every couple weeks but he's gonna the reason why myers goes back in the slot is because tucker's going to be the other outside guy uh guys is khalil shakir who's now 49th in our rankings is he your highest ranked bills receiver not yet i still have coleman hire i have have Coleman 48th and Shakir 49th. So like Shakir probably would have been my biggest riser. And if not, it might've been Rashi rice,
Starting point is 00:18:51 at least amongst the guys that matter. And I think it's worthwhile to note that like a lot of the guys who move in the first week of the preseason are guys who were ranked where Jacoby Myers were Khalil Shakir or Braylon Allen were, it's not going to be a lot of movement in the top 24 or 30. Yeah, the Chiefs receivers has been a pretty fluid situation throughout the offseason. First, we suspected or we expected a suspension for Rice.
Starting point is 00:19:17 Now we don't think it's necessarily going to happen this year. Now you have the Marquise Brown injury. So things have changed a lot there, Heath. So what's your current read on the Chiefs wide receivers? I've got Rice at wide receiver 25 up to round four. I've got Marquise Brown and Xavier Worthy back to back at wide receiver 40 and wide receiver 41 in round eight. Do you want to add any risers or should we go to the fallers?
Starting point is 00:19:43 A name that I haven't said all summer, mostly because I don't know how to say it and I'm going to try, but Andre Yashovas. I tried to just kind of ignore him because I want Jamar Chase to play in the slot more and Jermaine Burton to be that guy on the outside, but at least we have to consider the possibility he's going to hold on to that wide receiver three job.
Starting point is 00:20:05 Burton was playing in the fourth quarter. Ushobus played with Burrow as much as anybody, I think maybe more than anybody. So it may be Chase and Higgins on the outside and the second-year wide receiver in the slot. Yeah, I think it's Ushobus. I think it's Ushobus. But it's pretty close. That was pretty good. Andre Yoshivas for the Cincinnati Bengals.
Starting point is 00:20:28 All right, Heath, how about Fallers? Do you want to start with Fallers? This was more of a, I guess, procedural one, but it's time to drop Joe Mixon until he's 100%. It's been two weeks with a hamstring injury. Practiced it. Full? Or he was there at practice?
Starting point is 00:20:45 Well, I didn't see that this morning, so I may have to move him back up. But I thought it was I thought he was still being hampered by that. Also, Curtis Samuel was a big faller. Marquise Brown was the biggest faller. Why Curtis Samuel? Just because Shakir and Coleman Coleman played so much. Shakir played well. I don't think if Coleman's good and Shakir's good,
Starting point is 00:21:06 Curtis Samuel is going to matter that much. Coleman didn't do anything, though, until like the – he didn't do anything with Josh Allen. I'm pretty sure his production came – he stayed on the field with – I forgot who their backup is. Sorry. Trubisky.
Starting point is 00:21:22 Trubisky, yeah. I don't know that Coleman had a target or a catch from Josh Allen. Not that Allen played much. But I didn't really... Like, it was good that Coleman was out there. Did Curtis Samuels didn't really play that much with Josh Allen, though, did he? No, their two receivers and their two receiver sets were Coleman and Shakir when Allen was out there.
Starting point is 00:21:41 Their two receivers. It's a small sample size, you know, because again, Allen didn't play very much, but I don't think it's bad to, you know, have some concerns about Samuel. You know, the thing about Samuel is, look, he's going to be a jack of all trades for them, you know, so he's going to get some carries. He's going to obviously play in the slot when they, when they go to three receiver sets,
Starting point is 00:21:59 at least that would be the expectations. Now we don't know. And this is something that teams do that drive us crazy Matt Collins didn't play and how much of that is he going to be one of those hey he's a really good blocker and he's going to be on the field more than we want to see you know those things I hate so um we we may get that stupid scenario but for the most part I think when you look at their top two receivers it's hard not to say Shakir and Coleman, and it might be that order, but, but, you know, Shakir and Coleman should be the, the two that you target,
Starting point is 00:22:30 but based on ADP, you're going to get, I still, I don't think Shakir jumps that much. I don't think he jumps into the top 100 ADP wise. Pretty good values on the other two guys, not named Coleman. If you want to take shots. It's interesting with Shakir, because I think probably people would say he's safer but doesn't have as much upside as Coleman. Would you
Starting point is 00:22:47 agree with that? A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not even real sure how safe he is, but I would definitely agree with it. He doesn't have as much upside. I think you'd have to say that, but I just want to point out he has been a yak machine. It has been very few catches. That's the problem. It's like
Starting point is 00:23:03 a very small sample size but he doesn't have that low Khalil Shakir doesn't have that low of an ADOT his ADOT's been around nine yards uh 9.8 as a rookie 8.9 in his second season his yak 8.3 yards in 2022 7.2 yards per catch in uh 2023 that's tremendous and he showed it again a little bit in this preseason game. I guess I'm trying to say that maybe there's more to it than him just being like this little slot. I was going to say slot, but I guess that's Curtis
Starting point is 00:23:34 Samuel. But this possession receiver, maybe Khalil Shakir's got a little more juice than that. I just wonder how much of that like last year he had what 29 catches? Yeah, like an 80 yard touch so like how much of it's just one play really and a 46 yard play like it's great to make explosive plays but the sample size is so small it's hard hard to know how much it matters
Starting point is 00:24:00 the one thing i think does matter though is he's the one that's got the history with Alan you know so you know I I think a lot of people and and we've certainly touched on this is that wow Samuel's got the history with Joe Brady and look it's such a small sample size so we don't know but you know is that going to matter more is is Shakir is going to you know scenario going to matter more is Coleman like you said Adam I think most people view it that way I do as well is is his upside more than than these other guys? We're going to see it play out. And the one thing that I think is fun is that these weapons across the board may end up being better than what they lost.
Starting point is 00:24:34 And that says a lot because clearly Diggs was still a very good player until the end, and Davis was a big part of what they do. But they may have better weapons if Kincaid steps up and Cook steps up and hopefully holds on to the ball. But it might be better weapons if Kincaid steps up and Cook steps up and hopefully holds onto the ball, but might be better weapons for Josh Allen. By the way, Keon Coleman, I know I mentioned this a lot during draft season, but it's been a while and we have listeners who weren't here during draft season. He ran the second slowest 40 time among all wide receivers at the NFL combine. It was over four, six. That is not good, but he ran the fastest as Keon Coleman out of Florida State, Bill's second round pick. He ran the fastest
Starting point is 00:25:06 gauntlet drill, which is guys running across the width of the field, catching passes on each side of their body. And that is basically exactly what Puka Nakua did the year before. One of the slowest 40 times and one of the fastest, if not for
Starting point is 00:25:22 Puka, I think it was the slowest and the fastest. 40 versus gauntlet drill. So it will be interesting to see if the gauntlet drill becomes kind of the new standard bearer for wide receivers uh at the nfl combine but if you didn't know that about keon coleman it's kind of a fun fact and just one point of clarification like mixon was at practice and had a helmet on he was also limited yesterday okay right. We'll keep an eye on that. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use the bonus code FANTASY and you will get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with BetMGM. Here's how it works. Download the BetMGM app and sign up using the bonus code FANTASY. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.
Starting point is 00:26:06 You will receive up to $1,500 in bonus bets. If your bet loses, just make sure you use bonus code FANTASY when you sign up. Time for the big news. Marquise Brown suffered a...
Starting point is 00:26:21 Would you guys like to say the name of the injury? Shoulder. Yes, sternoclavicular joint dislocation. Yoshevis. Yoshevis, yes. This is the same thing that Tyreek Hill had in 2019. He missed four games after that. He returned from injury and was basically himself.
Starting point is 00:26:43 That's Tyreek Hill, not Marquise Brown. And yeah, so that could put him in line for week one, week two, something like that. But we already talked about Rasheed Rice. Heath has him in round four. He has Marquise Brown and Xavier Worthy in round eight. Jamie, is that more or less where you would have those guys? Correct, yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:03 Okay, how about Mahomes? Does this do anything to Mahomes, his ranking? No, still QB3. QB3, okay. Malik Neighbors hurt his ankle. We are waiting for word on that. Name the five Giants wide receivers you would take a shot on if Malik Neighbors hurt.
Starting point is 00:27:22 Just kidding. Green Bay rookie running back Marshawn Lloyd hurt his hamstring. I'm sorry. I think this has been a pretty good offseason for Josh Jacobs. I'm starting to feel very good about him in the third round. How about you guys? Yeah, I
Starting point is 00:27:37 moved him up as well. Marshawn Lloyd is not taking the steps either due to performance with the fumbles or health that could challenge Jacobs in a lot of ways. And we know what AJ Dillon has been. So, I mean, I think Jacobs was always kind of that guy. You know, I was probably the most concerned about him potentially sharing.
Starting point is 00:27:58 But always that kind of guy that if you want to go, you know, hero RB and start receiver receiver, he would be there for you in round three. You've kind of, I think Adam maybe put him ahead of this group, but that group of Kamara, Mixon, and Walker, I think that's kind of where he belongs personally, but you could put him in the same boat as Rashad White and Devon Achan too, just based on ADP. That was my next question.
Starting point is 00:28:23 I was like, which group would you put him in? So thank you for answering that. I kind of have him by himself. Yeah. In between the two groups. So I have him, uh, right now I have him 13th and I was thinking about this after I adjusted my
Starting point is 00:28:34 rankings last night. Cause I never sleep is, uh, I should probably move him ahead of Rashad white because Bucky Irvin look really good. Um, and so I appreciate the trade by the way, um,
Starting point is 00:28:43 that, uh, I think, I think it might be better served to lean a little bit toward Jacobs if this Lloyd injury lingers ahead of Rashad White. So I would put him more in the White A-chain group. In full PPR, you're leaning toward Jacobs over White? Yeah, I mean, look, if Lloyd can't practice and they can't trust him at least early in the season to pass protect you know at least jacobs could do that and dylan could even do that so you know how much is he going to come off the field and that's i guess my i don't know what the difference is in josh jacobs snap share if he's sharing with lloyd versus if he's sharing with dylan like is this just a the way
Starting point is 00:29:26 pet the packers are going to do it and their rbt2 is just not going to be quite as good but the snap share stays the same hey look josh jacobs has pretty much never been a third down guy right like it was amir abdullah it that's not what he does so even if he's not on the field on third down it doesn't mean he can't catch 45 passes or something like that if they dump it off to him. But he looks right now like the unquestioned, you know, lead running back. Right. And I just I think it'd be I don't think it'd be crazy. I think it'd be unfortunate if they took him off the field near the goal line for A.J. Dillon. You know, that hasn't really been talked about.
Starting point is 00:30:06 If it happened in week one, it wouldn't shock me. Dillon's actually been pretty decent, and Jacobs hasn't really been great in those situations, but if they want to find a role for A.J. Dillon, that's what they did with Aaron Jones. That's why I'm saying this. Aaron Jones was not the goal line guy. A.J. Dillon was.
Starting point is 00:30:20 It would bother me if they did that with Jacobs, but I don't think we can rule that out, and we never talk about that possibility. Right. What I was more talking about, but I don't think we can rule that out. And we never talk about that possibility. Right. What I was more talking about, and I don't know when it will be, was just that like for the last year and a half, Josh Jacobs has had a lot of games where he played more than 80% of the
Starting point is 00:30:36 snaps. The Packers have not really had a guy do that with the floor there. And he's the same coach that when Derek had Derrick Henry and Deion Lewis, he was playing Deion Lewis more than anybody wanted him to. What do you think Josh Jacobs' LaFleur is? Thank you. That was a good one. Thank you, Heath.
Starting point is 00:30:57 All right. What else we got? Cleveland reportedly offered Amari Cooper a second-round pick and a third-round pick for Brandon Ayuk, but that trade did not go through. And Deshaun Watson has been cleared for contact. So here we go, Deshaun Watson. It's time to try to get back into the good graces of fantasy managers.
Starting point is 00:31:16 All right, let's go back to our risers and followers. We have covered a lot of them. Jamie talked about all of his risers. They were Ty Chandler, Braylon Allen, Jets rookie running back, who is the clear handcuff right now to Brees Hall. Rasheed Rice, Khalil Shakir, and Jacoby Myers. I think I saw you had Khalil Shakir and Josh Palmer back-to-back. Is that right?
Starting point is 00:31:36 Sounds right. That's an interesting decision. Yeah, you do have them back-to-back. It's McConkey, Odunze. Oh, wow. It's Coleman, McConkey, Odunze, Palmer, Shakir for you. Coleman, McConkey, Odunze, oh wow, it's Coleman, McConkey, Odunze, Palmer, Shakir for you. Coleman, McConkey, Odunze, Palmer, Shakir. It's an interesting range.
Starting point is 00:31:51 And it's right, okay, all right, follow along here. Those five, Coleman, McConkey, Odunze, Palmer, Shakir, they're right after Jamison Williams and Jackson Smith and Jigba. Is there a difference between JSN, Jamison Williams, and then that group of five? More upside with JSN and Williams for me. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 00:32:13 Cool. Thank you. Heath's risers, Calvin Ridley, Xavier Worthy, Darnell Mooney, and Andre Yoshivas. Okay, we have not talked about Ridley
Starting point is 00:32:23 a little bit on Worthy and Darnell Mooney. Andre Yoshivas. Okay, we have not talked about Ridley, a little bit unworthy, and Darnell Mooney. All right, what do you got there for those three risers? Love the fact that Calvin Ritty caught a pass running sideways and not just running down the sideline. And there was some talk at the beginning of the year that cooled me a little bit on him, that he was kind of struggling with the connection with Will Levis. The last week, it's been much more positive. DeAndre Hopkins injury obviously factors in. And then it's like sometimes, and Jamie's talked about this, that sometimes our rankings are impacted by where you can get a guy. And there was a lot more positive buzz about people saying what a great value Calvin
Starting point is 00:33:00 Ridley is in drafts right now at wide receiver 35 or somewhere in the thirties. And I don't want to be too high on the guy, but I don't want to miss him either. So I moved him up a few spots from, I think it was wide receiver 31. He's wide receiver 27 or 28 right now. Uh, would you guys rather have Calvin Ridley or is she rice rice rice? Do you anticipate moving Ridley down? If Deandre Hopkins is back ready for week one, which it seems like he will be, but like officially comes back. I really didn't move him. I moved him up a couple spots over the last couple of weeks. You know, I, again, I was probably the low guy on him,
Starting point is 00:33:36 but it really wasn't so much, Oh, Hopkins is going to miss any time. It's just, you know, sort of stuff, learning a few guys around in that range. But Hopkins will move back up. You know, he's probably a very good price right now. Heath, what'd you do? You said Xavier Worthy's a round eight pick.
Starting point is 00:33:52 He's back to back with Marquise Brown. How does he compare with the other rookie wide receivers? Is he rookie wide receiver three for you? He is now rookie wide receiver three, but Brian Thomas is right behind him. Ladd McConkie is right behind him.
Starting point is 00:34:05 Roma Dunze and Keon Coleman are around behind them. But he is currently rookie wide receiver three. And I still, like, he played quite a bit with Mahomes. I still kind of felt like he might be dependent on needing Marquise Brown to do something wrong or get hurt. And that happened a lot earlier than I was thinking that it might. You guys want to hear a bold prediction? Ready?
Starting point is 00:34:30 Why do I, like, why do I do this to myself? I'm putting this out there. It's just, just for ridicule. I'm not drafting it this way, but bold prediction,
Starting point is 00:34:38 somewhat bold. Gabe Davis is going to have a better year than Brian Thomas. It's not crazy. Thomas is young, dude. He's going to take some time. I just think he's a deep ball guy right now. That's what he was at LSU, basically. Almost all of his touchdowns were on deep balls,
Starting point is 00:34:59 go routes, fly routes, whatever. But what's Gabe Davis going to do if somebody else is the deep ball guy? I was actually interested in that. What davis going to do if somebody else is the deep ball guy that's so that's i was actually interested in that what's what is he going to do and i wanted to see what his average route depth was in this game because i want to see them use gabe davis differently i think there's a little untapped potential there so did he have a lower average route depth well his average route depth was was i think 12.4 yards which was higher than in any game with the Bills last year. They did not make that adjustment,
Starting point is 00:35:30 but I want to say he got two targets early in the game. Brian Thomas caught a deep ball later in the game. I'm pretty sure it was after most of the starters had come out. It was in the second quarter or late in the first quarter or whatever. But yeah, I think Brian Thomas
Starting point is 00:35:44 is a little developmental prospect. Are you saying this because you think Gabe Davis is going to matter or you just think that Brian Thomas is going to disappoint? I've been taking Gabe Davis as my last pick, basically. I think
Starting point is 00:36:00 he could matter in a streaming capacity. The weak one. Who's the week one the dolphins they have terrible defense right now um we'll see we'll see what happens but no obviously i'm drafting brian i know what gabe davis is i think i'll draft brian thomas ahead of him i i'm worried about thomas uh in the first half of the season for sure yeah okay um you want to stay there i'm worried about Christian Kirk. Go ahead.
Starting point is 00:36:26 Why? I mean, the fact that he's dependent on just being in the slot right now. I thought, okay, he'll move inside when one of the other two guys, when they go into receiver sets. And this was the case last year. They started out the same way preseason. He didn't play. And understandably so, you want your two guys on the perimeter to get some time with Trevor Lawrence and these are the two new guys.
Starting point is 00:36:44 But if he's only going to be the slot guy, he's still very good. But I just had him ranked too high. Interesting. And you moved him down? I moved him down, like, not very much from a round perspective. But I didn't, like, I had him behind. I had him ahead of Amari Cooper. I made that adjustment.
Starting point is 00:37:00 I had him. I moved Rice ahead of him. And I did switch him and Chris Godwin. So I had initially Kirk ahead of Godwin. I i moved rice ahead of him and i did switch him and uh chris godwin so i had initially kirk ahead of god when i moved godwin interesting okay and i still want to draft christian kirk like i said i just had him a little bit too high last one uh last riser for heath right now is darnell mooney discuss yeah i think that uh he's going to be on the field pretty much all the time drake london and kyle pitts are going to take a lot of attention and mooney may actually thrive efficiency wise in this role where he doesn't have to be the number one wide receiver um again probably not going to
Starting point is 00:37:38 be a top 25 wide receiver but when you get to that 40 to 50 range that jacoby myers range i think uh mooney should be in it okay falcons receiver mooney 53rd overall for uh for and look they just lost the guy ron delmore's out for the season you know so that helps not not that i think he was a factor to what mooney was going to do because he's you know was playing behind them uh it will be interesting to see if they add somebody of significance to replace Rondell Moore. There was some talk. I think there's a connection with Juju. Again, not that that would impact, I think, Mooney even, but just another body there.
Starting point is 00:38:17 And Juju could also be a factor, shockingly enough, to the Steelers. That's where he should go, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like Arthur Smith would love him as a blocker. Be great. We're running back. We'll take would love him as a blocker. Be great. We're running back. We'll take a break here on Fantasy Football today.
Starting point is 00:38:29 We have our rankings fallers. We have more news items. This is an important show. We watched a lot of preseason football, so you didn't have to, and we're going to keep you updated on everything you need to know. We'll be right back on FFT. Join us tomorrow night, Tuesday night,
Starting point is 00:38:43 8 p.m. Eastern for our live stream. We're doing a half PPR, I think, mock draft. And we look forward to having you there on YouTube, youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday. If you're watching on YouTube, hit like and please subscribe to our channel, youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday. When we get to 100,000 subscribers, there will be confetti and balloons, and we'll all be a part of it. Rankings fallers for Heath, Joe Mixon, Marshawn Lloyd, Curtis Samuel, Marvin Mims. Talk, Mims. I don't think he still needs to be freed. He was not freed by the tradeaway of Jerry Judy.
Starting point is 00:39:20 Tim Patrick playing more than him. Josh Reynolds, of course, playing more than him. Maybe he is the number three wide receiver, but that's not even certain right now. We have basically nothing but hope and what he did in college to base this Marvin Mims hope on, and I've pretty much lost mine.
Starting point is 00:39:37 He's outside of my top 60 wide receivers. Have you seen how tall the Broncos receivers are? They are like an NBA front court. I just don't know why you want to throw the ball four yards at a time. You play all these six foot three giants that probably aren't going to do anything after the catch. What was Bo Nix's numbers? Bo Nix, look, he undoubtedly had a good game, good debut. But Bo Nix had 15 for 21. He completed 15 passes for 125 yards. Very short stuff.
Starting point is 00:40:12 Going to be bad in yard per attempt leagues, but great in completion percentage. Yeah. All right, Jamie's followers, Tajay Spears, Trey Benson, Christian Kirk, Marquise Brown, and Quentin Johnston. How far did you move Spears? So I had the Steelers' backs and the Titans' backs basically back-to-back. And so I dropped Spears behind Chase Brown and Brian Robinson.
Starting point is 00:40:40 And so he's now, I think, running back like 29 or 30 in that range. So again, not a big round difference, and I moved Pollard up a couple spots as well. So it just separated them a little bit more because I think that's where they belong. Interesting. Benson looked awful. Yeah, he did. He looked slow, didn't he?
Starting point is 00:40:57 Just bad. I didn't expect him to take Connor off the field for anything significant, but I thought there was a chance and it's got to improve because it did not look good. And I'll tell you the other thing that, that also was troubling when you have guys like this, who I think, and I don't know how you guys feel about this. I think that I thought he was going to be a factor in the passing game to not
Starting point is 00:41:23 play on third downs when Connor's not playing. Yeah. Like they're not giving the chance to do that when they have a guy like Carter or, you know, maybe DiMarcato to do some of the other things, you know. So it was a little troubling with what happened with Benson. I did feel like maybe we saw why we kept hearing that DiMarcato was going to be the third down back. I didn't move Benson yet, but it's concerning. Well, it's a great point because if you're going to roster a handcuff that's probably not going to be able to start for you unless the starter gets injured, you want to know that if the guy gets
Starting point is 00:41:57 hurt, that this handcuff is going to walk into a really good situation. And if he's just going to be a first and second down back, then it's it's going to be a guy that obviously you're picking up but it's maybe not someone who's going to have as big of an impact as you thought benson it's here we go again remember we had this conversation about don't get overexcited about these day two and day or day three running backs yes and the thing about benson though is that he is a home run hitter he He gets compared to Ken Walker. He's a guy who gets... You'll want to roster him if he's, like you said, you'll want to roster him.
Starting point is 00:42:29 You want to draft him. Those things still remain the same. But I was under the impression that he had a chance to push Connor. He still might, but it didn't look good in the first instance of seeing it. Now, again, no Kyler Murray, so take that for what it's worth. But still, it just didn't look like in the first instance of seeing it. Now, again, no Kyler Murray, you know, so take that for what it's worth.
Starting point is 00:42:46 But still, it just it just didn't look like he was very explosive. All right. Christian Kirk, you talked about moving down a little bit. Hollywood Brown, obviously. Quinton Johnston. Almost undraftable at this point in like the biggest, the biggest of leagues. Like I kept hoping, you know, like maybe I'll do something, but it's just the, this one, the depth started telling.
Starting point is 00:43:09 Well, also we better hope Justin Herbert is good for week one because they have a serious quarterback problem there. Yeah. And Herbert's got a foot injury, plantar fascia. Easton stick is not the answer. It seems you think, I think they're probably going to make a move. I think it's certainly possible that they... Can't help, maybe. Yeah. So what did you guys think of the kickoffs?
Starting point is 00:43:35 Meh. Nothing crazy. But it's exciting to see them actually run it back. And we got some big plays. Some guys sprung some big plays. I did like there was a fourth down play for the Ravens. And the announcers were saying, I can't believe they're not going for it.
Starting point is 00:43:53 And then I guess somebody said something like, Harbaugh wanted to kick the field goal because he wanted to work on kickoffs. Yeah, and I think a lot of players I saw running the ball out from the end zone. If a ball goes straight into the end zone or out of the end zone, it's a touchback, goes out to the 30. If a ball bounces inside the 20-yard line, the landing zone,
Starting point is 00:44:15 and then rolls into the end zone, it's a touchback to the 20. But a ball that just straight up is kicked into the end zone or out of the end zone, if you down it, it's a touchback, it goes to the 30-yard line. Some guys were running it out and then, you know, probably because they just wanted to get some returns under their belt and see what, see what they could do in an actual NFL game. I'm think they're just going to settle for the 30 yard line, which is pretty good field position, but I was watching it and I thought, you know, I don't want to be like the most anti this thing, but I was like, God,
Starting point is 00:44:46 I really don't want kickoff return yards to count on my fantasy team. There are, I think there are going to be a lot of them and a guy could feel the ball at the five yard line, get to the 25 yard line. And some leagues might reward them two points for that. And if that happens four times a game, and that is, that is significant. I just, I have no interest in it this year. Sorry for being that guy. Why do you think that yards that you pick up in one fashion matter more than yards you pick up in another? I just think that, first of all, it's so much easier.
Starting point is 00:45:14 Think about how easy it is for a guy to catch the ball at the five-yard line. Think about how easy it is for a guy to catch a screen and fall down and get a point. You know what? That is more skill than running the ball 20 yards straight before being contact. But no, but I just think it's not going to have too much.
Starting point is 00:45:30 I just think it's going to have too much of an impact. And it's what I said. I don't think you were on this episode. We spend all off season working so hard to tell you which players to pick. And then your fantasy games, your matchups are going to be decided because this guy ran back five kicks for 110 yards. And it's like,
Starting point is 00:45:49 none of the preseason prep you did is going to matter. And that is so stupid to me. And I just, I have no desire to be in a point for kick return yard league. I'm just, I'm just mad that I didn't draft
Starting point is 00:46:00 Malik Washington in the fishbowl. Is he returning a whole bunch of kicks for the Dolphins? He was their kick and punt returner. Chase Brown returned a kick. He's also a wide receiver handcuff because, my gosh, imagine how good he'll be if something happens to Tyreek or Waddle. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:46:15 It could be Beckham if he ever gets healthy. Who? Yeah. He's hopefully back next week. All right. Anyway, that's my two cents. You could throw those in the trash. I'll go to Chase Brown because that's a good one to talk about.
Starting point is 00:46:29 Yeah, well, Zach Moss didn't play. Chase Brown started, didn't do much, but he did return a kick. Any changes here? No. Let me run through. That wasn't such a good one then. Yeah. Well, I thought you want to talk about it since he was the guy.
Starting point is 00:46:49 There's a chance that nobody's going to look very good running the ball for the Bengals. You hate their offensive line. I'd be okay with because then we get a lot more Joe Burrow passes to Jamar Chase and T. Higgins. All right. Let me go through all these notes here. Russell Wilson is going to play this week, this upcoming week. Dak Prescott, minor ankle injury, says it's totally fine. The Raiders are going to announce their starting quarterback
Starting point is 00:47:09 after this week's preseason game. Don't know if really anybody had a leg up after this last game. Minshew had a very nice touchdown throw. Giants backup quarterback Drew Locke is expected to miss time with a hip pointer and a strained oblique. And Daniel Jones is going to, I think he's going to play this week, right? In the preseason game? Yep.
Starting point is 00:47:28 Daniel LaRusso's going to fight. There he is. Running back news. Joe Biscaglia of The Athletic says James Cook has had fumbling issues in training camp. Anybody moving Cook down? Not yet. No. Pacheco or Cook for you guys?
Starting point is 00:47:44 Pacheco. Cook. Yeah, Pacheco or Cook for you guys? Pacheco. Cook. Yeah, Pacheco. And for all you Bills fans that are always telling me that I only like the Chiefs and I always talk bad about the Bills, James Cook over Isaiah Pacheco. Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes? Oh, it's Mahomes. All right. Oh, and Keon Colbert or Xavier Worthy?
Starting point is 00:48:07 Worthy. Rasheed Rice or Khalil Shakir? Come on. You are such a homer, Heath. Come on. ESPN's Dan Graziano thinks the Vikings want to get Aaron Jones 15 to 18 touches per game and use Ty Chandler as a 1B. Jamie, you've been the pro Chandler, anti-Jones guy. Thoughts?
Starting point is 00:48:28 I mean, that's a different report from what Yahoo had when they were on their camp tour of, you know, expect more of a 50-50 split. Look, Jones is going to be the lead rusher. There should be no mistake about that. But he's also 29 and missed, you know, five plus games last year with hamstring injuries. So I'm most likely going to avoid Jones and draft Chandler. That's just the way I build my team. I don't in that range. I don't usually look for Aaron Jones. I'm typically taking receivers or quarterback or tight end. So where I, you know, tend to, you know, pick my running backs from it's, it's tight Chandler. And I thought he looked good. I thought no, I'm going to look good too. Like I said, he looked explosive. So, um, I think
Starting point is 00:49:01 the bigger story from Minnesota is their quarterbacks look good, both of them. And if you're a Justin Jefferson guy, you know, debating the top of the receiving core receiving rankings again, it might be it might be a mistake to pass on Jefferson after what he did with Nick Mullins and what those two guys look like. Sure. But this should be the time where I say. Players looking good in the preseason probably shouldn't matter. Players looking bad in the preseason should matter, right? I do think, though, Darnold made multi-level throws that looked different for him. And McCarthy, he tried to force the ball at the end of the half, bad throw,
Starting point is 00:49:38 but came out looking very confident in the second half. Again, backups, as Pete Prisco likes to say, bouncers and bartenders that he's thrown against. But it still looked good. And, again, just with that guy, I think you said it before, you know, he's just different, Jefferson. And so as long as there's competent quarterback play, he could still be 20-plus points per game,
Starting point is 00:50:05 like he was with Nick Mullens, who had just competent quarterback play, he could still be 20 plus points per game, like he was with Nick Mullins, who had just competent quarterback play for him. It mattered to me more how McCarthy, I thought McCarthy looked really good, and how he looked, than it does Sam Darnold. Because Darnold's probably going to start, but now if Darnold's terrible, I feel pretty confident that McCarthy's going to be okay.
Starting point is 00:50:22 And Jefferson is wide receiver, what for you? Three. Currently, those guys move all he's going to be okay. And Jefferson is wide receiver. What for you? Three. Currently, those guys move all the time. I just talked about this. They get four. Okay.
Starting point is 00:50:35 Trey Sermon, backup running back for the Colts. He appeared to be the number two guy behind Jonathan Taylor. He left with a hamstring injury. I'm not even going to ask you for a handcuff for Jonathan Taylor. I was going to say, I used to think it was Evan Holt, but I think he was like the fourth running back that came in. Goodson played before Evan Hull, so mostly we don't care. ESPN's Dan Graziano said, if there is a Green Bay wide receiver you want,
Starting point is 00:50:56 he thinks it's Romeo Dobbs. And of course, Dontavian Wicks had the long touchdown catch. I'm starting to wonder, is there a Green Bay wide receiver I want? I know the answer is yes, Of course, Dontavia and Wicks had the long touchdown catch. I'm starting to wonder, is there a Green Bay wide receiver I want? I know the answer is yes, but you could see this deep receiving core, playing time issues. It could be a little frustrating. The fun part of this is you don't have to invest heavily in any of them.
Starting point is 00:51:28 Watson and Reed are mid-round picks, depending on what ADP you look at or how you know, your draft is going to go and Dobbs and Wicks are late round picks. And the thing you just got to understand is don't go into it with these guys go into it. Now keep that on, go into it. The season with these guys are going to be difference makers. I think if Watson hits, he can be, if Reed goes back to being that multiple facet player that they use, he can be scores 10 touchdowns. Again, that's goes without saying, but then if there's an injury, as we saw last year,
Starting point is 00:51:50 Watson Wicks could take off or Dobbs could just be the touchdown guy scored a touchdown. So you just want to get a piece of it. If you can't. Yeah. I don't know if he was saying it is because of this, but I think Dobbs at ADP might be the best bet. And I would bet on Dobbs leading them in snaps.
Starting point is 00:52:03 I don't think he was saying that he said that romeo dobbs had been kind of like jordan loves guy in in uh different situations but this is you know i i don't want to pay i don't want to put words in the guy's well he's not the first to say that we heard it last year too we heard two predictions that romeo dobbs would lead the team in target or catches and i wonder did he lead the team in catches last year? I was thinking probably. Let's see. No, Jaden Reed.
Starting point is 00:52:30 He led him in targets. He did. He had two more targets than Reed. How about that? Okay, let's move on. Tight end. Gerald Everett appears to be ahead of Cole Komet for the Bears. I'm drafting those guys.
Starting point is 00:52:41 We're not drafting a Bears tight end, right? I think anybody that was in the combat camp, that was trouble. Offensive line news. I'd say the biggest one would be that Pittsburgh rookie offensive tackle Troy Fatanu has a minor MCL sprain. He's in contention for a starting spot. On defense, you had Baltimore rookie cornerback Nate Wiggins leaving with a shoulder injury.
Starting point is 00:53:01 San Francisco cornerback Ambry Thomas, he's a depth piece. He's going to miss time with a broken hand. Atlanta had a pass rusher and a safety, both young guys that are going to miss significant time. The pass rusher, Trice, he might miss the season. These are backups, but contributors. So the Falcons had a bad day in terms of injuries. And the Jaguars signed Tayshaun Gibson,
Starting point is 00:53:24 a safety, who was suspended six games for a PED violation. He'll be a depth piece for them. Okay, preseason takeaways. Man, I have so many, there's no way I can get through. But let's talk about the rookie quarterbacks. We talked about Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels. We're very encouraged.
Starting point is 00:53:38 I mean, if you see the play, and RG3 actually did a good video breakdown of Caleb Williams. Play action, pump faking, creating separation between him and the defensive end, rolling to his right and firing an absolute dart to DJ Moore, I believe it was. It was a terrific throw. Third down throw? Mm-hmm. Yep.
Starting point is 00:53:58 And I like that he had 13 rushing yards. I mean, again, you don't want to make too much of it, but if he can get to 400 rushing yards, that would be huge for Caleb Williams. You've been saying that for a long time. I mean, I know you go back to his, I think, what, two previous years of college? Yeah, he was over 370 rushing yards in both of those seasons, and that was obviously in fewer than 17 games.
Starting point is 00:54:18 People look at like 150 rushing yards last year, which I think sacks count, by the way, in that stat, I think. But he's capable of more, he's capable of more. So I, I'm excited. Listen, it, it, I think he's probably feels the same way. If you're looking at Daniels or Williams, and if you're taking those guys, you're probably taking them ahead of that group of Tua and Purdy and, uh, golf and Lawrence. And I don't know who I might be missing in their Stafford, you know,
Starting point is 00:54:48 Rogers cousins. There's a, there's a huge list of guys that you just take one of those other veteran guys that are established and proven. And if they flop, you go the other way. Like golf is a perfect quarterback to pair with Caleb Williams because of this kid.
Starting point is 00:55:02 Yeah. And like by our current ADP, which gets more and more data every day that we talk about it, Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels both going down this week. Later in drafts, I think QB 14 and QB 15 right now
Starting point is 00:55:18 pick 108 and pick 115. Williams is in round 10 now. Tua and Goff and Purdy are all three ahead of them. You have any thoughts? Oh, I want to say with Jaden Daniels throwing that deep ball, Terry McLaurin is a deep ball
Starting point is 00:55:33 guy who has had quarterbacks who have been extremely inaccurate with deep balls basically his entire career. Now, Jaden Daniels dropped a dime to Deami Brown. Let's start hoping that's Terry McLaurin, but it's good to see because that is something that he was really good at, Jaden Daniels, in dime to Deami Brown. Let's start hoping that's Terry McLaurin, but it's good to see because that is something that he was really good at, Jaden Daniels, in college. Threw a beautiful deep ball,
Starting point is 00:55:49 and that could really help Terry McLaurin. I think there was a lot to like about Washington. You know, the one guy you've been talking about, Adam Luke McCaffrey, may have been a little bit of a, suffered a little bit. He did some good things, but just didn't play with the first group. Dotson moving to the slot,
Starting point is 00:56:07 you know, that could be a plus for him. And Ben Sinnott, my goodness, he looked great. Again, didn't play a lot with Daniels, but how do you keep Zach Ertz ahead of him? That doesn't make sense. Sinnott's going to be good. I thought you said Benson. I was like, who?
Starting point is 00:56:18 Ben Sinnott. Ben Sinnott. Rookie tight end. Did you guys have anything to say about the Broncos quarterbacks, the Raiders quarterbacks? Man, if Bo Nix, I think, got a little closer to being named week one starter, and if he is, does he become the third highest rookie quarterback in Superflex leagues?
Starting point is 00:56:42 It's so difficult if you don't know when McCarthy or Drake May are going to get their first start to take them in that format because you almost just have to pair them up with the other guy or take four quarterbacks and I think Bo Nix is probably going to be okay as a low-end QB too assuming he gets to start week one running back what did you guys think of the Broncos backfield and was giovante williams was the clear starter samajai piran was was the third down guy it's funny i'm almost looking at giovante and mclaughlin who look pretty good as uh not in terms of playing time but in terms of stylistically as like a similar zach moss to chase brown uh you know you got got McLaughlin's looks like the more explosive guy.
Starting point is 00:57:26 Javante's got the size. And Jamie, I would say this was probably a win for Javante just in terms of role. But McLaughlin looked pretty good. What'd you think? I mean, if you want to make comps, I think the Sean Payton comp is more reasonable of Mark Ingram
Starting point is 00:57:39 and Alvin Kamara. You know, not that they perform like that, you know, but, you know, one guy can be the more physical threat and then the other guy could come in and be change of pace and work in the backfield. The P Ryan playing time was disappointing for McLaughlin until he came on the field and certainly looked the part of someone who's gotten a lot of positive reviews this off season. And then the P Ryan dropped the lead to the interception. You know, who knows how much that
Starting point is 00:57:59 plays into what happens to him down the road. There's too many people there. That's the problem. You know, if they're going to play three guys, because it's hard to anticipate them playing four guys, so Estima is the one you got to be a little concerned about. But if they're going to play three guys, it just caps the ceiling for what Javante could be. And that's kind of been my concern is that I was pleased to hear he's looked great in camp.
Starting point is 00:58:19 And two years removed from the ACL tear, I don't think he's going anywhere unless somebody comes and makes a huge offer, which who's going to do that for a running back? So my guess is that he's still very safe as a low-end starter, high-end flex, you know, someone you could take after, at least for me. I know he's probably still higher on him. But, you know, in that group of guys of like Warren and Spears and Chase Brown, Brian Robinson, you know, that whole group of running backs that will go in probably around six or seven. I still am probably going to gravitate toward McLaughlin cause I get them cheap. And I think depending on if you didn't watch the game and you just hear the positive reports about Williams and, and saw that he scored, I think he scored a touchdown,
Starting point is 00:58:57 right. Um, that he, uh, you know, perform well, you know, might help his cause a little bit more. So I hope that's the top two and P Ryan kind of gets phased out. All right. Uh, see, we had a Ray Davis was the, was the number two running back for the bills, but Ty Johnson missed the game with a hamstring injury. Um, Isaiah Pacheco, he was in on third and two, which I thought was, you know, good to see, good to see that he was in there. Uh, third and two, I guess could be a running down, but they, they threw the ball there. Pacheco's a guy that you guys probably have already been here. I'm sort of just letting go of my concerns for Pacheco. From that point on, his next 22 games, Isaiah Pacheco scored more than 16.2 PPR fantasy points in one of 22 games.
Starting point is 00:59:51 And then about mid-season last year, or late season and into the post-season, he was a machine, he was a monster. But I didn't want to just forget about those 22 games, where he was good, but almost never great. And the biggest difference was McKinnon was out. But I think he's ready to take the next step and be more
Starting point is 01:00:09 consistently great. Go ahead. Heath, go. I want to do one of those Adam things, and so I'll just say it, but I'm not changing my rankings yet. But I want to. I think Isaiah Pacheco is going to score more fantasy points than Saquon Barkley this year.
Starting point is 01:00:27 He might. I can't really find any more reasons to doubt Isaiah Pacheco. I think they just don't... He's now moved ahead of ETN for me. Oh, no, I'm not doing that. ETN, man. They said they wanted to get more involved in the passing game. He ran a great route, caught the touchdown.
Starting point is 01:00:44 But I think they're back to back for everyone, basically, right? Like everyone here? I'm sure. Close. Pacheco ETN? I've got an ETN Barkley White Pacheco. Okay. I was pretty impressed with Jalen Wright, rookie
Starting point is 01:01:00 running back for the Dolphins. He was behind Jeff Wilson, for what it's worth, but he looked good. Talked about the Titans running back, talked about the Bears running back, the Dolphins. He was behind Jeff Wilson, for what it's worth, but he looked good. Talked about the Titans running back, talked about the Bears running back, wide receiver. You see the potential for Tee Higgins if Jamar Chase were to miss time. Joe Burrow threw eight throws,
Starting point is 01:01:16 including the pass interference that Higgins drew, and four of them went to Higgins, and one of them was a touchdown. The one where he almost caught it in double coverage was almost ridiculous. Yep, that deep ball too. There are three names I want to give out. Two of them you don't need to draft or anything, but just Rams wide receiver Jordan Whittingham.
Starting point is 01:01:39 Vikings wide receiver Jalen Naylor. Of course, Jefferson didn't play, but these guys are just good young players it seems. And Steelers wide receiver Van Jefferson. I mean, this is probably going to be their number two receiver, right? Juju. Barring a trade. Tank Dell had a 34-yard touchdown catch. That was cool. Dontavian Wicks had a 65-yard touchdown catch. We talked about Jacoby Myers. Go back to Dell for a second, because he was not playing on two receiver sets. Yeah. That's not a surprise,
Starting point is 01:02:07 right? Actually, I will say, I want to give credit to Dwayne McFarland of fantasy life. He had a lot of good notes on participation for every team. And I think what he said about that was like the Texans, they, they did that with their guys a lot last year.
Starting point is 01:02:25 They rotated. They didn't necessarily have a set. You're in on two receiver set, you know, set list. They did rotate. So it was only one drive, but yeah,
Starting point is 01:02:35 it was worth noting. And Stefan did, I think people are overreacting a little bit to the Stefan dig sideline thing. It seemed constructive to me. I think it probably was. It's just how long until cj stroud gets annoyed with it like even if it's constructive like every time i come off the field you don't get a target
Starting point is 01:02:51 i have to hear this the responses to somebody tweeting it out were pretty funny i'm sure thomas probably has it was like vikings fans uh-huh and bill's fans uh-huh he's he's got a pattern but i thought like jamie's right it is important to note that digs played out of two wide receiver sets and dell didn't i think it's also like was indicative that a tank dell target and snap is probably going to be more valuable than a stefan digs target yes man that was awesome and for what it's worth i think you saw dig celebrating as soon as uh dell caught that ball He knew it was going to be a touchdown. Tight end notes. All I had, like, it's worth noting that
Starting point is 01:03:30 Michael Mayer did play a decent amount. And is he going to hurt Brock Bowers not in the same way, but in a similar way that Dawson Knox may be hurt, Dalton Kincaid to start the season before Knox got hurt? A different way, but yes, it certainly could be an issue. So and Knox maybe hurt Dalton Kincaid to start the season before Knox got hurt?
Starting point is 01:03:49 A different way, but yes, it certainly could be an issue. So I thought Bowers looked really good. It's just a matter of can you trust him to be a consistent week-in, week-out fantasy starter? I'll say the same thing I've been saying. If you look at Dalton Kincaid's numbers last year, very solid for a rookie tight end. Just not consistent weekly starter. I think that's kind of what you're going to get from Bowers.
Starting point is 01:04:10 So good late round, number one tight end. Just don't reach for him. I'd like to see, I hope, they are going to play their quarterbacks next week, the Raiders, for a quarter each. I want to see what they do with their running backs because I don't think Alexander Madison is really a threat. I don't think any of us do right now. But White played a possession,
Starting point is 01:04:24 then Madison played a possession, and then I'm pretty sure Abdullah started playing the next possession, and then White came in to hammer in the goal line touchdown. Just would like to see a few more, a little bit more clarity there,
Starting point is 01:04:35 but we're all assuming Zamir White is just the starter, right? The main guy. All right, I mentioned Dwayne McFarlane from Fantasy Life. Here were some of his notes. Mike Gasicki had a 71% route participation rate with Joe Burrow.
Starting point is 01:04:47 Roma Dunze had a 50% route participation rate with the starters. That was another situation where Keenan Allen and DJ Moore were really the two receiver set guys. Keon Coleman had a 100% route participation with the starting wide receivers. And usually I'd end the show right now, but I want to read some emails because people donated to get their question
Starting point is 01:05:07 read and they are going to get that question read. This guy, I don't think was one of them. I think he just had a good question. I wanted to read it from Bruce. Who are some players that are being underdrafted because of some perceived or manifested shortcoming like Mike Evans last year, Josh Jacobs the year before.
Starting point is 01:05:23 I think he mentioned Adam Thielen in this. Oh no, that's our next email. I think by our ADP, Rushie Rice definitely qualifies at pick 83 and the perception is the suspension that we don't really have any reason right now
Starting point is 01:05:41 to think is going to happen. Yeah. Who else? Steelers running backs because of Arthur Smith. Being underdrafted or overdrafted? I think underdrafted. Okay. Oh, because they're going to split, you mean?
Starting point is 01:05:57 Got it. How about... I'll say Russell Wilson because of fears of getting benched he does not actually have an ADP on CBS I don't think like literally not listed in the quarterbacks I'm gonna say Terry McLaurin a little bit
Starting point is 01:06:16 like he just kind of needs to be what he has been and he'll probably hit his ADP which is round seven and if he's better then you know hooray if he's better, then, you know, hooray. But he's been, I think people are a little tired of Terry McLaurin. And I get it. But now he's just falling into good value.
Starting point is 01:06:36 All right, next email. From, don't know his name. One more. Tony Pollard. Okay. Dear John, James, Richard, and George. Those are the real first names of the Beatles. Do you hate them?
Starting point is 01:06:53 I think they're going to be okay. I think they're like a decent band. Okay. I love the Beatles. What wide receiver had over 100 receptions in 1,000 yards last year? Was a strong fantasy performer in the first half of the season
Starting point is 01:07:04 and hasn't been mentioned at all by most experts for 2024? I'm going to guess Adam Thielen. Yeah, I gave that one away. Sorry about that. Should he be mentioned? Should Adam Thielen be mentioned? He should absolutely be mentioned.
Starting point is 01:07:17 I don't know how many people are going to be excited about Adam Thielen at his age, and they brought in two somewhat prominent receiving threats, trading for Deontay Johnson and drafting Xavier Liget. Is that what you're saying now? Liget, I believe it is.
Starting point is 01:07:32 He's back at practice. Liget. Liget. Usable. Usable. So, I mean, Thielen's still going to have some weeks, but late round picture. From Lucas,
Starting point is 01:07:47 I inherited an orphaned keeper team, one quarterback, half PPR. I made some trades. I'm going to draft Marvin Harrison at 101. I also have pick 104. Should I take Ladd McConkie, Brian Thomas, Xavier Worthy, or someone else?
Starting point is 01:08:02 He does not want to go with a running back. At 104? Uh-huhhuh i wonder if you could trade back again that's true but if you had to choose between mcconkie thomas and worthy who would you pick worthy worthy ray from panama says dear ed kelly gordon and bortus those are characters from the Orville. Okay. Six point per passing touchdown, half PPR league.
Starting point is 01:08:28 Quarterback passing yards are one point for every 20 yards. How would you approach this draft in terms of overall quarterback value? One point for every 20 yards? Yeah. I'm going to do some quick math while you guys talk. I wouldn't change much, to be honest with you. Yeah, they'd get bumped up a little bit.
Starting point is 01:08:50 Overall players, yes, you can take them a little sooner. And yeah, the running quarterbacks are not quite as valuable. But I probably wouldn't move too much.
Starting point is 01:09:03 Remember the number 183? I'd move Stroud up. 229 minus 183. Jared Goff would have earned another 46 fantasy points last year in this format. That's a big deal. So keep that in mind. He was one of the leaders in passing yards. But Tua, Goff, you know, maybe Stroud.
Starting point is 01:09:27 Stroud, yeah. Burrow. Yeah, I was thinking later, guys. But yeah, those guys are going to add a lot of points. Thank you all so much for your emails, for your questions. To benefit St. Jude, very much appreciate it. Big crowd today on YouTube. Hit the like button and hit subscribe.
Starting point is 01:09:43 We appreciate it. And we've got FFT Express coming up. You want to stick around for that. And when's Dynasty? Tomorrow? Yeah. Yeah. Me and Gibbs talking tight end premium. Alright. I got to get Gibbs on this show. You can't hog Jacob Gibbs.
Starting point is 01:10:00 Yeah. He's busy. Getting ready for my show. Alright. We'll talk to you later everybody. See you. See you. Paramount Podcasts

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.