Fantasy Football Today - Rookie Gems: Beyond the Box Score (05/19 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Our "Beyond the Box Score" series returns! Adam, Jacob and Dan are back with advanced stats, film review, dynasty talk, redraft rankings and more. Today we're focusing on the rookies that don't get talked about much on our other shows. We'll give you some rookie gems (6:15) that could contribute this season and are underrated in dynasty ... Dan and Jacob tell you about a couple of players who may not be great long-term contributors, but might be a factor early in their careers (24:40). And how about some late-round NFL Draft picks that have a shot at surprising us (30:45)? Get familiar with Xavier Hutchinson and Tyler Scott ... Don't sleep on (35:55) Tank Bigsby, DeWayne McBride and Zach Evans. We've got advanced metrics and other things to know about these rookie running backs ... Email us at [e-mail] 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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No, I can't. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races, and he stays on his feet. It's just going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Well, we only took about five months off. No big deal. But we are back, and we are going beyond the box score here on Fantasy Football Today. Everybody's favorite nerdy trio is back.

Adam Azer with Dan Schneier and Jacob Gibbs. We got to talk about what these guys are wearing. Well, as I was going to say, we used to be nerdy until Jacob showed up all jacked up and ripped up on the podcast, not even wearing a full shirt on there. So I think we're trying to turn, maybe we're trying to change the narrative here and go from the nerds away from the nerd. Uh, look,

no, yeah, you wouldn't get this references. You don't watch good movies, but he went from being a tri-lam to an alpha beta, uh, during the off season. But,

uh, yeah, Jacob's ripped. He's, he's got a tank top on. What are these traps? What are these? Yeah.

Yeah. Adam's like, I've never had those. What are those things? Yeah. I've never seen them before. He's a a tank top on. Are these traps? What are these? Yeah. Adam's like, I've never had those. What are those things? Yeah. I've never seen them before. He's a trap back. He's got his traps.

And Dan has a collared shirt. That's even more. It's more surprising to me that Dan is like a short sleeve collared shirt. I'm not a collared shirt kind of guy typically. But I figured I'd spice it up a little bit. I get a little fancier. Once I saw Jacob in the, you know, what do I don't want to call that what I was about to call that the, the word we probably shouldn't use to term those types of things. It's called a tank top. We'll call it a

tank top. We're watching a little too much Sopranos lately. We'll call it a tank top. But, um, once I saw that Jack Jacob in the tank top, I knew I couldn't wear anything close to that. I had to hide my, you know, physique. So I, it's a good way to hide it. Good job. So Jacob, let's talk about what we're planning on doing for the next several weeks, maybe months here on Beyond the Box score, because the premise of it is to give you guys a little bit of a deeper dive on either mainstream topics, maybe during the season or throughout the offseason. But today, specifically, we're going to talk about rookie gems, late round picks in a lot

of cases in the NFL draft, guys that you may not even know who they are or what team they play for, but some second rounders, some third rounders as well. But just overall, what the Beyond the Box score audience can expect in the coming weeks? Yeah, I think this episode really is the perfect one to kick it off because we are going to mention some names that you guys probably have never even heard of. But yeah, Beyond the Box Tour, I am just so excited for. It's something that just kind of came together organically last year during the season. We didn't plan it out or anything. It was just like, do you want to record this Monday recap show with Dan? I never even recorded with Dan before. And honestly, I got to talk about Dan for a second.

We give Dan a hard time a lot on this show, but the way that Dan, we do. Yeah, I know we do. You're right. We do have to talk about Dan and we do have to give him a hard time. You're a hundred percent right. I think Dan gets it worse than anybody I've recorded with. He gets so much crap, but like Dan is a catalyst, man. Dan is a catalyst. The way that he approaches analysis i think really embodies what beyond the box score is about like when i recorded with dan dan you probably remember this after the first episode last year i was like yo we've got something special here like this is really cool i'm really excited for this and as the season went on people caught on like people

were like this is really cool like where's beyond the box score this offseason people were like where's behind the box score so had to hit up adam like, where's behind the box score. So had to hit up Adam, had to make it real. And yeah, that's kind of what I've been working on for the past few months. In addition to draft stuff is just kind of getting stuff set up for the rest of the off season. Cause this is, this is really a passion project for us. And I think we've gonna, we're going to create some really cool stuff. So the main thing is we've got all kinds of guests coming in. because I think we have the potential to create something that is unique in the space and really helps contextualize things for people. And to accomplish that, we're going to lean on some really, really smart people from

around the industry. So Matt Harmon of Reception Perception and Yahoo Fantasy is going to be joining us for multiple episodes and in-depth analysis of the wide receiver position. If you aren't familiar with Matt, you definitely need to check out, uh, his wide receiver charting. He goes through and grades every route for wide receivers, um, the success versus man coverage versus zone coverage versus press coverage. So you guys, if you're familiar with the show, you hear me talk about these things a lot, um, giving you the stats and the results, um, which I think is kind of a descriptive, um, it's, it's a way to describe what's happened. What Matt does is he goes and looks at the actual routes and grades it. So I think it could possibly be a little bit more predictive, um, of what might

happen in the future. He's giving the actual success, which takes, um, you know, you don't have to worry about context as much with quarterback play and everything else. So I think that episode is going to be really cool. Um, we just got a ton of really exciting guests. Dwayne McFarland is probably the only person who looks at per route data as much as I do. So I'm really excited to talk to him. And then Ben Gretch, former frequent FFT contributor, is going to come on and talk about projections, the pitfalls of projections, the importance of projections, and going to help educate Adam on anti-fragility. Adam, do you feel like you understand anti-fragility? That was something Dan and I gave you a hard time about last year. What was it again? Anti-fragility. You can't tell if he's kidding or not. I know. I really don't know.

It'll come back to me. It'll come back to me. So Ben and Sean Siegel, creator created the zero rb strategy are going to come on and talk to us about that just really really smart guys and that's just a sample of some of the guests we have coming on to just smart working smart guys hard-working guys super open-minded forward-thinking guys to just help contextualize what we know about the game help educate and inform on what we think is important, what's not important, and just elevate your experience as a football fan,

as a fantasy player. So super, super, super excited. It's going to be a really, really fun summer. Okay. So let's get into it here. We're talking about some rookie gems and some potential Packers playmakers. That's our first category. And I'm going to tell you, Jacob did a great job putting these notes together.

Jacob has this idea that I'm really busy and that I can't do it. So he did it for me. I wasn't going to argue with him. So you wanted to talk about second-round wide receiver Jaden Reed. And, Dan, you wanted to talk about tight end Luke Musgrave. But, Jacob, what do you want us to know about Jaden Reed? So Jaden Reed was somebody who was definitely under the radar until he became a top 50 pick.

I think you're going to be hearing his name a lot more as the offseason goes on. You have to squint to see it, but if you do, you will find a potential top to Jaden's read. His range of outcomes that I think isn't there when you first glance at his rookie profile. The numbers are not super exciting as a whole. Um, he's 23 years old. Um, but the light does exist. There is a potential, I think, uh,

fantasy relevant wide receiver here, JJ Zachariasen, um, and player profiler have seen it. They both list Stefan digs as a comp for Jaden Reed. Um, and then I mentioned Matt Harmon of reception perception. He has seen it as well. He really likes Jaden Reed and thinks this is a great fit Jaden Reed. And then I mentioned Matt Harmon of reception perception. He has seen it as well. He really likes Jaden Reed and thinks this is a great fit in green Bay. And I, obviously the Packers have seen it.

They took him 50th overall. So he broke out an extremely young age at Western Michigan. He was in a really bad offense, but he still produced 800 receiving yards. And that was with second round pick Dwayne Eskridge on the team. And so Reed recorded 800 yards, eight touchdowns to Eskridge, 776 and three, um, as a true freshman. And then he transferred to a Michigan state offense that really wasn't very good. But the more I dug into his route data,

I do this analysis on sports line for all the rookie receivers, look at the types of routes they're running, if they're running NFL level routes, and if they're succeeding on those routes, um, I was really encouraged with Reed. He showed an ability to win on the inside, win the slot, in from the outside, and on short, intermediate, and deep routes. And I think that is really exciting when he goes to the Green Bay because they don't have a true wide receiver one. They tried to make Romeo Doves that player last year. They really used him just like they had used Devonta Adams. And he really wasn't very efficient. Um, and then Christian Watson is a stud, but he really is just kind of a unicorn. He's not running the widest for one

routes. Um, so I think there's a potential here for Reed to step into that type of a role right away. And at the very least, I think he's going to be on the field and through receiver sets playing from the slot. Okay. And then, so the tight end they drafted in the second round was Musgrave, uh, Dan and you like him. I do. I want to mention a quick note, uh, to what Jacob said on Jaden Reed. He's a player is really interesting to me as a prospect because on my first go around with it, I was lower on read than probably the consensus. And then I heard a couple of people in the industry who I really like who watched this film. This was even before Matt Harmon. And I went back and I watched it and you end up seeing

what people like in Jaden Reed. And it's not going to pop out with the 40 time with the size speed profile, things that I kind of look for projectable traits. It's going to just pop out with the route running and his ability to get in and out of his brakes smoothly. And without making that transition without losing a lot of his speed and his momentum, which is something that is big for wide receivers. Like you even hear it with some teams saying right now, the number one trait we're looking for is separation and that skillset. So I want to just throw that out there with Reed. Cause I think what Jacob said is super important there that he's probably at this point, the

best bet on that Packers roster to be able to run that full route tree and get, and if that's what Jordan love, we still don't know what Jordan love is going to lock into. I'm about to talk about player who I think he might early lock into, but if it is that full route tree type of receiver, the guy who can win with separation easily and early and give those layup type routes for the quarterback, I think it will be read. But the other player I'm going to mention, Adam, who you teed me up for is Luke Musgrave, the tight end. They drafted drafted two tight ends. This was the first tight end they drafted. And when you talk about Musgrave, I think it's really important to start with probably our best early hit. I think I'm beyond the box score. Maybe my only hit

Jacobs had a bunch, but Christian Watson, a player who I brought up in probably the first episode of beyond the box score way before his breakout last season as a player who I love to break out. And one of the reasons is projectable traits. It's a lot of planet theory. And for those who don't know what planet theory is, it's something George Young, a former Giants GM created. And it's basically like people at that size shouldn't be able to move the way they can. And that's how I feel with Luke Musgrave. Someone at his size simply should not be able to move the way he is. 80th percentile height, uh, height. He's got 87th percentile, 10 yard split that shows the quickness acceleration, hand size, 87th percentile, which you want 88th percentile, 10 yard split. That shows the quickness acceleration, hand size, 87th percentile, which you want.

88th percentile, 40 yard dash, almost ran a four, six flat at two 50 or two 60, almost six foot six vertical jump. 82nd percentile broad jump 93rd percentile. I feel like I'm reading the exact same spider chart as I read with Christian Watson last year. So it's clear the Packers have a type, but when it comes to Musgrave, a lot of what you're going to have to do here is just project because he only had 11 catches in 2022 due to injury, but, and only two touchdowns, his entire Oregon state career. But, but a lot of that production came in his first two games for you was injured.

He had 33% of all Oregon state targets dominating the target chair in those first two games. Absolutely looking like a beast that was unguardable on the field. His dad is a former quarterback in college and a longtime NFL coach, Bill Musgrave. His mom was an Olympic level skier. He himself was a quarterback who then moved to wide receiver and then tight end and D end high school. That's where he started to develop the position. So he still has a lot of time to grow into it. Former lacrosse player. His mom was also an Olympic skier. He was also a skier. I think you can see that in his ability to get in and out of his breaks and his movement skills and kind of just that ability to unlock his hips when he's playing. But really to me where he stands out the most by far, and he was used all over by the way, he's small sample size of games at Oregon

state because he got injured, but they used in the games I watched and it was two games. They used him flex out in the slot. They used them a ton from the inline wide position, running the seam, come back to the quarterback. They used him around the line of scrimmage, which I love to see a lot of usage there. But really to me, where he stands out the most by far is his ability to separate on the vertical plane. You saw it, the senior bowl, no one could match up with him one-on-one. He just shakes off defenders and just gets on that vertical plane. And I feel like with a quarterback like Jordan Love, not a lot of experience, not a lot of reps. He's going to need some kind of big target early on that he can trust and rely on.

And I think there's a good chance Musgrave could be that guy. In addition to obviously, as you've seen through that offense, through the years of Aaron Rodgers, there are opportunities in that scene. Robert Tunyon had some success running the seam and he is nowhere near the athlete that Luke Musgrave is. So I'm very excited about him. It's a lot of projection with Musgrave. You're not going on the stats. You're not going on the pass production.

You're just looking at him, and you're saying, with those movement skills at that size, and to be able to run that fast, I think there's an opportunity for him to just hit the ground running and become a number one type target. All right. Well, listen, I don't think Jaden Reed and Luke Musgrave are going to be big priorities

in redraft leagues this year. It doesn't mean they won't be good free agent pickups. We'll do some rankings in a bit, but this is a great dynasty discussion. Maybe some sleepers here. Maybe the Packers had themselves a great draft in the second round in particular. And I can confirm something really important here for you guys to know. Dan mentioned it. What Dan said about Christian Watson last year, I can confirm it was the only thing

that he got right on the Oscar last year. So I think, Jacob, you wanted to do some rankings with these guys. Yeah, I'm curious where they fall for people. I think we might be a little bit too high on them, but it's just because of the ambiguous situation in Green Bay. There's a lot of potential, like Dan Liddell. So are these, you want me to read them, or do you want to read them? And are these Redraft or Dynasty?

Yeah, I can read them. So the first question I had is for either one of you, and then I'll give my opinion as well, is Jaden Reed or Marvin Mims, Josh Downs, and Rasheed Rice? Because I think he typically goes behind one of you, and then I'll give my opinion as well as Jaden Reed or Marvin Mims, Josh Downs, and Rasheed Rice. I think he typically goes behind all of them, except for maybe Downs, but I prefer all those guys. For Dynasty?

Yeah, okay, for Dynasty. You want to go first or me, Adam? I'll go first. Mims is probably going to be last for me. I'll go with Reed, Downs, Rice Rice Mims. I should know. I'm probably the least qualified to talk about this.

Doesn't mean you can't have an opinion. Thank you. Thank you. But I go Jaden Reed Downs Rice Mims. Yeah. How about you, Dan? I'm going to stick kind of with my pre-draft evaluations here. I normally typically do this.

I don't look too much into the situation with Dynasty. I want to lean on where I see these players. I'm going to go Marvin Mims still first. He was by far the receiver of these four. I had ranked the highest. I'm going to go Jaden Reed second. I'm going to go Rasheed Rice third and Josh Downs fourth. Yeah, I had Mims ahead of him prior to the draft,

but I would take read over all of them what do you guys like about mims is i feel like he's just like a vertical guy his analytical profile was insane in terms of his per route production um i think that was boosted by the offense that he played in but there's a we really haven't seen very many players produce the way that he did yeah and it wasn't just on the vertical plane. It was a lot on the vertical plane, but it was deep overs. It was those search routes that you see at the NFL level, all of the things that like we're seeing offenses start to, to, uh, kind of lean on, I guess, in the passing game or rely on when they need a 10, 15 yard chunk, those deep over routes.

That's where I really liked, uh, Marvin Mims. I think he's really smooth getting in and out of his breaks. All right. Some more rankings that you wanted to throw out there, Jacob. Yeah. Yeah. For dynasty, just some other young receivers. I'm, I'm curious how you guys would compare like Elijah Moore, Wanda Robinson and Nico Collins to Jaden Reed.

I think people are going to have a hard time like contextualizing Reed and knowing where to place them. Sure. That's hard. I would say Wanda. Wanda more read Collins Collins last. Yeah, I like this. We're very different. I actually have Collins first. I'm really excited for him. Um, and I think I'll go Elijah more next and then read and then Wanda. Uh, we all have different rankings and I would go Elijah, Elijah more first by far for me. I'm sticking with my evaluation of Elijah Moore. I'm very excited to see him, uh, with, with the Sean Watson out of that doghouse. I would go read second based

on early draft capital there. Um, even though Wando had the same capital, I'm a little worried about what the giants have added since with Jalen Hyatt and Darren Waller, who they then push back some of that contract. So he'll be there at least two or three years. And then Collins would be last for me. Wow. All right. What's our next group ranking here? Yeah.

So for Dynasty, again, we're going to go with Musgrave. How would you compare him to Isaiah Likely, Jelani Woods, and Trey McBride? Yeah. So I'll start with this one. For me, it's an even bigger teardrop here from musgrave to the next three i was very low on trey mcbride in last year's draft class i couldn't understand why people had him as tight end one i felt like it was tight at one by default i had greg dolchich as my tight end one i didn't see much of an nfl skill set for trey mcbride and yet i'd have to

put him as my tight end two of these four because i'm just not going to buy into isaiah likely or jelani woods two late round draft capital guys who one plays behind mark andrews and the other plays in an offense i'm not so sure it's going to be very pass heavy it's got those two have to be at the top so i'll go musgrave mcbride uh likely woods see i actually would put mcbride last uh oh why and i'm fine with that. I really like what we saw from Likely and Woods last year. It's a small sample size, but there were some exciting underlying data points for those guys. But I would have Musgrave first. Okay.

Want to do the season-long stuff now? Yeah, sure. So season-long, would you rather have Jaden Reed, Adam Thielen, Jamison Williams, or Rondell Moore? I think everyone would take these three clearly over him, but I'm curious if he would surpass any of these guys for you. Maybe Rondell Moore. The thing about Rondell Moore is if you're still hoping for a Hopkins trade, then you've got something there.

But if he's the number three receiver on the Cardinals, we don't even know if Kyler Murray is going to be ready. I mean, I'm definitely going Jamison Williams one, Thielen two, and then I'll take Reid. Williams one, even with the suspension. Yeah, these guys aren't starters for me. So if I have five bench spots and I have to keep him there, then maybe not.

If I have six bench spots, then that helps. But I'm shooting for upside here. I don't think Thielen is definitely at the end of his career, and I don't think he's going to be that good. So, yeah, let's not forget who Jameson Williams is. He could still be a high-impact player here. So Williams is an easy one for me. Then Thielen, that's fine.

I'll take Reed over Moore. But, you know, if there's still the chance of Hopkins getting traded, I'll take Moore over Reed. I think that's a good analysis of it, Adam. I'm pretty aligned with it, but I think I would have just kind of a clear tier one would be Williams and read, uh, with the option of potentially read being the one out of this four. It, yeah, I think I look, none of these four besides read to me have a chance at big target volume reads. The only one I see with any kind of real target volume potential. If what you broke

down earlier, when you talked about what you liked about read is true, or it's like, you know, Jordan love, just trust him. Cause he's getting open on those layup routes. He's running, he's creating the early separation. So love doesn't have to sit in the pocket for three, four or five seconds waiting for guys to get open. You can just get the ball out of his hand. So I still see that kind of upside. Don't see that with feeling. I don't personally see that with Williams, not with the Mon Ross ain't Brown there. And then more who Adam talked about really has a good chance to just be like a third target in a really bad pass game. Okay. And then for a season long, so it was easily Musgrave last time. I'm really curious.

I think he probably would be fourth on this list, but Dan is so high on him. So I want to hear this. We've got Musgrave, Greg Dulcich, who you said you like, Jawan Johnson, and Mike Jasicki. You want me to go first? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It would still be Musgrave for me. One thing that anyone who listens to this podcast or FFT or FFT and 5 knows is I swing for upside.

If I'm not first, I'm last in fantasy football. I don't play for the low ceiling type players. You came up with that slogan, right? Yeah. I created that myself, right? Yeah. Yeah. I created that myself, Adam. Yeah. Just on the spot.

That's how brilliant I am. That's amazing. Yeah. That's truly how brilliant I am. I'm going to throw another one out there. Let me just say something, Adam, before you throw anything out there. Did you get 60 seconds of time spent on this show just basically praising you this entire time like Jacob did for me? me no you're not adam okay we jacob and i spoke off air and decided we thought we didn't tell you anything i told him you needed it i asked him to do that for you oh he said i

needed that yeah adam adam is really really important to this podcast as well to this group dynamic because you don't have to just say no no dan and i definitely have a tendency to put on the rose colored glasses like get our you know kind of that is true like get our heads in the clouds about things and adam like carries a lot more skepticism and like is a grounding force for us like when we're getting out of control like he plays devil's advocate in a very important way well i mean it's funny because i think that all the things you say about these guys i i just most rookies don't make a big impact in fantasy, you know,

especially a tight end, especially a tight end. And especially guys that are drafted outside the top, like 40 picks. I mean, you talk about round two wide receivers. For those of you who listened to our draft night episode after the set, I think it was me,

Jamie and Heath after the second day, like, no, I don't think Marvin Mims is going to have any impact because LaVisca Chenault and Paris Campbell were drafted in the same range, and it's more players like that than it is like DK Metcalf. Now, you talk about a guy like Jonathan Mingo, who was drafted early in the second round. It's actually a pretty big difference,

the guy drafted in the first 10 picks of round two compared to the end of round two. It's like a guy going eighth overall compared to a guy going 28th overall. So once you get past the top 40 or so picks, unlikely that running back's different, right? Because they fall. Unlikely that these guys are going to make big impacts as rookies. So I sort of always lean toward veterans. Not always, but I favor veterans. So there will be some of that. Go ahead. Rank your tight ends. Sorry, Dan. So yeah, I mean, look, I'm

swinging for upside here. I just don't have much interest in anyone here but Musgrave and Dolchich. Like, I don't see the Jawan Johnson hype at all whatsoever. I understand there's a path, I guess, to volume, which is kind of, to me, seems completely, like, made up and pie in the sky, whatever you want to call it. Like, look, Jawan Johnson has not made an impact at the NFL level for a long time now, despite being worse. We're hurt. We're told that he's supposed to, and he wasn't a good, like it wasn't that good of a prospect to begin with. So I personally don't understand him at all. Just sec. He is another player where I'm just like, what have we seen at the NFL level? That leads me to believe he's anything but a bus. So at least with Musgrave

and Dolch, it's their younger prospects. I think haven't proven yet that they can't get the job done. The wholechich even at times looked really like a potential fantasy tight end one at times last year, like a back end, more back end. But obviously the addition of Mims hurts him there. So I guess I'd go Musgrave,

Dolchich, Gisecki, Johnson. Dolchich, Musgrave, Johnson, Gisecki for me. I like how different we pronounce some of those names. Right. Who do you think pronounced it properly? I know I pronounced it properly. Yeah. I don't think it was you. Listen, guys, we're in mid-season form and that we're taking way too long. We have 15 minutes left of the show

and we covered one topic. So we'll go faster when we come back on Fantasy Football today. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit, more cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days and the ability to reach further with access to over 1400 airport lounges worldwide redefine possible with business platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum.

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. Visit OntarioOneCall.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. Our second question today, questionable, well, second topic rather, or category. Questionable long-term outlook, but players who could contribute early on. Jacob, you are nominating Rams wide receiver Puka Nakua.

And Dan is going to talk about Titans running back Tajay Spears. So let's talk about Puka Nakua, late round pick of the Rams. Yeah. So Nakua only ran 507 routes at the collegiate level, which is way, uh, way smaller sample size than we typically get for, um, collegiate prospects is normally over a thousand. Um, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Um, but the per route data that we saw from him was absolutely insane. And if he ends up being a a good player i think it's going to just be another example why per route that is so important because he never was able to put together a full season he played in some really run heavy offenses he had a transfer he had injuries but when he was on the field he had the highest yard per route run rate of any player in this class in fact among players who qualified who have at least 500 routes run in their career, his yard per route run rate is higher than anyone other than Jalen Waddell among receivers

taken in the first five rounds over the last five years. So higher than T. Higgins, Jamar Chase, Adria Brown, Devante Smith, C.D. Lamb, Puka Nakua. So maybe a name to know because the Rams really, I mean, after Cooper Cup, we really have no idea who's going to get the targets. And Nakua was targeted on 31% of his career routes, which is the highest in the class. And he was targeted on 38% of his routes the last time we saw him in 2022.

So fifth round pick could definitely earn volume if he gets on the field. All right, and Tajay Spears, I know is someone out of Tulane that you really liked going into the draft. Now he's Derek Henry's backup does not have an ACL in one of his legs apparently.

Uh, so we're not necessarily a great long-term outlook, but maybe Tajay Spears can help us early on. Yeah. Tours ACL in 2020. And then was, uh, you revealed that he doesn't have it intact.

So definitely not more of a dynasty play. This is more of a potential redraft. And what you want to do at the end of your redraft drafts is find somebody who has upside to help you win the league. And in my opinion, with Tajay Spears, the reason he has so much upside for redraft is because of Derek Henry's advanced age, his recent injury history. And we know he's missed a lot of time and Spears has already proven that he can handle a workhorse role. He did it at Tulane. I know he's not the prototypical size, but it doesn't matter. You watch the violence he runs with. You watch how low he runs to the ground.

1,052 of his 1,586 rushing yards last season came after contact, which is unbelievably impressive. You watch him then at the senior bowl, and you see what he can do in the one-on-ones as a receiver. 95th percentile hand size, so I think that projects well. And remember last season, before things got off track with the Titans, with Ryan Tannehill's injury and everything that kind of turned with that offense in the first four games, four, three of those first four games, Donchelle Hillier got four targets, at least in those, in the passing game. I think that's going to be the role for Tajay Spears early until

potentially, you know, he would have to, you know, to be a big time fantasy asset, we would have to see more playing time. That would probably be a Derrick Henry injury. But other than that, I feel like he can immediately impact the passing game. He had 21 carries of 15 or more yards last season, which shows he can also hit the doubles in addition to hitting the home runs. And one thing I really wanted to see for him, I liked his style in any kind of blocking scheme guys, because he did run at Tulane behind, uh, some power gap and some zone, but you could see it. He is just the perfect fit for a zone blocking scheme with that one cut ability and that violent downhill style. And the Titans run a lot of zone. So I really liked that thrown one more thing to help this potential, uh, you know, breakout. If Derek Henry were to miss time. It's Peter Skowronski. They got, in my opinion, the best offensive lineman in this class overall. I know some are like, oh, maybe he can't play tackle. Maybe he can't. I don't care.

You get him on the field, he's going to help you in the run game immediately. So Tajay Spears is someone who, out of all these late backs that you're going to take in your drafts, to me, he has the most upside if there were to be an injury to the number one back on that roster. I did think it was funny that you called 29 years old advanced age. That's good. For a running back, that's incredibly advanced age. Yeah, it is. He's got a walker.

All right, let's do some rankings, Jacob. Guide us. Yeah, so I really like Spears. The data that I found on him um is really really exciting of course we don't know how he's going to hold up jay jay is a guy who i've heard him compared to in terms of the acl injury so the guys that i haven't ranked here i think most people are clearly taking over him but i want to hear um thoughts on him compared to jaylen warren elijah mitchell and tyler adjir yeah so obviously with oh yeah go ahead, go ahead. I'm not taking him over.

For Dynasty. Oh, for Dynasty. Yeah, I'd take him over those guys. Yeah. Dynasty, I'm a little concerned with the ACL stuff, but at the same time, I'm also thinking like, do we really need to worry about long-term health with this position where there's just so few guys playing eight, nine years anyway. If I could get four good years out of Tajay Spears, I think I'm kind of okay with that

in dynasty. So for me, he's definitely ahead of all these guys. The only person who would kind of come close for me is Elijah Mitchell player who I really like. And I'm not so sure how long-term the Christian McCaffrey thing is. Like, I think I could even see a scenario where maybe in one or two years, they either look to trade him or cut him and create some salary cap space there. So I would probably go Spears, Mitchell, Warren, Algier. Wow. Okay. I'd probably go Spears, Mitchell, Algier, Warren. year um i was really going to be seen too i think most people would prefer those veterans to spears i feel like people are really overreacting to the news with spears and i think the point that you brought up dan is really important they're like at this point this low of a dynasty prospect you're

really not counting on more than a few years anyway so like if he gets through his first that's being baked into his price you're right exactly yeah um that's interesting i i think i agree with you but i think consensus has him lower. I know. It's tough to agree with him. I know you wanted to do some Puka Nakua rankings. Let's just do this real quick. We'll go to our next topic. Yeah. So somebody that Dan's going to talk about is Tyler Scott. I'm curious, like Nakua, Tyler Scott, Khalil Shear, or like Kyle Phillips, who a lot of people think could be a sleeper this year since Tennessee didn't draft anybody?

You want to go first or me, Adam? So Nakua, Tyler Scott, Khalil Shakir, and Kyle Phillips. Tyquan Thornton and Xavier Hutchinson. Throw them in there. I don't really. I would probably take Tyler Scott first. And then Taequann Thornton, Hutchinson. I don't, I mean, after that, I don't really expect these guys to make big NFL impacts.

Which is fair, because most day three players don't kalil shakir is coming man oh shakir shakir yeah i i don't mind him i i think for me it's a clear like him uh three tier for me it's taekwon thornton first i still loved his evaluation last year i don't love the patriots as your landing spot things will get better there and i even think this year we're going to see a big jump from mac jones in that past game with actual real coaching finally there. So it would be Thornton, Scott, and Shakir as my clear top three there. And then it would be Nakua, Hutchinson, and Phillips for me with probably Nakua and Phillips fourth and fifth and then Hutchinson sixth. I didn't see it with Hutchinson.

I'll be honest. Hutchinson, like Nakua, is another guy who had really, really good per-route data. And Greg Cassell has compared him to, he says gets Keenan Allen Michael Thomas vibes from him okay you know you're not a great athlete but like somebody who just gets over and runs really crisp routes and draws targets and there's some target ambiguity in Houston so I think he's at least interesting so yeah this is Houston wide receiver Xavier Hutchinson Dan this is late round flyers our third category Jacob just made the case for Xavier Hutchinson. Dan, this is late round flyers, our third category. Jacob just made the case for Xavier Hutchinson.

Dan likes Tyler Scott, Bears wide receiver out of Cincinnati. So I don't know. Is there anything you guys want to expand on that? Dan, why do you like Tyler Scott? Yeah, Scott to me is a player who you watch the film and you immediately see. Okay, so first thing you'll see. You don't even have to watch the film. Go type in Tyler Scott highlights and wait for the east carolina game the slant that he took the hat took the house there the angle he beat on the corner and the safety there i didn't see a single

wide receiver in this class beat that angle and that beating those angles reminded me of jameson williams of jalen waddle and if you go further back of when you used to watch antonio brown during his college games to beat that kind of angle on a slant, Odell Beckham used to do it in the prime too. It shows an incredible amount of breakaway speed. And that's his defining trait. He ran a four, four, which kind of killed him in the draft process. Cause he's only five, 10, one 77. So he needed to run and he was been clocked in the past, by the way, he was on Bruce Feldman's freak list.

Like when Bruce Feldman wrote him up, he clocked them at four. I think in the past he ran a four to nine, but for whatever reason that day he ran a four, four. I don't care about that. He has so much speed on tape. He's got a strong, lower, uh, a thick half. Sorry. It didn't even occur to me. He's got a strong, thick, lower half. And that's because he played running back at the collegiate level and he's just converting to me. He's got a strong, thick lower half, and that's because he played running back at the collegiate level, and he's just converting to receiver. He's still very raw, which I like. Eighth percentile, 10-yard split, Scott the Quickness.

96th, 89th percentile, broad and vertical jumps. Has the explosiveness. Has the ability to high point there. And you put all those things together, and then I come up with my favorite stat, basically, of anyone this draft season. He had 11 touchdowns over the last two seasons. Every single one of them was at least 20 yards.

He's just a big play waiting to happen. So I love Tyler Scott. All right. Listen, I've got to speed things up. I want to send, uh, spend time on some running backs as well.

So we're going to take a break to recap, uh, some of the late round picks, late round NFL draft picks that you should be targeting in dynasty. Who can Nakua Rams wide receiver,uka Nakua, Rams wide receiver. Xavier Hutchinson, Texans wide receiver. Tyler Scott, Bears wide receiver. And TyJay Spears as a guy who could contribute at running back early in his career if Derrick Henry gets hurt.

We also like what the Packers did in round two. Jaden Reed out of Michigan State. And tight end Luke Musgrave. When we come back, we'll talk about some running backs that could play a complementary role in year one. Maybe you're sleeping on these guys. We'll be right back. All right, it's my turn to present a player to the group.

Yes. Show and tell. I'm bringing in my tank today. Tank Bigsby of the Jacksonville Jaguars. So Tank Bigsby was drafted in the third round, and it's just kind of funny to me that Devon A-chain went four picks ahead of him. And there's a lot of excitement, it seems, in the fantasy community about a guy who's 5'9", 185 pounds, but they think

Dolphins running backs are old, not that good. So A-chain's got this chance. Bigsby, 6'2", 113 pounds, goes four picks later, and nobody really seems to care. To me, he feels like an obvious handcuff right away to Travis Etienne. But I also think Travis Etienne had, let me make sure I get the stat right, but he had eight carries from the three-yard line or closer. He scored on only two of them. I watched the tape.

He didn't love it. Not to say he can't get better there. He was basically a rookie. It was his first year. I felt the same exact way about Ken Walker. Ken Walker also struggled near the goal line. So think about everything I'm about to say for Bigsby. He certainly could apply for Charbonnet and Walker.

But ETN doesn't really look like that between the tackles, short yardageage rusher. I think Bigsby does. He had five carries last year in college at Auburn from the three-yard line or closer. He scored on all five of them. So I actually do think that if we're not taking Bigsby seriously from a fantasy standpoint this year,

we might want to consider what it means for Travis ETN. He could take him off the field. And Etienne, maybe Etienne is best suited to be like an Alvin Kamara, and this is a Mark Ingram type of player. So I think Bigsby is a sleeper and underrated player right now. Dan and Jacob, you both wanted to talk about Minnesota running back Dwayne McBride for some reason. We did a super flex draft yesterday.

No, that's not what I was going to say. Next thought. For some reason, we did a super flex draft yesterday no that's not what I say next thought for some reason we did a super flex draft uh yesterday and Dan took a different Vikings running back I believe so what was that all about after Cook after Madison you didn't take Dwayne McBride but you like him so disgust Dan yeah actually I was gonna caveat that by bringing it up that running back who I took was Ty Chandler, who was my favorite value prospect in the entire class. He was a 24-year-old prospect, bounced around a few teams. That's why he went late in the draft. But I really like both Chandler and McBride.

I feel like the Vikings staff has done an excellent job identifying value plays at this running back position that are falling for reasons that don't make all that much sense to me. So McBride, I understand a little bit more his fall. I feel like Chandler was based more on the age McBride. Okay. There are major warts in the profile. So I'm going to go over them first. And the first one is he had a massive, massive, massive fumbling issue at the, at the collegial level. I'm getting it up right now. Cause it's so crazy. These stats, a fumble, one of every 44 touches for McBride.

So that is going to be something that he has to fix immediately to get on the field. But I believe he can fix that. We've seen players do a really good job taking a coaching and that's something you can kind of really easily fix. It's like, I forgot what it is. The five point stance,

whatever team, whatever Tom Coughlin taught Tiki Barber, call him up, let him get him in on that five finger death punch. There you go. Just use that. So I'm not worried about that. There's also not much of a receiving profile here.

He wasn't targeted often. He wasn't used. Five career receptions there. Pass blocking also wasn't something I saw him do a good job of on his tape, but he certainly has the size to do it. But if you take all of those things away and just look, and then finally the knock that obviously got him to fall in the draft, most part was breakaway speed.

He's not a speed back by any means, right? This is just not what he is. He didn't even run the 40 time. But if you take all that away and just think of the, and look at the things that he does well, he forced missed tackles on a 36% rate last year. That trailed only Bijan Robinson and Javante Williams since PFF began charting that in 2014.

It's 7,800 yards on 233 carries 7.3 average 19 touchdowns, 4.6 yards after contact per attempt. The second best, some backs and even average that overall 27 carries of 15 plus yards. That's where he lives. The doubles range 76 for Smith's tackles. That's top seven as well. Six, two to 15, but he looks like a 225 pounder out there. And the thing that I think he does better than anyone in this class is the vision cuts,

the ability to process those blocks and understand where the hole is going to be and then make the cuts using your vision and your anticipation of where those holes are going to be. It's something that you see dominant players that didn't have good athletic profiles at the NFL level. Dalvin Cook, horrible combine. Everyone knocked him. How do you draft this guy? He had a 30-inch vertical, 4-5-5, one of the best running backs in the NFL. Nick Chubb, oh, wow, look, he doesn't run fast.

How's he going to work in the NFL? One of the best in the NFL. Those are vision-type backs. They can process the blocks really well. Dwayne McBride is another great example of that. There is a play. I'm trying to remember this play now. I have it in my notes. So give me a second to play against, um, crap. Let me find this. Now the,

the wet Western Kentucky in the second quarter, they have in my notes, he made a cut back on a run that just in the open field to get another 10 to 12 yards at the end of a run that I was just like, Holy crap. That looks like immediate NFL level. And the most important thing here is the fit, too. This is my final thing I'll say. He's the type of back. When you're talking about that kind of profile, like a vision cutback, who has all those cutback moves and can understand and process space, you need to pair him with a zone scheme.

It's the most important thing. And I don't know if there are teams that ran just as much, but I don't know if any team ran more zone than the Vikings last year. It was almost to a fault. When they played certain teams that matched up good against zone as a defense, the giants are a great example. They could stop zone run teams. They couldn't stop power gap all year. They, all they did was run zone. They didn't pull anybody. So this is a zone team and he goes right into the perfect fit for his style of running. All right. And the last guy we're going to talk about is Rams running back Zach Evans, another late round pick, uh, someone that Sean McVay said compliments cam acres well.

And, um, let's, uh, yeah, go for it, Jacob, Zach Evans. What do you like about him? Yeah. So he's a former top recruit. Um, he was expected to be an early round pick, ended up falling all the way to around six, had a pretty tumultuous career. But, um, if you dig a little deeper with Evans, there's some really exciting stuff. So i look at the discrepancy between every running back and their backfield teammates in terms of all their efficiency stats um i'll write an article about this um for the pro level guys on sportsline to be published later um in june uh this process helped me to identify damian pierce as one of the most undervalued backs in last year's class and among the 2023 rookies evans had by far the best score and that's really

exciting to me because he played alongside some nfl caliber running backs so at tcu he was in the same backfield as kindred miller who was picked in the third round by the saints and evans played 15 games the miller's 19 and he produced 185 ppr points the miller's 166 he had more attempts and rushing yards in fewer games and his efficiency stats were notably better than kindred miller who people really like i like kindred miller um and he also doubled his receiving production and that's something we've seen from evans with both teams he's played for is he's been targeted at almost double the rate of the other running backs in the backfield um in 2022 quinshawn judkins dominated he was like one of the best running backs in college football and so it's

it's a weird profile to see evans never even lead his team in rushing but he lands in one of the most wide open backfields in the nfl and the rams did trade up to get him i'll be just in the sixth round um but it's a pretty weak class overall for dynasty purposes and i feel like after the first 12 or 15 players are off the board evans has as much upside as anybody yeah it really would it surprise you guys at all for him to take this backfield over from kim acres no they have acres has had a pretty underwhelming career finished strong six games last year against extremely easy competition teams that were all 22nd or worse against running backs um he's had you know off-field issues with the rams so they thought about trading him uh no it wouldn't surprise me if he leapfrogged him at some point and also like

kyron williams that doesn't there's not a lot of competition there in the backfield yeah i just i don't think it's very i mean six round picks don't hit very often but i also don't think it's very often that we get a player like this who falls in a perfect situation and like he's been very productive every time he's been given an opportunity yeah six round picks don't think very often that we get a player like this who falls in a perfect situation. He's been very productive every time he's been given an opportunity. Yeah, six-round picks don't hit very often, but Pacheco, James Robinson, these guys were late-round picks for undrafted picks. It does happen.

So this is very worthwhile. If it's going to happen, it happens at running back, it feels like. Yes, absolutely. So I do have to cut things short. We wanted to talk about one last thing, and that was our cold pizza habits. I had a bite of cold pizza today.

I talked about this with Dave. I've had pizza five straight days, by the way. It is bad, but when I'm holding cold pizza in my hand and I know there's another three minutes before it's ready, I cannot not take a bite. Three minutes? What are you putting it in on? I put it in the oven.

Thank God you didn't say microwave. on? I put it in the oven. Oh, thank God you didn't say microwave. Thank God you didn't say microwave. You think I put pizza in the microwave for three minutes? Some weirdos do. I'm trying to blow it up. I don't know. I've never put a piece of pizza in a microwave. I don't know how long it would take.

I don't want to know how long it takes to heat up. I don't think you've ever used a microwave before. You put a slice of pizza in the microwave for three minutes, you're going to start a fire. You know what? That's better than eating the pizza coming out of the microwave. I'd rather start a fire in my house, extinguish that with a thing by my kitchen than eat that piece of pizza coming out of the microwave. The mushy. How anyone eats a

piece of pizza out of a microwave? It's terrible. That's one of the most appalling things you can do. It's up there with throwing a ton of ranch on your pizza. I hate when people pour ranch on pizza. What are you doing, people? This is not meant to be ranch, tomato sauce and cheese. That's not how this was intended. And it doesn't taste good. I've never even heard of that, but three people at the pizzeria that Dan was at the other day who do this big college thing, pouring ranch on pizza. And what are you doing drunk ranch? But look, the only way to the only true way to maximize your pizza. And I'll say this cold pizza is not that bad. You take it out of the fridge, you eat it.

It's better than microwave. And, you know, yeah, you want to heat it up. It's pizza. Fine. But the best way to do it, you got a cast iron pan, little olive oil, throw it on there. Some people say medium heat for two minutes. I think that's what Adam said. I kind of like low heat for a little bit longer.

I know Adam's impatient. Yeah, I am impatient. Can't wait three minutes. He's got to, you know, I understand he's impatient. He can't wait three minutes. He's got to, you know, I understand he's got to get the, get it back into the sink. Once he uses the pan, wash it out and clear out his space so he can brush his teeth again. I understand he doesn't want clutter in that sink. I totally get it, but look, you wait a couple extra minutes and it's just a phenomenal slice of pizza off of that cast iron pan. All right, Jacob, give me, give me 20

seconds on how you eat cold pizza. And then I'll tell dan a story to end the show if you want traps like these you just throw the cold pizza in the trash yeah he doesn't eat pizza 100 good call no no no i i'm a air fryer guy for sure i'm a truther i love it about the air same same i gotta get one okay all right so dan i went on vacation. I came back last Wednesday night. So I've been home for eight days. Where'd you go? I went to Florida. I went to see my family, go to Disney.

Oh, nice. So we took a 10-day trip there. I've been back now for eight days. There's been something. Oh, no. In my room that I'm looking at right now. God. It has been there for at least eight days.

I haven't picked it up yet. It is a dead cockroach in the corner of my room. I know you think I have a roach infested house, but we left for ten days and there was only one. I only found one. Are they the bigger or the smaller kind? It's a fairly big

black one. Oh no, it's the big kind. Wings or no wings? I can't tell. It's it's upside that's a huge problem because when i lived in astoria i had a horrible situation with cockroaches they called them water bugs and it's another name for them and there was the flying ones yeah those are scary oh terrifying big flying ones i gotta go i gotta hire jacob gibbs for security i don't know what you're gonna do adam but you can't live like this. That's all I know because you wake up in the middle of night

and you see one of those things. It's like a frightening experience. It's terrifying. All right, we're out of here, everybody. Why are you leaving it there? Why are you just leaving it there? I need to go pick it up. I don't want to do it.

I just don't want to do it. Honestly, maybe you leave it there as like a message to the rest. That's what I'm saying. That's what I said. Let the others see what their fate is. All right, I got to go.

I got to go pick up the kid from school. Thank you all very much for watching and listening. Beyond the Box score will continue hopefully next week. And have a great weekend, everybody. See ya.