Fantasy Football Today - Top Rookies, Trade Candidates, & Dynasty Strategy Talk with Jacob Gibbs (2/28 Fantasy Football Today Dynasty)

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Jacob Gibbs joins Heath Cummings for a Dynasty Fantasy Football podcast covering key topics for the 2025 season. They discuss Travis Kelce's future, including his return in 2025 (1:55), and the possibility of Aaron Rodgers being traded to the Rams (6:10). The duo also evaluates Jayden Daniels if the Commanders add another star WR (9:35) and dives into veteran players like Matthew Stafford, Kirk Cousins, and others (10:30). They examine players like Sam Darnold, Russell Wilson, and Justin Fields (22:16), plus running backs J.K. Dobbins, Aaron Jones, and Najee Harris (28:30). The show wraps up with a look at top WRs and top 6 rookies for 2025 (40:27). Don't miss this comprehensive Dynasty discussion! Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday SUBSCRIBE to FFT Express on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-express/id1528634304 Follow FFT Express on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qyGWfETSBFaciPrtvoWCC?si=6529cbee20634da8 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837 FOLLOW FFT DFS on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5zU7pBvGK3KPhfb69Q1hNr?si=1c5030a3b1a64be2 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday 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." Visit the betting arena on CBSSports.com for all the latest sportsbook reviews and sportsbook promos. 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

BedMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BedMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BedMGM. Download the app today and discover why BedMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BedMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM. A sportsbook worth a slam dunk. An authorized gaming partner of the NBA.

BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings. And if you're here on YouTube, look who's here with me.

It's Jacob Gibbs. He's back. Gibbs, so good to talk to you again. Yeah. Yeah. Always, always great to hop on FFT Dynasty. Thanks for having me on. I've been, you know, a little bit unplugged from the online world lately.

And this is, I think, my first podcast of 2025. So grateful to Heath for dragging me back into it and excited to talk some football. We are going to make it a great one. It's been a while since I've talked to Jacob Gibbs. It's been a while since we've kind of talked about the news, like all the all the rumors and things that are going on in the NFL world. We've been focusing on rookies. We've been focusing on mock drafts. We've been focusing on other things. And so I just want to kind of take today's show. We're going to talk about some of the trade candidates.

We're going to talk about some of the potential free agents. We're going to talk about Travis Kelsey here in just a moment. We just talk about some of the more recent happenings and the impact they have in the dynasty world. And then also I will be at the end of the show unveiling my top six rookies. Gibbs said to me before the show, I will talk to you about anything but rookies. Fair. It's still too early, but I've got a top 12 that is out at CBS fantasy.

I'm going to give you the top six. You got to go click on the article to get seven through 12. That's the way this thing works, right? Let's start as we always do with three questions for our guest, Jacob Travis Kelsey is back. If you're a true contender, how many tight ends would you rather have on your dynasty roster? Yeah, I think it's a good thought exercise because I checked KTC and

keep trade cuts value has Travis Kelsey all the way down and tied in 23 in terms of yeah, like overall perceived value consensus, which was yeah, that's wild. I didn't realize it had dropped that low, especially with the news that he's going to be back, but it's, I think it makes some sense after digging into it and like, doing this exercise thinking about your question, like the for sure names for contender were Brock Bowers, Trey McBride, Sam Laporta, George Kittle, TG Hawkinson, David Njoku, and Tucker Kraft. And then I got like into maybes and there's a lot honestly, like the guys that I put in as firm maybes or probabilities,

I guess, would be like John Newsmith, Mark Andrews, Jake Ferguson, and Dalton Cade. And it's just like, man, that's, we haven't even mentioned these rookies. If some of these rookies land in good spots, there's some really intriguing rookies, it seems like. There's just a lot at the tight end position that I feel much better about long term. And it wouldn't

surprise me if these guys outscored Kelsey even next year. I'm really curious to see your, I've got some statistical stuff to throw at you, but just first, I'm curious to see your take. As a guy who watched the Chiefs all the time, like I feel like Rushy Rice being put back into his offense is going to mostly negatively impact Kelsey. But I could be wrong on that. Maybe it's worthy. How do you think this all set us out?

Well, I think that the key point that we still don't know, like that 23, I'm assuming probably hasn't that updated with the news of Kelsey saying he's coming back. They were still pricing in some risk that he might just retire. We still have some unknowns though. We don't know like when is Rice going to be 100% and is he exactly the same guy as he was at the beginning of last year? We don't know how many games Rushdie Rice is going to play this year. Is he going to be facing a suspension?

If you're telling me it's 17 games with Rice, Kelsey, and Worthy, then yeah, I think Kelsey's probably more of a low end top 12 tight end in redraft, which probably puts him outside of the top 15 in dynasty. Right now, I have Kelsey at 10th in my dynasty rankings with the idea that he's definitely playing this year. I probably undervalued him a little bit just thinking about last year for fantasy football purposes. Because he did produce basically as a borderline top five tight end while scoring three touchdowns. I think it's really interesting that he scored like a point and a half more per game than Laporta and Andrews. And both of those guys scored a lot more touchdowns than Kelsey did. And we all think that touchdowns are about the least predictive part of

fantasy football. And so I think there's a better bounce back chance for Kelsey next year than most people seem to think that there is, but also there's a significant risk. I mean, he's one injury away from having zero value. And if he takes another step back last year, which a lot of times players his age when they start dropping off, I always say if a guy shows you he's falling off at 30 or 31 or 32, believe him. Well, Kelsey's older than any of those numbers. So I do think as a true contender, there's not any of the names that you put ahead of him except for maybe Tucker Craft. Just because I love the exciting stuff we've seen from Tucker Craft.

I have a hard time projecting increased volume for anyone in Matt LaFleur's offense. It seems to be by design that nobody catches more than like 60 passes in that offense. It seems to be by design that nobody catches more than like 60 passes in that offense. And if he's going to be a 60 catch, 750 yard guy, it's hard to get too excited about a guy like that as a contender. But all the other names I would have, you said Najoku, right? Yeah. So like all the other names I would have ahead of him in my regular dynasty rankings, I do have Kincaid ahead of him. my regular dynasty rankings. I do have Kinkade ahead of him. If I was a true contender, I don't think I could say that I would rather have Kinkade because, shoot, what's his dynasty value if he starts off the first month of next year,

what he's been so far in his career? People are going to stop believing in any hope for him to improve. So there's a lot of risk with Kinkade as well. Let's get to question number two. And I worded it terribly. And so Jacob didn't understand it. And so I'm not going to word it as terribly when I say it on air, but there's some rumors that Matthew Stafford may not be on the Rams anymore. Maybe a Raider, maybe a giant. And there's been some talk that Aaron Rodgers could be the quarterback to replace him. I guess, are you worried at all about Puka Nakua one losing Stafford two with the possibility that Rogers shows up, brings Adams with him and all of a sudden Puka is only seeing seven or eight targets a game?

Um, I think so it's not a long-term worry for sure. Like Puka is I think who we've seen him be, which is just a phenomenal player who can win in all facets of the game and has really improved from year one to year two. And I think it's fair to expect him to continue to improve. But I do think it could be a short-term concern. I do think that playing with Stafford really has helped him. And we saw Gary Wilson's target scale back a little bit

with Adams coming to town there. But I just wanted to just kind of provide a frame of reference for people who might be concerned about Pukka. And it's just like, it's so insane what we've seen him do through his first 28 games. He's averaged 2.9 yards per outrun. And for context on that, through an initial 28 career games, that blows any other receiver out of the water. Like Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown, and Odell Beckham are the

only other guys above 2.5. And the highest of that group is Jefferson at 2.68. Pukas is 2.9. It's really, really insane what we've seen him do. And that is, that is though boosted by target volume. So if you look at the other highest players on that list, the highest target per route run rate is 27%. Most of these guys fall in the 23 to 27% range because rookies generally, it takes time for them to establish themselves as a dominant target. Pooka's target per route run rate

through his first two seasons is 31%. Which is really not just for a young guy, but for anybody. For anybody. Yeah, he had a 38% target per route run rate last year, which blew any previous high single season number out of the water. The next high is 36%. That was Tyree Kill two years ago. The next highest behind that was Cooper Cups big season at 33.4%. Pukas was 38% last year. Right. So I bring that point in because yes, Matthew Stafford influences that, for sure. But I do want to contextualize that by saying that it's not like Puka hasn't had targeted competition. Cooper Cups, say what you will about his decline. He has been around over the last

couple of years and even with Cup on been around over the last couple of years and even with Cup on the field over the past two years on those specific splits, Pukka's starter per hour night is still 30.7% compared to 33% with Cup off of the field. So I think he is who he is. He's really truly this good talent wise. And if you're content like betting on that talent,

then I don't think you worry at all about the short term. But it's funny because I saw somebody tweet and I'm doing this again, not giving people credit for tweets, but if Stafford goes to the Raiders is Brock Bowers, the 101 and FFPC. And my thought actually had been if Stafford goes to the Giants is the number one wide receiver in Redraft and Dynasty. Some things are going to change over the next few months and we're going to kind of speculate on how those things could change. One more question for Gibbs before we take a break and then ask him some more questions. If Jaden Daniels gets another good wide receiver, is he the consensus QB1

in Dynasty? I think that his perceived value might move that high. It feels very risky to invest in him at that level. I would rather still invest in Josh Allen at that price. So for me, it is Allen just because of sustainability. We've seen it with Allen and I think it is more sustainable going forward. What we just saw from Allen this past year with the group of past getters that he had is so impressive. And I'm extremely excited about Jade and I absolutely love everything that we saw from him statistically that backs it up and then also on the field is just obvious.

And yeah, adding another receiver would be really, really exciting, but I do worry about the size and the sustainability of him being able to do this year over year. Let's take a short break. We'll be right back talking about trade candidates and potential free agents. Okay, we are back. We've got, I've got a handful of guys who we think could get traded. And the first one we just kind of talked about in Matthew Stafford. How are you viewing him in terms of next year and beyond? He is at that age

where a lot of quarterbacks have fallen off, but we've also seen a couple of guys like Tom Brady and Drew Brees, really highly skilled passers, be able to perform well past Stafford's age. But I wonder, is it going to matter where he lands? Or do you just think he's going to be a low end QB2 no matter what losing, going away from McVeigh wouldn't matter? I do think going away from McVeigh matters. I think he's probably going to be a low end QB2, but it's going to be really interesting to see how he ages

because so much of his game I do think is reliant on the arm talent that he has. And if that starts to decline, it will just be interesting to see how that goes. But at the same time, the arm talent is really important for Stafford, but what propels him above into this higher level that I don't even know if people really realize how good he is,

is his ability to do all the other little things, all the ability to manipulate defense. Ben Gretch, our buddy Ben, just posted a sub stack where he was just like, just gushing about Stafford and how great he is and how he impacts receivers because of these little things and it's throwing with anticipation, it's ball placement, the ability to manipulate defense

and like keep his wide receiver one fed week after week even with the opposing defenses know that that you know the game plan is all about stopping Cooper Cup or Calvin Johnson he keeps them fed and I think that all comes down to the IQ that Stafford has and his ability to make defenses think he's doing things and just control all of the space on the field. So I think there's hope that even if the arm talent did decline, he would still be able to, you know, be a relevant guy for some time. But yeah, for fantasy, it's, I don't think it's going to change too much, but going away from McVeigh is a big deal.

Like that offense is a machine. I'm going to combine a potential trade cut candidate with a guy who's already there about potential free agent and that is Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rodgers, two guys that I've got pretty significantly less valuable than Stafford in my dynasty quarterback rankings, in my trade charts. Do you have any faith in either one of these guys? I kind of think that I almost have more hope that Cousins just wasn't fully recovered last year and can get back to being

Cousins, whereas I just feel like Rodgers might be watched. Yeah, that's basically where I'm at. I don't even know if I would say it's hope. I just love Cousins and would love for that to be the case, but I really don't feel optimistic about it at all. And Rodgers, yeah, I don't know, man. I did some research this past offseason on how unprecedented it would. And Rodgers, yeah, I don't know, man. I did some research this past offseason on how unprecedented it would be for Rodgers

to be relevant at this point in his career. There really are only two guys who have ever done it. It's Breeze and Brady. We've seen so many instances of guys dropping off at that age, Cliff, where he's at. And then when you throw in the injury as well, it's just like, is it any surprise at all what we saw last year?

Is there any reason to believe that it's gonna change? If the Rams and McVeigh truly do believe in him and choose him, that would be enough for me to, you know, sure, be like neutral with him, but otherwise I'm not neutral. I'm kind of assuming it's over. We've got a couple of wide receivers. We knew it was

made obvious early in the offseason that Devo Samuel was a trade candidate. The 49ers were way open to that. Just this week, we also hear that they're listening to calls for Brandon Iuke. I think I might be lower than Consensus and Dynasty on both of these guys. I've always been lower on Iuke, and I think it could be that I've missed on the talent evaluation. He's awesome. I just didn't think he was awesome enough to overcome the crowded 49ers room

and the lack of pass volume in that offense. And really, except for one year, in terms of actual fantasy production, that's been true. Now he's coming off of the major injury. We have lots of question marks about who is or is not going to be on this 49ers team. I don't have Brandon Iyuk or Debo Samuel currently in my top 36 dynasty wide receivers. Iyuk 27 in its prime, Debo 29 probably leaving his prime. I'm going to just go out on a limb and assume you're much more optimistic about IU than you are Debo

Yeah, you said you don't have a you can you're in your top 36, right? The dynasty that is I think that's shocking to me. I haven't thought about rankings I'm gonna go see where is that with KTC? I'm gonna guess he's I'm gonna guess he is 25. Yeah, that sounds about right I think I would have him in my top 24 But it's there's a lot of receivers to like. So that might be outside of the top 36 is interesting. Debo, I'm pretty much all the way out on the only reason I would not be is because at several points in his career, Debo Seymour has looked like a true outlier from just physical standpoint. He's just, he's so like, I think it's within reason that he could get himself back to that. Like I don't want to doubt the guy,

cause he's insane. But yeah, everything we saw this past year is really bad. Like he often didn't look like himself. And then analytically, it's just terrible. Like on, I've got a stat that I made up using fantasy points data, and it is yards per target on target target throws of 10 or more area. So on throws that were thrown down the field and were on target.

How did receivers perform? And Divo was a dead last in this out of like 60 plus receivers. And that didn't surprise me at all to see that. That's you know, his game has always been more catch and run, of course. But like it but it feels so clear that he has declined. And so unless he changes something drastically, it seems like, no, I want to be out on that. IU does have some data points are encouraging from this past year. Of course, the year before that was insanely optimistic. But this past year, he ranked highest among any receiver with 200

or more routes in average separation score. This is again, fantasy points of data. And so I think there's still reason to believe that he is that good from a talent standpoint, but I can get behind what you're saying with the landing spot. If he's still in San Francisco, I would have him higher than you do. KTC has a wide receiver 32 for reference. You're not that far off. It makes sense. I think that people are dropping on him. The thing with Ayuka is I do think it's you're playing with a pretty thin framework for fantasy success because of the type of role that he fills.

I think Calvin Ridley maybe is a good corollary. Like if it's not a good setup for Calvin Ridley because of the role that he's playing, it's gonna be hard for him to turn in fantasy relevant numbers. Whereas like Terry McLaurin had always kind of been that guy. And then when you saw him used in a different way this past year where he's

Getting more short looks and he has a quarterback who can deliver him consistently on target throws He can be relevant But other than that McLaurin even though he's extremely talented at several years where he was a disappointment And I think that's kind of where we could be with IU kids you Because he's winning down the field and being used as a true exceiver to free things up for the rest of the offense so often, it's not always going to lead to targets, you know, especially if he's in a position where the team, you know, doesn't have a lot of other options, so the defense is completely prioritizing him. So it would, yeah, I think this makes sense to be pretty, to be pretty nervous about Ayuk. The last name I have on the list, I've seen a lot of people just kind of cross him off of their potential free agent lists.

T Higgins, he's going to get the franchise tag. I'm not entirely sure that means the Bengals are going to keep him. It just means they're going to control where he goes, right? Like it is still possible that they've said they want to make Jamar Chase the highest paid non-quarterback in the NFL, which rightfully so. They've got some other guys like Trey Hendrickson, they need to figure out what they're going to do with. And so I still think it's possible that T Higgins could be moved. We're hopeful that he stays in Cincinnati with Chase, with Burrow, as opposed to something like going and being the number one wide receiver for Drake May in New England, right?

something like going and being the number one wide receiver for Drake May in New England, right? I mean, I'm a huge Drake May stand, so I would love that. But yeah, for the overall like football environment, it's best if he's there. Cincinnati's passing offense is just so awesome when him and Jamar both healthy and Joe Burrows healthy. So Cincinnati's past success rate when Higgins was on the field was only behind the Lions last year Their EPA per pass play was only behind the Lions and the Ravens When Higgins is on the field when he was off the field that drops to like middle of the pack And then if you look at like tomorrow chases numbers They were actually slightly better when Higgins was on the field in terms of yards and fantasy points per hour run, which is pretty unusual.

Um, just because typically when a wide receiver of Higgins caliber comes off the field, the other guy sees a big increase in targets, but Higgins was winning so consistently. And it really unlocks things for chase defenses can only focus on him and it elevates the whole offense. So, um, the EPA stuff that I told you like that, basically is just telling you the T Higgins scored 10 touchdowns in 12 games, and that helps the offense.

But another way to look at it is through the fantasy points data lens, which does point towards him winning consistently and in a variety of ways, which was cool. They used him in a lot more types of ways than they have in the past when he's been typically just kind of a downfield dominant X receiver. So he was fourth in the NFL in win rate on slant routes. He was sixth in the NFL in win rate on hitch routes,

which is, that's his game normally. And then he had the highest win rate in the NFL on post routes. Those are all really cool, like Y receiver one kind of things where I do think he could succeed in New England or somewhere like that? If he were the wide receiver one somewhere else. But it just goes to show like how good he is.

I do want people to appreciate how good he is as a player. He's not just the contested catch guy like he's he's been somebody even dating back to Clemson where he's been able to produce on a per route basis at a really, really elite level. He's kind of the archetype of guy that I was talking about with IU, Calvin Ridley, where they're winning down the field and it's like, unless they're Mike Evans, it's really hard for them to be fantasy relevant. And Higgins has been that guy when he's been healthy. He really is like at the very top of that tier. He's really good. Higgins is my wide receiver 15 in dynasty. Will just be 26 years

old at the start of the season. I'm mostly expecting he'll stay in Cincinnati. It might take a ding if he ends up getting traded somewhere else, but he's definitely a top 20 dynasty wide receiver for me. That's transition over to the free agents. I've got three quarter racks here that I think are almost impossible to rank for dynasty purposes right now. They're guys that you could make a wager on and try to trade a second round pick in your super flex league and maybe they sign a two year deal or a three year deal and all of a sudden you've got a starting quarterback that always costs a first.

There are also guys that like by the middle of next year, we may just be done with as starters. They are Sam Darnold, who finished last year as QB9 per game, but he put the big old gigantic asterisk next to it because he had a fantastic offense, Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison. And then there's the two guys who shared the job in Pittsburgh last year, Justin Fields, who we all like more in fantasy that we do in real life. And Russell Wilson, who everybody seems to hate more than what his actual end of year fantasy points per game ends up being. He was a mid QB two last year.

He was a borderline QB one the year before. Just at the very top order of preference today for rostering one of these three, these three quarterbacks, how would you rank them? Definitely Darnold for me. I just checked KTC, they have Darnold at QB25 and perceived consensus value right now, which I actually, when I saw that I was like, I think I would be a little bit higher than that,

but then the guys immediately behind him are Anthony Richardson and Jackson Dart, who I would rather have both of them. Justin Fields is next among these guys that we've looked at and we're talking about here. He's QB 28, Derek Carr QB 33, Russell Wilson QB 34. I think that's about right. So I don't have the rookies in my rankings yet.

You mentioned Jackson and Dard so I know the rookies are in those rankings and I have Anthony Richardson quite a bit higher than that. But I've got Darnold at QB 22, I've got Fields at QB 25, I've got Wilson at QB 27. It seems to me that it's way more likely that Sam Darnold and Russell Wilson are going to start a majority of next season than Justin Fields.

Do you think that's wrong? I do think that that is right. Like that's my read on it too. Like, um, with fields, I was trying to imagine what would be best for him and I think it would be staying in Pittsburgh or maybe like going to Indianapolis. And if the Richardson thing doesn't work out there, then they plug him in. Right.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I was kind of surprised to see him this high in KTC rankings. I guess it's just because he does bring the rushing upside. You know what I mean? So there's such a disconnect between like real life and fantasy there. But yeah, I, it does feel like the NFL mostly does not view him as a starting QB at this point. Right.

And so I think the way I would, I don't put together separate lists of rankings for one QB and super flex leagues, even though I know while everybody that's starting a new league right now seems to be starting a super flex league, I think there are still actually more one QB leagues out there than there are super flex. And so I just try to kind of blend them in a one quarterback league. I think fields would be my favorite because floor doesn't really matter. In a super flex league, Fields is definitely third and probably a distant third because

I think it's much more likely that either Darnold or Wilson can be a QB too. I have pretty serious concerns. I feel like we know what Russell Wilson is now. He's a QB too. Any coach that brings Russell Wilson is knows what if the Steelers bring him back, they know what he is. They know how to use him. That's what he's going to be.

Sam Darnold is like a watt the same wild card amount of fields, except without quite the same upside due to the rushing. I don't have a great deal of confidence that if Darnold goes really anywhere else, he's going to be any good at all next year. What if he went to the Rams? I don't feel like anybody talks about that because Aaron Rodgers is like the Rams guy right now, but I feel like it could make sense to keep him

like in the Shanahan tree, you know, going from Shanahan to KOC and then to McVeigh. I think that would be a good fit for him. Like, I just haven't heard anything about it really. I've heard absolutely nothing about it. And I think I would definitely feel more confident in Darnold not being terrible if he went to McVeigh. I'm afraid he's going to go get the most money

with the dumbest team and things are going to just completely fall apart. We did have a question from the chat. He's not a free agent. We talked about the 49ers wide receivers. Mike says, I'm curious if a long-term deal for Brock Purdy will bump him up in the rankings at all, or if that's already baked into his price a little. And Mike, I want to tell you, you are asking the wrong guy. I am already the high guy on Brock Purdy in dynasty. I think he is probably my favorite quarterback by at cost.

Jacob's gonna tell me if I'm right or not. I'm assuming you're going to tell me that he's somewhere around QB 16 or 17 in the rankings you're looking at. They have him at QB 14. And the only guy that I would definitely take him ahead of is Kyler Murray. Would you rather have him than Jordan Love or Bo Nix

or Caleb Williams or CJ Straub? I have him ahead of is Kyler Murray. Would you rather have him than Jordan Love or Bo Nix or Caleb Williams or CJ Stroud? I have him ahead of Love. I have him ahead of Nix. I have him ahead of Stroud. I have Caleb ahead of Purdy. Wow, okay. But again, that could change depending on who the 49ers deal.

And I think the point does stand, the fact that he's not, the extension does give him a little more safety. There's always going to be more doubts. Maybe not always, maybe after he gets the contract, we stop having these doubts because of his draft pedigree. Um, but I mostly think that like last year was a bit of a down year compared to the years

before, but still, if you look at just Brock Purdy's passing efficiency last year, it's still absolutely insane. His 8.5 yards per attempt last year, he's now thrown 1,069 passes in the NFL, and he's averaged 8.9 yards per pass attempt. Sure, it's not all Brock Purdy. Some of it's Kyle Shanahan. He's getting ready to sign a long-term deal to stay with Kyle Shanahan. I think you can expect he's going to be amongst the league leaders in that statistic, which means that he can throw 450, 500 passes and throw for the same number of yards as someone who throws 500, 525. And then the other thing is he has a career 6% passing touchdown rating.

Like that's again, just insane. That's Patrick Mahomes territory. And so if he's going to be that efficient on the lower volume, I mostly just expect that that's going to continue. And he's going to be one of the surefire low-end QB1s year in and year out, still just 25 years old. So again, if you want to trust my rankings, just go buy Brock Purdy right now, because I do think he is one of the cheaper QB1s available. We have some free agent running backs.

And I'm honestly afraid for anyone who is a free agent running back right now, because this draft class is insanely loaded. I think there are two guys who are going to be top 10 running backs in my dynasty running back rankings immediately. There's another four guys who might be in my top 24 and I would not be signing a veteran free agent running back if I had any third and fourth round draft picks this year. But those three guys are J.K. Dobbins, who I love, Aaron Jones, who looked really good again last year, but is too old. And then they one of the most hated guys in fantasy football, Najee Harris.

Although I anticipate that NFL coaches and general managers like Najee a lot more than fantasy football managers do. Yeah, I'll be really curious to see what happens with Najee, like how real life NFL people view him. Last year was bizarre. He avoided way more tackles than he had previously. And I felt like he kind of changed his running style. It seemed like he lost some weight and was trying to make more explosive plays. But with that, he posted the lowest rushing success rate by far of his career, 32% for comparison. Jaylen Warren in the same backfield was at 43%.

And I do think that matters most of the time to NFL people. It's hard to ever feel like there's anything among these running back stats that really matters that much in terms of signal and how we can expect NFL decision makers to follow it. But I do think success rate is one that I've noticed that it's like running backs turn out first downs and positive plays generally get rewarded. And then we see guys who are like Najee

who are doing too much kind of like kind of fade into obscurity. And so it wouldn't surprise me if that's what happens with him. Either way, yeah, I'm not feeling overly optimistic. I don't know. I guess if he lands in just the perfect spot, then he'll still be fantasy relevant. I think Najee before last year seems to fit really well into that Jamal Williams role in the Ben Jensen offense. Like let Deandre Swift be Deandre Swift and let

Najee Harris score 15 touchdowns. But you're right. If he's going to focus more on dancing and less on picking up the three and a half yards every single time, then he doesn't fit quite as well in that mold. I assume that what you saw from Aaron Jones last year, like he still looked like he's really good. It's just hard. Like it's really hard. Maybe you send a second round pick for him and hope that he gets a good landing spot. Yeah, man. Sorry. Just like I can't, I'm stuck on adding Najee Harris to what we just saw from Chicago last year. That was one of the grossest offices I've watched in so long. It's like, you know, it would make it better. But Johnson's truly got to be a wizard to make this work. Aaron Jones, yeah, he was awesome last year.

He kind of wore down as the season wore on, but lots of explosive plays, a lot of really good rushing and receiving metrics. I love the guy and I think he can be efficient even as part of a committee, a committee which is probably what's gonna happen here I would have to think I don't think anybody's signing up for bellcower and Jones experience at this point but I think you could still be fantasy relevant and then if you know the guy he's with goes down then he might end up being you know for a month like a top 10 type of running back if he's in the right spot so I think he's somebody you can buy for fantasy.

It was super, super cheap, but I'm, you know, he's, he's past 30. He's dead for dynasty, right? We know where we're at here. JK Dobbins is actually my highest ranked free agent rookie running back. But again, kind of feels like a Justin field situation where man, JK Dobbins, if he could just play 15 games, I think could be awesome in the right situation. But J.K. Dobbins also may not ever be a starting fantasy running back again.

Yeah, Dobbins is interesting. He looked so good at the beginning of the year. And but then as I look at his numbers overall from last year, there are definitely some red flags like the percentage of his runs that went for positive yardage was the third lowest among 31 qualifiers. But a lot of that can be contextualized by kind of looking at what was happening with that run game with the offensive line. It just wasn't working very well. Overall, I'm pretty excited. He's a lot younger than people realize, and he showed really encouraging juice for like his first year back from the injury. Um, so I'm tentatively in on buying him, but I, I really, I think I'm just waiting and seeing with all these running backs. Right.

I mean, you're probably throwing away a late second, um, at, at the most. And then you don't really care if you did, although there may be a running back taken in a late second of this draft that turns into a top 15 running back in the NFL. We get to moving to the wide receivers. There's a couple of older guys who were still pretty awesome last year, Devante Adams and Keenan Allen. I made the reference to Adams just following Rogers wherever. I can't think of a wide receiver that I wouldn't feel worse about if Adams

and Rogers end up in that spot, but do you think that it looks like Adams still has a lot of juice left or is it just he still has Aaron Rodgers' attention? I think it's a little bit of both. Yeah, he had pretty solid numbers with the Jets, 2.3 yards per hour run with the Jets, which is good. Solid separation score with the Jets would have ranked in the same vicinity as like Garrett Wilson, Tyree Kaelocoppen-Ridley over the course of the full season. So that was good to see because his early season underlying metrics with the Raiders were absolutely horrible and I was wondering if maybe he was just washed. But I think it was maybe just the dysfunction of what was going on there. So there's probably still some tread on his tires and if he ends up in the right spot,

then I don't think it was just Rogers. I mean, we've seen this guy be historically good. So I think it's totally fair to believe that his age window could extend beyond what we see most of the time. No white receiver. Do you strongly prefer Adams over Kenan Allen? I do. Yeah.

Okay. That's, uh, Chris Godwin is not as old as those guys, but coming off of a second major leg injury in the last four years, we saw a couple of years ago, that first year back, really, that almost the first three quarters of the year was really negatively impacted by the injury, it seemed, in terms of actual production. And I just wonder, like, again, Godwin kind of like Iyuk and nobody's gonna debate how awesome Chris Godwin is, but he's 29 years old.

We don't know how good he's going to be the first half of this year coming off of that injury. Is he basically in the Iyuk range in terms of dynasty rankings for you? Comparing those two is breaking my brain because they're like complete opposites. His game is really fantasy friendly, Chris Godwin. So like his Pyrrhaud data was elite last year, his production was elite.

But I do think so much of that was him benefiting from Leah Cohen's design and him being exactly the player to be plugged into this design. He's really, really good. But like what he was really good at was catching the ball and breaking tackles, which can be replicated. But if you do lose a little bit of juice with the injuries and age and stuff like that, then it's like, oh, what do we really have here? Is it Debo Samuel 2024 season? Like what is this? Over one fourth of his yards last year came on screens, which was the highest rate in the NFL by a pretty wide margin. If you remove screens,

his yard per target rate was not good. It was like the same as Demario Douglas. And I think with Cohen leaving, I am wary of investing in Chris Godwin. I love the guy as a player, but I do worry a little bit about where we're at at this point in his career. He's not, it's been a while.

It's basically since his early career, um, that he's been able to, they've shown us like a consistent ability to win down the field versus man coverage. Um, and so if it, if he's reliant on the offense, like kind of using him in this gimmicky way, um, we'll see. I do think, I mean, Tampa Bay's offense could be good and he could just be healthy and be the same guy or at least 90, 95% of it and still be really good for fantasy. But I'm fine missing out on that, honestly. Jalen McMillan was a guy that a lot of people were really excited about when they thought Godwin might leave. And now they haven't agreed to anything yet. The Bucks

and Godwin just agreed to push back a deadline so they could try to work out a deal. I'm assuming if they do sign a deal that McMillan's dynasty value is going to take a significant hit. Would you be willing to give up a late second for McMillan? Did you see enough from him last year to do that? I don't think I love that. No, I think just because this draft is so intriguing, I guess if it's a future second then sure. I was pretty impressed with what we saw in the second half of McMillan's season last year. I think he really improved as the year went on.

He looked kind of lost early on. But I liked him as a prospect. I loved what we saw during the preseason. And he showed a lot of encouraging signs. And he wasn't, he benefited from Godwin being out because the odds shifted into a different direction and passed down the field more often. But he wasn't necessarily like winning in the Godwin role. So I think it's possible that all

three of them could coexist if Godwin and Evans start to take a slight step back. And he wouldn't necessarily, it's not like he got plugged into the Godwin role and he started putting up a bunch of catching around stuff. No,? No, I think it was more Sterling Shepherd in the Galwan role and he was just getting more targets. A couple of guys left. Marquise Brown may not get to free agency because it sounds like the Chiefs want to bring him back, although I'm not sure that does anything for us at all in terms of dynasty value. Amari Cooper just had one of the worst seasons a wide receiver could have. It was partially Deshaun Watson's fault. It was partially that he had a wrist injury fault, but regardless of what the circumstances

were, it was absolutely atrocious. Do you have any hope for Marquis Brown or Marty Cooper? I didn't see much from Hollywood that was exciting really. The Chiefs early on seemed like they wanted to get him going in some creative ways. And so if they do or if they are intent on bringing him back, that's intriguing, but it would be wait and see for me because so far it's been a while since we've seen anything from him that is encouraging. Amari Cooper really had a strong 2023, better than people realize, I think, because it was masked by just the dysfunction of the offense that year. And that had me pretty bullish on him and his ability to be good later into his career. And then this past year was terrible, like you alluded to, but

he did show up strong in that metric that I mentioned earlier, yards per target on target throws. There just were very few of those even when he moved to the Bills. I don't know if it was just bad luck on a small sample size with Josh Allen throwing deep to him or what it was just those who not being on the same page because there's a midseason acquisition but he didn't get a lot of on target throws down the field but when he did he was he was productive with them. I think there's a chance if I were to bet on one of them, it would definitely be Amari.

Okay. And the problem with Amari of course, is that he's going to be 31 next year. Yeah. And so you are betting on a bounce back from an older player, but honestly, he might be somebody that when we get closer to rookie drafts gets cut. Like, like somebody needs to make room to make their, I wouldn't cut them for a third round rookie pick, but I mean, in a shallower league, you need to make room for that late second 23 or 24 year or true contender. Like that might be a guy that ends up on the waiver

wire and in that case, I'd probably try to pick him up, but it was dreadfully bad. Let's take our second break. And when we come back, I will unveil my pre-Combine, now the Combine started, rookie top six. Okay, so we are back. And the way I framed the article over at CBS was that there is a sure thing in my top 12 and there is a wild card in my top 12. The sure thing is that Ashton Gentry is going to be the 101, regardless of what happens this weekend.

He's not even testing. Regardless, almost certainly, of what happens in the NFL draft. And I know people can say, how can you say that? Draft capital matters so much. And I'll just say, like, this is flashbacks of the Jonathan Taylor situation for me. We all thought Jonathan Taylor had the potential to be a generational running

back, nobody thought Clyde Edwards was a top three back in the class. And then the chiefs took Clyde Edwards, a layer in round one, and he went ahead of Jonathan Taylor and rookie drafts and dynasty teams are still suffering from that. So no, even if some team does something crazy, I still intend, I expect Gentie is going to be a top 20 pick in the rookie draft. He's coming off one of the greatest seasons in college football history. He's 21 years old. Draft him at 101. Yes, even ahead of the quarterbacks. That says a little bit about the quarterbacks. The wild card, and it's a guy I'll talk about that didn't make the top six not yet, is Travis Hunter. If you told me that he was going to play wide receiver full-time and just a little bit of corner, then

he might be my number two wide receiver. He'd best definitely be in my top five. He said at the combine that he really wants to play both. I, I don't know, Jacob, I just, I don't think most NFL teams are like fun that much. They, they, they like to ruin fun and they're going to say, no, it's too difficult. No, you have to be in this meeting in this meeting. I'm just really afraid he's not going to get to play enough wide receiver to be as good as he should be in fantasy football Yeah, I mean getting a true like lockdown top five impact cornerback is so hard to do and so valuable Where's like you can hit on a receiver late, you know, Nico Collins or whatever, you know

Like you don't necessarily have to get that guy early. And so I do think it's possible that a team is like, if he plays receiver, he's just gonna play a bit, you know? Like it would be pretty unprecedented for him to do both at a bunch. And I do think cornerback makes sense to be the priority. But man, you watch the film on this guy as a receiver and it's like, he looks- He can be the best.

Yes, he looks different. He looks like that type of a mover, like different, like neighbors, Jefferson kind of, Jamar Chase kind of guys. He just moves right past people. He's really, really intriguing. It's going to be so fun to see what happens with his career. Well, and I think the other thing is like Azer made the point yesterday and then quickly argued with himself.

He was talking about how much more valuable corner is than wide receiver. And we said, well, then why are there like 10 wide receivers paid more than the highest paid corner in the NFL right now? Like the NFL certainly acts like they value high end wide receivers more than high end corners. Yeah, no, that's interesting. I think part of it is there's, I don't know if there's that many cornerbacks that are at that level right now. I feel like the position is sort of falling off. Rip men, maybe that... I think partially and also how many cornerback jerseys do you see out in the streets? Right. That's what I'm saying. I don't know if it's just my bias from growing up with

all these really cool cornerbacks, but I feel like that has taken a step back. I don't know. So my 102 is Cam Ward. I'm assuming he's gonna be the first pick in the NFL draft. He'll probably go to the Giants. Hopefully he and Malik neighbors fit perfectly and everything is awesome. I say he'll probably go to the Giants.

This is assuming the Giants are going to trade up for the 101. Maybe they won't. But regardless, Cam Ward is my 102. 103 is Tet McMillan, the best wide receiver in this draft out of Arizona. 104, Trevion Henderson out of Ohio State. Really amongst the running backs,

I think there's almost two tiers in the first three running backs. I like Gentie, obviously a lot more than anybody else. And I like Henderson as a clear 102 in this class. This one could be subject to the NFL sending us a different signal. If for some reason he falls behind three or four of the running backs, maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but man, what his potential in the passing game in the open field could be a league winner as a rookie at 105.

I've got Shador Sanders. Let's see where he goes. I know there's been some talk about him falling, but as a rule, we generally get the top two quarterbacks in the first five picks. And so I think Sanders is going to get a chance for a couple of years to be a starter. And in Superflex, you pretty much have to take that. And at 106, this is where it could be just about anybody, but I think Luther Burden, from what I've seen, don't get so caught up in the way that Missouri used him last year because they had some real deficiencies at the quarterback position in terms of they had to kind of gadget some things up for Burden. I think his potential upside is just about as high as anybody's in this class. I've heard some people make the argument for him

as the number one wide receiver in my class. So my top six are Gentie, Ward, McMillan, Henderson, Sanders, and Burden. I told you I wasn't gonna make you talk too much rookies here, Gibbs, but if you have any thoughts, I'll take them. I love the Burden take, I'm you talk too much rookies here, Gibbs, but if you have any thoughts, I'll take them. I love the burden take. I'm excited.

He's one of the guys who's I haven't got through my wide receiver film yet. And so I'm kind of saving that for last because it's my favorite. And I'm really excited to get to him. And I'm intrigued by you saying that he can do more than just slot stuff. That is what I was hoping for. His data looks really good. So that's exciting. Macmillan seems really, really exciting. Love to see him as the clear one for you. And I'm curious what the rest

of the top 12 looks like. So I have to go check that out. I think the interesting thing is last year, we couldn't hardly get a running back into our top 12. This year, if things fall right, half of the first round of rookie drafts might be running backs. And some of that, I think, is the psychology of people dealing with what happened last year. And some of that is the fact that this is a really fantastic running back class. Yeah. Yeah. I heard Danny Kelly compare Henderson to like a discount version of Jumeir Gibbs. And it's like, yeah, I kind of see that. That's fun. Yeah.

I don't. Yeah. Like I thought that name crossed my mind as I was talking, but I hate to say it. You just don't want to say it, yeah. I hate, like you could also say that Ashton Gentry is the best running back prospect since Saquon Barkley. But why do we need to do this to these kids? Let's let them play a little bit of football before we start making those types of comparisons.

Gibbs, it was great to have you back. It's always awesome to talk to you. Thank you for being here today. It's good to be back, man. This was fun. Thank you to Thomas. Thank you to everybody who was active in the chat. We will talk to you next Tuesday.