Fantasy Football Today - What the Heck Happened!? Analyzing the Biggest Busts of 2025 (04/06 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

We discuss what went wrong for some of the biggest busts of 2025 and what needs to go right for them in 2026. This list includes Justin Jefferson, Jayden Daniels and Saquon Barkley. First, we've got a lot of news and notes (3:45) including an update on Rashee Rice plus what the Eagles and 49ers offenses could look like ... Getting into the biggest busts of 2025, we start with Brian Thomas Jr. (13:10). The targets and efficiency were much worse. Were injuries to blame? Can he bounce back? What about Nico Collins (24:15)? Just how big of a bust was he, anyway? And Justin Jefferson (31:55) was kind of an easy one to analyze and seems like a good candidate to bounce back ... Saquon Barkley (39:00) was certainly a bust, but was it mostly because he had such a big workload in 2024? What were the other contributing factors? When should you draft him?  Ladd McConkey (46:40) did not come through for Fantasy managers in 2025 and we'll tell you what we may have missed when we evaluated him a year ago. We also  discuss Jayden Daniels (1:00:00) and talk about which of these six players is most likely to bounce back in 2026 ... Email us at [e-mail] 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 Shop our store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shop.cbssports.com/fantasy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  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  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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What a play! Can you believe this? It's a no idea. 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. Monday, April 6th, you know, we're going to do a lot of looking ahead this month,

looking ahead to the NFL draft. It's just a few weeks away. But today we're looking back at six of the big. buss in fantasy football from 2025. Brian Thomas Jr. went from wide receiver 14 per game to wide receiver 46 per game. Justin Jefferson was wide receiver 2 overall, wide receiver 6 per game. Well, this past year, he was wide receiver 30 per game and wide receiver 20 overall. Lab McConkey was even worse.

Nico Collins averaged two and a half fewer fantasy points per game. Jaden Daniels, it was a mess. He only played a full snapshot in four games. And Saquine Barkley went from the number one running back per game to running back 15 per game. So today we are going to attempt to answer, hey, what happened? Yeah, exactly. Welcome to this show. It's fantasy football today.

Adam Azar back from vacation. Thank you to Dave, Jamie, and Heath for filling in. So, oh, not filling in, but for crushing it on the show. Good morning, Dave. Hi, how are you? I'm glad you're back. I'm glad I'm back to you. Good morning, Jamie.

I wish you didn't leave. Yes, there you go. You mean, had never had gone on vacation? No, no, I wish that you had not gone back home and stayed here permanently. Yeah, a permanent vacation to Florida, where apparently the food is better than anywhere else in your neighborhood. And Heath, happy Easter. Yeah, you know, we had a little food discussion before, and Dave had put something in the private chat wanting me to call you out in your tweet thread, which I haven't posted in for a long, long time. great takes lately about saying that the pizza in South Florida is just as good as the pizza in

New York. And I have to say that in my experience, there's about 75 places in South Florida that have better pizza than any place I've had in New York. Okay. Now, Dave put in the private chat, NYC. I didn't say NYC. NYC is a little bit different than just New York. I got great pizza out here in Westchester. It's not quite Manhattan. But I can get South Florida pizza is as good as Westchester pizza or New York pizza, but not Manhattan, anywhere outside Manhattan. Anyway, I know all the good spots. Let's get into some news and notes before we talk about those six players who did not do so well in 2025.

Rishie Rice is not going to face discipline from the NFL. That's very big news. Heath, where do you think we should draft Rish Rice with this news? I mean, let's see if the chiefs draft a receiver. But if they don't, he's in the comments. conversation for a top 15 pick. When I did my first round of projections, he came out at wide receiver five. Yeah.

Anyone have any different, may anyone have any objections to that, a top 15 pick for Rishu Rice? No, not really, especially if it's full PPR, because it's pretty clear who the top target is going to be in Kansas City. I guess the only pushback would be is if Mahomes is not ready early in the season and you're dealing with Justin Fields throwing to right. for a month. I mean, I'll give you the other one, which is Kenneth Walker is way better than maybe he's ever been. They just run more and they're more efficient that way and they don't have to throw those short passes to Rice to make up for their shortcomings in the run game.

Rishi Rice was the number two wide receiver per game in 2024. That was obviously an abbreviated season. He was the number five wide receiver per game last year. He's just been so good. He scored 18 or more PPR fantasy points in five of his first six games. And he was over 23 fantasy points in four of those first six games. Struggled against Houston, struggled a bit against the Chargers, two of the best defenses in football, and then was out for the season. All right. Kyle Shanahan says he wants less wear and tear on Christian McCaffrey.

Jordan James appears to be the top backup there for the 49ers. The Niners also seem to want to keep Brandon Ayuk. Jamie, give me your thoughts on those two, what happened? They want to keep him until nobody has any money. Right. Okay. Well, Jamie, give me your thoughts on the 49ers notes. I mean, it makes sense to say that about McCaffrey.

It's another thing to do it with McCaffrey, especially if he's healthy and playing well. So I think you have to just understand that he's going to be 30 years old. He's coming off a year with over 400 total touches. We had this in 2023 and 2024, and you only played four games. so there's a lot of risk involved with him. I do think Jordan James at this point, you know, heading into the NFL draft is the handcuffed to target.

We'll see what happens coming out of the NFL draft because they almost always draft a running back at some point in the day to day three range. So we'll see what happens there. But James is in a good spot as of now. In the IU scenario, I wouldn't be surprised if... I would be very surprised at the 49ers. You'd be surprised if he were on the Niners.

Is that what you said? Yes. Yeah. All right. It seems like they were kind of giving some lip service maybe about him just being on the team. To be fair, John Lynch did seem to be very honest when he said goodbye to Joan Jennings. You know, he said, you know, we wish him well. We're just not going to bring him back.

John Harbaugh expressed some optimism about Isaiah likely being productive. It's just more of the same drumbeat there. Tennessee head coach Robert Salas, as he loves his team. team's running back room right now, and we'll see what they do with the fourth overall pick if they take top running back. Yeah, we've probably overlooked the idea of Tony Pollard just like being an RB2 again. Yeah, it's very possible. Ben Johnson said the bears need to give Luther Bird in the ball as much as possible.

I like that. I wouldn't have been surprised if that headline had been. Ben Johnson said we need to give Colston Lufflin the ball as much as possible. but Romo Tunes say the ball as much as possible. So we'll see what happens there. We've got a talented team. There had been some buzz earlier in the offseason that Deshawn Watson might be the QB1 right now

or it will be the QB1 for the Browns. Zach Jackson of the Athletic thinks that Scherz Sanders is the front runner for the starting quarterback job. There is some buzz about, Dave, let's talk about the Eagles. There's some buzz about A.J. Brown going to the Patriots that just seems to be, you know, people connecting dots or whatever. They seem unlikely to trade A.J. Brown before June 1st.

It'll be a lot cheaper for them. But also, I thought what their owner, Jeffrey Lurie said, he said, you know, we did a lot of the same things offensively. Guess that kind of seemed like they didn't think that they would get figured out as much as they did because they were so good in 2024. But they did get figured out. So he said they're going to change things a lot on offense this year. There also was a pretty extensive feature on the Jalen Hertz relationship on ESPN.com

and how he's been a little resistant to change. and now they've got an offensive coordinator who comes from a very different system with a lot of under center and play action and motion and stuff like that. So anyway, they're going to be different offensively, Dave. Is that going to be a good thing for the Philadelphia Eagles? It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out

because they've got a first-time play caller and Sean Mannion at offensive coordinator. And I don't think it can get worse than what we saw last year with Petulow calling plays. But I think they need to make changes and it's got to be stuff that Jalen Hertz has to not be resistant to. We'll see how it goes and we'll see who's playing for them.

You know, this AJ Brown stuff just is not going away. And it got me thinking a little bit. All right, what would it take for the Patriots to get AJ Brown? First round pick this year. And what else? I'll pose it to Jamie and Heath. What else would you expect to be in that trade? Second or third?

At least the two, probably. Okay. So if the Patriots were to trade their first and second to Philly to get A.J. Brown. Couldn't they also do the same thing? And I'm looking at the draft tech trade chart. It's worth about the same as the 19th pick in the draft, maybe the 18th pick in the draft. That's kind of the range where they could go and get a pretty good rookie in this class. Lemon could fall that far. Tyson could fall that far. Drable hates rookies. I know. But it's still, I think it makes more sense financially.

And of course, long term, to acquire a rookie on the cheap. relatively speaking, compared to AJ Brown, 20 whatever years old, 30 whatever years old, with a big contract left. If I'm New England, I go to Philadelphia and I say, hey, look, I'll take this guy off your hands, but it's not going to be at the same type of price tag that you wanted or what other receivers have gone for. I mean, AJ Brown is going to be 29 years old on June 30th. And by the way, wasn't his rookie head coach for Abel? Yes.

And he did have a thousand years, but he didn't really have enough. where only 84 targets as a rookie. They should have got him the ball a lot earlier in the season, but 1,051 yards, eight touchdowns for A.J. Brown. By the way, just a quick little segue here. You talk about A.J. Brown. And yards per route run as a rookie, he was one of the very best.

And obviously we'll get into this. But I think one of the reasons why everyone, one of the reasons why I bought in, a lot of people bought into Ladd McConkey and Brian Thomas Jr., who we're going to talk about on today's show, was that as rookies, they were in the top 10 since the 2014 was that amazing wide receiver draft. Since then, both Brian Thomas Jr. and Ladmanconki, they were in the top 10 in yards per

run as rookies, as was A.J. Brown and Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase and all these great players. And the two guys from that top 10 list that had the worst second seasons were Lab McConkey and Brian Thomas Jr. It just doesn't seem fair. Like everything was set up for those guys to build on special rookie seasons and they both absolutely stunk. All right. Green Bay note here, was interesting. Matt LaFleur said that some players, Heath, some players were not happy with their roles last season. And then that, you know, there was a report. I think LeFleur said it, maybe there was just a report that they would strip everything down on offense in 2026. So I'm not quite sure what this means, but maybe changes are in store for the Packers offensively, Heath.

Yeah, I wonder if Romeo Dobbs is one of the guys that wasn't happy with his role last season and is no longer on the team. So, listen, what we would like for Matt, floor to do is choose a number one wide receiver and throw the ball to him 130 times and he doesn't care about that at all it's interesting that they're going to try some different things we would like it if they would throw more than 480 passes in a season um and that may have been exaggeration but like it's it's it's a really been a really challenging environment for good passing game production yeah on a large volume basis because there's low volume and they spread it around too much. So hopefully one of those two things changes, or both. The dolphins do not intend to trade Devon Achan. They plan to build around Devon Achan. And Matthew Pyrrhus of nola.com says,

The Saints would still like to address Alvin Camara's contract. I would say, correct me if I'm wrong, not a certainty that Alvin Camara is going to remain on the Saints this year. Heath, what's up on FFT Dynasty? We are starting, we have started. rookie position previews. Tight ends are out there. I had Gibbs on on Friday.

Matt Waldman will be on the show tomorrow for the position that matters more than any other amongst these rookies. Wide receiver part one will be tomorrow. Wide receiver part two is on Friday. We've got Rich cooling from Dynasty League football. We'll do running backs next week, quarterback the week after that. It's all happening. Awesome. All right.

Must listen stuff. We're going to take a break and get into what happened with these six busts. From 2025, we'll be right back. Hey, Ontario, come on down to BetmGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive the Price's Right Fortune Pick has to offer. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show

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When WestJet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board.

Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Okay, guys. You know, I have Brian Thomas Jr. first in the notes, but I'll let you decide. Who should we start with? We got these six busts, Brian Thomas Jr., Justin Jefferson,

Lavin-McConkey, Nico Collins, Jaden Daniel, Sequin Barkley. I mean, I think a couple of them are easy, so I don't know if you want to start with the easy ones or the difficult ones. Let's start with the difficult ones. Who's difficult? I would say Brian Thomas Jr.'s, a good start. Difficult? Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So again, he went from wide receiver 14 per game to wide receiver. Thomas had it queued up already, so why would you mess them? Right. There's also that. Wide receiver 46 per game as a sophomore. Yards per route run went from 2.46 in elite number to 1.5.

I think one of the things you'll see with a number of these guys, we have four wide receivers. I'm not sure if it was the case with Jefferson, but it was with the other three. Catch rate went down. Yes. Catch rate went down a lot for Brian Thomas Jr. And I'm just thinking that seems like a lot for Brian Thomas Jr. Yeah. But Heath, I'm just thinking.

him back to what you said about Zay Flowers and how his catch rate went down in his second year and then bounced back up in his third year. So that's something that hopefully will happen. But, all right, Jamie, what do you think is complicated about the Brian Thomas Jr. Sitch? Everything. I mean, you know,

we went into last year preseason with really the two questions being, what would he do when there's, I don't know, competition for targets, just other talented players on the field? Because most of his production in his rookie season came when Evan Ingram and Christian Kirk were injured.

And it was obviously a different quarterback, but at least for me, that wasn't a concern. I didn't think Mack Jones was the real reason or the only reason why Brian Thomas Jr. was unleashed. But you had a new system. They bring in obviously Travis Hunter. And then it was just a whole series of things that seemed to derail Brian Thomas from wrist injury I think some other ailments that certainly popped up

over the course of the preseason Yeah, he had an ankle injury midseason You had the I think it was off field situation Somebody somebody died I'm not mistaken Somebody close to him died

From his college team right? Yes Was it from his college team? I think so I don't remember this certainly I didn't want to obviously pinned it something But yes something that he was dealing with

Sounds right Adjustment to a new coach. And then it seemed as if like he wasn't playing his heart. You know, you heard some reports out of Jacksonville, just some, you know, practice questions about his practice habits and things that went on there. And so it just sort of all compiled. And then you get right as Hunter starting to peak, he gets hurt. Okay, maybe this is the jumping off way for Brian Thomas. They go and acquire Jacoby Myers. Parker Washington becomes a thing. Brent Strange obviously had his moments. The run game was more successful clearly in, in his.

year to than it was in his rookie season with Travis Etyn. And so it now brings itself to his third year, which you would hope would be a bounce back season and hope that it could get, you know, better for him. But now you have all this competition for targets when Washington looks the way that he did. And Myers, obviously, in his resume. And now Travis Hunter is going to still whatever role he's going to play on offense, but still be on offense.

And Strange is now, you know, obviously a part of what they're doing. Like it's hard to say that Brian Thomas, who I think is the most talented of the group, It's hard to say that he can get back to that rookie level without, with everybody healthy. Yeah, it seemed to me like he was just not anywhere close to healthy at the beginning of the year and still playing almost all the snaps and still seeing a bunch of targets and it went terribly. And then the other thing was like his A dot is just probably too high. Like as a rookie, it was 11.4, which is fantastic or good. 14.5 last year.

It's hard to be a guy that gets a lot of targets with an ADOT that high. But that's the thing. I don't know if they wanted to be that guy. I don't know. Colin wants him to be that guy. Can I just kind of give a little context

with the A dot in his first eight games before his ankle injury, before the Jacoby Myers trade? His ADOT was, what did you say it was as a rookie heath? 11.4. It was 12.9 in his first eight games. Then he came back. And that's when things really went south for him.

Because he comes back in the last six games, you've got an unbelievable passing offense where Trevor Lawrence in those six games is on pace for 4,533 yards and 433 touchdowns. Right? He's throwing 32 times a game, and that's with leaving one game early. Everything's going great.

Then that's when Brian Thomas Jr. has a 16.6% target share and a 17.6 yard A dot. So when he came back from the injury, he was just this vertical guy. And that is crazy. Like we can deal with 12.9, which a little high, but we can't deal with 17.6. And I fear that if he's still on Jacksonville, that he might be pigeonholed into that role, Dave, of being the vertical guy while Jacobi Myers and Parker, Washington do their thing. And Breton Strange does his thing even shorter.

Takes the top off the defense. Yeah. And that's a very valuable role in an NFL. offense because opponents are going to have to pay attention to him. This is a guy who can beat you deep still. He's got that speed to do it. I don't think teams are going to say, oh, yeah, let him run past. He was just going to drop the ball anyway.

It doesn't happen. And I could see Jacksonville completely sticking with that. The way that that could change is if he shows improvement in the off season, they go, all right, we got to get this guy, the ball on shorter routes as well. Or if things go south for Jacoby Myers, Brenton Strange, Parker, Washington, and maybe two of the three, maybe the run game as well. We know that that's definitely a question mark. But that's what it's going to have to take.

I don't think we can draft Brian Thomas Jr. On the hope that he bounces back without there being some sort of evidence that it's going to happen. And even if there is evidence, man, I don't know. He didn't practice that well going into last season. That was something that Liam Cohen talked about immediately after his best practice against the dolphins. He had one good practice, according to Liam Cohen, up till the joint practice against the dolphins. That wasn't a great sign either.

So I just think there needs to be more evidence of him, really turning it around, being focused, and then the Jaguar is going ahead and saying, all right, this is somebody who's going to be very involved in the offense. Good, man. Good grief, man. He was so good. He was so good at the end of 2020.

And we overrated it. We completely overrated it because he wasn't that good. He was okay. He was good. in his first, what, 10 games before the buy as a rookie, and then just everything went his way after that. And he was dominant. Well, he was good.

But I mean, the thought was, here's a first round talent, now getting his quarterback back, now getting what seemed like a system upgrade, or at least a coaching upgrade. And it felt like, okay, here we go. You know, this is the jumping off point for maybe the next superstar wide receiver because of what he showed in his rookie season. And I think the fascinating part of this for this year is which Jaguars receiver gets drafted first.

I still think it's going to be him, but we'll see because obviously there's going to be a lot of Jacobi Myers truthers out there. And there's going to be people that look at Parker Washington and see what he did and maybe bind it. Especially if he gets an extension because that's what's being discussed now after they signed Trayvon Walker to his big deal. You know, Washington is the next guy that they're talking about paying. So do you take a chance on him with the hope that he bounces back? At least that's the way I'm going to approach it. I'm not looking at any of the Jaguars receivers as starters going into the season. You know, third receiver at best, you know, in terms of a three receiver league or flex.

So Thomas is the one I have ranked the highest, but they're almost all back to back to back, aside from Hunter, who I would only take with a late round flyer at this point. But I think if you're looking at it, like Washington and Myers feel safer than Thomas, but none of those guys will do what he can do, what Thomas can do if he's, you know, right. So if we'll wrap up Brian Thomas Jr. here, what needs to happen for him to bounce back? We need a lower A dot. We need more targets.

I mean, the target per route rate plummeted. And that's going to be hard. I mean, it's going to be kind of hard on paper. So what is the optimism about him? Bouncing back to 1,000 yards. Give me 1,000 yards. He had 707 yards in 14 games. He was on pace for 859.

yards and two touchdowns, a thousand yards and five touchdowns. Do you think he'll even get there? That's possible. I mean, I think if he's healthy and even if he's just the deep threat, he'll get more targets than a casual deep threat because of who he is and what he's done.

So I would think, like, to me, an optimistic season is kind of like an average Devante Smith season. Okay. All right. Who should we do next? Who's the most complicated after Brian Thomas Jr.? Jefferson, McConkey, Nico, Daniels, and Barclay.

McConkey or Nico. Okay. Let's do Nico. Because, you know, it's funny with Nico is he's actually finished for wide receiver 8 to 11, three straight seasons, including last year. But again, say it every podcast. Last year was such a bad year for wide receivers. So he lost about two and a half fantasy points per game in 2025 compared to 2024.

And that was with him. He had a lot of partial games in 2023 and 2024, which hurt his averages. At his best, he's so damn good. We just didn't see it from Nico last year. Heath, hey, what happened? De Nico Collins. You know, I think part of it is because, as you said,

like he still kind of finished at the same place that he normally does at the wide receiver position. Part of it is the new reality in the NFL, that wide receivers just aren't probably going to be quite as good with the kickoff rules and the shorter fields to scores and the longer field goals. And there's a lot of things working against them. The bigger thing is the touchdowns just now matter more than ever. And in 2023, he scored eight and 15 games.

2024, he scored seven and 12 games. And he had six last year in 15 games. The yardage was down about nine yards per game. I don't even know, like it was a little more than 10%. I don't even know that that's that big of a fall off from just kind of where the wide receiver drop off and yardage was. I would say each offensive drive was probably 10 yards shorter in the NFL. Wow. There was an injury last year, right?

There's an injury every year. He's never played, like, he played 15 games last year. That was tied for a career high. You know, so this was the first year in the last three that he didn't have any games. in which he played fewer than 50% of the snaps. He did a few games where he was... This was his healthiest year ever. Yeah.

And what did he play? He played 15. 15, yeah. But when you look at like, you know how I do it, I take out, most of the time I take out the games where he played less than half the snaps. And you look at the last three seasons. I mean, you're talking about a pace of 1,656 yards,

1,579 yards. And then last year, 1,266 yards was his 17-game pace. I think it'd be easy to blame it on C.J. Stroud when you're talking about what happened here, but the Houston passing numbers were nearly identical from 2024 to 2025. 2023 was a different story. They were great then. But he showed in 2024 with Stefan Diggs, with Tank Dell. You look at the first four games in 2024. The guy's averaging like 120 yards per game or something like that.

So I don't really know that it was just as simple as C.J. Strout. Something was just off with their connection. but the A dot was up two yards. Yeah, another guy. Which again, the catch rate went down 10%. So not a, not, I guess it's a strange way to say it, but from, yeah, 68.7 to 59.2. Yep. May I bring up one last thing?

Or one more thing? Go ahead. Nico. Would you've been okay if he averaged 16.8 PPR points per game? Oh, yeah. That's what he averaged in his first 12. He didn't finish the year strong. He, and neither did CJ.

and CJ wasn't even there for a portion of the second half of the year, Davis Mills had that run. But I think Nico Collins is still going to end up being okay. I know he didn't average the type of fantasy points per game that we were hoping for when we took him last year, round one, maybe early round two. But I don't see his year as a total bust from 2025. And I wouldn't hold it against him in 2026. I think he's still, I think he can still be a top 10 receiver in fantasy.

Jamie, Nico? I think it's just keeping who he is in perspective. Like, you know, when you look at the top four or five wide receivers, you know, and Heath mentioned Rashi Rice, you know, projecting in his top five, like, I don't think if Nico in his current situation plays as well as Rice does. In his situation, we get the same type of numbers. I think Rice is better. I think Nico Collins is more of the back end of a top 10 wide receiver,

a guy that you probably should be taking in the middle to the end of round two as opposed to the end of round one beginning of round two. and it just felt like he was overdrafted last year. And I don't, I just think Nico Collins is just really good. Like, I don't think he's, like, he's got the chance to have some elite games and occasionally have an elite season. He's an excellent player, you know, could be better, probably with a better quarterback. But I just think he's just solid.

Like, he's just one of these guys. Like, you hear me say this, you know, from time to time about like, Amara St. Brown's like the safe guy to take in round one. Like, I feel like, New Collins is a safe guy to taking round two. You know, if you, if you go running back first, you want to go running back. wide receiver, I'm fine with Nico Collins. Like, I think he's just, he, we probably just overrated him last year a little bit, you know. So like, what did you say, 16.8?

Like 16.8 feels like if I'm getting that from him, I'm thrilled. If I got a 20-point season out of him, then everything just sort of broke right. Yeah, but, okay, so I definitely overrated him because I was the highest on, on Nico Collins, but I'll tell you where I was coming from. 16.8 points per game is really good. Second round pick, you'd take that. First round pick, you'd probably be disappointed, but not hugely disappointed. But he was better than that in 2023, and he was better than that in 2024.

And then you go look at his game log. Here's a game in 2023 where he played 5% of the snaps and had one catch. Here's the game the week after he played 47% of the snaps. Go to 2024, played 13% of the snaps in this game, paid 18% of the snaps in this game. Played 47% of the snaps in this game. So you look at the per route data with Nico Collins was always extremely elite, arguably best in football, top three. and then you take out these injured games. It's a stretch.

People wouldn't do that. Some people would. When he's healthy, he's, you know, before last year, he's first round talent. He's, I didn't think overdrafted. I thought he made sense for him to be there. Last year just wasn't as good. And he stayed mostly, you know, healthier. So that was where I was coming from.

I didn't think we were overrating him. I think he just had to, by his standard, it's a bad season. Okay, well, anyway, what needs to happen for him to bounce back? He still needs more targets. He only got a pace of 136 targets. He could do really well with that. But if he's going to be elite, like really win you your league as a second round pick,

he's probably going to need 150 or more targets, I would get. I just think with all the young wide receivers they have there, I don't know that I really expect that to happen. Would you be happy with eight targets per game? That would be, what, 135 or so? That's what he was on for last year. Right. That's what he was on for last year.

Yeah, and he was at 8.3 in 2024. I'm drafting him like he's going to get eight targets per game. He was at 8.3, but again, he had three games that he left early with an injury. He was at nine targets. Yeah, nine targets per game basically in 2024, even more than that, about nine and a half in what I consider as healthy games. But again, if you're listening to me, being like, why are you doing that? That's fine. That's just my philosophy.

All right, let's get one more in here before the break. So we've done Brian Thomas Jr. and Nico Collins. Let's stick with the wide receivers, I guess. McConkey or Jefferson. Jamie, you've been deciding who goes next? Jefferson's easy. So do Jefferson next. Oh, so we'll knock him out.

A little Justin Jefferson chat here. Okay. He went from wide receiver two overall, wide receiver six per game, to wide receiver 20 overall and wide receiver 30 per game. And he was even worse than that in non-PPR because he scored two touchdowns last year, Justin Jefferson.

Dave. Hey, what happened? Justin Jefferson. J.J. McCarthy happened to Justin Jefferson and it happened to the entire Vikings offense. He was not good as a thrower. It changed the way that they called plays in Minnesota. And the end result was fewer past plays. And when there were past plays, there were miscommunications, off target throws, everything, including drops, by the way, where that costs Justin Jefferson some big time fantasy points.

And the crazy thing about last year was there were the, games that he had with Carson Wentz. There were five of those games. He averaged 10 targets per game in those five games with Wentz and 16.3 ppr points per game. And we might be a little sad about 16.3 ppr points per game for Justin Jefferson. We certainly drafted him to be closer to 20 ppr points per game. But in a year, in a year where receiver targets and numbers were down across the board. 16.3 was pretty damn good. That was better for example than Nico. Nico was top 10 in PPR points per game. So as long as Kyler Murray can come to Minnesota and throw with better accuracy than J.J. McCarthy and throw the ball as well and as many times as Carson Wentz did, I think we'll see a big bounce back for Justin Jefferson. I don't think we'll see Kyler Murray throw the ball as many times as Carson Winston. And that's the only thing. I think we get a bounce back from Jefferson of all the wide receivers we're talking about on today's show. He's my favorite for this coming season. I think he's a top 10 wide receiver. but not a top five wide receiver. And I think Kyler will be better than JJ McCarthy, but Kyler is also going to run the ball a lot. And that's going to scramble and that's going to cut into just the overall pass volume.

Part of what Justin Jefferson had when he was in the conversation for the best wide receiver in football is that the Vikings' offense was pretty pass heavy. And I don't really, I don't think it'll be as bad as it was last year, but I don't think we're going to get Kyler Murray in the top five in the NFL and pass attempts or anything like, crazy like that. Aaron Jones is a year older. Jordan Mason is a year older. Does the run game in Minnesota become so good or at least good enough to take down the passing volume that we would hope for from the Vikings?

I don't think that's his point, though. I think the run offense will be probably. Well, sure. It was last year because of Kyler. They were 28th in pass attempts last year. It's not like the run game makes it worse. It's how much better can it be? Yeah, and look, the defense is going to miss some guys, so we may see a step back there as well.

So we may see a few more, you know, opportunities slash need to throw the ball more. Plus the trust that I would hope Kevin O'Connell shows in Kyler Murray versus what he showed in J.J. McCarthy. I think it's just better quarterback play across the board for the Vikings and certainly will be a benefit to Justin Jefferson. If you look at what he's done throughout his career with everybody aside from J.J. McCarthy, it's been typically 16 points per game. or higher. You go back to the 2023 season when Kirk Cousins got hurt, you know, and we saw all those other guys come in, I think it's 2023, 24 maybe, when all those other guys came in and, you know, he was still successful coming back from the hamstring injury at the end of the year in terms of Jefferson. What Kyler did in the year that he had

D'Andre Hopkins in his prime, the first year of those two guys were together, same exact age. Justin Jefferson is now. So, you know, you're looking at the potential of what he can still be. I think that's why everybody should be buying into Justin Jefferson, who's either going to be a late first or an early second round pick, and it makes sense to take him in that range. Like he said, he should be drafted, probably closer to 10 than he is to five, but he has that top five upside still. So if Kyler is better in a Kevin O'Connell system,

which, you know, aside from JJ McCarthy, almost every quarterback has been, then Justin Jefferson is going to have the chance for a pretty special season. Yeah. Would you take Justin Jefferson or is she Rice? Rice. Right now. PPR.

Bryce. Okay. I mean, Jefferson's no stranger to catches. You know, he could easily get well over 100 catches himself. I think one of the interesting things will be this. The guys, the last year they threw 18 touchdowns, the Vikings. But the years before that, the first five years of Jefferson's career, they were over 30 touchdowns every year.

Kirk Cousins in Minnesota had a 5.6% touchdown rate. Sam Darnold had a 6.4% touchdown rate with the Vikings by far career high. Last year was 5.2. Kyler Murray's been 3.9, 3.6 to 3.9, four straight seasons. So can he? I think that goes up. I hope so. He was about 5% the two years before that. Those were two, you know, Hopkins years. But he's not a touchdown thrower, typically, you know. His career high is 26. Okay.

The point I was making with the running backs was I think he might be their most efficient runner. and I think that because they have inefficiency with their run game, it'll mean more past plays called. And granted, some of those past plays are going to end up being Kylo and Mary Scramble. That's what he does. But I bet this team is at least top third in the league and past plays called this year. All right, we're going to take a break, and we've got Mocky, Daniels, and Barclay to discuss. And I have to make the decision over the next 15 seconds.

Do we stick with the wide receivers or talk about Daniels or Berkeley? You know, Barclay, I thought, when we were talking about who's the most complicated, I thought Jamie was going to say Barclay. But I was wrong. All right, we'll be right back. I'll figure it all out after this on Fantasy Football today. Okay, Jamie. I'm going with my gut here, bud.

I'm going with Barclay. I thought Barclay was shocking. We could have seen this coming, not to the degree that it happened with Justin Jefferson, but we knew there was a big risk with J.J. McCarthy. But Barclay, I mean, everything was basically the same. for the Eagles and they they ran it back and they just sucked. Nobody on this show was talked

about more as a bust last season than Seyuan Barclay. Yeah, I know, I know. He was the most obvious. Well, but we said, okay, well, that's, I thought we would lead with him. But, no, yeah, no, he wasn't obvious. Wait a second.

Oh, you mean preseason. Right. Yeah, but we didn't think. That's what I'm saying. Like, it can't be the most complicated if he was the guy who was the most accurately predicted to bust. Because people were taking him

as number one overall. We didn't think anything like this where he'd be RB 15, where he'd go from 22 points per game to 14.5 points per game. We didn't see this coming. Well, we saw a decline, you know, to what degree, you know, this was probably the worst case scenario barring an injury, you know, that he could fall because he stayed healthy because, you know, nothing really changed per se.

I mean, coordinator change. You know, that was clearly a big part of this. And the offensive line was hurt. big portion of the season. But I mean, I think just in terms of what everything was on paper for Barkley going in, it was more a numbers conversation than anything else. And the numbers bared out a frustrating season for him. You know, it was as we talked about, coming off of a season with over 400 total touches. That wasn't a good number. The history of 2,000 yard rushers. He fell right in line with that in terms of the fall off the next season. So, you know, now it's a

question of where are you going to draft Barclay because they're basically it's almost exactly the same situation with you. The question is Hey, what happened? All right. So are you saying that it was just that his bad production was just the result of the heavy workload in

2024? I mean there's obvious things that happened. Again, offensive line was, you know, beat up throughout the course of the season. The system was not successful. You referenced the ESPN story, you know, with Kevin Petullo and and Jalen Hertz budding heads and Jalen Hertz taking a step back and the frustration in the passing game

and just all the things that happened with the Eagles, tougher schedule coming off of Super Bowl. It was just a lot of things that fell into play with Berkeley. The longer runs weren't there. It's a guy that is not going to be as heavily involved in the passing game as some of what we would consider the elite running backs. So I think just when you look at at Berkeley, you know, not that he needs to run for 2,000 yards to be a top five running back. but, you know, again, he's getting to that point in his career where you start to have to look at the decline happening and how much of it is, you know, going to be, this is who he is, or can he get back to, you know, being closer to what we saw in 2024? I just don't think that will happen again. Heath, you want to weigh in on what happened? Does Sekewan Barkley? Anything you want to add or support? Well, I think also their offensive as a whole was kind of a disaster and their offensive line wasn't near as good.

and so like it was a combination of those things which is probably contributes to why the drop off wasn't just Seyuan Barclay. The drop off was also most of the things around him. Dave. Well, here he comes, age 29 coming off of a year where he had 346 touches. The expectation should probably be that Sequin finishes maybe a little bit better than where he was in 2025. That's it. I think the value for Stakewan Barker was going to be probably great. You know, we saw in the, it was either the half PPR or the PPR draft, the two that we did post-free agency.

One of those, he went with the first pick in round three. Like, that's amazing, you know, with what he could still be. He was probably around running back 10 through 12. I don't remember what it was in terms of overall that position. But I think, you know, when you start to look at it, he's not in the disconcern. discussion with Gibbs and Bijon. He's going to get drafted after McCaffrey and A. Chan and Cook, and most likely, I would guess, at this point, Genty.

I would think Walker. I would think Chase Brown. And then it comes, I think this is where he sort of slots in with, do you like him or Marion Hampton better? Do you like him or Derek Henry better? Do you like him or I don't know who I'm missing? John the Taylor, obviously, he's going to go out to him. But, you know, those guys at probably running back eight at the earliest, nine at the earliest.

Like, that's where I think he belongs in the discussion. He's after some of these guys for me. So back end to round two, I think is appropriate for him. What needs to happen for Barclay to bounce back? Jamie, you mentioned the long runs. That really jumped out to me. He had 17 carries of 20 or more yards in 2014. He had four in 2015.

If you just remove his carries of 20 or more yards, you just look at any carry from negative to 19 yards, he averaged four yards per carry in 2024 on those carries, which is by far a career high. He averaged 3.4 yards per carry on those carries in 2025, which wasn't that bad. That sounds low, but that's taking out all of his long runs. But really, it was just the lack of long runs.

Couldn't supplement the other production with home runs. I don't know how to predict if he's going to get. back to that. But I know that he can do it. You know, I know that he's still super talented. We've seen what he can do. So he's pretty appealing in the second round. But yeah, what needs to happen? I would say what needs to happen is he needs to hit home runs. The hardest thing is it's kind of hard to predict whether or not he will. Dave, what do you think needs to happen for Barclay to bounce back? The home runs obviously would help a lot. But he had five games last year with 9.5 or fewer full PPR points.

That's terrible. So he needs a little bit better efficiency. He needs games where he gets more opportunities. And I think that can happen. I don't think the offense can be that much worse in terms of play calling with a first year play caller and a former quarterback in Sean Mannion. I do worry about the state of that offensive line and how healthy they'll be over the course of the year.

And I also worry a little bit about what that Eagles defense will be like. Will it be as good as it was? Certainly not two years ago. But could they fall apart a little bit and force more second half passing game scripts for the Eagles? And that would hurt Sequin in terms of total touches per game. So I think we're drafting him in the right spot. I still think he's a top. He still had over 1,500 total yards last year, nine touchdowns.

That's nothing to sneeze at. But when I draft him, I'm going to think, all right, I'm going to draft him with lower expectations than normal. I'm going to think that he gets around 15, 15 and a half PPR points per game. That's still really good. That's round too good. And that's what I'm going to draft him as. And if someone takes them sooner than that in my drafts this August, I'm going to have no problem with it whatsoever.

Okay. Jamie, we got two players left. Ladd McConkey and Jaden Daniels. Who would you like to discuss next? I don't think there's a very complicated situation for Daniel, so I would go McConkey. I would have said McConkey might have been the most. Yes. Complicated. Okay.

Yeah, a lot happened with Lab McConkey. I mean, he just did not get anywhere near the amount of targets that he got. Well, actually, that's not exactly true. It's the target per out run rate, though, went down. The efficiency went down. He was on pace for only 113 targets. And, yeah, the target per out run rate went from 23.4% to 18.9%. The catch rate went down about 10%.

with an identical A-DOT, and the yards per outrun went from 2.4 to 1.4. So, Heath, this is a guy who was just much less efficient after an incredibly efficient rookie season. So for Ladbacocchi. Hey, what happened? Heath. Some of it, the reason it's so bad is what we always talk about with the chargers. Joe Alt got hurt. The offense, pass offense wasn't near as good in the second half of the season, but that's only some of it.

Because the first eight weeks of the season, when they were healthy, he was wide receiver 26 and had two games over 75 yards, didn't score a touchdown the first month of the season. I think he is the type of player who could be hurt more by what we've talked about with the way the game has changed. He's a guy who we would think would maybe benefit more based on having a large volume of catches. That's probably going to be a little bit lower. has some guys on his team who are very good in the red zone. I don't think we know that we should expect him necessarily score as many touchdowns as Quentin Johnston does. And they've got this complicated situation with how much did they want to pass the ball.

They did it more at times last year and they went run heavy at times last year. Oh, yeah. They averaged 38.7 pass attempts per game in their first seven games. They were one of the top passing teams in terms of attempts per game. and he wasn't even that good. He was on pace for 141 targets, which is great, but he just didn't do much with them. And then the Chargers in the last nine games of the year

averaged 26.8 pass attempts per game. You're right. You mentioned it. I mean, they completely fell apart. The last nine games of the year, Justin Herbert was on pace for 3,426 yards and 25 touchdowns on 26.8 pass attempts per game. McConkey, from week nine on,

43 or fewer yards in each of his last seven games, including the playoffs. So it was a bad environment in terms of low pass volume. He wasn't doing anything. Everything was bad there. And almost all of that, if not all, that was without Joe Alt. You know, Dave, I think if I asked what happened to Lab Makonki, I actually think there might be a simple answer. And it's, well, part of it is Keenan Allen. I was about to bring it up.

You have a ton of targets. Yeah. Yeah. That's what Keenan Allen does. Don't come back. Ladd only had six fewer targets last year than he had as a rookie, though. It's true, but the target per route rate went down and his catch rate went down. His usage made it change.

On deeper throws also was way down in his second year compared to his first year. I just don't think Keenan Allen has anything to do with those things. No, the efficiency, you're right. I mean, I don't know how you explain that. His ADOT was the same. So it wasn't like he was not like he was used in a targeted in a different part of the field. right, and the slot rate was one from like 66% to 61%. So it wasn't that.

They did throw a lot more than they did the previous year. But the target per route run rate went way down. And also, if you think about McConkey and his rookie year, he wasn't that involved the first half. Kind of like Brian Thomas Jr. So you could look at his total targets as a rookie. But if you separate it to when they started to really feature him, he went off.

But I don't know. Keenan Allen, he couldn't have anything to do with the efficiency per se, but he certainly affected the target per outrun rate, you'd have to say. Right. But if we're just looking at what he produced in terms of targets per game or total targets, it was basically the same thing. I think part of it is like a guy had a 73% catch rate on 112 targets, and we just should have expected some regression from that because most very few wide,

receivers in the NFL catch more than 70% of their targets. And we got some regression on that. It was 63%. He averaged 10.3 yards per target. That's insane. And maybe if he did that over his career would be the best mark in the NFL history. And so we got some regression on that. It fell all the way to 7.4, which is mediocre.

I think we get a little bit of a bounce back. The question is how big is the bounce back and how high is the past volume next year? I know we all love Mike McDaniel for Marion Hampton. It should be good for the run game. How much they throw and how high those targets are concentrated on McConkey is a bit of a mystery. I kind of view him as a borderline wide receiver two this year. He's one of my favorite guys. I'm just all in on everything Chargers this year.

I just think that McDaniel, offensive line, healthy, there's just a lot to like. You know, so I don't think you want to be too aggressive in how you draft McConkey because there's that glut of wide receivers. You know, I think when you talk about flowers and, I think guys in that range burden and Abuka, that run of wide receiver too is like he should probably be at the back end of those guys. But just looking at the situation, like, it, there's still talk of maybe a Kenan Allen return, which again, I wouldn't. love, but like McDaniel's track record has been fantastic with his receivers as well. You know, and he's not going to be Tyree Kill. He's probably closer from a profile standpoint, obviously, to Jalen Wattle. But there's still just a lot to love about what he can do in this offense if everything

is right. And we haven't really seen everything go right for the Chargers and Justin Herbert's time there. But it feels as if this is now the type of play caller to unleash everything that's capable of happening for the chargers if everybody stays healthy. And it'll be a lot easier for McConkey to be that short area target out of the slot if there's, if Keenan Allen isn't there doing the exact same thing. And Allen had more targets per game than McConkey.

He had just as many end zone targets, two more red zone targets. They both had a lot. And his target per route rate was like eight percentage points higher. It was crazy. So get him out of there. If Aranda Gadsden ends up taking some of that target share away, that's fine. It should mean an uptick for McConkey. I would be much more inclined to look at McConkey as a bounce back if there's nobody that they put into that type of role that Keenan Allen was in last year.

Does it bother you at all, though, that like we're like, just please don't come back Keenan Allen. And we're talking about a 33 year old wide receiver that's averaged less than seven yards per target each of the last two seasons. It's not like, like, I know he has the, maybe it was just the relationship with Justin Herbert, and that's why he just kept throwing it to him when he shouldn't have. Could be. But it's not like Keenan Allen's a currently great player. And I think it's a bit of a great point. Right.

I mean, this is the team that clearly is going to, I would hope, you know, have a bigger emphasis on running the ball. That's something that Harbaugh wants. And obviously McDaniels been very successful at it from his time in San Francisco to his time in Miami. me. But you're looking at what this receiving core is, you know, Quinn Johnson, I don't think his game changes dramatically. You know, even if there is no return of Allen or addition of somebody else,

Trey Harris has to step up and play much better to, you know, prove he deserves playing time. Gads and I would say the same thing. Lambert Smith, I think, is still a project. So, like, McConkey should easily lead his team in targets. And if he leads his team in targets, without another guy that Justin Herbert had a history with

and success with in Keenan Allen, you know, so it's, it's not necessarily like the target differential between the two last year, dramatically different from what he did year one. It's some of the important targets. It's those third downthrows that went to Keenan Allen versus going to Ladd-McConkie. It's some of those end zone opportunities that went to Keenan Allen versus Lab McConkey. So I think when you look at it as if Allen comes back, to me there's a question of who's the comfort factor,

who's those, you know, Dave used to always either security blankie for, you know, Justin Herbert. Right now it's, to me, it's clearly Lab McConkey. if Alan comes back, then I have questions. And so it's not that Alan is a great player. It's a player that has history with the quarterback. And I don't want to see that for what I believe Latamakki can still become. And if they keep the receiving core the way it is, I don't see anybody that could take that Keenan,

that could take Keenan Allen's role as another inside, also outside type of receiver and play to the same level as Alan did, as low as it was. I mean, Trey Harris would probably be the next best candidate in his second season, and I don't see that happening. I think we're on track for Lad to have a bounce back year, and I would draft him as a number two wide receiver in PPR.

Only other thing I'll say is like perennial punching bag, Quentin Johnston, is like two months older than Ladd McConkey, a former first round pick, and was better per game than Ladd McConkey last year. Oh, he's amazing value. I think when you look at Quentin Johnson, again, to Dave's point, if this receiving course stays what it is, you know,

Johnson is one of the best values you'll find in any fantasy draft and hopefully can continue to, you know, develop in McDaniel's system with Justin Herbert and, you know, maybe earn himself a surprisingly big payday. You know, he's still got that type of upside. It's just a matter of can he do it consistently. So, yeah, he's somebody should. absolutely be targeting again for me if you look at the drafts we've done i think i've taken hampton

mcconkey herbert or johnston in every draft i just want pieces of this offense so yeah last thing we keep talking about joe all in 2024 rshawn slater was pf's third highest graded offensive tackle in pass blocking between between tristan worse and jordan milada he missed the entire season so it's just you know to have arguably the best tackle tandem in the NFL or one up there. You know, Eagles would probably make the case. But up there, they didn't have that at all last year. And they had all for four games where he played, where he was healthy.

So obviously that's going to help everyone. They've got a great offensive coordinator coming in. But I think as we've had this discussion, I'm sitting here wondering, what's that different about McConkey compared to Brian Thomas Jr.? where you're willing to take Bacconchi three to four rounds earlier. I mean, they both were amazing as rookies. Brian Thomas Jr. was better.

They both were drafted in a similar spot in the NFL draft. Brian Thomas Jr. went ahead of him in fantasy in 2025. They both have target competition. I mean, you want to talk about the Chargers offense being so great? Is it going to be better than the Jaguars? I mean, maybe, but you could certainly see a case where the Jaguars are better. Parker Washington's had, I don't know, six good games, six great games in his career. I'm not discounting him, but he hasn't exactly been proven.

Jacoby Myers is a really solid player, but he's not, to me, if Brian Thomas Jr. is as good as he was as a rookie. I don't think Jacoby Myers is the guy that's going to take that away from him. So I don't know why they're looked at so differently. Jamie, I'll let all of you comment on that, but what's the big difference there between Malkankee and Brian Thomas Jr.? It's certainly a fair question. I think expected role for McConkey versus expected role for Brian Thomas. And I don't think the target competition is the same. I think when you look at Jacksonville, there's significantly more target competition

because for at least again, in the current state of what the chargers look like if there is no Keenan Allen, I don't think Quentin Johnston is going to take a huge leap in targets. He may get a bump by one or two. I don't think Trey Harris comes in and dominates. targets. I don't think Lambert Smith comes in and dominates targets. They also may not be done with their receiving core because those two young receivers didn't exactly overwhelm in their production. And Gaston being the same thing to me, Gaston and Strange is almost like a wash. But I think McConkey should, I don't know, significantly lead the team in targets, but I think he's going to

lead the team of targets. I can't say that definitively about Brian Thomas. It could be Myers, it could be Washington. I'd be surprised if it's hunter, but those two guys can be the target leaders there. I would agree with you that the, or I don't know if you said this, but I think the run game as it stands right now is better in Los Angeles than it is in Jacksonville with what they're looking at from a personnel standpoint. I didn't say that, but I do like you agreeing with me from something. No, to me, it's target competition and role. I don't know, significantly favor McConkey, but I'm going to put it that way that significantly favors McCongue. I think McConkey's floor is much higher. I probably think Thomas's ceiling is higher. I would

agree with that. Okay. All right. I don't have anything, that. All right, perfect. Let's go to Jaden Daniels here. Jane Daniels. Jamie, I think you frame this as kind of an easy one.

Is that what you said? Yeah. Hey, what happened? To Jaden Daniels, why is it so easy? Are you just going to blame it all on injuries? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, look, he played seven games,

Jane Daniels, four of them. He played 100% of the snaps. And if you look at those four games, scored 22.2 points, 23.7. points, 19.1, and 27.6. So that's 23.1 fantasy points per game in his four healthy games. Compare that to his healthy games in 2025, because he did leave too early. He scored 26 fantasy points per game. So that is 2.9 fewer per game in six point per passing touchdown leagues. And that was with the same amount of pass attempts and basically the same amount of rush

attempts per game. Unfortunately, it's only a four game sample size. But Heath, you know, you've talked a lot about he just wasn't quite as good this year, Jane Daniels as he was, or 2025 as he was as a rookie in 2024. Did you see anything more complicated than he just couldn't stay healthy? I think that that was one of the biggest concerns about Jaden Daniels coming into the NFL, and that's exactly what happened last year. And I don't think that for the period of time when Jaden Daniels was healthy, that Terry McLaurin was fully himself either.

And so it just wasn't as good of situation. and he wasn't himself for most of the year. Is there anything else we're missing? I think for me, it was probably health, but also kind of like what we said about Lab McConkey. Heath, he had this yards per target and this catch rate that were just too high. And I just wonder if Jane Daniels just too good as a rookie. Not a lot of rookies average 26 fantasy points per game.

Justin Herbert did, and then he backed it up with 26.2 fantasy points per game. Well, Daniels didn't average 26 fantasy points per game. per game as a rookie, did he? No, he didn't. No, sorry. But at the end of his rookie year. Not a lot of rookies can be azer stat in the 26 fantasy points per game. He did in the games.

He didn't leave early with an injury. But you're right. He didn't officially. Cam Newton, average 25.3 fantasy points per game as a rookie. And he had one great fantasy season after that in his entire career, basically. Yeah, he had two elite seasons. One was his rookie season. So I'm just wondering if, like,

With Lab McConkey and maybe Brian Thomas Jr. We just overrated Jane Daniels, who just was just too good as a rookie. And you couldn't really expect it to happen again. I don't know. His completion rate was down from 68.4 to 60.6 yards per attempt was down 710th of a yard. Touchdown rate was down almost 1%. His EPA was definitely in the toilet. And he didn't have Terry McLaurin at full throttle.

Remember, McLaren was holding out for most of training camp when he finally signed his deal. He was still working his way back and getting his timing down. There was a deep throw very early on in the year from Daniels that McLaren couldn't quite catch up to. I think if both of them had stayed healthy over the course of the year, that would have been fine, and that would have helped Jane Daniels numbers out. And he'd be closer to like 23, 24 fantasy points per game over the course of the whole season. You mentioned what he did in his four healthy games. I think that's a pretty fair representation.

of what Jane Daniels can do when everything is right. And just not a lot was right with the commander's offense and personnel last year. Tack on injuries on top of it. And it made for a wonky season. And hopefully you draft him at a discount this year and you hope that he bounces back. I will say that like I cited the catch rate and the yards per target for the things that Ladd obviously could not repeat. Those don't, there's not statistics like that for Daniels that stick out from his rookie year that were obviously not going to be repeated. Jaden Daniels in the last eight games of his rookie season,

if you include three playoff games and you remove week 18, which he left early, you know, because it was week 18. He averaged 32.5 fantasy points per game. He was unbelievable. And I do think that is something that all three of the second year busts that we've talked about today had in common. Brian Thomas Jr., Lab McCom. and Jayden Daniels went bonkers in about the last eight games or so.

I think it was about 10 or 11 for McConkey of the 24 season. And I don't think anybody was really drafting them based on those numbers. But obviously, we got extremely excited about it. And, you know, it just didn't work out. But Daniels, to his credit, he wasn't just those games. I mean, he was really good if just look at the full season numbers as a rookie. Okay, Dave, I know you wanted to get into comps for those. No, I don't think we should.

All right, we can do it on our next show. I don't think we should. Why? Because I think we've already gone on long, and I think we covered these guys really well. Okay. So to defending cornerbacks. Thank you, Jamie. Okay, well, we learned that the movie A Mighty Wind has won very memorable line.

Hey, what happened? And we learned, you know what, let's finish with this. Give me these six players, rank them most likely to bounce back in 2026. Nico one. Nico one over Jefferson. Yeah, Nico one, give me Jefferson two. Ladd three, Daniels four, Sequin five, BTJ last. Bounce back in terms of getting back to 2020.

Yeah. or who's most likely to be successful this year? Can we kind of do a hybrid of that? They don't have to bounce all the way back. I'll go Jefferson 1, Niko 2, Barclay 3, Ladd, 4, Jaden 5, and Brian 6. I've Jefferson

Jaden Nico like if we're bouncing back to 24 then I think Sequin's definitely last yeah yeah

no I don't know I feel like Brian and then I'll go Thomas Fifth and I'll put Ladd forth I thought the only consensus we might get would be BTJ last

but that was interesting how you guys especially how you saw Jaden Daniels is Heath I'm kind of with you I thought he'd be pretty high on the most likely to bounce back list

He runs nine times a game. If he's going to run nine times a game, I think we're going to have a pretty damn good. I mean, but right now his receiving core is disastrous. He's coming off significant injuries. He's got a new coordinator. Wait, it's got, it still has McCloran. It's going to be a whole new offense.

Still has McLaurin. I think he's going to be good. I still would like to draft him as a borderline top five quarterback. I just have concerns. Okay. All right. Good show, guys. Thank you, everybody.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a happy Easter out there, and we will talk to you on Wednesday with another edition of Fantasy Football today, and of course we'll be focusing in the coming days and weeks on the NFL draft, getting you acquainted with the prospects.

That's not the only thing we'll be doing, and certainly this in the FFT Dynasty and beyond the box score, you want more information about the incoming rookies. Talk to you next time on Fantasy Football today. On podcasts.