Fantasy Football Today - Young Tight Ends to Watch! Brock Bowers, Dalton Kincaid, Sam LaPorta and More (03/05 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

As we look at tight ends entering their second or third season, there are potentially four who could be Top 12 in our rankings. Brock Bowers, Sam LaPorta, Dalton Kincaid and Tucker Kraft lead the way but we also give some sleepers, breakouts and bust (3:30). Who could be the surprise of the 2025 season? And what will prevent Bowers from being the next Kyle Pitts (5:45)? Is Kincaid more of a sleeper or a bust (9:45)? ... News and notes (16:25) as Saquon Barkley was given a new contract, Tee Higgins was given the franchise tag, Davante Adams was given his release, the Bears were given two new offensive linemen and more ... Discussing LaPorta (25:10) and the rest of the class (32:30) including guys like Tucker Kraft, Theo Johnson, Ben Sinnott, Brenton Strange and Ja'Tavion Sanders ... 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 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

This is fantasy football today from CBS sports It's time to dominate your fantasy league Here's some combination of Adam Dave Jamie and he Well, hello everybody and happy Wednesday here on fantasy Football Today. Adam, Jamie and Heath, Dave will be joining us soon. We're talking about tight ends, young tight ends, years two and three. So Brock Bowers, Dalton Kincaid, Sam Laporta, Tucker Kraft, and then some guys that we have to be hopeful for like Jatavian Sanders, Theo Johnson, and I might be missing someone but we'll find out. There's Theo Johnson and I might be missing someone, but we'll find out.

So, all right. How are we feeling about your two, three tight ends, Heath? Pretty, pretty fantastic. Yeah. Like if you look at the tight end position in Dynasty, I think we're going to talk about the top three tight ends. The top three. You said your two and three, right. The top three. You see your two and three, right?

Uh-huh. So doesn't this include Trey McBride? No, he is your four tight end. He's a year four tight end. Okay, nevermind. Okay, I was like, oh my God, did I forget about Trey McBride? It's a sincere McCormick moment.

Okay, but yes, so just a couple of corrections from recent shows that the audience has been kind enough to email or tweet or YouTube about. I was wrong about Christian McCaffrey. He did not have knee surgery for the PCL. So that's good. So I don't have to freak out about that. And in fact, the 49ers expressed some optimism that he's gonna be fully healthy. And Sincere McCormick, yeah, some people said

he's not a year two running back. Technically, he is not a year two running back. He's only played one year, but he was drafted or he was signed several years ago. So he's what, a year three or four running back, Sincere McCormick. 10, year 10. Year 10, it doesn't matter.

But we did talk about him on the year two running back show. I just don't really agree with the idea that a year should count if you don't appear in any games. Yeah, I remember talking about Travis ETN on the year two. Because he did he missed his whole rookie season basically, right? Like, did he miss all of it? He had the foot injury. He missed most of it. Yes. Yeah, we talked about him on a show like that with a qualifier. So I think it's fine. It's a Cormac.

I'm not I'm not apologizing for sincere record. OK, you can stuff it. All right. Sincerely. Yeah. Years two and three tight ends. Give me a sleeper breakout on a bus. Also, we have a lot of news to get to as well. But give me a sleeper in the year two, three tight end group. Don't can Kate post type sleeper in the year two, three tight end group. Don't concave post type sleeper.

Um, yeah, I guess he might fall to that range. I will say. Jatavian Sanders, Jatavian Sanders. Okay. How about a breakout? Tucker craft. That's the best one. Yeah. I was a little discouraged with Tucker Kraft looking into, because I had actually been kind of, you know,

wahoo, Tucker Kraft, but boy, his target share, not good when Christian Watson was out. Basically, it's the whole thing is, oh, Christian Watson out, whatever. I'm sorry, I'm filibustering here while I pull up my notes. Six games without Christian Watson or with Watson playing less than 50% of the snaps his target share in those games were 16.7 20 14.8 10.3 and then in week 18 with mostly with Malik Willis for like half the game he had a 28 target share and then the playoffs 15.2 so that is less than 17 percent in four of six games

You you should have just said he plays for the Packers Like that's what they nobody gets good target volume in this offense You got a little bit of faith that they're gonna throw the ball more Well, yes, they definitely should they had the third Lowest pass rate in the NFL last year, about 46% pass rate, something like that, extremely low, very out of character. Never a pass heavy team, never a team, I don't think they've been top 10 in pass rate in any year with Matt LaFleur, that's six seasons now. The highest they've ranked is actually 14th, but they're usually more like middle of the pack. All right, so Tucker

Kraft is the potential breakout. Unfortunately, it seems like the Packers are going to add a receiver, so we'll see if we still feel that way. Give me a bust at tight end at this group of your two and three. Don't think it. Power is based on expectations. And that was the main thing I wanted to talk about was Brock

Bowers being a second round pick. And my question to you is what is different about Brock Bowers than Kyle Pitts and Sam Laporta and their second years? I think the expected involvement in the offense and just the prospect that he was and proved to be. Now you could say the same thing about Pitts, the way that he performed in his rookie season, but I think the flaw with Pitts was, and this could be the same for ours, was that the quarterback play fell off so dramatically for the Falcons that it really impacted Pitts in such a horrific way.

Again, I go back to have the conversation with Dr. Smith that offseason, and he said, I'm sorry, not that offseason, going, the going into year three for, for Pits. And he said the difference between year one and year two was they had a veteran quarterback and Matt Wright and the encouraging thing, which is why I think it's a little bit of a, you know, benefit to, to Bowers is the quarterback. It was pretty horrific for the Raiders. Hopefully it gets better. Um, also Brock Bowers was much, much better than Kyle Pitts and Sam Laporta were his rookies. Yeah.

Well, Pitts, yeah, like definitely better than Laporta. He had 44 more catches, 170 more yards and four more touchdowns. Not even in in this than pits, not even in the same ballpark. Yeah, I know. Pits though, did have an amazing rookie season and he was a top five pick. He was, I think the fourth overall pick. He was injured, very injured in his second season and that injury even carried over into his third season. Uh, the last year, I have no excuse, but I think what happened to Kyle

Pitts also was they added Drake London. And as Jamie mentioned, the quarterback play got so much worse. They went from 4000 passing yards in 2021 to 2900 passing yards in 2022. But they added Drake London and that was a big deal. So I wonder if that would matter if if anyone was added of significance for the Raiders. And then the last thing is to say that they had bad quarterback play. It's probably true. I mean, going Minshew, McConnell, Ritter, it wasn't good, but they threw the ball so much last year. They had the fourth most pass attempts in the NFL as the Raiders I'm talking about here. They had the ninth most gross passing yards per game.

So it was actually a pretty good environment for him, especially when Devonte Adams got, he was pretty good before Devonte Adams got traded, but just to think about fourth most pass temps in the NFL, not a ton of target competition, that was great. So I did want to bring that up. They've been linked to Gentie maybe with their first round pick.

Maybe they don't have as good of a passing season as they had in 2024. I think that's actually within the realm of possibility, 4,117 yards and 29 touchdowns, really not bad. I mean, it's a fair point. And look, Chip Kelly is gonna come in and obviously change a lot of things there, but you don't take that job of your Chip Kelly

with the idea of not featuring Brock Bowers who could be, you know, this elite prospect first, who was an elite prospect, lived up to the expectations, hopefully we'll have one of the better tight end careers. It's exciting. It's a very exciting, you know, outlook. Typo. Typo for me. 19 touchdowns, not 29 touchdowns. So that could definitely, yeah, but 4,117 yards is pretty good, but 19 touchdowns is not so good. All right, so we're optimistic about Brock Bowers.

They're gonna add a receiver. I mean, they're not, you know, whether it's a Jacobi Myers upgrade or a Trey Tucker upgrade, they're adding somebody there because they can't go with what they have. Yeah, all right, so anybody else you want to talk about from you want to talk about Dalton Kincaid cause Jamie, you had him as a sleeper and he, if you call them a bust, I just didn't think there was a good bust candidate going into this year.

And he has been the bust of this group, um, for his fantasy football career. I wonder if, like, if we get to the summer and the bills have not added a true number one wide receiver, if the Kincaid hype train starts back up again, and he's a single, like if he's a single digit rounds pick, then I would think he's more of a bust than a sleeper. I would lean that way also. I think the hope is the former and not the latter, you know, so that they don't add somebody and there's still the disdain for him that pushes him down to being a later round guy.

And I think you're going to see most rank lists where maybe the earliest or the, the, the highest will be ranked is like 10, you know, depending on how things shake out with the position, who ends up where. But I think you got to look into, you know, just one thing with him was that he said he played with two knee injuries. You know, one we know that he missed time. One was, I don't know if it was the absence or, you know, the one he came back and he was playing through a torn PCL or a partially torn PCL. I don't know if it was the absence or the one he came back and he was playing through, a torn PCL or a partially torn PCL. I don't remember the exact details of it, but I know it was a PCL injury.

The hope would be is that that's the next evolution of this offense is that you start to feature him maybe a little bit more. You're starting to see, I think, how this offense could look because they extend Shakir, they invested in Keon Coleman last year. Are they going to be aggressive in a very bad free agent class or is it going to be another rookie? Or as they showed us last year, they went out and they made a trade for a veteran guy that clearly did not help them. So there's a lot of ways that this bill's receiving core can look once we get to September. But I think right now, if you're looking at their building blocks,

I still think Kinkade's a building block. Just a matter of can he fulfill the expectations that were probably too high for him last year and maybe start to be just lower expectations but better production. One thing that surprised me a little bit, so he played nine games and then he injured his knee in the 10th game of the season

then he missed a little bit of time. It's all in Kinkade. So in those first nine games, he missed a little bit of time. Dalton Kincaid. So in those first nine games, he actually led the team in targets. He had 54 targets. Khalil Shakir had 45, Keon Coleman had 36. Unfortunately, you know, the production just wasn't even close. Like, Khalil Shakir had nine fewer targets, but he had 139 more yards than Dalton Kincaid. Even Keon Coleman had a lot more yards than Dalton Kincaid. Even Keon Coleman had a lot more yards than Dalton Kincaid. So he wasn't doing that much with the targets. And then when he

came back, another thing that I guess I wasn't quite aware of, he didn't really play that much. He played 24% of the snaps in week 10, then he got hurt. Then he came back, played 49%, 34%, 44% of the snaps in the next three games to end the regular season, and then 38.2% to the snaps in the next three games to end the regular season. And then thirty eight point two percent to fifty one percent in the playoffs. So this is a guy that I can't remember someone else. I think it was like Jalen Waddle.

We were talking about that last year. He didn't play that many snaps. Dalton Cade also at least second half of the season. He was on the field like less than half of the time. He wasn't healthy. Yeah. Well, that happened at the end of his rookie year too. He was 60, 70% a lot of the season and then down the stretch in his rookie year, it was

40 and 50% in the playoffs. It was 50%. Really? And that's the kind of a difference between Bowers also and Kinkade or Kyle Pitts is that Bowers is pretty much a full-time player, like he, I think he played 85% of their offensive snaps last year. That's way more than what Kyle Pitts plays. That's way more than what Dalton Kincaid plays.

One of the things that I came away with just for researching this show was I cannot believe, I could not believe Kyle Pitts' career. After the rookie year he had, because he averaged over two yards per route run as a rookie tight end, which is insane. And Bowers did too, I believe, but Pitts was a little bit better. And then to just fall off like this

is really mind blowing to me. But all right, so well, that's an introduction to today's topic. We'll do some news and notes. We'll come back and talk about, you know, guys who have a chance for a big second season maybe. You talked about Jutavey and Sanders, maybe Theo Johnson. You don't want to know about his yards per outrun though. And everything- what'd you say?

Ben Sinnett. Ben Sinnett. Absolutely. He's on the list. We'll talk about that. Now we got to remind you we're going to have a bracket challenge. Once the NCAA tournament field is set, we'll have the bracket challenge. You can join it. If you win our bracket challenge, you're in the podcast league, the 14 team PPR podcast league, unless Jamie's given away all the spots, which he usually does. But no, you'll be in the podcast. I did three leagues on my own. You did. I appreciate that. And also it's a great time to be watching CBS Sports HQ. Just get you ready for March Madness,

but also everything else going on. Spring training, NFL combine, NFL free agency, NFL draft of course, NBA, NHL, golf, everything. CBS Sports HQ on the CBS Sports app. We'll be right back on fantasy football today. Welcome back. News and notes. A lot coming out for the Bengals. They have franchise tagged T Higgins. By the way, two

players franchise tagged. I think it's the fewest in almost 30 years. Yeah. 30 years, 31 years. So there you go. So that's T Higgins for the Bengals and Trey Smith, offensive guard for the Chiefs. So the Bengals and the Chiefs are gonna have until July 15th to get a long-term deal done with Higgins and Smith respectively, or otherwise they will play on the one-year franchise tag. Bengals also released guard Alex Cappa and their offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said

that the team might sign a bigger running back, get some more physicality in the off season. The Eagles gave Saquon Barkley a two-year $41.2 million extension with $36 million guaranteed. The Jets released Devante Adams. That's going to save them nearly $30 million in cap space. They're also allowing Alan Lazard to seek a trade. That seems unlikely. He'll probably get released as well, Alan Lazard.

The Seahawks, according to ESPN, are likely to release Tyler Lockett soon unless they can work out a restructure. Sam Darnold is a free agent. The Vikings did not franchise tag Sam Darnold. And it seems like a lot just a lot of buzz about the Giants right now. I don't want to make us a giant show, but they're going to be making some moves. They're going to probably sign a veteran quarterback next week and then a lot of buzz about them trading up to number one to get Cam Ward. The Saints released Jamal Williams.

The Bears, all right, this is big Jamie. What do you think about the Bears? They've now traded, well, will have traded for two offensive linemen, Jonah Jackson from the Rams for a sixth round pick and Joe Tooney from the Chiefs for a fourth round pick. Did we say that fourth round pick was 2026? Yep. Okay.

So it's a 2025 sixth for Jonah Jackson and a 2026 fourth for Joe Tooney. But pretty big deal. I'd say. What do you think? I think it's great. You know, I mean, that's clearly one of the biggest issues that they had last season was protecting Caleb Williams. So you go out and you get a head coach who everybody thinks has a chance to be, you know, good at, you know, it's certainly going to improve the offense, you know, based on what Ben Johnson did as the offense coordinator for Detroit. And what was the biggest success for the Lions?

What was the offensive line? You know, and so you can, uh, you can look at it and say it's a win for Caleb. It's a win for DJ Moore and Roma Dunze and potentially a big win for Deandre Swift if he remains the starting running back there. So, uh, I'm going to guess they're not done either, you know, because this wasn't a lot of big investments. It's a, it's a big investment money wise, because they're going to pay those guys. But to go and spend these two type of draft picks on players that still have an

opportunity to be contributors right away. I think it's a great job by, by Ryan Pulse. He's on the other side of it. Are we concerned about the chiefs offensive line now losing Joe Tooney and needing a left tackle? Yeah, we'll see. Maybe. I think that they couldn't afford to pay Creed Humphreys and Trey Smith and Joe Tooney. So they chose the young guys. They can probably fix the guard thing. What

we're concerned about is left tackle. I think what we saw in the Super Bowl is that the plan to go with a mediocre left guard and Joe Tooney at left tackle is not a good enough plan. So that they're gonna have to find a better option at left tackle. If they don't, then yeah, it's a big concern. Okay. To the point where you would drop someone, Mahomes, Pacheco or whatever, in your rankings? It's gonna be hard to be as excited about the running game. But I wasn't very excited about the running game anyway. And my homes was QB five or six. So I don't, I don't know how much you can drop in from that just because

the potential upside does exist. Um, we'll just have to see. Okay. Uh, the Cowboys resigned defensive tackle OSA at Digizua to a four year, $80 million deal, 58 million guaranteed. And the Eagles released two defensive backs that have been pretty instrumental for them in their successful run, Darius Slay and James Bradbury.

Bradbury kind of not so much lately, but had at least one really good year for them. All right, back to the year two and three tight ends. Anything you guys wanna add on Bowers? When's the earliest you would take Brock Bowers? Early round two. 13. Would you rather have Brock Bowers,

I guess I should ask this, Bowers or McBride? Bowers. Bowers over McBride. But they're both round two picks for me. Yep. How come Bowers over McBride? Bowers. Bowers or McBride. But they're both round two picks for me. Yep. How come Bowers over McBride? I think based on his rookie season and the hope that the quarterback play will be better. Look, McBride can easily be a 10 touchdown guy, but that's clearly been something that's

been a problem for him. So at some point that has to change. And we saw the really the concerted effort to make that possible at the end of the season once you know, he finally got in the end zone, they didn't stop just because he got one. But I think Bowers just again, elite level prospect that proved it in his rook proved it in his rookie season, and hopefully continues to ascend in year two. So I just like the upside slightly better.

Yep. Okay. Hey, Schaefer, can we get a YouTube poll real quick here? McBride versus Bauer's YouTube poll. I'd love to know how the audience feels about this in the draft. They always seem to go back to back. In the draft we did a couple of weeks ago, McBride went with the eighth pick of round two. No, sorry.

Bauer's won with the eighth pick of round two, McBride the ninth pick of round two. So back to back there. I think that's going to be the norm. You see one come off the board. The other one will probably follow pretty soon after some players that went in the same range. Drake London. Just take the tight ends.

AJ Brown. Brown. Yeah. Josh Jacobs. Titans. Depends what I did in round one, but probably the Titans. Christian McCaffrey. Titans.

McCaffrey. Didn't have surgery, just so you know. Appreciate that. Did they heal his tendonitis? I... Yeah, yes. I don't believe they did. Okay, we got the YouTube poll up. So I'll keep track on the results.

Well, the tendonitis was healed in Germany. The ACL was the knee injury. I'm sorry, not the ACL. The knee injury was in America. Yeah. And I trust our doctors on the knee, not so much tendonitis, I guess. I'm going to vote here. Which tight end you prefer in 2025? I'm going to go with Bowers. Ooh, he's crushing it right now, but only 14 votes. I was expecting like an 85-15 split.

That's exactly what it is. It's 86-14 right now. 87 15 split. Yeah, same. That's exactly what it is. It's 86 14 right now, 87 13. Okay. Wow. Really? Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, yeah. You seem like really surprised by the fact that Brock Bowers is the clear consensus tight end one.

Well, I actually do think that 4,100 passing yards I might take the under. You've got a head coach that's been, you know, pretty run heavy in his career. And you've got it. I do think right now the season starts, I could probably go Bowers, but I expect them to upgrade at wide receiver. And I definitely expect them upgraded running back. That's the thing. They had no run game last year. So, but would it surprise you if the Cardinals at a receiver? At a receiver on dates in the round three or later now in the first two or again, you know, it could be, um, you know, a second or third tier free agent. you know, it could be, you know, a second or third tier free agent. Uh, yeah. But if they add a receiver, I think if, if either team adds a receiver,

it probably would impact the Raiders more than the Cardinals. Like the Cardinals have their top two guys and the Raiders have their top one guy and then could upgrade over. Were you saying the Cardinals top two guys, Michael Wilson? No, I'm sorry. I mean, McBride and Harrison. Yeah. And now I'm rambling. Okay.

Uh, look at that. A Marvin Harrison guy. Some may argue that Myers and Bowers is better. Yeah, they might. Let's talk about Sam Laporta and what we expect from him. So Sam Laporta went from the number, I think one tight end overall in 2023, not per game. Yeah, number one tight end overall, number three per game in PPR, number two per game in non PPR in 2023.

He had 120 targets. He had 10 touchdowns, 889 yards. 2024, he was the number seven tight end overall, number nine per game in PPR, number eight per game in non-PPR. He went down from 120 targets to 83 targets in one fewer game, and lost about 150 yards or so and three touchdowns, but he finished strong.

So, do you think he finished strong. So. So do you think he finishes closer to tight end one or tight end seven? So. Are you guys feeling it? I think that my concern is that just like both years, his yardage, like his 17 game pace for his career is 832 receiving yards. His best was 889 in his rookie year. He has thrived in fantasy because he scored 17 touchdowns in 33 games. And I am a little bit concerned that without Ben Johnson, this team's going to score fewer touchdowns. And that could impact relatively Laporta and David Montgomery more than it does

anybody else. Hey, Dave. What's up guys? So let me give you guys some values. Tell me what the best value is. Rock Bowers in round two, Sam Laporta in round five, Dalton Kincaid in round 10. Bowers. Bowers. Agreed. And how do we feel about Laporta in round five? Fine with it. I think that we've talked about this a lot the last few years on this show that that is the range

except for Kittle last year, but that is the range where we've made about this a lot the last few years on this show, that that is the range and what, except for Kittle last year, but that is the range where we've made a lot of mistakes at the tight end position. Um, that not great drafting the elite tier and going for the second tier. And so I'm probably going to be out there at that cost. I think I will be too. Where's Nujoku going? Uh, well in this draft, he was, Nujoku was the last pick of round six. Yeah.

I would have similar expectations for Nujoku as I would for Laporta. In fact, I think the Joku in full PPR is going to be notably better than Laporta. So I'd rather wait the extra round for Nujoku. Well, I know it's tough to rely on touchdowns, but for Leporta, he's been a very reliable end zone guy. He's either led the team in end zone targets, two straight years, or he was one behind the leader in end zone targets.

So that is someone that golf looks to in the end zone. We know it's going to be a great off. Well, we think it's going to be a great offense. I do have a new offensive coordinator, but it should be really good. great off. Well, we think it's going to be a great offense. I do have a new offensive coordinator, but it should be really good. And then I think they'll throw more than they did last season. They were very well, they were 26 and pass rate and it kind of threw they threw a lot late in the year. And

Laporta was fantastic late in the year. So the port so you'd say in a joku over Laporta Dave and full PPR. Yes. Yes. I think another big question is, is, is Jameson Williams role done expanding or is his, is his role still growing in the office? That's a great point. Is Jamir Gibbs role expanding as a receiver. Yeah.

I'd be surprised. Okay. I mean, he, he proved to be quite a catalyst for that offense toward the end of the year and then when Montgomery was out, you can't unsee what he did in those games, I would imagine that there would be an effort made to get the ball in his hands more. But they had the same situation as a rookie when Montgomery missed time. And it's not like Gibbs entered the season getting

dramatically more work. And early in the season, while clearly the the coordinator change may throw all this, you know, in a different direction. Montgomery was out catching Gibbs. Montgomery was, yeah, that is true. By the way, Dave, Bowers or McBride for you. Bowers. 30 votes, 77% for Bowers, 23 for McBride. All right, well, I think that basically concludes

our Sam Laporta talk. I'll give you some other names that went around Sam Laporta in our most recent draft. Would you rather have Sam Laporta? Oh, actually, Sam Laporta, Jameson Williams. They went two picks apart. Laporta. Yeah, but they're both a little early for me. I will say Jameson if it's a three receiver league, Laporta if it's a two receiver league slash tight end premium league. Sam Laporta or Roma Dunze? Laporta. Sam. Okay. And I see what the bears do in the next couple of months.

Nope. You have to answer now and that has to be your answer all the way through September. I'm going to go with Rome. So is there any question that if the Ravens trade or release Mark Andrews that you'd have likely ahead of Laporta? Where would you do that in that case? Likely ahead of Laporta. I won't have likely ahead of Laporta, but likely will be way up there. I wish he were a year three tight end instead of a year four. I would have loved to have talked about likely,

but the rules are the rules. We are not allowed to talk about Isaiah likely on this show. I am sorry. We do have to get his own show in, in when Mark Andrews has cut. Let's take one more. Yes, he will.

Let's take one more break. By the way, next week's gonna be a big fun week on this show. Lot of, lot of movement trades, free agency, obviously, you know, it's gonna be a big week. So we'll be with you. I hope so. It feels like it could be a little bit of a slow week though. Jamie, you gotta sell it. You gotta try to sell it. No, no, no. I'm just being realistic though. Like, there's not a lot of big free agent

receivers. And the running backs may not sign right away. It's such a bad agency. The quarterbacks are gonna be big. Yeah, those are gonna be the big dominoes. All right, we will take a break. When we come back, let's talk about Brenton Strange and Tucker Kraft and Theo Johnson and Jatavian Sanders and Ben Sinnett after this on FFT. Okay.

How do you rank Tucker Kraft, Theo Johnson, Jatavian Sanders? Craft, enormous space, Sanders and then Theo Johnson. Kraft, Sanders and then Theo Johnson. Yep. That's Sanders Johnson. Does everybody agree that there's an enormous space? As of now? Yes. Yes. Big enough to fit the O Johnson.

I have Tucker craft as a top 10 tight end. I know, but can't you see a scenario? I could easily see a scenario where, or those guys are better than Tucker craft. I mean, again, he, he didn't really do that much. One thing I did like about Tucker Craft is his yak. Oh my gosh, I've talked about this before, but he had one of the most incredible yak seasons that you're ever gonna see from a tight end.

He averaged, I think, over nine yards after the catch. He had 9.1 yards after the catch per reception. So that's pretty cool. And last year, his first year in the league, he averaged 7.5 on only 31 catches. But there might be something there. He might have some playmaking ability. But as Heath said earlier, he plays for the Packers. Whereas Jatavian Sanders, I think, has a pretty good path to Targets. I mean, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he were second on the team

in Targets. He had some, you know, hit some good moments last year. I mean, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he were second on the team in targets. He had some, you know, hit some good moments last year, not a lot to go on, but tight end is a position that's full of surprises. So I think Theo Johnson have all the hard times seeing it with, but Sanders, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I like Sanders, I think he has a lot of potential.

And the difference between what Dave said, tied in 10 and tied in 20 is like the difference between maybe nine and a half fantasy points per game and seven and a half. So yeah, it wouldn't be that surprising if the guy we thought was going to score nine and a half scored eight instead. I think for both of these guys, it's touchdowns. You know, we're not talking about guys that are gonna get a lot of catches targets yards You know, that's just not the profile of their offense is not the profile of what they've shown You know at least one year for Sanders two years for Kraft

I think the difference is is that like you said Kraft is in an offense that we've seen When they featured him He's done some nice things the coach comes out this off season and speaks specifically about getting him more involved. There's going to be a receiver that's missing right off the bat with Watson based on his injury. And even though Adam, you know, the, the, the research that you have of that craft was not at his best when Watson was missing. I'll go back to what I said previously. Like the hope would be is that they're throwing the ball a little bit more, you know, whether it's, you know, 10% more 15, 20% more. I think a lot of it, you know, and I don't know if you have this data in front of you because you're giving the full season pass rate. Like what was their

pass rate Malik Willis versus Jordan Love and how healthy was Jordan Love throughout the course of the season? You know, maybe he wasn't fully health until the end of the year and their offense was just working well in a different direction because Josh Jacobs was so successful. Again, do they go back to maybe a little bit more balanced to what has been the norm for the floor and sort of what was working for them 2023 when Jordan Love was fantastic and we all thought, okay, here comes this potential breakout quarterback that's just immaterialized. Yeah, I compared the Packers to the Eagles actually, because both teams after their buy

went incredibly run heavy. The Eagles buy was in week five. The Packers buy was in week 10 or 11. But then after that, it was all Jordan Love. Jordan Love did not throw more than 30 passes the entire second half. What's that? All Josh Jacobs.

All Josh Jacobs. Jordan Love did not throw 30 passes, more than 30 passes the entire second half of the season. They were still 30th in pass rate and they had an even lower pass rate after their bye week. And then he threw 33 passes against the Eagles and a loss in the playoffs. So they're playing from behind. So they went super run heavy regardless of who the quarterback was. Again, yeah, I think it was surprising. It's just, it's not, it's not Sean Mc, it's not Matt LaFleur's MO. He's usually kind of a middle of the pack pass rate guy. They

usually have a top 12 ish offense. That's pretty reliable. It's a, it's a really good offense. And that, that is exciting. But can he stand out in the offense? Tucker Kraft? I don't know. Can Jutavey and Sanders stand out in the Carolina offense? I think I'm obviously I would take Kraft ahead of Sanders. I'm a little more optimistic about upside. I would say that Sanders has more upside. And that might sound crazy, but I never judge a rookie tight end. I never judge a tight end on what they did as a rookie, right? That's like, look at some of the great tight ends. They had quiet rookie seasons. But just in terms of being able to get to like 100 targets,

I would think that Sanders has more chance of that than Kraft. Yeah. I mean, look, yeah, there's, I don't think Tucker Kraft is going from nine and a half, whatever he averaged last year points per game to 15. No, 13. That's all you know, like he's going to be a 10 and a half to 11 and a half guy to have

a breakout season. Yeah. I think for Sanders, like, can he get to nine and a half? Well, like to me, Tucker Kraft feels a lot more like what we thought Jake Ferguson would be like a good reliable low end starting option, you know, someone that you can settle for on drafting. Sandra is the type of guy you're taking if you already drafted your tight end with the hope that there's a lot more off.

Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of what I was trying to say. Yeah. All right. What do we think about Theo Johnson, Dave? I will tell you this about Theo Johnson. Oh, please.

For your yards per route run, guys. 53 rookie tight ends with 40 or more targets since 2006. Theo Johnson ranked 51st, third worst yard per route run rate, 0.91 yards. The only guys who were worse than him were Eric Ebron and Cade Otten as rookies. But then they both became respectable in terms of yards per outrun. But in that regard, it was a pretty horrible year for Theo Johnson. I don't know how much we can even take from it, but what do you think about him? I don't even know what his role will be in this offense. Does he have a prayer of being the number two target getter for the Giants?

I don't see a path to that. We know who number one is going to be. And we might not love Wandel Robinson. He might be like a guy that we talk about off the waiver wire at some point during the year for what seems like the third or fourth year in a row. But I think that there are some significant blockers. This is a team that could add another wide receiver as well. I don't see a path for Theo Johnson to be an impactful fantasy tight end. He's absolutely in that bucket of you throw a dart on him with a late pick, probably more so in tight end premium leagues than in a regular fantasy league, and you give him one or two weeks and if he does nothing, you cut them. Okay. Does anybody think that Evan Ingram or Zach Earths

will be on a different team or retired, but not really, but. Earths, no. Ingram, yes. You think, you think they're going to release Ingram? I think they will either trade or release Evan Ingram. There's a chance for both. You know, really everything comes down to what the commanders think of Synet. They think you could fill that role. And Brenton, I bring this up because of Brenton Strange and Ben Synet, but Dave wants to talk

about those guys and what kind of potential they might have. Strange showed some flashes when Evan Ingram was out last year. I think the coaching staff in Jacksonville likes him. And I think if Evan Ingram leaves and they don't do anything to really address the tight end position, you can look at Brenton Strange as another one of those guys that you'll take with a lay around pick. I might be more interested in him than Jatavian Sanders. That one I'm writing in pencil. We'll see. As far as the other guy goes, I think Ertz proved to be a good security blanket for Jayden Daniels. And I'm not sure if the commanders are going to be in a hurry to let somebody like that go,

If the commanders are going to be in a hurry to let somebody like that go, particularly if they can re-sign Ertz for cheap. If he takes a cheap one-year deal to stay on, it gives them another 365 days to get Synet ready to go. They could sprinkle Synet in more in that offense. I'm worried that he's going to be more of like an H back than the type of tight end that Zach Ertz has been. And that would mean that we're not going to ever see Senate be a huge fantasy asset. Okay. So if Ertz were, if Ertz were released or didn't come back, uh, would any, who would

rank Senate ahead of Jatavian Sanders and Theo Johnson? If they let Ertzko, they don't add anybody else to tie it in. Yeah. That's an easy one. That's them telling you that they think synod's ready and that he's not an H back. So, yeah, sit it. I mean, the guy was a second round pick. He has, you know, pretty good prospects. was a second round pick. He

You know pretty good prospect we seem to like him. I think the Zach Ertz here was definitely a surprise But I think the thing with Ertz is now how much does Debo Samuel in their mind? Replace what Ertz is able to do. Yeah. Yeah Okay, well anything else you guys want to say about this class? No, I actually have to go. So, oh, fine. Whatever. I don't need them. Bye, Jamie. How about you guys? Anything else? How's your day going? Day is super. What did you have for breakfast?

What did I have? I had a protein shake. Uh, I had some bread with butter. And that's it. Kind of a light day for me. Some sausage. What's going on where you're asking, why are you wasting time? We are done with the show.

There's nothing else to talk about. So this is a good time for you to remind people to like and subscribe. Maybe there's somebody watching us for the first time. If so, welcome. Okay. And you can subscribe for free to our channel. When we get to 110,000 subscribers, we promise to do a live Q&A. Adam said so. No. He knows it. Adam loves the live Q and A's of 110 questions. 110, do we not have that yet? We, I don't, are we at 110,000? 109, 109K.

And so that means that if everybody who subscribes tells one friend who's not in a fantasy league with them to subscribe to our show, where we give fantasy advice four times a week, three times a week during the off season plus dynasty advice. You know, I would, we've had 118,000. You have been talking. And then we'd have to do a 218 question live stream. You've been talking for like a minute and a half. And all I want to hear about is the sausage patty,

the red meat poison that Heath eats for breakfast every day. sausage patty, the red meat poison that Heath eats for breakfast every day. Red meat is wonderful for you, especially if you get it from the right place. But this, we were actually chicken sausage. Oh, okay. Okay. So was not red meat. Very processed though. I mean, very. I did have some, some chicken breakfast American breakfast sausage that was not too processed. And some protein French toast sticks. Okay. Oh, I know what I wanted to talk to Heath about. I love that Adam wanted to hear about Heath's sausage. Yes.

What was I saying? Oh, Landman. Yes. You watching that? Yes, I'm done with it. I just started. It's really, really, really fantastic. We need to get Taylor Sheridan on our show. CBS fan.

100% He's got nothing else going on. He would come on and try to tell us what one of the shows is about and you would disagree with him and tell him that he didn't know what the show that he made was about. Anyway, watch Land Man on Paramount Plus. It's very good. So good. All right.

I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started.

I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I what the show that he made was about. Anyway, watch Land Man on Paramount Plus. It's very good. All right. We're out of here. We'll see you on FFT Express. For those of you who are watching live and want to hop on over to that show for Heath and Dave and Jamie and Thomas, I'm Adam. Talk to you tomorrow on Venice and Football News. The Paramount Podcasts.