NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 72. Drafting The NFL's 2022 Receiving Leader

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers are back for another dueling draft, this time to crown the next receiving leader in the NFL. The two go back and forth snake draft style to form their group they believe has the best chance to lead the league in receiving yards this season

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It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com slash BS, device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. In this episode, we are mock drafting, snake drafting against one another. Who is going to lead the NFL in receiving yards this year? I can't call it the wide receiver champion because there's a chance that we get a couple of tight ends here in these top fives. But essentially what we're going to do is go back and

forth snake draft style picking out of the pool of NFL players who could potentially lead the NFL in receiving yards. Pretty straightforward. We're going to have a scoring system that we'll announce to you guys during the episode. We'll be able to keep score of it. And at the end of the year, see who wants, see who is better at predicting who the best wide receivers in the NFL were going to be. So fantasy football people, what's up? Glad to have you with us on this episode. I'm Trevor Sykema. With me as always is Connor Rogers. Let's ring the bell. Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast. I'm Trevor Sikama. That is Connor Rogers.

We have a very special Mock Draft Monday format for you guys today. It's a combination of a lot of things, Connor. It's NFL hype. It's fantasy football hype. We're getting a little bit of rookie draft hype in here at the end, but what we're doing, me and you going back and forth, snake draft style, trying to pick the next wide receiver champion. Who is going to finish with the most receiving yards in the NFL this season?

We got Cooper Cup, who is the reigning champion, who could be a very high selection in this draft here, but plenty of other really great names to choose from. It's a great way to highlight a fun position. I'll say that. A very well-known position that a lot of people have a lot of opinions on. So, Connor, I'm excited to get it going with you here. I am too.

This is really good timing as a lot of people are preparing for their fantasy drafts. A lot of people want to hear about not just the rookies, which we do a lot of on this show, but the young ascending talent in the league. And I think wide receiver is kind of reigns supreme being that position where there are guys under 25 that sit amongst the top 10 in the league and i think you and i just like going head to head on any kind of football challenge we can come up with so this is this one's a layup but it'll be pretty fun no it's gonna be a lot of fun you know else I'm going to really enjoy about this episode in particular? Everybody has takes on wide receiver.

My goodness. Everybody has takes on wide receiver, whether it's their favorite wide receiver on their team or just this guy's better than this guy. Nothing gets the people going, if you will, to quote Blades of Glory, like a good old wide receiver ranking so i think that this is gonna be hard to be wrong like there's so many good wide receivers did you see that they asked cooper cup to rank his top five wide receivers and he didn't put himself oh wow which is like the humility i mean it's cooper cup like really humble dude the confidence

yeah it was just that's it was just kind of funny because nine out of ten wide receivers always put themselves that's the wide receiver way man you gotta it's just great for you yourself at number one right yeah so man it's it's a funny position um obviously we've been pretty spoiled the last couple drafts with this position and some of the names you're gonna hear today obviously you know are are from these recent classes as well okay before we before we get it going here i want to have a little bit of fun can you pull up the past wide receiver champions over the last you know whatever like i've got a pro football reference up and it shows who's won this title over the last couple years i just want to go through like this list of names and see if anybody super stands out to you,

like you remember a certain season. I got it out. Dude, 2010, I totally forgot about this. Brandon Lloyd, age 29, won the wide receiver title that year in 2010. I totally forgot. And it's incredible when you look at the brandon lloyd sandwich of this the two years before he won it andre johnson won it the two years after he won it calvin johnson won it so in between an like an elite andre johnson and calvin johnson brandon

lloyd won this award. Wait a second. Bro, do you know who is quarterback of the Denver Broncos in 2010? Take a guess. Take a guess. Oh, man. Is it Jake the Snake or is that too? Or no. It was not Jake the Snake.

That's too late. You knew it had to be before Peyton, right? Yeah, yeah. Which means it's somebody kind of random. Kyle Orton, brother. Kyle Orton. My God. Kyle Orton and Tim Tebow were the two quarterbacks of this team.

That's right. Tebow came in at that point. This is unbelievable, okay? Brandon Lloyd had over 1,400 yards. He had 1,448 receiving yards on 77 catches that's it dude our average almost 20 yards a catch insane this is a deal this is kyle orton and tim tebow's stats that year tim tebow he only he only started in three games he had five touchdowns three interceptions and threw for 654 yards so that wasn't a lot so you go okay like kyle orton had to do most of the heavy lifting he did but kyle orton only threw for 3 653 yards

20 touchdowns so it's like they're only force feeding brandon lloyd this this actually might be the uh the most impressive out of everybody i'm i'm you know what brandon lloyd's wide receiver title more impressive than Calvin Johnson's. No, I'm just kidding. Calvin almost 2000 receiving yards in 2012, Josh Gordon. Yeah.

13. At least we forget. Yeah. Unreal. Josh Gordon era. Dude, the Brandon Lloyd season falls into those weird football things of like, where did this come from?

Because the year before that, he only had 117 yards and he'd never topped he never topped his biggest season was 733 and that and he never had a thousand yard year besides that i don't think so it's one of those like you know the gary barnage thing like gary barnage had a thousand yard season in 2015 before that he never topped 250 yards and after that he only played one more year where he had 612 yards so like the nfl is so funky like that it's kind of like baseball starting pitchers sometimes you have guys just like have this insane year when the and they don't really ever do anything ever again that can be at times the wide receiver tight end position i'm scrolling all the way down here because I was like hmm I

wonder when the last time somebody won the wide receiver award with less than a thousand yards was 1977 Drew Pearson Dallas Cowboys 870 yards won the wide receiver title and i think that was isn't that the only person to oh no 1959 before him so it's like really obviously there's a massive gap yeah but then we get into then we get into like super old early era of football where the very first person to win the wide receiver title 1932 rayty, 350 receiving yards. I mean, Jamar Chase basically had that in one game half a month. Yeah.

Oh my God. And this guy's winning the wide receiver title. I do think it's very interesting that from 1938 to 1944, someone named Don won that award every single year. Don Hudson. Yeah. Don Looney. Wait, Don Looney was right single year. Don Hudson. Yeah. Don Looney. Wait, Don Looney was right in the middle of it.

So it's, wait, we still keep the Don train going. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven years in a row, somebody named Don won the wide receiver title. And now that name, like, you never see that name ever. And don't forget, Don Maynard won it in 67 from Naaman. I want your kid to be a star wide receiver. Don. Name him Don.

Donnie. Donnie, straight out the womb. I mean, it's just destined to be destined for greatness. It is a funny award because obviously it's superstars for the most part. But you got the Brandon Lloyd. You got the Josh Gordon season. It's traditionally a magical year, that Josh Gordon season. Oh, it was insane.

It's generally won by somebody in that age 26 to 28 range. Cooper Cupp was just 28 when he did it. Diggs, 26 the year before. Michael Thomas, 26 the year before that. But we have some guys this year that i take a stab at that i take a little run at that yep we do like i said uh there are three guys in this list the last three winners are the wide receiver champions he had michael thomas in 2019 it's stefan digs the year after that and then he had cooper cup uh last year

i mean all three of those guys could still be selections in this draft and and with that being said let's get it kicked off do you want to pick first you want to pick second i'll give you the i'll give you the the dealer's choice here whether you want to be first snake draft remember always snake draft so you pick second you also pick third who you going with there what do you want oh man a lot of pressure a lot of pressure i'll pick first. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was about to be mad, but I don't know who you're going to pick here. I'm going to pick Justin Jefferson.

You, come on, man. Come on. You thought I was going to take Chase. I thought you were going to pick Cooper Cupp. Okay, no. No, there's anything we've learned about this award, and Cupp is unbelievable, and he's going to be just fine this year. God damn, dude. I mean, we haven't had a repeat since Calvin Johnson in 2011 and 2012. award and cup is unbelievable and he's going to be just fine this year god damn dude i mean we

haven't had a repeat since calvin johnson in 2011 and 2012 haven't had a repeat since don and yeah or don i mean so and calvin is you know one of one so i'm not gonna number one overall pick i'm not gonna pick a repeat guy and justin jefferson was the guy i was hinting at one of the guys i was hinting at when i said this is an award that you know guys are 26 to 28 he's 23 years old and he just turned 23 in june which is just bananas how young this guy is and uh many years he would have won it last year he had over 1600 yards but a guy named cooper cup chased 2000 so yeah i think this is just who justin jefferson is i think he's a target monster i think he's a great player i don't think he ever has to come off the field he's somebody that has flexibility

inside and outside last year 68.4 percent of his snaps out wide and 31% in the slot. I like that flexibility that you can move him around the field. This is an offense that will move him around the field. I like the matchup with his new head coach and O'Connell there. It's kind of a recipe for perfection to have a mammoth year. Statistically, when you look at him being the dude and Trevor, like we know, you know,

Adam Thielen has aged over the years, but they also, as we all do, as we all do, they also quietly lost another big target monster that offense and Tyler Conklin, a guy that caught 61 passes last year. So Justin Jefferson, who's already exploded his first two years in the NFL that that target share can go even higher. So this to me was, I don't want to call this a no-brainer because there's so many viable options to pick number one overall but he was the

one I was the most excited about I it's going to be the Justin Jefferson show this season it really is and he was also the player that I would have went with first overall if you're picking who's going to finish with the most receiving yards in the NFL this season you just look at the setup and you mentioned it Adam Thielen he's getting older they lost some other receiving weapons on that team Justin Jefferson he's young but also the way in which he wins is something that really encourages me for him to continue to have that kind of success maybe it's not going to be more than 1600 yards but like you mentioned 1600 yards could have won that award in many years past so even if he has that same kind of output he's going to put himself right there in the conversation

i think the vikings defense is going to take a little bit of a step back so i think he's going to be more throwing they're going to have to continue to be aggressive throughout the entirety of the game justin jefferson is going to be the player who is going to reap those benefits his route running his separation his confidence as a wide receiver are just, they're all so incredible at a young age already with the third year in the NFL. So I agree with you. I think that Justin Jefferson is a great pick. He's who I would have taken at number one, number two. It's so funny because you take Justin Jefferson off the board.

And my immediate thought is like, okay, who am I going to go with one and two? And I go, okay, these are probably the best two options. then I go ah wait but I'm leaving this guy on the board and I'm gonna have to say that no matter what no matter what is the case I'm gonna have to say that so I'm gonna go with Cooper Cup I was not going to pick up number one because I am worried about Stafford's arm. I really am. I'm worried about it.

He had off-season surgery, and they said that, okay, like his arm, his elbow specifically, he's got pain in his elbow. And they thought that it was going to really help him out and he was going to be in a better place as we got to this point, this close to the season starting, and he's not. He's still bothered by that elbow, it seems, and it just seems like it's going to be in a better place as we got to this point this close to the season starting and he's not he's still bothered by that elbow it seems and it just seems like it's going to be something that he's going to have to play with I think Stafford himself even said he's not betting on being pain-free by the time the season starts so that really worries me because if you take Stafford off of that team the depth chart isn't something that is going to wow you. However, I can't not take Cooper cup here in the top three selections because of obviously what he did last year, how incredible he is at his craft,

how he's going to continue to be one of those best separation artists in the NFL. And when you can be such a great route runner, no matter who's your quarterback, you have a chance to have, well, it's not a chance. The preference would be that they look your way, that you're going to be the guy who's always going to get open. So even if Stafford's not there, Los Angeles Rams still got to throw the football. Who are they going to throw it to? I know that Allen Robinson's there, but I think Allen Robinson would be the one who would,

whose production would get hurt more if Stafford is not available than Cooper Cup. I think that what he brings to the table and how he brings it to the table will allow him to put up some monster stats there. So I got to pick Cooper Cup, the reigning champ. I know his name's middle name. Well, I don't know. Maybe his middle name's Don, and we might be able to get a repeat winner here

if that's the case, hit a technicality. But my third pick, my next guy going back to back, I'm going to go with Devontae Adams. There's so many different wide receivers i could have gone with but i am so excited i'm so hyped out hyped up about derrick carr and davante adams being teammates again last time we saw these guys as teammates they led college football and basically every single quarterback wide receiver duo statistic that when when they were fresno state it's been a long time since then but both of them are still in the nfl derrick carr is considered a franchise

quarterback davante adams is considered one of the best wide receivers in the nfl it's not like these guys have gone anywhere so i think that even with some other good receiver options in that offense you've got hunter renfro who could be a big target guy you have darren waller it's not like it was in green bay where i think aaron rogers was going to force feed Devontae Adams no matter what but it might not play out to be that far away from that given how much chemistry and history Derek Carr has with Devontae Adams so with that being the case I think we're going to see a great year from Carr we're going to see another great year from Adams Adams has never won the wide receiver title but he's been in that conversation he's been in that conversation

he's been pretty close in really three of the last four years outside of the year that uh that he missed some time from being hurt so we get a full year from Devontae Adams I gotta bet on him I gotta think that they're looking his way consistently Josh McDaniels is going to build that offense around that chemistry that those two guys have so I'll go Cooper Cub and Devontae Adams for my first two picks here really like the Adams pick. I think that, and maybe even I'm guilty of it at times, although I love the trade for them when it happened. He's been so good for so long on the main stage

playing in Green Bay that I think we over-exaggerate his age. He's 29 and he's going to play most of the season at age 29. And the type of refinement that he plays with. And now the type of chemistry, great chemistry with Rogers. He's going to have great chemistry again with Carr. That's a guy that should age really well in this league. I mean, he's somebody that at age 30, 31, 32, I don't think there'll be a notable difference with him.

So I like that pick. It's admittedly a pick that I would have made here. So my first one's pretty easy. I talk about this guy on the podcast all the time. It's Jamar Chase, rookie season, 81 catches for, you know, almost 1500 yards, a big play machine, a built-in chemistry with his quarterback and Joe Burrow. I like Tee Higgins. Tee Higgins is going to always, in a good way, eat into the target share in this offense. But C.J. Uzama out the door, and year two of Jamar Chase, a team that I don't think has to overthrow to their running backs. I think we're going to see an uptick in volume coming off 128 targets. I don't see why that number doesn't increase.

I don't see, and let's not forget Trevor. He did not have a great August last year. And there was a lot of concern on the old Twitter machine, which is a little ridiculous, but a lot of concern about Jamar Chase going into his rookie year because of that August. And then the dude exploded onto the scene. And I think one more notable thing is that it felt like he was getting better, understandably, as the season went on. I mean, two of his last three weeks, he went for 7-125, 11-266, against the Chiefs, 11-266. I was there in person. Watch it.

Couldn't believe it. There you go. Truly, truly could not believe my eyes. Every single person in the stadium knew where the ball was going. Doesn't matter. There wasn't a single person who could do knew where the ball was going doesn't matter there wasn't a single person who could do a damn thing about it so i've picked two outliers to start this off because i've picked guys that are 23 and 22 years old and as i've said this is typically a statistical category

where the leader hovers more towards being in their prime at 26 27 28 i just think those two are special i don't really think there's any other way around it and it's pretty cool you got to see that game because when you look at chase watching him in person um i got to see him pretty sure his the last year he did play in college and it's just just no one like it i mean the releases off the line of scrimmage how he glides the big body uh the ability to climb over defenders. It's unbelievable. Was that the game that started it for them, their run?

Hold on, I'm looking at their schedule right now. That was towards the end of the year. Yeah, they beat Baltimore the week before that, 41-21. I would say that that was probably the one. They beat Denver the week before that as well, but it was like 15-10. Yeah, the final score was 15-10. So I would say that the Baltimore game was probably the one that really was the catalyst.

But then you beat Baltimore and Kansas City in the back-to-back weeks. Rest everybody the week after that. You make the playoffs, and then, yeah, pretty nuts run after that. They quietly blew out some good teams last year. Quietly. They really kicked the snot out of Baltimore twice. nuts run after that they like quietly blew out some good teams last year quietly like they they really you know kicked the snot out of baltimore twice destroyed baltimore twice twice twice

and pittsburgh i mean they yeah they had some big blowouts that if they cleaned up some of the letdown weeks you know like when they lost they lost to mike white um there's a couple of letdown weeks they almost lost to jacksonville early in the year like if they clean up some of those letdown weeks they're gonna be a machine the hall of fame game for mike white you can count on one hall of fame game for mike white every year so i mean there's just nothing you can do about it jets eagles friday folks tune in the mike white show so before he gets traded for a conditional 2024 seventh round pick. All right, so I got another pick here.

I would say, and I want to know your thoughts, I think this is where it turns and becomes a little trickier. Like, these were the... There's a lot of options. So right now, the board, Justin Jefferson, Cooper Cupp, Devontae Adams, and Jamar Chase have gone. Okay. The first four picks.

I feel pretty comfortable that that was coming that's not a big surprise my pick here is going to be stefan biggs okay all right all right now this is a bill's offense that i'm curious to watch it even evolve under a different staff a tweaked staff right there's just different people with authority now digs is so fascinating because he's gotten to buffalo and he's exploded 2020 over 1500 yards last year over 1200 yards 166 targets 164 targets what does that tell you trevor josh allen throws to this guy over and over and he should he's always open he's one of the best separators in the league so there there's a lot of excitement over Gabe Davis, but I think there's been departures from this offense that, yeah, you could now push some

targets to Gabe Davis, but you're not pushing Stefan Diggs targets to Gabe Davis. You're taking them from other places. So I think he'll surpass 150 targets again. I think Stefan Diggs likes things that way. I think Diggs likes things that way. I think Josh Allen likes things that way. I do think this team will try to maybe establish a little bit more of a run game this year. But once again, I don't have that fear that all these things are going to eat into Stefan Diggs. He's too good of a player.

He's in his age 29 season now, or he'll turn 29 in November, so still 28. And the rapport he has with Josh Allen has taken his career to a totally different level look he's won this award before and with great reason because he is one of the best in the NFL no question about it the Bills offense is only supposed to get better you're right they're losing a couple of targets for as much as I like Kalos Shakir getting in there as much as I like that maybe giving Dawson Knox the ball a little bit more Jameson Crowder will get his game Davis a little more they added Jameson Crowder but like still those targets not all targets are the same right

that's a great point when you're going to replace targets a lot of times if if I'm playing that kind of mathematical game I'm looking at targets that would have been from the wide receiver two wide receiver three because stefan diggs is gonna get his right it's not really like a shift in okay let's get dawson knocks the ball a little bit more let's get gabe davis the ball a little bit more let's make sure that we get kalosha care some of the running backs involved all of that those are targets that are almost in like one pool you're're not taking the targets from Stefan Diggs and trying to reallocate them somewhere else. At least not a lot. Nor should you. Right.

At least not a lot because the return on investment looking Diggs way, giving him a chance is just going to be your best option if it's something that things are all things. When all things are similar, when things are in a vacuum, you want to go to stefan digs if you have that opportunity so not all targets are the same so i agree with you on the math you got to pick stefan digs he's won this award before and with good reason also i'll end it the same way that i started that kind of rant there so funny enough i'm up on the clock now i got two back-to-back picks i would not have picked jamar Chase next after Justin Jefferson, Devante Adams, Cooper cup.

Okay. There's another player that I would have picked above Jamar Chase. Now Jamar Chase would have been, he was in the conversation. He's in this tier, but the way that I have my draft board for this episode written, I have CD lamb next. I have CD lamb next.

And that's, and that's a combination of the fact that CeeDee Lamb is so damn good. And I do think that he is just on the cusp of exploding the biggest year that he has had yet in his career. But it's also because of the faith that I have in Dak Prescott. You go back to 2019. Dak Prescott was number two in the NFL in passing behind only Jameis Winston. You go to that 2020 season. Yes, he gets hurt. But in those, what was it,

three, four games that he was playing, he was on pace for an ungodly amount of passing yards before he got hurt. Last year, he was top seven in the NFL, 4,500 passing yards again. And that's with him coming back from that foot injury. So a fully healthy year for Dak Prescott. I really believe. I think that he is one of the healthy year for Dak Prescott. I really believe, I think that he is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. I truly do.

When we did our, what was it? Was it a redraft episode? Franchise player. The franchise player where, where we took Dak Prescott very high. You actually, the Giants.

Yes. And people like that, that caused outrage. Yeah. People freaked out about it. I, I, everybody's got their own opinion. And obviously like we have our opinion you guys have your opinion i totally believe that that's one of

the best quarterbacks in the nfl i really do so with that being said you know you you lose cedric wilson michael gallup is coming off of an acl injury starting things on the pup list it is cd lamb and tight ends and young guys like that's about it yeah yeah absolutely that's all we got there especially with the marie cooper gone as well should have mentioned that right up at the top just came to my head all of those so many of those targets are going to go to cd lamb this is an opportunity where you have a guy ascending to number one where he becomes the best option that a lot of those targets and a lot of those looks are going to be allocated his way. He is going to get the lion's share of everything in that passing offense,

I believe. So with how talented he is, the combination of his quarterback, the exodus of the other passing weapons, I think that it is a massive year for CeeDee Lamb. I think that he has a really good chance to be the wide receiver champion, especially if we get back to how much Dak prescott was throwing the ball in the past and a lot of that also has to go it has in line with zeke's getting older zeke's getting less effective right so they're less inclined for as much as dallas is going to continue to have zeke because they've

just proven that's what they're going to do I think that that is going to they're going to back off on that a little bit you got to get the ball in your best player's hand CeeDee Lamb is absolutely one of them and then the next pick uh I'm going I'm going to pick Travis Kelsey I can do that right we're talking wide receiver champion but we're also talking like yeah I didn't think of it but yeah you could do it in the league in in in receiving yards i'm gonna pick travis kelsey okay one a lot of people would argue he's more of a wide receiver than a tight end anyways and two look at the receivers that are currently on that roster man travis kelsey has been unbelievably productive and that's been with tyree killed there so you're finally breaking finally breaking up with Kyle Pitts? What do you mean?

What do you mean? Oh, you thought that I was going to take Kyle Pitts or what? I mean, he was like your sworn hero on the draft, a player from the last three draft show he did. Well, look, I mean, he's my guy and everything, but who's the quarterback in Atlanta? Who's the quarterback in Kansas City? You tell who's the quarterback you tell me right i'm not gonna bet on jalen ramsey once said all uh all right i love that quote so you tell me no i'm going with travis kelsey you see you've seen the production

that he's had even when tyree kill is there they've got marquez valdez scantley nicole hardman juju smith schuster and they hope they're getting a lot out of Sky Moore as well. But none of those four guys are as accomplished and have the chemistry that Travis Kelsey does with Patrick Mahomes. I think, and shoot, I really do hope that I'm wrong here, but I wonder if the drop-off for Kelsey as he continues to age is going to get steeper and sharper just because he is getting into his mid thirties. But this next year here, I think he has a chance to have the most targets, the most catches, the most receiving yards that he has yet in his career, simply because of what Kansas

city's offensive identity looks like right now. And the lack of familiarity, the lack of confidence the Mahomes might have in the rest of the group where he can think I can always go Kelsey's way so for my fourth pick here I'm gonna go with Travis Kelsey I think he among the tight ends I know Mark Andrews is involved George Kittle's involved Kyle Pitts would be involved but among the tight ends he would be my pick this year to lead that group in receiving yards and I think that he does have a shot at leading the league in receiving yards as well. I like it. At 31 years old, he had over 1,400 yards. So this is a dude that it can happen. And I think he's aged like wine.

He might be like the sneakiest, almost 33 in the NFL. And I don't really think it matters. I think he's going to be fine. I think he's somebody that's going to play at a top five tight end level for the next couple of years. I don't see that drop off with him. And maybe some of that is because of his relationship with Mahomes and the chemistry they have. But I also think he's a guy that will be motivated to always be at his absolute best

because that team will always be in a championship window with Patrick Mahomes under center. And I think that matters. So outside the box pick that I wasn't expecting, but I really, really like it really, really liked that one. Yeah. Well done.

The wide receiver champion show getting its first tight end here. All right. I'm going to change the title now. Now I might just have to call it like receiver and receiving champion. You're receiving champion. Yeah. It's tricky. All right.

So we'll have to, we'll have to talk with the producers about that. There's a, there's a lot to unpack with the guys left on the board that are at the top that are probably spinning through a lot of people's heads it could be that they are in a room that's too good there's other guys that get targets it could be that they play for a team that it's not that the quarterback's bad it's that you just don't necessarily have the faith in the quarterback i think my next pick will come off as outside the box. I am going to go with Michael Pittman. And, I mean, let's be real.

This dude had a really good 2021 season at age 24 where he had almost 1,100 yards playing with Carson Wentz. And I am one of the firm believers that Matt Ryan has good football left in him. It sounds like things are going really well in Colts camp for Matt Ryan. It feels like they got, you know, a pros pro in there. And he's playing like a pros pro.

He's leading like a pros pro. He knows the offense. He picked up the offense really quickly. Shocking. It's Matt Ryan. There's not a lot here, Trevor. This is going to be a really well-balanced offense. When I say there's not a lot in the way of Pittman's targets, it's a complement to the function of the Colts' offense.

The way they can run, the way they have more than just Jonathan Taylor in the backfield, the offensive line, two tight end sets. There's a lot of different things they could do that are going to win a lot of football games this year. But when you're looking at a receiver that is going to be highly productive in this offense it's going to be michael pitman and he's definitely a pick for me that kind of like you at cd lamb we've seen them have good seasons we haven't seen them have monster years we haven't seen them where somebody goes out the door and everybody's looking and going oh you're up like you're up you're the dude so this is as we do on the show a lot as this is a not mainly but the primary focus of this show is the draft and player

development in the nfl level from the college level this is a breakout pick and maybe one that some people weren't expecting to hear on today's show but michael pitman should have a should have a monster year with matt he was in my he was in my top 10 i think i think he was in my top 10 he was either 10 or 11 for me but he was right there so i i'm glad that one of us gave him gave him some love on this show putting him in the top five so good stuff i think that once again too he could have been my i'm picking back to back so i could have picked him five sure in this exercise. It ultimately doesn't matter as I round out this draft, man, the next one is really, really tough, but it's really, really tough.

There's a lot to go in. There's a lot. I have a guess at who you're going to pick. I'm not going to say it though. You're not going to say it. Oh. You're not going to say it. Oh, you're going that off the wall? No, no, no. I wanted to know if you were going to try to guess it.

No, no, no, no, no. I can't. I can't because he's it would be a really good pick. And if you didn't think of it and you were like, oh, shoot, you just do it. I'll just do it then. Whatever. There's one thing I have to check before I make this pick, which is saying that we're here, but I'm torn between two players.

I'll give you time by telling everybody that what we're going to do is after we're done with our five, we're actually going to pick one rookie. I can't remember if we said this at the top, but the way that we're going to do it is we'll have three points for if our, if one of our players becomes the wide receiver champion, we get three points. For however many players that we have in our top five also finishing the top five of receiving yards, we get one point.

And then we're also going to, for fun, draft one rookie. And if they lead the league as a rookie, then we also get another point. It's not just whose rookie did better than the other. They got to lead the league. We got gotta call our shot here to get that extra point so that's kind of how we're uh we're grading this and we're gonna keep score this so was that enough time to get your thank you yeah more than enough actually so i'm taking debo samuel all right that was my guess yeah that was my guess but it wasn't. There are a lot of guys that I was torn between,

but I'm going with Debo because... What did you look up? Just, I looked up other players. Okay. It had nothing to do with Debo, because I know Debo's a damn good wide receiver, and all of the wide back stuff got in the way of how good of a wide receiver he is, because we're talking about a player that...

In 2020, he didn't play a lot but 2019 he had 800 yards and 2021 with all of the wide back stuff he still exploded for over 1400 yards and on 121 targets which in the grand scheme is not a lot totally totally forgot that he had over 1400 receiving yards before this well not before this exercise i had looked it up before but you put it perfectly there are so many people who talk about Debo as a gadget player you forget that this dude almost had 1500 receiving yards like he's just a damn good wide receiver even without the other added stuff so the carries really started to become consistent in week nine and weeks one to seven I mean he was basically averaging at least around 100 yards a week sure there was a couple like 93 52 but 189 156 100 171 like mammoth weeks as a wide receiver then when they started giving him five to eight touches a game from the backfield

they did eat into his targets as a wide receiver that limited his wide receiver numbers for the most part so i know the new contract extension has built-in incentives if he is used as a ball carrier and the production based on that i do think that'll still be a part of the 49ers offense but i think that debo will be maximized more as a wide receiver this year. And he is such a talented player. I know we're, as we record this show in August, we are right in the thick of Brandon Ayuk's Summer of Hype round two.

And I, you know, really bought into that last year. And I'm not saying I'm not buying into it this year. I just, the Summer of Hype for all these guys gets crazy. And Debo's the dude. Like, yeah, they got Kittle. Yeah. They got Iook. Who's having another good camp,

but Debo, when the pads come on, the lights come on and it's regular season game time, Debo's going to be that dude. And I think he'll be a little bit of a safety valve to create yards after the catch in this offense for Trey Lance. So Debo would be a screen machine and we know what he could do with the ball in his hand.

So the yardage is going to be there again for him. He had, he had to be in one of these drafts. It would have been a sin if he wasn't right no he was i i would have picked debo i think as my fifth guy if you would have let him i've left him on the board for my last pick here at number five i'm torn between two players and i can debate them out loud instead of in my head can i guess guess them? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Guess them. Guess Tyreek Hill? No.

Whoa, okay. Tyreek is not. Look, I am not sipping the Tyreek Hill, Tua is as good as Patrick Mahomes Kool-Aid. I'm just not. And with him being in the same offense as Cedric Wilson and Jalen Waddell and Mike Kosicki, I think that Tyreek Hill is going to play well.

But do I think that Tua Kill is going to play well, but do I think that Tua has it in him to have all of those guys get targets and allow Tyree Kill to hit the 1,400 to 1,500-yard mark? No, I don't. I'm not picking Tyree Kill. No, I never was. Okay. Well, like Jeff Ulbrich said, Coke is good, but Coke with a little something in it is much better.

So moving on no Tyree kill uh you're not sipping the coke with a little something in it onto it right now then I'll let you take the floor because I don't want to keep playing the guessing game of being wrong wrong and wrong okay uh one of them is Corlin Sutton one of them is Corlin that swear is who I have open I'm not gonna pull all the way up to the camera he is my pro football reference tab right now okay all right so look so we weren't far off on this when he was in the conversation for you as well Corton Sutton has had a 1,000 I believe 1,100 yard season that he had in 2019 2020 he gets hurt and then this past year obviously Denver's quarterback situation was kind of all over the place he was getting back from yeah I mean he was getting back

from injury as well you look at Russell Wilson being in that offense now Russell Wilson has made stars and thousand yard receivers out of DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett not to say those guys are scrubs without Russell Wilson but you know what I'm saying a great quarterback getting in concert with a great wide receiver there's yards there and i think the most that they had as a duo was when dk had 1300 yards but man i just really feel like a 1400 yard season could be in the cards for sutton maybe it could be more than that maybe it could be special but the other guy that i'm thinking about is michael thomas a guy who has won this award before, albeit three years ago, his numbers with Drew Brees were insane.

In fantasy football, it was the easiest choice of all time. This guy was getting anywhere from 150 to 200 targets a year. You could guarantee pencil him in for 1,300 to 1,600 yards, depending on what the year was going to bring. But he gets hurt last year last year does not play really at all he's coming back from the injury but i read over the last couple of days that he's started to participate in 11 and 11 and 7 on 7 drills with the saints they are very happy with where he is health-wise he also seems to be in a good place when it comes to a relationship with the team because there were some back and forth okay like does he even want to be in New Orleans he seems to be happy

or at least happier than what he was last year it feels like he's going to be able to start the season week one and if that's the case he's the unquestioned number one wide receiver on this team they have Chris Olape they've got some other offensive weapons Alvin Kamara takes a lot of targets too but it's still going to be, I think, the Michael Thomas show, especially with the coaching staff being relatively the same. They also have Jameis Winston as their quarterback. And I don't know exactly what version of Jameis we're going to get this upcoming year,

but Jameis Winston likes to throw the football. That is always going to be his thing. And Michael Thomas, I think, is going to be his wide receiver one in that regard. Those are the two wide receivers that I'm debating between. Are you stuck? Or you have conviction on one? I'm going to pick Sutton. I thought so.

I'm going to pick Cortland Sutton here. It's his time. Just because there is more uncertainty of what Jameis is going to be, what that offense is going to be, what Michael Thomas might be right out of the gate. Is he that same kind of force feed target hog receiver? Are they going to have him play things that are a little bit different? Maybe half the year is spent figuring out where they can use Michael Thomas

best. And that doesn't spell out a wide receiver champion kind of a year. So I think that Russell Wilson, I think that Cortland Sutton, they're going to really hit the ground running. This Denver Broncos offense is going to be really potent. And I'm going to go with Cortland Sutton here as my fifth pick. Let's ride, brother. You got to love that pick. Let's ride, baby.

So good. I love that it's really gained steam. I see everybody doing it. Man, I like – so Sutton, sudden your sudden pick was like my pitman pick in a sense too where it's like man i think this is this is going to be the year the situation the having a real life quarterback walk into that room it's like oh this is what this guy can do when the ball is coming his way on time accurately uh you're going to see the best version of players so all right i will read my top five you will read your top five and then we each get to pick a rookie yep and following the snake order you get to pick the rookie first damn right i do finish the draft man i'm a nice host all right

number one for me was justin jefferson number two is jamar chase number three was stefan biggs number four was michael pitman jr number five debo samuel my top five i got cooper cup demonte adams cd lamb travis kelsey and courtland sudden some guys that we left on the board aj brown didn't nobody picked aj brown uh didn't pick mark andrews if we were going along the tight end train who mark andrews could have been a fantastic pick as well. Terry McLaurin, that was another one that I thought of. I think that Terry obviously is one of the best wide receivers there. No comment. Love scary Terry.

Moving to Mike Evans is on there, but there's so many options to the Bucs offense. I think Mike Evans is going to have another 1,000-yard season. They don't need him to have 1,600 yards just i just don't think it's going to happen same thing in carolina like dj moore's in carolina and i like dj moore but i don't think dj moore is going to threaten 1500 yards so that's kind of where i was with a handful of those next tier wide receivers that i might have thought about so i know who you're taking here which is funny because it goes against your previous sure it does yeah yeah you're damn right it does yeah you're damn right salave of course you are no i'm not picky chris you're not taking a lave

no no no no all right all right well then your other pick makes sense take the floor drake london baby yeah drake i mean you want to talk about someone that should be a target i thought All right, well, then your other pick makes sense. Take the floor. Drake London, baby. Yeah. Drake London. I mean, you want to talk about someone that should be a target. I thought you were about to bring up the fact that I poo-pooed a Kyle Pitts pick because of their quarterback situation. I thought that's what you were doing. So I was right. You were right.

I thought that that's where you were going with it. But here I am picking Drake London. I've seen exactly two training camp highlight clips of Drake London and I am prepared are the Falcons having camp that's the only thing I've seen to stitch the gold jacket right now okay like wide receiver one on like on unmatched we are counting that as a scouting dub already doesn't even need to play a game yeah it's a hit he's I mean he's just gonna get so many targets him and Pitts are gonna be that entire passing offense and i i just think volume alone is is why i've got to pick him here if he's fully healthy i i do i think that he is to do and the thing that gives me faith about him

succeeding with maybe not the best quarterback is whether it's desmond ritter whether it's marcus mariotta even if these guys aren't pinpoint deadly accurate exactly where they need to go with the ball, just throw it up to Drake London, man. I mean, he led college football in contested catches last year, and he only played eight games. He led the country. That's his entire bread and butter.

So even if you have a quarterback that isn't just a complete assassin back there, if you get it within his catch radius, he's unbelievable at it. So I think that that's going for him too. So I go with drake london as my uh rookie wide receiver pick here and if you were a defensive coordinator you're you're theoretically at least early in the year shading all your help to kyle pitts because for a lot of reasons like slot defenders number one are going to have a hard enough time with pits so you're going to have to shade help to them pretty much anyway but the type of town he's proven to be in that offense where it could i don't want to say open things up for drake london because they have their holes in other

positions but you're right it's there's no reason why he's not the wide receiver on that team that is out targeting everybody by what like 50 yeah 60? Like, it should be kind of insane. So, obviously, it's pretty clear who I'm taking. I am taking Chris Alave. And I think that, you know, you brought up the fact of Michael Thomas' pending return could be a big factor here. But that number two wide receiver door has been wide open for the Saints.

For a player like Alave to step in, get open, get targets, catch the ball down the field, catch the ball in the intermediate. Like you said, Jameis is going to throw the you-know-what out of the football. And Alave looks like he's had a good camp. It kind of goes back to your Drake London thing. I've seen some camp highlights of him against Paulson Adebo, who is a member of my most recent mock draft team, just getting torched by Chris Alave.

Shout out to my Hall of Fame secondary. Hey, Paulson Adebo could be a good player. I don't know if he is right now. I don't know if he is right now. I mean, one-on-ones for any corner is like viral cocaine. Also, while we're here, can we talk about the trayvon diggs clip oh yes with him getting cooked by simi fahoko i have a problem with a lot of the narrative around okay it's right now okay all right let's hear it let's hear it and why do we treat

everybody's favorite thing and i get it they're like he's so overrated because he has eight interceptions or whatever it is and i'm like i i get that but i also think it's really unfair how we treat him as a 23 year old corner we treat him like a 28 year old corner that's been in the league for six years and everyone's like this guy's really not that good he just gets a lot of interceptions when it's like uh he's 23 years old in his second year he had 11 picks and yeah he has his warts like he's 23 years old. In his second year, he had 11 picks. And yeah, he has his warts. Like, he's not perfect in coverage. He's not the stickiest player in coverage. But it's one of those things where we go so full circle on a,

well, actually, this guy's not as good as you think, that we've gone all the way and lapped around where it's like, no, put into context how young he is and that he could still be an ascending player. I'm with you i think the trayvon diggs hate has gone like way too far it's gone too far the context and a lot of it was pff data which i i agree like the context was good like hey this guy's not a shut down corner yet but he's a playmaking right that's that's good analysis right but he stinks is bs It's BS. It is funny because a lot of people will counter what you just said

by saying like, well, yeah, but so many people think he's the best corner in the game. Who? Who thinks he's the best corner in the game? With a brain. Who is saying this? I think that everybody who would be praising Trayvon Diggs would say, like,

yeah, he's this kind of like off coverage corner who does really great at reading quarterbacks, jumping routes, going to get interceptions, which are a big part of the game. Yeah. If you're, if you're going to ask him to sit there and stick in man coverage and not

get burned, he's probably gonna get burned by a lot of people, but some people will counter that and be like, well, some people are saying like, he's the best corner in the game. Who, who is saying that? It's like, well, some people are saying he's the best corner in the game. Who? Who's saying that?

It's like it's the old Twitter thing where – Yes, the Steph Curry. The Steph Curry. They said that Steph wasn't a good shooter. They told me Steph Curry couldn't shoot. Who said this? There's always someone yelling into the void. Granted, in like Septemberember and october last year

when stefan diggs had like six seven interceptions like won every single game yeah he was getting defensive player of the year height because the statistics were insane but then of course you let the entire year play out you go okay he's giving up a lot of yards he seems to be really overly aggressive like yes he's getting the turnovers, but it's within context. That does not make him the best corner in the NFL or the worst corner in the NFL. It makes him a stylistic corner who is young and still hopefully getting a lot better, kind of as you said. But I didn't mean to totally go on to Trayvon Diggs. I'm glad we did.

That training camp clip, people are just frying him for it. And it was not great coverage. It was not a good way to play man coverage in that situation. But it's a one-on-one training camp drill with no help anywhere. And people don't realize, they're like, oh, what wide receiver even is that? Sammy Vajoco is a 6'5 wide receiver who runs like a four three five like that in that exact rep that you saw in that clip is why he is on the team he is a big speed vertical wide receiver that's that drill is built for him to win totally built for him to win

not only in the structure of the drill but also like who he is as a player so i just had to get that off my chest. I thought that was, it was just, I was watching people destroy the crap out of him and it was a bad rep. It was. In the spirit of leaders, this being the wide receiver champion show, Diggs had 11 picks last year. And sure there's interception luck involved in every leader.

Of course. Trevor, the last interception leader in the nfl to have that number 11 was in 1981 everson walls so like i know there's luck in big ups big ups everson shout out to everson this was like a special year from ball skills perspective even if there is luck that was a big number it was a big number so i just the whole he's you know trevon digs stinks thing is just worn out he's not the best corner in the nfl yeah he's also not the worst would a lot of dc's say sign me up i'll take the feast or famine ability no i think they would i think they would all right back to um

god we got far off back to wrapping up the i don't even know where we are i think we're done you picked chris olave right that was your yes yes i did i did oh i did want to say like what because you took drake london who great pick uh that would have been that would have been my number one as well i there you know why i didn't take garrett wilson who could be in this conversation i think there's just the ball's going around in the jets offense we need to see it from zach wilson of course i do think he's going to be much better but they got multiple tight ends they're going to throw to they got cory davis elijah moore two running backs and michael carter and bruce hall that they're going to throw to braxton barrios is going to get slot

targets i just think garrett wilson is not going into a situation like drake london and chris alave where there's this defined target role for him it's going to evolve throughout the season so that i wanted to avoid. I wasn't going to take him. I thought about Jahan Dotson, too, who I think is going to have a major role in that Washington offense. It's just... Yeah.

Whoa, whoa. The same silence that we have when we brought up Terry McLaurin and you were like, well, you know. And I was like, yeah, I mean, we know. Did you see the same silence that we have when we brought up Terry McLaurin and you were like, well, you know, and I was like, yeah, I mean, we know. Did you see the tweet? I think it was about Montez Sweat chasing Carson Wentz and screaming at him to get rid of the ball. No, that was my favorite camp tweet. What of the he's telling him to throw it away.

Yeah, I've seen it from a couple variations and here's one from zach selby who's a wash the staff writer for the team for the commanders uh-huh when scrambled to his right before running out of bounds with montez sweat chasing him screaming at wentz get rid of it get rid of it that visual is just unbelievable first of all if my if i'm scrambling to my right montez sweat is behind me yelling get rid of it that ball is gonna hit the floor so quick i'm firing that bad boy into the 90th row i don't have that kind of arm strength but you know what i mean like i'm either absolutely pegging the first person i see on the sidelines. That ball is getting out of my hand like I just took it out of the oven without a mitt. Dude, just an unbelievable scene.

Fun show. Great show. Good show. If we do say so ourselves, great show. I mean, pat ourselves on the back. One of the best spots to ever be recorded. I think so. On Thursday, we're getting back to summer scouting.

We're getting close, guys. Almost done. Speaking of corners. Yeah, there Almost done. Speaking of corners. Yeah, there it is. Speaking of corners. It was a good transition. It was a little tough because we had kind of gotten off corners, but now you're getting back on.

We're doing cornerbacks on Thursday. We're giving you our top five cornerbacks heading into the 2022 college football season. Obviously, top five. We're talking about not NFL, but for the NFL draft, guys, that we're going to be watching in the college football season obviously top five we're talking about not nfl but for the nfl draft guys that we're going to be watching the college football season uh and then we've got safeties the week after that uh some exciting stuff that's happening beyond that once we wrap it up we'll give you our top 50 prospects at the uh at the end of the summer we'll also get into our

very first 2023 mock draft with a lot of time a lot of notes a lot of everything kind of taken into the equation we'll come up with a draft order we'll we'll see what the draft order is we use our uh friends over at vegas to to see what they think about how teams are going to finish and we'll come up with the order then and then we'll give you guys your first mock draft before the first nfl season gets underway because we love you because it's just kind of and then the pod's over it's done yeah and then well then no more pod. Yeah, that was it. We just wanted to prepare everyone for last year's draft,

and we'll do a sneak preview next year. Can you imagine if we took the season off? That would be... Like if we were just like, all right, guys, we'll see you after the season, and it was just like... Yeah, we'll get ready for the draft again. We actually should be really careful,

you and I specifically, about making jokes like that, considering how our last podcast both actually did come to an end which so maybe that wasn't the most tasteful joke for the listeners that are like do not take away another podcast sorry yeah we did didn't mean that we're actually we're not only not going away but we're going back to three shows a week yeah i believe is the plan right now for us so yes that is absolutely. So there'll be more of us again. Yeah. You guys are getting rid of us during the season. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to cover this league and a lot of fun ways.

And we'd love to hear from you guys too. I know we always say this, but if you hear of cool ideas or cool things that you, that you would love to hear this podcast is I'm just letting you guys know pretty damn open. I mean, we have a, we have a schedule that we're going to go with. We're going to have reoccurring segments that we do throughout the season once we get into the swing of things. But we are always open to hearing from you guys and saying like,

hey, I'd love to hear you guys talk about this angle of how to evaluate teams or evaluate where teams are in the draft order, all that kinds of stuff. If you want more updates like that, always please let us know. Tampa Bay Trey, Connor J. Rogers on Twitter. Also on Instagram. You guys can hit us up there for all of your ideas. Anyways, we will see you guys on Thursday.

Let us know who you think had the better list or whose list most likely has the chance to be the receiver champion in 2022. I'm Trevor Sikama. That's Connor Rogers. Thanks for listening to the NFL Stock Exchange. Bye.