The Ringer NFL Show - Breakout or Fake Out

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

We break down the players who put up big numbers in small sample sizes in 2020 and predict whether or not those performances can carry into the next season. TE Kyle Pitts, Falcons (3:35) RB Antonio Gibson, WFT (13:26) RB Jonathan Taylor, Colts (21:10) RB David Montgomery, Bears (28:24) WR CeeDee Lamb, Cowboys (36:59) WR Chase Claypool, Steelers (42:00) WR Ja’Marr Chase/Tee Higgins, Bengals (50:40) Check out The Ringer’s 2021 Fantasy Football Draft Guide here! Email us at [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nobody knows what's going on, but we watch the Olympics. We just turn on our TVs and become obsessed with sports we haven't thought about in four years. This is why we made the ringer guide to the summer games. I'm your host, Roger Sherman. Each day during the Tokyo Olympics, I'll tell you about a different sport, athlete, or storyline. We'll be releasing new episodes every day starting July 19th. Follow along on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so you know exactly how to watch the Olympics. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show.

I am your host, Danny Hyford, and I'm joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck. A reminder that our 2021 fantasy football draft guide is out, so please check it out at fantasyfutball.theringer.com. Today we are doing breakout or fake out, which, as you can imagine by the name, is our players going to break out this year or not. It's just every year there's a player that had like a huge portion of the previous season. And we're like, are they going to do that again for the whole year? or is that like Fool's gold?

Is it just like a tease? And I think also rookies apply to this too. Sure. You mostly have the David Montgomery's. We might have to call this the David Montgomery rule of just the, oh, he's elite for a month. Does that mean he's elite? Do we believe it?

Yeah, yeah. It's like a good movie trailer. Like, is this for real? Or is that all the good parts? You've been doing the rewatchables for years now. What is the best trailer that you've seen? Wow, that's a really good question. I know off the top of my head,

I know the answer to that question. Go ahead. I know what mine is. My favorite trailer ever is Pineapple Express. I think for me it's the Wolf of Wall Street. That was the craziest trailer. It was also the first time it heard music from that album from Kanye. Black Skinhead was the song that they used in it.

Yeah. I think that music matters a lot because the reason I remember the Pineapple Express is was the MIA song. It's like, all I want to do is, p. Oh, yeah. Yeah, paper planes. They were like fighting and shit. Like, it's such a hilarious trailer.

Maybe we want to watch a movie so bad. And the Project X trailer, which I didn't even see Project X, but it just had the Kid Cutty, like the Steve Oaky Kid Cutty remix on it, which was unreal. Yeah, is it Pursuit of Happiness? That movie's nuts. Project X is literally insane. You feel hung over after that movie. I never even heard of that movie.

Where vibed? Yeah, it's more of the SpongeBob Millennials. There is a specific genre of people who see that movie. All right. 100%. All right. Breakout or Fakeout. Again, we're just going to go through guys.

that for whatever reason have hype or were being hyped last year and we're just curious if it comes over. But we don't know. It's like you can make the case for again, so we're just going to do pros-cons lists. Because ultimately that is how every decision really gets made. So we're just going to do that. Yeah.

D.K., please. I was playing pool yesterday. So you want to just... Break it? Oh, my God. Yeah, break. Just break first, DK. Oh, geez.

Wow. Tortured, Hyphitz. That was tortured. Yeah, I couldn't think of the word. Break out or fake out? Candidate number one. I really do think that we approach this, like, literally just making a list, like, trying to talk ourselves into this or out of this. Here's the pros.

Highest drafted tight end ever. I'm talking about Kyle Pitts for the Falcons. Did I not say that? Sorry. No, you did not. Let me back up. Kyle Pitts, Falcons, tight end, rookie. Maybe we do it without his name, and then that's a real way to tell if it's just a break down a quiz show.

I wonder who we're talking about. Yeah. Sorry, Kyle Pitts of the Falcons. here's the pros. Highest drafted tight end ever. He is a unicorn of an athlete. I believe he was born to catch passes in much the same way that Michael Phelps

was born to swim. He's just built to catch passes. He's 6'5 to 145 pounds. He has a condor wingspan, huge hands, and 98th percentile athleticism slash speed. He's like essentially Calvin Johnson playing tight end.

It's a good pro. He falls into a system where he's basically guaranteed to be the number two passes. catcher, I would assume, behind Calvin Ridley. Julio Jones, who is now gone, saw 68 targets last year in nine games, so about seven and a half a game. Matt Ryan threw a league high, 626 passes, so there's plenty of volume. And he's being coached by Arthur Smith, who is going to line him below the formation.

If you had to listen to Flying Coach with Craig Horlebeck, well, there was other people on the show. No, that's the time. Sean McVeigh, Arthur Smith, and Craig Horrobeck. you would know that they're very excited. And obviously, I think them picking Kyle Pitts fourth overall would indicate that they're excited about what he can do in their offense. So, yeah, those are the main tenets of my pitch for basically Kyle Pitts is going to be amazing. Do you want me going to the cons right away?

Yeah. Okay. Here's my list of cons. History and pretty much all precedent in the league is working against him. Such a doubter. To put it mildly. All history and all precedent is working against him. He must be...

You mean like for rookie tight ends? Yes. For rookie tight ends, sorry, for some context on that. He's basically rookie tight ends notoriously are slow starters in the NFL. Jeremy Shockey, I believe, is like the modern, like top rookie receiver, a rookie tight end, sorry, that, like his season, he had like 800 yards or something like that, 750 yards. I don't know.

Off the time I head, it wasn't like anything incredible. So Kyle Pitts is basically working against known history at the tight end position. So in other words, he has to be the outlier

of all outliers or else you overpaid based on where he's being drafted. At the end of the day, that just does not leave a lot of wiggle room. Like you're betting on him having the best season for a rookie tight end of all time.

And like, he needs to be significantly better than that, probably, based on what you're paying. So, yeah, the cons list is, I don't know, it's a short list. It's shorter than the pros list, but it's also a very devastating and powerful cons list. So I guess you've got to ask yourself, which carries more weight here? Do the pros impress you more than the cons scare you? I thought you were going to say, do you feel lucky? like no country for old men

the coin flip well I was thinking dirty hairy you can ask yourself do you feel like but same energy Craig same energy sure you know what's

what's funny about this is I don't know the I think if you took somebody who had never played fantasy football and who didn't know what football was and they heard DK's his little speech there I think they think the cons are stronger

yeah I mean so here's my question though the idea that he's literally asking him to be unprecedented at the position is a little misleading because is he going to actually play tight end this year? Because half the reason tight end struggle is you have to learn to block at an NFL level and run routes at an NFL level. Two jobs. That is way too hard for one off season. So that's the main reason they struggle. But is Kyle Pitts just going to have the TE next to his name and be a wide receiver for this team? In which case,

it's not accurate to compare him to other rookie tight ends. I mean, yeah, that's the question. I will say in response to that, we've said this about so many tight ends over the years. Oh, he's just a receiver, you know, playing tight end, blah, blah, blah. You know, he's this hybrid guy. He's a move. He's a joker guy.

He's a movable chess piece in the offense. Like, we say that every year about guys. Said that about O.J. Howard. You know, you say that about Evan Ingroom. And yet, you still don't see these guys busting out for, like, a thousand yards in their rookie season. Now, I'm going to go back, sorry, just to back up a little bit. Jeremy Shockey as a rookie caught 74 passes for 894 yards and two touchdowns.

That is like the greatest rookie tight end season. Not touchdowns, but for yards. That's the greatest rookie titan season in the modern era. So, I don't know. So I got to say here, there is no way in hell that I'm taking T.J. Hawkinson or Mark Andrews over Kyle Pitts. I have a hard time physically imagining a scenario, a season in which I'm not seeing Kyle Pitts at least catch like four balls for 60 yards every game.

Like I actually can't imagine like what are they doing on offense? Like how would that even make sense? Like how is he not going to get eight targets a game? What else are they going to do? What's he going to be doing? Right. I think there's also an element of fantasy fomo here, which is as Craig says, yeah, you want to win, but you also want to be on the ride for certain like really fun beloved players.

I don't mean to compare Pitts to Otani, but like I have Shohei Otani on my fantasy baseball team. Let me tell you something. It is an absolute joy. Every single day, every single day is 5% better because Otani hits a home run

or I see some tweet that he's done something for the first time since Babe Ruth. And I'm like, wow, I can't believe I get he's on my team every day. And if Kyle Pitts is in fact the greatest titan ever and you took Hawkinson over him,

you'll kind of feel dumb. However, again, this is to me, the hardest part of doing fantasy analysis is the mix of like you are supposed to fade hype, you're supposed to just look for value, you should zig one other zag. Everyone's obsessed with Kyle Pitts. Like you know what? You should probably not have them on your team because you won't get them at a good price.

However, every now and then, if you just want a really fun player, you know what? It is called fantasy football. Your fantasy is probably to have Kyle Pitts instead of T.J. Hawkins sending your team. And if you want to roll the dice, you just have to understand you're not going to get a value on him, and you're betting on him to be the outlier. And that would be fun, but you also just have to know there's not going to be any value in that pick. I like how you're arguing that fantasy football is called fantasy football because it should

be your fantasy. This is your fantasy. Isn't that literally true? No, it's fake football. You're not control of a team breaking news. None of these players work for you. Fantasy football is the opposite of reality football. It's not my fantasy to like.

my fantasies high fits are different i'll just i'll just leave it at that speak for yourself okay that's true that's true everybody's got everybody's got different kinks you guys on our draft guide my kink is kyle pitts on our draft guide we that's my love that's my love than furries yeah we have kyle pitt's fourth and like fantasy pros which is like a giant consensus of like a hundred expert rankings they have them six on tight ends we have them as the fourth tight end the general consensus is he's sixth just imagine if you went with T.J. Hawkinson and Mark Andrews, and they had like a super average year,

and Kyle Pitts is like the next Tony Gonzalez. I think it is the number one, I feel like an idiot pick that you could make in the 2021 season. Watching Jared Goff throw at T.J. Hawkinson's feet for 17 games and seeing Kyle Pitts skipping passes to him. Become Calvin Johnson at tight end.

I think it's fine every now and then to just be like, you know what, fuck it. I love this player. he's really exciting. Everyone thinks he's good at football. Like, I want the guy. It's just like, Hawkinson will be a better value

because he's boring. And you know what? It's part of it. It's okay every now and then to be like, you know what? I do want an exciting player. But sometimes it's O'Dell Beckham

and you get burned. So like, you just got to understand that. Would you guys, would the group techs light up if Kyle Pitts went as the third tight end in a draft? Yes.

Over Kittle? Yeah. If you went over Kittle or Waller, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy. Okay. Kittle, like, broke the record

for tight end. yardage like two years ago. Yeah, it's not like the most absurd thing in the world, but it is enough to be like, okay, that's a hot take. That's a hot take. Ultimately at the end of the day, though, so are we coming up with a consensus that we're in or out or break out a fake out? We have to decide whether they're going to be one together, right? I think it's a breakout. Got to my head. I think it's a breakout. The problem is that where we have him and where I think he will ultimately be in like draft positions is like the values a little squeezed out of him. But it's like every now and then the player is so fun. It's like, that's kind of the point. You want the fun players.

I'm saying breakout. If you look at T.J. Hawkinson last year, with Matt Stafford, who's better than Jared Gough, T.J. Hawkinson had 67 catches, 700 yards, six touchdowns. Oh, Kenny Golliday and Marvin Jones, Jr. and Danny Amindola all left the lines, and none of them were really replaced. He's the number one receiver on the team now. He was like number three last year.

Was he? Kenny Gulladay was hurt the whole season. But he's still, like, the top option. Like, they're going into the year knowing that he's their best player. I guess, but I'm just saying, like, I don't know. It's basically the same thing as last year with the worst quarterback. And I feel like that line that he put up last year is like an average season for Kyle Pitts.

That's like his four. I don't know. We'll say. All right. I'm glad we can make such a definitive decision here. All right. I'm going to do pros and cons. I'm going to go now.

All right. Similar vein. Not quite. Are you going to say the name of the player first? Are you going to do the pros and cons thing? I was going to say the name of the player. Okay. Okay.

Next candidate. That's usually how it goes. Antonio Gibson running back for Washington. I'm so torn here. So the pros. I mean, the volume's crazy. Like, this is a guy who was a receiver in college and you would think he'd start out as a third down back.

It's the opposite. He already is a first and second down back. That's the hard part. He already figured it out. He got better as the season went along. DeKana had a huge argument because I was like, you had 33 carries at Memphis. How was he going to out do that in the NFL?

He ended up having 170 carries, so fuck me. But now he's going to easily be able to third down. He is, this is like what this actually happened last year. It did. And so he was, but he did all that. He was a top fantasy back, even though he barely played on third down. He was out snapped by J.D. McIssick, like 10 to 1 on third down.

That's not going to happen again. He's like a kind of a three down back sitting in plain sight. If you, you want three down backs in fantasy. It's about volume, et cetera. If you can get a three down back in the 20s, that's incredible. He probably could double his catches if he's playing on, you know, seriously five times as much third down work. He could double his catches.

And also just he's good. I don't mean to be reductive, but he's one of those guys that if you watch him play, you're like, oh, that's a good football player. It makes sense how he's getting all those yards. Like he's a guy who can just see a broken play

and he gets 12 yards. He's shift. He's a good receiver. He's good in space. Like, he's actually good at football. And I was really impressed how we went from this really raw runner earlier in the season.

And by the end, he was way more patient. He was letting holes develop. It's impressive to see. Having said that the cons are, basically this. Ryan Fitzpatrick's the quarterback. I'm a little worried that as much as I want to be like he can double his catches. Ryan Fitzpatrick's not going to check down as much

as Alex Smith. That concerns me. The other part is that Gibson had 11 rushing touchdowns last year. That was in large part because Washington was, I believe, the most ground heavy rushing team in the goal line, the goal to go, because they had Alex Smith and they had Dwayne Haskins

who statistically were basically the worst quarterbacks last year and didn't trust those guys to put the ball in the air. So they just ran whenever they were close and Gibson got all the touchdowns. I'm a little worried that Antonio Gibson could, by all logic and visibility, be a better player this year, but score way less touchdowns. So he has to kind of make up in catches and yards and stuff just to make up for what will probably be a touchdown decrease, which is kind of annoying.

Also, he kind of has turf tone maybe. I want to see if he practices a lot of training camp. So I'm torn. That's the big deal. I think there's one more con. and it's that JD McKissick's don't go away. It's like the Indiana Johnny fire.

That's what I was going to say is... You know, I'm like a bad penny. I always turn up. Like, those guys don't leave. Theoretics, they don't leave. Jady McKissick will still out-snap him on third down. I guarantee it.

And it's going to be more than you want. And everyone's going to want Antonio Gibson to play 95% of the snaps. He's not going to. Yeah. And it's like goes to the idea why NFL teams don't want, or don't typically have the three-down guys

anymore is because you don't want to wear down your star players, you don't want to overtax them in a 17-game season for the first time in NFL history. He's coming off a turf toe. And those are the things that certainly worry me. And I even saw a Roto World, or sorry, an NBC Sports Edge blurb the other day

that said J.D. McKissick is bulking up to saw season. Hell yeah. Try to be a three-down back. I think I saw... Is J.D. McKissick doing the Hockerel Summer? Yeah, yeah. He's doing the Big Ben thing. Peyton Barber, I think.

lost weight? Oh, everybody's losing and gaining weight trying to compete. No one ever comes in, I'm like, I'm at the same weight as last year. That never happens. Basically the same is last year. By the way, this is really a big aside, but Hyphids, you were talking about how he might

score less touchdowns this year. Do you ever find yourself doing the Stannis Barathean thing where you just go, fewer, fewer. I just want to correct you every time you say less touchdown. He's going to score fewer touchdowns. But the AP changed it. The AP said they're interchangeable, which means my

lifelong habit of getting that wrong in writing. As I was like, yeah, I don't have to be corrected on it anymore. That was like my favorite moment in Game of Thrones fewer. Anyway, continue. I don't remember that happening actually, but I like your Stanis voice.

He corrects the Duny. That reminds me that James Bond saying in Casino Royale, he's like, how do you like a lamb? It's like, skewed. I think we all really want Antonio Gibson to be a thing. But is that a, is that a, is that, there a butt coming here? He's the human fetch. No, not necessarily. I haven't decided if he's a breakout or

fake out, but I think we all are we love, I think he was awesome last year. He was on my team. He was great. I've rooted for him so much. I've never thought he got enough touches, but I don't know. So he was the RB 11 last year total, but he's like the RB 18 and points per game.

Next season, if you had to bet right now, do you think he'll be come next fantasy off seasons? He had top seven running back. I kind of think yes. I think the main challenge is actually that the turf toe will limit his snaps. And like, you'll never know. Like, yeah. Breaking news. If the toe gets a lot worse, you're not, they're not, they're not, they're not going to tell you. You will, he will just be on the field or off the field. And my fear is

that any aggravated, like running backs got stepped on. If the toe gets worse at any point, he just will be rotated out more. And that's kind of my concern. That's why I really want to see if he's actually 100% training camp. Because apparently didn't have surgery on it, which he maybe could of and he just decided to let it naturally heal and we'll see how that goes goes but like that's the one concern and it's not nothing like generally speaking I don't like to draft injured dudes in training camp like if there's like oh he's got a

nagging something I don't like that I don't like new injuries popping up that always goes a little far though there's always the guy in drafts who's like a fifth rounder but he has like the little plus injury sign the little red cross next to his name and he drops to like the ninth round just because nobody even really knows how hurdy's but it's like

Jarvis Landier is a tight hamstring and you can get him 50 picks later that happens every year, so don't let him go too far. Well, then Jarvis Langer gets his hip shaved, and you're like, oh, shit. He was still good last year. I guess I can't cut him or play him.

Anyway, all right, so I'm still going to lean breakout on Antonio Gibson. Like, at the end of the day, I still think that he's a really good player. Yeah, I'm with you, too. The thing that makes me so nervous about this, and this is stupid, I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious. Him and Cam Acres,

him and Cam Acres were the two guys who were like, like we talked about the other day, potential to sort of cycle in as the new top four picks, literally like top four pick type guy. Oh, you think Craig didn't just curse Cam Acres? You think we cursed all the guys we said would be really good? What I'm trying to say is,

I don't want to say that shit anymore because we got Acres injured. You just said it. Now Antonio Gibson is at risk. Stay safe, Antonio. Don't run for the next week. He's at risk. would.

But ultimately, I'm going with breakout. I think he's too talented. He's going to get the volume. He's going to get more passing game work. Yeah. Do you guys think Turf Toe is the most, in your opinion,

the most annoying injury for a player to have when you're considering taking him? I think it's number one. It needs to be rebranded because it's worse than it sounds. I've had Turf Toe. It's often. It kind of sucks, right?

Oh, it's terrible. You like can't plant. Turfto sounds very nonchalant. Like, kind of sucks. We talk about it. We need to call it like ripped foot.

Ripped foot. Ripped toe. That's in fact what it is. Who wants to go next? Craig? Craig. All right. Pro O'Connor.

Next, break out or fakeout candidate. Jonathan Taylor running back in the Colts. I will give you the pros here of John Taylor. I like John Taylor better. Johnny? What about Johnny? What is, what is ranking for our website be higher or lower if his name is John? J-O-N, not the J-O-H-N.

I think it's higher. John Taylor's a really badass. cool name. What about Jack? Jack Taylor. Yeah, it sounds like a mission like, you know, sounds like he's like

the mission impossible lead or like Jack Ryan or something. If I, if I, is Jack short for John? Now I'm like second judge. He's not sure. Yeah.

Right. That's what I meant. Yeah. Like John Kennedy went by Jack. Right, right. Okay. All right. Pro's for Jack Taylor.

He had a huge end of the season. Last six weeks. Last, in the last six weeks of last year, only Derek Henry had more rushing yards. He was truly elite. The other pro was Marlon Mack, his competition, Tours Achilles.

We won. This is a pro. Well, it is. For him. I know. It's just rude. But, yes, I get it. I mean, he's coming back from a tour of Achilles.

He's like, Paris of Troy, and he's like, Achilles is fucked. Like, what is it kind of messed up? Another pro, top five offensive line. One more, he's a good pass catcher. We didn't think he, or, it's not that we didn't think he was. We didn't really know, based off his college tape. He was. He caught 92% of his targets.

And he also had a fumbling problem that he kind of shored up. He fumbled once last year. But when you get to the cons, it's everything that's going on around him. It's the committee approach. Frank Reich, the coach of the Colts, loves committees. Naeem Hines, played a lot last year. He out snapped Jonathan Taylor on passing downs on this season.

He was the RB 20. Marlon Mack, if he's healthy, will probably play a lot. They also have Jordan Wilkins who plays. He's the best fourth string running back in the NFL. Yes. Reich has said, I like the hot hand approach. Yeah. They have Carson Wentz, who is a massive.

question mark. The offense could suck. Some people argue that a large part of Jonathan Taylor's success at the end of the year is because they just played a bunch of shitty defenses. He had 250 yards against the Jags in Week 17 last year. This season, he's a brutal opening five-game stretch. I believe he has

the hardest first five games as a running back going against defenses. And he's a little pricey for a committee guy. He's going as the seventh pick total in drafts. And I don't think people think of him as a committee guy, but he might be more of a committee guy than think. Yeah, yeah. The other thing, so the thing about being a committee is, um, I feel like sometimes

coaches just want to use multiple players because they don't want to wear down their lead back. In the Colts case, it really does feel like they have a specific role at mind for Naheem Hines, who is more of a receiver, really, than a running back. You know what I mean? And there's a difference between being a running back who can catch passes, which I think that's Jonathan Taylor, and a running back that is an elite pass catcher. Does that make sense? And I think that's more of Heinz. Like, Heinz's core competency, his talent is as a pass catcher.

He's really good, too. He's Danny Woodhead. I think it, like, honestly, I think the way that they're approaching this, like, obviously, they don't give a shit about fantasy football. They want to have Nahim Hines get his looks because he's so good at what he does and he's able to create these mismatches with linebackers, you know, whatever. Like, in space, he's really good. So it's not a matter of like oh

Jonathan Taylor Can just take those snaps now going forward Like I think that is a legitimate question Like I don't think he will There's a solid chance he won't do that And so that I think that is the reason That there's a pretty strong chance to me in my mind That he's getting slightly overdrafted

Or that you're drafting him at his ceiling If that makes any sense That I think is fair Yeah because of the past catching thing Especially in PPR PPR and half PBR it's just a huge, huge question mark of whether he's going to get the volume in the passing game that he really needs to be that elite running back. He's not going to be, unless he gets like Derek Henry volume on the ground.

You know, he's in that, he's in that Derek Henry slash, really he's more like Nick Chubb. Like legitimately maybe one of the best pure runners in football. Like he's like a 4-3-9 guy at 230 pounds, elite explosiveness, all that stuff. but Nick Chubb his value is depressed for a reason it's because he splits his role as the he's not the past kicking guy on the Browns. That's Cream Hunt. Okay, but also we haven't mentioned this yet.

John Taylor was the single most disappointing player in the first half of the season. Like, number one, he's a burn book. Trent Richardson-esque. He was in the burn book. He wasn't seeing holes. Like if we could go back in time or like if our October 20th selves

heard this conversation from last year, if they heard this conversation from now, they'd be like, what the fuck happened in the second half of the season? And not like Jonathan Taylor got better. Like, did all the other running backs get abducted by aliens? Because this is crazy.

Like, he looked like the space jam guys had taken his talent in the first two months of the season. And so to just completely ignore that that happened? I don't know. Like, he's probably not that, but it's weird to consider him

just unanimous top 10 guy. You're a thousand percent right. Dude, in week nine last year, he had six carries for 27. yards and the next week he had seven carries for 12 and the red lights were flashing and everyone was like offload jonathan taylor now i got some weird lucky trade form in my fantasy league and then he took off but like i said with chase claypool if you flip the season of jonathan taylor and he finishes how we started where is he ranked right now 100% if he had 250 yards in week one and then

finish the season with like 12 carries for 30 yards every week it is so much like claypool you're right him and claypool are the opposites this is the cladeteaders the layer thing. He started out really strong and then faded. And now his value is severely depressed. But yeah. What's funny is with all that said, I still don't hate Jonathan Taylor. I still think he's going to be good

this year. I don't mind him. I think I probably wouldn't take him as the seventh pick, but I'm not sure I would call him a fake out. What would you guys? I think it's what D.K. said. The problem is, I mean, we haven't ranked 15th and actually quite a few other places actually have him much higher than that. I think the problem is that

like the first or second rounds around his ceiling to DK's point. I think it's difficult. It's not that he's not a good running back. It's just like, you know, talking. It's pretty difficult for him to outpacing that basically means being a top five running back. And that probably doesn't mean the role we think Neheme Hines or Marlon Mack would have. So, or just the cult offense is a lot better than we think it would be. So I would say in the context of this discussion, a break out for Jonathan Taylor would be like you turn into Christian McAfrey.

or Derek Henry. Yeah. Right? Like, that's the context. I don't necessarily... I'm not confident that's going to happen. I'm more confident. I think the more realistic outcome will be...

He'll be around where he was last year, which was still really good, but not a true elite superstar fantasy guy, if that makes any sense. So, yeah, I would say fake out, but, like, you have to take the context, you know, with a grain of salt. So while we're talking about Taylor, a very similar conversation. I want to talk about David Montgomery. Yeah. Because David Montgomery had a very similar thing where I don't think he was quite as disappointing as Jonathan Taylor up the jump, but he wasn't, you know, turning any heads. And then he, DK, you called it.

You said trade from it the trade deadline and then he promptly, what was he, top three, top four running back, like the second half of season. Yeah, yeah. But we, so we have Jonathan Taylor 15th. We have David Montgomery all the way at like 45, at least in full PPR. Mm-hmm. D.K., what do you make of David Montgomery as like a breakout guy? So do you want me to do my pros and cons?

Or do you want me to answer that question right away? Let's do pros and cons. All right. So pros. For starters, he has the feet of Saquan Barclay, the vision of Levyon-Belle, the strength of Ezekiel Elliott, and the athleticism of Sony-Michel, which, by the way, that comp didn't really age well. You guys have to know what I'm talking about.

You don't know what I'm talking about? Oh, was that a scouting report? Yeah, there was a graphic from one of his, I believe it was from one of his, I believe it was from one of his college games is last year, Iowa State, when they flashed a graphic on the screen and it said, David Montgomery, the feet of Sequin Barclay, vision of Levion Bell, strength of Ezekiel Elliott,

and the athleticism of Sony-Michael, which again. I was going to say, is this your scouting report of David Montgomery? I was so confused for a moment. It's a very common sort of like meme or whatever, but I say that in Jess, because I don't think he has... Has the feet of Sequin Barclay?

Correct. I know. Maybe the vision of Leveon Bell. Sure. Maybe the feet of injured Sequin Barclay. Yeah. He certainly has the athleticism of Sony-Michel. I don't think that's a stretch. TK., we're in the pros. Okay, sorry. I'm getting off track. He is, I think, overall and all-around good running back, though. Like, I think people kind of put him into this bin where they think he's bad. I don't think that's the case. I think he's a pretty good running back. He's not an elite athlete. He's not like the most explosive Nick Chubb.

Jonathan Taylor type player, but he's a good running back. He's versatile. He showed over the second half of last year that he can catch the football. So I think he has the profile to play on all three downs. And honestly,

you know, there's a lot that gets made about the bears facing bad defenses down the stretch last year, which is absolutely true. But I also think in that context, something clicked for him and he started playing like a more confident,

like back, a more confident player. He was more decisive. He went downhill. And I think, Overall, just something clicked for him. He was running back four overall in the second half of the season. So from week eight to 17, he averaged almost 20 points for game.

And going forward, you're going to have the situation where potentially rising tides raises all ships with regards to Justin Fields being the quarterback. I do think he can make that offense better, more efficient, more explosive, score more points, which means more opportunities, more plays, more chances near the goal line, all that good stuff. and by the way, speaking to the, I guess, like the biggest response to David Montgomery's quote breakout last year was that it was bad defenses that they were facing. According to sharp football stats,

the Bears faced the seventh easiest run defense late this year. It was third easiest last year. So it's not like this huge falloff where they're all of a sudden going to go through this murderous row of run defenses or at least based on projections right now. And the other thing that people, I think, use as a argument against David Montgomery,

which I'll get to, is that he got the workload that he got last year because Tariq Cohen tore his ACL that gave him a chance to be the guy in that backfield. And now Tariq Cohen is coming back. However, I will say Tariq Cohen hadn't been really that good before he tore his ACL. And now there's signs that he's not really back to full strength even yet. So there's question marks that whether he's going to be fully ready for the season, ready to contribute. So basically now I put this in the pros list.

Montgomery, I think still can be the guy. in the backfield. I think he still can get the vast majority of the, of the volume, whether that's like 60 to 70%, I don't know, maybe more. If it's more,

that he's certainly, I think going to outplay's ADP, but I still think he can get a good solid chunk of that, that offense. And he showed last year that he was a good pass catcher. Going back to the cons, obviously he's going to have more competition in the backfield. Threat Cohen's coming back in theory.

They went and signed Damien Williams. They drafted just, not Justin Herbert, Khalil Herbert in the draft. So he's going to have competition from some intriguing players. And then the other thing is also sort of a plus,

but now is also, I think you can maybe say it's a negative, if Justin Fields is starting, Fields, because he's such a good runner, could steal goal on carries, could steal carries,

period, like in the run game, he could steal carries. He's kind of like got that Cam Newton-esque power as a runner. So he could really cut down, even though I think he could help David Montgomery be more efficient as a runner. He could cut down on that volume, cut down on the touchdowns.

So it's sort of a double-edged sword. So that's where I land with Montgomery. I don't know exactly how to feel about him. So I feel like with Montgomery, the arc, roughly speaking, is pretty similar to the Jonathan Taylor discussion we just had of like it's a committee. Like Marlon Mack had the injury in Indianapolis. Territ Cohen had the injury in Chicago. I mean, Neheme Hinds as a player is more like Terri Cohen.

but whatever. The point is they each had an injury in the backfield that gave them more playing time. They had slow starts and then absolutely crushed it for the second half of the season. We're both top four running backs. And yet Jonathan Taylor's top 15 for us and David Montgomery's 45.

And I'm trying to square, does that make sense beyond? Taylor has a much better offensive line and I guess is like way more of like the one whereas Montgomery might be like a 1A. Yeah, they're very similar situations and I think that you could make the argument that the gulf between,

the two of them is far too big. However, Taylor was higher-drafted. He had a better college career. He ran a 4-3-9. He's much better athlete. I mean, he's just straight up like a way better running back. He's a way better prospect. Much more highly regarded prospect slash player.

So that's the big thing. However, I would say, I would push back on that and say, I don't think Montgomery's as bad as people think he, or people make him out to be, if that makes sense. I think he's a better player than people make him out to be. I'm not, I don't think he's as good as Jonathan Taylor, though. what do you think, Craig? I think I'm probably leaning

I'm probably leaning more towards breakout than fakeout but So again, the context I'm going to just say the context of this has to be that he's like a top 10 guy He was the running back four

over the Bears final eight games the second half of their season he was the running back four I think that's the context you have to say I don't think he's going to do that I don't think he's going to do that this year I think he's a fake out I think what freaks me out about Montgomery is that, again, to Dike's point about him playing more, the first three games, like before Tariqo and got hurt, he basically was playing half of the team snaps.

The final, like, few, the final three games of the year, he was playing like 90%. Right. That just feels like it's not going to happen. And again, it's such a weird stat, but, like, how often you're on the field is a skill stat? And it's a, it's a fantasy stat. Like, Christian McCaffrey, all those years that he's crushing it's because he was at 97%. which is an outlier, even 90. Todd girl is on the field for 85, 90.

If you, sometimes if you're a top five running back, it's just if you're on the field, 85 plus percent of the time, you will become a top five running back. And I feel like it's the Damien Williams is actually a bigger looming factor to me than Tariq Cohen because Damian Williams is like a former chief. Matt Nagy came from the chiefs.

He knows this offense, like he's not going to have the adjustment period. And also I just think Damien Williams is kind of good. So I actually think that Montgomery has a higher chance of getting his workload cut into it than Jonathan Taylor does. You know what? That's a pretty good argument.

Maybe I will lean towards fakeout. My only thing was like, man, what if Justin Fields is really good and the bears are like surprising and they're just like always in the red zone and they're fun and they're running? That is the outlier. You know what I mean? The outlier. That's the game changer.

I think we're all leaning fake out though on David Montgomery, unfortunately. Yeah, you guys. I think that's why we have in 45. So again, I want to make sure, I want to make it clear. The context that I'm thinking fake out is. based on last year, I think the idea of breakout for him would be top high.

And I don't think he's there. I don't think he's there. I agree. All right, this is another one I'm really excited for. Cidi Lamb from the Cowboys. The pros. He's going from Andy Dalton and Ben Danucci

back to Dak Prescott. It's pretty good. I think that, like, over Ben Danucci, are you serious? Okay. Early season stuff gets buried. So Cidielam had twice as many yards per game with Dak

than he did with the other two backup quarterbacks. Twice as many. yards per game with DAC. That's good. And again, Justin Jefferson just had like the most receiving yards ever for like a rookie season. But like if Dak, sorry,

if C.D. Lam's time with DAC was a full season, he would have had almost exactly as many. The receiving yards per game of CD with DAC was almost exactly the number Justin Jefferson had on the whole year. So like that's the level we're talking about. And then it's like, he's just versatile.

Like what happened to Cowboys last year was basically Blake Jarwin, the tight end got hurt early. And he was like running C. beams up the middle of the field. And they just were like, C.D. Lamb, can you do that? And Cidillam is like this thin little guy. And they were like, yeah, sure, he can go do it. And he's like going up and like catching contested balls in the middle of the field.

Like, it's kind of like big guy stuff. He's versatile. I can kind of do whatever. And he's just really good, man. Like, I see, like, last year was the reason, like, there's a reason D.K had Cid Lam is his number one receiver in that draft class. The Cowboys is the best offense. And it's like, Omar Cooper of all the elite receivers is like the least ball

dominant. Like he just isn't one of those guys who's like, I need one out of every three balls out of your hand. Like, you know, that's not the Michael Thomas factor. Mari Cooper could make this more of a 1A, 1B situation with CD Lamb on the best offense in football, maybe. Cons, I don't really have any.

The cons are just like, there are a lot of other good players in the offense, which is always kind of bullshit because it's like, that's a good thing. And C.D. Lamb is a good player who is the second best option on this team. And then also it's like, the biggest con you could say is like the Cowboys won't pass as much last year and that Dak and the Cowboys are being overrated

because they won't throw because their defense won't be historically bad and they won't have to constantly be coming back from 21 points down. But they're still going to throw the ball. Like, I just, I actually struggled to come up with the consulates for CD-Lam. I think he's a breakout guy. This is the clearest breakout of the list so far, I think. Yeah. Yeah, like, the only thing I can think of really is,

is that Amari Cooper is just going to be the true alpha in the offense and is going to get like, not double, but like get way more looks than him. I don't think that's going to happen. I mean, Mark Cooper already, like, this doesn't really matter, but I think it came out today that he's on the NFI list.

He's on the non-football injury list to start the season or the POP with an ankle thing, which, you know, again, it's probably not a big deal, but it's one of those things where it just kind of makes you

a little less confident. Well, P-UFP stands for physically unable to perform, so it's not not a big deal. Well, he's got time to recover. But still, bottom line, yeah, I'm with you guys on this. I think C.D. Lamb is an ascending superstar.

you know, there's, I think that we've already seen that he has a good rapport with Dak. I broke down like halfway through the year before. I don't remember if it was before Dak got hurt or whatever, but I did a breakdown of like C.D. Lamb, how he'd done so far. And you could tell he was already like one of Dax's most trusted receivers early, early in his career. Like he was, you know, going to C.D. even after coming off of his first read and sort of like scrambling around, like he was like his scramble drill guy. showing trust in him on third downs, showing trust in him in traffic,

all these things that you want to see in the connection from the receiver and the quarterback, and C.D. was not letting him down. Because a lot of times, like, young receivers will, like, drop key passes and sort of, like, the quarterback... I think he had the most third downs for the Cowboys last year. Yeah, he was the go-to guy on third downs, which is, you know, I think says a lot in terms of how much the...

both he and both DAC and whoever else was playing later, Dalton and Danucci trusted him to get open and to be where he needs to be at that. at the right time. So, yeah, C.D. Lamb's great, man. Yeah, I mean, he was the guy before it was Justin Jefferson. I feel like he was the talk of the rookie town, right? Like, he was the one on-paced set records.

I'm looking at his first five games when DAC played, he was unbelievable. I mean, it looks like, I don't know, it looks like DeAndre Hopkins numbers. Yeah, it's a serious thing. Well, just when DAC played, C.D. Lamb had more deep catches than the rest of the Cowboys combined. Yeah, I think CD is potentially underrated. Yeah, especially also, this is going to be like the mainstream bed because I actually didn't see the Cooper thing.

I just looked that up. That's two hours ago. If Amari Cooper, his ankle surgery means he's not actually going to be able to practice, like that only shoots CD up even more for me. That's crazy. Also, I kind of like Cooper this year, so too bad for that.

I mean, he'll be fine, right? Like, we're not worried about it yet. Well, I don't know because Cooper always has lower body injuries that end up nagging. Like last year he went super under the radar. Didn't he have Planner fasciitis, like a mild case in August? And he's played the whole season with it.

Everyone's like, which one with Cooper? It's like, he has this extremely painful foot condition. Like, there's a reason. You know what I mean? Foot rip and toe rip. Yeah. Yeah. Foot rip.

All right. Who's the next? Craig, you want to go? Yeah. So the next breakout or fake out guy, Chase Claypool, wide receiver and the Steelers. So here are the pros of Chase Claypool. He had 11 touchdowns as a rookie. Pretty impressive.

That's good. That's good. Physically, I think maybe the most talent to wide receiver of the Steelers have had in a decade. He's like kind of Calvin Johnson. He's a freak. We've thrown that out twice in this episode, and I don't like that we've used it twice. The best receiver I've seen in my lifetime.

We have to pick. Is Kyle Pitts Calvin Johnson or is Claypool for Calvin Johnson? We are literally talking about two of the most athletic players of the last 10 or 15 years. And it's quantifiable, right? It's like measurable. It's like numbers. It's not like we're,

I really don't, like physically speaking, Kyle Pitts and Chase Claypool are pretty similar, actually. And they both are like 98th percentile athletes in terms of like size, wingspan, explosiveness, 40, vertical, all that stuff. I think I saw there was like a, I need to look this up. So you guys stall for a second.

But based on his 40 time, Claypool, there's only like two or three guys ever, a 6-4, 2-30 who ran less than 4-4 or something like that. Wasn't there talks of him being a tight end? Just like, is he a wide receiver? Wasn't that part of the conversation? Before he did. Before he did that at the combine,

after he did that, everyone was like, okay, so he should just play receiver. He's one of the best 13 wide receivers of the decade, according to PFF rookies. One of the best 13 rookie wide receivers of the decade. No, and how he played. Here's the stat. Two players who are 6'4-235 pounds plus

have run sub-4-4-4-5 in the combine ever. Thousands of combined players. I don't know how many are 6-4-2-35. Probably, you know, a good amount. Sorry, how many players have ever. ran? I don't know how many players are 6'4, 235, but there's two players in Combine history that are that size who have run 4-4-5 or better in the Combine is Chase Claypool and Calvin Johnson. Wow. All right. Well, there you go. And listen, he hit the ground running. Like, he was immediately

effective and was one of those guys where when you watch him play, you know how you can just kind of tell. He'd get body control, kind of like DeAndre Hopkins. Like, he's like what I think everyone wanted Mike Williams to be, where he's this big play threat who actually comes through. Yeah. And produces whenever you throw him the ball. And listen, you could say what you want about all the competition around him. He was a top 24 wide receiver last year, as were the other two guys. So he... All those numbers are ske...

Can I just do some cons for a second? Just not about his athleticism, not as a player. But I'm curious if people who had him last year were happy with him. Because my issue with him is that he had three touchdowns and 110 yards against the Eagles. No one had him on their team when that happened. You pick him up after that. And also, against the Eagles, the Eagles had shitty. cornerbacks. He had four things that

game. He had four. Three receiving and one running. All right, well, no one had them on their teams. Those wasted, what do we call fantasy entropy? Like, it's over. So then after that, he just was kind of mediocre. He had like, basically two games the rest of the season that were like, worth starting. And it's like, and then he just had a bunch of clunkers, like 52 yards,

no score, 38 yards, 15, 54, 54, 4. Like, I feel like he had a lot of games that were like, meh, but the games that stuck, ironically, what sticks out, and then he had a big game, week 17 when no one's playing. I guess ironically the fact that week 17 and then week four his big games, I'm like, we have this memory of him where no one was playing him for those weeks.

He didn't help anyone. I think you're going a little hard on how bad he was after that game. I mean, he had five touchdowns in those like remaining nine games. He averaged like 60 yards a game. In the playoffs, he had two touchdowns. Like, I don't know.

I think you're discounting him a little bit. But I think the point is it's not like look at these exact stats. It's just that he proved. he could be like a productive good player. Also, he established himself. He proved it. Like, I feel like the question was, is he good? He was like that eighth wide receiver taken.

And it was immediately like, yes, that was a good pick. I think it's also a crucial variable to consider that Mike Tomlin came out and said that he was holding Claypool back in the second half of a year because he did not want Claypool to hit the rookie wall. He was worried about the rookie wall, which is, I guess, a thing that some teams worry about. And they had the depth that the receiver position, like James Washington, still pretty good. like number four receiver and he was going out there and playing fine he's like jordan wilkins he's the best number four wide receiver in the league yeah so you know obviously you cannot assume rational

coaching and that claypool will get 90% of the snaps this year you can't necessarily assume that but there was a reason like a quantifiable reason that he his snap count went down uh in the second half year and the coach said that was specifically that for this reason we held him out we wanted not we didn't want to make him hit the wall. This year I can assume the assumption is that he will like wheels up, he'll play like a full-time role. You know, that this is the

judgment we're having to make. I think it's a sound, like I think it's reasonable to expect that this year he'll play like a full lot of men of snaps versus what last year. If you want to continue the cons, it's that Ben might suck. He might be toast. Well, that's the thing. And their backups suck and he's got a ton of

competition and the Steelers want to run more with Najee Harris. So there's a lot going against him as well. I have a question for both of you. Yeah. And I want to start with Craig because you're Steelers fan. Deontay Johnson,

we haven't ranked at our half-peper rankings at fantasyfutball. Theringer.com. We have Deontay Johnson 48th. We have Chase Claypool, 65th. We have Juju, 72.

If you had to draft one of those players at that number, at their number, who would you want? I want Claypool. Claypool at 65. Yeah.

Deontes at 48, and then, Juju's at 72. I think I'd pick Deontay still. I think the question that you're having to ask yourself here is for Diyon like versus Deontay versus Claypool. I'm not actually that huge of a believer in Juju. So he's like eliminated for me automatically.

But I think the question between Juju or sorry with Deontay Johnson and Claypool is floor versus ceiling. Deontay Johnson is going to get the targets. It's almost like I feel almost certain that's going to be the case. Like when he was healthy and in there and playing and not in the. dog house because he did get bench. So, like, in the games that he was healthy and didn't get benched. He was averaging, like, the most targets per game of any receiver in the NFL, like,

12 targets a game or something ridiculous. Yeah, they replaced the run game with just slants to Deonté. That's, I think that's part of it. I wouldn't say that's, like, purely how they did it. But, like, he was the guy who gets open early in his routes. He's reliable. Heif, as you talked about, I think, last episode where they were getting the ball out of Ben's hands really, really quickly.

They have to design a scheme. system and a passing game that where guys are getting out of their routes and getting out of their cuts early. And Deonti Johnson proved that he can do that. He's good against man coverage. Like he's a reliable guy who can get open. He can shake coverage. And to be clear, not just early, the fastest on record that pro football focus has.

They have 10 years of data. Ben Rathusperger was getting the ball out of his hand significantly faster than any quarterback on record. It's basically two seconds flat. Yeah. And then on the other hand, you have Claypool, who I think has the upside to be a superstar, like physical profile, talent, ability. Like, we saw him catching these twirling catches right on the sideline where he like literally

does like a 360 and then toe touches down like on the sideline 30 yards down the sideline. Like he's talented. He has a talent. He has a physical ability to size all that stuff to be a superstar. His role is just different. So it's a little more dependent, I guess, on Ben Rothesberger being not washed, right? Yeah, and it's how the Steelers run their offense this year. So he can be able to hold the ball more and let Chase Claypool get downfield so he can

throw them the football. I think the thing about Claypool is whatever he's ranked as our wide receiver 30 or whatever people have him as. Like, I think you kind of assume that's what you'll be every week. He'll be a weekly wide receiver 30. I don't think that's who Claypool's going to be. He's going to be he's going to have big weeks and small weeks and nothing in between. I think that's kind of who he's going to be. He's going to have five catches for 120 and a touchdown. And then he'll have two catches for 32. So he'll have, he'll legitimately be breakout or fake out week by week. I think the Steelers will be too.

Honestly. I think the Steelers is going to be the exact same way. But speaking of Steelers, the other team I really want to hit the Bengals. Like I feel like Jamar Chase, T. Higgins,

and Tyler Boyd are maybe to me even harder than the Steelers tree overseers to rank and figure out the fact that Jamar Chase is probably the highest quality guy at the team, but he's a rookie, but he played with Joe Burrow.

I don't know what to make of this team. Craig, do you have, like, what are your pros and cons for these Bengals receivers. So if you start with Jamar, the pros are, once again,

just like Kyle Pitts, he's one of the most impressive rookie wide receivers we've seen. Yeah, he's reconnecting with his college quarterback, who he was unbelievable with. He's a big play threat. He had 14 deep touchdowns in 2019 on LSU. That was more than in 2019 and 2020 combined

for any other player in college football. He did it in one year. No other player did what he did in two years. Wait, what? He had 14 deep touchdowns with Joe Burrow in 2019. No connection between a quarterback and a wide receiver did that in two years of college football, 2019-19-2020. That's crazy. And listen, the Bengals throw a ton.

Burrow led the league in passing attempts before he got hurt. We've seen recently that rookies can make an impact immediately. Cincinnati is like this sleeper Cowboys North thing going on. AJ Green's gone. So a lot going for him. The cons for Chase are you would say the stiff competition. and this is where T. Higgins comes in. There's Tyler Boyd.

He is still a rookie. That's always the thing. And he's pricey, to be honest, for a rookie. He's going in the top 30. So it's like, you really got to believe that he's the guy, but it's like Kyle Pitz. Top 30 receivers. Yes, right. Top 30 wide receivers.

But you can get the Heisman trophy winner, Devonty Smith, like 40 picks after Jamar Chase. And some drafts. And T. Higgins and Jemar Chase are essentially going in the exact same spot. Most people now are just saying, I don't know, and putting them right next to each other. And T. Higgins proved it last year. And he's big and he's more of a right. red zone threat. So the question should be, those are the pros and cons of T. Higgins and Jammar Chase. Which one is a breakout and which one is a fakeout? Or can it be both in either way?

I think in the context of the discussion we've been having, again, it's like the same deal with Jonathan Taylor, David Montgomery. I lean fake out for Chase based on the idea that we're drafting him at his ceiling or we're drafting him at his realistic ceiling. Like he might just go ape shit and freaking do the Justin Jefferson thing and have 1,400 yards and 15 touchdowns. Like, it's in the realm of possibility. But I'd say probably, like, it's more probable that we're drafting him right around

his ceiling. Does that make sense? And so, breakout is a... The comp you had for him was smaller Larry Fitzgerald. And that's really exciting to want on your team. I think it's, this is more of like a semantics thing, because I think he's going to break out, quote, breakout as a rookie. You know, he's not going to be a disappointed. as a rookie, but also in the context of where he's being drafted and expectations,

it's a question of like, you know, is he going to exceed where he's being drafted? And that would make me lean fake out. So it's tough. It's semantics. But Senda does not get discussed at Jamar Chay. He was out. He opted out of last year. Do we have any juice to the fact that like the players who opted out of last year are

going to like, like, a serious question? We never talk about this with like injuries, but like the fact that a player missed the season with injuries. We're talking about the injury. We don't talk about the fact that they didn't play football. D.K., do you think that there's F, like, for all the talk of, oh, Burrow and Chase have chemistry, he didn't play football in 2020. Like, does, like, is it crazy of us to expect him to just come firing out of the gates in September? It's not crazy, but I do think that it's not something you should completely ignore. It's not something that we should say is not a factor. I don't know, I really don't know, because, like, I've never played football at a high level. Like, how important is it to

get the reps, I really don't know the answer to that. I would say if it was basketball or one of these sports were, I guess, like, the fine motor skills required to, like, shoot and play and dribble and have handles and do all that stuff in basketball, I would say that's a different conversation. I don't, I really don't know the answer for football. Like, I'm assuming he's gotten reps, like on the jugs machine. He's playing with, he's like playing catch and everything, doing seven stuff, getting reps that way. Um, But if it was like, again, like if it was basketball, I'm saying, like, he might not have the touch

or the handles that he typically has if he's taken a year off from playing competitive basketball, that's different than playing football. I really don't know the answer to that. I would lean that it's not quite as crucial, but I really don't know. I also think the difference here between him and somebody like Kyle Pitts is that

he's arguably just as fun and sexy as Kyle Pitts in a vacuum, but compared to his position, he's not. There's a lot of other people like Jamar Chay. in the NFL now, and there's not a lot of Kyle Pitts. I mean, you get, after the first three tight ends, it gets pretty shitty, and that's why you start talking yourself into Kyle Pitts. That's not the case of a wide receiver.

Yeah. There's a million guys around Charmarchamarchase that are interesting. So I think that's something to consider. He's part of, and to your point, Craig, he's part that we have, we did tears at the ringer fantasy, uh, sorry, the fantasy football draft guide at the ringer.com. It's fantasy football.orgas.com. Hell yeah. We did, we did tears.

Sorry, I'm getting the plug in. And he's in this huge tier five for us, where we literally have like 15 receivers. Kenny Goliday, Chase, Higgins, Beckham, Sutton, Ayuk, Chark, Claypool, Robbie Anderson, Tyler Boy, Juju, Debo Samuel, and Jerry Judy are all in the same tier where in reality, I'd be pretty happy having one of these guys as like my receiver three, maybe even receiver two. When you're actually doing your draft, the way I've been doing my drafts is I want to just kind of suck up other positions. in my first, well, not other positions, but like, I want receivers in that 60, 70, 80 range,

but I'm not extremely picky about which they are because there are so many good ones that are more targeting a really good running back or maybe a different position depending on value. And then, like, if Robbie Anderson falls to me versus Jamar Chase, I can't pretend there's a huge, like, scathing difference to me if I get better value at running back. So, yeah, I mean, so, you know, in that kind of, you know, in that context, Again, I think in the context of, is he going to be a good rookie? Is he going to, quote, break out as a rookie?

I do think so. However, I would probably put him in the fake-out category in the context of what we're doing here in terms of, like, really outplaying his ADP. How much are we really affected by what the rookies did last year? If this was the year after Corey Davis was drafted fourth or whenever he went, if this was the year after that and Jamar Chase came into the league, would we feel the same way? But we are at three years running where they're, look, when we first started this podcast, like a few years ago, is the first big argument we ever had was I was not into rookie receivers. And I was wrong because D.K was proven right. We're like three years in a row. We're like three years in a row of rookie receivers making serious contributions. And the thing that NFEL's changed. NFL's changed. The moment that you will, DEC has sent me a quote from Kyle Shanahan like two years ago that changed my thinking on it where he was just like, you. Kyle Shannon's explaining how guys like Debo and Brandon Ayuk,

he has changed his offense where it's like you, you don't need them to be as technically proficient if you're just getting them open and offenses have clearly incorporated that kind of stuff. As D.K. said, how D.K. Danny Kelly said about D.K. Metcalfe. Right. That like, yeah, fine, he can run three outs in college.

Fuck it. He'll run three hours for us as a rookie. And he was great. Yeah. So I'm not as worried about the rookie receiver thing as I used to, especially if they did it last year when there was like less continuity and less time to ramp up than ever. And so on one hand, is it a good idea to like base it off last year? But if Justin Jefferson and C.D. Lamb and all these guys can be good as rooks last year, are you?

Then I think they can do it any year going forward. You know what's crazy about the Justin Jefferson thing is thinking back on it? People who took Jefferson in drafts through two weeks, it was like looking grim. You know what I mean? It was like, oh, God, he's not even in the starting lineup. B.C. Johnson was starting in front of him. Yeah. He got off to a really slow start.

I think a lot of people cut him. Yeah, keep that context in mind if Jamar Chase maybe starts a little slow. Like we were talking about, you know, where he's taking a few weeks to get up to speed.

He's taking a year off of football. Maybe he has to like get used to getting... It's a little like his first game since LSU won the championship. We have. No, yeah. Knowing who to cut is a skill. Like,

I would argue that you shouldn't cut Jamar Chase the entire year if he sucks. I would literally hold on to the entire year. Yeah. Just in case. Just in case he like kills it during the last five games or something. But yeah,

I would say if you're debatjibati baiting between these two, just take the cheaper one. That is exactly it. Like when you're on the fence and you, if you can wait and around or pay less for someone else in a draft, like that's it. Also, I'd just like to say, can we just say Tyler Boyd's name? Just out loud.

Who? Tyler Boyd. We're acknowledging. I actually, I actually been wondering this. Tyler Boyd is to me kind of like, if Tyler Boyd, I think is the third guy being drafted at a lot of sites, would it be like, would you be surprised that Tyler Boyd led the team in all these categories? Would that be a surprise to you, D.K?

He's going third. It's not like juju where I think that would be a little surprising. It would be a surprise but it's not outside the realm of possibility.

He's had pretty much he's had 80 or 90 catches in the last two years. I don't know. Tyler Boy's not bad. All right. He's a good player. He's a very good player.

Yeah. So we're saying breakout for pits and it's kind of like a yolo don't have FOMO move. Yeah. Gibson I think it's like a begrudging breakout.

We want it to be a thing but the turf toe like keep an eye on it. Jonathan Taylor is not a breakout. I don't know if he's a fake out, but he's not a breakout. David Montgomery,

I think we're all like, fake out. Fake out. Cid Lam, we think is a breakout. Yep. What do we decide on Claypool? I think he's a breakout.

I pull him in my mind's eye, I see him as a fake out, but I also totally could see me being wrong. And I'm also, I'm all, honestly, I'm trending toward he's a breakout for Claypool. At least you admit that,

yeah. I would say breakout. I think he's a breakout. And Jabar Chase, I think, is probably a fakeout Jemar Chase is a real football breakout, fantasy football fakeout.

I think that's exactly correct. All right, there we go. That's breakout or fake out. Thank you, ever for listening. Again, fantasyfutball. Dot the ringer.com, that's where a draft guide is. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig.

Thank you, Lorne. Lorne. Thank you, Kenny Loggins. Whoa, footloose. Wow. Wow, all right. There you go, D. That's what they say about Dave Montgomery's feet.

Footloose. What they call him. The feet of footloose.