The Ringer NFL Show - The All Boom, No Bust Top Six

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

We run through our six favorite boom/bust players and focus on what their season could look like if they boom. We finish the show by answering a listener email. Check out 'The Ringer’s' Fantasy Football Draft Guide! Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the host that brought you to Coding Westworld. And Westworld, the recapables. Comes the Ringer Prestige TV podcast on Westworld. I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Danny Heifitz. And I'm David Shoemaker. Welcome to Westworld Season 4 in the Prestige TV podcast feed, where we're going to break down every episode of Westworld season four.

Every Monday, the day after the show comes out on the prestige TV podcast feed. Wherever we get your podcast, but get them on Spotify. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Heifitz. And I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlbeck. And it is the 4th of July. Well, it's like the 5th of July. But still, 5th of July just sounds weird to say.

Also because you just said filth of July. Filth? Which represents this country aptly. So well done. Yeah, exactly. We wanted to do fireworks for the 4th of July this year because I feel like every year, especially around this time, we talk about like boom, bust guys.

And there's obviously they could boom or bust. And we're like, you know what? The bust thing is just a huge downer. This is what everyone's talking about in early July. everyone's talking about, everyone gathers around the water cooler talking about fantasy of 2022 and they're like, who's going to take off? Who's going to explode?

And that's what we're here to tell you today. So we're just going booms. It's fireworks. It's the guys that could just go off this year. So we're going to just like, yeah, it's like the Seinfeld episode. We're going to like yada, yada, yada, yada, all the bad stuff away. And we're just going to focus on what if they just explode?

It's like when the Rams had traded, if we did this last year, it would have been like, okay, what's the best possible outcome for Matthew Stafford and Cooper Cup? and we probably still would have fallen a little short of last year. But that's the idea. We're trying to find the Stafford Cooper Cup thing of like, what's the best possible outcome for this person? What's the boom?

Where do we want to start? I think we only have one quarterback on this list. And that's where I think we should start because I do think it is fascinating and really has a ton of boom or bust potential. Okay. Yeah, maybe the widest variation of any player on this list, in fact, because, you know, quarterback is such hard position.

We don't even actually know 100% if he's going to start. I think we know. It's Traylans for the 49ers. Yeah. And I think at Tray Lance, I think of, what was the movie that got Seth Rogen? I was going to say sued by North Korea, but it was like worse than that. The interview? The interview.

And they're like, Sude Buckner. Sorry, I'm telling you. But Tray Lance is, which I don't know if it's accurate or not. We're trying to shoot him in, but it feels like Lamar Jackson three or four years ago. When we were basically like, well, you could take Lamar Jackson like 110th and he could just be the best quarterback. And then he was. Yeah.

And Tray Lance kind of has the same vibes this year because we can talk about all this stuff. But here's the thing. He's going to play. He's the starter. Like, I understand we have to nod to Jimmy G.B. on the team. Trey Lance is the starter for this team. I don't think Jimmy Gropel is going back to the Niners.

So I almost kind of want to put that to bed. It's this uncertainty because it hasn't happened yet. The Niners are not playing Jimmy G in week one. It is Trey Lance. Can we like agree on this? Yes. I mean, I think so. Yeah, because Kyle Shanahan even said like they're going to trade him.

Yeah, exactly. Like, we're going to trade him at some point. There's perceived. ambiguity right now at quarterback, there's no ambiguity. Jimmy G. will be somewhere else. Tray Lance is the starter. So let's get that out of the way. All right. As long as we're in this dumb world of fantasy football scoring,

where 10 rushing yards are equal to 25 passing yards. And two rushing touchdowns are worth three passing touchdowns. Russian quarterbacks will be disproportionately valuable. The Niners got Trey Lance to be mobile Jimmy Garoppola. He's 6'4. I'm not going to say he's as fast as Lamar Jackson, but he's way faster than the average quarterback. And I feel like the Niners, I mean, what Shanahan is going to be able to do with the Niners after he had Robert Griffin, who had like, what, 800 plus rushing yards, seven touchdowns in a rookie season.

I think that Kyle Shanahan with like almost a decade of experience since then, knowing specifically what he wants Traillands to do. It's not crazy to say Traylands could easily be the number one or number two quarterback in the entire league this year in fantasy. Yeah. I mean, he's got that kind of upside. And like you said, it all comes down to the rushing end, the rushing volume. I mean, if you look at a few of his starts, he was always running the ball. I mean, in particular, the week five game where he had 16 rushes for 89 yards. Like, you extrapolate that over a season and you have potential to be the top overall

quarterback. He basically averaged 12 carries a game. Yeah, he had 31 rushes in three games as a starter. And if that keeps up, that's 170 rushes in a season. And no matter how good he is at throwing the football, it doesn't matter if he runs 170 times. And it's a loophole. He's two players in one. This is what we talk about Christian McCaffrey, just catching so many passes.

he's like a receiver and a running back in one player. Tray Lance would be a running back and a quarterback. Now here's the key point. I can't stress this enough. You're not any good. Like he's not good. I don't think Trillance will be good. He was pretty terrible last year.

And I have two thoughts in that. One, it doesn't matter because he just wanted him to run. And two, I'm kind of, well, there's actually three points. Two, he was terrible, but also he was supposed to be a developmental quarterback, right? Like, I don't want to hear. The developmental guy is bad in year one. Well, you knew he was going to be bad in year one. one. So we kind of have to throw it out. And then three, he literally hurt his finger.

And he had to relearn how to throw a football just to play because Jimmy Garoppel was also hurt. So we had to grip the football differently than he's gripped in his whole life. So passing wise, we almost have to take that out. Let me be clear here. I don't think Tray Lance is going to be that good this year. Do you guys? I think he could be a top five fantasy. I mean, look at Jalen Hertz. Do I think Jalen Hertz is going to be a hall of fame or no? Is he going to bring the Eagles to the Super Bowl? No. Do I think Jailen Hertz could be a top five quarterback this year in fantasy? Yeah, and I kind of feel the same way about Trey Lance. Yeah.

This is where it goes back to where High Fitz is like, we don't even really want him to be that good a passer because we want him to be throwing. And people still have question marks about Lamar Jackson, too. And it's like all these rushing quarterbacks kind of fit into, I think a similar category in terms of like people's perception, oh, they're running quarterbacks are not very good at pass, even though Lamar Jackson is like head and shoulders better than like hurts. And probably at this point in their career, Trey Lance.

Can we go back one second to Hafeitz's impression of the Happy Gummore quote there? I didn't do it very well. Not only are you tone deaf, you're quote deaf. Craig, you got to save him here. There's just one problem, Trey. You aren't any good. Okay, thank you. So with that said, yeah, yeah.

Because we're just talking about firework here. And it's the same. We're trying to chase that Lamar Jackson season where if you get a quarterback like that, you kind of have a, you know, go around the board. collect $200 free trip to the championship game. 50-50 shot to win your league. So with that upside, where do you guys rank Tray Lance?

Because weirdly, if you're looking at like the average outcome, he's like what, 20th, 15th, but you're factory in the lottery upside. Quarterback is so deep. We've got Josh Allen, Mahomes, Herbert, Kyler, Lamar Jackson's top five. Then you got Jalen Hertz, Tom Brady, Joe Burr, Burr, Russell, Dick Prescott. That's 6 through 10.

Then you got Aaron Rogers, Matt Stafford, Derek, like at what point do you just say, screw it, I don't want a safe guy. I want Trey Lance. Like, what, when do you take him as your backup quarterback, basically? I'm taking him over Aaron Rogers straight up. Yeah, just chasing the upside. I think right around that QB 11, 12, 13 range, I would rather have him.

I mean, there's other guys that have, you know, there's like Justin Fields, Trevor Lawrence, these other guys with the rushing upsides. But like, once you get past Borough, Russell Wilson, and Brady, we're talking about Stafford, Rogers, Derek Carr, Kirk Cousins. like, I want Trey Lance over all of those guys. You could convince me that I want him over Tom Brady. You guys laugh at me, but this is do, I do fundamentally think fantasy is flawed when we're talking about Trey Lance over Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford. I do think the rushing upside thing is dumb, but this is the scoring we have to do.

So with that said, you're probably right. I mean, especially with once Jimmy's traded and we don't even have to think about Trey being the week one starter. I don't know, Dickey, do you want Matthew Stafford or Trey Lance as stupid as that is to say out loud? I'm still probably taking Stafford, but it is to the point where it's kind of close now, and that tells you a lot about Lance's upside. I think the thing that kind of keeps Lance above guys like fields, above guys like, I don't know,

you know, Trevor Lawrence, whoever, some of these guys that are sort of in the second third tier, quarterbacks, is the Shanahan effect and what he's done in the past for quarterbacks and the way he's been able to give these guys like insanely high yards per attempt. The 49ers have a very good skill group that can do a lot of yards after the catch. Like they could take some of the pressure off of Trey Lance.

That's, I think, what really pushes him above some of these other, like, high upside type quarterbacks that were going into year two. So he's like the perfect, he is the perfect QB2, but I think his ADP is going to be so high because there's going to be so much hype going in once he is officially named starter, once Jimmy G gets traded. Like, you're not going to be able to get him. as your QB2 eventually probably. People are going to be like pushing his ADP up.

Again, I think competence at quarterback this year, if you're in a one quarterback league is very easy because Derek Carr is going to be like the 13th, 14th, 14th quarterback taking Kirk Cousins in a past first offense now. It'll be like 14th. So you can get competence. I think Lance with the upside is going to be. He's a perfect example for this exercise of like firework.

It's just if the boom would be so beautiful and spectacular, it's probably going to be worth it. Okay. With that said, who do you guys want to do next? I want to do a guy on Danny Hive, it's New York Giants. I want to talk about Cadarius Tony, who in my mind, you know, he was kind of the opposite of Trey Lance, where I thought he was fantastic, but he was just in the worst spot and had

an incredibly unlucky rookie season. He had terrible coaching, an awful scheme, a quarterback who was all over the place, a backup quarterback who came in who was even worse, Mike Glennon. So Cadarius Tony was a rookie last year, and I think he had just about as unlucky a rookie season as you could have. I wanted to run through, like, how everything started. he was placed on the team's COVID list to start of training camp

then he missed the rest of training camp with a hamstring injury he started to take off week four and five was like his coming out party he had a great game against the Saints and then he had that big game against Dallas he had like 10 catches, 189 yards and literally looked like Antonio Brown

he looked like he just moves different from everyone else he runs like Tyree Kill with the lateral speed he's remarkable and I remember watching that game being like I don't care what anybody says going on I don't care what he does for the rest of the season

he could break his leg tomorrow. I know this guy's really good. And if he's in the right situation, this guy is the top 10 receiver in the league. So he basically got hurt the rest of the year. He hurt his quad. He hurt his oblique. He was having another great game against the Rams

and he hurt his ankle and had to leave. And it's like this guy had Joe Judge and Jason Garrett running his team. Daniel Jones and Mike Glennon were throwing him to football. And albeit, one of my big pillars that I try to follow in fantasy football is like, don't.

Just don't draft receivers who have shitty quarterbacks. So that is the only reason why Cadarious Tony's like well not perfect for me but obviously look we've got a brand new scheme here with Brian Dayball coming in as the head coach

and if you look at others I won't bore you guys in the numbers but all the sticky stats the yards per route run the target share the translation of all is that is when he was on the field when he ran routes people threw the ball to him and when they threw him the ball he often made good shit happen and he was barely used

so there's a lot of mouse to feed kind of in New York there's like a lot of vagueness they drafted Wondale Robinson, a receiver in the second round. They're still Sterling Shepardy coming off in Achilles. They have Darius Slate in there, Kenny Gulladay. You know, they have obviously Sequin Barclay. But I think talent-wise, he has the ability to rise and the cream can separate. And he will be, and could be, I don't know, the next Tyreek in the league.

D.K. Yeah. I am biased. But since we're doing the firework here, look, the bust I could talk about one. why he could bust. But we're doing the firework thing. If Cadarish Tony stays healthy,

because he's never really stayed healthy since he was in college. If he stays healthy, your favorite word when you're scouting DK, or my favorite word they use, is sudden, players who are sudden, just the movement change.

Can you give me your top five sudden players when everyone's at full health in the NFL? Because I feel like Gary's Tony is in the top five. Put me on the spot here. Terry Kill, certainly, extremely, extremely sudden.

I would say Tony is definitely up there. Let me just pull up a list of freaking receivers. Waddle, I'm sure is there. Waddle's pretty sudden. I'd say Debo. Which basically I'm going to say like tag. It's kind of like guys that would be difficult to catch in a game of tag. Like Lamar Jackson is sudden.

Tyreek guys that you just, it's not just speed straight line. It's guys where if you were locked in a bedroom with them, you still couldn't catch them because they're so shifting. And that is what I'm telling you, just who, if you're listening right now, go on YouTube and watch this game against Dallas. And so while D.K is doing that, the thing you left out of that timeline, Craig, is that Tony's kind of space cadet. I think my, the defining Tony's story for me is that his first giant's practice he showed up. He signed a deal with an apparel, like a shoe company

and his shoes, so he wouldn't wear other shoes. And the cleats he brought were the wrong size. So his first practice as a giant, he was running routes and socks. That was literally his introduction to the team. And then, you know, week one, he gets like, he plays eight snaps or something, gets like no targets. And he tweets like, you know, he

called it lame that he wasn't getting the ball. It was lame. Well, but like, it just, If he figures it out I agree that he punched the guy. He punched Montecayy on the field and got ejected from that game in Dallas. Dude, Tony, he's chaos.

He's a fire plug. I like him. Like, he is, the Giants for all their awfulness over the last 10 years, 100 losses in 10 years, they had Odell and Seekwan, who when they were peak and healthy were two of the most incredible football players last 10 years. Tony looked that class

of caliber when he was healthy. I 100% agree. And so on a team that's probably going to double their touchdowns, DK, what's a reasonable place to be betting on him, though, at a point where you don't feel like you're giving up too much to bet on the upside for a guy that once forgot to bring cleats that fit to a football practice? Well, I think, honestly, like, so I'm just going to look at his ADP right now. His ADP is...

Let's see. Here at fantasy football. Dot the ringer.com, where you can see all over fantasy rankings, we have Tony. We have him at 99. Yeah. which feels fit because we're above ADP right now. His overall ADP, half PPR,

what I'm looking at here on Fantasy Pros is 115. He's the wide receiver 46. I think all the risks are baked into that and more. That to me is value already. So I'm willing to take him quite a bit higher. And I think his- It also makes sense. The Giants are trying to do more quick passing this year.

So even though Kenny Gallaud is getting paid like the number one receiver, Tony is the guy that makes the most sense to probably lead the team in targets and catchers. They're also probably going to pass a lot more. Like, if you look at Dayballs, you know, what he did with the bills, the way that they spread things out, the way that they were really pass heavy, really aggressive. I could see him doing that.

You know, and Craig alluded to this, but like, when you look at his, he had 2.2 yards per route run, I think, as a rookie, which is, you know. Jamar Chase was the only other one. Extremely, extremely efficient. Yeah, like, and he, and I'm looking at a tweet from Joy McFarland, and, like, he is an elite, like, rarefied air territory among first and second round receivers to average two plus. yards forever. We gotta give context

to those numbers. That Cowboys game, Craig's talking about. Everyone was hurt in the Giants. Everybody except him. And I'm not exaggerating.

The other guys playing in those games are like special teamers. And so even though the Cowboys kind of knew everything was going to him, he still was getting open, which I thought was particularly

He was pretty impressive. Yeah. And honestly, like, you know, Goladay, I think Kenny Goladay is probably going to be a little bit bigger part of the offense this year, but Sturring Shepard is coming off

in Achilles. He might not even be playing. Wondell Robinson is a rookie and he's like five foot seven. like Tony could be the number one receiver in this offense immediately. I was drafted a giant straight up over Kenny Gallag. He did not have a touchdown last year. And I do think that even though we say you're probably going to score touchdowns,

when you don't score, it sticks in your mind. And you're not able to put a player higher up than like 99. You know what I mean? It's like there's a certain fear of drafting a guy 70th who didn't score a touchdown last year. But realistically, you'll probably get three by the end of week two. And I can't stress this enough. He was barely used.

He ran an average of 20 routes during the nine games he played. in 2021. Like, he just, like, barely played. And every time he was on the field, he was great. Part of that was on him. You know, if you bring shoes, you play. Okay, yeah, maybe that's true. But, like, I'm a little bit more confident in dayball

than Joe Judge and Jason Garrett. I really believe the Jones doubled their touchdowns. I'm not just saying that. It's literally they were last. And if they double it, they'll be average. Everything about Tony is just so hard to, like, pin down. And, like, going back to his college career. He's the definition of, like, a sexy pick.

Like, he's the boom bust. He's the boom bust. I would argue he's easily the most boom-bust player in the entire. I think this is a correct list before. Trey Lansing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

going back to his college career, he was like, he started out as a quarterback. He was labeled an athlete for part of his time there. His final season that he played at Florida when it was him and Kyle Pitts, like he was one of the best receivers in the country. Like, he was doing some insane stuff.

But at the same time, he's just like, and I'll just keep saying that he's just like chaos walking. Like, everything about him is chaotic. even like his movement is chaotic. It's just like half the time he's running, he's just like falling and trimming down

because he's just so explosive. It's like he can't even keep up with himself. So, you know, obviously I think he's got that incredible, incredible upside, but the reason his ADP isn't higher is because he's so chaotic and people just really don't trust him right now. And so that's just kind of like the balance you have to take.

But I'm actually like we're ahead of ADP on him. I think we're really bullish on him. It's going to be even higher. Our next rankings that come out, he's going to be even higher. If he's healthy and is on the field, I honestly don't see a world in which he's not a top 20 wide receiver. Yeah.

D.K. So, all right, Craig has Cadiers, Tony. I have Trey Lance. D.K. Give us a firework guy. Yaddy, yada on the bust. What if he booms? Okay, so sticking with the same, I think, like, theme, Travis E.T.N. From the Jags is, to me, like, one of the biggest boom-bust players

that you can draft this year. The upside is incredible. The upside is like high-end running back one, I think. honestly. So a top 10 running back, top five. I mean, even like top six, maybe. Like honestly, just the way that they utilize him, he's one of a few running backs in the league that has actual three down potential.

He's saying top six, this is a guy that we basically have, I mean, we're having top 70 and you're saying top seven guy. Correct. But there's a lot. And same with everything we've talked about here. There's a lot of downside, too. There's a lot of risk. James Robinson is still around.

you know, he's coming off an Achilles tear on December 26. So he was injured really late in the season. But he's already running around. So he's just kind of like hanging out, lingering in the background, like sort of making me nervous. I love that Achilles injuries just don't matter

in the NFL. Well, no, no, no, no. I think they do. I think they do. And that's why I'm high on it. No, I'm saying like he's back and running around. It's been like seven months.

No, we're not doing this. The Rams have like the Leap, the Rams are in Los Angeles at like UCLA Medical Center with like the Rams probably have, one of, if not the best medical team in the entire league and also have L.A. as a base for their medicine. I have a feeling that Jacksonville Jaguars and Urban Meyer were not exactly putting James Robb. I guess he had been fired by the time you got hurt, but I feel like the Jaguars are not on the same level with their medical team is my hunch. Well, it's also a different injury.

The Jacksonville residents are going to come after you. You're saying their medical programs, not up to snuff? I'm saying, yeah, actually. Reputation-wise. I'm saying that. Careful what you say, Hives. But yeah, and I think generally speaking, though, like, I'm not too worried about Robinson just because I think the Acres thing is still an extreme, extreme outlier. And even when you look at what Acres did when he came back, like, he wasn't very good. So I don't think Robinson's going to be a big part of this picture. I think the best way to look at E.TN is like he's essentially DeAndre Swift.

He's on a bad team. They're going to be playing from behind a lot. There's going to be a lot of pass-heavy scripts. He's going to get a lot of dump-offs and be utilized in the passing game a lot. I saw this from Nate Liz. Trevor Lawrence had a leak high 11.3 checkdown rate last year. And by the way, they're college teammates.

So they've got that built-in chemistry. They have the built-in, like, trust with each other. Lawrence knows where he's going to be. He knows how to lead him, like, correctly, knows his speed and all that stuff. So, like, you have that built-in, hit the ground running type of thing. The LIS rank injury that E.N had last year,

I think is also holding down his ADP and kind of like stifling some of the excitement around him. Because LISF rank injuries can be really bad, like, long term. It can kind of like take away your explosive. or whatever. But, you know, and again, this is unscientific, but like you watch some of these videos

coming out of him running around. He does not look slow. I've seen B reports. I hate that though. If you look slow when you're running on, you know what big of a problem that would be if you're running in shorts and you look slow? I mean, there's been plenty of videos where guys are like,

like they post something and it's like, oh, look at how fast he's and then everyone's like, uh, he looks slow. I feel like this is my least favorite genre. It's kind of like when NBA players just kind of post up like, hey, they're working on a new shot. and we're in the gym. And I'm like, what, I imagine. Everything Ben Simmons has ever done on social media.

It's like, are you going to post all the bricks? But I agree with you overall. I think, I think, I think judging by like one Twitter video or whatever, IG video is, is one thing. But like,

the beat reports out of, of Jags camp has said, like, unanimously that he looks explosive. He looks fast. It doesn't really look like he's coming off an injury. So that's really productive and positive. Wasn't your pre,

I'm trying to remember your pre-draft comparison for Travis Aet Tien, and was coming in Clemson. Was it like Alvin Camara-esque? That's a good question. Let me just pull it up. All I know is he would, so like if you go back to his college tape, because obviously we didn't see him play last year, he is one of the most explosive athletes, like, to come out

of college football in a long time. Like, and going back to what we were talking about earlier, like, he's incredibly, incredibly sudden. Like, his acceleration from stop to like top speed is really, really impressive. So I compared him to Darren McFad and just. because of his running like gate more. But like if you remember McFadden was like a four three guy, really explosive, bigger back. I don't know if that's like exactly what you're going for.

Like if you're talking about like fantasy upside, I'm just talking about like stylistically running style. But going back to ETS college career, good pass catcher, incredible touchdown creator. Like he had 78 touchdowns in four seasons. He was just scoring touchdowns every game. Wasn't that a record? 78 four seasons? I don't know, probably. I guess that was Wisconsin.

It's definitely up there. But he's like a big play threat, explosive, really good in space. I like the D.K. said about DeAndre Swift, about... Yeah. Think about what DeAndre Swift did last year. And even he was battling through injuries.

And that could be what Travis E.T.N. does this year. Right now, DeAndre Swift is going 16th overall in drafts. And right now, E.P.N. is going 49th. We usually do an episode later on in the off season, and we will this year called name brand, off brand, where we tell you a cheaper player that you can get who will deliver the results of a much more expensive player.

Travis E.N. and DeAndre Swift seemed like a very perfect name brand off brand. Yeah, Aetian is just the Kirkland brand of DeAndre Swift. Arbitrage. Yeah, also. Arbitrage is a very boring word, DK. No one wants to listen to the Arbentrampan off. Sorry.

Kirkland. Knock off Gucci slides. No, people want a deal. People want discounts. That's what people want. Everyone, like, it doesn't matter what it costs. He's like $4 off. Oh, my God.

We should do fantasy black friday. Friday or something like that. That's actually a good idea. I found out about this store that's in the Seattle area that's like you just buy these random boxes of stuff. It's like a surprise what's in there. And it's all a bunch of like things that have been either discontinued or like deep discount or whatever.

It's like you just go and buy these surprise things. And it's like I really want to go to this place. That's ETN. You know what I also love? I don't know if the number's back this. So all the fantasy nerds can come after me if it doesn't. But like I love when I want, if you're going to get a running back. on a team that sucks,

he needs to be a past catching running back. If you have Josh Jacobs and the Raiders suck, it doesn't matter how good Josh Jacobs is because they're never going to be in the lead, so they're never going to run the ball. ETN is great, because the Jags can be down 20 every game, and he's just going to rack up touches and snaps and catches.

High value touches, especially in half PPR and PPR too. Yeah, I think this is a really good one. Okay. So we've got T. Lansing at running back. We've got Cadarious Etonate receiver. Does anyone die to do one next? I could do my boy Gabe Dave, our boy Gabe Dave. I love Gabe Dave.

Gabriel Davis is the easiest firework case of all time. Yeah, go watch the Chiefs game in the playoffs last year. Can we just read his stat line? Do you have it, Craig, from the Bill's Chiefs playoff game? Yeah, he had eight catches for 201 yards and four touchdowns in the playoffs against the Chiefs. And he didn't catch his first pass, I think, until the second quarter. And his third touchdown is nuts. You should watch it.

He made the Chiefs Quarterback. Oh, the guy fell down. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that Gabe Dave in that game was the one where I realized he's just larger than I thought he was. Like he looked physically imposing in a way I don't think I'd ever appreciated. Yeah, he's a great size. And the man is just a touchdown machine. He only played 37 games, including the playoffs, and he has 18 touchdowns.

So he's essentially just averaging a touchdown every other game. So he's entering year three. His rookie and sophomore season were pretty much the same. But he was, like, clearly the number three in the team, if not the number four. They had Emmanuel Sanders, who was now gone. They had Cole Beasley, who was now gone. They brought in James and Crowder. The coaching staff, obviously Dayball's gone.

It doesn't matter. Ken Dorsey is now the O.C. He was the quarterback's coach for years. The one thing about Gabe Davis, he's not really cheap. He's pretty much ranked around the wide receiver 22, 23, 24 in drafts. Which is like... We have him 66th overall. Right.

And we're honestly, I think, a little bit low. It's a big premium on where he finished last year. I think the difference is he's literally the first receiver, I think, in NFL history of 200 yards or sorry, he's the first receiver in NFL history of four touchdowns in a playoff game.

Yeah, and like, you know, it's a little bit of like a tale of two halves for Gabe, Gabe Dave. The first two thirds of the year last year, he just was barely on the field. He ran 30% of the routes. And then after that,

he got like a full-time role and then saw 20% of the team's targets. So like, basically, first half of the year, he just wasn't playing much. And then the second half of the year when they decided to play him, he was getting open a lot

and Josh Allen was throwing to him. Now he has more opportunity than he's ever had. He can be, like the surefire number two and this offense that throws more than anybody this is the perfect scheme he's in year three which is like typical wide receiver

takeoff year he's got the best QB in the league arguably like there's a lot going for this guy this year. DK I think here's my question do you remember like when was it two years ago, three years ago that Mike Evans and Chris Godwin both finished top 10 receiver I think they both finished top five

is that basically the scenario for Gabe Davis that the bill's offense basically, it's not Gabe Dave overtakes Diggs or whatever. It's not like it's always four touchdowns, but it's more like Stefan Diggs is 1A, but Gabe Dave is actually Grace 1B in this

offense. And then he's vacuum, basically in all the scenarios where the bills are like, we're going to guard stuff, or the team's playing the bills are like, we're going to try to lock down Diggs and we're going to let Gabe Dave beat us, but he can. And he just kind of along the game. That's what happened in the playoffs. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So if that continues, like, is it

crazy to think Gabe, I don't know it sounds nuts, but he's not as good as Chris Godwin, but If Godwin and Mike Evans are both top five and the bills are one of the most passive heavy teams, why couldn't the Cooper Cup scenario from a year ago? Like, couldn't Gabe David just also be a top six receiver with Stefan Diggs? Yeah. I mean, it's certainly in the realm of possibility. I think Gabe Dave and Evans is a good comparison because Evans, in a lot of seasons, at least,

has been like super touchdown dependent, maybe not as many targets, maybe not as much volume. But he's just so good down the field. He scores so many touchdowns that, like, every year. he's just really valuable. I'm not saying, I'm not putting Gabe Dave on the same level. And I don't know if you've actually said his real name this entire time.

We're talking about Gabriel Davis. Oh, yeah, by the way. Gabriel Davis, our beloved Gabe Davis. Also, he keeps saying ADP, which is average draft position while we're explaining things. Wait, quick pop quiz.

Do you guys know what old Gabe Dave Dave, our beloved Gabriel Davis is? Just 23, I think. He turned 23, like a couple months ago. Yeah, I think he came into the league really young. And that's the other thing, too, is, you know, a lot of receivers nowadays

are breaking out really early. But this is, but typically those guys are early round picks versus second round picks. They're guys who got opportunity. Right. He has like my argument is that Gabriel Davis doesn't even really need to improve. He just needs to be on the field. I think that's 100% true. It's going to, like the snaps are going to come this year and the production is like almost automatically going to come with it just because he's on the field. He's also like in Craig, you said it, he's, he scores a ton of touchdowns. It's because he's a really good deep threat. He was a really good deep threat in college. He's got the size. He's got the deep threat ability. He's not, speaking of sudden,

he's not particularly sudden, like in the short area, but he has really good deep speed to build up, get over the defense. He's got big frame, big catch radius. And that's why he's a big play threat. And so, again, going back to like the Godwin and Evans comp to like Stefan Diggs and Gabriel Davis, I'm not going to say Gabriel Davis is as good as Mike Evans. I don't think that's true. But I think stylistically, the two of them in terms of like their roles in the offense are pretty similar. Evans is going to be the deep play threat guy, the end zone threat, he's going to score a lot of touchdowns probably. But Steph Diggs is going to have way more volume probably because he's playing in the slot more. And he's just like more of a complete receiver. But I like that comp a little bit.

And in terms of like if you want to picture like the total upside of what he could bring this year, what Gabriel Davis could bring this year. And big picture what we're talking about is a guy that could join the upper echelon of number two receivers on his own team. And you're thinking about other, just for context, I don't know it's July, and everyone's looking at ranking. So to give people a little refresher, Keenan Allen is a consensus top 30 player in the Chargers.

Mike Williams, we got him like 50. But then you've got like T. Higgins, who's the number two receiver in the Bengals. Jamar Chase is a top 10, top five guy everywhere. But T. Higgins is also in the top 30. That's a number two receiver. Jalen Waddle for the Dolphins is like number two behind Tyreek Hill, but he's still top 30, top 40 guy. We're talking about Gabe Dave as a guy

that could join that group, but is going 20, 30 spots later. Yeah. It might be better than the famous was. I think people are still anchored. Well, number one, he didn't play that much first two seasons, so that's a big kind of red flag, I guess.

But people are also anchored to the fact that he was a fourth round pick, so generally speaking, those guys don't pan out at a very high rate. And so, you know, maybe people just don't believe. But I think we've been big Gabe Day proponents going back the last couple of years.

And I think this is the year that he really kind of comes onto the scene and shows out. Buffalo hasn't exactly stacked the receiving group around him to hide him. They drafted Khalil Shaker and like the fifth. They brought in Jameson Crowder, who's a slot guy. And that's kind of it. Like there's not a ton going on.

I would be surprised if he's not the starting number two guy on the offense. I don't think any, I don't think either Shakur or James and Crowder have like any bearing on Gabe Dave. Like he's going to play. Yeah. Same vein though for number two guy. I mentioned Mike Williams earlier. That's the other one. Shout out Craig who loved Mike Williams last year.

This one is also kind of like Gabe Dave is not a hypothetical. Gabe Dave did it for a game or like, what if that was his role for all season? Mike Williams, straight up was the number one receiver in fantasy through five weeks last year. Literally, number one, Cooper Cup was number two through week five. He was just going nuclear every week. I was drunk with ecstasy. Week five, the Sunday night pot, I remember just come in and I was like, I can't believe what's going on right now. I need to be medicated.

Through week five, so, you know, entering week six, if you had just pro-rated Mike Williams' his season to a whole year. He would have had 1,600 yards and 20 touchdowns. Nice. You know what's funny is I totally thought about selling. It was week five, and I was like, I should trade this man. He's not going to be the best wide receiver in the league this year, and he was not. It was purposeful because basically, in his own words, he wanted to flip the script,

because Mike Williams felt like he'd always been perceived as a deep threat guy, which he was, and he wanted to do, like, in breaking rounds, like, honestly, routes more associated probably Keenan Allen, or like the Michael Thomas roll in the Saints' offense because Joe Lombardi worked for the Saints and helps with the Chargers now. But like he started doing... Helps with the Chargers. He works with Chargers. I don't know.

Yeah, he just assists and volunteer. He cleans up after practice. It's like Kit Man, like Nate and Ted Lesser. But Michael Thomas wanted to be like the complete receiver. And he got, and he did it for like six weeks. And then... You mean Michael Williams? Did I say Mike?

There's a lot of mics, okay? Mike modeling after Mike, it's like being like Mike. I don't know. Anyway, he did it. And then defenses, I felt kind of basically were like, actually, we're more scared of Michael. Williams and Keenan Allen. So even the Keenan, well, Allen's the number one.

They were like, give Keene Allen a six-yard catch. I don't care. We don't want Mike Williams to get the ball. Having said that, going into the season, it's not what if Mike Williams is really good. It's what if the charges basically figure out how to tweak their offense to continue to get Mike Williams the ball through the whole season instead of just the first third of the season. They gave Mike Williams extension two years $40 million. So the fact that Mike Williams is like top 40, top 50 guy, it's like, are we just pretending

he wasn't number one through the first third of the year? Yes. Yeah, but we're also aware, acutely aware of the fact that he's been, he's had issues with injuries start his career and an incredible amount of inconsistency. So I think that's all baked in. Also, there is a direct correlation. Check his stats. The games are Michael, I mean, again, I get this, but like the games, when they shut down Mike Williams, the Chargers usually lost. Hmm.

There you go. Does this see that Mike Williams is the number one on that team? Like, Hyvitz, you were saying that essentially with. It's basically where I'm going. Yeah. Keenan Allen's starting to fade a little, but he's getting older. I think he's over 30 years old now, or he's close. Is he 30 yet?

He's close. He is 30. Okay. Disgusting age. It's like the Justin Jefferson Thielen thing. What? They gave him like Keeney Allen's money minus like a half percent to make Keenan Allen not mad. But like even that seems like a signal that they know Mike Williams is the guy, but they don't want to admit it.

So I just think that's really it. It's basically Keenan Allen. talking about Kirkland, not the Keenan Allen and Mike Williams are the same guy or the same style of player. But if you want the Kirkland brand Keenan Allen, it could be Mike Williams, honestly. So I like him a lot this year. I think Craig was right about him last year,

but I think this year somehow he's still underrated. He's another one of those guys where when you watched him in his first four years of his career, like every time they threw him the ball, you were just like, that guy's better than his numbers show? Like, he's just good. You just need to learn how to fall down. He just kept getting injured because he would just like go sky up for a catch should just land directly on his shoulder.

That's the Chase Claypool disease, the inability to catch and continue to run. He just falls like a baby deer being born. Be careful out there. Okay. We got one more here. Yeah. So, Hyphitz, you've been all over this, I think, pretty much all offseason. But Cortland Sutton, to me, feels like a guy that could just really just go nuclear this year.

Obviously, I think Jerry Judy is also going to be a good fantasy producer. but Sutton to me reminds me of playing the same role of like a DK Metcalfe in the Russell Wilson passing game. And again, we've talked about this multiple times over the last few weeks. This may end up just being the Russell Wilson offense again. It's not necessarily going

to be like this whole new thing. It's going to be deep shots down the sideline, play action shots deep, and that's kind of what we get from Russell Wilson. And of course he's like incredibly, incredibly efficient, incredibly accurate down the field. I pulled up some of the numbers from the last few years. Russell Wilson, Moonshot King.

Russell Wilson deep passing touchdowns in 2021. He had nine, which is fourth most, and he only played 14 games. In 2020, he had 14, which is second most. 2019, 12, which is second most. And that's deep touchdowns. So that's touchdowns of 20 plus yards downfield. Is it going to surprise either of you whatsoever

if Corton Sutton just scores 10 touchdowns this year? He could leave the league in touchdowns. Like, Russell Wilson's so, so good at deep passing. and especially like down the sideline. And I think that's going to be Sutton's role in this offense. Wilson's also pretty prolific when it comes to like yardage downfield. So it's not like he's just going to be completely boomer bust relying on a touchdown. He's essentially off-brown D.K. McKaff in like the Russell Wilson offense that we're going to imagine here for Denver.

I feel like Sutton's going to have half of DK's speed, like half of D.K. Metcalf's frame and then half of Tyler Lockett's connection with Russell Wilson. Right. And there's always there's already like a lot of. reports from beat reporters and things like that out of training camp out of OTAs and all that that Sutton has great reporter with Russell Wilson already and so I don't know like I'm not saying I'm not saying in either or with Sutton or Judy because actually like both of these guys this year but I just think Sutton has like an immense upside this year to be like to get back on track with his career because if you go back to 2019 the dude had 72 catches 1100 plus yards with Joe

Joe Flacco and Drew Locke at quarterback. And he was like really good deep down the field. Alan Robinson was that guy who's always had a terrible quarterback, right? And now to a degree it's kind of Terry McLaurin because we're talking about how Carson Wences is the best quarterback he's ever had. Cortland Sutton's right there. He's just not famous yet. He's not really, I mean, I wouldn't say he's famous at all.

Even in fantasy football, it's not particularly famous. But the Broncos offense, I mean, we're talking about the worst five-year stretch, really in the last 50 years of Denver Broncos football. arguably the last five years are the worst five seasons in a row the Broncos have ever had. I think in any other world, the number one receiver in the Broncos is pretty famous. And I think Coralton Sutton is in position in real life and in fan. Like, Trey Lance is going to be famous for real life, but he's going to be good in fantasy, probably much easier. I think Coralton Sutton's the guy on this whole list that's most easily positioned to be really famous in real life and recognized as a great receiver and also just be a fantasy steal at the same time.

You're convincing me both of you, because I kind of came into this having no opinion. minions on Cortland Sutton. He's kind of been irrelevant. I can't believe he's played four years in the league. It doesn't, like, I almost have the memory of him playing football. Like, I can't even really picture him because he's pretty much just had one of his four seasons have been relevant, and that was three years ago. But I have to come around to the fact that this Denver team is going to look a lot different. And I still think we probably are all underestimating Russell Wilson's impact, much like we are overestimating how DK Metcalfe and Tyler Lockett are just going to still be okay. I think you're right. Sutton, for all we know, should probably be drafted like 13th

overall because I don't know why he wouldn't put up those Joe Flacco-Drewlock numbers times two. Sutton, this is, if you're looking at Sutton's career, like he had 700 yards receiving as a rookie, which is pretty damn good, all things considered. He exploded, busted on the scene as a sophomore, or second year. And then he tore his ACL, I think in the first week of 2020, missed the entire season almost. And then he came back last year. And of course, Denver's passing game was like kind of a cluster fuck. He wasn't great.

But you could see him start. As the season went on, you could kind of see him start to get like his feet back under him. And I think this is like, Craig, weren't you the one that I was saying this? Like you weren't guys like two years off of their major injury. The Clay Thompson theory, the year after the year after. Yeah. So this is that year for Sutton, I think. I think the injury really derailed.

And this is the third guy. It's sake. We've been looking for the third guy in this list. The year after the year after the injury. It's Saquan, Dak. and Quarland Sutton. So I don't know. I'm just like, the more I think about it,

the more he fits that role that just is a perfect fit with Russell Wilson. And it's not that I don't like the other guys in this offense. I just think he in particular is going to have a good connection with Wilson and is going to score a lot of touchdowns. The irony of this is that his name's Sutton,

and we've been saying like guys are Sudden. He's not like a Sudden player, but it's a Sutton player. Fantasy is so funny because by the end of the offseason, by the end of all of our prep, I end up loving so many late round guys. I don't even want to draft any first round players. I'm just like, all I want is just like a bunch of sleepers who I think are going to go off

who could all be great values. Like, why would I draft anybody in the first round? But I think the common denominator we have is that we like a lot of the receivers. And I think generally speaking, tell me if you guys are wrong. With the list like this, I still feel like the basically the way we are probably drafting, you'll see it exactly what you do in the first two, three picks or whatever,

but you probably want a running back in your first two or three picks. And you, at least for me, I still really want to hit like four receiver picks from like three to like not. I kind of want five receivers on my team out of the first 10 picks. I want half my players to be receivers in my first 10 picks. Like you could not draft a wide receiver

until the 60th pick and you could end up with your three receivers being Cortland Sutton, Alan Robinson, and Gabriel Davis. All three of those guys can be top 20 guys. Because we're trying to throw darts because again, the whole point we're doing this exercise for

is that the guys that you're trying to paint Best Case scenario, some of they're going to hit. Last year's Cooper Cup hit. Jamar Chase was going in the 50s and hit his bet literally the best rookie season or, you know, depending on the 17th game. And then

Debo Samuel hit. And you want to just throw as many darts as you can at these guys and hit, because we don't know who it's going to be. But you're going to get between one and four receivers are going to have the best version of their season. And if you hit that, you're so much more likely, you're borderline guaranteed to make the playoffs such a better shot at making the, you know,

not there's more upside, but there's also the chance you miss. It's like trying to do a parlay, you know? Yeah, exactly. But when you're starting off, and especially a snake draft, which is designed to kind of be egalitarian and like, you know, with the auto draft, it's like everyone's teams sometimes look more or less the same. You want to gamble on the guys that are going to give you, you know what I mean, like the best chance overall to win. And you want to raise your risk profile as you go later

in the draft. That's why I think Cadarist Tony's great one. So the list of boombuss guys, the firework guys. We've got Tray Lance, a quarterback for the 49ers, Travis E. TN for the Jaguress are running back. And then we got four receivers. We got Cadarist Tony for the Giants, a receiver. I like that. Mike Williams for the Chargers. we got Quillan Sutton for the Broncos, Gabe Dave for the Bills, if you had to pick one of these guys to pop, not like to beat,

but basically one of these guys, if I told you four months for now, or whatever the season is, six months for now, one of these guys did hit their absolute best case scenario. Who do you think it would be? It's most likely. Forget like value. Who do you think is most likely to deliver

the best fantasy case scenario? Most likely to deliver? Most likely, yes. I'm not talking about value. I'm not talking about where they hit. so I'm most likely to deliver that their ceiling. So, for example, Cadar's Tony's probably the best value on here

because it's the cheapest. But I'm not saying he's most likely because he's never played like a full, because he's healthy season football. He's never played a full healthy season's football. So I think he's not the most likely to deliver. I'm going to pick Cortland Sutton. Yeah, I was going to come down to either him

or Gabriel Davis for me, just because Davis is in the elite offense with an elite quarterback and he's got that number two role pretty much locked in, I think. But yeah, Sutton, similar deal. and I guess maybe the only reason I put him

a little bit lower is because we don't exactly know what the Broncos offense is going to look like. We don't know what Wilson's going to look like in that offense. We pretty much know what Josh Allen's going to do. Who would you say? This is not even the question I asked.

The first thought I had was Tray Lance is the most like like if you draft Tray Lance, he's going to be, like if he's playing, I feel like he's going to be a lot of points. Passable. I feel like it's tough because Trey Lance's ceiling

is like number one fantasy quarterback and I kind of don't want to say he's most likely to do that. But the fact that Tray Lance is going to play, I feel like he's just the guy that if you take, you're going to be like, wow. I feel like it's probably Lance.

The thing about Lance is, I think he's going to have a little bit of like, well, I don't know, I was going to say he's going to have a little bit of Tebow in him where it's like, don't watch the game, just check the box score. Yes, I think that's exactly it. He's going to need to rack up 10, 12, 14 carries every game

and that might not obviously happen until like well into the fourth. So there's going to be a lot of like, Trey Lance has six points at halftime. And you're like, just wait, he needs a rushing. touchdown and you'll be saved. It's a garbage time king. It's like Hertz from last year. Right.

Or two years ago. Yeah. Don't watch them play. It's like Blake Bortles. Yeah, because of Bortles, Jalen Hertz, the garbage time mall stores. Okay. You guys want to do some, a couple emails? Sure.

Yeah. All right. It's an email from Mitchell, Mitch. Mitch. Mitch. Mitch. Gooday, Blue Stones. Nice.

I can't see the accent. I have a bone to pick with the pronunciation police on the show. Well, Haifitz is often roasted for not being able to say, penalty penalty penalty okay and right he says and rightfully so I get yeah right very right

roast of that Mitch says it's time to shine a light on another repeat offender DK consistently says he is weary as in tired when he means to say wary as in cautious for example in the ranking draft value episode

Dika says he is weary of running backs and then later in the podcast Hyfit says it correctly so well done Hyphids wow great job someone here knows how to get on the show because I'm the one who does with the email yeah just butter up Hyfitz.

It says, DK, try remembering that O-lines need to be wary of DeMaris or that you need to be wary of letting your son stay up too late in case he gets weary.

This was an alarming email to read for me because I absolutely know the difference between wary and weary. And I tried to go back and find it. I couldn't find it

because I was like, I almost didn't believe that I was doing this. But I'm just going to go ahead and believe it because Hyphitz says he noticed it too. I do.

I don't know why I'm doing that. I don't know why I'm doing that. That's like I know the definitions. I know the difference. And for some reason, I'm still saying the wrong word. It's mystifying.

Maybe I don't know what to do about. I'm going to be the acronym please. You're always like ADP and I'm like, just say draft position. It's the acronyms. It's just, you know, it's just no one that's acronyms. All right, I'll try. How else can we criticize D.K.? I'm a little wary of doing that if it's, to be honest, because it's a very common

term that a lot of people use in the fantasy space, ADP. To be honest, this whole episode is making me grow weary. Oh. Yeah, it's, it's the 5th of July weekend. We can get out of here. Okay. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Craig. Thanks, Mitch.

Thanks, Mitch. Thank you, Trillianz in advance. Thank you, freedom. Freedom's good. Fireworks. Yeah, fireworks. Showing this guy his boss. Yeah.

Did you guys see that yesterday? Obviously, yesterday was July 4th, but it was the 10-year anniversary of when some, like, you know, firework committee in San Diego accidentally released every single firework at once. Have you seen that video? Yeah, I've seen that. It's crazy. see a doctor for that. It's like the most intense thing in the world.

Anyway, check that out. Can you put that in the episode description? No. Should you just tweet that out? He's like, no, I'm not doing that. Email us at ringerfinacy football at gmail.com if you have funny firework stories from the weekend. Oh, yeah.

Well, those are not injured. Actually, you know what, don't do that now that I say it. Jason Pierre Paul is going to email us. Everyone keep your fingers. They're really scary. Agreed. Agreed. Goodbye.

You didn't thank Lauren. first of all. Oh, well, Craig caught Oh, shit. Thank you, Lord. I caught me off in the middle of it. I was like, thank you.

And then Craig was like, thank you, Ludacris. I was going to say Katie Perry. Yeah. I think that might have been like the first one

you ever did was Katie Perry. Yeah, I know I've done Katie Perry before. I don't know. I think I've probably mentioned Ludacris before too. Popquist, do you guys actually know

who invented fireworks? I don't. The Chinese? Yes. Nice. I believe it was the was the main guy? I don't know.

The specific. Era, but yeah. Could be wrong. I think it was the Ming Dynasty. I just remember being like a high schooler and being like, wow, what a cool thing to invent. Explosions. Amazing. A high school boy thinks fireworks is cool.

Weird. 200 BC, the Chinese unintentionally invented firecrackers by tossing bamboo into fire. But it took another thousand years before true fireworks came alive. Imagine being the people figured that out. That must have been quite the time. It took another thousand years. It's crazy. I don't know if that was top of the list, priority-wise.

So about top-less. There's a thing, they've got these new trees that they can, like, solve huge swaths of hunger. Because these trees, not new trees, but it's a tree that's existed forever that they're finding can grow in, like, all these places that, like, arid. They don't need that much water. They don't even need any good, but they can basically, the food doesn't taste that good, but you can basically make cooking oil at it. So vegetable oil, olive oil, and then you could replace a lot of soybean production, which soybeans are a huge crop. Wait, does the tree bear fruit or no? It does.

It doesn't taste great. They're going to try to feed it to cows, which is like, I think 40% of agriculture goes to livestock anyway. That's cool. So what's the tree? Yeah, it's called a... You can't just, like, dangle those facts and then not tell us the actual tree. Oh, no. Hold on one second.

What do I go to the tree? No, I'll get it. That's a complicated Google. Newfound tree. No, I'll get it. It's not a new tree. It's a brand new tree. It's a company called Terviva.

but T-E-R-V-I-V-A. I was reading about this morning. It's really crazy. And the tree is a... Busy morning. A Pong-A-P-A-P-M-A-A. Pong, like Pong, A-M-I-A. Interesting.

Okay, cool. All right. On that note, goodbye, everyone. That's what I was trying to say. Thank you, Pomerias, for maybe saving the world. Goodbye.