The Ringer NFL Show - 15 Players You Need to Draft This Year | The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

As fantasy season begins to heat up, we share 15 of our favorite players for 2020 whom you shouldn't leave your draft without. We sell you on why middle-tier wide receivers like Robert Woods and Adam Thielen are more valuable than you think, and why the Steelers are the most underrated offense in the league. Host: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. The Ringer is launching a new podcast feed called BoomBust, new hub for narrative podcasts documenting the rise and fall of companies, celebrities, and trends. Season one, hosted by our own Alyssa Boresnack, takes you through this spectacular journey of HQ trivia, the once $100 million industry-altering company turned disaster. Alyssa interviewed dozens of former employees, investors, journalists, and fans bringing you the behind-the-scenes story of how out HQ crumbled from within. Subscribe to Boom, Bust, HQ trivia, and check out the first two episodes out now on Spotify

or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Dannessie Football Podcast on the Ringer NFL show, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Danny Hyphidson. I am joined as always, almost always, by my co-hosts and my co-danny, the hero we need and the analyst we deserve, the Dark Knight himself. Danny Kelly! How was his vacation, D.K.? It was lovely. It was a very good little staycation.

Obviously, didn't get to go to Barbados or anything fun like that. But yeah, it was good. It was relaxing and I feel energized. I'm ready. I'm ready for the rest of the Aussies. We missed you dearly. Craig and I were just... I appreciate that. We were absent of meaning. We were trying to touch the void and you failed. Just rudderless.

And you clearly listened to the show because I think I said you were in Barbados. And that is what you just brought up right now. So look at you. I listened to probably the first half of it. And then I think I got distracted doing something else. But good job. Good job, fellas. I appreciate you guys picking up the slack for me.

I'll take half. That's pretty good. I'm thinking of once upon a time in Hollywood, just carrying your load. Yeah. Is that what you'd say? All right. Let's get on. Let's move on.

Well, Craig, how are you doing? Craig, did you get a haircut? Yes, I did a haircut at home. You did the haircut? My girlfriend and I did. How'd it go? Not too bad. We just got some like shears at coals.

they like drive out. You drive up, they give you the hair clippers and just run out, drop it in your back seat, bought some shears, went home, a couple of YouTube tutorials,

didn't touch the top because it's kind of scary but just did the back and the sides. Any fading? There's no fading happening. There's some fading. Right on the edges, but the top top,

I don't really know what I'm doing. Yeah, that's fair. It looks wonderful. It does look good. This is an exciting episode. We're going to do a very, very, very, very, very early version. It's not that early.

It's early. It's early. June is fantasy season. It's just early. Yeah, we're doing my guys. These are the guys we are higher on than everyone else. These are the people we are not leaving our drafts without. These are the guys we think could be league winning picks.

So, D.K. Who's your league winner first up this year? So this guy, he's not a secret by any means. And I think he doesn't really necessarily fit exactly what you just said. But I'm trying to leave as many drafts as I can with Tyree Kill of the Chiefs. Because I think he's going to have, he's in line for a person. potentially a massive, massive bounceback season this year after finishing a disappointing wide receiver 32 last season in 12 games.

He was injured. I think he had a hamstring injury that kind of cropped up and he wasn't really fully healthy for a couple of the other games that he was actually playing in. But I think if you look back two seasons when he was the wide receiver three overall in 2018 and 16 games, I think Hill has a chance to not only lead the NFL in touchdowns, but could potentially the NFL in yards. Like if the chiefs have the type of bounce back season offensively, I think they could, especially Mahomes,

just because I think Mahomes is due for some positive touchdown regression. He might not throw 50 like he did a couple years ago, but he's definitely, I believe, going to do, he's going to fare a lot better than he did last season when he was battling multiple injuries throughout the season. What makes you think the chiefs are going to have a big bounce back season? Because I believe, I can't remember. I think they won the, what's it called?

The Super Bowl. The Super Bowl. So why do you think it'll be better this year on offense? If you look at what they did offensively, it was certainly well, well short of what they did in 2018, obviously when Mahomes just went ballistic on everybody. But I think assuming he can stay healthy, which I'm not going to try and predict who can stay healthy, who's going to get injured. I think Hill is going to just go off the season.

And I want to have every piece of that Chief's offense that I can. And I think Hill has a chance to be one of the top receivers in the NFL this year in Panic. So he is a guy that I'm willing to. reach a little bit on. Right now he's, he's, so right now he's the wide receiver four, per fantasy pros ADP and PPR. That's a consensus ADP. So obviously he's, he's going high. He's in the first round, but I'm willing to reach a little bit on him, just because I think he's got a really good chance to be one of the top fantasy receivers this year. Fourth receiver, so when you say reach, you're saying Michael Thomas is your number one.

Are you saying Tyree Killis too? Like, do you have him over DeAndreadre Hopkins and Devante Adams and Julio? I think I would, so I would have Michael Thomas and then I would have, I think it's a little bit more, it's a little closer between Devante Adams and Terry Killed than I think some people might make it out to because I know that Devante Adams is some people's wide receiver one going into this season, but I look at what

the Packers are going to do offensively. It just feels like they want to pair everything down and be a very slow run oriented team. I know that Devante Adams is going to get a huge, huge number in terms of the percentage of the passing volume.

But I don't know, I just feel like Hill has. has the chance to just not only get a huge percentage of the chiefs passing offense, but that chiefs passing offense just could, you know, score way, way more points. So I would consider him with the wide receiver two spot, but certainly Y receiver three for me. A guy that I think is going to have a huge share of the Eagles rushing offense. My guy, the first guy this shows, Miles Sanders on the Eagles. Just when I was just scrolling through and you're looking at the top 10, top 20, top 30, 50,

the name that just keeps jumping out at me as the person that I see as a top. top five guy next year is Sanders. He's, I mean, he's Penn State running back who, what's the line of succession after Sequin Barclay? Eagles took him last year. He was really good as a rookie. He set the franchise rookie record with 1327 yards in 2018. And then Rich Rebar noted that he did that without playing 50% of the Eagle snaps in a game

until week 11. That's mind-blowing, 1300 yards without playing half the snaps in a game until week 11. So you take that. And then you take how freaking hurt the Eagles were last year and how the receiving course still has so many questions going into the season. Sanders is so good in the passing game. I think he's going to be a huge part of the receiving game. And he doesn't have a ton of competition in the backfield yet.

Right now it's just him in Boston Scott, who we love Boston Scott on this podcast. The massive caveat here is they might sign a veteran. They might sign Devante Freeman or God knows who. And that would obviously knock him down. But as of this moment, I think right now he is one of the, few people who might be able to crack that 60% bell cow territory is going to get a ton of

snaps. And I think that if you're taking someone who's going around the end of the second, third round, I love the idea of Miles Sanders. As you're like your second running back maybe, and then you could end up with two top five guys. If they end up signing in Devante Freeman, all bets are off. And we'll have to reassess that in August. But love Miles Sanders, maybe. I think Sanders is such an interesting one going into the season because I think there's, the fantasy community is kind of split on him. Some people, I believe, believe, you know, think that he's going to have just, and based on Doug Peterson's kind of history, what the, what the Eagles have said, with their front office has said in terms of what

they want to do with the committee, a committee approach. I think a lot of people are a little bit afraid that he's getting overhyped right now because they're going to, you know, because of me, I'm overhyping. I tend, I think I tend to lean, though, with you, though. I think he has that potential to finally launch into that elite tier of running backs with Z. with the Barclays, with the Cameras. What he showed as a rookie was incredible. He was running vertical routes up the sideline,

catching these really deep passes. What he can do as a pass catcher, I think, makes him that much more exciting than, say, like a guy like Chubb, who's probably going to not get a ton of passing game work. So, yeah, I think he's a controversial, I think, pick or controversial subject among the fantasy community. but I think I lean with you on this one that he's going to go off this year.

Love Sanders. Gregorio, who's your guy this week, year? Oh, my God. Alan Robinson. I love Alan Robinson this year. He basically is the Bears offense, just collectively. It's just the Chicago Allen Robinson's. He had 154 targets last year.

The Chicago Allen Robinson's. 154 targets is the third most in the league. Seventh in red zone targets, sixth in the air yards. Pretty much across the board. He's just an absolute stud. And going back to Penn, State. So he's had Matt McGloin, Christian Hackenberg, Blake Bortles, and Mitchell Trubisky have thrown him football. Alan Robinson is this generation's Larry Fitzgerald.

Yes. And now he has Nick Foles, who, you know, has not only been to Super Bowl, but is one one. He's not the greatest quarterback in the world, but he's certainly better than everybody on that list. So I think there's- greatest quarterback in the history of Alan Robinson's quarterbacks by so much. Oh, my God. He's got the championship out easy. So there's no reason for Alan Robinson to not have at least the exact same year or much better. They didn't do anything to replace Taylor Gabriel. And they've kind of a pretty weak receiving core

outside of Alan Robinson. And lastly, it's contract year. And that's my big thing this year. I love guys going into a contract year. He's going to get a huge payday if he can replicate or better his 2019 season. So absolutely love Alan Robinson this year. He's a baller.

D.K. Scouting report on A. Robb. He's a baller. That's my color comment. And he plays a lot from the slot, which I also love. He's kind of just like the cornucopia of all the things I like. Contract year, Athletic Freak plays in the slot. As you go through stats from last season, as you look ahead of this season, there's always a couple numbers that jump out at you. And Alan Robinson being third in targets kind of just like made my eyes pop.

I was, I just, I forgot about that. And one fun thing I was looking up is Alan Robinson's really good at catching deep passes and jump balls. He caught one or two passes in the last two years of 40 plus yards on the bears. So one or two. And when he was on the Jags, his two healthy seasons, he caught like eight. So it's like, PFF called Chubisky, it says the best thing that can be said about Mr. Trubisky's deep passing is that it's no worse than his regular passing. So basically he's one of the worst deep ball passes in the league, and now he's getting Nick Foles, who is better.

So it's really just all signs are pointing up for Alan. I fell in love with A. Robb when someone at Jacksonville training camp took a video of him to and routes on the sideline, and Blake Bortle was throwing a pass. and he just, it's not even close, and he's like, just throw this shit in bounds, bro. I was like, wow, great guy. Okay, D.K.

Give us another one of your guys for this season. So another one that I'm going to be targeting really, really aggressively is Kenyon Drake from the Cardinals. Yes. Love Kenyon Drake. Wow. Love the Cardinals run game. I think, so right now he is the running back nine,

the 14th overall per Fantasy Pros consensus, PPR ADP. In other words, he is the ninth running back coming off the board in mock drafts. in drafts this year. So, but going, you know, going back to last year based on what he did once he was traded to the Cardinals. So once he was traded the Cardinals from week nine on, he was the RV4 in PPR.

And if he actually took David Johnson out and like put him in David Johnson in his trunk and then drove the car. Yeah. Yeah. And he looked, he looked amazing in that offense. He's just perfectly, his skill set perfectly fits that offense. You know, his. Why?

Because he's got burst, good vision, good in the open. field, good receiver. What the Cardinals do is they scheme up their run game. So basically what they do is they spread the field, they spread the defense thin, and then they use that as a tool for rushing efficiency. They were the number two ranked run game in DVOA last year, preferable outsiders, which essentially tells you they were the second most efficient run team. I wouldn't say that they were the most voluminous run game.

No, but it's still amazing that after all the talk about Cliff Kingsbury and passing and college air raid coming and all this stuff about four receiver sets. It's like the Cardinals, if you account for context, were one of the, what, you said, second or third, best rushing offenses in football. Like, why did that happen and why will it happen again? Or do you think it happened again? So I think it happened basically because, like I said,

they scheme it up. They force teams to play more too high looks to defend the pass because, you know, they're spreading the field out there, passing aggressively downfield. Drake actually encountered eight plus men in the box on just, 8% of his runs, which is one of the fewest, one of the lowest rates in the NFL. This year, I could actually see that even, you know, drop a little bit more based on the fact that, you know, last year, if you remember early on in the season, the Cardinals were trying to run four-wide

receiver stuff early on in the season. They just didn't have the horses for it. Their receiver group was just a little too inexperienced, not good enough, you know, but if you're going forward into this year, they got D. Hopkins. They have a couple of young guys. about that. They have a couple of young guys potentially coming up in Andy Isabella. Some people still holding out hope like me for Hakeem Butler.

You know, they're going to have more depth this year at the receiver position. So they could potentially go out and run more four receiver sets, which could even give Drake even more advantageous boxes. And so I just really like Drake. He averaged 15 carries a game for 80 yards, three and a half perceptions over those eight games he played with the Cardinals last season on a per game basis, he was actually the RB3. So this guy's being taken as the RB9,

but he finished the season. His time in Arizona, he was the RB3. So I don't know, that to me looks like great value. He has potential to just absolutely go off. Now, part of his final tally was amplified by a four touchdown game. So he might not like... That's called a Julio Jones. Yeah, he might not be able to necessarily do that RB3 rate the whole season.

especially if he's only doing 15 carries a game, but I think he has the potential to be very, very efficient and contribute both on the ground and as a receiver. I just think he's the perfect fit for this offense. And with David Johnson gone, he is the unquestioned leadback in that offense. If you have like the last pick in your draft in like a 12 or 14 team league,

going back to back, Miles Sanders, Kenyon Drake would be the move. That would be like the young, hip move, you know? I like it. Yeah. Now, you can wait on miles, maybe, But my only issue with Drake this year is I'm going to have to avoid all these dumb Drake puns that I'm tempted every time he's like, I love Drake. And I'm like, me too. What did you think of Dark Lane demo tapes? And that's other than that, everything's great. Yeah. I, D.K's like, yeah. D.K's like, what language was that? What the hell did Danny just say? Let's just move on. Yeah, but running bit on this show is that I never get any of your Drake references, but I'm an old. So let's just continue on. Yeah, no, I love Drake and the Avengers.

Anyway, okay, so as I'm prepping for the season and you're looking through everything, a thing I keep coming back to is the Steelers sucked last year so much. And I think that it's kind of baked too much into the projections for 2020. You know, I'm always dubious to look at average draft position in May because who the hell is, how many people are really doing mock drafts in May compared to August when the data gets a lot better. But in mock drafts, I just feel like the Steelers are really undervalue this year because last year was an absolute disaster. There was obviously Ben Rothesberger gets hurt, elbow injury,

and then they turned up Mason Rudolph and the Duck Hodges guy. Like, again, America's most popular team or the third most popular team was starting a guy named Duck for like half the season. That happened in real life. And Mike Tomlin said something last year that I thought was really illuminating. He said, I'm quoting him, this is October 2nd. I think he said this. We're just in a fragile state right now.

We need to do whatever it is we need to do to move the ball and win football games. when you've got a young quarterback, sometimes you can assist them by turning a 70 play game into a 50 play game. I think that that explains the entire Steelers season. They were like, shorten it. Don't screw up.

That was what they wanted from the young quarterbacks. They're getting Rathusberger back. They haven't really added a backup quarterback of note. I think that that shows that they are confident Ben will play this season and his elbow's okay. But I think that means they're going to go back to what they were trying to do last year and what they did in 2018 when Rathusberger,

I think, had the most past attempts in football. But last year, again, to just show how bad they were, they were 31st in points per drive, 30th in yards per drive, 31st in plays per drive, 30th in drive success rate, 31st and touchdowns per drive. Jesus. Like, 32nd in points per red zone appearance. That's not going to happen again.

All of those numbers, even if they rebound to just league average, is such a massive increase for the Steelers' offense. So in terms of a specific player, I like Juju and James Connor. I like Juju just because I think that he's going to have big target share of this team. Again, you look at 2018, he was fourth in targets. I think the only people ahead of him were like Michael Thomas Julio and Antonio Brown, Brown obviously not in Pittsburgh anymore.

He's, Juju is the only guy who has a rapport with Rothesberger. Craig, he's a contract year guy. I think everything is saying Juju. I mean, it's 70 targets last year because he also had injuries. I think he literally could double that almost come close to two and a half times what he had last year. And he's going like, you can get him in the third, fourth, late fourth round. I think that he could be a top 10, maybe a top five guy this year.

And then James Conner, it's kind of the same story. He's a free agent next year. So he's in contract year. And, you know, he's not as secure as you want because Benny Snell is there. But other than Benny Snell, I think that James Connor is a guy that could just lead a back field on a pretty productive offense. You can get outside the top 50. So Connor feels like a very good like gamble. He's not as expensive, obviously, as he was last year.

Last year he was like a first round pick. He's falling off the cliff for that. you can get him at a good, you know, a good discount. I think the Steelers ultimately still probably want to use him as the sustaining back. And they've always kind of had that philosophy where they want to have the guy that's in the game a lot. He's running a lot. He's starting to feel the flow of the game. He works in unison with his offensive line.

I think they believe in all that stuff. So, yeah, you know, obviously there's a huge, huge caveat that he can't say healthy. But if he can kind of buck that trend and say healthy in 2020, then, yeah. he's a, I think that's a really good gamble. Craig, you're the Steelers fan. What do you think of Juju and Connor? Contract year dudes. I think I like Juju more, but it's just scary because like Ben Rothersberg is 39 and

has had several elbow surgeries. And I am worried that everyone just assumes that this is going to be the Ben of Old and it's not going to be. And we're going to like figure that like week three or four is going to come around and he's going to continue to be crappy. And then I think there's like the whole Steelers franchise could shift. and they could enter panic mode. But that's the gamble, I guess you have to take.

Yeah, well, to be clear, I'm still not, I still don't like Rathusberger as like a top 10 quarterback or a starting quarterback for fantasy, but I think that it doesn't take him being as good as he was in 2018 when he led the league in passing yards, for Juju to be getting 150, 160 targets. And I think there is a weird middle ground where Rathusberger is not the guy we've seen in the past,

but that Juju eats such a high volume of his offense, he goes back to where we thought he might be around last year. And then also I think that Connor, the offense can still be better. I think whether they're passing more and the overall offense is better or they stick to running more and Connor's getting the ball, there's a middle ground between the Steelers being not the second worst team in football and offense, and then still not being as great as Rathesburg was two years ago. Connor could end up being weirdly safe and could be like a really steady RB2 on your team. That's exactly what I'm saying.

The other guy in this offense that I think is very interesting is Deontay Johnson, who's going into his second season. second season. He quietly led rookies in catches last season. So that was... He led the NFL and average separation on next-gen stats. Yeah, he's getting open. I mean, obviously, part of that is the fact that he plays in the slot a lot. So, you know, he's facing off coverage and he's running, you know, these routes against zone looks and stuff like that.

So there's factors that go into that. But that does not take away from the fact that I think he's a good player. I think he's a very dynamic player. And he showed a lot as a rookie. And he did all that, you know, as a rookie with, like we said, with those terrible quarterbacks, you know, at times he was out playing Juju Smith-Schuster. So I think he's got a really high ceiling, too, you know, assuming this offense kind of takes to jump back to where we thought they were going to be last year. And so right now you can get him. He's the overall wide receiver 40, or he's the wide receiver 42 overall 117. So you can get him late in drafts. Yeah, he's just the next in line of Pittsburgh wide receivers who are going to end up. up working out. And I think Claypool and Washington could end up, it depends on kind of how that, that, you know, competition shakes out. They could kind of start eating into each other's production a little bit. But I think Johnson's kind of got his role laid out this season. I think he's going to,

you know, it's going to be very, very fun to see how he develops because he's quietly one of the best receivers, rookie receivers last year. Craig, who's your next dude? Robert Woods on the Rams. Bobby trees? Bobby trees. Love this one. Craig, I was going to do these same two. I had Robert Woods and Alan Robertson on my list. Oh, did you? Yeah. Well, they're mine. In 2019, Robert Woods saw 139 targets, Cooper Cup, 134.

They both had about 1,150 yards, and one had 90 catches, and the other had 94. So they pretty much had exactly the same season, but Cooper Cup was the wide receiver 4 in PPR, and Robert Woods was the wide receiver 14. And the reason is Cooper Cup had 10 touchdowns, and Robert Woods had two receiving. He had one rushing as well. Before this year, Robert Woods and Cooper Cup scored the exact same amount of receiving touchdowns in the Gough-McVey era, which is 11.

And last year, Cup had 18 red zone targets, and Robert Woods had half of that, yet Cup had five times more touchdowns. Cooper Cup is getting drafted as the wide receiver 14, and Robert Woods is the wide receiver 21. And I don't know why. This just absolutely screams regression. Robert Woods, no player had a larger expected

touchdown differential per yardage gained then Robert Woods, and that was a sharp football analysis stat. Robert Woods played 100 more snaps than Cooper Cup last year, not to mention he rushed the ball 17 times for over 100 yards in a touchdown, and the cherry on top is Brandon Cooks is gone. So I think

Robert Woods is a steal. Yeah, why is he, is it because he's a little older? What is the deal here? He's like, the girl who doesn't know he's beautiful yet, he's just the least interesting, really high upside person, because you think of there's, he's like traditionally been seen as like a very

safe person in a good offense that isn't going to be a league winner, but he's going to have a decently high floor because of the offense. Now it's in the weird spot where it's actually the opposite where the departure of cooks and then also that as everything Craig just said, he is this high upside, but who the hell thinks of Robert Woods is a high upside dude? So I love this. I think this is fantastic. Yeah, slow starters in their careers tend to carry like a stigma, I think, and it really translates to the ADP. It really translates to, you know, just overall perception of a player. Robert Woods didn't go over 1,000 yards until his fifth season. No, sixth season. A key point here is also that when the Rams started turning their tight ends, Tyler Higbee

and Gerald Everett, toward the end of the season, those targets generally came away from Cooper Cup, not Robert Woods. And if they use the tight end position more in 2020, Robert Woods' targets are probably safer than Cooper Cup, even though you're probably going to have to take up ahead of Woods. So I love this pick, Rick. They're absolutely going to run more to tight-end sets, Like, at least more than relative, like, to what they were doing in 2018, where it was like 96% 11 personnel. This year, they're going to definitely, I think, use both Gerald Everett and Higbee on the field a lot. Because both of those guys are really, really good. And they traded Brandon Cook.

So it just absolutely makes sense. D.K., next, who's your next guy? Who you're planning a flag on? Adam Thielen are the Vikings? I was also going to pick him, D.K. Yeah, we're on the same wavelength. Yeah, Thelan's just an amazing pick this year. He's the clear cut number one in that offense now.

I think Jefferson, Justin Jefferson, their first round pick, is going to be a factor, obviously. I don't think he's necessarily going to blow up and catch 100 plus balls in a rookie season. I think he'll be very good as a rookie, and he will be a fantasy factor. But I think Thielen is far in a way the clear cut number one in that offense, especially if we have a truncated offseason, which it's looking like it's going to be at least somewhat truncated because of COVID. And I think that means Kirk Cousin's going to lean hard on kind of that. established connection with his top receiver. Adam Thielen was injured for a good portion of last season with a hamstring injury,

which obviously even when you're in, it can affect you. Like you just don't have the explosion that you typically have, the short area burst. Last year, he missed six games with a hamstring injury. Otherwise, though, he's been pretty healthy the last couple of seasons. He played 16 games, both 2017 and 2018. Right now, he is the wide receiver 11, 31st overall per fantasy pros. in PPR. And with Stefan Diggs gone, I think he has a chance to kind of get back to, at least closer to the numbers he was putting up in both 2018 and 2017 when he was the receiver

seven and eight respectively. So in, in 2018, he had 153 targets, 113 catches, 13173 yards, nine touchdowns. You know, I remember there was, there was sections there where he was just looking like he was going to break all kinds of records. He obviously didn't keep up that track, but this guy has very top end volume potential in an offense with a good quarterback. You know, Kirk Cousins is kind of a butt of a lot of jokes, but he's a good quarterback, good, you know, good accuracy down to. Kurt Cousins deserves every joke that's ever been said about him.

I'm not saying he doesn't. Second of all, divisional name game here. Would you rather have Adam Thielin on the Viper? Well, I'm just listing the teams, but for talking for fantasy. Adam Thielan on the Vikings or Alan Robinson, the Bears? I think if I really had to choose between the two for in redraft, I might go Thielen just because I trust the quarterback situation more.

Adam Thielen or Kenny Gallaudet. I mean, these are all like right in the same tier, huh? Thielen, I think, because Goladay, as much as I love Goladay, and I think he's got huge upside, he's due for some pretty massive touchdown regression this season. He relied heavily on touchdowns last year, and he could regress in that area. Cool. Craig. But they're all in the same tier.

They're all in the same tier. I just love all these wide receiver two guys this year so much. Like the wide receiver 11 to like 17 group, I just think is great. And my next guy is Calvin Ridley on the Falcons. Last year in PPR leagues, he was the wide receiver 27 is what he finished the year as. But he only played 13 games.

He averaged as the wide receiver 19 on a points per game basis. And he was on pace for almost 1,100 yards, and eight touchdowns on 114 targets, which would have made him the wide receiver 14. So the Falcons didn't do anything in the draft to threaten his target share. They traded Mohamed Sunu mid-season last year and they lost Austin Hooper to Cleveland and they added Hayden Hirsch, who at this point is kind of an unknown commodity. Ridley averaged almost 18 ppr points per game over his six games without Muhammad Sunu last year

and had games of 143 yards in a touchdown, 85 yards in a touchdown and a touchdown in a touchdown in 90 yards when Austin Hooper was out last year. So the Falcons with dirt cutter throw a ton. Last year they threw the ball the most in the NFL. And Julio's 31. He has a history of foot injuries. I don't think he's going to fall off a cliff. Danny Hyvitz and I talked about this last week.

He's probably not going to. So you dare just throw into Julio's history of foot injuries. I'm just saying like God forbid he does go down. You'll win your league if you have Calvin Ridley. It doesn't matter because there's no one behind them. As you just said, Julio Calvin Ridley and like Russell, gauge. He's a beautiful crosspoint of high ceiling and high floor. He scores a lot of touchdowns. He's the second option in a massively high octane offense, and he could have an unlimited

potential. So Craig's on a run here because I think the three guys he's highlighted so far, A Rob, Robert Woods and Ridley, and I'll throw in the feel in from UDK. I think these are guys who are going to be ranked like somewhere between five and for some of these guys, maybe 10 spots higher when we get to like mid-August as compared to where we are now in May. But I think that you're dead on about Ridley. I just wanted to throw it. I actually have listed Hayden Hurst. You glossed over.

So Hayden Hurst is actually the tight end that will forever be known as the guy that Ravens drafted in the first round before Lamar Jackson. And then they had all these tight ends. So they flipped him to Atlanta. It's like the third string tight end. I know. Their third string tight end. So then Atlanta traded the second round of they got from New England in the Mohammed

Sunniu trade. They flipped it to Baltimore, God knows why, for Hayden Hurst to slot in as their tight end because they lost Austin Hooper to Cleveland. Stay with me here. The point is that now Atlanta's offense is Julio's their number one, Ridley's their number two, Russell, Russell Gage is their number three. Are we supposed to believe?

Gurley's they're running back. And then Matt Ryan is going to be throwing somewhere between a top eight and maybe a top four a number of pass attempts this season. And I think that considering that Austin Hooper for Atlanta last year was the sixth best tight end. and right now Hayden Hurst is being drafted as the 18th tight end. This was a no-brainer.

I'm not in love with the fact that it's a guy on a new team, which I'm docking for this year. I'm not in love that he's not going to get all these reps in Atlanta system. But I'm making it, I'm more than willing to bet on the upside, considering Hayden Hurst is one of the last guys you'll be able to add to your bench and he might be able to have like a top five, top six tight-in season. Yeah, is he going to be like the Darren Waller of the season? Probably.

The Falcons threw the ball the most last year. Who's catching the passes? Exactly. And the larger point here is that don't draft Mark Andrews. You're not trying to draft the third, fourth, or fifth tight end this season because they were really good

last year. You want to find this year as Mark Andrews. You want to find the guy who is going to out of nowhere become a top 10, maybe a top five tight end. And to me, Hayden Hurst is that. I can see a case for like Blake Jarwin in Dallas, but if you just look at the math, Hayden Hurst is the obvious candidate here. And they flipped the second rounder for him, so he's going to play. But I love

Calvin Ridley too. I think for all the same reasons. He makes a ton of sense. All right, D-Kat. Give us another guy. All right. So I'm going to group two guys together. I'm going to start off with the receiver. Marvin Jones from Detroit is another player whose ADP just really doesn't make sense based on what he's done in the past, his performance over the last few years.

He's kind of in that Robert Woods tier, I think, in terms of just wildly underrated players. Right now he is the receiver 36, 82nd overall of her fantasy pros consensus ADP. through 14 weeks last year, Jones was a high-end wide-receiver, too. He was a wide-receiver 16 overall, which included five games with David Blow and Jeff Driscoll at quarterback. Good times.

Through 14 weeks, he was the wide-receiver 16, which is right behind Julio Jones. And no one ever really seems to talk about Marvin Jones. They kind of forget about him for whatever reason. He finished last season with 91 targets, 62 catches, 779 yards, and nine touchdowns. And going back even further, He's basically been a mid to low-end receiver two, you know, basically over the last three seasons when he's healthy.

And you're getting him so late. I think he's just going to be a really, really good value if he can stay healthy this year. I believe in not only Jones's talent, but the Lions Passing game, I think, is going to be something that you can get a lot of value out of this year. And to that point, I'm going with back-to-back guys here. I'm going with Matthew Stafford as kind of like my favorite late-round quarterback pick this year. Why do you believe in the Lions' passing game so much? just based on what they were able to do last year, you know,

in the first half of the year before Matthew Stafford got hurt, they were on, Stafford was on pace. So like, if you would have kept his pace, he would have led the NFL on touchdown passes. He, right now is the QB 13 going at 99th overall,

so you can get him, you know, in the mid to late rounds, 10th round in 10th league. So I just think he has a chance to finish as like a top five quarterback this year. Through nine weeks last season, he was a QB6.

I actually am a big believer in Darrell Bevel's offense in terms of what he can do in manufacturing. Chunk plays. It's perfect fit for Matthew Stafford's skill set, which is, you know, he's got elite arm talent, very good deep passer. He actually threw 20 plus yard passes per PFF on 19% of his throws through nine weeks,

which was easily tops in the league among regular starters in that stretch. Yeah, the lines are throwing the ball as deep as anybody except the buccaneers. Like it's really the lines in the bucks were in the, I believe, we're maybe the only two teams whose average pass

was more than 10 yards. So obviously first down. So the lines average pass was crossing the sticks. Yeah. So the Dink and Dink and Dink and Dink style that we kind of saw him fall into under Jim Bob Cooter,

that is gone. And Bevel did the same thing with Russell Wilson for all the years. He was in Seattle. They were running the ball and play action, deep shots. And I think that behooves Jones and Goladay.

Both of those guys are like perfect skill sets for that. They're going to be running a ton of 12 personnel with two tight ends on this field. So Jones and Ghaladay are going to eat up a lot of the volume, I think, in the passing game. So really that trio I like a lot.

And like I said, Stafford was on pace to be the QB6, you know, overall. Right now you can get them way later than that. I think the defense is going to be bad again for the Lions, which means they could get into some shootouts this year. So,

yeah, just to me, all the variables kind of add up. If Stafford can stay healthy. And, I mean, honestly, look, we've seen Stafford do it in the past, like, in the days of Calvin Johnson, you know, like, he was putting a prolific fantasy numbers. And so he's somehow only, like, 31 years old, too. I think he's on pace to break like every passing record in the NFL history.

Yeah. So the dude can, the dude can, he can, you know, he can put up prolific numbers when he needs to. We haven't seen it over the last few seasons because Cooter kind of held that offense back and turned him into a dink and dunker. but I think the Stafford of Old was back last year, and I think we'll see it again this season. All right, so D.K., you're in on the Lions. You're in on Thielen. You're in on Kenyon Drake, you're in on Tyree Kill.

If you can only pick one of those, if you're going into draft and each in their respective rounds of where they're going now, which is your favorite value of that group? That's a good question. So my favorite value is probably Jones. I think he's the biggest value. I think realistically...

Marvin Jones is around 80th overall or so. Yeah, realistically, though you can go into drafts and I think you can pretty much get Thielen if you want to reach a little bit. You know, you're not always going to get, you're not always going to get Tyree Kill because he might go before. If you're like the, you know, 10th, 11, 12th pick in the draft, you might not have a choice. But I think you can reach a little bit and get Thielen in every draft. So I think I'm going to have a lot of feeling. Craig, who else you got?

So I really like Darren Waller again this year. And I don't think he's a league winner or anything like that. So he doesn't kind of like what D.K. did with Tyree Kill. Like, I just think that this year, Darren Waller's probably going to fall as the months go on and we get closer to drafting just because I don't really know why. Maybe it's he's boring. He wasn't flashy last year. He didn't have a lot of touchdowns. He's on the Raiders.

But he's a top four tied-in. They added. I think people are going to be worried they added some guys too, which actually I think could help him. I agree. So he was the top four tied in pretty much like every format in 2019. But he left so much meat on the bone. He had 90 catches for 11, 145 yards and three touchdowns, and he only had 11 red zone targets, which was the same amount as Zach Pascal and C.J. Uzoma.

Oh, my God. So the tight ends last year, the tight ends last year with the same amount or more touchdowns than Darren Waller in 2019. There's 29 of those people, including Foster Moreau, who's on the Raiders, Demetrius Harris, and Caden Smith. All of those people, 29 of them, had more of the same amount of touchdowns as Darren Waller. people with more targets than Darren Waller are Travis Kelsey and Zach Ertz. Tight ends with more wall?

Yeah, okay. The tight ends with more targets than Darren Wooler. Ertz and Kelsey. So, like, there's just an obvious inconsistency that's going to come to the middle. Darren Waller was fourth in yards per route run last year, which is one of the stickiest tight end stats out there. And he was number one in DYAR, which is like a cool DVOA side stat for receivers. What all the kids are saying.

Yeah, it's basically just means like the gap between him and a replacement level tight end was the largest in the league. And yes, the Raiders, they did a lot of work. They got rugs, that guy, Brian Edwards, they have Nelson Agalore. And Darren Waller did do better without Hunter Renfer this year. But I just see Waller and Carr's bond as one of the strongest in the league between quarterbacks and tight ends. And I think that is huge, especially this year.

And I think the rookie wide receivers, maybe had a good year last year. But I don't know. I mean, it's really hard to have a good year as a rookie wide receiver, especially this year. So I'm just going to bank on Darren Waller and Derek Carr's bond, and that his tight ends, or that his touchdowns will regress to the... As long as Carr is in Oakland, yeah, I want, I want Waller's shares because he... He peppers him. Yeah, he, that's like his game.

And obviously, they added Rugs. They added, you know, some weapons in the draft. But I think at the end of the day... It's not like they added D'Andre Hopkins. I mean, Rugs is, you know, Rugs was a low-volume guy at Alabama. He may end up being a low-volume guy in, you know, in Oakland, or in Las Vegas. I think the thing that I think is very interesting, too, is John Gruden had said, I think he said after the draft that they want to run a lot of two and three tight-end sets.

Like, he's still John Gruden, you know, he still wants to do all the old school stuff that they do all the time. And you nailed, I think you alluded to it where Waller's stats definitely fell off when Hunter Renfro was getting like peppered, like you said, with peppered with just little short passes over. the middle of the field. But in 12 and 13 personnel, he's going to be off the field. Like, they're going to have Waller is going to be like the number one guy. They'll have Foster Moreau blocking, whoever else is, you know, that tight end for them blocking. And then having like Waller will be like the number one target on like, you know, he'll run up the scene, on play action, all that stuff. So I think he's still going to have a big, big part of this offense. And like he said, he's due for positive regression in the touchdown. So this year,

I'm less bullish on him in Dynasty Just because I think that the car thing is a big variable But as long as car is in Oakland I'm wanting all of Waller I love it Craig you got anyone else any other late tight ends of Waller's gone I have an irrational love for Mike Gassicki on the Dolphins Because he jumps over people

Yeah, I just he's a freak Volleyball player Yeah he's is he? I didn't know that I think he was Mike Gissiki is my favorite hurdler in the NFL because he's Whereas most people jump over people to go forward. Mike Gisicki will jump over a player if he's going sideways, but just because he wants to do it,

even if he does not gain yardage. Yeah, it's like Fournette seeking out people to tackle him. He seeks out people to hurdle. Exactly. Giski's just, I mean, he's like undoubtedly one of the most athletic tight ends in the league. He was the tight end 28, the first half of the season, and the tight end seven, the second half. And he had the third most touchdowns in the second half of the season.

And he really finished quite strong. And even his season-long stats, He was fourth in air yards, second and average depth of target, eighth in red zone targets, and third in end zone targets. I mean, it's all right there. The obvious question is to Fitzpatrick, how's I going to go? But I think Kisiki's surge in the second half of the season is just worth a shot.

I mean, he also plays tons of snaps. There's only two tight ends who played more receiving snaps than him in the whole league, and it was Kelsey and Hertz. And then it's Kisiki. So he's on the field for almost every passing down running routes, and he's a freak. And it's worth it. I think it's worth a stab.

The only thing that I worry about with Giseki, and I don't disagree with you, I like Goseki. I think it's his upside. He's extremely athletic. I did look it up while you're talking. He was a big time high school volleyball star.

Imagine getting like spiked by that guy. Jesus. But the only thing I worry about with him and Devante Parker is both of those guys kind of blew up in this offense after Preston Williams got injured. Okay. All I read about is Preston Williams,

Torres ACL, And then the whole Dolvan took off and is the reason everyone is good is because of Preston fucking lawyers. No, it's just the volume thing. Yeah. I don't know. He's going to cut into their overall bottom line.

He's undrafted, undrafted free agent coming off a torn ACL. I know, I know. I don't know if I'm going to let that deter me too much. I have a big picture question for you guys. I have a big picture question for you guys. Yeah.

Looking at this list. Yeah. We have a lot of receivers. not that many running backs, a handful of tight ends. But for the most part, this list of guys who we have staked our claim to, guys we want to leave our drafts with

because we are higher on them than everyone else are wide receivers. This matches the general trend across fantasy this year where there's a lot of receivers, middle round, that seem to be really good values. Does that mean there is a higher premium this year on getting a great reliable running back, like whether it's McCaffrey,

Zincellate, Sey, Seyquan, Kamar, like, is it more important this year than it has been in the past because receivers so deep? Yeah. Yeah. In a word, yeah. I think right now, I mean, I've heard people talking about how I think Ryan McDowell actually said this on Twitter.

Like, we could get back to a point where all 12 first round picks are running backs. Because there are just so few true Belcal running backs in the NFL right now. You have to get that guy early on, especially in redraft where, you know, you're not going to be able to like, pick some random dude and hope that he turns out, like hope that he develops or whatever, you're going to be banking on an injury, which, you know, they happen at the running back position. But yeah, I think like the McCaffrey's, Barclays, Elliot's, Cooks, like, I love all those guys this year, but if you're not a top five pick, you might not get them. So, and I think there's a, there's a handful of running backs that I'm just terrified of this year. Sorry,

Lenny Forins is one of them. I'm a little bit worried about Aaron Jones this year. Yeah, Chris Carson, Melvin Gordon. It's not great. Yeah. So I think... Girlie, David Johnson. I mean, it just goes on and on. There's a massive, massive cliff after the top tier running backs. And so I think they're absolutely going to be a run on those guys early on.

Hi, Fitz. I'm surprised one of your guys for this episode wasn't Levion. I think they signed Gore between our recording last week and then us doing this today. I thought Gore had already signed. Oh, well. Oops. I thought you were just all on. No, I think that Levion, I don't love Levion because I thought about putting him on here.

I ultimately decided against it. I also thought about putting David Johnson on here. And then I decided that it was insane because of the 8th and carries in the second half the season. But I still love him. He's not one of my guys. You guys, it's going to be me against you guys for David Johnson. I'll probably take him first overall. You can keep your Ken and Drake.

All right. Let's get out of here. Thank you, D.K. Thank you to all of our guys. Appreciate it. Thank you to everyone listening. Stay safe. and we'll see guys next week.