The Ringer NFL Show - The Irresponsibly Early Top 25 for the 2020 Season | The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

We couldn’t wait, so we created our official (but not really) top-25 fantasy football rankings for the 2020 season. We discuss players we like a little too much as well as the guys we just don’t get the hype for, headlined by Danny Heifetz ranking Saquon Barkley ninth overall. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

the Danesee Football Podcast on the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Danny Hyfitts, and I'm joined as always by my co-host and my co-danny, the hero we need and the analyst we deserve, the Dark Knight himself. Danny Kelly! How are you doing, D.K.? I'm doing excellent, man. Just, yeah, kind of settling into this off-season and taking it all in. How are you doing, man?

I'm doing fantastic. We're also joined by Craig Horlebeck. How are you doing, Craig? What is on your mind? what's on my mind is ranking 25 people in February and having no friends over the weekend because this is what I was thinking about. But other than that, I'm doing swell.

There is something Atlas-like about doing this in February. It's very, I mean, it's irresponsible. This is the irresponsibly early top 25. Yes. But in a way, it's kind of liberating because when you don't have to rank as if, like, oh, I'm going to have to draft with these rankings, like tomorrow, it's like, oh, no,

I don't even know what teams these guys are playing for. There's something freeing about that. Absolutely. When I was making the list, the thing that kind of stuck out to me is how much uncertainty there is with even like the chalkiest guys on this list. You know what I mean? Like Derek Henry probably almost surely going to be a top 10 pick, but we don't even know what team he's going to play for. So as I was going through the list, I was like, man, there's just so much uncertainty with so many of these like huge, huge fantasy names.

One thing that I thought was interesting, or I guess you guys can tell me if it's interesting, is so I looked at the 2018. Fantasy Pro's ADP, top 25 for half PPR. Then I did the 2019, and 17 players on the 2018 ADP were on the top 25 for 2019. Okay, so 17 of the 25 stayed on it. It's many. So the 2019 last year's ADP, I compared that with our Dantasy top 25, also 17 players. Wow. Yeah.

So does that mean we're nailing it or what? Or is it just easy to do this? You had a much more nuanced thought than I did. thinking about how Dika used the term chalk and I was like, why do people use chalk as a term for locks when you chalk is really easy to erase it instead of ink? But you had a much better thought, so let's go with that one. What do you

think, D.K., of the 17 guys? I know, is that interesting? Is there anything to take away from that or not at all? Let's just say, yes. I think it's interesting, yeah. I think it's like the I think there's enough movement that it's like meaningful that you have to kind of think about these top 25. You have

to think about your first couple round draft picks. It's not just automatic. So at the same time, there's a foundational group of guys that are just kind of unchanging too. Generally, this is what Matthew Berry says where you can't lose your first. You can't lose your season in the first round, but you can win it. You can't lose it. Oh, you can win it. Well, we're messing this up.

You cannot win it, but you can lose it. This is February football right here. It's like, yeah, 17 of the same guys every year are just going to be in it. So it's like, yeah, just pick one of the 17. It's not that hard. Odds are going to be in the top 25 again next year. It's easy. The first round and second round are generally easy.

It's just hitting up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously. Definitely. Yeah, easy. Totally. Yeah. Right? No, no, I completely disagree.

No, come on. Anybody can sit down and auto draft the first two rounds and still win their fans. Well, let's go through the average of our rankings and let's do this. All right. So we each made our own top 25 and then we averaged it out and we're going to read out the average, but we're going to stop when there are severe disagreements that will probably get heated, I imagine. I have a couple that are going to trick their people. They're all Danny's.

They're, yeah. I have a couple of trees. I made this just alone with my mind. I didn't even look at other rankings. I didn't either. I just was like, oh. It's like watching a movie without having never seen a trailer. I tried to do that.

I just reviewed the movie. All right, so I think the only thing we were unanimous on is the first off the bat. Christian McCaffrey. Yeah. Running back for the Panthers, number one. Yeah, obviously. Is there anything to even discuss here, D.K.? No, not really.

I mean, the only thing I would say is there is some uncertainty. going forward with number one, his usage. Like, is he going to continue to be a 95 plus percent snap count type guy with this new coaching staff? Matt Ruhl, you know, what is he going to do? What is the quarterback situation going to be like? Are they going to have a more effective quarterback that attacks downfield more often? And that maybe cuts into McCaffrey's overall bottom line. Can he stay healthy?

But those are all sort of nitpick questions. Like, he's the unanimous number one for a reason. He's just absurdly good. has an absurd bell cow usage. So I don't think there's a lot to think about there. Okay, so McCaffrey at one. And then the second person in our average rankings is Zeke Elliott for the Cowboys. This is the definition of safe.

Yeah. The consensus change. I think, Dana, your pick threw this off by a lot. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, we'll say that for moments from now. Let's just say you guys had two different people at two. And then none of us actually voted for Zeke at two. But he is averaged here because I messed up this.

My Seque 1 vote. I'm just going to spoil that. But we'll get there in a second. Three, we have, so we have McAfre at 1, Zika at 2, Michael Thomas for the Saints at number 3. I was the highest than Michael Thomas. I had him second. You guys, Dika, you had him four. Craig, you had him 5.

Again, not much to say with Michael Thomas. He's good at football. I mean, unless Taysam Hill is the quarterback. I'm going to be honest, though. I put him at 2. Like, my gut instincts, I was just like, I just would rather have him than like the other running backs. That might be, again, this is irresponsible rank. rankings. But as I was doing it, I was looking at this and I just had a hard time picking

Zique or Sequin actually over Michael Thomas. Well, I mean, Thomas provided so much relative value this year because he was just head and shoulders above all the other receivers. So I think that definitely makes sense. Like I see your line of thinking like why you'd rather have him. The only thing I think is the question mark of like what happens with Breeze, but that's, I feel like it's pretty clear he's going to come back. He had a perfect season. So it's like, what are the odds that's going to happen again? I'd rather have. Zeke and Mike Evans than Michael Thomas and Josh Jacobs. You know what I mean? Oh, we're going to get there.

We're going to get there. And to be clear, we're doing half-PPR rankings right now, and I think that Drew Brees comes back. I think the Saints are still going to be passing plenty, and Michael Thomas could just re-break that record next year. Four we got Dalvin Cook, Vikings. Also, good at football. Going to run a lot. Had a great year. Got healthy. But he's actually tied. So actually tied with Seekwan Barclay, who you guys both had second. Yes, which still...

Sake 1 at 5 still doesn't sound that crazy, but hypatism where? I have 9th, which, you know, there's probably more emotion in this than I probably should have. So here's the thing. You ever just like lie awake at night or just you're going through your day

and you just remember something? Like you just remember, like, oh my God, like I forgot. And like I will just be going through my day and I'll just, something will happen. Like, oh, right, Jason Garrett is running the Giants offense. I'll just be randomly triggered to remember this. Now I understand like, oh, well, Zeke did great with Jason Garrett.

I have, at this moment of time, February 17th, we're recording this. I don't have zero faith in the Giants offense this year, but it's like asymptotic. It's like infinitely approaching zero. And so maybe this is just like my emotions. I mean, that is what's happening here. But the Giants offense sucks. And I don't really, and maybe that will change with head coach Joe Judge and Jason Garrett. But until it does,

I don't know how I feel about having my first round pick come from an horrible, horrible offense. Yeah, but doesn't it not matter? Christian McAver's team didn't make the playoffs. Dallas Cowboys didn't make the playoffs. Nick Chubbs team did make the playoffs. Sankham Barkley's team didn't make the playoffs. Who cares?

But the Giants are awful. Like the Panthers, I mean, the Panthers, obviously it's different because the Panthers, yeah, they didn't make the playoffs, but they were pretty competent. And that was even with a backup quarterback, the Panthers was so much more creative about how they got McCaffrey the ball. They were more creative moving the ball.

I mean, they were just a straight better offense. There's been so little creativity with the Giants, and Jason Garrett basically was derided for Cowboys fans for 10 years for a lack of creativity and a lack of attention to detail. That sounds tough. And I understand this is silly, and I'm probably going to move him up by the time we get to August. I'll probably join the herd and the sheep will and put him at two like everyone else. But as of this moment in time, I was like, would I rather have sacred?

cornered Delvin Cook. I was like, I don't know. I can't, I'm going to roll with Jason Garrett, really? Right. I mean, I can, I understand like the, the would you rather game when you're talking about early guys is, that's pretty telling. I mean, you know, and you might get to the draft and you might actually chicken out and just take Barclay ahead of everybody. But I mean, I kind of understand where you're going with this. The reason I disagree with you and the reason I had him at number two, and I think Craig probably can vouch for this and has the same sort of argument, but even in a season when he was battling an ankle sprain, a high ankle sprain for a good

chunk of the season, he was the RB6 on a per game basis and half PPR. And he was the top scoring non-quarterback in the fantasy playoff. So down the stretch, I feel like we finally saw, you know, the Saigonne Barclay that everyone was expecting to be like 20 plus points a game average, you know, and he got more involved in the passing game and all that. Now, we have no idea what's going to happen with Jason Garrett. their passing game might be significantly better with Daniel Jones potentially taking a jump as a sophomore

if they get more weapons and all that stuff and maybe Barclay's not as involved in the passing game so that kind of hurts his bottom line but it's an emotional thing I get it you're Giants fan so I'm scarred dude although it does affect our rankings pretty heavily I think if it was just Craig and I would be the overall number two the game's always been good despite the Giants and I don't see that stuff

but the one thing I do want to hit though is that you mentioned the points per game. And this is going to be a theme for the whole year, the whole offseason when we do this is points per game. Sequon's best two games were week 15 and 16 when he shredded like the dolphins and the Eagles when anyone who had him was probably

off because if you drafted him first, if you look at points per game for week one to 14, which is the regular season for fantasy, he was 21st. Right. But I mean he was not healthy for a large chunk of that too. No, I understand. But I'm just saying like he was 21st.

like he was behind Todd Gurley in points per game in the first 14 weeks which takes out the weeks that he missed. I'm just saying like it's when I have him at like 8th I don't feel like that's insulting even though I'll be considered

a lunatic and a heretic which I kind of am but throwing it out there. I do think we need to eventually narrow down the stats that matter where it's like because people just throw around like he was the RB9 it's like okay well he didn't play 10 games that type of shit

and even the points per game like you just said some guy Kenyon Drake has two massive games and he's like the RB 10 in points for a game but in reality he really wasn't. Also I said the Eagles, the Washington. It was the Washington game like 190 yards plus 90 receiving. Yeah, so it's like maybe we need to like remove the aberration games but is it an aberration if it's Sequin Barkley? Does it, why shouldn't it get if it's week 15? I feel like it should. I don't know. There's a lot to discuss. Well, that's what the next seven months or four. I wonder if Seekone will come up again until August. All right. Until then. All right, next step.

So we got that's McCaffrey at one, Zika at two, Michael Thomas at three, Dalvin Cook at four, Sequin tied with him at four. Devante Adams at six. Thrilling stuff. Number seven. There's not really a lot to talk about there. Top guys, as you said, a chalk, ink, whatever we want to call it. Devante Adams, good at football, was not healthy for portions.

And once he got healthy, was just as good as we all thought he would be. He was the number two receiver in like every aspect behind Michael Thomas when he was healthy. All right. This is where it gets interesting. Seventh, we average out Derek Henry. So the obvious caveat here is Derek Henry is a free agent. We don't know where he's, well, he will be a free agent. agent unless the Titans signed him.

We don't know where he's going to play. I just assumed he was going back to the Titans, and I ranked him as if he were going back to the Titans. What do you guys think? Did you dock him for the uncertainty, or I just ranked him as if he were a Tennessee Titan? Yeah. Yeah, no, I didn't really dock him. He was my RB4 number five overall, so I think I was actually the highest on him.

So what do you make of the four-game stretch where he broke every conceivable record and ran for 180 yards 10,000 times in a row and also has a ton of carries and whether any of that is sustainable? and what do people make of that going into this year? That's not sustainable. But I think he's proven over the years that, you know, the concerns about his durability is, you know, and that he'd wear down because he's had like a thousand carries

since going back to high school or whatever. Like, he's just different. He's built different than a lot of guys. And so I think, I don't, I feel like we don't have to worry about it that much. You know, it's like you have to worry about injuries with any running back. But I don't think Henry has a heightened injury risk because of like his running style or anything.

like that. So I'm sticking with him. You know, we underestimated him coming into last season. I'm not going to make that mistake again. The question I have, they had like a 90-something percent success rate in the red zone with like one field goal and like 20-something touchdowns down the stretch. They were absolutely bonkers effective in the red zone. And that obviously paid off huge for Henry. Can they do that? That's not sustainable over a full season. And what is? that effect, how does that affect Henry next year? Less touchdowns. Right.

Right. Exactly. I think that lowers his ceiling a little bit, but still like him a lot. Still think he's going to get a huge workload. I don't know. Much like his individual seasons, it seems like his career, he's getting better with the more wear and tear he gets put on his body. Like the season with the most rushes, he's had the best yards per carry, the best yards

per catch. But I don't feel as confident. about him. One, he's never had more than 24 targets in a season, and this is a half-PPR ranking. And it's like, okay, if he doesn't have 16 touchdowns and he had two receiving also, so if he doesn't have 18 touchdowns and teams start to shell out against the run a little bit more, which now they know is the Titans' entire game plan. I don't really feel confident that he's going to have this year or maybe even 90% of it. Like, I could see him being kind of almost like a, like, if he is a Leonard-Fornet year, minus all of the targets, Derek Henry's like not even a top 10 back this year. And that's what I would say I'd be worried about. So you have him as number nine overall, the RB6. The guy ahead of him, I think is very interesting that you had in your ranking. So we can actually go right to him, I think. We can skip over to Andre Hopkins.

He's number eight on our list. You know, there's not a lot to talk about. He's good at football. Right. Nick Chubb is number nine. So tell me, Craig, because I think you had him ranked highest. You have him. No, Danny actually had him ranked high.

I have him ahead of Derek Henry. I can already tell I'm going to be in on the Browns this year. Like I can already tell. I just, I think the Freddie Kitchens thing was a disaster. I think that team's going to refocus everything that all the hype we said about them last year. Most of it's like still true. Perhaps we should have been hesitant to think that institutional rot could be cleansed in like four months. That's a good note for the future.

But I think that now they have this offseason. I think they're going to get a lot of things right. I think Nick Chubb is one of the most talented players in the NFL straight up that doesn't get considered that, but he's unbelievable to watch. And I think the team is just going to be so much better. I like Kevin Stefanski. I mean, I'm not sure he's going to, the guy to fix the Browns, but I think that offense is going to be so much.

It doesn't take much to improve what they were doing. And I think that's going to start around Nick Chubb. I think for all the talk, we love O'Dell, but I think Nick Chubb is actually going to be, like, this could be the centerpiece of that offense. And we're only doing the top 25 today. But I also think Baker is going to be a huge value next year because you'll probably be able to pick a Baker like 13th, 14th in the draft next year, among quarterbacks and like, hello.

Last year he was going sixth. All the value was taken out of it. So that's just me being in on the Browns and also being a little dubious about whether the Titans can be the third best, most efficient offense after like the Ravens and the Chiefs with Ryan Tannahill.

Not sure that's going to keep up. No offense to Ryan Tanahill. But that's really how I feel about the Henry thing. It's not just converting every time they get to the red zone like 80% of the time or whatever. Are they going to get to the red zone that often? I don't know. I'm dubious of a lot of things.

So I like Chubb. I never think things are going to repeat. I don't know if that's just a pessimist in me. But I am always dubious that record-setting seasons are going to repeat. Except for literally the first thing you said of this podcast, which was 17 players every year from the top 25. You started this podcast talking about that. Not record-setting.

The only guy who's like Antonio Brown is like the only guy who's like actually like the wide receiver won every year for five straight years. But besides him, no one else really does that. So I'm willing to bet against it. I hate to be cold about Derek Henry. It's just like if you look at the hip, history of dudes who've done remarkable stuff, as you're saying, it just doesn't, it's very difficult to replicate and it's nothing against him.

As you said, you can lose your draft in your first round. So I have, I have Chubb a little bit lower, not a lot lower, because I agree. Like, I love him. I think he's a explosive back. I think this Stefansky thing is very interesting from a fantasy point of view because they just run the hell out of the ball. And they, you know, really dedicated to it, at least with the Vikings last year, I figure he'll bring that same sort of philosophy and style.

So the Browns could really end up being a very, you know, like a top running team. The only thing that worries me a little bit, and we'll know more about this as the season goes on. But what is Karim Hunt's role with the Browns? Is he even a Brown? Because I think there's been uncertainty whether he's even a restrictive free agent or an unrestricted free agent. I don't think, you know, we'll find out kind of what happens, you know, over the coming weeks. But Hunt's role on the Brown's offense, I think is going to be kind of crucial to this whole thing. because last year he was really cutting into Chubbs overall Farrancy bottom line

because he was playing almost all the passing down snaps. He was like they're passing down running back. He had a ton of value in PPR leagues. Even in a half PPR league, I think that could really cut into his bottom line. So that's the only thing that worries me because I think Kareem Hunt is a really, really good back too. So maybe they want to use him. They don't want to wear Chub down. Maybe they end up having like a platoon.

And that could really eat into Chub's value. Okay. So next up we got Alvin Kamara. Number 10, who I think we can skip Alvin too. Love Alvin. So the top 10 we've got, the averaged out is McCaffrey, Zeke, Michael Thomas, Dalvin Cook, Sequin, who would be number two if it were not for me and my anxieties. Devonte Adams, Derek Henry, D'Andre Hopkins, Nick Chubb, and Alvin Kamara. All right, so going to number 11, we've got Tyree Kill from the Chiefs.

Yeah, that's pretty obvious. Okay, not much to say. So then we've got Aaron Jones running back for the Packers. I mean, you mentioned the touchdown regression with Derek Henry. Obviously, Aaron Jones had what was the exact number? 47 touchdowns that sure I forget. Hit an NFL high 19 touchdowns on 285 touches. So he is the prime candidate for touchdown regression going forward.

That doesn't mean he's not going to be a good fantasy player. It just means he's almost surely not going to be as efficient scoring touchdowns as he was this season. So why do we all have him the same place? I have him at 11. You guys have 12 and 12. Why are we not just putting him lower than this? If we're like, he's going to score half of his touchdowns. Because he was the RB2, and it's just kind of hard not to look at that. I think Aaron Jones, as the off-season progresses,

is going to have the biggest up and down. Can we be frank about our biases for right now? What? Like, just when we do the rankings like this, you put stuff in public. Like, let's be petty with it? No, I'm saying, even when you have real thoughts, like naked thoughts. Like, for me, the Sequin thing. Putting Sequin where I did, part of me was like, I'm an idiot.

And I think that's the Aaron Jones. thing where it's like he had 18 touchdowns. I think he could have like seven next year. Yeah. But then I'm like, am I really going to put him lower than 12? I don't know. Even in this irresponsibly early rankings part of me was like, I kind of think it might be lower. Well, it's because it came out of nowhere. He's less proven. He had the third year breakout that a lot of guys have, but I don't know. When I look at Zeke and Christian McCaffrey and Sequin Barclay and even Nick Chub for some reason, I don't see Aaron Jones in that class. That's exactly where I'm coming from. I'm picking up exactly what you're putting down. You're picking up what he's putting down,

DK. I'm with you guys. Beautiful. All right, let's keep this train rolling. We got Julio next. Julio, old faithful. That's why he's 13 and not seven is because he's getting a lot there. He's getting a little...

The Tim Duncan of wide receivers. Wow. That's a good comp. You like that? Yeah. I do like that. All right. I was off the top.

Oh, this one... All right, here we go. We can slow the train down here. Mike Evans, Bucks. This one does matter a lot about the next month or so, about what the Bucks do with James Winston. Yeah. We don't have to sit here and hypothesize about how Mike Evans and Chris Godwin would do with every version of a quarterback they could do.

So let's just start. If the Bucks bring James back, how do you feel about Mike Evans and then by extension, Chris Godwin? Obviously, they were unbelievable. I mean, in the weeks that they were playing, I think Mike Evans went out, what, week 15, and then Godwin was out for week 16. But for the weeks they played, the first 14, 15 weeks of the year, they were both like top three in just about any scoring format. Right. So how the hell do you evaluate this going forward? Which do you prefer?

Like, how do you go about this? If they bring Winston back? If they bring Winston back, I think both of them climb in my rankings, to be honest. The newly cited James Winston now with presumably 2020. Oh, the Lasic surgery. Oh, my God, I forgot about it. James Canal has been gifted with sight. Yeah, if you guys missed it, if you missed it over the, I guess during the weekend or last week, late last week, it came out in the news that James Winston got Lasix surgery to correct his eyesight.

You know, eyesight, in theory, is pretty important for playing the most difficult position in all of sports. This is an embarrassing oversight from a professional organization. Steph Curry got like fucking LASIC like a year ago. I don't understand this. We should be checking everybody's eyesight every three months. Insane. This is so easy. Have them read a little board of letters.

And if they screw up, fix it. He's a quarterback. His job is to see. I mean, the counter is like maybe we shouldn't point lasers at the eye. eyes of our most valuable, like, player. That would make me really nervous. Just shoot lasers into the... I know that I'm not a doctor.

That's insane. That's probably irresponsible. We're putting dead people's ligaments in people's bodies. It does have higher risk than it's known. So he should just tread out there with some contacts? Sure. I think that what's interesting to me about this is that this is going... Everyone's going to have to have the same conversation about this a hundred times

where it's like, how funny is it that James got lazy? But really, can you imagine if he's actually like Brett Farve and we didn't know? And then you're going to come back to, well, maybe it was nothing. And everyone's going to cycle through the same like five thoughts over and over again until like we see him play in September. Because no one's going to have any idea how impactful this was. It's the no. Well, no. It's the kombucha girl.

James Winston is the kombucha girl of fantasy football. I can't remember such a crazily important thing that nobody will have any insight to whatsoever. It's egregious on my perspective. Let me ask you guys, where do you think James Winston finished in the overall quarter? quarterback points this year. He was two, right? DK, what do you think? Oh, God.

I should know this by heart. He was two, was he know. He was three. Three? Kind of higher than I said. Is that in total points? Total points. He was third.

Yeah. Lamar, Dach, James. Dach. Yeah. Yeah, Dak. That's my guy. James is fantasy gold, so I hope, beyond all hope,

that he's back with the bucks. But for whatever reason, I feel like he's not going to be. I don't know why, but maybe it's just scary and postering. It was the 30 interceptions. It was the 30 interceptions as well. Back to the last. Let's keep this rolling.

Right, so we got Mike Evans at 14. We got Joe Mixen at 15 and then we got Godwin at 16. So I like Godwin over Evans this year. Well, I like that we got mixing in the middle there because we avoided the sandwich because anytime you see fantasy rankings where two teammates are next to each other, that's the person just be kind of transparently being like, I have no idea who's going to do better. Also, everybody puts Kittle and Kelsey together too. Yeah, and that's okay.

That's fine. I appreciate the transparency. So I like that Godwin, or we got mixing just in between Evans and Godwin, being like, no, we're Evans over Godwin. I'm a Godwin guy over Evans this year And it's Oh wow So you know we're talking about how

We're going to let our biases sink in Or just like you know weird facts Don't really mean you know unfounded data Well Did that come up? I missed that part No one said that weird Chris Godwin

This is a contract year for Godwin And that matters to me You know I love slot guys I love contract narratives I love contract year guys You have old veterans And not that people need reasons to play But people need reasons to play

And if you look at all the guys last year who had contract years, they had massive years. Derek Henry, Dach, Dach, Jack, James. Kenyon Drake, contract year last year. Michael Thomas, contract year. Tyler Boyd, contract year, great year. Austin Hooper, career year before he got hurt,

contract year. Austin Hector. Austin Echler, career year, contract year. Here's why I don't like this. This has become too ubiquitous. You play for the paycheck, you get paid, you suck. Leveon Bell. This is become too ubiquitous.

This contract year thing? No. The reality is that every player is like in a contract year because if you have signed a second contract you can basically cut at any time i.e. I just said that out loud. That was really weird.

It's definitely a thing I've only said in writing, IE. But David Johnson probably going to be released by the Cardinals. Was not in a contract year, but he was because NFL contracts are all a lie and they only have one or two years guaranteed three max

and then everything after that is a team option that they don't call a team option. So every year is a contract year for the players. Yeah, but I thought with David Johnson he can't get released because their cap hit is outrageous. Yeah.

Like the dead cap is outrageous. That's neither here nor there. I think your point stands. Your point stands, but my whole perspective about this is before they get paid, the way they're thinking is, oh, shit, I got to have the best year in my career

so I can get that paycheck. Regardless of what all the fine-tuning means after that and all the reading between the lines of what the contract actually means, before they get paid, I think in their head, it's like, I got to have my year. This is my year.

I'm going to prepare the hardest so I can get that paycheck. Go all out. Yeah. You know? And to clarify that point in David Johnson, if he's cut before June, it's a $60 million hit, but if he's traded, it's a $6 million hit. Yeah, so they're going to try and trade now. Yeah. Dolphins.

Dolphins, man. I still think Gurley ends up on the dolphins, but that's just me. All right, 17. We got Travis Kelsey. Would you guys actually take Travis Kelsey here in your actual second round pick, or did you put him here out of guilt? Guilt. I like waiting for tight ends personally. Yeah, no, I know you mean. I put him later. I have him like 18 or something. All I do is all I want to do is draft like the fifth tight end and hope they be, I just want to find the guy who's in the 5,67 range,

he's going to finish as the tight end too, which is like what I thought was Evan Ingram last year, you know? Could be again this year. Wilson O.J. Howard. 18, Josh Jacobs. For the Las Vegas Raiders. LVR. How weird does that sound?

Gross. Craig has him as RB 11. I had him as the running back 11 as well. And Danny, you have him as, you've got him as the running back 9. Pretty high on him. I think he's going to have a great year. I think the Raiders' offense will be better. I think the Raiders will be better.

I am very into John Gruden in 2020. Hell yeah. And I just think Josh Jacobs is going to be the center of that. He's not running on dirt for the first time in his career. You know what? I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. You'd be amazed what happens when you don't.

I mean, who was the running back that described it? They were like, what's it like to get tackled on the infield for the A? And he was like, imagine just going out on a pavement and doing a belly flop. What do you think of the team's decision to sign Jalen Rashard to a contract extension? Does that make you worry about Josh Jacobs as all? Because he was not a factor really in the passing game. Last year as a rookie, even though they talked about how he was going to be. And he was capable.

And now they re-sign the guy who's probably going to do that next year. So does that make you worried about his overall ability to kind of carry the offense? I mean, Jailen Rashard had three more carries than catches last year. so he's obviously receiving back. I think it's going to be easier. I mean, look, it's February. I would be lying if I didn't say I would love to see all those headlines. It's like, Josh Jacobs, catching passes and OTAs against, you know, air.

Those mean nothing. Nothing anyone does against air means anything. But I just think he's going to get a lot. I just think he's going to be on the field a lot for this team. And I just don't think Jill and Ashard's going to be spelling him too much. Maybe they're doing it to push him. That's one of those things that you just have to see what happens in training camp because you're going to hear an offseason of Josh Jacobs

learning to catch, but we'll find out when they actually put pads on. If I was a beat writer, I would just write some article about Josh Jacobs being a terrible pass catcher right before my draft, so then his stock just dives, and then I draft him and then, like, immediately rectify that. It's probably why you're not a beat writer. Probably. All right, let's keep this rolling. Well, Mari Cooper.

Dallas. We got him at 19. We're assuming Dallas, yeah. They're going to tag. I did this as if he's a cowboy. I think there is not zero chance he leaves, but pretty close. I'd be shocked if Mari Cooper leaves. more shocked actually than Drew Brie's retiring.

I could see Amari being a guy who after this year, if they tag him and he comes back, is like a top 10. He's a franchise. There's your contract year guy. Beautiful. There you go. I could see him being like up here with like Tyreek and Julio next year.

He was not healthy for like the entire season. And he had a career year. Yeah. Like he was not healthy. Like he had foot issues. I mean, he was dealing with planter fasciitis in August. Like real foot issues.

So if he's healthy this year, you know, sometimes it's like don't overthink it. Mari Cooper is 25 years old. Yeah, man. He's still 25 years old. That's so crazy. I think he's going to be having an amazing season.

Yeah. Next up, we get 20. We got our guy. Lenny Fornes. Lenny Forns himself. Why have we been talking about him for six months, and yet we all are kind of like he's like 20th? D.K.

I'm worried about him, to be honest. Me too. So there's rumors coming out already that he's not going to get a fifth-year option. So that maybe, you know, maybe that is actually. a good thing because then he's playing for a contract. We'll see. There we go. But, you know, with Jay Gruden taking over the offense there,

he's always used the past catching back in his offenses so that could, again, it's like the Josh Jacobs thing could cut into his bottom line. You know, they already had a lot of issues getting him into the end zone. And fewer carries and fewer opportunities is not going to necessarily fix that. So I'm just a little bit worried about his usage mostly. Like, are they going to continue to absolutely lean on him for a huge, huge, huge amount of their offense or is it going to be more of like a time share? Because are they going to start kind of moving on from him?

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, Tom Cawthon got fired. Tom Cawthon was the one who drafted him. And when the guy who drafted the running back in the top four is not in the building anymore, I just am not as certain of how many carries or snaps he's going to be on the field as it was before. I would say we have him appropriately ranked. Right. Yeah.

He's still going to get a ton of opportunity. Yeah. But it's the same reason I'm into Josh Jacobs, actually. It's like John Gruden drafted Josh Jacobs. He drafted him to put him on the field. I'm not worried about Jalen Richard spelling him because I think Gruden wants him on the field and even maybe square peg round hole.

He's going to jam it in. I don't feel that way about Lenny Forrens this year. Right. Did you guys rank him this high because you would take him here or because we felt a shameless, like a nameless guilt about having him lower than 21st?

I feel better about this one, but I'm still in that boat. Would you take George Kettle in the first 20th? if I pick's. I might take him at the very end of the second round, yeah. It's just like every year. It's like Mark Andrews, you know, Mark Andrews, Darren Waller this year. Like Austin Hooper, there's just tight ends every year that if he strike gold on him. Yeah. You're doing great. And just the idea of taking a titan this high.

There's a certain type of drafter who just like loves to grab Kelsey at 17. You know what I mean? Just a certain type of draft. It's a philosophical thing. Yeah. Specific personalities for drafters. You know, they all assume different archetypes. All right. Rounding out the top 25, we've got juju at 23. Gallaudet at 24 and Odell Beckham at rounding out the 25 D.K. This is such a fun zone. These are the fun guys to draft. It's where the real

disagreement start. DeK., what do you think of these dudes? It's tough because if you remember last year, you know, Juju was, I think, a guy that we were thinking had the potential to, like, make a massive jump because losing Antonio Brown, you know, he could start being the number one in that offense, and then Ben went down. He had a terrible season.

He had, like, he just completely fell off the map. And, And, you know, Big Ben coming back, obviously good for him. But I think there's still a lot of uncertainty around Smith-Schuster because, you know, there's some people, I think, that are sort of thinking a guy like Deonté Johnson could potentially lead the team in targets. And maybe Juju becomes the number two there. It's just very, very tough to know. I think I'm kind of airing on the side of Juju having a big bounce back here. But I just think it's very risky with him, kind of trying to figure out, you know, exactly what his floor and ceiling are going into this season.

So he's a tough one for me. Craig, what do you think about Goladay? It's going to be hard to not let him creep up people's rankings. And I think it's going to, especially in auction leagues, you're going to have to pay up this year for Kenny Goladay because he had such a good year. I know he had 11 touchdowns on 65 catches, but he did half of them with like David Blow and whoever else is throwing to him.

And I just think that he's going to be one of the guys. And I think Juju might be too, where the longer you wait to draft, these guys are going to creep up and really drive the hype. train because Galday is just like one of those guys that really passes the eye test and he's plays in Detroit so maybe he didn't get a ton of games this year but like this is going to be like a beat writer guy where come like late August Galdi is going to be like this 18th overall pick and you're going to be screwed.

The lines are just an aggressive downfield passing offense and they probably don't have that rep yet. It'll get beaten into everyone's heads over the summer but I mean they're just launching the ball. Yeah, Stafford had a renaissance last season. Under Beville they started attacking deep because for a while there for a few seasons under Jim Bob Cooter, they were just a dink and dunk offense. And they just let it loose last year, play action and things like that.

Also, Galdi, contract here. There you go. Odell, not in a contract year. But Revenge Tour, again, he just played the whole year with Sportsernia. And I think that's relevant. And I think that that whole team, like, sometimes you can get fall into danger with the, well, they're motivated this year. But like they are, the Browns are motivated. And I also just believe they're going to be better, competent, which they were not last year.

I think a lot of things went wrong. And I think Odell, now you'll actually be able to get it to value. Last year was going, what, somewhere between 11 and 15 or whatever, depending on what kind of league you were in. Now, if you can get him at 25, that would be pretty, you know, I think that's tasty. I was looking at airyards.com last night. And...

A busy Sunday night for D.K. And I didn't even realize this, but Beckham was third among receivers last season in Air Yards, so 18101. third among receivers he finished 23rd in actual yards so there's this huge huge gap of potential I think and that's kind of what we expected him to do like we expected him to be one of the top you know deep ball catching pass pass catchers next or last season but this just

didn't work out their offense was just terrible whatever this season I could see them kind of getting back on track our Craig you have 17 seconds to talk about Cooper Cup he had his best year in the Rams worst year and he was a third-year breakout guy going into a contract year, ding, ding, ding, and the Rams are not going to be worse. And I love slot guys.

And he's Jared Goss's most trusted pass catcher. Cup is great. Another year removed from injury. Remember for half the season he was like a top three dude or something like that? Yeah, and then he dropped off the map. Yeah. I mean, you know he was the fourth overall wide receiver last year, right? But again, like...

It's kind of way, he's not in your guys top 25, and he was the fourth best. that's yeah that's good point but the first but he was like the first eight games yeah he was nuts but what don't they don't count what does that mean I think the Rams offense going forward is much more

indicative of the final eight games Sean McVe has already said he's going to have to be more tentative to the defense this year so this is just you being dubious about McVeigh being able to get out of the slub no I just I mean I guess remember when I said I didn't like the Rams offense last year and you guys all last year and you guys all last

I mean, Cooper Cup's last five games, he had five touchdowns. Sounds like he's due for regression. Yeah, okay, I got it. So all the yards in the first half of the season, regression, all the touchdowns in the second half regression. Yeah, they're half off. That's fine. Miles Sanders, I just think he's going to get the job.

I have nothing to back this up at this moment of time. It's like, we just have to wait. I just think that he will end up as the, like, in August, I think he'll be the primary ball carrier for the Philadelphia Eagles and will be a top 20 guy. So these are the guys that didn't quite make our top 20 people. Yeah, these are just... And then the most divisive of all,

the guy I had, 25th. And I think I would take 25th, I think. Lamar Jaxon. That's going to be a whole podcast episode. Where do you draft Lamar? But it's like, yeah, where do you take Lamar? Because if we can wrap this whole thing up in a sentence, all of fantasy football agrees on one thing,

which is you should probably take quarterbacks late, but Lamar is unlike any other quarterback that we've seen. Yeah, he's challenging the status quo of drafting. So, D.K., you're the one who predicted he would break fantasy football. So now the fantasy football is broken. Where would you draft Lamar Jackson? Will he break the draft?

I mean, if you're taking him in a third round, I think that's fine. You got to rank 25th, right? So like early third. I know, you're like, yeah. Yeah, I guess it's a lot of third. That's fine. I was like, all right. If you can get two guys before that, that's, yeah, that's.

Well, here's the thing, D.K., would you rather have Lamar Jackson as the 27th overall pick or Matt Stafford in round 11? Or Baker, like, with your last pick. That's the way I'm like. Yeah. Like in a standard. one quarterback league, I'd probably go with Stafford.

That's the thing. Because there's a strong chance Jackson doesn't lead the NFL and passing touchdowns again this season or whatever. You know what I mean? There's a chance. There's a chance. His touchdown rate was basically one of the best ever. Right. Like one of the ten best marks ever. Nine percent of his throws were touchdowns, which is ludicrous.

Wow. Doubtors. Hopefully Mallory doesn't listen to this podcast. We are not doubters. No one can call those Lamar Jackson doubters. Anyway, there's our top 25. There's our top 25. Thank you to everyone for listening. Next week, combine.

Next week, combine. Yes, next week combine. Deka, we're going to be an indie, man. That's going to be fun. Yeah, I can't wait for that. So we're going to start previewing the draft, obviously, since we're going to be in Indianapolis for the combine, talking about rookie receivers that could,

and running backs and quarterbacks, that could have a big impact on all formats of fantasy, but especially redrafts, since that's kind of the main thing. I think going into next year, a lot of these guys are going to be really, like, high-impact players in 2020. So this year, especially, I think the draft

is going to be really important to study. Who are going to be the high-impact players? Just kidding. That's next week. We'll see you guys next week.