The Ringer NFL Show - The Ringer's 2019 Fantasy Football Top 50 Rankings | The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: August 6, 2019

Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz, and Craig Horlbeck examine The Ringer's 2019 fantasy football top 50 rankings, including guys they’re hyping, fading, and flat-out avoiding. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly Check out The Ringer’s first ever fantasy football rankings here: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good news, NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded NFL Sunday ticket this season. If you live in an area where Direct TV service is not available, you can now get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. To see if you are eligible, go online to nfl sundayticket.tv. And stream every NFL Sunday ticket game this season to follow your favorite team, no matter where you live. Use promo code Ringer, R-I-N-G-E-R at checkout to say 15%.

exclusive student discounts are also available. Welcome to the Derek Henry Friend Zone and welcome to the Dannessy Football Podcast. My name is Danny Heifitz and I am joined as always by my co-host, Mike Ho Danny, the hero we need, the fantasy analyst we deserve. Danny Kelly. D.K., what is on your mind?

Not a whole lot, man. Just getting closer to football. So I'm really, really excited about preseason football. I can't believe I'm saying that. We are getting closer to football. That is how the march of time works. We are not in the studio. today. We are in what we call the chapel. We've been promoted to video, DK. We're live,

which is amazing. Not live. We're just being recorded with the cameras and stuff. So how about that? So I had to put more makeup on today than usual. They refer to me as talent. And by that, I mean, I refer to myself as talent, which was a great moment for my life. That was really fun. Craig. Craig is here? How are you doing, Craig? I'm not on camera. My dad always said I had a face for radio, so I'm off. But that was the face for podcasts. But now they gave us podcast video. So who knows? It's all full circle. That's disappointing that Craig isn't in on video I think the people want to know what he looks like

DK we're here for a very special reason because the ringer ranks a lot of stuff We've ranked the best albums and singles from 1999 Top TV episodes of the century Steven Soderberg movies which I don't know how that happened Southern rap albums every episode of Kirby Enthusiasm Best Fast Food in America Which was a joke

But controversial to say the least But today we have ranked something at the ringer Normally ranked Which is fantasy football players If you go to the ringer.com, what a great website. You can find the ringer's top 150 fantasy football players. We actually ranked PPR and standard scoring, so we have two lists. And please check that out.

You can hit the NFL tab or the fantasy tab. And we'll also be doing a make-de-case series this week, which is like kind of spelling out our favorite hot takes that we really believe. And so we're going to be going through the top 50 of our rankings this week. We average them from you, Craig, myself, Riley McAtee, who is your. our editor. And we're going to be, we have analysis from Robert Mays and we're really excited. So we're going to get deep diving on the top 50. But before we do that, we're going to dive into a slightly bigger picture view of kind of how we view the top 50. Matthew Berry has an excellent rule that he helped coin for the first round that we adhere to, which is you can't win

your draft in the first round, but you can lose it. It's part of like this broader philosophy that fantasy football is about minimizing risk, which I mean, that's your fantasy, right? Risk minimization. That's fun. But as the draft goes on later, it becomes the opposite. It's like you go from avoiding risk to seeking it because eventually you're in the 140s and no one's good and you might as well say screw it, shoot for the stars.

Usually you get Ricky Seals Jones and he sucks and you caught him after two weeks. But sometimes you get James Connor or your personal nemesis, D.K. Eric Ebron. So fantasy drafts are kind of about going from that path of avoiding risk to seeking it and the top 50s fun because that's where that risk curve starts to bend.

We think of sleepers as nobody's who could become somebody's, but a lot of times sleepers are actually people in the top 50. ESPN does a list every year of the players who were most commonly found on the teams that won their leagues on ESPN.com. Most of those players go in the top 50. Christian McCaffrey was number one. He was under 38% of leagues.

Travis Kelsey was, he was top three. He was on 35% of champion teams. Adam Thielen, he was drafted 35th, and he was on a bunch of fantasy teams that won their championships. So sleepers can be in the top 50. League winners can be in the top 50. And we're going to keep that. in mind is we're going through this. So,

DK, are you excited? I'm ready for this. Beautiful. All right. So we're going to run these through. We're going to run through these, not these through. At 10 at a time, we're going to run through who we're higher on than the average in our own list and who are lower on. We're also going to note as we go the difference between PPR and standard. We're going to be focusing on PPR, but we will make sure to note the James White's and other people who drop a lot in PPR and other people who rise in standard.

So generally, people who catch a lot of passes and people who don't. So shall we do it? Let's get into it. Do you want to just go down the list, I guess, then? Start with number one. Let's do it. I think it's a little bit, well, it might surprise a little. Drum roll?

Can we get a drum roll? Can we get like a tap? Craig's giving me dagger eyes. Christian McCaffrey is our number one player. Yeah. Not Sequin. This is a brainchild of your editor, Riley McAtee, but we all agree with him. So we have McCaffrey at number one.

Saquan's full into two. Ezekiel Elliott, at three, Alvin Kumar at four, DeAndre Hopkins is at five, David Johnson's at six, Devante Adams is at seven, Julio Jones is at eight, Melvin Gordon's at nine, and Michael Thomas rounds it out

at 10. Those PPR, those are PPR rankings, so standard Michael Thomas and Julio might fall out of top 10, but... Yeah. So, D.K., who are you hyping from that top 10? When you're in the top 10, like, there's a reason to be in the top 10. These guys are going to have tons and tons of volume

most likely. You know, highly talented players. That said, there's guys in this list that I'm more confident in. And then there's guys that I'm less confident in right now. To me, the guy that I think, you know, really stands out as a can't lose type receiver is Devante Adams of the Packers. I just think what he did last year and then going forward into this year, what I think the Packers' offense is going to do just makes him a really, really safe bet in terms of

the top 10. I mean, he was pretty much matchup proof last season. He scored double digits, standard formats, and all but one game. And then he never dipped below 16 points in PPR leagues. I mean, he was just really, really consistent. He scored 35 touchdowns in the past three seasons, which is second only to Antonio Brown at receiver, which I don't think a lot of people realize, like, he's just a touchdown machine. His feet don't have the same blisters either.

It was, and, well, yeah, he's not running on a hot sand or whatever. So that's a positive. I just think, you know, after having a couple bad seasons to start his career, I think people kind of like in their mind maybe just kind of wrote him off a little bit, but now he's a clear-cut superstar. There's also some, I think, reasons to be bullish on the Packers offense going forward. Aaron Rogers finished a full two percentage points off his career average and touchdown percentage last year. His career average is 6.2.

Last year it was 4.2%. You know, history tells us that quarterbacks tend to have, tend to hover around their career average so he could be due for some positive regression going forward. That means potentially Adams gets more touchdowns. And just going forward, the Packers' offense could make a jump with, you know, the change in scheme and just overall like regression back up,

like towards where Aaron Rogers, I think his potential is. So overall, I'm hyping Adams. I think he is a good safe bet in the top 10. You just pick him and you don't have to worry about it. Fun stat about Devante Adams and just speaks to his consistency, which is exactly what you want.

in your first round pick guys. If you took Devonte Adams' worst fantasy game from 2018 and extrapolated that to an entire season's worth, he would still have finished as a wide receiver won. Wow. Yeah. Look at Craig with a stat. Yeah.

I love that. That's a great stat. Thank you. Thank you, Craig, for making my case. Something to be said for reliability. Wow. Absolutely. And look, we know that from, I mean, Greg Jennings on,

that there's always been value in having Aaron Rogers' as number one receiver and, like, Jordy Nelson, in the chemistry. but now we kind of know a better idea of why because now we've learned this all season how much he was going off script on plays and not doing the play call. So now we kind of see really what that means to be on page on the same page with Aaron Rogers, which is whatever page Aaron wants to be on. So I like that a lot. DK, who are you fading from this top 10? I don't love doing this, but it makes me nervous to pick Melvin Gordon in the top 10.

I just think obviously his upside is clearly there. That's why he's in the top 10. I mean, he could end up getting a ton of volume. But, I mean, when you look at the fact he's holding out, the chargers have a couple really good backs behind him that could kind of fill in. He's got the injury history to go on top of all that. And I just think there's potential for him to kind of regress, you know, back in production too. So I just think overall, you know, in PBR especially, like if they end up giving Echler more chances to catch the football,

he was obviously one of the most efficient guys in the NFL as a receiver. All that points to a slight, you know, downgrade in his overall fantasy value. So he's a guy that kind of makes me nervous picking in the top 10. I mean, I don't think he's going to be a complete bust, not like the Melvin or not like the Leonard Fernette last year type bus. But when you're talking about like choosing him versus Michael Thomas or Julio Jones,

who are just going to go off, I think. That's why it makes me a little bit nervous. I'm not so worried about it right now because in reality, I hope nobody's drafting their fantasy teams in August 5th. We still have a couple weeks at least to kind of see how this plays out. I think he will report within those two weeks. If not, then I'm not, I'll downgrade him then. But when we get halfway through the preseason, he's still not there,

then I'd be willing to drop him significantly. But not quite yet, because I think he shows. The person in the top 10 that I'm very on is Julio Jones. I mean, so we have him eighth behind DeAndre and Devante. I like the argument you made for Devante, but I have him right there with DeAndre. I actually kind of like him a little bit better. than DeAndre this year.

So he was in the second half, Julio was the best wide receiver in standard scoring, and then he was basically tied in PPR with DeAndre. He was behind by like less than a full point. So, I mean, less than a catch in this half of a season. Yeah.

Also, you know how like Julio did not have a touchdown from week one to seven and everyone made a huge deal of it? Yeah. Oh, okay. Sometimes I pause and do it myself and sometimes I'm waiting. Rhetorical.

Well, I was waiting. Yeah, it was, but I wanted to participatory rhetorical. Anyway, the point is, Julio Jones led the league in touchdowns for the second half of the season. He also led the league in yards and targets. I was going there, but thank you, Craig. So, yeah, we talk a lot about how touchdowns are random, and what that means is that over the course of the NFL season, like picking the handful of plays that actually end zone, there's so much game planning that goes into it, that it's such a small sample, it can't really be predicted.

But other things that are great predictors of success, like yards per route run, Julio's led for four years in a row. And now that that touchdown, he kind of broke the seal in the second half, I think that he's actually the most consistent guy going forward. And I also, yeah, I'm all in Julio and not fading DeAndre, but I think he's a little riskier than people think specifically because he's really banked up last year. He told Bleach Report, quote, it's the most banked up I've ever been playing football. I was doing serious injuries a lot of people would have set down for, like a shoulder

injury that wasn't totally disclosed during the regular season. So it's nitpicking there. another Matthew Berry rule. You have to nitpick at the top and Julio's healthier and more reliable. So, love Julio. Julio's just boring. That's the only reason why people don't pick him number one overall is he's 30 years old. He's been around longer than the other guys. He's not as flashing. He's just boring. Yeah, and Devonty Adams is titillating.

He's the Tim Duncan of wide receivers. That's not, that's an insult. Julio Jones actually, you know what? He kind of, he likes to fish. Oh, that's why it's okay. No, I guess he is. Wow. At first I thought you were just talking hot, like, out of your ass, but maybe. We'll consult Shea Serato on

All Duncan related comparisons We can also explain to him who Julio Jones is Shea Come on Danesee Chey come on Dancy Oh yes, we have to do that Moving on We're going to run through 11 to 20 We have at 11 we have O'Dell Beckham Jr.

Followed by James Connor And then we have Levy on Bell Travis Kelsey Judeo Smith Shoester Should I be reading the team names At some point people will stop No people know what teams These guys are on

Like the mid-20s people That's where it drops off Maybe yeah start down the list Joe Mixin on the Bengals, Dalvin Cook on the Vikings, Todd Gurley on the Rams, and Tonya Brown on the Raiders and Mike Evans on the bucks. Although Antonio Brown, who knows with this foot blister, whatever the hell is going on there. So, TK. Yeah.

Who are you hyping from that 11 to 20? I wanted to go with Beckham, but since he's at the top of this group, I don't know if that really makes any sense. So I decided to go with Juju Smith-Schuster. I think he's actually maybe a little bit low on this list. To be fair, this is a consensus list between all of us. and now I'm a little bit nervous we ranked him a little bit low I think going forward

We are you because you're allowed to call out the other three of us That's like the whole point of the exercise No me me too I think like I might have probably ranked I actually ranked him lower than you guys So now that I'm looking at this I'm just like man I probably should have ranked him higher We're going to be clear on this point

I think I had him higher than you So you ranked him too now Let's see here yeah Danny you had him at number 11 Yeah I did Love Juju. So you're going to like what I have to say here. Yeah, Antonio Brown's gone, obviously.

So that clears up a ton of targets for him. And on top of that, there's very little competition kind of behind that. Obviously, with Moncrief, Washington, you know, Deontay Johnson potentially or whatever. Like, whoever ends up being behind him is going to be like a distant second in terms of, I think, like, his role in the offense. So Smith-Schuster has a chance to just get a massive number of targets, which obviously like tends to correlate. to a lot of points. I think he's going to have his potential to, you know, go double digits and touchdowns. I think he actually scored fewer touchdowns and expected last season, so he could regress

in the right direction for that. And then there's just reports that you're reading out of camp that he's taking his game to a whole new level. So, I mean, he just has the potential to completely go off. I think as the now official number one in that offense, you know, he could make a big jump. And so now I'm kind of like, just looking at our rankings now, I'm almost like regretting putting him a little bit too low. So he's the guy I'm hyping.

I think he's another guy. You just take it. You take him in the draft and you don't have to worry about it. Are you worried at all about him being the number one receiver in that offense for the first time? Because life's kind of nice when Antonio Brown's on the other side of the field. Yeah. No, I'm not really. I think he's a really good player.

They move him around to formation. I think teams are already worried about him, you know, just basically what he's able to do kind of all over the field. His size, his physicality, all that, his ability to run after the catch. So, yeah, I mean, clearly, you know, defense are going to be keying in on him a little bit more. But in the Steelers' offense, there's going to be tons and tons of volume. I think he's still, you know, he's good enough to, like, just take his game to the next level. So, yeah, I like him a lot this year. I also love, he had that YouTube video on his channel that it was just him pillow fighting people in the streets of Pittsburgh.

It's great stuff. But, D.K., who, speaking of pillow fights, who are you not liking in this second round? I mean, this one's easy. It's Todd Gurley of the Rams. I mean, obviously, again, he has. incredible upside. Even if he has a diminished workload, he could potentially still be a running back one. But the knee thing worries me and just everything that's coming out of Rams camp,

all the evidence that we have this offseason points to, you know, a potential injury that makes him fade badly over the last second, like the second half of the year. Like we saw, you know, it wasn't a whole second half last year, but it was just towards the very end. But they're obviously trying to mitigate that from happening. that could end up being a huge decrease in his volume. And then, yeah, I just like the injury thing really worries me.

I think that their offense is going to change. And, Danny, you've talked about this. Like, their offensive line is totally different this year. So that could make his efficiency go down. There's just a lot of, you know, things kind of layers to why he doesn't look like he's going to be as dominant or nearly as dominant as a fantasy player this year as he was last couple seasons. So, you know, I'm just kind of like.

It goes back to the risk thing we mentioned at the top. I can't take Todd Gurley when Mike Evans is there and Mike Evans, I can put in the bank and just know how good he's going to be. Right. And that's exactly right. It's opportunity costs. I mean, I'm just letting other people take him at this point. Like, they can take him and he might be, you know, the league winner type kind of guy for him for them. But he also could miss like six or seven games.

Like it wouldn't surprise me even remotely. So, yeah, that's just kind of the deal. Like, I just all the evidence is. Pointing in one direction, man, and hopefully he overcomes it, but I'm not taking that risk. The person I'm willing to take a risk on and going back to the Steelers for a second, James Connor, I feel like people have completely forgotten how good James Connor was last year. He, before that ankle injury he had in week 13, he was the running back five in all fantasy. He was only behind Todd Gurley, Sequin, Alvin Kamar, and McCaffrey.

And then he kind of gets dinged in PPR because he's not perceived as a bascatcher. But through week 13, he was ninth in receptions for. by all running backs, and he was seventh among all running backs and targets. And then this year he's probably going to get more volume because last year the Steelers led the league in passing attempts, but were 31st in rushing attempts. So they're going to completely reverse that. I mean, I think that's something they had to do because Levion was gone and they're like, oh, shit, we can't do half the shit we were thinking of, so they had to run less.

This year, they have a whole offseason of plan, and they're going to get back to about league average in both. So Connor, I mean, they're going to have maybe a hundred more rushing attempts on the season. So there's room for Jalen Samuels who was compared today on the athletic to Levy on Bell in terms of like he can line up as a receiver and all over the field. But they might play him at the same time.

Right. There's so much more rushing in this offense that there's room for Jalen Samuels to carve out a role Connor still as top five season among all running backs. But he's going like outside the top seven or eight. So I love more he's at. I mean, all believe the idea that they're going to split reps between Samuels and Connor when I see it.

because obviously we've heard this in the past. And I feel like I remember when Leveon came back and they were going to go, like they were talking about going to a timeshare between him and DiAngelo Williams. And then it was just all Leveon from there. They always do, or at least they've always done sort of just a very heavy bell cow type thing. They just lean on one guy and they go with it. Now, that could change. Well, the flip side is that actually started when Leveon showed up because before that,

they always had the combo. What was it, Willie Parker and Jerome? You're the Steelers fan, Craig. Give us all the Rashard Mendoahal, who you see splitting carries with. Richard Mendenhall? He should have been splitting carries with somebody much more than he was.

I just TBTed you. Isaac Redmond? I don't know. Yeah. All right, let's get out of here. Moving on. The third round, we have Tyvey Kale, George Kittle,

Zach Ertz, Nick Chubb on the Browns, Keenan on the Chargers, Damien Williams on the Chiefs. Yeah, I just did that in the middle. I just... I don't know. It's like when you're at a CVS and like, do you want your receipt? And I'm like, I don't know.

Like, I just, there's no rhyme or reason why. What am I going to do with this? Sure, hand it to me. I'll throw it in the trash 10 feet over there. Yeah, I just feel it in the moment. I'm just like, say yes, no, there's no. Anyway, sometimes I'll read the team. Sometimes I won't.

T.Y. Hilton on the Colts. Had him feeling on the Vikings. Leonard Fournette of the Jaguars and Aaron Jones and the Packers rounds it out. Yeah. D.K., who are you hyping from that tier? I'd love George Kittle. I mean, he is just, I think he's potential to be the overall tight end one this year. Obviously, he's got, you know, I got a lot of competition, Travis Kelsey, Zach Kurtz and everything.

But I still feel like he's just sort of, you know, the tip of the iceberg with what he can do in that offense. Obviously last year, the offense was run mostly through Nick Mullins and C.J. Bethard. That's a funny sentence. Is that the right name? You don't know, it is, but just keep going. It's funny to think about that. For the longest time, I thought, this is an aside, I thought C.J. Bethard's name was pronounced. be a third and so that was kind of usually hype it's the one that's

not yeah I'm the one who gets threatened names wrong I mean it's better than some other variations of that yeah but Jimmy Jimmy G going back in that offense you have I think if you're bullish on Jimmy G and then you have to be really bullish on this offense and Kittle is the number one guy in that offense and last year he led the NFL and yards after the catch which is kind of an amazing stat for a 255 pound tight end you know he actually averaged 10.2 yards after the catch per reception. So, I mean, the guy is just a monster in the open field.

He's due for probably a little bit of regression, maybe in his yardage total, but I think he's actually going to score more touchdowns this year than he did last season. That could really bump up his scoring, you know, obviously per game. So I'm really, I'm bullish on Kittle. I really like him. I think he's got a very solid floor.

And in that offense, if it takes a jump, like the sky is the limit with this guy. Yeah, we're going to talk about this when we do a tight ends episode, but basically the whole position has just become like the top tier, just my cup runneth over and the bottom is just like, please, sir, can I have some more? Like, please Austin Hooper, like, spare me. Yeah, that's Craig's childhood nemesis. Oh, yeah.

Pine Valley Middle School alum. What happened again? Did he, like, run you over in baseball or what happened? No, he's just kind of a jerk and intramural baseball. We're going to go into this. I love that. I love that. We're in a narrative pot about this coming up.

He's married a pod. True crime. Did he push Craig down on the playground? I mean, I love Kittle too. I don't love Ertz at his price and I don't love Kelsey's price. And that's where you're, I think we agree on Ertz that Ertz is. Yeah. And that's kind of like a good, you know, segue to my next point, which is I'm less confident on

Ertz going forward. I think he's priced to reflect his 2018 season, which is probably unrepeatable. It's not, you know, I think he set a career high in targets, yards, catches. I'm not looking at his stats right now, but I'm guessing those were all career highs. Oh, yeah, sorry, his previous career high was 78 in receptions. He caught 116 passes last year. So he might regress in that sense. Obviously, you know, getting Deshaun Jackson, Jay J. J. J. J. Joddard get more involved. I think obviously there's just a lot of weapons in that offense. And last year, it really ran through Ertz. And I think it could be, you know,

they could spread it out a little. I think even. Ertz even said that. Like he's, he's admitted it's probably going to be hard for him to kind of match what he did last season. That's a really important point. And we touched on this with the Steelers. You know, we always talk about scheme changes when there's a new coach. But sometimes that happens when there's no coaching changes. So I think the Steelers and the Eagles both had similar things, which is some point around mid-August, they're like, oh, we can't be the offense we thought they would.

The Steelers, Levion's not showing up. The Eagles last year was, I mean, Wenz wasn't practicing for a while, or at least not with pads on. Alshan, Jeffrey, was not healthy for quite a while. and they were just very banged up. And they just, Ertz just had to do it. He had to fill that role. And that's how you go from having,

you know, what, 80 targets to breaking the record for targets by a tight net in his season. And it's just, they don't need him to do that this year. So he won't.

It's all about finding value per their 80P or whatever. I just think he's priced at last year. And I'm just going to probably be looking elsewhere. Obviously, I think he's a great player. And he's still going to be a fantasy factor. But,

you know, with that second pick, you got to get really good value. And so, yeah, that's a guy I'm probably going to be avoiding in a lot of drafts. Yeah. I'm hyping Kittle. We don't need to elaborate in that. Kittles, George Kittal, good of football.

People I'm fading. I don't love in this class. Tyree Kill, don't want to root for him. Don't need to elaborate. The other person I don't like at their average draft position here, Adam Thielen. The Vikings entered 20thine with John DeFilippo is their offensive coordinator. Another name I can't say, Defilippo, Filippo.

Anyway, he was the quarterback's coach for the Eagles Super Bowl team. Very pass happy. The Vikings were six in past attempts last year and 27th in rushing, rushing attempts. So that happened immediately. Like, Thielen had 100 or more receiving yards in the first eight games of the year. No one in the Super Bowl era had ever started a campaign with more than five in a row, and he had eight. But he had 100 yards just once the rest of the way.

And there was just a massive target disparity in his first and second half. Look at Moes over there, sad Vikings fan. Just, oh, poor Moes. But so the first half, Thielen. had the league leading 96 targets, league leading 74 catches was the fantasy wide receiver 1 in PPR, obviously. Second half, 57 targets, which was 23rd,

39 catches, which was 22nd. He was the wide receiver 20 in the second half. Not great. I mean, it's good, but it's not great. So I can see how we ended up ranking him around 12th. You know, it's like, oh, wide receiver 1 for the first half, wide receiver 20 for the second half, smash them together.

It's like 12ish. But no. That happened because Mike Zimmer, was like, hey, John DeFilippo, if you don't run more, I'm going to fire you. And then John DeFilippo kind of decided to pass less to run more, but not enough. And then he fired John DeFlepo and the Vikings ran more in December. Now they've had the whole offseason and they hired Gary Kubiak because they want to run more. So they're going to go from passing the sixth most.

They might pass the sixth lease this year. And I think that Theelan's second half is way more indicative of what could happen this year than the first half, sadly. So I'd rather have, I mean, Aaron Jones, Kerryon Johnson, Damien Williams, Marlon Mac, even like Leonard Fournett. Those are guys that are kind of going after Thielen and drafts right now. I would rather have all of them over Thielen this year.

I mean, yeah, and like it's a very small sample size, but if you look at the last three games when Kevin Stafansky took over as the O.C. Diggs out targeted Thielen 23 to 12. So that could be indicative of kind of the direction they're going. Maybe Diggs starts to ascend as like the go-to guy in that offense. We'll see. Obviously, again, that's a small sample size,

but it could be indicative of Thielen sort of being more of just like a deeper threat. Diggs was getting a lot of sort of the intermediate stuff. And so that could be something in monitor. And Craig, this is, I know this is very near and dear to your heart. Who are you hyping in this top? God, where are we? 20 to 30.

So I'm hyping Leonard Fournett, who previously has been the part of an award about busts on our last podcast called the Leonard Fornett Award. But this year will be different. Leonard Fournett has had a bad career. He's averaged 3.7 yards per carry. but it's all going to change this year. We have a new head coach, John D. Fulip, both formally, with the Vikings.

But now everything's different for Fournette. He's got a whole new world. He's got Nick Falls at quarterback, which is a... A whole new world. I don't know, a 10 times upgrade from Blake Bortles. Shouts out, Blake Bortles. I love that guy. Also, last...

I saw him yesterday, Ray. He almost knocked me over at Ramscamp. I turned around. I'm like, who's this guy? I was like, is that Blake Bortles? And then I almost fell over. Sorry, keep going. So they lost T.J. Eldon, which is 78 Tar.

targets up for grabs and they drafted Raquel Armstead who caught 29 passes in 47 college games. So Fournette will be involved in the passing game a lot. And the Jags are going to be so much better this year from an offensive line standpoint. The whole left side of their line was hurt last year. They got all those guys back, Cam Robinson, Andrew Norwell, Brandon Linder. They drafted a guy Juan Taylor. So they're going to have an above average line for sure. They're going to feature the hell out of them. He's already got 16 touchdowns in his career already, which is why in only the 21 games he's played, which is why he's had some success. Like last year, he was the RB12 through his eight healthy games in PPR.

So he's actually not, he hasn't been as bad as people think. And this is the year where it will kind of all come together and will actually get to see the talent that we all saw he had in college. I say Quine Barclay Market corrected Leonard Fortnet. That's my big. You speak with such a passion. It's like, I don't even think you have to know English to know you're just in love with Leonard Fournette.

It's like I haven't seen Citizen Kane, but I think he's your rosebud. I don't really know what that means, but it sounds like what other people say when they say that. Yeah. I feel the same about Tyler. but we'll get to that later. The looks I just got from saying I haven't seen Citizen Kane in this room from all these video people is really tough. Fournet feels, Fornet feels priced right to me, too.

I think, you know, because last year I want to say he was 10th overall in ADP in PPR leagues. And now, you know, obviously after last season, he's falling quite a bit. I think in this spot,

it's an okay, it's like not too crazy and not too risky to take him right there. So I think the price is generally much better this year. I don't think it would be a short season. shock if next year he was getting drafted in the end of the first round is like the RB6. Well it's like, if he is then it's like, oh yeah, they got rid

of Blake Bortles and then they were good. Oh, yeah, that wasn't that hard. It would make so much sense next year. We'd look back and be like, wow, revision that was simple. Yeah, I'm in on 4'net. All right, 31 to 40. We have Stefan Diggs on the Vikings, Julian Edelman on the Patriots, Marlon Mack on the Colts, Devante Freeman on the Falcons,

Brandon Cooks on the Rams, doesn't cook, he cooks, Amory Cooper on the Cowboys, Derek Henry on the Titans, Tyler Lockett, down on the Seahawks, Robert Woods on the Rams, and then Cooper Cup on the Rams, which, I mean, that usually when two players in the same team are ranked next to each other, it's because you can't pick. It's the coward's way out, but it's okay. Our rankings are fun.

DK., who are you hyping from that group? I'm excited about Cooper Cup this season. My dude, Scott Barrett over at PFF, tweeted this like two weeks ago. Last season, he played in six full games. He didn't leave that he didn't leave due to injury, and he averaged 20.6 fantasy points per game, which would have ranked fifth in PPR. So that to me is significant.

Like, you could get significant value at that spot. Right now he's the wide receiver 20 in ADP. And so, yeah, he's just a kind of guy who's, and this is an overall strategy, I think that you can really use, is to look at per game averages from last season what guys were scoring on a per game average and project, obviously project that out for a whole year.

If Cup can stay healthy, he has a potential to be a major, major value. This is actually exactly the same with Edelman. Like, Edelman's obviously missed the first four games to suspension, but then he came in, and I think people just didn't really realize how dominant he was in PPR because he missed those first four games, and his totals were off.

So those two guys, to me, really stand out in this group, like they could outplay their ADP by a lot, and their ranking by a lot. I could not agree more yet. Be very careful looking at season long rankings because the per game averages are much more indicative. Yeah. Who are you fading from that group? So I'm not, I can't, I don't think I've been in a draft where I've taken Derek Henry.

I just think obviously, again, the upside is there. But his downside is his floor to me is way lower than a lot of the people, a lot of players around him in this group. Just based on, I'm in general just fading. His floor is his whole career. It's what he's been doing. Yeah. Except for four games. Well, people look at those games and they're like, oh, he could be a monster, obviously.

You know, he could he could just be a league winner or whatever. But I just, like, I'm fading the Titans offense overall. Like, I just can't get excited about it. I think, you know, Marcus Mariotta has to really, really kind of come around and, you know, get out of the funk he's been in for whatever the last couple of seasons. And if he does that, maybe, like, he has a chance. But, like, I just still, I'm just worried about that offense. I'm generally speaking, staying away from that offense. So Henry, to me, feels high at this spot.

Derek Henry is Amory Cooper and Amori Cooper is the friend zone, which is there's like two nights a year that make you think, oh, man, maybe there's something there. And it's like, no, they'll never be there for you reliably and, like, give up. Who are you, Danny? It's like insane. Craig, other than Derek, well, do you want to get your Derek Henry in dig or you Derek Henry dig in or you already got it?

I got it in. It's okay. Oh, okay, good. I'm fading digs and things. I'm just going to be quick with this. Just, yeah, the other receiver duos on the same team

that are going high are Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and then the Rams guys. And it's like, those two offenses make sense, high octane, verticality, and then you come to this Kevin Stavansky offense

and you got Thielen and Diggs are going currently, according to fantasy pros, as the wide receiver 12 and the wide receiver 14. There's just no way they're going to return that value. Dude, yes.

It's like one of the, which of these are not like the other? And it's like, oh, two Rams receivers. in an offense that passes all the time. Two bucks receivers, offense that will pass all the time, two Vikings receivers that,

what, they want to run? Oh, and both of them are going higher than any of those other guys? So I would recommend waiting a round or two to see if you can get them and if not be okay with it. Completely agree. Yeah.

I'm going to just punt on this because I have a hot take coming in a moment. 41 to 50. We're going to run through this. Carry on Johnson on the Lions. Josh Jacobs on the Raiders, Kenny Gallaudet, Babytron, who, did you just snip his nickname for your child?

D.K? I did. Yes. So, fake baby Tron, Kenny Galladay. James White on the Patriots is 44th. My beloved Mark Ingram on the Ravens at 45. Chris Godwin, as Craig just invoked for the bucks of 46. 47th is Chris Carson, Danny's beloved Seattle, and Tyler Boyd on the Bengals, 48th. Alan Robinson on the Bears of 49.

And rounding out the top 50 is Calvin Ridley on the Falcons. some nonsense shenanigans going on there but DK who are you hyping from that group this is a fascinating group this is like actually can you get my hot take in there yeah get it fired off I would flip this round in the other round I would take these guys

better than the other one over the 30s I would take the 40s over the 30s which is how you know our rankings are screwed up that's funny so the guy that I'm hyping in this group is Josh Jacobs obviously you know when anytime you have a rookie

you had a little bit of risk, obviously, because you haven't seen him in the NFL. There was already questions about Jacobs, like, speed coming into the NFL and whether he deserved to be a first-round pick. I really like Josh Jacobs. I think he's going to get a massive amount of volume in that offense. I think, obviously, Gruden picked him to be their bell cow. He doesn't have any real competition right now for early downs

other than Doug Martin, which I think was sort of just like a backup plan for them. insurance in case in case Jacobs gets hurt um and gruden actually said it i think it was after the draft he was like my expectation for him if you're listening josh i encourage you to get some rest because we're going to run you a lot um and then jacobs actually recently said gruden is telling me we expect you to win rookie of the year so um he's going to get tons and tons of volume as long as he doesn't completely just like flunk out at everything um and then in addition to that i saw this Victor for the athletic said he could inherit a good chunk of jalen richard's 81 targets from last season two so he has potential as a three down back and you're getting him right now we got him ranked

40 seconds so like you're getting him in the in the third or fourth round or whatever like depending on your draft and so um that to me is great value i think he's good enough to win that role and take over kind of in that backfield he i think gruden wants him to be sort of like the identity for their run game and everything like that. So I really like Josh Jacobs. I think he could have a huge impact in year one. And right now I think he's probably slightly underpriced. One note that I think is going to kill Josh Jacobs.

His value is hard knocks. And it happens every year. You fall in love with a guy. He's going to get hyped the hell out of it. And I guarantee he was 80 people jump by like 8 to 10. This is the best take Craig has had in the entire calendar year. If you're drafting now, do it before hard knocks starts. I'm telling you.

That's so factual. Wow. Right now his ADP is RB, his running back 18 and I think he could finish easily as an RB1 so yeah it's it's going to be interesting yeah you're right hard knocks will sap the value from that yep uh deacon we we agree on this next one uh how the hell did Calvin ridley make it at the top 50 what is going on well here i'll tell you why because he has potential to have a thousand yards and uh like over a hundred targets but last year as a rookie he had 10 touchdowns i think and that was according to pfs like numbers

that was five more than expected You're like numbers? That's based on, you know, the number of targets and yards and catches and all that. Right now, I think he'll end up getting, he'll probably improve his numbers. Like I said, in yards and targets, but five fewer touchdowns or more potentially. That early season touchdown binge was because the first three games of the year, they were like, oh, they have this freaking rookie who is not fast next to Julio Jones. We're going to like triple Julio Jones and just see if this rookie can beat single coverage.

And plot twist, he can. And that's why he was like the number one wide receiver after three games. And then they're like, okay, we can't leave him alone with our worst cornerback. And that explains like half of his fantasy season. And so I think that there's so much, we were just talking about averages versus like per game. I mean, he was a completely, they treated him. Once they treated him differently, he had a completely different season. He's a serviceable wide receiver two in real life.

But he's not one of the more productive wide receiver two's in fantasy. I don't think. And I think it's very divorced from the reality of what they're doing on the field. And I had a couple guys Like this was again This was a consensus ranking I had a couple guys above him We'll talk about snubs after this

Do it now Well Did you? Here's the Our rule is if you want to put someone Who is snubbed You have to take someone out So who are you swapping out

Calvin Ridley for? If I'm sitting there on the clock And DJ Moore and Calvin Ridley are both there I'm going DJ more every time I just think Moore has the potential To have a true breakout season this year I think the Panthers offense overall is a buy offense.

I'm going to be writing about that actually later this week. I really like Curtis Samuel. I like Ian Thomas. I like Greg Olson at his ADP right now. Obviously, McCaffrey is number one on our list right now, but I really like Cam Newton to his value. That whole offense, I think he's going to make a big jump forward with a healthy Cam Newton.

DJ Moore, I think, is their number one guy. Amazing after the catch. He's already shown out in camp. A shout out to Maryland's finest for Mallory Rubin, who actually I'm feuding with, so I wish I didn't do that. but I mean as like as a rookie he he had like incredible numbers like efficiency numbers I think he's just he's got a really good chance to have like a big second year breakout um and so he's a guy that I really like I think his talent is there and then he's going to get more volume this year so I like him a lot more I think I mean I don't think really is a bad pick because again I think he's going to get volume but I like Moore's upside a little bit more yeah the person I'm I mean we're high we're so The company is 10 spots higher on Mark Ingram, our rankings, uh,

than, than like, the consensus on fantasy pros, which is kind of wild. Yeah. I'm 10 spots higher on Mark Ingram than our own rankings. I love Mark Ingraham this year. I mean,

we talked with this on the running backs pod. I just, I mean, the Ravens are going to lead the NFL in rushing. The might lead all teams in the 21st century. And yet Ingram's going, we have him 45th year. And then I think the other guys in that backfield are unranked and are not

being drafted in mock drafts right now. does really make sense, so I love him. Running through the rest of this list, James White's at 44. Obviously, if this was not a PPR league, James White would fall down, although Craig loves to point it out. He was still really effective as standard last year, although that was a lot of touchdown scoring that might not repeat. The person that I think was snubbed egregiously here is Sony Michelle.

Speaking of James White, it's because he's their goal lineback, and Bill Borenwell did a great piece, where it's, if you look at players who break as many 20-plus-yard rushes, which is, I mean, they define as explosives. I think explosives, you've got to do 40, but I don't know. Soft league nowadays. No, no.

20's not explosive. Get out of here. That is. Absolutely is. A lot of teams use like, a lot of teams use 12 yards for an explosive run. Well, the point is Tony Michelle's going to score more touchdowns in 2019 based on math. That's the point. I can't believe he's left out of the top 50. I don't know what you guys are doing. Well, people are scared of his knee.

And I think that's a valid. Don't live in fear, D.K. This is the wrist thing. We're at 50 overall. It's a valid concern. He's, you know, mistime ready this preseason. But I'm overall, like,

I'm with you, though. I think in that offense, I mean, we saw at the end of last season, they were running so many different styles of runs and run formations and just doing so much cool stuff with their run game, and they really started to lean on it.

And I think they could end up doing that again this year based on what they've gotten their receiver core this season. I think, Sony Michelle has a lot of upside still, you know, catching passes, which he could actually end up kind of eating into James White's bottom line, too, in that sense. Last year, they were very, very predictive based on which running backs they had on the field. Like if it was, Sony Michelle was on the field, they ran like every time. And then if White was on the field, they pass every time.

So I don't know if they're going to continue to do that. Maybe they'll try and use Sony as a pass catcher a little bit more, kind of throw defenses off. But, yeah, like I think White is a good value. He's at this spot in this area He's a good Kind of like I think it's like A little bit risky but at the same time The payoff could be huge so I'm actually kind of

With you. So Tony Michelle is one of those guys who rises a lot In non-PPR leagues so maybe I understand that here But well no I still don't but he would be a riser in standard A couple other guys I do want to mention that would rise in standard Nick Chubb I think he's a guy that probably rises a good amount standard At least from the middle of the third round to the top Guys who fall in PPR Zach Ertz is probably someone

I mean we have top of the third round and then that's someone who definitely falls I mean you know led all tight ends and NFL history targets last year so it's tough in non-PPR Julian Edelman probably falls in PPR or non-PPR sorry and then Derek Henry

definitely falls in PPR but would rise in standard even though God knows who knows what that'll take I mean it's essentially like if you if you're looking if you're playing a standard league you know the receptions for the running backs thing is not very impactful. So the Tariq Coens of the world are worth so much more in PPR than they are in Standard League. So yeah, that's just something to keep in mind when you're drafting.

Craig, who is snubbed? Who is egregiously snubbed? And who would you swap out for that person? I don't know if it's egregious. But in this take world, we live in, I guess I have to say it's egregious. It should be all or nothing. I just love Evan Ingram and I would probably swap him for Calvin Ridley. I don't know. I think Evan Ingram has the chance to be one of the four. of five tight ends to receive 100 plus targets this year. I think he could see more targets than guys we have listed above him like Chris Godwood and Calvin Ridley who both received under 100 last year. That's spicy.

I like that. He was the tight end five his rookie year and albeit that was because Odell Beckham and Brandon Marshall were hurt, but you know who's not on that team this year? Odell Beckham and Brandon Marshall. So yeah. It was mostly Adele Beckham. It wasn't so much Brandon Marshall. It was like, oh man, the Johnson missing Brandon Marshall, dude.

What are they going to do? Holy shit. It's like actually now the Cory Coleman thing. He's like, oh, what are they going to do that, Cory Coleman? It's like, that's not the problem. All right, now we have to get to the cloud that's been looming over this whole exercise that we were just getting to now.

I'm sure some astute people have observed this. We have no quarterbacks in the top 50. The ringer.com hates quarterbacks, but I just want to end this by discussing the kind of grand strategy of just waiting on quarterbacks. Obviously, that's in DeJure, but I mean, Mahomes is being drafted. Fantasy pros, which aggregates an average of like C.

and Yahoo of all these different sites. He's going 19th on ESPN. Mahomes is going on average in mock drafts 18th. We have him outside the top 50. So, DK. Are you just waiting on quarterbacks? It doesn't matter. Is there a point where you would take Mahomes?

Are you really going to wait till 50th to take Mahomes? I mean, I'm not taking Mahomes in a one quarterback league, a one quarterback redraft league. I just think in addition to his potential to like regress, which is a real thing. like you could potentially regress. Even if he has like an overall like QB1 year, the value, there's just so much more value.

There's so much more opportunity cost of taking, like taking a quarterback there versus another position. And to clarify what you mean for a moment. So when you say regress, the kind of line on Mahomes this year is that last year, I mean, it was the second best fantasy season of all time. There was Latani and Tomlinson in 2006.

And then there was Mahomes last year. And basically the premise is that even if he regresses to the mean, it's not going to be like he's an average quarter. but rather he'll go from historically great to merely the best or among the best in 2019 and that that gap losing it is enough to not make him worth like a second round pick. If he could once again be the second best player ever, sure, maybe, but he probably can't. Just look at the guys being drafted around them. Right above Patrick Mahomes is Juju Smith-Schuster.

And then you go down and you get a guy like Ben Rathusberger and Nikiel Harry are going right after each other. So would you rather have Nikiel Harry and Patrick Mahomes or Jiu-Smithsuster and Ben Rathusberger? Yeah. Yeah. And it's all about that. I mean, Craig's so satisfied with himself right now. He's so like, see, I did it. I mean, that's a great, that's a great way to frame it too. Because, I mean, there's some really good values late at the quarterback position, James Winston right now. I think his ADP is 110. Philip Rivers, 115. You can get Dak Prescott right now, 127. Who was the fourth quarterback in the second half of last year? Yeah, Lamar Jackson, who could break fantasy football this year, 121. I mean, there, there is, there's just so many. any guys that are valued, like, right now, their ADP, they could easily outplay their

ADP. I'm just personally, like, the opportunity cost to taking Mahomes this year, if you got, if you got him last year where his ADP was, which was significantly lower, I don't even know off the top of my head what it was, probably somewhere in like the hundreds or something, right? If you can get him last year for that, that's great. You probably won your league because of it. He's not going to be a league winner this year because of, like, even if he does what he did last year. Yeah, if you won your leave with Mahomes, it was because he went 118th, and then you had a second or third rounder instead of that spot. But then drafting the second round, hoping he'll do the same thing, he does slightly less, and then you don't have this second round

person is how you don't win. And that's really, you want, look, there is no next Mahomes. But the point is you're trying to find someone at the value and all the values sapped out of them if you're taking him in the top 20 and even in the top 30 or 40, really. So he's going to go before the top 40. So it's tough in your drafts. And the same principle applies to auctions. It's tough to pay any amount for him and he goes when you can get, you can probably get Lamar Jackson and Jimmy Garoppel and Kyler Murray at your choice. You can get two of those guys for $2. And you can spend $2 and two quarterbacks so you can spend $15, $20 in my homes.

It's just, it's tough to allocate that much resources. So. Yeah. And to be clear, this is for one quarterback leagues and two quarterback leagues, everything changes. So, but that, just to be clear, yeah, like the late round quarterback sort of philosophy works really well. So, yeah.

My last note on this is I think that there's probably something like fundamentally wrong with fantasy football. If it's like, you don't need Patrick Mahomes because, you know, you could get Latavius Murray at 55. It's like there's something like just wrong with the game. Like Robert Mays, who is very much a fan of one quarterback league. And that's because he, you know, he believes it should literally mimic a football team. I disagree with him heartily because I also think it should mimic football. Not literally. Because if there were 30 teams, sure, do one quarterbacks.

But if we're at the point where Ben Rathesberger, who led the league, in passing yards last year can basically just go like be a backup this year. That doesn't really make sense. Yeah. The real connection of football as quarterbacks are valuable. I think two quarterback leagues are so much better because this top 50 would be completely different.

Patrick Holmes is like a top five pick, easily top 10 in two quarterback leagues. That's much closer to real life. And I think that's really doing justice to football. So if you are upset that there are no quarterbacks in the top 50, then have a two quarterback league. And sorry, Robert Mays. Mays, come on, Danesie.

Mays, come on, Danesie. There we go. On that note, this was the Dynasty Football podcast. Maze is avoiding us. Thank you. Thank you to everyone here in the chapel. Thank you, Craig. And thank you most of all to DK.

Yeah. We'll see you guys later this week.