Good morning from Grand Island, NY.
I'm Mike Show. It's summer and beautiful here.
It's not the Cape, but risers and fallers with.
ADP chasing is for When you watch ship chasing, you go.
These guys are just football guys.
I. Have my 4% exposure blanket to
stay poor actually. Back in, if it's Austin, it's.
Here to our crystal ball. close your eyes.
You know all your entries are going to lose anyway.
Yeah. That's fair.
You're. Not going to tell me all this
when I was here. It's anti cabal, it's anti the
best ball thought leader. I'm obviously lying to some
degree because like, I have a lot of both of these guys.
It's the most disgusting guy you can make, but man.
All right, I can't be like I didn't.
None of us can tell. Play the music over him.
None of us could tell. That's why I put in the private
chat I just said is shop fucked or am I?
Yeah, none of. Us.
None of us knew. Who's Internet was?
I mean, he was in, he was in his professional studio last week.
He's back at the home base this week.
And that, that is what happens fellas.
I mean, we are we're drinking from the firehose boys.
Every day you get on the Internet right now, sun up to
sundown, someone has jovored your favorite player, your
favorite third string running back is getting looks with the
ones. I'm really I, I'm very proud of
myself actually tempering the Burchard Smith stuff because it
has been non-stop. It has been incessant.
The drum beat on Burchard Smith. I think old Davis would have
been like Prashard Smith is the skeleton key to fantasy football
in 20. 29 I want old Davis back. That's that's what I say.
And and I think, I think it's been, I think honestly, I I'm
proud of myself for for just sort of now Bullock is saying
that he wants this to be a Dantavian Wicks Jersey.
Bullock is actually so young that he doesn't even know that
the lore for this Jersey is so much better than it being like
he he can't even comprehend. That's 83.
Is that Samare Toure? Oh, buddy, come on you Jacob,
you might be too young to know the.
Lord Jacob's too young. Is this behind this?
Well, is it? Is this Janice?
This is a Jeff Janice Green Bay Packers authentic handcrafted.
How many Jeff Janice jerseys do you think there are in the wild?
Honestly. Maybe, maybe lower honestly,
maybe maybe if if this this truly might be.
True you, you, you and Matt. Me is.
That is that game worn. Is that what you're saying?
That the only Jeff Janis terraces are the ones he wore.
Now, now, it's not game worn. I bet if I sent him a message, I
bet I could get one. I truly I bet I bet he would
send me one. Maybe I will.
You know what? Let's just see what he's up to.
I'm going to send him a message. Right now.
Mike, are we back? Do we?
Have you now?
Did you get any? Of the chasing.
Did you get any of the open? I'm sorry, I don't know.
I can't. Believe you got a very little
welcome. To ADP chasing and you're here.
Oh no, we're going to do riser. Yeah, great.
Just what I needed today. Not back in the pro studio.
Look at the the the chance I took.
Well, hopefully it's not a day of that.
Anyway, it's nice here. I, I said that we talked about
Joe Mixon and some other. I'm afraid to talk because it's
just going to get interrupted. So have we shown the first slide
yet? Did I miss that under David
talking about the jersey? Sun up and sun up and sun down.
The first slide is a different Packer receiver Don Tavian witch
the the so-called slap demon. He he is he I like I don't know
man. If I I think if I had to to do
the blindest seal, it almost has to be Dontavian Wicks.
I I don't even know who else would be.
The well, I mean, we do have literally have a player who's
wearing sunglasses at camp right now because he can't.
See him because he's. So someone else does come to
him. Never been a slappy?
Player though, yeah. He's had a lot of time to listen
to some podcasts. Naji.
No.
The ultimate. Naji is the least slappy player
literally in the entire. Yeah, he the No one's ever been
less slappy than Naji. David, what is that?
That look like sangria? What are you drinking?
This is black. Oh, they're just like really big
ice cubes. It's it's out of a like Peach.
Slices. So I had my, I had my protein
shake this morning and there was a little bit of extra protein
juice on the bottom. So I was like, I'm just going to
put my coffee in that. And it's been a delightful
little treat. And that's not.
Davis, as you were describing with as you were about to say
what that was. I like a horror movie.
I was like, he's going to say it's flat Diet Coke.
Flat Diet Coke? Yeah, No.
Actually. 9 O 9:00 AM central even I would not be a dike a
flat Diet Coke demon right now. OK, OK.
What is the by the way, since we're here, what is the right
take on Dontavian Wicks? Like?
Is it? Is it over or is there?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
No, no, you guys. One person.
Gets hurt and it's not over
anymore. I don't even know if one person
because the because Savion Williams was repping with the
ones yesterday like it's over. It's it's over.
Get out of here with Savion. Williams I just it's like the
thing with Dantavian wigs last year is that like, oh, it's so
clean. Like if someone gets hurt, like
he'll be out there and he gets open and, you know, it's very
fun. Then we drafted him in like the
one 20s for some reason, so you know.
The the one, the one 20s. Sure.
He got up there, man. We took we took Dontavian Wicks
at pick 95 in a $2500 fantasy football draft.
Grain. We did that together.
Okay, I blanked that out. I was 5.
This was one where I was like purely along for the ride.
I never quite sure understood that enthusiasm that was that.
Was let me let me provide the correct opinion on Dantavian
Wicks. Yeah.
If you guys can't squint and. If Pete remembers it like I do
Davis together. It was, to be fair, it was.
I will give. I will give Pete the truth.
It was mostly Gretchen and I who were into it.
If you can't. I, I was, I was right there, not
on that draft, but spiritually I was right there with you guys
on, on the Slap Demon. The theory for Dantavian Wicks
is there are a lot of paths for him to get there as an 18th
round pick. First being via a Romeo Dubs
trade injury, whatever. Remember Romeo Dubs was
suspended last year for being a diva.
So this is not a open and shut. He is going to run 80% of the
routes for 17 straight games. I I I personally do not believe
that. Secondly, there is also maybe
Dontavian Wix just kind of gets some opportunities early on in
the season and doesn't drop any of those passes.
Maybe he just has a four target, 4 catch, 64 yard and a touchdown
game in week 3. And the coaching staff goes, ah,
you know, we're we're kind of liking what Wicks is putting on
film there. Maybe we give him some more
opportunities. You also have the Packers
running. They were 31st in the NFL in
PROE last year. Wicks led the team in targets
with 76. Maybe they're 13th in the NFL in
PROE. Jordan loves healthy struggles a
little bit. They're not getting anything out
of Marshall Lloyd or Emmanuel Wilson.
Like Matt Lafleur, I think is a very smart, very adaptable
coach. It it's definitely, I'm saying
it's over on Wix, but it's certainly not Jover, right?
Yeah, if if you have I. Agree like he is still good.
Like you look at like his reception, perception stuff.
He's still good at all the things.
He's good at getting open, good at getting open.
What happens after? That's no good.
But that's the hard part. Here, that's one year.
Why can't he? He caught everything the first
year like just cuz he had one year of drops, like he, he
definitely screwed himself out of a chance to start this year.
Like he had the he had the runway last year with the Watson
injury, the Dobbs suspension, where if he had just caught
everything last year, he could actually be a starter this year
and he screwed that up. So that's not going to happen.
But if if fortune favors him this year, if maybe Golden is a
bust or if Dobbs or Reed got hurt, something like that, you
know, maybe he gets back in the game and he actually starts
catching footballs again. Like Lord knows he's going to
get open. So he's going to get targets if
he plays and then and then who knows?
You know, I, I don't think it's Jover.
I think he, I think he could still get.
Back yeah, if you've if you've got Jordan Love and you want to
stack him, I think it's fine. I would say this, this is
probably the right take The the Dobbs and Watson are both likely
to not be there in 2026, so there's paths for Wix since he's
signed at least through then. This is like a classic, you
know, guy you you get for get off the waiver wire, maybe in
dynasty or get as a get as a very, very cheap throw in and
you just play for the 2026 angle is what I think like that's that
would be my preferred way to kind of play.
Wix is like a is a in dynasty honestly, 'cause then then he
could really be a starter. You know?
That's a big deal compared to this year.
I think he's going to be a rotational guy.
He's he's OK. Yeah.
I mean, as a correlated dart throw, he's fine.
Let me let me put a hat on top of a hat on top of a hat on on
this discussion, which is to say that there are generally
speaking, two types of round 1817 wide receiver picks.
There is the Diami Brown, Tyler Lockett theory of well, who else
are they going to play? So they're just going to be out
there, right? And then you have the I don't
know how he plays, but if he does, I think he's going to
generate good statistics. And I would say we maybe have
seen too much of A slide to the leonification of late round wide
receivers with honestly some of the work that Pat and
Sacrilegious and Shady have done with The Sims of like you just
don't want to get zeros. The market is a lot better.
I think this is greatly evidenced if I, if I, you know,
if this was a court case, Jacob, I would be saying the fact that
Tyler Lockett is drafted AT2X the rate of Duntavian Wicks and
AD Mitchell, I, I would say Tyler Lockett's chances.
AD Mitchell, by the way, like just cannot stop dropping
footballs. Yeah, yeah.
Speaking of guys who can't catch, I mean, I've got as much
AD Mitchell as probably anybody. Unfortunately, the Packers and
the Colts are kind of the same team.
We just don't have a quarterback.
But like, outside of us not having a quarterback, we're kind
of the same team. Like we have like a franchise
left tackle we found for nothing.
We have a wide receiver who separates really well and can't
catch anything as our wide receiver 4.
We've got this like, annoying wide receiver who plays all the
time that the fantasy community wishes away every year, and
Romeo Dubs and Alec Pierce like it's the same team.
You've got a running back of the two three turn that doesn't feel
that fun to click. Let me can it let me actually
let me actually add. Root for one of the teams so one
of them feels fun to me. And we had a fourth hat on top
of this, which is that if you wanted to.
Oh, a great receiver that only plays at 11 personnel.
You could establish the drafting of Golden and Savion Williams as
bullish for Dontavian Wicks because it's such a vote of no
confidence in both Romeo Dubs and of Jaden Reed's ability to
play in 11. Personnel.
And that they're looking for the.
And their Galaxy brain thing ever.
This is insane. Davis, you're doing you're
literally doing the shit that I hate most in the entire world at
running back, which is like when a team signed someone.
This is like when when JK Dobbins was side of teams were
like that's really bad for RJ Harvey because you know, odds to
guest to me is still going to have his role.
Right, right it. Was like, no, Audrick estimate
is not going to have his role like you guys.
Speaking of which, like yes. Tom.
Tom sums up my feelings. Here for Rita Dobbs, but like,
it's a lot worse for Damian Wigs.
Leading downs feel like the same pick.
You're right, there's a lot of similarities.
Yeah, that was one I didn't really believe, but I did want
to toss it out just to see. Well, you certainly did.
Let's move. On Davis, right there is what?
That was we got, we got, we got roasted on YouTube for talking
about pictures of players for 30 minutes.
This is less actionable. You are the one roasting us.
No, wait, Pat, You are the one roasting us.
I. Know my roast ends with Let's
move on. I was listening yesterday.
Show I'm on the planet devoting 10 minutes to Dontavian Wix
IN2025I. Probably my fault, my fault.
I wanted to be back in the in the room here.
But yeah, Pat yesterday on with Pete's like, well, I know out
there you guys are saying you guys are spending 30 minutes on
these team photos, but we get there.
So just hang with us. We get there.
I think Pat is the one the call is from inside the house.
Pat is the one doing the roasting when it comes to.
Listen, I was at roasting the show.
I was dealing with the reality that YouTube was in revolt and I
was I was pleading with the people, hey, stick with that
episode. I think it's a good because I
was seeing the comments, people were just like like literally on
Spotify someone was like first time listener, they haven't
talked about football for 30 minutes.
You guys you guys are so young, you're so young, you don't even
know not to worry about that. You guys, you'll you'll you'll
you'll mature over the years. We don't we don't care too much.
I'm speaking for myself. Choose your fighter, Houston Joe
Mixon. How bad is it I'm?
I'm ready to go to war here, but I'm going to let these two have
the floor first. You're going to war for one of
these bombs. I am, I am, I'm ready to go for
war but I want to, I want to. I want to get your guys opinions
first. Well, I don't think I'll be
drafting any of these guys. I've been drafting Nick Chubb
kind of all season, you know, even even have him on my my last
call team. I was drafting when he was a
free agent and been been roundly mocked.
But feel good now. If he starts moving up, up, up.
I'm not chasing that. You know, we saw the coach speak
pretty clear. Braylon Allen has the whole life
ahead of him. Nick Chubb does not have his
full life ahead of. Him that Damico Ryan's.
Comment I'm not going to get into Woody Marks.
He's a ridiculous prospect. And Damian Pierce.
I don't, I don't think that's happening.
So to me I think it's like either Mixon comes back at some
point and is fine, but I'm guessing probably just like an
inefficient version of himself or I I still think a Devon
Singletary trade is is pretty firmly in play here.
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I think mixing like when
you think about him now, first of all, like I have a decent
amount of mixing because when he was going in the early 5th
before the Chubb signing, it was like, you know, he's he's the
dude there. Like it's tough.
What's the case? And and you know, he's the thing
he's. Go mixing bro.
The case against him is that he's Joe Mixon.
But that was the case against the number of guys who, like,
burned me super bad at cheap prices last year.
So I'm like, I actually, I at least need to come up with like,
I need to have like a, you know, a counter.
You know, there needs to be another version of reality that
I can like, see. So, you know, we had him like
lower than we would if he was like 25.
But it was still like, OK, I mean, he's he's a decent pick.
So then they sent Chubb. He's not such a great pick
there, but he he falls a bit. I was taking him some of the 5-6
turn. Now I was tending to take like
RJ Harvey and Travian Henderson and really load up on those
guys. But I still have some mix in
there. Now.
I think you're looking at a missing like all of training
camp, maybe not coming back until early in the season, maybe
missing some games in the regular season.
And he turns 29 this year. He's a, he's a bet on the status
quo. Like he, he was very productive
at, at stretches last year, who's kind of wildly productive
at one point. And you, you just kind of want
nothing to change. But a lot of things are starting
to change, including his health. So I don't know.
I mean, like when I look at him versus Tony Pollard at at this
point, I'd rather have Pollard, you know, it, it comes, it, it
goes down and he needs to really fall into like the hundreds for
me to really feel like he he's worth the risk.
Because I think you're I don't know.
I mean, Chubb is probably not it.
Woody Marks is not it. And so, yeah, like a singletary
trade or something is probably the path.
But there is the thing with Mixon that I think is becoming
evident to me is like this might be the year where he's just
dust. Like where it's like, oh, David
Johnson, that was it. Like he's just not, he's just
done. You know, like we see this all
the time at running backwards. Like Yep, doesn't really matter
who the competition is 'cause this guy's dust girly and it's
afoot that he injured multiple times last year.
Injuries again. He won't.
He's on the NFI, by the way, Like, you know, it happened
this, this. Believe, you know, believe that
is a a contractual thing, I think.
There's. Well, it means he heard it like
on his own right? Like.
Or just not. Working out.
Working out, yeah, it just it. Just or or it could be it could
be an injury from last year that is not healed like it.
It doesn't. I don't think the distinction at
this point between NFI and POP is like.
I think that's right. I think that's right.
Guys who are working out at their facility days before camp
opened are on NFI sometimes. They're on the NFI too.
OK, all right, well, that doesn't matter then.
But the yeah, my feeling is basically like, we got our
mixing. We already have mixing.
And you know, if someone's seeing us like a free share of
mixing, OK. But for now, I I don't really
I'm I'm to the point where I'm just like, I think mixing just
might be a horrible pick. And so that and that's enough
because of his own profile looking scary as hell.
Now the chub stuff I'll get to. There was a quote I want to pull
up, but but yeah, that's Romano Nixon.
I'm weirdly less scared than you, but maybe that's because I
have never drafted in the entire.
Yeah, it's because you haven't drafted him.
That's why because I, I just looked at him and I've just been
like, he sucks at football and James Conner is great at
football. So I'm taking Connor every
single time. So I I've not selected Nixon at
all, but now I think I'm less scared like if he was, if he
gets into like the kind of path Pacheco and Swift into the Jalen
Warren, Jordan Mason range, like Brian Robinson range.
I'm I'm open minded to that. I mean, you had Aaron Wilson,
who's pretty tapped into. Houston says they still expected
to be ready for Week 1. And if that's the case, like
then I think at the very least, like I, I will get my 4%
exposure mixing blanket at the best possible prices.
So I'm I'm open minded to that. I won't be going overboard
because I, I do think there's a pretty good chance that he's
just absolute nothing for like career at this point.
But I'm, I'm more open minded, I think to dabbling in some like
round seven, round 8 Joe Mixon then you sound like you are.
Davis, you've been patient. Yeah, it'd have to be like 8-9 I
think. This, this is an all time the
Slappies need to actually learn one of their own lessons, which
is that we continually say that running back production is given
as opposed to earned. The running back who is Nacho
Mixon, who has the greatest amount of investment on the
Texans roster right now, that they've told us via their
decision making that they like the most is Woody Marks, who we
all think sucks and we're right. We are right, Woody Marks.
A truly bad interior runner. But if we squinted with our
fancy little metrics and said actually Woody Marx is good at
this thing, and Woody Marx had a slightly better combine.
Or if he'd broken like, I don't know, he only had like 305
rushes in college, so if he would have broken like 8 more
tackles, he'd look better in our little spreadsheets.
I I think that there, and I'm not even saying that I'm right
about this, but I think there is a strong chance that Woody marks
is probably the correct archetype bet to make.
He's a rookie that they traded a future third round pick to get.
He's the only member of this backfield who is younger than
the age of 28. I mean, I, I think, I think
Jacobs, I think Jacobs graphic is correct that, that Pierce is,
is likely a State Farm candidate.
Yeah, I, I think, I think, I think Woody Marx is probably
bad. But I also think that many times
in my life I have said, you know, I don't care if a guy's
bad as long as he gets the work. And if Mixon were to miss Week
1, which obviously I don't think is the most likely thing, I
think it's possible. I think Marx is outside of the
fact that we think he sucks and we're wrong about these things
all the time, he fits all the other checkmarks of the things
that we like. He catches passes, he's young.
He has a fair amount of draft capital invested in him by the
team. I, I just, I think it's AI think
it might be a little bit of stubbornness to just be like,
you know what we're going to do, let's draft Nick Chubb.
I I think I think drafting Nick Chubb is more stubborn than than
than not drafting woody marks, if that makes sense.
I think Woody marks is definitely draftable now.
Woody marks actually have a decent amount of from early like
I've got like may woody marks because I wasn't, I didn't want
to be fully on a mixing and it's like, well, I guess Woody marks
could be good. That could be a reason that this
mixing thing fails. So yeah, I I'm, I'm in.
I don't think he's a smash, you know, because I don't think he's
good. But the backfield could be
pretty open. So yeah, I think that makes
sense. The Nick Chubb won the quote
there. It's so bold, it's so bare.
I've never, I've never, I've never read he.
He does not have his full life ahead of him.
Extended is not the word you want.
This is from Coach Peak Index on Nick Chubb Guy's age.
That's how he starts Guy Guy's age.
That's the most fair thing I've ever heard.
It's fucking. July No Read, read, read the
whole quote because. It it, I don't want to.
I just I had to stop. It's OK.
Here we go to become Ryan's the number one pick on the coach.
Jeff guy's age, he's been through a lot.
It's not always going to be the same as his early years in the
NFL. Jesus Christ, when I hang my hat
on with him is that this guy loves football.
Uh. Oh.
What is he going to coach? He's I was going to.
Say he is describing a running backs coach like he is having
current deuce daily. He plays and prepares the right
way. Really sharp guy in the
protection scheme. No, definitely.
Showed up in pads today. No, he can play physical behind
his pads. He can eat out yardage.
I'm pretty sure he meant eek, but.
It's really out. Yardage.
We don't want to hear that word either.
I. Love hearing that.
I'm excited to see him play football.
It's starting. It's starting to come back.
He's still Oh no, here we go. He's still working his way back.
He looks like he's in really good shape.
That's that was I've never seen. As bad as it gets, that's as bad
as it gets. You're not going to hear a coach
be more bearish on a 29 year old running backs ability than
saying. No one has ever been more
watched. Eat is bad.
Eat. Eat is not the word you want no
matter how you spell it either. Way I was open to the Chubb a
songs more than most just from like, I'm like this guy's like a
Hall of Fame level talent. Like he has been through a lot.
Maybe there's more in there. He has aged.
Maybe there's more in there than than we're giving credit for
like it's year to post the injury.
But after hearing that quote, no, not not interested.
That's like, that's like what the Patriots coaching staff said
about Zeke. That's like, that's like, you
know what? That's what D'amico Ryan's is
going to say about Devin Singletary after they trade for
him. Yeah, honestly.
Oh, no, I think no, no. Wait, I.
Don't know he will look. He'll look like a spring chicken
when he goes to. No, I will say even better one,
you could swap that quote with the name Dare Ogumbawale and it
would you'd be like absolutely. It's the same thing.
Spider man meme Nick Jubb Dare Ogumbawale.
Dabigo Ryan's who I think turned 41 himself yesterday, You know,
yeah, he might feel like he, he's ready, readier to play.
I don't know than. I want to see Nick Job versus
D'amico. Ryan's in an Oklahoma drill,
right? Now I.
I don't, I don't think, I don't think the market can handle what
that would look like. Yeah.
So basically my point is the only one who fits our slappy
architecture is what he marks. We just all have this opinion
that he's bad, but like what if he's not bad?
Yeah, I mean, I'll give you the best thing I can say for your
point, which I've now just moved Woody Marks up after hearing
against my will. Is that, like, imagine if they
took DJ Giddens. Where would they?
Draft DJ Giddens. And how it would be like the 8th
like we. Would be drafted.
It would be like 8th or. Only the 8th but it but Jacob,
we just have to admit we get this stuff wrong about talent
all the time. All the time.
Yeah, you're right. Yeah.
Yep. And it's like it's like, yeah,
like should we draft DJ Giddens in this scenario higher than
marks? Like obviously, and by a lot.
But you're right that yeah, if if they had DJ Giddens is a
fourth round pick on this team in this situation.
If they traded a third round. Of each third literally 8 round
pick. We would be windmilling him at
any cost and we would be coming up with any sort of rationale
why it makes sense to draft him in like the seventh round if we
needed to. We probably draft Woody Marks in
the 17th and the 18th. We probably can, yeah.
There, if there is a move coming, it's going to mean a
lot. Whoever it is, singletary or
someone better jumps right up. It's not going to be a rookie,
but somebody that we like a little bit, it'll mean a lot
because it'll be a bad sign on mixing, it'll be a bad sign on
Chubb if we need more of either and somebody that they do, they
do that pretty soon. I mean, there's still six weeks
to go before the season. That player could fit right into
the middle of these these boards, I think, whoever it is.
Well, that that would be the the one thing with with Mark's that
that does work, man. You know, let the record show
we, we are, you know, about 15 picks ahead of Mark's ADP have
them like right around 200. So we, I agree with Davis
generally, you might be more aggressive in terms of how much
marks you're trying to get. I I think he just moved.
Him up. I just moved him up to 190 after
hearing Davis somatic talk and doing some self reflection.
The the thing I would note with Marks is that like when you look
at his profile, he he profiled as kind of a 1/3 down back.
He ran a ton of routes. He wasn't super efficient, but
he ran a ton of routes. He had receiving production, no.
He he legit sucks. His his he has a horrible career
elusive rating. His elusiveness per game, which
factors in how much work he was getting is awful breakaway
percentage, awful breakaway yards per game awful.
This just doesn't like really offer much as a runner.
But that's also backed up like when I was listening to to
people breakdown the film and stuff like he is.
He was viewed as a third down back by concern for Mark's at
this point would be it is still July.
Like they might trade for singletary, they might trade for
ETN, They might do something like that, right.
So is he just going to return to the shadow realm, you know, and
be kind of this uninspiring third down back?
I don't want to get too aggressive with him because the
situation is is maybe bad enough where they actually have to add
a back and if they had a singletary like it's so over for
Marx. I'll say two things that are are
favorable for Marx. 1 is like because he is so bad at
everything else, it only makes sense that they made the trade
they did if they at least intend to use him as their third down
back. So I think he will be their
third down back almost regardless.
And that is like not a great way to spend around 1718 pick, but
it's like he could basically be Justice Hill even without an
injury or Kenny Gainwell from around 1718, which is like not
good, but it's not like completely nothing.
So like it's not the worst worst case scenario even if he gets
nothing else. I'll also say this kind of
happened last year where they add Mixon as the lead.
Back then they initially intended for Acres or Pierce to
be the RV 2 and Dare to be the third down back.
Nixon gets hurt and they just weren't accomplishing anything
with Mix or with Acres or Pierce.
And Dare ended up playing like a third down plus role where he
was actually kind of usable because he was getting like
about half the carries. Because they just kind of
figured like we'd rather just play with our third down back
than using one of these completely useless running backs
who's not giving us anything and announces what we're doing on
every play. And so maybe a similar thing
could happen with Chubb where they're they try him out, but it
ends up being he just gets like 20% of the snaps and marks is
kind of doing what Dare did when Mixon was hurt last year.
And like he's probably at least as kind of a runner as Dare
Goomawale. So like, that was kind of
usable. I I do agree though, that yeah,
the the best case and worst case scenarios have an uncomfortable
amount of overlap where Woody needs victory to be hurt pretty
badly to hit in a big way. And if he's hurt pretty badly in
a big way, there is a running back out there who the Giants
would surely trade for a 27 seventh.
Yeah, I don't know if they would actually.
So I actually would like to I liked your I liked your initial
idea. I my guess is is that when your
running backs are turtle from entourage and concerted wide
receiver, I'm actually going to guess for a seventh round pick
you you probably don't. I'm going to guess that Brian
Dabel is is would would really like to just keep.
You know, Singletary is a good locker room guy.
I mean they literally call him motor.
I'm going to guess a twenty 27th 7th is not going to get it done.
I think you have to do at least a fifth round of it.
Probably. I'm being dead ass.
I know I just, I might be done drafting scataboo now like that
was. That was unbelievable.
That was wrong. Turtle from Entourage.
I don't think I can come back for that.
That's exactly what he looks like.
And there's your Here's your half hour mark.
No team picture. It looks like it looks like the
guy, like turtle was based on that guy.
Evolutionary turtle? Am I turtle enough for the
turtle? As he starts doing Turtley stuff
but he like believes in it more, you know there's more slack to
it. Let's get to the risers.
Here I am, I'm doing my part. I've even kept the open short.
For Dave kept the very short. Let me run them down.
Bijon Robinson at the top of this list, a slight tick up in
the early first round. Jefferson injury.
Oh, Marion Hampton, Elijah Royal with fans release, Nick Chubb.
There he is again. CD Lamb also Jefferson probably
motivated and Mecca Buca has been a big one to talk about.
Dylan Sampson, Chase Brown, Stephon Diggs.
Let's use this to talk about Jefferson.
I would say, what are we doing? Slurping the dipper down.
I I didn't. 5 or 6 I did not. I did not.
Move. I did not.
Well, I mean, like guys like, let's just be honest, like we,
we were, we were, well, maybe, maybe I guess Davis is like a
true believer. I didn't know Pat was.
I was only drafting him at 2:00 because that's what the market
was doing in the 1st place. I never thought he actually
should have been two. I just didn't want 0.
So I just moved him down to now like where I actually think he
should be ranked which is 6. Behind Lamb.
Why? Why?
Why 6? Well, so like gun to my head, I
think Jamir Gibbs always should have been the one O 2.
And I like every time that I'm in a big money like single entry
draft, I just take Jamir Gibbs at the one O 2 or the one O 3 as
Davis would know, because I was accidentally in a bulldog with
him that he was streaming and I think Lamb projects better than
him. Has has scored more points than
Jefferson points per game the last two years combined.
And then did I move, bark? Do I have Barkley over him?
Let me double check. Yeah, I do.
I have Barkley over him as well. Who's the blind seal now, man?
Not Jacob. I was, I was thinking about
putting puka over him, but then Stafford got hurt.
So so I had to keep, keep Jefferson into puka.
I I just look at it as there he like last year.
His his production was not it was not on the level of the
elite running backs and over the last two years C DS out produced
him. His production wasn't on the
Puka's level either. He's still absolutely fantastic,
but for splitting hairs at the very top of drafts, it is a
rookie quarterback that I suspect will succeed.
I do kind of believe that they're going to run the ball
more like I look at the Mason stuff, the interior online
stuff. I've gotten convinced that their
PR ES going to fall by a couple points this year, not
dramatically, but by a couple points.
And I think that they are going to be very good at football.
I think they're going to be winning a lot of games.
So I'm I'm just I just think he's a little murkier than the
rest of that top six group. And so I don't know why I would
take the additional risk with injury on on Jefferson.
How about that? He's the best wide receiver in
the NFL by like, a lot of. But not by a lot.
Vintage. Well, yeah, we're just career 10
more yards per game than every other player in the National
Football League. So to me, that would seem to
indicate a level of performance that you can make excuses for
Jamarcus, You can make oh, oh, Lamb had, oh, his quarterback
was I, I think, I think it's actually not.
But like, that's because he was better than CD Lamb by a lot
earlier in their careers. But Lamb has closed the gap not
because Jefferson's gotten worse, but just like Jefferson
hit as close to 100 percentile outcome as you could possibly
early day one. And he should be commended by
that. But we're not drafting in 2020
anymore. And CD Lamb has closed the gap
where he's not that much worse anymore, but he's in a better
situation and he's not hurt. Yeah, Yeah.
I don't find that convincing at all, but I think you.
Are. I think you're, I mean, I don't
think you're, I don't think you're wrong.
I, I have no interest in moving Justin Jefferson to my rankings
based on a mild hamstring train. I will re evaluate my options if
he is still not practicing on August 6th, but as of right now
I am I'm I'm Diporino slurping. I like Jacob's point about PROE
when you're laying all that out. Yeah, it's JJ McCarthy, who
never threw a pass in college as the starting quarterback.
Maybe they just don't go all in on, you know, 4045 passes a
week. And if they're good, of course,
that lines up too. I had this discussion with Rhoda
Patton and Denny on the Rotor World podcast.
Kevin O'Connell, I think is so consistent with with having a
tilt of the past that I I pretty I'm very skeptical that they are
like he. He had a positive PROE when Josh
Dobbs was his quarterback. Yeah, like negative, but like I
just thought they're going to be as positive.
That that's fair. And I also think what we were
kind of talking out there is that the defense is good enough
that we're like, even if you have a one 2% PROE, you might
not have a ton of pass attempts because the expected pass rate's
low. So and.
What happened to Jefferson last year?
Yeah, that that could be a concern for sure.
I also think though, that one of the things that happened with
Jefferson last year's like Darnold didn't feed him in the
way that Darnold was better than we thought, but he didn't like
feed Jefferson in a way that. In any way, shape or form.
Yeah, so McCarthy offers some risk.
I also think he offers like some sneaky upside that maybe people
don't realize because Darnold was a lot more functional than
we all thought he'd be. But if he like, walks into
Jefferson a little bit more, that could be pretty.
That could be a big, big deal last.
Last year was his last year. Jefferson had 1600 yards and 10
touchdowns, and it was his lowest target share as a Vikings
starter. Last year, just quickly Pat,
last year I did the purple insider podcast every week with
Matthew Collars. We talked about the Vikings
every week. I'll be back with him again this
year. And the August narrative with
Darnold was always people amazed by the arm talent like he'd been
given up on as a player. But the the guy can throw the
ball and he's got a coach who wants to do it.
I don't know how that compares with McCarthy exactly.
I just know what we saw in college when he last played and
it was, you know, of course, kind of the polar opposite
approach to football offensively, but very, very
limited. So if it takes down a little, I
would not be. Limited in terms of how many
throws he had. But McCarthy, he's got a good,
he's got a good arm. He's I mean, and they're hyping,
they're hyping him up. There was some play where he
scrambled around a little bit and they're like, is he, is he
Holmes? It's like, no, he's not.
Dude if Mahomes made that throw it would a lead Sports Center.
Yeah, that's right. That's what it was just to this
point on Jefferson because I, I was looking at this for
something else and it's like really jumped out to me
yesterday, two years ago. If you look at 1st St. target
rate he had, which is like generally something I look at to
see like how big a kind of piece of the offensive design someone
is. But it's also like quarterback
related too, because the quarterback decides who gets the
target ultimately. He had a 24 percent first rate
target rate two years ago. Only players higher, CD Lamb,
A.J. Brown, Tyree Kill, Demonte
Adams. That dropped to 17%, which is
like kind of middling, not particularly impressive, like
17%. Tyree Kill fell off to 17%.
It was part of his big decline. Devonte Smith was there.
Garrett Wilson was there, Brandon Iuke, Jacoby Myers,
Michael Pittman, Adam Thielen and Wandale Robinson were at
were at 17%. So he wasn't like he wasn't
getting fed. This is that.
When I say he wasn't getting fed, that's that's what I'm
referring to. Like he he earned a bunch of
targets. So like to be as efficient as he
was with that low level of first rate targets is still super
impressive. He still looks like an
incredible receiver, but the offense wasn't like flowing
through him by design or at least by execution in the way
that you'd expect. I do think that McCarthy
actually offers like a little bit of upside in that regard, as
well as some serious downside because he might suck so they
might not be able to defeat him. But anyway.
They also have the same weapons. Do not get concerned though,
like Addison starts last year, he gets hurt in camp and then I
think he gets re injured in week 1 and then it takes a little
while to scale up over the second-half of the season.
This is taken directly from Gretsch the their targets.
I forgot what week cut off Gretsch used, but it was like 80
to 70 was the Jefferson to Addison targets.
And like Addison's really good, super productive college
prospect, Belitnikov winner, year two player.
I know he'll be probably suspended for the first two or
three games, but I think that like, that's like, what if Chase
and Higgins were placed in an offense that throws 100 fewer
passes and has TJ Hawkinson? That's kinda how I feel about
Jefferson as the Chase in that. Scenario, I don't think, I guess
my thing. I don't think Addison's nearly
as good as Higgins and I don't think he's nearly as good as
Pickens, so. I I disagree with that.
I disagree with that Pretty big. I, I think, I think the reason
we don't view Addison that well is that because when he was
drafted, Jefferson was already full blown mega * whereas
Higgins got a chance to establish himself before Chase
came in and then Chase usurped him over time.
Whereas Addison's been playing on like expert mode from the
beginning. I, I, I disagree with that.
I think if Addison and T&T Higgins were on the same team, I
think Addison would go band for band with him.
I don't think so at all. I think.
I think he's he's like our generation's Hollywood Brown.
No. I I couldn't disagree more on.
That OK, You had me. You had me.
This is a mega producer in college who won a Bollitnikoff
award. Yeah, came in next to, so was
Brad Receiver immediately. That was the first round.
Pick. Yeah, it was nothing compared to
the prospect that Addison was, and Addison came in with Justin
Jefferson instantly and started producing and has had 19
touchdowns in two years. Yeah, Brown was good.
This is Marcus Brown erasure as. Close to as good.
This is ridiculous. Brown was Brown was a first
round pick. People.
Lost the pick? People produced right away.
Hollywood was awesome. Hollywood was awesome Hollywood.
Let's not say that's how. You.
Oh, OK. All right.
No, Jacob, you're gonna OK. I was there.
He was fun. You forget.
Yeah. You went to Oklahoma, Davis.
We fucking get it. Yeah, Boomer.
Sooner he was incredible OK all right the the kids the kids are
gonna have forgotten this how good that Hollywood brown was he
was he was legitimately. In 1997, I thought.
You, you forget how young, you forget how young this audience
skews. They absolutely were not there
for 2018. University of Oklahoma with
Kyler Murray. Dude, he was unreal.
He out produced CD Lamb. They were on the team together.
He was better than CD. Come on man.
He's good. He's a good prospect and he
produced. He was, frankly, he was a lot
more efficient than than Addison was in his first two years.
This is Jacob. This is an outrageous opinion.
Fantastic. There's nothing questions.
OK, so, so we're doing so Johan Dotson.
I got some Johan Dotson to sell you.
Yeah. Well, how did Johan Dotson
second year ago, did you continue progressing that second
year or did he fall, fall right off the earth?
OK. I just I'm not gonna I I don't
even care about the original argument.
I just need it on the record. Hollywood would his his NFL
career has gone a direction that I did not anticipate it, but he
out produced sedarian Lamb when they were teammates at the
University of Oklahoma. I I'm not gonna.
Look at the age difference between them at the time.
Is that relevant or? Hollywood was Hollywood was 8 is
8 months older than Lamb I believe.
All right, OK. Congrats, Hollywood Brown.
I'm sorry for Smirchy your prospect profile.
You. That's all I don't even care
about. And early career production.
He he had 7 touchdowns as a rookie and eight touchdowns.
I think he, I think. He had second season he.
He had like 27 fantasy points, his first ever NFL game.
Miami, he was. He was significant.
More efficient in yards per hour run he like produced.
Then even of your argument, even if your argument is that
Hollywood Brown was a better prospect and had a a better
start to his career that I gave him credit for, which is is fair
that he then collapsed from that height like that.
That should have been the expectation.
Like we're expecting Addison to follow that same trajectory.
Why? No, no, no, I actually, I'm not
saying that even he had 1000 yards in his third season.
He won. He won 91, a 1006.
I just don't think I think Addison is kind of limited in
like what he is like he's he's like a good professional
receiver that pretty much every team would be happy to have.
You know, I guess every team would be happy to have some
teams could use him more than others, but you know, I don't
think he's like T Higgins would be a star number one on another
team. I think Pickens is capable of
being like a true star number one if given the chance and
we'll see it. You know, maybe he can even
produce like a number one with with the situation in Dallas.
I'm hoping he can. I, I don't think Addison's that
type of player. I think he's like a good
secondary complimentary receiver that makes an offense better.
Like he's, he's a needle mover from a real life perspective,
but I, I don't think he's like a star in the making.
How high are we willing to go on Ibuka?
Hi. I moved him up.
I moved him ahead of Godwin and my stuff.
I moved him into the Matthew Golden Jaden Reed range, which
is different than the range of which they're drafted because
I've Reed and Golden both ahead of ADP pretty significantly.
Like 70 Davis or? I, I literally have my rankings
pulled up right now. So I can tell you I have Emeka
Igbuka ranked. Where do I have him?
I have Emeka Igbuka ranked at 71.
Damn. Wow, Oh my God.
Wow. Holy smokes.
End of 6. Here here's here's my order.
You guys, you guys tell me if you think this is is improper
starting 70. 9 I don't have any thought of that.
Starting at pick 67, I have Jordan Addison, Ricky Pearsall,
Diggs, Debo Pacheco, Igbuca, Golden Reed, Judy Swift, Myers
Montgomery, La Porta, Pollard Downs.
I I have a book at 78 and actually I think that might be a
touch low. I was going to say, that's all.
That's all a big. Here a little bit.
That's a That's a big fat tear. There's there's guys I don't
care about that I can move my head up.
You're you're telling me you're telling me you want to take like
if you told me I'm too low on Debo.
Sure, whatever. I I would hear that.
All right. Am I am I too low on Judy?
Come. On I just moved him from 79 to
74. I moved from 79 to 74.
I just moved him ahead of DeAndre Swift, Jacoby Myers,
Debo Samuel and Josh Downs. So I actually should I should
move Downs a little lower because I think.
You're I'm actually like the typing you heard was me moving
down downs. Yeah, Downs.
Downs has a little, a lot. He has a lot to lose if
Richardson starts. I mean, I don't think it affects
them that much because I think they were both going to play no
matter who starts Week 1. But I I do think it's now
looking more like Richardson. I'm more concerned like the
thing that there's different ways that Richardson could be
named the starter and this is like the worst way he gets hurt.
He re aggravates his shoulder. So now there's like murkiness
about like what's his shoulder going to do all year?
And then Jones gets like fully installed and assumed to be the
number one. They're like our season rides
with Daniel Jones and then they get out to training camp and
Daniel Jones like sucks so hard. And then they go to to
Richardson. It's like, oh, he's more
healthy. Like we could maybe consider
starting him. And he also sucks so hard.
And they're like, I was listening to Greg Rosenthal talk
about with Nick shook on on his pot.
And they're like Greg was like, Oh, listen, I know you know, JJ
Watt did this whole rant about like stats and all this stuff at
from these practices. But like, I think they went like
like 8 for 18 or 7 for 18 or something in one of these
practices. And he's just like, that's like
almost impossible. Like there's not.
You should be able to complete these passes like.
Yeah, it's probably not the same as Aaron Rodgers throwing a pick
on the first play and people saying do it on purpose.
This is not a decent sample of them not being able to complete
passes in in like super easy environments to complete passes.
This is definitely AI will I was.
Here a moment we. Had lots of this 10 years ago
prior to. That I will say that they they
combined for 11:50 in the first day of padded practices and both
were apparently drops. OK.
All right. That's good.
I like that. But they're I don't work any
completions of more than 10 yards.
So that's that's less good. But Richardson?
Apparently is Jacob for Richardson.
Well, this is the thing I care. So that's great.
So like Richardson, they've they've said like he is
basically said like he's like, I'm not trying to throw deep
anymore. Like the coaching staff knows
that I can throw deep. I know I can throw deep.
I need to prove to them I can throw short.
So he's like forcing himself to just throw slants, right?
Now that's a shocking amount of self-awareness for me.
That is that's true, which is it is a shocking amount of
self-awareness. So like he's he's just like
trying to throw short right now, which is very funny.
And then Daniel Jones to throwing short because he's
Daniel Jones. But like, read the quotes about
Daniel Jones is like, so it's just so believable because it's
like exactly what I've seen out of Daniel Jones, which is
they'll say like, yeah, like it's not that he's inaccurate.
He's just late and the timing is off.
And so it's just always like behind guys or like he's not
seemingly trying to push the ball down field.
There's guys that are open, but he's just trying to check the
ball down. It's like, yeah, that's that
sounds like Dan Jones to me. So it's not it's, it's
discouraging that like every article I'm reading each day is
like, yeah, Richardson is the leader, but it's not cuz he's
playing good. It's cuz Daniel Jones is playing
a lot worse. Who could have predicted this?
I know. By the way.
Sadly, there's no way there's the the Colts are saying there's
no way to have predicted this side, the only team that this
happens to, ever. Yeah, breaking news on multiple
fronts right now. Yeah, worthy in the medical.
I want to get, I want to get your reactions.
A lot of sloppy stuff going on. Can we not do this?
We There's not not a game on like this is this would be OK if
like there was a game that we're live stream like if this is the
ship cast worthy in the medical tent would be an acceptable
comment. But like here here it is.
He appeared shaken up. Trainers are checking on him in
the tent. He makes a great.
This is another two. He makes a great catch on the
first throw of camp, landed awkwardly and walked right to
the injury of tent. No, no, no.
What about? What about?
I'm going to bring him.
That's what I was going to bring up, actually, before Pat
interrupted me. He was kicked out of a drill and
yelled at by Ben Johnson. He.
Just kicked him out, said go home.
That's I think it's over for Luther Burden.
And then also the other one I was going to bring up is
apparently Marshawn Lloyd was evaluated yesterday.
I thought it was on a tackle but it's actually a non contact
injury. Again, no way to have predicted
this. No way.
Just simply just simply no way to have predicted this, you
know? Tough luck for the Marshawn
Lloyd drafters. The Bill's first round pick,
cornerback Max Hairston, not returned to practice since
entering the tent as well. All of what?
Cornerback chasing. Just at putting on the list.
Same thing about the point to the point about what to what to
care about at this point. Is Ben Johnson OK?
Like he seems like a. He seems like he's having a bad
time so. Angry like he's like, I talked
about this with Hayden yesterday on on his show and it's like he
shows up to the building at 4:30.
He screams at everyone all day and it's just like, why?
Like why can't we just be happy? Like why?
Why is he like, let the bear? Like he's on the bears and he's
turned into Carmi all of a sudden, like he is now in the
show of the bear. He's embracing.
He's embracing the city. Teething around the facility,
locking himself in a fridge and screaming.
I mean you, you understand, you understand what Ben Johnson is
doing. He is doing performative
manliness. He is like someone who just read
the Spake Zarathustra for the first time and believes that the
correct way to behave as if to act as if your entire life is a
Sisyphician sort of experience in which you are constantly
pushing the rock above hill and then imagining yourself happy as
the person pushing the rock up the hill.
Guys, Worthy is back. Don't do that.
We're so bad. Interrupted me when I wasn't
even going to bring up worthy, I was going to bring up the
burden. I know, but I was so tilted by
Worthy, hurt Worthy in the tent. And then he's back.
He's already back. Like I could have been spared
that whole cycle while live on his show.
Dalton Kincaid back in practice. Sorry, it's the Bills again.
But at least he's. Big Josh.
McDaniels downside for Ben Johnson like it's I'm worried
I'm officially. I'm never going to get over the
carmy comp. I I'm I'm with I'm with you on
the carmy comp cuz cuz like. Let's get the graphic.
Carmi, for those who've watched the bear, let's keep this
relatively spoiler free. He's he can thrive in the right
environment like you. You're like, this dude is
incredible. He's so talented, right?
But he kind of needs the environment around him.
Then he gets kind of in the wrong environment and some old
stuff bubbles back to the surface and all the sudden he's
in the walk in and and that is kind of feels like what's
happening to Ben Johnson. I don't think this is
performative. It feels like this is kind of
who he always was. And now when it's like him in
charge of creating the environment, we're starting to
see it. I don't know, I'm getting
nervous. The Luther burden getting kicked
out of practice is is not good. I was listening to to a podcast
yesterday, just like the open, the dudes who were at the
athletic, it's like Hajin Johns or just throwing up the names.
But you guys know who I mean, probably they they they've
covered the bears forever. And they mentioned that burden
yesterday was only out there during like the individual part
of practice. And then when they went to teen
drills, they were looking for him.
They couldn't, they couldn't find him and they weren't sure
if he went back in the facility or what.
So he like still wasn't really out there for a full practice
yesterday. And then today he got kicked
out. Yeah, that's just it's they they
threw out one of the one of the guys.
He the other dude was like, I think that's you're
overreacting. But one of the dudes was like,
this could be a red shirt year for Luther burden.
Like it's it's start. It's it's been, it's been
floated by Beats. Ron Ron Stewart said he would
rather draft Luther Burden than find a wife.
Well, Ron, looks like you're going to be living in the
basement a little while longer. The the drum beat is O Doomsay
in Chicago. Yes, it is, which is like fairly
predictable, right? You've got you've got these
rookies who are like her attitude.
You've got DJ Moore, who Ben Johnson was like sub tweeting
being like, I don't know if this guy is on our team.
Although Luther Burden taking a red shirt year would mean that
DJ Moore is like locked in to being.
Yeah. That'd be best for more.
Probably he's just terrible in football, so it doesn't matter.
For him but Colston, Scotland saying you're saying DJ Moore
sucks at football. Yeah.
I've been saying that the entire year.
Can we just? Can we just?
Just enough, enough, enough. You're lying.
You're lying to the people, dude.
Nice. It was a very priors confirming
day on reception perception yesterday.
If you want to go check out the DJ Moore reception perception.
I'm not going to engage with any data that does not agree with me
about DJ Moore. I can promise you that I will
come up, I will come up with so many excuses for DJ Moore
Excuses. You can't even I'm coming up
with DJ Moore excuses that your brain couldn't even get to on
psychedelics, man. I, it's just, it's I've been
making excuses for, for DJ Moore since he was 19 years old at the
University of Maryland. And I'll keep doing it.
If the Marshawn Lloyd injury is bad, who's the Plan B?
Josh Jacob or Josh Jacobs? Savion Williams.
Is there anyone else?
I don't, I don't, I don't actually believe that, by the
way, that's, that's me being a performative blind seal.
I, I would, I would say Emmanuel Wilson, probably.
OK, he was. He was the rumored caught.
I think Chris Brooks apparently is out of him.
Chris Brooks, right? He was there last year.
Chris Brooks, I I don't know, because Wilson, they, you know,
this was the configuration of the backfield last year and
Wilson played better and more often than Brooks did.
Chris Brooks is kind of a that's like, I mean, you want to talk
about blind seal slapping? That's like, oh, you know, I
kind of liked him when he was on the Dolphins practice squad.
Like that. That.
Yeah, yeah. That is, that is like classic.
I've been there. I've been that guy.
Yeah, I'm sure that doesn't shock you.
Let's go to Fallers, Pat. How's it looking?
There we go. Nadia Harris in all his splendor
on the practice field in LA. Justin Jefferson heads the list,
moving down one spot from 3 to 4.
Joe Mixon. Chris Godwin.
Quinn. Sean Judkins.
Again, there's Harris again. Terry Mclaurin holding out.
Darren Waller being on the faller's list at this date is
hilarious because it's still July and who was even thinking
about him a month ago? Darnell Mooney, the last quote
this morning from Raheem Morris on Mooney is a few weeks.
That's what that looks like according to the head coach.
And then Jonnu Smith, Mclaurin, nothing's really new there,
right? We talked about him, Pat, as one
that could go well into the summer and I think that's still
the case. Yeah, I mean, Mclaurin, if
you're, if you're at the 3-4 turn, you know, I think he's
fine to, to pair with, with Jane Daniels.
He's falling into the 4th at a decent clip.
Now. You know, I I not my favorite
wide receiver in the range and I'm, you know, I'm trying to
take I was taking worthy before he got hurt, but it's like I'm
even mixing in. Oh, he's he's healthy and so I
can take Worthy. But Mike Evans, I'm willing.
I think Mike Evans now over Mclaurin.
Mike Evans is kind of interesting with the Godwin
stuff. I'm like, he's got some upside,
you know, being. Slept on I think.
Kind of being slept on a little bit, but yeah, I'm not like
super concerned about the Mclaurin stuff.
Like, they just don't have anybody else, you know, And
they're, they're so. He's he's falling in veterans.
Around this, around Jay and Daniels, like they're they're
kind of built win now, you know? He's, he's falling into the
range where he should have this. So he's falling in the range
where he should have been drafted all along, which is a
pattern that I've started to identify amongst the underdog
market, which is that you sort of do this.
Well, if that's the price, that's the price thing on these
guys. And then some small news item or
large news item bumps them into a more appropriate range for
their projection and then that becomes the new price.
Even when the information resolves itself, like I don't
think we'll see a big upward adjustment if it's announced the
Maclaurin gets his contract. Mclaurin always should have been
like a mid fourth round pick. But Gretch actually had a great
sequence of tweets about this the other day about about Terry
Mclaurin. And I was, you know, way
underweight on Terry Mclaurin. Before this.
I, I was basically almost never taking him in the fourth round.
But now that I'm like, oh, DK Metcalf or Terry Mclaurin like,
well, I'll probably just take Mclaurin here and feel fine
about that. The thing that I I kind of
because on one level, I, I totally get the Mclaurin should
have been a fourth round pick take because he doesn't really
have like the talent breakout profile that you're you're
typically looking for. But Jaden Daniels does, and he's
so clearly the number one guy there.
I, I think I, I think I disagree with that.
Who you think Debo's going to? Be I think I think that were you
to guarantee me Debo Samuel is like 12% body fat and is fully
recovered from pneumococcal pneumonia that there and and
particularly for the first time in Terry Mclaurin's career.
He was used as like a gadget boy last year.
I mean, you, you trade for Debo Samuel, assuming that he is
going to become the gadget boy, right?
That's isn't that why you acquire his services?
Well of course, but you just listed your rankings and you
have Debo way behind ADP. Yeah, because I don't really
believe that. I don't believe that Debo.
I don't believe that Debo would be.
Okay, but then why aren't you a little more enthusiastic?
The thing that makes me most nervous about Lauren actually,
is that he scored 16 touchdowns last.
Year and was and was the wide receiver 11 with 16 touchdowns.
Yeah, that, that's. Actually pretty this is.
This is actually fake news. It was 13, wasn't.
It it wasn't. 16 sorry, it was 16 in the 16 I think.
Includes the playoffs 16. Including in the playoffs, it's
13. Including, sorry, 13 in the
regular season, 16 total, but he had, including the playoffs, he
had 1.97 yards per route run, which was not a career high, but
close. He's hit 2-3 times.
He's never been like that. True, like ultra efficient
superstar #1 but he was very good last year from an
efficiency standpoint. And then I think his ADP is kind
of buoyed by the 13 regular season touch.
Maybe, you know, people watch the playoffs, maybe maybe that
factored in too. But my point is like the
perception of him is probably inflated by the touchdowns.
We don't really want to chase that, but the yardage efficiency
was good and Debo was not good last year, you know, and, and
is. Moving from like Debo was not
good in stretches right there. If you do arbitrary endpoints on
Debo, he was fine. What?
Stretch OK, I I probably do that
for a bunch of people, though. And he goes from he goes from
Kyle Shanahan, who's like the the goat of of design touches to
Cliff Kingsbury, who's kind of the two cute goat.
McLaren, by the way, had a 13.5 A dot.
So it's it's not like he was feasting on shallow stuff like
he was no, he was mixed in, but I mean, he he's a downfield kind
of deep threat slash #1. So I, I don't think they're like
very, there's not a ton of overlap in their skill sets, I
don't think. McLaren is is at this.
Price. I.
Consolidating the Alama de Zakiya sauce, the neck alert.
Very musical stuff. Yeah, yeah.
So I just think like you get with Mclaurin, it's a way and I
I like drafting him with a lot of my Mclaurin is with Daniels
because they go next to each other and I usually just take
Mclaurin and then and then take Daniels like at the the four O 2
or something because because I know I can get him.
So that's the bet to me. It's, it's like, hey, how do I,
how do I put like a multiplier on my Jayden Daniels pick?
OK, last year Terry Mclaurin had a 26% first read target share
and he had 10 1/2% of his stuff as designed plays.
So that is like, that's like the classic.
I mean, you could say it's Cliff stuff.
You could say it's just the West Coast offense.
You all, you all know what a design play is, right?
So Debo super super similar right?
Debo 25.3% of his targets last year when he was objectively
like way worse than his sample size were those design plays and
his first retarget chair was 21.8%.
My read of the situation is that a lot of those slappy little,
you know, the the digs, the screens, the the crossers where
you have like set up like a, you know, a second layer blocking
stuff. I think you trade for Debo
anticipating him taking over some of that and Mclaurin
shifting back into the higher a dot role that he'd been in in
years past. I could be wrong, right?
I'm wrong about stuff. All the 13.5 A dot is high and
and really high. The guys who guys who have that
type of A dot don't only get downfield shots.
Like I wouldn't I wouldn't anticipate really much of A
change role for McLaren at all unless he like misses all of
camp and they like install an entire entirely different
offense without him that if he if he's sitting out halfway
through August, like I will feel a little differently, but
missing the beginning. I don't, I don't anticipate
that. I think they'll probably just
give them, you know, whatever. I think they're going to come to
an agreement. More than the DK contract
apparently like that. Is and Sutton and Sutton?
Like last week I said like, I'll, you know, fine, give him
30 million. It sounds like he wouldn't even
take 30 million right now if it was offered.
I don't know if I believe that. Like I I feel like maybe.
If I think, I think that might be that, that sounds like
posturing, but. Yeah.
He turns 30 in September and I think he, he I think is reading
the situation well and that like he needs to get as much as
contract as possible because this is the last big deal he'll
get. He needs to get as much
guaranteed as he can. But I kind of think he has
leverage where like they just don't have a #1 receiver and I,
and I include Debo in that. Debo's like a, you know, he's,
he's like half a running back, like.
Yeah, Dee Deebo is not a number one wide receiver, no.
I'm not who's challenging downfield if you don't have
Terry Mclaurin and how have you built this team?
It's not like they have this like beautiful foundation of
young players where it's like. Jalen Lane, brother.
Yeah. Like they they, they've got to
run with that times. I think it does last through
August or most of August, and I'll wanna the dip arena on
Mclaurin, I suppose, because I think by the time they get into
their games, he's on the field. You want the latest Luther
burden up there? You.
Just not like. Like it was a curse word.
Did I? Don't think he's going to miss
any games. But it's close.
The guys who held out recently, it's just they don't start well.
Like I mean, Chase obviously is an exception to this that.
Makes it so much worse. So if you don't even say.
The word I'll say slurp. If you need me to say slurp,
I'll say. Slurp kind of did.
By the way, Luther Burden from Courtney Cronin, ESPN That was a
quick ramp up period. Rookie Luther Burden, the third,
has already worked his way into some first team reps during
11:00 and 11:00. OK, so apparently the chat
corrected Davis. So believe it or not, Davis has
exaggerated information and he was kicked out of the drill, not
the practice. But he is now we're.
Back he's back. We're so back.
It was we're. It was so jover now we're so
back Luther burden full not a red shirt year.
Ron Stewart was right. Trade your wife for more Luther
burden you. Got your wife now, all right.
Listen, no one ever needs to know that.
I completely panicked on Luther Burden in the ranks before,
before confirming, didn't push, didn't go live, but there is in
the back. No one ever needs to know that.
What do you want to do about Darnell Mooney?
This is like a classic thing. I don't think it really matters.
Like, he sounds like he's gonna be fine.
He doesn't even have a sling on at practice.
This is probably how Pat felt about Joe Mixon.
Because there's nothing that's more of a dagger to the heart
than when you're drafting a lot of a player you would normally
never draft. And then they get hurt and they
fall and it's like, what the fuck was I doing with my life to
to be in this situation? I have 16% darn hell Mooney.
My God. Dude, what happened?
I I I really like him this year. He, I mean, if you if you buy,
do you guys remember the the famous Bateman line from two
years ago? Bateman was one of your super
48. I could see, I could see you
believing that this year. It's it's well, I could see you
believing it is the the Mooney line, right?
Where it's just like that is the last last train leaving the
station, right? I mean, it could be it could be
the Pitman line. I.
Don't know. Here's here's what I'll say.
Here's what I'll say. I'm not shocked that Jacob likes
Darnell Mooney and Jordan Addison.
That's that's all I'll say. That's rude.
Look, Darnell Mooney is like not a player that I, I, you know,
he's, I guess my Rashid Shahid. You know, Davis has Rashid
Shahid, but Mooney runs every route.
They are so consolidated, they never slab anyone off the field.
He will run like 99% of the routes and it's going to be an
offense and I think it's going to pass a ton.
Pennex converts drop backs into throws at I expect to be like a
top five rate because he's terrified of contact, never take
sacks, never scrambles. Like I want piece of this
offense. I don't believe in Pitts, I
don't believe in Ray Ray McLeod or Cadaryl Hodge.
Like Mooney is going to be the very clear #2 and what I think
will be a top 10 passing offense goes really late downfield.
Profile was good last year. I don't know.
I think he's just like a guy that people are like, yeah,
gross. But I think he's actually a good
fit. I wouldn't be surprised if Penex
ran a bit. He's capable.
I would be capable, but he never has.
Yeah, I'd be pretty cuz his. What's the guy's name?
Not to bore the other guy. What's his name?
Jacob. The guy who?
The guy who took him to Washington with him?
Well, de Boer. OK, de Boer basically said like,
yeah, we know you can run, but after your third ACL tear, maybe
maybe let's not. Maybe let's maybe let's chill on
the run. It basically like his coat, like
his coach who had him everywhere in college, said.
We know you can, but we don't want you to because your body is
potentially made of paper mache. That's fair.
The next slide is the positive drum beat crowd and we got to
talk about Tank Bigsby here. I think you guys, so I mentioned
this earlier. Whether that guy?
Cut off or not, Jacob and Davis each tweeted a series of, you
know, shifts in stances and a couple of.
By the way, and and who took the other person's format?
Jacob tweeted it first, but you both had Bigsby on there.
Well, who did? Who did a full 10 minute YouTube
video breakdown of Tank Bigsby as one of the three best running
back picks on the board. First, who who works as a lawyer
and doesn't have time to make little videos?
Davis when you basically unemployed about.
That when you did that YouTube video.
I'm sure you credited Jacob though, right?
Of course. Yeah, of course, of course I
did. I mean, I was telling you guys
to draft Tank Bigsby 2 months ago and I was getting laughed
out of the room. You were early.
I will say I adjusted not because of me, I adjusted
because the market brought the Bigsby to me and I'm currently
at 20%. So I feel good about that.
Yeah, there you go. Nice.
And. That's the CL who just got his
eyesight back. I'm just, I think I'm just so
against Travis Etienne that I was like, if you're going to
give me Bigsby at 160, sure. Because I'd, I'd rather do
anything than draft Travis Etienne.
So I got kind of lucky that the market gave Bigsby to me.
I now think he should be absolutely rocketing up the
board. Yeah, I agree.
And yeah, I'm, I'm adjusting as we speak.
I think I'm going to put him in here.
Let's see. I'm going to, I'm going to put
him in here at yeah, 129. How does that?
Wow, how? How high did I get him?
I got Bigsby to. I don't think I got him that
high. NO113136.
You got me, Jacob. There we go.
Because I, I'm still like The thing is, is I still.
We're at 1:32. Dang, OK, I got to move him up.
Got to move him up. If that.
I can't. I can't have Karain be higher on
him than me. From unranked.
I know we've been, we've been way too low on him this year.
He's yeah, I was, I was very skeptical that he would just
kind of be the number one like this.
And he doesn't look like the clear cut number one or
anything, but he he appears to be ahead in the three-way split.
He is a pretty good runner, you know.
Yeah. So on that level, it makes
sense. It's like, hey, we know we have,
you know, in Tank Bixby, we can kind of keep the chains moving
on the ground and he's installed as the number one guy.
That way. It actually does make sense.
So yeah, I think he can move up. He's already back.
He's already he. He's back, too.
He's back today. He's already back.
He's back. He needs.
Practice yesterday. He's back.
Thank you all. Right.
Yeah, Tooten is still my favorite in in the backfield by
a lot. ETN is it?
It needs to fall, like a lot. Undrafted, yeah, and has always
been. Yeah, I'd still take him over
Joe Mixon, but he's wait. Actually.
No, no, I don't think. So like I think you should, I
think ETN should have the third highest ADP in this backfield.
Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a classic being drafted in inverse
order situation. I'll tell you what though, if
you want it this, if you want to go back to my Dante Bienwick
style thinking of putting hats on top of hats, you could
interpret all of the bullishness for Tank as actually bullish for
Tootin because it shows that there is not a over deference to
Etns veteran status and it's not, you know, Lawrence getting
his boy out there. Like if the coaching staff is
open to not having ETN installed as the quote UN quote starter
then that means that it's open up enough for a fifth round
rookie if they play very well to to get work.
For what it's worth, I talked to Mike Dempsey out of Jacksonville
on Friday. He's at every practice and his
breakdown was he he, you know, takes a drink every time
somebody drafts ETN because he's thrilled that somebody else did
that and then it's wide open after that.
So, you know, that made me feel better, a little better about my
41% facial Tooting at this stage of the game.
Oh. My God, you got.
Kind of sense about your friend. So normally like you take a
drink when something that like you're happy, you do a drinking
show where you know, like if we said blind seal, you take a
drink or something like that, right, Or maybe you'd do it to
like punish yourself. I like the idea of like
something good happening. Like light, a cigar, whatever.
Any kind of metaphor like that you want, you know, you're
you're just pleased. Is Monongai anything for you
guys? Yeah, I mean, they they seem to
just not be feeling great about the Roshan.
Like Roshan is not endearing himself to this coaching staff.
Not that I think Roshan is going to get caught, but you know.
Positive speak on him yesterday. Yeah, Swift is.
I mean, we just know beyond the shadow of a doubt Swift is a
poor interior runner. They would like to have someone
do that who actually is good at it and won't bounce every run
outside. And so, yeah, why not?
Why not a little bit of round 18 Manon guy?
I I'm writing, I I'm about to publish my ranks, just the the
rankings update and I, I do like a little newsletter blurb when I
do it. And my point today is like this
is the time of season to start getting more aggressive with
your round 18 picks, 'cause I always think about that thing
that Bimefort says, which is we draft teams, not exposures.
So even if you only end up with like 8% of the young guy or
whatever, the more the earlier in the season you start taking
these round 18 guys, that is just a greater total number of
teams you have the ability to have them on.
Like imagine if we had started taking Chiron on July 29th
instead of August 10th or or puka on August 4th instead of
after the first pre season game or whatever.
And I, I think that kind of the old adage of like you, you draft
for safety in those later rounds early in the best ball season.
I think we're at the inflection point now.
I agree where you do need to start taking the initiative.
You know, you need. I like Keandre Lambert, Smith
that I mean, that might be more personal to just me, but I I
think we are, we are at that point of the season where you
stop taking Theo Johnson around 18 every time just because you
know, he's on the roster. Yeah, I, I, I'm looking for
those guys for sure. I I do think with Manung guy, he
he was the worst running back prospects that was drafted this
year in my model. He he was like really bad.
He's unathletic. He was, he was his success rate
actually wasn't that great, but he was kind of seen as like the,
the hammer, the consistent guy. He wasn't on a good team.
So maybe that's, that's like not his fault, but no juice.
I mean, he had a 30% breakaway percentage, which is which is
real rough, 0.52 yards per route run.
He was a workhorse, but didn't have any breakaway yards per
game. He broke some tackles, but he
he's not like this incredible tackle breaker didn't run many
routes, didn't wasn't really involved in the passing game,
wasn't really even like a backfield dominator guy.
He peeked at just 60% forty 4% for his career.
So it's like very little to hang your hat on with Monongai that
the one thing is that like he's probably better than DeAndre
Swift is an inside runner. So so maybe you could do that.
But the thing I have with Monongai, we lowered Roshan like
probably a month or six weeks ago on Monongai looking like he
was going to push Roshan a little bit.
Because you know, at one point I was pretty bullish on Roshan
because it seemed like he was the clear #2 and that's another
kind of archetype to hammer in in May, the guys with clear cut
jobs. But then it's like, oh, maybe
he's not the clear number 2. So we we backed off on that.
I I think my next move for Monongai would be to draft Les
Swift or basically you have to kind of take swift and say maybe
he's not really in the mix of the six seven turn.
Maybe, you know, he's got to fall more to the to mid to late
7th at this point before I'm interested again.
I think that the last thing I do is then be drafting Monongai
himself just because he's like such a limited prospect.
Like he he really profiles as kind of like you're hoping he
falls into the end zone. Like he's 211 lbs.
He's he's a he is the definition of a ham and egger.
I don't. I think he's the definition of a
plotter. Same.
The same thing. Ham and Egger I feel like is a
little more. It's The thing is worse which is
worse. I mean, I, I've got that from,
I've got that from South S, you know.
Yeah, South, you know, always calls him that.
And I I like that. Also also probably also probably
bearish for all of these guys. DJ Moore was taking reps at
running back yesterday. No, but DJ Moore sucks.
DJ Moore has never been. Fast.
I think DJ Moore if he converted to running back I would consider
him in the 11th. I hate.
Come on, Jacob. I really do.
I like just. He makes me.
Jacob has such the ability to make me angry because he's so
much smarter than me that when he's.
Wrong. I I just like, I'm not even like
trying to be smart with DJ Moore.
I'm just being troll. I'm just being you, but against
you. Some sometimes when I argue with
Jacob, I feel like a toddler who understands that something is
wrong but doesn't have the verbiage to get to the
explanation what is wrong about what he's saying and it just
makes like I just get frustrated.
By DJ Moore. You're the younger sibling who's
right, but you can't articulate it.
I appreciate, I appreciate everything you're saying.
And maybe in some cases I make smart points.
I can promise you my DJ Moore thing is just having watched QB
school last year of DJ Moore and just being absolutely disgusted
with the effort that he put on the field and refusing to draft
him on on that. Hey man, sometimes.
Sometimes you just don't. Sometimes you don't put it all
on the line when you don't care about the results.
I'm I'm basically like me to you with my DJ more takes as the
equivalent of like a jubilee video of like 11 cop versus 20
criminals. Like I'm just trying to rage
bait you. Of all people to say they can't
spit it out, Davis Maddock. I mean, I'm not buying that for
a minute. Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes.
Can we just be honest that the that the Bears are probably not
gonna be good like we got, we got Coach Carmi who said
actually today we're not going to have a set play sheet.
We're going to redesign the play sheet every week.
That's not true. That was a bare reference, but I
thought that was going to get that.
No, I thought maybe that was real.
No, I didn't know you were joking.
I was like, the silence was me panicking.
I was like, that's a horrible idea.
Yeah, they're going to have to. They're going to spend extra on
produce because they're not ordering it in advance.
I will say I've kind of like a little bit of a bear's truther,
I guess, where I kind of like. Me.
Me too, yeah. The the situation, the situation
was so, so bad last year, like. But we but we thought it was the
greatest of all time. Right.
Our perception versus reality like is, is never really been
wider. Like at least we knew the
patriots were going to suck. So we were able to like absorb
the sucking, you know, appropriately.
You look at like EPA per game, EPA per play.
Like May and and Caleb weren't that far apart.
May was better, but it wasn't like he he like lapped him or
anything. The the surrounding cast, I
think matters. And it's like we're doing, you
know, we're doing some work with, with Caleb's ADP, these
Bears ADP like it's, it's not lost on people that they have
Ben Johnson now. But you know, as far as like
believing that the Bears will suck, it's definitely possible,
but I I tend to be optimistic just because of the gigantic
shift in coaching offensive line.
I mean, they also they also added Luther burden and and
Carlson Loveland like that's a big deal if Luther burden
commands did not get kicked out of drills and and be.
Out on the field on those two. Here's what I like.
Those are my. Favorite.
Those are my favorite two ways to play.
I'm just not optimistic on the guys who were part of the suck.
Like I, I just, I struggle to look at last year and be like,
it was 100% Shane Waldron. Like I'm, I'm apportioning blame
to Caleb Swift more than a doomsday and and a less to a
doomsday because he was a rookie.
But like to me, like I think it's hard to look at the Bears
last year, say this was horrible, it's going to be
world's better and then say like, and they're going to be
relying on Caleb Swift and DJ Moore.
It's like those guys were horrible last year.
The thing that I like the most is if you if you agree
correlation with coaching, first drive of the game, first drive
of the second-half, that maybe coaching has more to do with
those results. You guys know how many yards on
their opening drives of games last year, the Bears averaged
like, what would be bad? Probably negative.
Probably -6. 10 They averaged 10 yards on their opening drive
last year for the entire season. I mean, that's a team that came
out of the locker room with no idea what to do.
So I've never heard a better stat in my history of doing this
like that was incredible. 10 yards. 10 yards per opening
drive for the season. That's insane.
There was a sack on everyone probably, or a holding penalty.
They just did not have any idea what they wanted to do.
And, you know, if their coaching is competent, that'll go way up
and they're going to start drives from the 35 this year.
So that's not going to necessarily help us with fantasy
points. But I feel like that's really,
you know, something you can latch onto.
I I've been below market on Moore and I'm pretty below
market on a doomsday. I think a doomsday, it is like a
doomsday was bad last year and we doesn't have a history of
ever being good, unlike DJ Moore who's, you know, on 28 years old
target. Roma Doomsay had a higher yards
per hour run than DJ Moore. On non screen targets.
Yeah. Yeah, that wouldn't shock me
because DJ Moore had a bad yards per route run, so they both were
bad. Throw it.
Throw. It out, throw it out. 20/20/24
throw it out. Didn't happen.
Yeah, the throw it out stuff. I mean, I I refuse to throw it
out. I'll never throw it out.
I'll. Never throw it out.
I I've heard, I've been told, I've now seen clips where I'm
supposed to throw out a season of football.
We only get a a few seasons, guys.
I'm not going to throw one out. I'm sorry.
Well, you know I. Get are you?
Are you better? Off I get there.
Mitigating circumstances here for sure.
Are you better off examining bad and non significant sample sizes
or throwing them out entirely? I think we're probably way
overconfident to label a guy playing with the same
quarterback he's going to be playing this year with this year
as a bad sample size. That doesn't tell us anything.
But it doesn't tell me what I want to get from it.
It doesn't, it doesn't certainly doesn't tell you what you want.
Yeah, 'cause it was bad. It it listen, it doesn't mean
that it's like gospel truth, like there's no like he he was,
he was inefficient in year 1. He's bad.
It's actually a little more nuanced.
It still matters to me that it still matters to me that like,
the offense was designed around Keenan Allen.
That seems bad. You know, maybe it maybe it's an
indictment of the coaching, but it's still not good.
You know, it kind of mattered. Like, do I care that Romo Dunze
was like functionally Michael Wilson as a rookie?
Like, yeah, I, I care. Does it mean he's Michael Wilson
forever? Like, no, but it's just, it's
not good. You know, I would like to still
have it in my brain and use it to like inform my future bets.
I I recognize like, I know Matt Harmon was very bullish on him
from route running perspective coming in and was generally
positive even last year. That's another data point that I
think that matters, but I don't it's not the only one.
Like, he still played a full season of football and didn't
really produce much. He got out there right away.
He played right away. That's all good.
There's good and bad, right? But like a doomsday is being
drafted with a lot of the good in mind.
I think it's it's hard for me to, it's still hard for me to to
take him where he goes. I agree because like as much as
I'm the world's foremost DJ Moore, bear with 0% and not not
only do I have 0% exposure to DJ Moore, but I've actually never
seen him. He's never entered even the
bottom of my queue. Roma Dunze I still have
currently 2%. Yeah, no, I I have a it's.
Just like it's been, it's been a challenge like and I'm going to
try to get more. I would like to I would like to
get up to like 8% Roma Dunze. But if you want negative Roma
doons a stats, and now I'm trying to pull this up here
quickly, so I'm stalling a little bit.
Here we go. Yeah.
This is from a column that Ryan Heath wrote that I put in my
latest post. Prior to 2014, 7% of top 12 wide
receivers, eventual top 12 wide receivers had their breakout in
their rookie year and 72% broke out in year two or three.
But since 2014, twenty, 6% of those wide receivers have had a
rookie year breakout, just 42% in year 2 and year three
combined. So what we're seeing more
recently in the NFL is that rookie is the wide receivers are
breaking out either immediately or more often they're not
breaking out. And so this sort of idea of this
natural progression is just not as common.
Obviously it still happens, we just saw JSN have, you know, a
second year breakout. But I think that if I had to bat
on is a doomsday more likely to be JSN or Rashad Bateman, I
would pick Rashad Bateman. I would pick Rashad Bateman too,
and Bateman can play like he, he's a good, you know, kind of
Jordan Addison level player. So you know it's not a bat.
Ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous.
Bunch of the flying. Than Addison last year, I think.
I think he's actually more efficient.
Yeah, yeah, of course it's more efficient.
I'd like 40 catches, yeah. He scored a lot of touchdowns.
That matters, apparently. Let's flip to the to the next.
Slide he was more efficient. He scored 11 touchdowns.
See how it scored him too. Hang on.
I had I did have a point there somewhere.
I think the I was actually over the weekend in a pro Roma Dunze
position. We should take Roma Dunze on
this team position because I was in a main event draft.
We're doing the stat chasing main event draft with with Draco
and Zach and we had it was like Rome versus Jaden Reed.
You know, it kind of he'd he'd fallen a fair bit and I think
it's a main event swing. He makes a lot of sense because
there is upside to this offense like you can imagine like Caleb
Williams, like really high upside prospect Ben Johnson,
really high upside to that offense in terms of his ability
to design Roma dunce could be the number one there.
You know, so all of these things like come together and you can
see him absolutely smashing. There's just like a lot of cases
where I think he doesn't pay off at cost and he's he's less
expensive in redraft. He's quite a bit more expensive
in best ball. He's not the to your point,
Jacob, about like the second year guys maybe not panning out
at the rate that we've been used to. 2nd year guys are like kind
of sneaky risky in baseball when they're expensive because we're
we're we're paying for a lot of optimism.
And if you take a fifth round pick who just like is like wide
receiver 50, that fucking sucks. That's that's a huge problem for
you. Yeah.
So that's where I, I think from, I don't want to be out on a
doomsday. I'm, I'm trying to find ways to
get exposure. But to me it's like it's more of
like the main event. Like that's where I'm like, you
know, high upside cracks. I can, I can find other
starters. I think he fits that format way
better than best baller at his current ADP.
I don't partake in discourse that brings up Rashad Bateman.
All of which I will say is that none of your hyper specific data
analysis or film watching or anything honestly is even going
to matter for Rome. It's all really about does Ben
Johnson and Caleb Williams work? Because my analysis of Rome
would be he's probably a little bit overdrafted in the NFL
draft, but is like fine enough to get there in fantasy
football. If Caleb Williams plays quite
well and if Ben Johnson does his like, I don't think Rome is
like, is Rome going to be the next Justin Jefferson?
Certainly not. Is he ACD, Lamb, Jamar Chase,
Nico Collins, Brian Thomas, junior level player?
I don't think so, which is interesting because Brian Thomas
junior was drafted after him, but can he just kind of be AT
Higgins style production guy where years that he scores 11
touchdowns, he's a very good pick.
Years where he scores 5 touchdowns, he's probably not as
good of a pick. That.
That's kind of my opinion of Roman.
Isn't that not like what with this much risk of it not working
out? Isn't that when you're saying
like, I don't think this unknown guy who's coming off a bad
rookie season can be a superstar?
Like, then why are we taking what we're taking?
You're just. Saying you have more, you just
have a lot of confidence in Johnson and Caleb working out
compared to us. Correct, Yeah, or at least I
think. I think I, I mean, Caleb, Caleb
was kind of fine throwing the ball in the games that he
played. Now he took a, he took a, he
took a bazillion. Throwing as in when he didn't
take a sack? Yeah.
Targeting someone when he was targeting someone.
Yes, that is literally. Which happened on like probably
about 60% of his drop backs. Well, there was like an actual
stat that was mind blowing. Reeves had a stat of like he
just an insane. It was actually doomsday where
doomsday like ran like hundreds of routes where a target did not
occur. Target was never it was never
thrown. But you know, that's like not
entirely. Like I know that's not like it's
was it doonesday's fault that that happened?
But like targets don't occur when people don't get open too.
You know, it's like, that's not entirely just like the
receivers, like, Oh my God, how did you not target anybody?
I'm I'm comfortable, I'm comfortable right now just
pointing the finger at Shane Waldron and if I need.
To it's mostly Waldron and it's. Mostly if I need to readjust on
that, I'm I'm open to readjusting, but that is my
official company line right now. Pat, I have an important
question for you. If Ben Johnson is Carmi, who are
the other characters on on the bear and is this bullish or?
Bear, who's is is Caleb Williams?
No, I think I think if you want to be really bearish or bullish
on this, Davis is against height.
I think you can make a case that DJ Moore is cousin Richie.
Like I have a disgruntled fuck up, but he gets nurtured in a
new environment. He gets sent to a nice
restaurant to in the episode of four and he he starts to embrace
himself. That's that's that's you.
You. You beat me the whole case for.
DJ Moore is cousin Richie. Yeah.
I could see that. Caleb think it got to be Chef
Sid. It's going to work.
I don't know. I think, yeah, I guess maybe she
is. Keenan Allen is back, obviously,
yeah. Keenan Allen is definitely.
Back are we bearish on which bears belong in the bear.
There might be Claire, because there seems to be some
unresolved anger there between Ben Johnson.
Huh. Yeah, is is Justin Fields,
Michael. Unfortunately, yes, Justin.
Fields, Michael. RIP.
Now I just, I need to, officially, obviously, as the
television grump around here, I need to say enough of this.
No more. No more.
No more bear references. Bear or bears for today?
Yeah, we have. We have 20 minutes left before I
have a heart out, by the way. Quickly on the next slide.
Might be might be Marcus the the pastry chef.
Oh, that's possible. Yeah, I could see that.
He could blossom, but he might not blossom.
When he when he gets traded away, when he goes to Denmark
or. Forever.
He's going to be awesome in Europe, yeah.
I'll be I'll be drafting the sommelier Colston Loveland.
Negative news. Let's talk about the Rams for a
minute. Anybody doing anything with
Matthew Stafford? No, Matt.
Matt Stafford's back has been injured since 2011.
Dead ass. True Fact Check me true.
Yeah, he's, if he, if he misses their, their teams like the
scrimmages where I think they're against the Cardinals maybe.
Next week. If he misses that, I will start
to think about thinking about thinking about being worried.
But no, come on, settle down. You know, what I've done with
with Stafford is I've, I've, I've started take McCaffrey over
puka. The market has it that way now
and it's it's my excuse to go. Fine, fine.
I'll follow ADPI wasn't following ADP.
I've got like I had like 16% puka before the Stafford thing.
Yeah, I was. So, you know, it's tough to get
16% of a first rounder, but I, but I'd done it and I now I'm
just like, OK, I'll basically. You were almost the victim of an
extinction event. Well, you know, here's here's
maybe the this is the this is what 16% puka will do to your
brain. I was also like, I think he can
get there with Jimmy GI think he can do it.
I I do think you can. I absolutely think you can
because Jimmy G and Devante don't like each other.
So Google have an even higher target share of a child that's.
Right. Oh man, I completely forgot
that. Wow, that's, that's because you
only had 16% PAT. If you had that extra percent,
if you had 17 like me, you'd get there.
That's that extra percent, but I get the 20.
I can't wait to think of what I'll see.
So why do you want Jimmy G to start?
I actually think Jimmy G is polished.
I too have started mixing in other guys ahead of hookah
because I as we've established, I'm scared and I don't take
Christian McCaffrey. Although I'm thinking about re
evaluating based on one clip of a wheel row versus a four string
linebacker. Who?
Who could have? Who could?
Have predicted that the greatest fantasy football player of our
lifetime would in fact be a good fantasy football pick.
Sadly, there was no way to have predicted this, Said the only
said The said the only blind seal this has ever happened to.
Tends to Christian Mccaffrey's 2025 season.
It is July 29th. Here's.
Literally why I checked in with myself on the Christian
McCaffrey clip because he like caught the ball, but the way he
like he had to reach out and like his knee kind of extended.
I was just like, like go down good.
Like don't like. I didn't want to see any knees
twist in like that's that's where I'm at with McCaffrey.
It's it's just still July and I just want to see him fall
correctly. Don't get there.
The guy. The guy I want to draft the.
Guy, I'll be in on the main event.
Yeah, go show. The guy I want to draft there is
neighbors, who, by the way, left practice early today.
Shoulder run blocking. He's back, too.
Yeah, he's also back. No, I don't.
I don't think so. I think.
I think that is, I thought he was.
Somebody said he was fine in one of my group chats.
Maybe they're just manifesting? Jordan Renan said he's done for
the day. Oh.
OK, leave it at that. All right, we covered the next
slide has other negative news items.
San Francisco, we covered a couple of those already,
Jefferson and Mooney, last call. Last call.
I wanted to bring up this name and I'll pick them if I'm
allowed to go. Go for it.
Dual MAFA. Start starting to feel Phil Per
Brian Schottenheimer, one of the most one of the most July 28th
quotes I've ever. Heard.
Starting to feel Phil out there. Yeah, he's feeling Phil.
Is anybody else feeling still though?
No. Brian Schadnamer is feeling
still, and Nick Schaub is eating out yards and, yeah, eating.
Out SO. Did all I got with Christian
Wilkins. Is kissing deep?
The the issue with Mafa and taking him an 18 round best ball
drafts is I I can't what do I think he's going to do better?
Well, what do I think he's going to do better than Javonte or
Miles Sanders? Like he, he is the more.
I mean, Miles Sanders is like going to be fine or whatever,
all right or. Whatever is the thesis of the
play, he nailed it. Yeah, yeah, or whatever is
leaves. He's doing a lot of the work.
I'm going to, I'm going to swoop in and select Jacquavius Woody
Marks. No, I think I took him a long
time ago, didn't I? I don't.
Yeah, I have him. I already have him.
Oh. Shit.
All right, I'll I'll swoop in and.
That's tough. I'll take the von Vele Oh.
God. Didn't you?
Didn't you I? I'm being, I'm being unironic.
Didn't you see this trencher field update?
No, I the last thing I saw was the vele was clearly the number
two there. OK, well, allow me to allow me
to ruin kind of collectively everyone's day here.
Chris Wecht, FF, who has got who's been doing a lot of
athletic blurb reading. Yeah, good, good guy.
Here's Here's the quote from Sean Payton.
Trencher Field senior, the veteran wide receiver the
Broncos sign in free agency, in large part because of the
experience of special teams, has been a frequent target of
Denver's quarterbacks in camp, Peyton said.
He's tough and he can run. The other thing he can do is
block. We've always had a handful of
receivers who can run a stretcher field.
When you get one of those guys who can block and do that, you
can set up the play action. That is a guy who is going to
unnecessarily play 27% of the Denver Broncos offensive snaps
and just sort of damper it for everyone.
He's the new Lil Jordan. That's that's a very fair take.
I would just say with Peyton, I don't know where you guys are
at. I'm at the point where I'm just
like, tell me who's playing with the ones who is with the ones.
Like, I don't care what Peyton says.
He'll talk. He'll talk of anybody.
He has been like, do I like that He's been very positive on Troy
Franklin in this offseason? Of course.
But like you get out there and camp and it does look like it's
Vele now. It's that should mean in my mind
that's that means it's probably Vele that, you know, maybe Pat
Bryant by the end of the year. But like to start the year, if
you're looking at the second year guys, I think we should
assume it's Vele over Franklin because he's playing over
Franklin. I also have Pat Bryant and Troy
Franklin on my last call team. So this Denver squad, I just
need some points, man. Give me give me some points in
Denver and. I'll I see Pat selecting Jarrett
Stiddams at some point down the road just to give himself a shot
late in the season. I just want to, I just want to
do one more point here, which is that I think the market with
Bryant, Mims, Franklin and Vele is, was basically making the
assumption that there is no Brandon Johnson, Lil Jordan
equivalent. And I, I sadly think we have
found the, the, the little Jordan that just kind of means
Sutton is the only one that has any kind of consistency.
Because the the thing about Peyton is it's just such a like
Gretch. Gretch is the greatest writer
about Sean Payton. Like he, like he like he he
basically has written a a. There's like a mind meld on that
man. Yeah, he like knows Peyton
inside and out. And and the thing that Gretch
always says is it's just always so tortured.
It just, it all feels unnecessary.
And that is like totally like, what is why do you want Trent
Sherfield? Like why can't we just played
even Valet who I obviously don't like, but like why can't we just
give him 70% of the routes? And it just feels like Sherfield
is the way for Sutton to get all the routes and then just total
rotation with the other guys, which is just horribly annoying.
Yeah, it will probably be Sutton 95% rut rate and then like
Bryant, Franklin, Mims, Sherfield valet.
Nate Nate Adkins is somehow like playing H back on 20% of the
team. Like just so tortured.
Having played a dynasty for a long time, there's lots of
players that, you know, I'm like, why aren't they playing
this guy? And the answer is almost always
because he's not good. You know that that's not that's
not, you know, there's lots of cases where we're like this guy,
look at all this evidence that this guy is good play this guy
is good. And they don't play him and they
finally play him and he's awesome, like.
But with Marvin Mims, it's not true.
Marvin Mims is actually good. He's the one where it's not
true, I think. That I think that I think that
Peyton actually uses Mims quite correctly, which is that like
Mims is good but very limited. Like you look at like his
reception perception stuff and like his like beating man
coverage deplorably bad. But like he's obviously a
really, really great deep threat and he's very good in space.
And so I think the role for Mims is actually pretty perfect.
What I don't really get is why he feels the need to use four
different of the same type of wide.
Receiver four different. Field rules I don't like.
I don't know why we need Brandon Johnson and Humphrey and
Franklin. Like to me it's like just just
do suck Mims in a specialized role and then pick one of Brian
or Franklin. It's got to be.
Maybe it's because he doesn't think any of them are good and
he just wants like he wants depth.
Like let me let me just keep running these guys in and see if
someone can pops it. Make sure they're all familiar
with, you know, if someone gets hurt.
I got, you know, I don't have to.
Worry about someone? Not knowing the offense.
Only one of them has he cops to Michael Thomas.
I don't even. Know I I bet I bet you we could
find comps to Michael Thomas for veil like or something.
I bet. Yeah, I I.
Bet you. Yeah, that feels stone cold
true. So I I got sniped months ago on
on. The marks.
So I'm going to take a guy I am legitimately excited about
actually that I'm taking with my money in drafts, which is key.
Andre Lambert Smith for. The Los Angeles No.
That's a good one. Yeah.
Nice. Oh, who the hell am I going to
pick? I just decided and then I
already forgot. Oh, I remembered again.
I will do. Slap Demon on Jacob's rush.
Who is Slap Demon Wix? Yes.
Yeah, Yeah. That is Wix.
Oh really?
What else? Could it be I will take God I
don't even know. This game sucks.
Such a great game, yeah. It is a really good game.
It's a good game. All right, I'll, I'll, I'll.
Buy the maybe Terry Mclaurin doesn't play until early, isn't
in shape, gets injured, bad things happen for his season and
I will take Noah Brown. There it is.
Oh, I thought you were going Jaylen Lane.
That's better. Scratch.
No, a brown. I'll take Jill.
Oh my God, do I actually take a draft?
I'll take Jill and Lane. Thanks, Davis.
You need your team to get younger anyway.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to bring down the age of
my theme. Can we credit that?
Can we just have a little asterisk that that gets credit
to Davis? I just want to.
Make sure yeah, he yeah, he threw that off at the rim.
OK, picks her in next time we talk Corrine.
You. Oh, he.
Took Bailey. Yeah.
Next time we talk, the Hall of Fame game will have been played.
That's two days away. Look at that.
We got action today on my show with WGR in Buffalo.
On the Odyssey app, I have Jim Lampley at 4:00 Eastern.
That should be really great. I've never spoken with him
before. Legendary announcer from from,
you know, boxing quintessentially, but for many
years. And I'll be on the GOAT district
tonight with JD and Dan. That's at 9 Davis.
Swellcast right after this and then I'm going to go get a mole
removed at 1:00 PM Central. And if I have time in between
that and the Fantasy Pros podcast that I'm recording, I
will stream a couple of basketball manias.
So be at your computer at like 2:00 PM Central time, 3:00 PM
Eastern. Right from the operating table.
Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
Don't know. I have no idea how long that
sort of thing is will take. Sometimes very quick.
It's true dedication, Jacob. Yeah, find my stuff up.
I'm thinking about thinking, of course we're going to be kick
starting. The Hitchhiker's got the running
back pre season edition. So I can almost guarantee you
I'm going to start with the Jacksonville Jaguars backfield
because I got to get my updated Tank Bigsby takes in there.
So we'll be running through that a lot of this week.
Also, fun announcement, continuing to follow the Sam
Sherman career arc. I will be hosting the waiver
wire show on Underdogs Network following Monday Night Football
this week or this season I should say.
And I was on with Hayden announcing that and doing a show
on 10 controversial players yesterday.
You guys go check out on that network.
And yeah, said this to you guys all season.
Congrats I I did have that in the cold open which sadly has
been lost to history. Lost to history?
Much, much appreciated Joe. I will be I will be leaving the
fantasy industry to become a management consultant on in.
Later. OK, Deloitte hiring, believe it
or not. Pat.
We've got, I've been working on an article that I'm hoping to
have out this week that is going to look at some of the breakout
wide receiver candidates in the mid rounds.
Digging into the some of the first read stuff for that.
So excited to share that with you guys.
Matt Irby has an article breaking down the the Chiefs
wide receiver situation that we'll have out tomorrow.
And today's the last day. If you want to lock in the
Sidekick 125 monthly price, today's the last day to do so.
We also still have $20 DraftKings bonus tickets
available for Sidekick subscribers heading over to
legendaryupside.com/perks. Fill out a form so I have your
DK username. Enter the tournament and you're
eligible for a bonus ticket there as a Sidekick subscriber.
But yeah, that's it. Rankings articles.
Check it out. Legendary Upside.
Very good. I will see you guys next week
from Kawagama, Lake, Ontario, about four hours north of here,
and I'm very confident their Wi-Fi will be better than mine.
Thanks for watching. Should I?
All right. I do on.
Well, I do when I go on vacation.
You never know. We will make it work.
We made it work today. Thanks for your patience guys
and have a great week.