No mic show up today out on a family experience.
It is going to be Davis Matic, Pat Karine, Jacob Sanderson with
you. No one wants elite tight ends
anymore. Some are saying the best ball
cabal is going a bit too far. We're going to get to the
quarterbacks being risers. We're all trying to find the guy
who's doing this as Pat Karine comes to us live in a hot dog
suit. It is the July 8th edition of
ADP Chasing. 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 more actually.
Back in if it's Ashanek. It's tear into 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 told 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 thing you can make, but man.
All right, there we go folks. We are live.
Crane, Jacob. I'm good crabbing coffee last
minute. It's it's so funny without Mr.
Schop to be the referee, it's going to be tough.
I'm not going to lie to you guys.
I'm expecting, I'm expecting last call to probably take place
at 10:55 central time as I am like ending the stream to go do
the swole cast it. It's going to be there's no
referee. And I think we are going to get
into some some pretty good arguments today.
I mean, I think that we should just start here.
Crane, how do you feel about ruining back stacking
quarterbacks for everyone? Like when you see Matt Stafford
go naked unstacked to like pick 144 in one of your rooms, just
kind of what's your what's your response?
Do you feel proud? Are you happy with what you've
done or, or are you like should have kept it to ourselves?
Davis I have 3 quarterbacks in those situations and the
quarterback tab is turned off, so I didn't even notice.
But that is, it's a real shame. Have you have you rewatched
Oppenheimer recently? What have I done?
We we have. We have.
You have become that. You know what I'm doing?
I've seen Peaky Blinders, does that count?
It yeah, I mean, it's basically the same thing I'm actually
doing. I'm actually doing a a stream
with Karen later and I was going to put him as Doc Brown next to
a time machine, but I think now I might do him as Oppenheimer.
I might make, I might make Karen's face.
Killian Murphy like realizing that.
He I think you could make. The entire universe.
Seeing Jacob with his hair slicked back, I, I'm, I now want
you to go the other way and and get the the full puff and make
him Einstein. This is this isn't even slick.
This is just I my typical. Routine.
It's pushed back. It's just really wet.
That's, that's just all it is. I'm I'm about 4 minutes out of
the shower with the comb. You will see it like steadily
dry over time. My my typical routine on these
shows. For those who don't know Pat and
I are you back in California? Are you still in?
New York? Not yet.
Our normally our typical routine would be the Pat and I are doing
these at 7:00 AM. And so that means usually I'm
I'm showering post show. But I was like, Shope's not
here. This is going to be a long one.
I've got a shower pre show so I can get to work at a reasonable
hour. And so yeah, you guys are seeing
me as a blonde member of the mob today.
I might not, I might just be real quiet and and we're going
to hit the under on this because I I love that both you guys have
like like Jacob changed his morning because it's going to go
long. It would be funny if this is
like a nice tight 55 minute show.
Yeah, I doubt that. You do really Jacob on ADP
chasing whenever you do this with your hair, you do look like
one of the Icelandic bad guys from D2.
The mighty pucks is is kind of gently to do a little bit of of
puck chasing. I mean a truly, truly phenomenal
film. But that is, that is exactly the
vibe, the vibe you get. That's fair, non derogatory.
All right, let's actually go ahead.
Let's go ahead and get to the first slide because this is
something that I have been mulling over in my mind.
And I actually think at their current cost, the Pittsburgh
Steelers are one of the teams that our assumptions could be
proven most incorrect about because what the market has done
with Aaron Rodgers being introduced to this team, as
they'd say, well, we'd like to draft a little bit of Aaron
Rodgers, not too much, but we we feel more confident in him
starting 17 games than we do Sam Darnold.
We feel very confident that Dekalin Zacharias Metcalf is
going to be receiving a 32% target share.
We also feel very confident that it is still Arthur Smith calling
the plays and not Aaron Rodgers, right, which I think could be an
incorrect assumption from the market.
The market is assuming that Jonnu Smith is clearly ahead of
Pat Fryer Muth. Are they?
Assuming that or is it just mechanically take a really long
time for players to fall on underdog?
No, because it's been. It's been.
Also we're assuming that but it's not like he's way ahead.
It's but we have a lean to Janu in the rank.
Yeah, I haven't had, but I have them like less than a round
apart. Yeah, yeah, ETR has firemooth
like almost like undraftable. They have firemooth in the two
hundreds. I, I, I think I might have
firemooth actually unranked in my stuff.
Like actually in my top 240 players.
I, I don't know if I even have firemooth in them.
I have Jonnu lower than ADP as well.
Warren has seen a slight. I believe Warren is now going
like around and around after Jordan Mason.
Caleb Johnson weirdly has actually gone up a smidge.
Like I've noticed Caleb like it's more often that the draft
or like after like Godwin goes. I've noticed that like, oh,
sometimes the the the guy who's drafting at 68 will just take
Caleb Johnson instead of David Montgomery or whatever for his
running back too, which I think is fine.
And I will toss this to you, Jacob, which is The Jets
actually were a positive PROE team.
I think I want to say Rodgers got the 550 attempts.
Let me actually. He had 584. 500 Let's let's do a
little Fact Check. Aaron Rodgers, 584 pass
attempts, 28197 yards, 28 passing touchdowns, 11 picks.
I mean obviously one point. I have no idea how I knew that
exactly. Though Jake Jacob just nailed
that. That's crazy.
That is that's, that's pretty good.
That's I'm, I'm very impressed. Nothing is going to impress me
more than random little bits of NFL minutia like that.
But the thing about The Jets is the the assumption would be, Oh
well, The Jets were terrible, right?
So, yeah, so no wonder they threw all the time.
Well, that doesn't explain being a positive PROE team, right?
Because if you're if the scoreline.
Dictates, yeah, but who cares? He's with Arthur Smith now.
It's. Different.
Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying, Karain, that opinion
could very easily be wrong. That part of this whole
negotiation, part of why Rogers didn't sign until June 25th or
whatever, was like Rodgers being like, I'm taking the clock down
to one. You're letting me do as many RP
OS as I want. I want to pad my career passing
touchdown numbers. We're we're on the.
That I could buy. I I think the way I look at it
is so apparently these two have been sitting down talking ball,
you know, they're it's like, Oh yeah, it's a good play call
there. Good job right there.
They all kind of just sort of stoic, half stoically, you know,
grumpily watching film together. And there's going to be the
question of who ultimately has called the play, right?
The majority of the time, I expect that to be Arthur Smith,
'cause that's how the NFL works. Well, that's just how that's how
that's how it worked with Rodgers, wherever he was.
It that's how yeah, but he. Was on the same.
Page. He was on the same page.
Philosophically, Slash had installed that OC, not.
Always, not always. Notably, Matt Lafleur, who was
the one he won two MVPS with, was, was one of the few that
came in and was like, no, actually, you know, we'll keep
some things you want to do, but we're doing this offense my way.
So I I wonder if I think it might be similar to that.
I think it, I think it is similar to that now.
Lafleur has a different philosophy than Arthur Smith.
He's just, and he's a better coach.
So that that worked pretty well. Arthur Smith is going to be
overly tilted to the run pretty much regardless of situation.
We know this, you know, I think he would probably like to turn
this version of Rodgers kind of more into like the Tannehill
game manager type of guy as they as they lean on the run in the
defense like that. And like, I don't blame him
based on what Rodgers looked like last year.
So I would expect, you know, on the typical down that it's an
Arthur Smith play call. It's how much is Rodgers willing
and sort of gotten, you know, enough leash to audible to
passes in key situations around the goal line.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if he actually does audible to
to passes at a decent rate because that's kind of his thing
is the pass at the goal line and he's got the quick release and
all of that. It's a high leverage kind of
situation. Probably not the hill you want
to die on if you're Smith, just let him let him do his little
short passes. So yeah, but I I would be pretty
surprised if if Rogers had enough influence to make this a
positive PROE team. I mean, Smith is not just
negative PROE. He's he's mega negative.
He's like minus. 8 -, 10 would not.
I, for one, would not be surprised if Arthur Smith gets
fired. I would not be surprised if
there was like a very tacit agreement that like, as long as
we are winning games, as long as this is not like creating, like
if you're playing better than Kenny Pickett, Aaron, you want
to throw 42 times, Sure. Like I, I, it's.
I don't think so. Didn't.
I Don't think so at all. Didn't Rogers need the Steelers
more than the Steelers need the Rogers like they?
Both need to be chopper, so I think it's.
I think it's really kind of like Rogers is the more.
Dependent in some ways. Him not signing to me does not
speak of him having this big time leverage on them.
It's that they were like, yeah, you can come if you want, man,
we're here. But like we're not like figure
it out. You figure your your shit out
and come play for us if you want to play football.
It I mean, it was weird that they put themselves in a
situation where they didn't really have another option if it
didn't show up. Matt Canada got fired in the
middle of the season. After like a long time.
He they've been calling to fire like Steelers fan wanted Canada
out for like 2 1/2 years before he got fired.
They were still winning though, correct?
Like they still make the playoffs.
There's always all. Right, let me they could start.
They could. They could start literally any.
They could start Davis fucking mad at the quarterback.
They would go nine and eight and be the seventh seed.
That's just, that's their destiny.
I'm going to make an analogy here that I think I will
actually that is going to turn Jacob to my side and it probably
won't do anything for Corinne. Do you know who Aaron Rodgers is
right now for this organization? He is, who is he, 40 year old
LeBron James, where the organization is purposely doing
things that they would not do if he was not there, that are not.
Analytically sent. I appreciate the analogy.
LeBron, Well, 11 LeBron is still probably like the 9th best
player in the NBA. And two, LeBron won them the
title when they were in complete wilderness and he got them the
title and the Lakers are forever.
Davis, this is a crazier conspiracy theory than anything
I've ever heard from Aaron Rodgers.
What are you talking about? What is happening is we are on
the, we are on the outside looking in and we say Aaron
Rodgers is the same thing as Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers is
the same thing as Kenny Pickett, Aaron Rodgers is the same thing
as 97 year old Ben Roethlisberger.
And I think it's really unlikely.
I, I just think it's very unlikely that people who are
big, who are football people, like when they think they're
getting Aaron Rodgers, they think we're getting capital A
capital R Aaron Rodgers. That is my guess.
I just think with Rodgers look,
he was quite empowered with McCarthy or maybe they just had
similar preferences so it worked.
Well, he was also a. Long time in Green Bay.
Way better then right? And he was way.
Better I know that's what I'm saying.
And he was he was one of the best quarterbacks of the world
may be the best for most of that period.
Then he has a a mild decline. I mean not even to the level
he's at now, but he has a mild decline and the Packers yank
back control. They go we're we're drafting.
Yeah, and Roger and Roger said. And not yet, they said.
We're drafting Jordan Love, we'll bring in a new coach.
We're running his system and you can you can get on board with
it. And Rogers lined and he threw a
little hissy fit, but he did get on board with it and he won
back-to-back MVPS and they had a lot of success.
And then he said, OK, I'm I'm leaving.
And he chose The Jets. The Jets had no quarterback.
They were desperate. They they grovelled, they shamed
themselves to. To They shamed themselves, yeah.
And they they, they kissed his feet.
And so he said, you know, he had all the power in that
relationship. He was like, I'm, you know, I, I
get to do everything my way. I'm bringing in all my friends.
I'm bringing in my coach, I'm calling all the plays.
We're not doing any motion. I go on Pat McAfee once a week.
Everybody has to tell me their favorite conspiracy theory
before they get allowed in the huddle.
What's your what's your favorite?
Hold on, Wait, wait. What's your favorite conspiracy
theory? My mine personally.
You're you. Personally, I think that the
Olsen twins are just one person. I've never even heard that one.
My favorite is the Philadelphia Experiment.
That's the one that I'm just like, I've not heard any
convincing. Conspiracy theories suck.
Now, obviously in 2025, society has been ruined, conspiracy
theories have been ruined. But the Philadelphia Experiment?
Phenomenal, Karen. Here's my here's my theory.
This is this is something I heard about.
I think Ollie Connolly has made this point.
I believe that's where I heard this.
But he was like, here's here's the thing about the Steelers
that that you have to understand.
They drafted Ben Roethlisberger in 2004.
They had him as their quarterback through multiple
eras of the NFL. He didn't retire till 2021.
So like the NFL changed in multiple kind of different ways
over the course of Roethlisberger's entire career.
And then they get here where like quarterback is now such a
priority, you have to you have to handle it differently than
you might have in 2004 or or 2009 or two. 1015.
Yeah, or 2015, like it's different now.
You know, it's all about, you know, you got the, you got the
quarterback contract, the rookie year thing, like the and, and
frankly, if you have a guy in the building that you think can
play like you don't let him, you don't let him leave.
You know that that's like another kind of key thing.
I think that they just completely screwed up the
offseason. They had a guy in Justin Fields
that they basically were like, hey, Justin, if we can't figure
out anything better, we're we're interested in maybe having you
back. That was they completely misread
the market. So Jets were like, hey, man, we
would like you to be our quarterback.
We're going to give you a deal that reflects that.
Hey, Sam Darnold, what like please come play for us.
We're going to give you it like a two year deal with a third
year option. Basically, there's lots of
interest in these quarterbacks that the Steelers were kind of
like, yeah, you're not so great. It's like, yeah, they're not.
But if you don't move, you're going to get left out in the
cold. And I think that's what
happened. I think they got left out in the
cold and that's why they had to sit around and wait for Aaron
Rodgers to decide whether or not they're going to play for him.
I think they correctly did read Aaron Rodgers that he would play
for them because they really just kind of they put all their
eggs in that basket and here he is.
But I don't see this as like I, I just, I don't know.
I think, I think they kind of don't, they just kind of screwed
up the offseason. And so the idea that like, they
view him as like capital a capital R Aaron Rodgers.
I don't think they do. I think they kind of know who he
is. He's he's a diminished version
of Rogers. They would have had to not watch
football last year to think that he's still capital, a capital
Arian Rogers. He tore his Achilles two years
ago and he he looked like a different quarterback, not
completely completely washed, but certainly not the guy he was
before. He, he, he just.
Can't he just can't move right? I mean that's like he literally
he, he cannot move. It hurts big time and especially
it hurts the way that he wants to run his offense in the way
that he did last year where there's no, I mean, he's like, I
want to do my passes from under or from shotgun.
I want to run from under 7. I don't want there ever to be
any motion. I want everything to be as
static as possible so the defense can figure out exactly
what we're doing every single snap.
And like, you just can't mitigate that when you can't
move. So anyway, I, I, my, my point
for all of that before, before David started quizzing us on
conspiracy theories was just that The Jets scenario I think
was very unique in that he was the one who had all of the power
because he chose The Jets and he kind of chose the Steelers, but
the Steelers were his only choice.
Rogers choices this offseason, seemingly.
I guess he could have chose the Giants if he wanted to decide
earlier, but then that was taken.
Off could Could he have? Could he have chosen the Browns,
by the way, do we think? That I don't think possible.
I think that the Browns, I mean, that would have been really
funny if the Browns were like, hey, fans, we know you're really
mad at us about the Deshaun Watson experience, but have you
considered the Aaron Rodgers? That would have been hilarious.
But I don't think that was a real option.
I I just think with with with this, it was once the Giants
were like, cool man, we've moved on.
His choices were, you know, have a show on the Daily Wire or, or
back to Pittsburgh Steelers. And so like he chose the latter
option and that that's going to come.
With well, he he also says this is last year.
So, you know, look, look forward to that show and hitting,
hitting your airwaves in 2026. Yeah.
Yeah, just just horrible. So I I think.
It's a reprieve. It's it's still coming, but I
got a year off. To get to something actionable
here. Oh actually I got one more
question before we get into something actionable.
Does your opinion on Roger's hierarchy amongst decision
makers for who calls the plays change if they trade a sixth
round pick for Alan Lazard? Like if if.
Yeah 'cause I think it has to right?
If. They if they.
Yeah, or if Mercedes Lewis signs.
Or if Randall. Cobb card, Mercedes Lewis, any
of his gang of mid shows up at the Pittsburgh Steelers
facility. Yeah, if any member of like the
2018 Green Bay Packers goes up in Latrobe, I'm I'm upgrading
their PROE by two percentage points per member of the 2018
Green Bay Packers. We're used to the Canary in the
coal mine, but what about the Lazard in Latrobe?
The Lazard The Lazard in Latrobe I if Robert Tunyon is brought to
camp of any any of these players.
Well, and the reason? Why the tunyon in the tunnel?
The reason why I wanted to start.
Here Aberdaris gets. A hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
Jared, Jeff Janis, Jared Aberdare's, Jay Coomerno.
Any of these. Any of these.
Guys, Onimo, Allison, Randall Cobb.
Randall Cobb would be a big one. Geronimo Geronimo Allison
Geronimo Allison probably is just a straight up upgrade for.
They might. Seriously, they could use
Randall Cobb I. Think they could use?
Yeah, the reason why I ask this is I actually.
Think. Defining these range of outcomes
for the late round quarterbacks, like the difference between
Rodgers, Darnold, Daniel Jones, Anthony Richardson, Jackson
Dart, Russell Wilson. I actually think that as these
guys get close, like these guys are all 100% drafted now,
basically, particularly on DraftKings, right?
The 20 round stuff, they're going every single time.
So it's, it's kind of in my mind that like getting this right is
actually a huge part of the season, right?
Does it only affect like one player though?
Well, it if not if if Rogers is if the Steelers are 8th in the
NFL and PROE if Rogers throws 580 passes again.
No, I mean it can impact John and it can impact firemooth.
One of Calvin Austin or Roman Wilson can be like.
AI just so much rather because. You're gonna I think I think the
only real thing that happens is that it just makes DKA better
pick and I guess it makes Caleb Johnson a a slightly worse pick,
but like. Well.
Not not once you get past like once you get past like Connor
Henry to me, like every time is just the same anyway.
So like there's not really any difference.
It's like you could take a guy who's undrafted and 90% of draft
so you can take the Next up in ADP and it's like you're you're
basically just hoping for a touchdown in week 17.
So I like almost don't even care about the effect on Johnny or
Friarmouth. And then like DK, obviously if
they pass way more than I expect is is a much better pick than
I'm currently ranking him. Yeah, but he's not like he's
super cheap, man. Yeah, if if if DK Metcalf was
going like where Jerry Judy is, you know, then I then it'd be
like, OK, there's a lot of room for upside here.
If Rogers is like, you know, as much better than Joe Flacco can
he Pickett and the two rookies as we expect, like we what are
we doing? Like they're going to throw
some. But he's not that's not
happening at all. He's going at the 3-4 or the,
yeah, the no, the 4-5 turn, which is still like there.
There's, there's plenty of guys there that I want.
Great. Pull up the pull up the slide,
pull up the This should have been up.
This should have been up the entire time.
Just one thing I did absolutely want to note about this is Pat
Fryermuth just looks like every guy that goes to your local gym.
Pat Pat Fryermuth just like I did book.
The slide, I want to finish my point.
Yes, sorry you have to talk about.
What? Continue.
Oh, please, Joe Tell.
I know. Well, it's just.
Like how, How could it possibly, how could Pat Fryermuth possibly
be the the guy you need when he looks like a 38 year old middle
manager at a a car dealership? Like what is going on?
How is that what Pat Fryermuth looks like?
He. Looks like someone's brother.
Yeah, like Pat. Get in here.
Come on. He, he does he, he literally
does look like, like a trainer's brother.
He's like, Oh yeah, you know, he was helping us run routes.
He's. He's moving around tables and
stuff and they're like come on, get in moving tables.
Is is is that so? It's it's Roman Wilson, Calvin
Austin. Well, definitely Calvin Austin
in the middle because he looks like Toad.
Who is that? Is that Gunner Olizweski?
Who is? Who is in between?
Who is between Fryermuth? And is that Scottie Miller or no
Scottie Miller's on the left? It's Scottie Miller.
Yeah, that's Scottie Miller all the way on the end.
OK, who's next to Rogers? Roman Wilson.
That's Roman Wilson, OK. Bullish.
I don't know who's bet. I don't know who is between
Fryermuth and Miller though. Yeah, I got, I got no clue.
I got no clue who that is. Roman Wilson being Roger's left
hand man. Bullish.
Are we concerned that Robert Woods is not in this photo?
Roman Wilson looks like. He Robert Woods.
I I'm not I. Don't like oh, it's, it's
scaronic. It's been.
Scaronic.
Oh, good old Benny scow. Classic, classic.
Look at the Roman Wilson looks like he's being held hostage.
I'm not I'm not a fan. It's.
True of It looks like Aaron Rodgers just told Roman Wilson
to steal the Declaration of Independence and he's not that
into it. Why?
OK, why is Darnell Washington not in the picture?
Where's Darnell? See, he's currently.
Stealing. He's too.
He's too big to be pictured. Darnell Washington is too big to
run routes. How much ayahuasca do you think
Darnell Washington would need to take to get high?
So much more than all the rest of those guys like.
DWK Metcalf. Because he would have taken like
50% of the ayahuasca just for himself to feel something.
DK Metcalf refuses to be pictured with Darnell Washington
because it's going to ruin his Rep.
He needs to always be the biggest man.
Yeah, that's true. I kind of like DK Metcalf's
energy here where he's he's, you know, standing straight,
straight up, right, Got the two arms out.
He looks, he looks, you know, like he's having a good time,
kind of kind of gregarious. And Roger, he's got his arm
around Rogers. But look at Roger.
Rogers has to, he can't be, he doesn't, he's not going to come
under the DK. He doesn't want to be, you know,
the little brother get little brothered by the by the DK arm.
So he's like keeping his distance a little.
Meanwhile, BK's basically got, he's got a little hug going with
Calvin Austin. So I kind of.
Really. I got really perished that Roman
Wilson has Rodgers arm around him.
One, looks miserable and two, his arm is not touching Aaron.
Rodgers not touching Aaron Rodgers right down.
Yeah, See, I think, I think DK and Rodgers, this looks like
people who've kind of like worked, worked it out a bit,
like there's a sort of a mutual respect thing happening, or at
least, you know, there's a truce of some kind.
No, I'm, I'm disagreeing with this.
I think it's ultimately end of the day, it is most bullish that
Roman Wilson is next to Rogers. Ultimately, ultimately, I'm
going. Bullish man.
Also. He's kind of in front of Rogers.
Like he's not even it. It does not look like it's very
strange. It's very strange.
I think it's pretty bearish. Roman Wilson's also from Hawaii.
So I feel like people from like in Hawaii, I feel like they
actually have like real spiritual knowledge.
So I feel like you would find Aaron Rodgers uniquely annoying
if you're like from like a historical and spiritual area
and then you just have like this random white guy just like
coming in and like talking a bunch of nonsense.
I think I would find Aaron Rodgers like even three times
more annoying than I currently do.
That's my yeah. I mean, I could see that it's, I
don't know, isn't there a cap? Is there a cap to how annoying
you can find someone he's kind of butting up against?
I don't think so. The limit does not exist the.
Limit does not exist. The there's a really interesting
comment here. Where did he go?
But I'm sorry, I'll find it and pull it up.
But the point is that it looks like DK Metcalf.
DK Metcalf is holding on to Pat Fryermuth's shoulder in in his.
Oh, that's true. He's fully.
Wrapped from Calvin Austin. He's got like 3 people under his
yoke. He's that is a flex.
Is this now we? I assumed Roger's hand was
around Roman Wilson. Is that actually Metcalf's?
Ultimately, I think I'm gonna be on the right side of history
here. Roman Wilson is gonna be a
classic Aaron Rodgers guy. What?
Like I I said, it's DK Metcalf Elastigirl isn't like like from
Fantastic Four the one with like you can do like woo like stretch
your arms in various ways. Davis, this picture is, is, I
would say, at least inconclusive evidence on Roman Wilson's role
this year. I would say a stronger piece of
evidence is that they just traded for Johnny Smith and love
Darnell Washington and are probably going to play more 13
than any NFL team. Ever.
Potentially ever. 1964. Yeah, since the Wing T was like
the dominant offense. Yeah, so I don't know, That
seems bad. That seems bad for Roman Wilson
IF. I if I'm just thinking classic
Aaron Rodgers decides one guy's going to score 8 touchdowns,
it's going to be Roman Wilson. Well, actually, it's probably
Darnell Washington somehow. Darnell.
Washington replicating the the Robert Tonyon season.
That's probably enough of the Aaron Rodgers circle of trust.
I think after 30 minutes we can probably go ahead and get to the
risers everyone. 30 Let's move on.
Yeah, nice, tight, dirty. So everyone decided that two
confluent things are causing Tyreek Hill to change 16.5% in
ADP. First being Tariq Hill attended
a track and field event. I did not do the research to
know what event this was. I don't know if this is like a
Nike sponsored thing. I don't know if this is Olympic
qualifying, but he won the races that he participated in.
He ran 100 meters and I think 10.35 seconds, maybe even faster
than that. And everyone has basically done
the CMC thing with Tyriq, which is everyday that Tyriq is not
well, everyday that Tyreek is not injured is a day that he's
not injured, meaning it's less likely that he gets injured.
So let's keep taking him. Same thing is happening with
Devin a chain. Same thing is happening with
Joel model, not as it relates to their health, but basically,
instead of reallocating any of those what 8085 targets for
Jonny Smith to a a different player to an unnamed player to
Malik Washington to Nick Westbrook, akin, all of those
targets have been equally distributed across those three
players with none going to anyone else.
I think the market is probably correct in this.
The price I'm obviously most interested in is a chain.
Like I think they're I I could see an argument to take a chain
at like the 1.8 or whatever. I don't particularly think it
should be newsworthy that Tyree kill is fast though, right?
I mean, I think we we probably already knew that.
Thoughts. I don't know.
I mean, I guess I with Tyree Kill there, you know, last year
was such a dramatic drop off that the question around this
entire offseason has been, is it because he's old and now he's
not the same guy? Or did the offense kind of
collapse into this weird version of itself and maybe they're able
to pull up out of that? The problem I think is that the
offense I'm I'm on team offense, not team.
I'm I'm on team. I'm on team offense, yeah.
Because the reason I feel that way is that Waddle also
collapsed, and also that Tyreek wasn't really.
That inefficient collapsed inefficiency as well.
In rushing efficiency, he he mega collapsed.
Yeah, he was slightly better as a receiver, but he just got fed
targets. Tyree kill wasn't like crazy
inefficient last year, he's just was way less efficient than he
was the previous year. But that is in part because he
was facing mega negative regression headwinds then he was
always going to kind of decline some.
The problem though, even if you think that it was more the
offense than Tyree being washed, is that one, he's still going to
be old this year, so he might become washed at some point this
year. So you it's not like the age
thing doesn't matter. It does.
Last year was a fake age Cliff and then this year.
Is the real age Cliff? Yeah.
So that's still still looming. He will hit the age Cliff at
some point. The other thing is that the
offense was like this because they had a quarterback who has
serious concussion issues. And if he if he takes hits, he
will potentially miss the entire season.
And he has a horrible offensive line that can't protect.
Him. Who's the backup, by the way?
It's probably someone really. Good.
And now the backup is Zach Wilson.
It's not someone good. Even worse, potentially than
last year. All of these things remain true.
The offensive line like they I don't know what is going on,
like why they this it. It has been a dire need for them
to fix this offensive line just from like a.
Football, they added, they added a bunch of guys.
Not really, the line is still bad.
No, man, I really forget who wrote this the other day.
This is good. This is going to be really.
And they just have like a second round pick or someone.
Like, no, no, they did. They did multiple things.
Oh, this is going to drive me nuts.
I really wish that I could retain offensive line
information, but they. Lost.
They lost Armstead. But Armstead, Yeah.
Oh, fuck. Who wrote?
I think it was Gretch. You know what?
It was Gretch. So let me go, Let me go and find
this. Yeah, I'm looking at all of
their transactions. So like I don't see.
Frankly, here's here's here's the PFF right up.
They put this out a day ago. This is the 2025 offensive line
rankings. Obviously not definitive.
We'll, we'll get, you know, lots of people doing their offensive
line analysis, setting it, but they have the Dolphins with the
25th ranked line, says Tyrone. Tyrone Armstead's retirement
sends one of the NF LS best offensive tackles to the
sideline, but. He barely.
Played the impact. They've got a second round pick.
Patrick Paul's projected to start at left tackle that that
sorry, that was their 2024 second round pick last year.
He's struggled as a rookie. Now he's their starting left
tackle. They picked up James Daniels and
they got a second round draft pick Jonah Savaina, and that
should help solidify the interior.
So that's that's three new, that's three new guys and well.
It's not giving a bus. I mean it's 2 new guys.
One of them is the guy who wasn't good enough to play them
previously who has to play because they're good player
retired. It's it's a, it's a probable
bust filling in at left tackle for Armstead and two new players
and one and and none of these guys were first round picks.
Wait, hold on. Giga brain from the chat.
Remember, left tackle not as important for a left-handed
quarterback. Right tackle more important.
You think he's less likely to get a concussion if the if he
sees the guy smashing him to the ground?
All this is, this is all I'm saying.
It's it's probable that the Miami Dolphins offensive line is
not going to be one of the league's best units.
But if you made me wager -110 one way or the other, will the
Dolphins offensive line be a storyline for the entire season
the way it was last year? I would bet no -110 just because
that is kind of the way offensive line stuff works.
Like offensive lines are rarely huge problems the year before,
then huge problems again the next year.
Because like all the organizational focus is on
devising different protection schemes, figuring out what this
guy can do, figuring out what this guy can do, and just
playing things in a different way.
That would be that would be my guess.
My my concern though is that like cuz this is fine says was
their online good in 2023 or 2022?
No, it wasn't. But two dealt with the the
concussion in 2023 that I think kind of changed things.
And we see last year at a concussion and it's like 2 was
going to IR with this, like he's missing a huge chunk of games.
The second he has a concussion. We know it's different with Tua
in the concussions. It's it's not like any other
quarterback is back there. So it's just it's a much bigger
concern that the offensive line is still looking pretty weak.
Maybe it's not the worst in the league, you know, but it's it's
below average at at the very best.
And it's probably among the 10 worst offensive lines in the
league. And that's just a bad spot to be
in if you've got to which I, you know, I don't know how much
control Mike Mcdaniel's Mike McDaniel has had over not fixing
the offensive line, which I think is a big mistake.
But I do give him credit for understanding.
I got to get the ball out super, super quick here.
And I think that's the big thing with Tyreke.
Now the question for me with the Johnny trade is, does that come
back to Tyreke? Do they start to incorporate
Tyreke more? And we have seen them do stuff
where, you know, the, the quick motion stuff and you know,
they've, they've added a new wrinkle basically every year to
try to to get Tyreke more involved, take advantage of his
speed. My hope would be that that new
wrinkle is for short targets to Tyreke that help replace some of
the Janu stuff. And then he can just get fed
that way. But I don't expect this offense
to be able to kind of take flight again because of the
offensive line and because of who they're protecting.
This is going to sound. This is going to sound stupid,
but that is like future Davis's problem.
That is like week 4 NFLDFS Davis's problem.
I'm. Not talking about.
Because I think it's, I think it's really dumb to try and
control for that right now because.
All that matters. No, because in a scenario, in a
scenario where the Dolphins offensive line plays like
roughly fine, they're like the 19th best pass block graded
offensive line in the NFL, you're gonna feel like a moron.
I don't think I will. I think that's maybe that's
where we disagree the most. I'm.
Gonna feel I'm gonna feel a OK fading Tyree kill.
This is like, I hate doing this because it's not like it's not
like because last year in a completely different situation,
it worked out very well that it's going to work out the same
way again. But like I just cannot help feel
like this Tyree kill move up and everything that's happening
right now and me getting flamed on every podcast is just like
literally exactly how I felt about Cooper cup the entire
offseason last year where it was like this cheap price that I
like had no interest in. And then he moved up and then
everybody said you got to get in like a good and good reports
like he's back. And it's just like, no, like, to
me, I'm like, I, I don't have an interest in like trying to
parse. Like to me it's just a simple
that when I have an over 30 wide receiver who starts to massively
decline, I I don't have interest in parsing out.
Is it injury? Is it offensive line?
Is it what? Like, to me, one of the reasons
why their offense was bad last year might be because Tyree kill
wasn't as good anymore. And and that might be partially
what broke their offense. Like I, I just, I'm very
confident that on the aggregate, not paying round two prices for
over 30 wide receivers whose deficiency falls off the Cliff
is going to be the right decision.
It might not be the right decision on this specific case,
but I, I, I think from a process perspective, he remains
overpriced and he's getting more so and I'm very happy to just
follow. He's moving in a range.
I I so I have 4% hill. It's not like, you know, I
wasn't like super in, but I wasn't also doing like the big
time mega fade that you were doing.
And so but you know, I'm kind of a little bit more nervous.
I'm it was at 5% in BBM. So you know, I was dabbling.
As he moves up, though, you are looking at a kind of different
tier of opportunity cost. When you have Trey McBride going
there. You've got, you know, Roshi Rice
is kind of moving up in tandem. But if if it was sitting at the
2 three turn, I had a chance to take Roshi Rice or Tyree kill.
I'm slamming Roshi Rice. TT Higgins is there.
You also have Bucky Irving, Jonathan Taylor, Josh Jacobs
even, I think. Like, I mean, Jacobs is coming
up for really strong season, you know, so I don't know, I guess I
you're moving to a different group of players that I when it
was Tyree kill versus Damonte Adams and Mike Evans, I was just
like, OK, all these guys could be washed.
Let me just take the harder mega ceiling the the nuclear ceiling.
That hasn't even lost yet. Evans has gone.
No indication of decline. Sure, but he's But he's old
enough to wear. Well, he lower body injury
could. Right.
So we but we know, but I just what I don't understand is like
we have these 3 old wide receivers.
Well, they used to all go in the third.
Because I think the decline, I think the decline thing is kind
of fake. Like I think it's a bad framing.
Like I agree with the he had the same yards per hour run as JSN
last year. I think he was slightly higher.
This is like people were this is how people were Cooper coping
last year. Like when yes, I understand that
these guys have farther to fall because they were better.
I don't care about what their actual numbers are.
I care about the decline. I care about what the actual
numbers are. That matters a lot more to me
than decline. I, I disagree.
I, I think it's because we know that the decline is extremely
steep at the wide receiver position and often irreversible.
So I, I often I, I don't think this is actually true in this
case. I, I think it's less about where
the numbers are now. I think you're catching a
falling knife. I I think it's like you're.
I certainly agree. With you with this specific
numbers and looking at, OK, well, how are this?
Because to me, it's like you're looking at a graph that is like
here and you're trying to stop it in one specific portion.
I think often the reason why we see these numbers get propped up
is because you're catching a lag where this offense had a person
in their plans and then they realize it's not the same player
anymore and they have to change plans.
And so they're getting inflated numbers because they're trying
to build around a superstar. He wasn't that superstar
anymore. He's just a guy wearing his
jersey. I think your argument would be a
lot stronger if Waddle had done anything last year, but Waddle
was was I get that absolutely evaporated from the offense as
well. They couldn't get the ball to
the receivers. I just, and you know, also like
I know I am parsing it, but like I wrote this up every week, it
was just crystal, crystal clear what was happening.
Like it was predictable. You'd go into it, you'd like
they're going to have to pass, but they're all going to just
pass a bunch to a Chan and Jonnu because they cannot do anything
else other than get the ball out in like 2.4 seconds.
Like that's their whole game plan.
So why? Why did they not get the ball
out fast at Tyree Kell if he was still good?
He's like they used to. They used to and they did some.
I mean it's. Just they didn't have the.
Same. Tyreek, even in Kansas City,
like his absolute peak peak peek.
It wasn't like you think about oh man, what was the peak Tyreek
play? It was never like, you know, a a
quick alert screen or whatever to him like that wasn't really
his game. He's not like a a tackle breaker
like it's, it's more like you want to get.
Into one well, sure as part of why he had a way higher ceiling
in Miami by by the way, Matt Harmon yesterday this was like,
I mean, do you want to talk about tweets that I want to see
on my timeline? Those once terrifying dig routes
to Tyreek Hill down there in Miami were not very scary last
year, especially against man coverage.
Looking forward to the reception perception.
I'm very intrigued to see the results when that comes out.
This is 1 where you and I don't really fully agree here, but if
the price changes, then I think we do agree because there's just
like there's enough inherent risk where I'm going to be like,
hey, man, this guy, he wasn't he wasn't that efficient.
Like he did fall off to a level that I don't love.
It's just not it's not like, OK, he's definitely washed, but when
it if he's going to move up to the 2 three turn, there's a ton
of risk there. And and it it's also like you're
now moving into a group of guys who have really big upside.
So now, like to me, the thing with Hill that made him more
appealing at the end of the third or even kind of the mid to
end of the third is that I do think that he has the ceiling of
a guy kind of more at the 2 three turn.
So it's like, all right, I'm getting a discount.
I'm getting I'm getting the ceiling and I'm not having to
pay full price. But now if he moves up to the 2
three turn, I'm like Rashi Rice could easily, easily outscore
Tyreke even if he hasn't fallen off.
Like there's there's a lot and that that and he's not the only
one there. You know that there was a
question here about Tyreke's potential price next year.
And I think that that's a helpful way to frame it.
Like where do you think he gets? Drafted well, because of the way
underdog. Because of the way underdog
drafters behave basically like age decline is priced in even if
it's unseen, right? Devante Adams being priced like
there's age-related decline. We haven't seen Derrick Henry.
I mean, I guess Derrick Henry a little bit less this year, Joe
Mixon, like it's just the way that you can.
You can turn the Todd, I mean Barclay's going like 4th.
Barclay's 2018 comes back and he has his 2023 season.
He'll probably go in like the early second or one two term
like he won't go with the one O 3 like he used to, but it'll go.
I would expect that the 1-2 turn.
I'm going to run. 2023 season, but I'm going to also go where
Cooper Cup goes right now if he has a not very good season.
Let's do a quick stathead filter for his aging cohort.
And I want Jacob, who is more numerically strenuous than I am,
to help me run it. What?
What parameters would you set to find a good cohort for Tyreek's
age? 2024 season and then check their
N plus ones. Oh God.
Like 115 targets, 5 or more touchdowns, 900 or more yard.
How many scrimmage yards did he have?
Yeah, but that's like that doesn't capture it.
Like to to me, like you have to look at like and I wouldn't
have, I wouldn't think of how to do this for these names, but
like you'd have to be looking at guys who had.
Who were really good performance.
And then had like a year that is like what you're describing that
is good for most players, but like quite bad for them.
Like it's, it's a very specific case 'cause like, otherwise
you're going to get like Courtland Suttons in your
sample. But like Tyree kill is like a a
fundamentally different type of bat.
Than I just, I'm not as sure that like because he fell off he
it means we're like he has hit this irreversible and very steep
decline that ends, you know, in in him being.
Absolutely, Larry, Larry Fitz, Larry Fitzgerald came back
obviously different style of player.
All right, here I'm going to Crane here, I'm going to share
my. Like a season really, especially
given the context around the Dolphins inability to move the
ball down field. It really wasn't that bad.
But again, if he moves up to the tooth, I kind of hope he moves
up to the tooth return and I can just, you know, stand on well.
He's up there now. He's currently he's currently in
Round 2. Yeah, Yeah.
All right. Well then good then we we agree
at this point. Share This.
Share. This screen, Yeah.
All right, So this is age 3031. From 2010 to now, 115 targets,
900 receiving yards, 5 receiving touchdowns.
Pretty interesting that Tyreek's season from last year is all the
way at the bottom of this list in terms of.
PPR points. Can you just set the filter of
men's plus? Yes, but theoretically if you're
setting the. That's how that works well.
Often times when I run this, I find that these guys are roughly
in the middle of of in terms of PPR points 'cause I didn't set a
PPR point filter. I see.
OK.
So, so generally speaking, when you're doing this, you'd like
him to be in a banded range that's like that.
You can kind of squint and see anything.
I gotta say, my first instinct on looking at this is a little
bearish about Tyreek specifically.
Larry one is that's that's intriguing.
You've got Larry, you've got Devante Adams, you've got you've
got Roddy White. Where?
Where's? Devante.
Oh yeah, He's like up there about 117 points higher.
Yeah, well, I mean, touchdowns obviously are a, are a huge.
You know what? I kind of think Roddy White is
sort of an interesting comparison.
Where What did Roddy White do after that specific season?
I mean, he was awesome. He.
He had counter counterpoint here, guys.
Yeah, yeah. Unicorns are not found in the
zoo. Wow, I don't even know 100% what
that means, but it's a. Definite fault, but it's I don't
know what it means, but it's provocative.
But it's provocative. Again, going, people going,
people are getting going in the chat.
The chat is a light. Yeah, with Dave, that is a bar,
not going to lie. That is, that is a bar.
Now you want to know what a real a real bearish one would be?
Lock it age 30 to age 31. Where like the age Cliff found
him and he did not come back. Yeah, I mean, I, I'm not arguing
the presence of the age Cliff. I think the the way we find the
age Cliff is maybe a slightly different process.
But at this point we agree that it is too risky at the current
ADP. Let's let's attempt to talk
about a second riser here before before it turns 11 my time.
Are you, are you, are you still a complete Jalen waddle hater
Pat or have you, have you opened your mind to?
Yeah, I don't, I just, I guess I really, I don't get the argument
that I'm the the Waddle argument is Tyreek fell off because he's
old and so that's actually good for Waddle.
Waddle fell off because of the offense and not because he was
sort of propped up by the McDaniel shenanigans and the
fact that he was actually worse than Tyree kill last year, who's
an aging receiver and inevitable decline isn't a big deal because
Tyree is going to decline further and Waddle will be fine.
I don't know. I just like, I feel like we're
just like bending ourselves into a pretzel.
Like I to me, it's I think the offense wasn't right last year.
I don't have a lot of confidence that it will be right.
And even with Tyree falling off, Waddle was still worse.
And so he's probably still the wide receiver too, on his own
team in an offense that went from being really exciting to
being kind of scary as far as the wide receiver production
goes. And now that Jon, who's gone,
there's optimism that Waddle, you know, is going to get some
of that, some of the design stuff or it'll just be a bigger
part of the offense and the prices moved up to reflect that.
So no, I, I think we moved Waddle up, but I still find him
to be kind of a tough click. And I honestly hope he continues
to rise because it's sort of the same thinking where I, I, I feel
more, I feel more risk, I think, than you do on Tyreke.
So I would rather just feel confident that he's too
expensive. Yeah, that's, that's fair.
I'm I'm getting a little uncomfortable at this price.
I mean, most of my like slam waddle was back at this like big
board price. Even since BBM it's been in the
mid 5th. It's been a target for me, but
not not a massive 1. I'll say two things.
I mean, well, First off, I can see that like if you're just
trying to do like this is like a formal logic class and you're
like trying to draw the string around the easiest path that
like you're, you're correct that like the the it's a bit of an
inside straight to be like, well, Tyreek was old and the
Waddle's actually like I, I get all that part.
I I think the logical explanation.
Yeah, that I I gotta say, I gotta say I'm just like from
like philosophical hierarchy. I'm not buying being world's
biggest Jalen Waddle buyer while also simultaneously being like.
I mean, I think I have like 9% Jalen Waddle, so I would not say
I'm the. Word.
Well, I think of you as being the Jalen Waddle.
Guy But I, I think another explanation to me would just be
that like everything was kind of broken and so they just focused
on easier stuff and it was broken because two of us hurt.
It was broken because Tyreke was not as good.
It was broken because Waddle was injured like constantly.
And they just never had any opportunity to like solidify
around him. And they just started doing
what's like the easiest thing we can do and that that it was like
triage offense. And then the other argument that
I guess I find more persuasive to me personally, but I suspect
nobody else will find persuasive because it's not neat.
It's just that like the world works in mysterious ways.
And I think that more often than not, we like try to overanalyze
why things happen. And I would rather just take
like the zoomed out view of the trends without trying to like
attach a specific reason for each individual circumstance.
And to me, I'm like looking at it from from a zoomed out view.
And I'm like Tyreek Hill older player seems to be in in fairly
substantial decline. Waddle prime age player coming
off of two straight years, 2.5 yards per outrun.
Consistently good target owner under multiple coaching Staffs.
And then what make? Any sense to me that he would be
bad now? Like I just don't know the
precedent for it. So I'm just much less concerned
about his down year than Tyrese. I, I am convinced that, you
know, last year was, was kind of related to the need to get the
ball out quickly. And you're hearing again that 2
is big focus this year is getting the ball out even
quicker. I do concede, though, that I'm
making an assumption that that's how it'll work this year and my
assumptions based on still having to and still not having a
good offensive line, but that's, that could be totally wrong.
Like I, I guess what I would say is like, even if I'm right that
the reason last year's offense look like it did was, was
because of the like specific personnel stuff that we all feel
like we observed. And and that is why it doesn't
mean that it's then going to happen again in 2025 and it
could return more to to what we saw in 2023.
That's definitely possible. I guess my, my thing is, I still
think Tyree could be the primary beneficiary there, but but maybe
he has fallen off and it's actually Waddle.
We had a comment here that to me kind of crystallizes like why
would we bet on on Waddle when you could take like a George
Picken? Like, if you're going to do a
double stack of these receivers, why why wouldn't you want to
have Pickens, who's coming off a very efficient season after
another very efficient season in 2023, who's never had good
quarterback play? He's never had an offensive
coordinator that we really respect at all.
And now he's moving to, you know, maybe the coaching isn't
isn't what we want, but he's moving to Dak Prescott and an
offense that could lean on the past.
This is a really, really big quarterback upgrade for him.
And he's a young player who's ascending.
I don't have to like do this bounce back stuff.
I can just take a guy who looks to be on the rise.
There's, there's a lot of opportunity cost here for
Waddle. Someone was asking about, you
know, what's the difference between the 5th and the 6th.
It's the players that you're giving up to take.
Waddle and I, I, I do think he's moved into a range of guys that
I would, I just have, I have a harder time clicking him now,
even with a a slightly improved opinion of of how a season might
look after the Johnny trade. Yeah, well, I'm, I'm nine
percent waddle and 24% Pickens. So no, no argument on Pickens.
All right, let's do Crane, let's do the, let's do the followers.
We don't need to talk about Kittle Dobbins or or any of
these guys. We also need to get to the tight
end discourse before we do last call at at some point 'cause I
think it is pretty interesting. So we have Janu, that one is
pretty obvious firing with pretty obvious Barkley is.
I mean, I don't really think we need to talk about it.
I think the market is just sort of realizing that the wide
receivers are better picks we are going to get.
Slash it's peak slappy. It's it's not maybe not peak
slappy, but there's it's also up and we're all just.
It's real. It's real sloppy.
There's. No one has come into this party
in about 3 weeks or. Correct.
And I think Zach has another hours and McBride slide for us
to do so let's let's do Hunter here.
How much of this is the slightly bearish quotes from mini camp
talking about how the team views him as a quarterback first?
The reason why he was practicing a wide receiver was because I
think he has more to learn there.
How much of it is the slappies kind of getting some cold water
in their face? You know, first the you wake up
the night after a binge and you're like, Jesus Christ, maybe
we don't take a defensive back in the fourth round.
For what it's worth, I actually am taking more Hunter now than I
was before, where I thought Jacob was being irresponsible
before. But now that my decisions are
Courtland Sutton or Travis Hunter or Calvin Ridley or
Travis Hunter, to me, those are not really decisions.
I mean, I think you take the guy who just went #2 in the NFL
draft and then gets comps to like Justin Jefferson.
Like to me, if he, he feels quite, quite easy.
And I also want to make a a note here because I have continually
been getting this everywhere. Brett Jones just said the Bears
notes for Hunter or the Vegas over underlines.
If you are drafting you are fantasy football teams to win
$2,000,000 on underdog fantasy based off of median projections
from a game that is designed for you to be able to beat it right?
The higher lowers on underdog. I don't know man, just just go
put your money in Vanguard or something That is not is not how
the game. Your goal looking at a median
projection should be to try and beat that line.
You should be saying this is something that underdog or
whatever is is. Not well.
And also like with with Travis Hunter, you're looking guy with
a really wide range of outcomes where like there's times where
he loot where you you don't beat that line by a lot because he's
a cornerback. There's also times where you
beat that line by a lot because he plays receiver a bunch and
he's. Really good.
He's probably the widest standard deviation of literally
any player in the pool. Yeah.
So that's where I would kind of push back on that kind of frame
is like, hey, that's like literally a different game with
with different ways to win. Yeah, different you have.
There's just way different incentives there.
Yeah, there's extremely different incentives.
Guys with really wide range of outcomes there aren't aren't
super helpful where they're actually extremely helpful at
the right price in a game like WrestleMania.
Yeah, the hunter thing, I mean his ADP is like not fall.
It's it's not falling to the degree that the sentiment is
negative. And I guess that's just a
function of this game where like, it really only matters
what the highest person. On the so I was gonna say it's a
fun, it's a function of this lappies.
Right. So it's like, yes, like it's, it
seems like in every draft pod, like especially if you just like
filter by Twitter that it's like, yeah, there's probably
nine people in your draft room who.
Well, yeah, the case would never be in the.
Travis Hunter, right, Like there's there's people like, I
mean, there's I was arguing with someone on Twitter yesterday who
like thinks that Diami Brown is, is like very likely going to
outscore Travis Hunter. So it's like you're or something
like that. Or watch Diami Brown play.
So there are people like that in every room.
So there's like 8 people who are not even, you know, interested
in Travis Hunter whatsoever. But like, all that really
matters is what is what the one person who clicks and thinks.
And so that's why is ADP will continue to, to stay higher
despite people's extreme anger at the, at the audacity of, of
people taking an interest and trying to win a basketball
tournament. But I would say that I I'm not
actually taking, I'm not scooping the value as much as I.
Thought that I would because part of why I was so high on him
earlier is because there's like no one in the fourth or the
early 4th that I like have any interest in outside of Marion
Hampton and Ted McMillan and Travis Hunter.
Whereas there's like actually more players at the four or five
turn that I actually just like straight out better than most of
the players in the early 4th. So like I, I like Pickens better
than like if you're because the other guys that range outside of
the elite quarterback. So I have taken more of them,
but like once Breece goes, I do like Tap and I'm interested in
Hampton, who's also falling. But like, I don't care at all
about like James Cook. I don't care all about Kyron.
I don't really like Worthy, though.
I've mixed him in. I don't like Jameson at all.
So it's like I I just take, I prefer George Pickens and Kittle
and Hertz and Waddle to all of those guys anyhow.
So I wouldn't say that I'm like scooping him that much more.
If he gets like if he falls even further and he could ever get to
like the 5-6 turn, that would be excellent because there's
literally only two players I ever collected the 5-6 turn.
It's Trevion, Anderson and Chris Olave.
It'd be great to have a third. But yeah, it's just, it's been,
I don't know, I haven't been scooping as much as I had hoped,
but I I would love him to fall a little because then you could
even get Thomas in the early 2 and then Hunter in the late 5th.
If that's the thing you can do more often.
That would be really, really fun.
I wonder if that's where we're headed, because that's like
really fun if you can get that to happen.
You could also see Thomas, you know, becoming a little bit more
of a second rounder if his HN moves up.
And so like, if you're getting Tom at let's say, you know, you
can kind of more reliably get Thomas at the two O 2, maybe two
O 3, then you know, hunter doesn't have to fall quite as
far And and they're like, oh, I want those.
I I want that Hunter Thomas double stack.
I don't have to take just hunter without Thomas.
I don't know, maybe that would be fun.
I just want this to happen. I'm just wish casting to be
honest, but. I think it will.
I mean it. Wouldn't it be great to fall?
He's continuing to fall. And as we get more and more into
August, you get more and more non slappies and drafts and like
the non slappies, like hate this guy.
I, I, I don't under it's like a psychological thing.
I don't understand. I don't understand.
Why they hate them so much? They.
They talk themselves on players, but anyway, they they.
Don't they? They hate them so much that they
have talked themselves into Diami Brown Like just a player
with basically 0 good results ever.
Playing He doesn't have 800 yards receiving in four years.
I'm overweight. Comments like this I just want
to see if we can get how tilted we can get Jacob here.
Jaden Reed over Hunter. Easy.
Yeah, like it doesn't, it doesn't tilt me because like I
look, I got I was doing research for column that's that's out.
Well, half of it is out. I'm thinking about thinking and
I'm looking at like the old rookie prices and like that
actually tilted me. Like, it tilted me thinking
like, you know, the best chance that I would ever have to win
this tournament has already passed because, like, Garrett
Wilson used to be drafted as wide receiver, 59 as the 10th
overall pick. But did Garrett Wilson have to
tackle Jonathan Taylor between offensive?
Series, but it's so it's like and it tilts me greatly that
like we no longer live in that era, but like seeing comments
like this, it's like, Oh good, actually, like there there are
still people who play this game that like are are just playing
player props in tournament form. Jacoby Myers over Hunters, are
you tilted yet? If you guys if.
You really I really understand like what leads like what are
the what are the decisions that we make in our lives that lead
us here to where we're like like that.
I just don't that. I just.
Can't. He's getting philosophical.
We almost got him all right. Dobbs over Hunter.
Actually, he doesn't believe that one.
That's just to tilt you. Oh, we got Sky Moore over
Hunter. That I don't think someone
believes Scott Moore. That's that's like that's that
you bluff too much, Sir. Call I I don't think you
believe. That hunter over Mclaurin.
Oh, we got a bull. See this.
Is. I think this is.
By the way, this is. Why the 80 people die?
Yeah. I was it's what's really funny
is these people, the the Hunter has to tackle Jonathan Taylor.
People like they are doing the reverse of what I said earlier,
like, oh, that's future Davis's problem.
Like they're saying like, oh, the fact that Travis Hunter is
this awesome wide receiver, that's future me's problem.
Like they're doing, they're doing the reverse.
Like they're going to have this come to Jesus moment in like
week 3 when Hunter has like a nine reception, 111 yard 2
touchdown game and like also has like a great pass breakup on
defense or something. There's going to have to be
like, oh, actually fantasy football, particularly top heavy
tournaments like this are a game of being better at identifying
outliers. Like if you and if you
basically, not to say that there even is a skill in identifying
outliers there, there probably is.
But if you don't give yourself a chance to draft outliers at all
and you're just like, yeah, dude, my wide receiver room of
Jacoby Myers, Darius Slayton, Romeo Dubs, like I'm ready to go
to war. Basically what you are doing is
you are saying I'm actually not interested in winning Like I
just want to advance. Some teams, you know, there's
two ways to look at we're all going to lose anyways.
That's the thing. I honestly believe one of that,
one of those is to be like, look, this is an extremely,
unimaginably top heavy tournament.
You know, we shouldn't really be that worried about median
outcomes. We shouldn't even be worried
about like 90th percentile outcomes.
Like it requires like 99th percentile outcomes to win this
99.99. Not on the player level, on the
team level. On the team level, but like it's
it also is a weekly base game and three of the four sections
are one week scenarios. So like we should be focused on
specifically targeting who are the players most likely to have
weekly ceiling in weeks 15 through 17, because that is 75%
of the stages and that's way higher than 75% of the EV that
gets calculated in that period. So I, I, I just, I'm not really
that concerned about like season losing or, or team losing picks
from that standpoint. But I think you.
May have answered this question already then, but there's a lot
of concern in the chat about not just how much he plays on
offense, but the fact that he's playing on defense, that he's
going to essential face bigger injury risks.
Are you handcuffing him at all with with Jerry and Jones or
tyrant Tyson Campbell? Yeah, that is something to
consider. But I, I, I actually do, I
actually think that. There is.
A. This is a legitimate
psychological like philosophical point of view that I have.
Is that like because 99.9% of us will not win that?
I think a lot of people actually don't try to win, especially in
the social media age. I think they just draft teams so
that they can post things on Twitter.
To. Feel good.
And like the way to do that is like advance rate I think
primarily. And so I think people are
optimizing a lot for advance rate.
So like feel good and they want to have takes that are are
right, as in like my player was better than X player and like
it's pretty it's a pretty good bet to be an anti hunter person
on that level because like there's obviously like very
clearly discernible ways where it could fail and like and fail
big. You could have a take that is
like insert 13th round wide receiver will actually outsport
Travis Hunter and like it's like on that level A1V1 bet, you take
any other 13th round player versus any other fifth round
player and like your odds are very bad.
But your odds betting against Hunter with like Romeo Dobbs are
like actually reasonable. Like it's not that hard to
envision Romeo Dobbs of scoring Travis Honda this year.
So like I, I think that it's a, it's a reasonable, it's a
reasonable way to play it from that point of view.
This is yeah, this this sums up back it's playing outscores
Hunter it generally. I agree actually it it genuinely
wouldn't be surprising that's I agree.
I'd be pretty surprised. Because that has any impact on
how I draft personally. But I agree that it wouldn't be
that surprising. It'd be pretty surprising.
I here's here's maybe one one way to kind of frame the hunter
stuff, though, because people are saying like I would take
golden ahead of him and CBK is now coming after my guy, who I
didn't even expect to be my guy, but Luther burden Olamiti
versus. That's not really, oh, oh, I
read that as a doomsday versus burden.
And I was like, that's not that hot of a take, but.
No, it's pretty hot. It's pretty hot take.
Why do people hate rookies? Like why are there people that
are convinced that rookies are bad picks?
Like I I literally had this argument on like sorry I'm.
Because they've been burned by rookies.
But like, he's burned. Someone tweeted out yesterday,
like last week, it was like Marvin Harrison, last year's
proof that now rookies are overdrafted.
It's like like literally look at a board from last year after
Marvin Harrison, Malik Neighbors, good pick.
Brian Thomas, fantastic pick. One of the best picks in all
fantasy last year lad. McConnell.
He went right next to all. Fantasy last year, Brock Bowers,
like arguably the best pick in all fantasy last week.
So it's just like Jane Daniels was the best quarterback.
Like what? What are we doing?
Like Bucky Irving was one of the best late round picks like every
single year, even last year, rookies make up an extremely
disproportionate portion of the big hits.
And last year if you even just looked at it as like a binary
good pick, bad pick, they were way more good than bad in the
early rounds. So like, I don't understand why
people still have in their mind that like everybody's just over
hyping the rookies. Happens every year and it's
like, no, that doesn't happen every.
Year, the chat. The chat is doing it.
Literally, the chat is doing it right now.
Blake Quorum, great pick. What percentage of rookies
actually meet their draft price? This is just not the mental
framework to evaluate this tournament.
Yeah, you need to have teams. Or really any tournament because
you know, to Jacob's point about needing to hit these really high
end outcomes, you need to hit it on the team level.
You need to stack bets that win together, but those bets need to
win pretty big. So or at least you need to have
some guys that are crushing ADP paired with dudes who are also
hits. So I mean, the biggest rookie
push back that I would accept is like, I've definitely drafted
teams with too many rookies, you know, and there's and there are
going to be rookies who absolutely crush us this year
and are zeros, you know, and I was drafting a bunch of sky
Moore like I've I've. Guess what?
There's also going to be There's also going to be a bunch of
veterans. There's also going to be a bunch
of veterans who suck ass. Yeah, Well, that's, that's true.
That's very true. But I I will say rookies.
Count. Actually, that doesn't count.
If you draft a veteran who sucks ass, it's actually just a good.
Pick How did drafting Naji Harris work for you dude?
Congratulations on your 7% advance rate brother.
The I mean, there is something to the idea of like a rookie can
stay healthy, you know, and in the eighth round do nothing like
Quentin Johnston just being a total, total bust of an eighth
round pick without getting hurt, you know, and that that really
hurts. It's it's it's painful.
Keon Coleman, like just like, well, this team sucks now.
And it could have been awesome. It it it is painful to to have
these rookie bus and I so I think they're kind of like, you
know, a little bit of salt in a dish where you got to figure out
the right it's the right way to add them to your teams to make
sure you're not like just taking on an inordinate amount of risk.
But the idea that like rookies are systemically overpriced, I
think is really wrong. I agree with you there.
Yeah. And I think, like the other
thing is if you don't add any salt to your dish, it's just
going to be super bland in a tournament where you need you
need some zest, you need some pop to actually win this thing
like Luther Burden. I don't know, man.
That seems like maybe you're like, oh, Garrett Wilson will
never get another shot at this. Like I don't think.
I think their ceilings are pretty comparable in year 1 as
as prospects now long. Term not true.
I think it is, I think it is I think Luther Burden, given the
situation that he has, given the the explosiveness that he has as
a player, given the kind of the pedigree he had headed into last
year. My concern with Burden are all
about kind of floor and what's most likely.
But if you think about like what is what does this guy look like
at his at the top end in, in an offense with Ben Johnson, with
a, with an actual quarterback, unlike unlike Garrett Wilson has
ever had really, then yeah, I think the ceiling's pretty
close. And he's actually, he's, I
think, cheaper now than Wilson was going.
He's not, not quite, but he's he's close.
He's getting close. He's all in every day.
Getting close, I I resent that 39th overall pick looser burden
as the wide receiver 3 on the Bears is the same upside as 10th
overall pick wide receiver 1 Garrett Wilson.
But I agree that it's an incredible pick.
Zach, Zach Wilson is doing a lot of my work for me there, a lot
of my work. But he was going into year 2 and
had a pretty similar work year to Caleb, so maybe they're kind
of the same bet. Actually, yeah, all right, fair
enough. But it is, it's reminiscent at
the very least. It's, it's not, it's not the
same ceiling. I'll give it to you.
But it's it's it is reminiscent. And it's it's one of those
things where I'm like, man, I'm not I don't have any more times
we're going to get a a rookie with this high of upside in like
the 125 range, you know, like, come on, like you're just
sitting because he falls too. Like whatever.
I think his ADP is still in the one teens, but he falls.
And on DraftKings, you're you're it's like, should I take that's
where it is? Like people do think Darius
Slayton is going to go, you know, going to score more points
than him because he's basically going ahead of him now.
You know, it's kind of crazy on DraftKings so far, he's falling.
Yeah, it's pretty wild. He he burden is one of the
biggest reasons I entered drafts right now for.
Sure, yeah, Paul, Paul sums up. Could be an awful pick or great
one. Makes him a good pick and BBM
just. Like absolutely free expected
value. Yeah.
All right, let's go next slide. I don't remember which one it
is. There we go.
So this I just thought this was very interesting.
This is like really anecdotally that I've noticed, which is that
Bowers McBride are falling a little bit as Kittle craft it.
It's actually so anecdotally, I just didn't.
I do not feel that Ninjoku and craft are going later, which is
funny that they're both negative spots.
The last couple weeks. I feel like for me in the way
I've been drafting, they're going a little bit earlier, but
there there is something going on.
I've seen Bowers go in the third.
I've seen him get to pick like 26 before I've seen McBride.
Go. I've seen McBride go in the 4th
all. Right, I'm going to be drafting
after this if you need me. So.
I'm going to actually go and like lick something with COVID
so I can't go into work for two weeks.
So I can just grab fucking. Hours and.
I and I think. It still works in Canada.
There's AI. Got to find the spot.
There's a couple things going on here.
The first one being I assume big fantasy football is starting to
beat the negative Bauerstrom and the negative McBride drum.
And then big fantasy football always about this time of year
starts to get hip to George Kittle and the the the Super
bearish iuke stuff as well. I think is is boosting well.
Kittle Price has just not made sense the entire time, and now
it is starting to. Yeah, yeah.
I mean. I like there was just no
possible reason he ever should have been a fifth round pick.
He was a fifth round pick last year, a later one but he was
like a late 5th last year. 5-6 turn pick while McCaffrey was
going one O 1 and IU can Debo were both going in the second
round and then he went up like 7 picks in ADP.
Coming off of his best season in a while actually.
Certainly no decline while McCaffrey was going at the 1-2
turn. And then instead of their two
top wide receivers going both in Round 2, they had a guy going in
round six, Round 7 and an injured guy going in, I think
round seven, round 8. So it was like, what?
That doesn't make any sense. Their defense also got way worse
and their quarterback played in my opinion the best season he's
ever played and they passed. More than he had.
Previously so like Kittle's price has just never made any
sense till tournament. He he's actually I think it's
still my highest draft head end out of Bowers.
So I still think he's a fine pick in the mid 4th actually,
but just less of like a complete auto pick I guess.
Yeah, I don't have as much kittle as I like.
I'm overweight, but I don't have as much as I want because I've
taken so much, McBride. Well, you guys, you guys were
ripping on me for doing the double double elite tight end
move so. I don't.
Did I RIP on you? I think it's fine.
McBride's my highest drafted tight end.
The double elite. Why is your highest drafted
tight end interesting? It's hard to have.
I mean, so I have 25% McBride in 20% Bowers.
So it's not. So I have.
I only have 8% McBride, but I have exactly those number.
I have 25% Bowers and I have 23% Kittel.
I'm an 11% Kittle, so I I played it more from the McBride side.
I wish I'd played from the Kittle side since he's rising
and McBride's falling. But McBride, I think even
McBride to me is just a different type of bet than
Kittle. And it's like it's easier for me
to see kind of how week in, week out McBride is, is delivering in
a way where Kittle has been this elite spike week creator.
Maybe that changes this year, but you know, he he gives you
that. It's like him and Bowers give
you that mix of the elite spike weeks and McBride.
I think the immediate push back would be what are you talking
about? He doesn't score touchdowns.
He plays a ton on play action. He always has the touchdown
stuff by a number of different measures.
Looks really fluky that he, that he's not scored touchdowns like
this. I, I Yeah.
Dude it's just like 9 straight years of fluky shit for Trey
McBride. Just crazy.
It's to me, it's a Davis. Do you want to tell me what he
was doing nine years ago, Mr. Hyperbolic Dude, I.
Think I think I actually and. Bride was playing.
Football as his high school. Stats.
No, no, I think I did. I think I did look up his high
school stats. Davis what what filters are you
putting in right now for highschoolreference.com?
All right, we got to see if OK, I have, I have Trey McBride's
Max preps up. Let's let's do let's do a good
guess. What do we think?
All right, this actually, this is actually funnier than I could
possibly imagine. This guess guess the amount of
touchdowns Trey McBride's senior year of high school before he
attended Colorado State 3. Funniest funniest possible play
basketball. He played.
He played football. OK, if it's funny, I'll guess I
don't know one. 1. Davis.
Answer. Davis, that was an incredible
moment for you to pull up his high school stats and it would
be 1 touchdown after just ripping out not you said nine
with with no real no no real idea of what you were getting
yourself into and then to just jailed out.
It was just perfect. Well done.
I think it I by the way, I mean obviously.
I was seeing exactly what you wanted there.
Obviously that's like not the way football works.
And if he scores 10 touchdowns this year, that would just be a
real regression. Like I'm not actually saying
that Trey McBride can't score touchdowns.
But I mean, like, I to me, I think that there is like a very
real chance that Bowers is the story of the season because if
you add in the amount of volume he got is like an Amman raw St.
Brown style. Like basically he's like a
possession receiver for them last year.
If you just give him one year and I don't know if it'll ever
happen. Maybe it'll happen this year,
maybe it'll never happen. Of a Gronk level touchdown rate
where he scores a touchdown per game.
Like I don't think like Bowers is obviously not that level of
player like Gronk. Gronk is the greatest touchdown
per game touchdown per target player of all time.
But any season that it does happen for Bowers where he
scores that like, I mean, wait, he's third in the NFL and
targets last year. He he is going to be the story
of the season. You will you will be excluded
from winning without him. Gronk, like Gronk, to me, is
such a more impressive NFL player than Bowers now.
Or would I ever expect? Bowers to be.
Basically like a tackle who was also an incredible receiver.
He's basically like Calvin. He's basically like Calvin
Johnson, but also if Calvin Johnson was Lane Johnson.
Best football player of all time.
Yeah, yeah. No, it truly.
It's incredible, It's incredible.
And Bowers is a good enough real tight ends and then a really,
really good slot receiver basically, which is less
impressive, but it happens to fit our game extremely well.
So, you know, can I, can he be of the same kind of fantasy
producers as these previous elites, Kelsey Gronk?
Yeah, I think he can. And we're getting him now.
Falling for some reason. I don't, I don't know why.
I mean, I've, I've been perplexed with the Bauer stuff
the whole way. He continues now to fall behind
guys that he outscored last year.
So I I'm kind of out of ideas why this is happening.
I mean, it's just, it's foolish. But I I because because.
Big, big percent Bowers. I'm going to have a bag and I'm.
Pretty big fantasy football. Big fantasy football is against
Bowers and McBride. And I'm going to take more
McBride. I'm actually really excited
about how this is gone because I got the great CLV on Kittle and
now he's moving up so 41. So he's now no longer really in
the range of I have to pass on McBride because I know Kittle's
there for me at the four or five turn.
We no longer know Kittle's there for me at the four or five turn.
I also part of the reason I wasn't taking so much McBride
was because at the time, if you get Rice in the early thirds,
that 2-3 turn, Rice has now moved up solidly ahead of
McBride. So, so now it's going to be, I
think just like that second round pick for me like in 60% of
my, well, I think like 100% of my drafts if like a Chan and
back group are off the board, like it's just going to be
Bowers if he's there and McBride if he's not.
And Rock'n'roll I think is going to be the the plan for the rest
of the summer. Yeah, it's pretty.
It's pretty remarkable to me. The Nolan has a comment here.
Worst case scenario is like a 10% advance rate guy, so almost
half expected with spike week potential.
Other cases of the guy you need. I think that's sort of the
classic like an elite tight end probably hurting your advance
rates a little bit, but you're getting that spike week
potential in the playoffs. But like, I mean, anyone can be
a 10% advance rate guy. We could be wrong.
Bowers could just not have a good season at all and really
hurt you. But I don't even think that's
like the type of bet he is. You know, it's he's he's I
expect him to be a strong advance rate player even when
he's not the guy you need because he's going ahead of guys
he outscored and he's he's coming off an incredibly
efficient tight end season period.
And he was a rookie, so we would.
And then he gets a huge quarterback upgrade, he gets a
big coaching upgrade. Like everything's kind of
pointing in the direction that we would expect him to be
ascending. And yet his ADP is following.
He's going behind dudes where I don't really see the strong case
for them to be like better advance rate picks than him.
Like he, I think he just adds more points to my flex than a
bunch of the guys that that he's now going behind.
So. Yeah.
I, I, I don't, I don't really. I don't know.
The only compelling thing is that all of tight end is priced
really weird. So like I I agree.
I think that Bowers and McBride don't actually require the
positional scarcity argument to be good picks ADP because I
think they will just score more points than the players they're
being drafted around. But that is also true of the
late tight ends and kind of almost even the mid tight ends.
The difference to me is that argument is a lot more
compelling in terms of building, like the highest median
projecting team. But part of the reason why we
draft running backs and wide receivers that project worse
ahead of tight ends from rounds like 10 through 18 is there's
just wider bands on the running backs and receivers.
The running backs have a lot of contingent value.
A lot of those receivers are like young, athletic players who
in theory can do things that the tight ends just can't.
So it's like, yeah, it makes sense that Hunter Henry, it will
be a a higher median that the receivers and running backs
going around him. But like Hunter Henry's band is
extremely narrow. Like he, he can only do so much.
He's Hunter Henry, he's going to have 60 catches for 650 yards
and six touchdowns or whatever. So to me, like, again, applying
that tournament lens, the fact that you also get to score
comparably in the early rounds of tight end where the feeling
is also similar and the median is also similar.
It's just so much more compelling.
And then yeah, I'm I'm OK sacrificing some of the late
tight ends who score a little bit more because like I don't
really want to waste three of my late bets on picks that like
can't be league winning picks because they're like 482 dad
running tight ends. So I I just think it's like
projection brain in a game that projections are helpful too, but
in a game that is not decided by median projections.
So I just don't think that they're a particularly like that
should not be our North star for how we play basketball.
It should be an input. They don't have to be ignored,
but it shouldn't be like as simple as this.
These guys project better at this range of the draft, so we
take them. We have to understand why they
project better and whether that's helpful to the actual
game we're playing, which is a weekly one, which is weighted
end of season and is very ceiling based.
Yeah. And projection being this is a
this is what I expected this player to score over the total
of a season, reflecting kind of the range of outcomes boiled
down into into one stat line, which, as we just talked about
with Travis Hunter, stuff is going to hide guys who have the
really wide range of outcomes, which is pretty important to to
understand which guys can really, really crush their AD PS
and which dudes are. Well, this is all you know.
You're hoping they beat it by a round.
All of this is kind of window dressing to like the fundamental
truth of fantasy football that people like me ignore when they
talk about guys like Jameson Williams, which is that huge
spikes in scoring, whether it be over the course of a season or
in a single game are more likely to come the volume than
efficiency. And none of these players
highlighted maybe in Joku. I mean, in Joku could actually
have 140 target season in in some of the scenarios.
But Bowers is like sort of open to like, I mean, you could just
leave the NFL in targets, they could lead the NFL in receptions
and that is like way more likely to give you these crazy spikes
in season long and single game scoring.
Then, oh, he just scored a bunch.
He scored a 70 yard touchdown one week.
Obviously 70 yard touchdowns are really useful, really valuable.
You like to have them. You like to draft players who
can score them, But you know, like, I remember I used to have
this argument with Leone all the time about guys like Jameson
Crowder and stuff like it's just like, what's the point?
And you know, because those guys can just sometimes wake up and
have an 11 target game. Their ceiling is actually much
higher than you would think. And like, dude, Bowers could
have what, a A200 target season if the Raiders are good, 180
target season if the Raiders offense is OK.
Like it's it's pretty big. Yeah, people are, there's a lot
of touchdown push back. It's all you know, it's, it's a
happy PR site. Touchdowns are so big and that
does help me kind of understands why there is such.
A That's a push back. Yeah, I disagree with that
pretty strongly and think that's not a good way to go, especially
because both Bowers and McBride show up as positive regression
candidates from a touchdown perspective.
So the idea that they're going to score fewer touchdowns, you
know, then some of these other bets later on, much, much bigger
target volume, I think is bad bet.
Got to come in here. Who has more touchdowns in the
playoffs? Bowers plus McBride versus
Andrews. I think we're supposed to think
Andrews there. I think Bowers plus McBride,
like buy a ton. God don't.
I don't get. But I guess if you're just
buying the touchdown numbers from last year, then then it
starts to become a weaker case for these elite tight ends.
I am not at all buying the touchdown numbers from last
year. The McBride one probably
concerns me a little bit more now that I know he scored one
touchdown in his senior year. But the Bowers one especially, I
really I'm like this guy is looking like the engine of his
offense, a true second year wide receiver type of breakout.
You know, he's he's he play, he does all the play action stuff.
He's out there when you need him to be for the tight end.
There's no red flags around him as a tight end who who would be
in the kind of an Evan Ingram, Kyle Pitts can't seem to get in
the end zone type of thing. He plays real tight end and they
utilize him on the on the types of plays where you typically do
see the tight end emphasized in the passing game.
Those kind of roll out plays around the goal line.
He's on, he's on the field, he's running the routes.
And, you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe the fact that he had
horrible quarterback play last year affected the touchdown
ability. Maybe the, the, the team wasn't
any good. Like maybe that hurt.
I, I think the fact that they upgraded the quarterback in the
coaching is, is pretty important for his, his ability to score
touchdowns. The fact that they added Genti
is good because it, it, it should keep kind of the offense
on track. Like, there's a number of ways
where Bauer's outlook just looks so much stronger than it did
last year. And that's on top of him being
an incredible prospect who just had the best rookie tight end
season ever. By the way, I do just total.
Touchdowns as a team last year because their quarterbacks were
Aidan O'Connell, Gardner Minshew and Des.
Desmond Ritter I I just There were a couple people in the chat
who just immediately balked at the idea of him seeing 200
targets. First off, there have been 8200
target seasons. All of them took place in 16
game seasons. Passing volume, obviously like
all time up in the NFL, even even with rush.
Basically, I think that is like that's not even his 99th
percentile. I think it's I, I think, I think
that's like his 93rd percentile. Like like there are just these
crazy seasons out there for for Brock Bowers, like Cooper Cup
has a 191 target season in a in a 16 game season.
I would just say that we don't need it.
You know, we we don't even need it, of course.
I just people, just people, just always people, just always they,
they think I'm, they think I'm being outlandish when I'm not.
Bowers last year finished sixth in targets, 30 receptions.
The league neighbors Garrett Wilson, Justin Jefferson, Drake
London, Brock Bowers, CD Lamb. And he played two less games,
but he he he was ahead of CD Lamb.
He was ahead of Jerry Judy. He's ahead of Amin Ross St.
Brown. In 17 games, 17 games, they each
played 17 games. He had 10 more targets than Amin
Ross St. Brown.
I don't know, seems like he got a bunch of targets like I guess
if, if like that's it's helpful for me to understand that I'm
really just betting on positive touchdown regression for one of
the all. Your that's literally that's
literally all it is. It's literally just can he get
to league average for the amount of yards that he gets, like
touchdown per yards. Yeah, so I don't have enough
Bowers. There.
People I'm I'm too light Bowers. If that's if that really is why
he's falling, then he's an even better bet than I thought.
I also think people like just he's he's almost like a victim
of his own success to me where like the rookies that are kind
of disappointing, people will constantly be like, yeah, but
he's going to get a lot better, right?
Like, and I'm not, I'm not even saying these guys are bad picks
or anything or that we shouldn't be projecting progression.
I think we clearly should be projecting progression.
But like you bring out Marvin Harrison, everybody.
So he's going to take a big step here too.
You bring up Roma Dunes, it's like he's going to take a big
step here too. Heck, you bring up Jameson
Williams, people be like, look, he last year was his first full
year. You know, going into Year 4,
that's going to be a big breakout.
Then you bring up Bowers and it's like, I don't know, man.
Like, I don't know if he can match what he did last year.
He ran a lot of routes and like, yeah, maybe the quarterbacks are
a little bit better. But like, if he only does what
he did last year, it's not going to be a very good pick.
Like, like the idea that Bowers will just get better as a player
this year is like not even something that people are are
willing to consider because I guess he was already so good.
Yeah, that it's like the idea of progression from him is like,
like people won't even consider it.
People. It's like, well, this is what he
was last year. And I guess we can say like
quarterback efficiency up, touchdowns up, volume down,
whatever. But like, why can't he just get
better? He's 21.
He's gotten better every year of his life.
He's probably going to continue to get a lot better.
He has less room to grow, obviously, than players who are
worse than him. But like he, we should still be
projecting progression from him. We saw that from other players,
like Jamar Chase is a lot better now than he was as a rookie.
Justin Jefferson's better now. CD Lamb, CD Lamb, CD Lamb.
People used to call people used to call CD Lamb Beta Lamb.
They say, oh, he can only play out of the slot.
Brock Bowers, at 17 years old, led the national champion
Georgia Bulldogs in touchdowns, yards and and receptions.
But it's it's certainly impossible that he'll ever get
better. Do we have another slide?
Is that it? Let me let me one last thing on.
One last thing. One last thing is that we're now
getting to the point where, like, to Jacob's point about
rookies getting better, we're getting to the point where if
Bowers is falling to the third, which is insane to me, that
means he might be going behind Marvin Harrison, a player who
was far less efficient than we were hoping last year, a player
who failed to hit 900 yards right like.
I'm I'm blind buying Marvin Harrison too.
I'm not, I'm not like a different show.
I think it's not. Reasonable, but it's.
Yeah, Bowers had 112 receptions last year.
Harrison had 62. Harrison probably had fewer
targets than Bowers had receptions, I bet.
Harrison had 114 targets and Bowers had a. 100.
And 12 receptions, yeah. So just barely cleared the
targets. Yeah.
Over receptions, 885 yards to Bowers, 1194, the spot he got
him, he picked them on the touchdowns.
He's got 8. Bowers had five.
So that's. But also, Marvin Harrison got a
big quarterback upgrade and a big OS.
Oh, wait, no, he he's actually the same.
But Bowers, all right. Status quo situation versus
major upgrades and someone took Marvin Harrison ahead of Brock
Powers. That's happened in the
tournament. Why?
I don't I mean both these guys are kind of high, high end
prospects for their position, but one of them's coming off
this incredible rookie year gets all these upgrades.
The other dudes status quo after a disappointing rookie year.
I'm not out on Harrison. I do take some Harrison, but
that just does not make any sense to me.
It I just I guess 3 touchdowns are enough to to flip all the
other evidence. I don't get it.
Anyway, let's move on I. Think we have one more, one more
slide. I got nothing.
I got nothing to say about this other than that people are
finally woke. Jacob, I, I read your piece and
I thought it was very interesting.
Couldn't have disagreed more with your conclusion.
But I, I liked the attempt that you used to get there on, on CMC
because I mean, I guess we could just do this very quickly.
If CMC is active in week 17, he's going to be projected for
the most points of any skill position player.
We just disagree on the likelihood of him achieving.
We just disagree on the likelihood of him achieving that
Week 17 activity. Effectively, I don't even know
if we'd disagree on the likelihood.
It's just to me, it's just like a game.
It's just like a tournament format thing.
Like I in the main event, I will be very into Christian McCaffrey
at this price. But in in basketball Mania
specifically, because so much of it is weekly.
I care a lot less about that. Like the argument of he has the
highest season long ceiling and he will project for the most
points each week if he's healthy is like considerably more
persuasive to me in a standard redraft league and slightly
less, but still very, very persuasive to me in the main
event. And then another tier of less
persuasive to me in basketball mania where I don't need to beat
Christian McCaffrey all year long if he's healthy, I just
need to beat him in one week. And even if he projects better,
my odds are still pretty reasonable of doing that with
insert other first round pick. So I I find that his floor
remains very low relative to other first round picks due to
injury concerns. Hey man, you can't.
Even prove we're going to be. Alive.
You can't even prove we're going to be alive tomorrow.
And the famous words I can't. Kyle Shannon, I certainly can't
prove that. Yeah.
I mean, I'm glad that I got in some of him early.
I mean also funny enough, that's the first time I've drafted
literally a single share of Christian McCaffrey in like 3
years. So.
But yeah, it's tough. I'm not.
I won't be clicking in the rest of the summer for sure.
Yeah, I mean, the the floor on McCaffrey does make him harder
to click in in BBMI think cuz they're all these guys do have
really high ceilings, you know, and the receivers in that range
are really good picks. So I've definitely taken Les
McCaffrey. Like I tend to break ties
towards the receiver there as he's as he's moved up, he's
definitely a harder click. He seems kind of like he's going
to flip Puka. And at that point, I think I'm
out. Like, I just want Puka every
time over McCaffrey. I mean, Puka is going to project
really well, too. And then he weeks, you know,
that he's healthy. And I think the way the rest of
the landscape breaks down, Puka's what I can't get later as
far as, you know, having a guy who's who's just crushing at
wide receiver, wide receiver kind of dries up.
OK, I I have AI have a hot take. I'm going to leave.
Well, actually, you know what? I'm not even going to say it.
It's too It's too dark to even say it.
Adams outscores puka. Is that where you're going?
No, I was gonna go. I was gonna go with puka.
Nikua could be a literal generational.
Remember that guy? Because his body just isn't
built to hold up to professional football.
He's missed every every year. He's played organized football.
He's missed multiple games with an injury.
Well, how many games did he miss in a senior year high school?
I'm not. I'm not even shitting you.
Literally most of it. You're you're definitely not
allowed to flood other players injury profiles when bull
posting for Christian McCaffrey. I could do.
I could do what?
You're not, you're not allowed to be like I will take Christian
McCaffrey over X because X is injury prone.
Like if injury prone has any meaning, which is probably still
a matter for debate. It like has to apply to the guy
who has played one week 17 in the last five years.
Hey man, I can play and say and do whatever I.
Want well, the thing about the injury, we're prone, prone
people is that like there's no we never we don't ever seem to
like review the history books on like who has been injury prone
and isn't anymore. Remember when Kittle was injury
prone? Remember when my the funniest
one was Matt Stafford got this Rep as injury.
Prone. Stafford was injury prone.
Because he played through a torn labrum, he never even missed
time. He played through a torn labrum
and people said he was injury prone.
It just, it gets applied to guys.
I mean, look, if you suffer a bunch of like lower leg
injuries, it's probably more likely that you'll suffer
another lower leg injury. Whatever.
I'm not a doctor. There's probably some, you know,
kind of compensatory injuries and all that stuff, but like it
we just apply it Will and Neil and a guy gets hurt, it's like,
ah, his injury probably got hurt twice.
He's injury prone now and then we just like take we quietly go
at the end of the season and take it off.
The guys who didn't get hurt that year, we we just didn't
have injury prone again. It's absolutely ridiculous
behavior. Yeah.
So I'm not buying into the puka injury prone thing.
I'm. Not what I'm buying into he.
Had 3.59 yards per hour run last year.
This dude is insane. He had 2.59 as a rookie and and
leveled up in his second season in a massive way.
He's every bit as good as Chase and Jefferson.
He's honestly like a lot better than CD Lamb and people should
just admit that. Yeah, I'm.
I'm not fading puka. I refuse.
I think the the first round is now approaching like an
equilibrium where the players are being drafted in the correct
order, both in terms of like projected points and weighing
in. You know who is most likely to
to succeed? Like like to the point that I
don't think I need to take any stances on first round players
at this point. You you know what I yearn for
even more than why does your 59 Garrett Wilson is like 110
Kenyon Drake like, yeah, just like a player in this first
round who was in the Big bird costume.
Like I like why couldn't we have like one O 9 Chase Brown or.
Something What the heck is a polar bear doing in Arlington?
And then just like what? What?
Draft all? Joe Mixon.
Players, right, like why? Why can't we have that?
But like we don't. So it's like unfortunately,
like, you know, the Chase Brown is priced in a range that I
actually don't mind drafting Chase Brown.
And then I also like every single player in the first round
is is good. Like the players that I'm fading
in the first round relative to ADP right now are Barkley,
although less so now that he's been flipped by Dijon, McCaffrey
and Almond Raw. But like, I can't really say
that any of those are bad picks. It's just that like there's
other picks that I think are such good picks.
I need to get over 8% some of them so I'm I'm picking the ones
that I'm least entice by. But like, I think every single
first round pick is totally justifiable.
Yeah. All right, Let's go to.
Let's go to last call all. Right, I got to figure out.
Let's go all. Right Shope.
Shope did not leave us a pick in absentia.
I'm sorry, Jeff and Chisholm. Well, I wonder if just like game
theory wise, if I need to find a quarterback who is worth taking
'cause there's a limited number of those guys who can
theoretically get points. You already took Chadur which
is. Kind of that Aaron Rodgers, How
you? Look that Aaron, honestly, the
Aaron Rodgers pick is is so. Big.
You know what this one is, is not like particularly useful.
Well, I like, I got to check one guy's ADP to see if he's not
quite there yet. You know what I I'm going to,
I'm going to take Flacco. I'm going to take, I'm going to
take Joseph Flacco because I am really weak at quarterback
compared to Jacob and I think Pat will have dart.
I, I'm like, I'm like dad at quarterback actually compared to
you guys. So I just need, I need some
theoretical points. So I'm going to take, I'm going
to take Flacco, Jacob. Well, I got I got lucky last
week with the wheel of names Darren Waller, so I can go last,
Pat can go ahead of me. God, that's so true.
You're you're muted, Pat. Think you turned your microphone
off? I did.
Thank you. You did?
I'll take Dylan Gabriel. Yeah, that was what I was going
to do if you didn't do it. For sure.
Really. How many?
How? Many rounds?
How many? How many?
Rounds shut this game down. Yeah, I was looking at it.
I was like, I was like, for sure, the Week 17 quarter.
I mean, Joe Falco's the worst pick in the history of the last
call. He has a 0% chance to be
starting Week 17. I was like Shiner and Dylan
Gabriel, like if I have them both, I have I have 2 1/2
quarterbacks because I have Rogers, I have I have the Browns
quarterback locked down and then I have Richardson's 50% chance I
was going to be in the driver's seat.
Pat did it. Sharp pick.
Thank you, thank you. I never thought I'd be
congratulated for taking Dylan Gabriel in a fantasy base.
Yeah, Jacob. Jacob is Jacob's team is crazy.
Jacob is is Jacob. Is gonna win.
Jacob is gonna win for sure. Let's let's not put the cart
before the horse, all right? Dylan Gabriel was the best pick
by far, but my backup is another Browns player named Dylan.
Recently fallen into the two hundreds.
I'll take Dylan Sampson. Wow.
That is a good. Pick Wait, I thought we already
had Dylan Sampson. Didn't we pick him last?
Pretty sure he's. Never been in the two hundreds.
This is the first time he's. Pretty sure he was drafted
because I almost took him. Damn, not on the sheet.
Not on the sheet. I'll trade you if you want.
Deal. All right, all right, I, I, I'll
take Gabriel and. I'll take Dylan Sampson.
OK, so. Wow.
OK, All right. We've we've executed a trade.
Let me let me update. Let me update this in my message
to Zach, Dylan Gabriel and Dylan Sampson.
Incredible stuff. No, people don't like the trade
for me. Look man, you got to get through
three weeks. You need you need to build
redundancy at the quarterback position.
Yeah, but doesn't. Get more important all the way
Brown's quarterback. Yeah, you can make him throw him
a nun guy. OK, that makes me feel better
because it seems like there's at least not a, not a full
consensus that I shouldn't have made the trade.
I think Dylan Sampson's fun. I I, you know what my The thing
is, I was looking at my running back room and it's sneaky awful.
I mean, it's kind of. Neat.
Actual BBM Dylan Sampson's obviously like an infinitely
better pick than Dylan Gabriel, but in this specific?
But for the mechanics, the mechanics of this game.
Necessary to condom out my quarterback position.
As soon as possible. I feel ya.
Man, Pat, I'm worried about your
tight ends too. I'm honestly how Like how did
Jacob get every winner? I don't know, let's.
Jacob, you guys are on a drafting, I'm drafting, I'm
drafting an ARP team. Yeah, yeah, valid.
All right. I have to do.
Personals and signs, so my wide receivers are a little weak, but
when he does. Lookout.
Yeah, when he signs, when he signs with, I don't know, the
Chicago Bears. That would be very funny for.
Them even more like draft day, yes Yeah, throw in David Putney,
you pancake eating motherfucker. All right, I got to go do the
spool cast. Crane is going to be on with me
at 1:30 Eastern at 12. 30 central on my channel.
No, I, I might have double booked myself.
So we got to discuss. All right, we're going to, but I
will, I want to try to figure out a different time today, if
you've got time. Yeah, we could.
We could figure it out. Jacob, what do you have over at
Thinking about Thinking? Yeah, I wrote a big piece, I
think it was actually last Tuesday, but after recording and
it was primarily looking at the running back versus wide
receiver economy and trying to make sense of it in terms of not
projections or points per game, although I included some stuff
on that. But specifically looking at
where in the draft do late season weeks 10 through 1720 and
25 points spike weeks come from and, and does that make sense of
our current ADP environment or their their holes?
So you can check that out. They'll be a Part 2 on that
piece, which focuses less on the positional aspects and more on
the archetypes of players within each position.
They'll probably come out sometime this week.
Beautiful. All right boys, we're getting
out of here. Come watch the Swirl Cast over
in 5 minutes over on the Swirl Cast YouTube channel and we will
see you later. Adios.
Later, I do just want to mention we're still running the free
trial legendaryupside.com slash. SIM Kick.
Out there, the SIM kick. Yeah, check it out.
All right, later, guys.