20 Burning Questions for Fantasy Football in 2026 - League Winners, Sleepers, and Breakouts with Brett Whitefield

What's up guys? What's going on? You're listening to the School of Scott podcast. And here it is. This is this is what everyone wants. This is what we've all been waiting for. Our most requested show is just Scott and Brett blowing out. We talking the phone will end up talking about ball for hours and hours. We're always like, "Oh, you should have just recorded that." That was great. So it's kind of what it is today, I think. How are you doing, Brett? I'm doing good. We need like a phone call editor. Someone just because like you could upload 90% of our podcast and it would absolutely smash. So the CIA agent who's like, "Touch listening to it on my phone calls and you'd have to hit the record button and edit after that." "Hook yeah." All right. Well, there's a little bit of a structure to this one. So I have Ryan Heath working on his massive play callers article. The dude writes the best manifesto since Ted Kaczynski, I've always said. And so like walking down that path, I had Chris Wecht work on a project for me. I want to know what all of the top play calling efficiency hacks are in the NFL. And I want to know rank order of how potent that sheet code is. And that's what Chris did. It's pretty easy in the age of AI, pretty easy when you have a five year sample of fantasy points data, the best NFL data and analytics in the game. And so we compiled this report. And I'm going to go in order of what was found to be most important, most impactful. I don't think I'm going to catch you off guard here. But I'd like you to kind of explain to the listeners why a sheet code is as potent as it is. And the first one is early down pass rate. That's that had a massive gap of 0.15 EPA per play differential versus from passing it versus running it. And it's bigger than like any single formation or personnel edge. It was a massive cheat code every single season. And so yeah, it's just basically like on first in 10 teams should be passing it way more than they are. And you see this on the screen here. So here are the top 10 teams by pass rate over expectation. And yeah, Drew Petzig, Andy Reed, Sean McVey, Liam Cohen, Sean Peyton, Josh McDaniel, and so like Kyle Shaynehan, Sheen Stikein. And so yeah, that's a pretty good lit, litmus test like those. If I had a rank my top 12 offensive play colors, the NFL, I think all those guys would be on it, not not Zach Taylor, but just about everyone else. And yeah, and so this is huge for fantasy too. Like we we want our quarterbacks throwing the ball more often. But it's certainly true from efficiency standpoint that teams should be passing way more on early downs than the R. Can you tell the listeners why you think that's the case? Why that makes sense to you? Yeah, so like here's my I have a quick guide to hacking NFL defenses, getting those those valuable, you know, exploitable opportunities. It's can we create conflict? Can we create leverage opportunities? Can we create mismatches? Or can we give the element of surprise? If you can check any of those four boxes, you are at an advantage over the defense. If you can check multiple of those boxes in the same play, the advantage grows and grows and grows. And so early down passing is this paradox where I think some teams struggle with it because they have this idea that they have to stay on schedule, right? We need that four, four, five yard run to get us a second of five. That's when you get the play action hack, right? Second and five, third and two. However, early down passing has been so effective because you're it's the element of surprise, ultimately, because you can dictate terms where a defense is so used to triggering run and playing those run fits. And in fact, they'll even they're more likely to dial up run blitzes and stack the line of scrimmage on early downs. So when you do pass the ball, there is space to out leverage your opponent. So we're checking two boxes here, the element of surprise and the element of leverage or outflanking the defense. And so yeah, I think that, you know, teams need to lean into this a little bit more, but it's somewhat quarterback driven as well. Scott, like for these like most of these teams have quarterbacks, you can rely on to go pick up third and eight if it gets to that point where some teams just don't. Like I know at the bottom of the list, I think we saw the Raiders and the Jets and yeah, man, well, like if you get the third Nate, you're punting, you're screwed, right? So some, yeah, dolphins, Panthers, exactly, exactly my point. So it is somewhat quarterback driven. You have to have a quarterback that you feel like you can trust. And it's not perfect. Obviously, the Cardinals lead this, but ultimately like, hey, if we don't, if we have an incomplete pass on first down, we had we got to be able to trust our quarterback to get us out of that hole. And some teams just can't, right? And so I think that's why you see some of those teams at the bottom of the list. It's just they don't have a quarterback they can trust. But yeah, the reason it is so effective is because you are, you're getting the element of surprise, you are out leveraging the defense. And then there is an element of mismatch shoe where you can dictate terms with personnel groupings. The defense is already more likely to match you with like a base person, or a heavier personnel, because it is a predicted run down. And so then if you have a really athletic tie down like a Tramock bride or a Brock Bowers, you know, or a vintage Travis Kelsey or a George Kiddell, you can start to manipulate those matchups really well. So now you're getting heavier personnel against your premium pass catchers. I think another hack I told you to on the early down passing is if you come out in 13 personnel, defense matches with heavy, you have a dominant alpha receiver alone, ice out up on the boundary, less likely to have safety help, because they're going to bring a safety down into the box. And you're going to get one-on-one opportunities out wide as well. So, you know, early down passing, we're checking three of my manifesto boxes of how to manipulate NFL defenses. Which are what are those? Put the defense in conflict, outlever, drought flank, get mismatch opportunities, element of surprise. And you're going to see this repeat. So this is the first one I wanted to bring up. The second one is, "Uner Center Dropbacks are way more efficient than Pistol or Shotgun. Drop plays from the quarterback. Play action is also, as we know, like a major, major efficiency cheat code." And then, "Uner Center Dropbacks with play action" is like the number one efficiency cheat code. Can you explain to the listeners why that is? Oh, for sure. So let's just go "Uner Center." Yeah, that's the one that confused me. Why is, because like Shotgun, you have like the best, clearest view of the field. Why would why would "Uner Center without play action be so much more effective than Shotgun without play action?" It's kind of twofold. So when you go under center, teams, they interpret it as a run formation. And so, just like we thought about it early down passing, the defense has to respond to, there's a bigger threat you're going to run the football right here than if you're in gun. So that's giving you the leverage advantage, the conflict advantage right off the bat. Is that partly because it's easier to run from "Uner Center?" Yes. Okay. So the fact that it's more efficient to run from "Uner Center" should also theoretically help the passing game efficiency because it's, you know, again, catching the opposition off guard. Correct. And the other thing we'll talk about, and that will also play more into play action, even, but even still from "Uner Center" is mirroring concepts. The best offensive courtiers in the league mirror concepts, whether it's Sean McVey, Kyle Shanahan, Ben Johnson, Drew Petsing, Josh McDaniel, everything looks the same. So when your quarterback goes under center, even if it's not play action, it's just a seven-step drop pass, the quarterback still turns his back to the defense in his side, shuffle. And the defense is forced to respond to that with, hey, this could be a run. The mesh point looks the same. And it's, you know, when he hits that back foot, that's the first signal the defense gets that that's actually pass. And so the timing, when a running back is in shotgun, everything happens so much quicker. So usually the quarterback catches the ball, you know, if you're, if it's three-step or quick game, it's a now throw. He's already at his back foot. So he's looking to throw the ball. The, the opportunity for the mesh point is gone. The defense has learned that information faster, even in non-play action environments. And then when you add play action from "Uner Center", it's the whole level of deception. The, the quarterback's back is literally turned to the defense. They can't see the mesh point until the running back has cleared the window. And at that point, you've created so much stress and conflict at the second level. There is so much space to be had. I mean, the, the list of quarter-bikes, back. So all of them are pretty much more efficient from play action. That's not an accident. That's because you're literally stressing the defense to the extreme, basically forcing the play to roles. They have their run responsibility and their coverage responsibility. And it's very, it's very hard to play both. Yeah. So, um, it is, there's something to be said for certain quarterbacks who can't play under center or like don't have a willingness to like Joe burrow famously doesn't like to try under center dropbacks. Is that something about like their, their inherent to their game or yeah, but what is that? So the Joe burrow thing is, is so stupid to me. And I wish he would just have, have a coach that would force him to play under center. He'd be, I mean, he's already amazing. And what he's done despite the fact that he doesn't play for center is crazy. But if, if they've committed to an under center run game and play action off of that, bro would get so much better. But the thought process of why they don't like under center is because, you know, in Zach Taylor's mind and Joe burrow's mind, he taking his eyes off the defense is a, is a value loss to them. So when you have to turn your back and fake that mesh point, with the running back, your eyes are not on the defense. And bro and Taylor are confident in their ability to diagnose coverages and find the correct read. I, I think I have a contrarian taken all that. I don't think that's actually true. But, um, that, that's the main thought process. Like he's going to sit and shotgun because he always wants to have eyes on the defense. He wants to see the rotations. He wants to see if they're playing cover two, if they're inverting that cover to what the safeties are doing, what the, what, how people are responding to motion, bro thinks he's better getting all that information in real time rather than just snapshotting it after he turns to the defense. So I think there's some give and take there. But I, if the Bengals added an under center approach, you know, even if it's 25% to their game, it would be so much better. But then, but then you look at, like burrows the exception, like he's successful despite this. I look at guys like Michael Pennix Jr. and to a tag of the voids. Like these guys really struggle because they're inability to play under center. They just won't do it. Like and I felt bad for, for Zach Robinson last year being saddled with with Pennix and, and aging Kurt Cousins who can't really run an offense from under center anymore either. It's like that's what Zach comes from the big V3. He wants to run an under center offense and he was stuck in pistol and shotgun the entire season because of these guys. And the efficiency wasn't great because of it. Yeah. So play action. We know is massive. We've known this for a number of years. I remember doing a study on this for PFF like seven years ago, just how impactful and important was how it didn't seem to correlate at all with how often an offense ran the ball or how effective an offense was running the ball. And so I think I get why this is the case. Why play action so effective. It's just that minor second of hesitation from a linebacker or a, or better yet a foot planted in the wrong direction. That just could be really massive for the effectiveness of the passing game. It was listening to a podcast Ted win one of the best beat writers in the game. The podcast had a Dan Casey on it. I think a coach who said, yeah, well, you know, like with shotgun, you know, you never had your back turn to the defense. And so you believed you like it's a lot easier to read the defense. But today now with so much misdirection and so much movement pre versus post snap. It actually gives you the clear picture because now you could just like snap the ball turn around and you see the defense with fresh eyes. Like it doesn't matter what you saw, you know, a half second ago or a second ago, because that was just that was just meant to confuse you. Does that make sense to you and explain your your knock on Caleb right there? I'm just yeah. So I see I mean, Dan is the ultimate offensive play calling guru. I'm not going to disagree with anything he says necessarily. But like I said with burrow, I think there's some give and take there. I think there's it really depends where the quarterback is on their processing journey. Like I would fully trust Tom Brady to to read defense, you know, without play action. Obviously I would fully trust Joe burrow, Peyton Manning, you know, Patrick Mahomes, these guys, they don't need the snap. They don't need to like just clear out all the motion. I think they can interpret that and get to conclusions quicker. Some quarterbacks can't though. And so I think for the general NFL quarterback, I think Dan's 100% spot on. You do want that clear site picture. You want to cut out all the noise and just, you know, show them what they're working with. It just the problem with that is it just it delays response time just a little bit, right? And half second in the NFL is a long time. And that's that's the that would be my only like knock against that take is I just don't think it's a gen. It's not a rule you can slap across all quarterbacks. I think the highly competent quarterbacks are probably best seeing all of the motion and seeing the inversions and the skies coverage is the rotation stuff like that. And then my knock on Caleb was just like, well, they were they were under center a lot last year. And I think most of his catastrophic plays were him misidentifying coverages. IE the final pick that ended their season. You know, he he read that completely incorrectly. So it's got your muted buddy. What a jerk. But I did that study seven years ago. Another interesting thing about play action was there wasn't any diminishing returns to it. Like they're like the more you ramp play action, the better off you would be like there wasn't a point where you did it every play. It's it's stopping effective. No, just yeah, really one of the most potent efficiency cheat codes there is play callers who call a lot of play action. That's exactly what want. And it go ahead. It's a guy had one more thing about play action. Yeah. Another reason play action. So like crazy off the charts efficient right now in the era of the NFL we're in is so many of these teams are sitting back in too high shell even on rundown sometimes. And so if you're going to sit back and play too high, you know, you're in whether it's quarters or some type of cover to it's like there is so much space in the middle of the field so much space. And if you're if you're adding play action to the mix enforcing those linebackers in this conflict zone where they're having to trigger downhill, but then get into the middle of the field where the space is already vast. I mean, there's going to be receivers running wide open receivers and tight ends. So it's yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty for this era of football that we're in play action is even more valuable than it was say seven eight years ago when you did your study, which is pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So the next one I have on my list is was very relevant this most recent season, but it's something you already touched on, which is that condensed heavier formations. You major efficiency cheat code if you're throwing from those sets. So type or wing formations or 21 13 22 personnel or major efficiency hacks. And I think we know why this is it's these are typically run friendly looks. It makes play action more believable. It keeps and and and defenses typically match this with with base like expecting the run. And then you have clear mismatches and you just throw all over them. And this is largely what the Rams did with their 13 personnel or the Seahawks did from their heavy last year. We're showing on the screen. Yeah, this is my take on the Seahawks last year, just like masterful play calling from Kubiak where he the entire offense was just he would line up in heavy. And if you match that with base, he would throw all over you with the most efficient passing offense and football. Or if you matched his heavy with sub personnel, you just run all over you. But the rest of the time like outside of just getting those clear mismatches, this was like a mediocre to sub mediocre offense. But when he had those mismatches, best offense and football by a landslide. And that was like largely the entire MO that Seahawks offense. And I remember Greg Olson being kind of the first one to talk about this, maybe even before the Rams went into their their 13 personnel phase. But he was saying like, yeah, this is this is great. This is like, you know, massive for the Seahawks. But it's also this is stupid like defensive just to stop the matching base or matching heavy with base. Like don't don't do that. Just don't because we know we know passing in general is so much more efficient than running. You should be kind of living in fear of that a little bit more than these teams were certainly with the Seahawks where that was like their entire offense. And this is what it shows up in the data too is like we have a low level of confidence that this could stick because again, it was became much more prevalent last year. And it wasn't very heavily used before that even last year. It wasn't heavily used at all. It was just, you know, a few teams did this way more than anyone else. And we're successful doing it. Maybe that's a personnel thing. But yeah, what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, it's a good point for me to cut in because so earlier when you set it up, you talked about condensed formations and reductions kind of in the same breath as heavy personnel. And I to be very specific, I want to separate those two things. They're not the same because here's what's kind of happening. You get the heavy personnel and you go back to the manifesto with heavy personnel, you get the whole conflict thing, you get the mismatch opportunities. So you're checking those boxes. But the condensed formation isn't necessarily heavy. And a lot of times teams are using 11 teams when you have like a pukin nikuwa, when you have an Amon Rase and brown, then you're going to a condensed formation bringing those guys tight to the tackle box because what happens is when you play these heavy personnel groupings and defense is initially match with base. You take them over the woodchipper when they're matching with base. So then they adjust mid-game to nickel. Then what you can do is go to 11 personnel and you bring in you pukin' nikuwa, you bring in almond rouse ain't brown and you insert them into the run game. And then you're creating another efficiency hack because now you have pukin' nikuwa blocking 180 pound corner in the run game who has to fit the D gap. It just doesn't work. I'm on rouse ain't brown to go watch the Ravens Lions tape from last year. I'm on rouse ain't brown and Caleb Williams beat the crap. Uh, Caleb Raymond, sorry, beat the crap out of Kyle Hamilton because the Lions forced their hand with their defensive personnel groupings and Kyle Hamilton became a force defender and that's not where he belongs. That's not where he's best. And so the condensed formation is basically a curveball off of the heavy personnel. So once the defense adjusts to the heavy personnel, then we come back with the reduced alignments and we can run right right at them because they have a 180 pound nickel on the field. And then here's the next adjustment is then the Seattle Sea Ops go and draft a 220 pound nickel and nick Aminwari. And so it's constantly the defense is like a dog chasing its own tail. For the folks at home who maybe like don't love this, like we're going to get into player takes in a couple of minutes. Who doesn't love this? What do you talk about? It's a little deep into the weeds inside baseball, but I think it's super valuable, super important and like you're one of the best film minds in a game to break this down. Like I wanted to know this just because like I see it in the data and I'm fluent in data. But the football access and I need to borrow pick your brain on a lot of this. All right, so we just went over early down passing, under center dropbacks and under center dropbacks with play action where that's stacked and amplified, can pass passing out of condensed or heavy formations. Another one I think we've been over this quite a bit is during snap motion. So pre snap motion is like only slightly above baseline. It's really not that impactful. So during snap motion really is so what is that jet or orbit motion? Are you line a guy up and could be a reduction motion as well? Motion outside receiver and of the slot basically. Right, right motion through this. So what is that is that is that getting mismatches like you know like explain it. Yeah, so again the four buckets are trying to hit this one is leverage and mismatch. So we use motion to well for one backing up to the quarterbacks lens. If when you the old school theory is when you put in motion, you get tell us from the defense. Now that's going away a little bit. Defences have gotten a lot better at disguising coverages and and adjusting to the motion. Without telling you information. I think Dan Casey is a big proponent of this this line of thinking as well. Nate Tyson is another one who I've heard talking about stuff like that. But despite that, the offense can still use motion to get the leverage bucket and the mismatch opportunity. And the leverage is the big one when you put a guy in motion. He has momentum in his route. I mean, Tyree kill broke the NFL with this orbit motion they were doing in Miami where he was basically running post routes off of it. And you're forcing a corner back to get in phase immediately while Tyree kill or any receiver for that matter has a full head esteem, you know, behind them. It just totally changes the leverage game and in that leverage component pretty much makes any single coverage completely useless against that against that type. And then if you're going to play zone behind it, you need to commit multiple bodies to the motion defender. Now you need a linebacker digging out underneath you need a safety coming over the top, you need a corner back in trail. And that's going to leave somebody else open. And so there's this double efficiency hack with the motion stuff where if we're if we're in man for catching man or some type of single or match. We're exploiting leverage advantages and if we're getting some shell zone type coverage. Well, we got to commit bodies to the to the motion player now because the angles are completely off kilter. That's allowing someone else to get a one on one that shouldn't necessarily get a one on one. I like it. I think that makes sense to me. We know Mike McDaniel's offense typically leads the league every single year and during snap motion Ben Johnson's offense is historically pretty high with that as well. The last one I have on my list here is the QB sneak is actually the most efficient play in football. It has an 81% success rate. It's plus 0.437 EPA per run like all other runs are like definitely negative. It's it's really just a one yard play loses effectiveness. And even within that one yard, there's really a difference between like being a half yard and a full yard, although it's counted in the the stats the same. But still it's it's really just yeah, your third and one fourth and one you should almost always be QB sneaking it. And again, this was an article I wrote at pf that like 10 years ago, maybe because Ben Rothisberger's coach was like, hey, we don't want him running the QB sneak anymore. And I I had this article like that's the stupidest thing ever. It's the most efficient play in football. Rothisberger is better at it than anyone else. He's a big quarterback. This is dumb and then pf have yelled at me. They're like, hey, stay in your lane fantasy boy. And then like a couple couple of years later, Ryan Pagnetti, kind of who we're going to have on as a guest. He was director of analytics for the Jaguars, but before that he helped the Eagles win that Super Bowl, the Nick Foles year on the back of like just about always going for it on fourth down and QB sneaking a lot. And I imagine this this changes when you have a Jalen Hertz versus a gardener, Minshue, you could have more confidence in a Jalen Hertz, you squashed 500 pounds. Yeah, any commentary on the QB sneak. Yes, just unstoppable. And like sky when we were hypothesizing on the phone the other day is like, maybe maybe like the dainty quarterback isn't good at it, like Jared go for something because he's kind of I looked at his numbers are great too. So like I don't know that anyone can stop this play. It's you know, fourth and one it's it's basically automatic. The hit rate is, do you have the number? Oh, you do right there. Success rate is 81% league wide. Was that just last year? Is that like the last five last five? Holy yeah, that's that's insane. So I think teams are shy sometimes about putting their quarterback in that situation famously Patrick Mahomes what heard an ankle in the playoffs on a QB sneak and since then they don't let them do it. So that's a little bit of an overreaction to me and I know they've had they bring in their wild cat court tight ends to do it. I think one of the other components of the efficacy of the QB sneak is the suddenness of it. Yeah. So like if the coach like Dan Campbell's great at this. If we it's like an extra half second. Just we're well in. Yeah, if you're in third and eight and if you already know in the huddle. Hey, if we get six or seven yards here, we're going forward on fourth down. The defense is, I mean, they're scrambling. And so you're you're running the most efficient play in NFL history against the defense that is scrambling and it's it's going to be awesome. Well, that was another one we found. Yeah, no huddle can be really affected. So these are the five I chose to hit on right here. We're going to have a separate article on it. I'm going to have a former NFL director of analytics on the podcast. We're going to talk about some of these things. Maybe a little less in depth, but I wanted to quit myself with your exes and knows knowledge of why these are so impactful. But yeah, from a real NFL standpoint, I've been making this case for a couple of years now is like I think offensive play callers are massively underrated from an NFL standpoint. Like if there were a draft today where I can hire any or I could take any people in the NFL, it probably be like Josh Allen one. And then the next six or seven might be these offensive play calling coaches. Yeah, like their impact and importance is so outsized, but it's also true from a fantasy perspective. Like I had rich rebar on the podcast year or two years ago and we were like, what about just like making a rule to only draft players from the mix shana hand coaching tree. And that was like literally the best thing you could have done. It's just like that's where all the league winners were. And so it's just like massively important and looking at all of these that we've touched on is the more you stack these the better, but also like if you just like had a custom score for how often play callers call play action play action from the center when for an on four downs, QB sneaks early down passing, throwing out of heavy that that's like the clear best offense is in football, the best offensive play callers in football. And so it's just massively important in today's NFL and having a bad play call or like I worry about my boy Jackson Dart. It can be can be really rough. It could be awful. So yeah, it's just one of those power law things that we're going to do. And so we're going to do a lot of power law things that we always talk about where the difference between a great play call and a league averages is exponential and also true on the downside of that with a Matt need potentially. All right, well, I think again, school is Scott. You want a PhD in fantasy football. You've come to the right place. That was a little over your head. Now we're going to get into the fun stuff. I got a some guy in here was, you know, just wanted to hear us talk about Parker Washington. So, you know, I'm always happy to talk about part two. or Washington. And here's what I'll say about him is I'll frame it this way is over the final five games of last season Trevor Lawrence averaged 28.9 fantasy points per game that was most by all quarterbacks by like 28% was also easily the best five game stretch of his career. And so what that's the framing of that is this guy was a mega league winner and this was the best or second best offense in football down the stretch and in fantasy we want you know pieces we want to be invested in the best offenses in football and over this stretch where prior to this Trevor Lawrence was a massive disappointment he like was not good in any season really like if we're being honest and then he went nuclear and what potentially was the catalyst behind it it might have been Parker Washington finally being the featured piece of this offense finally getting a full time role in this slot and so over those five games the only games that really mattered for the jaguars are being invested in jaguars when they weren't just okay to good they were amazing over this five game stretch Parker Washington averaged 101.4 yards per game no one else was over 42 he averaged 3.65 yards per route run no one else was over 1.33 maybe Parker Washington was the clear catalyst here you could also look at this another way because people are like oh Brian Thomas Jr.'s good Jacobi Myers is good when all three wide receivers were on the field at the same time last year so this includes prior to that five game stretch I was talking about Parker Washington 3.23 yards per route run next closest Brian Thomas Jr. under 1.6 by target share pwash 32.1% he was the alpha when he was on the field he from from week one on just as long as he was on the field he was the alpha and this this this this ties into Liam Cohen's track record with the slot wide receiver in 2021 Wandel Robinson with Liam Cohen had 103 yards per game that was Kentucky yeah twice as much as any other season 2022 Cooper Cup 22.4 fantasy points per game most among all wide receivers 2024 Chris Godwin ranked behind only Jamar Chase and fantasy points per game and why and and not just that but he was like eight fantasy points per game more than Mike Evans which like that is so huge to me because we know Mike Evans is awesome but in this Liam Cohen offense it was Chris Godwin who really out alphaed him and out produced everyone not named Jamar Chase and then last year Parker Washington you cut it up a number of ways his eight healthy post buy games 17.5 fantasy points per game and so from a fantasy perspective where you tie in cost you you tie in 80 p he's like Luther Burton to me but two rounds sheep like that's what it is and it's like or he's just like someone who has legitimate mid to late wide receiver one upside and just no one in that range is really priced similarly we're like I kind of don't care about the risk that much when you have that price and that upside those are my thoughts what are your thoughts on Parker Washington yeah I mean I love the Luther Burton comp because I think Burton where Parker Washington's game is right now is where Burton should seek to get to Parker's a great case study and development like when I watch this tape at Penn State this was a run after catch only guy he had no verticality to his game the route running was not there it was undisciplined it was sloppy the tree they asked him to run was extremely limited you know it took him basically three years to get rolling right but it finally clicked here and the route running is so much but I think the thing that would surprise people if you actually dove into the numbers is his average depth of route run was like top 10 in the NFL last year and I think people view him as like golden tape when the reality is he's like golden tape with a ton of vertical juice he's more way more almond rather than golden tape where yeah he can beat you on a deep crosser he can beat you on a go ball he's not limited to just the the design stuff the short stuff so I I'm I'm all in on Parker washing with you the development is awesome I think the tape speaks volumes I would I would venture to guess his ass this coming season is is going to be awesome compared to where it's been in his career just the development's been that that extreme to me and to make you know to put a cherry on top you you compared Evans and Godwin in the Liam Cohen system well does Brian Thomas Jr's game not resemble a lot of Mike Evans in Parker washing a lot of Chris Godwin like naturally it kind of does and so the wild card is a Jacobi Myers he's probably better than the third receiver those two were dealing with but yeah I Brian Thomas might just be the vertical you know cardio x type but we already know they potentially were going to trade him last year so they're kind of out a little bit on the skill set maybe they've they've adjusted their expectation sense but I think Parker Washington's absolutely their most talented player on offense so there you go game over Parker washing and absolutely going to be one of my guys this year so yeah I detailed a bunch of questions here or I've compiled these and this is just like mostly selfish I just want to know your thoughts on this especially as I'm working through my rankings for the draft guide first question I have for you is O'Marion Hampton a good fit for the Mike McDaniel system and what were your thoughts on him in his rookie year because as we're debating through our projections and our rankings it's oh it's O'Marion Hampton in a Mike McDaniel offense should go crazy since Mike McDaniel joined the 49ers his teams lead the league in EPA per run he did that where outside of Devon H and it was all round seven running backs UDFA running backs but like a niggling concern I have is that yeah but it's always like the they draft a day two running back and then like the day three or UDFA running back ends up being the better guy and so maybe there's just like you need a special type of runner for this to really work and we know Mike McDaniel was like printing out pictures of other running backs hanging them up and it's like hey you need to go out and get this guy and they went out and got that got that guy Keaton Mitchell what are your thoughts on this the key and Mitchell things interesting because I still it's Jim Harboss team it's still going to be his offense for the most part I believe I remain to you know we'll see I guess but let's just assume McDaniel it's his structure his play designs you know it really depends what McDaniel we get Derek Brown in the chat kind of stole the words out of my mouth you know you look at the early tenure in Miami it was a very space motion happy zone scheme where it was like very abstract and floaty in nature where it's like hey we're gonna we're gonna push the corner we're gonna try to win the corner with speed and then he slowly evolved into a way more downhill approach and the gap the gap numbers rose every year he was there and the the outside zone declined a little bit and even the type of outside zone he was running was way more physical in nature it was way more downhill and so to kind of tie that back into your question I think if Hampton gets that more downhill gap heavy scheme for McDaniel it can fit him a lot better than the zone heavy stuff we saw them doing back in 22 and 23 where it was very space oriented very cut back dependent well more and Hampton is not a cut back type running back he is stiff he doesn't have a lot of wiggle by those one of my criticisms of him coming out of the draft you liked it and I did like him but he had I wrote up that he had to land in the right scheme he couldn't land in a super zone cut back heavy scheme last year it drove me nuts early in the year they were using him basically as a cut back runner and he just looked stuck in the mud at times he couldn't get up failed couldn't get downhill and so in the right McDaniel version I think Hampton could pop off where it is downhill I want a marion hampton 230 pounds and he's got insane burst like elite burst I want him getting downhill as fast as humanly possible that's how you make linebacker sweat that's how you make safety sweat having to tackle him with the full head of steam I do not want marion hampton attacking the corner out of 12 personnel and then forcing him to make a cut back to a be gap or an aga but it's just not going to work he doesn't have the lateral quickness for that so yeah to answer question I don't know it depends what scheme we get it depends what version of a game you'll be get right at least we know there's some flexibility there you know to potentially play into his strengths for this running back who's drafted round one year ago um next question I have for you who was the best rookie quarterback last year and was it close oh this is a good one um so let me ask you this are we grading this on a curve because like the reason I ask is I can look at camwords circumstances and be like my god man what a terrible situation yeah you absolutely should great on the guy that way I so I think the answer is Tyler's shock but I do think in context grading on a curve camwords season impress me a lot Jackson Dart season impress me a lot but Tyler's shock you go like look head to head versus those other two guys I mean better average uh sorry better um yards per attempt adjusted yards per attempt better EPA per dropback and the environment wasn't significantly better right? He had crystal live in and then kind of really nothing you had no run game behind him. The accuracy numbers were better the completion percentage over expectation was better. And then just the tape the eye test was better. I felt like his processing skills is the ability to hit the top of his drop and run the offense the way it was designed the way Kellen Moore wanted him to run the offense. I felt like that was significantly better as well. He took less sacks. He made less critical mistakes. The thing is Jackson Dar when you factor in the rushing component I think he did have a higher EPA per dropback. However the the play the quarter the quarterback side of Jackson Dar was sloppy as heck. It was it was a mess. It was a nightmare. He wasn't running the offense. He looked honestly it's gonna run people the wrong way and I'm a huge dark guy. He looked more like Shadoor Sanders than he did in NFL quarterback where it was a lot of chicken with his head cut off scrambling around trying to play hero ball and he does it way too much. He has to get more disciplined. You're wrong. Sorry. I never like disagreeing with you especially when it comes to quarterback. I disagree with you here. I think Jackson Dart was head and shoulders above any other quarterback and you have heard some NFL brass talk about this like the way Robert Salah and Kyle Shanahan were talking about Jackson Dart last year heading into their matchup or the way Harbaugh talked about it where he's like he's like hey listen Jackson Dart won the the film off versus Kim Ward and Tyler Schuck by a mile last year. It's not true though. It's not true. I think it is. So so I'm I'm I'm a giants fan historically. I haven't really cared about fandom like my own team in like years. I'm not a homer. I promise. I think Jackson Dart is the next big thing. I think he's freaking out. I think Tyler Schuck probably isn't starting in two years. I think Kim Ward is fine below average starting quarterback throughout his career. I think Jackson Dart is special. You look at the circumstances last year. He had literally nothing. His only viable receiver was Wondill Robinson PPR scam glorified running back throughout his career. Of course. Yeah. Wondill had a much improved season. A lot of that was just Jackson Dart being that guy. He had no running game whatsoever. You know he didn't have Malik neighbors. He had Malik neighbors for what 20 total routes. This was the worst supporting cast in football. This was the supporting cast that Daniel Jones had and the same coach every single year of his career. And then what happens? He gets out of he just gets out of the giants for 10 games last year. He was leading the league in passing yards. EPA per play before fracturing his fibula. Jackson. All right. This fucking awful supporting cast. Here's some numbers for you. So we talked about how it's it's you know it's when you have an effect of running game that makes play action so much more efficient and the more you call play action the more efficient you're going to be. So take out all of play action. Jackson Dart had like the third or fourth best EPA per drop back in football. If you were because of the rushing element. If you remove that that's fine. That's part of playing the quarterback position. And that's what you have to do when you don't have receivers who can open. He was for the EPA per drop back. And then on on out of rhythm dropbacks only Patrick Mahomes was better by EPA per drop back. And if you watch the film and I I encourage you to watch the film there are a ton of drops where you know I need to see the EPA per throw on drops because they're they're egregious. They're awful. It's Scott the the EPA nonsense out of sure it's those aren't stable metrics. They're stable for one guy and that's Patrick Mahomes. And so I'm telling you right now we're not from a home. Jackson Dart. I oh my god. The the creole. Oh my god. This is bleeding blue right now. This is disgusting. I'm not a giant. It's really like I don't care. It's just like I watched the tape and I'm like this. You didn't watch the tape. You don't you don't know what you're looking at when you watch it. Scott. We could watch the tape. I could show you like you you want to cry about the surrounding cast. He had nothing. I can show you turned down after turned down after turned down. I can show you pressure that was directly responsible for on Jackson Dart. He was directly responsible for a lot of the pressure. Yeah. Not because the receivers weren't separating at all because he I can show you turn down after turned down after turned down. I can show you back foot hits. He has option. He doesn't take it. I can show you his eyes getting stuck on the one. I can show you all of that. What about the law tools when you have a Malik neighbors who separates at will if he's healthy and you have you didn't ask me to prognosicate you asked me who was the best last year. Fair enough. Who you most bullish on then then long term. Probably Dart. There we go. But I'm still going to be honest about what I saw last year. Especially as a dark. I was the biggest. I was the only guy in the industry that Dart is my QB1. Yeah. So yeah, exactly. Shout out to you for that. Hey. So just just with Pete behind the curtain. Like I'm seriously debating Jackson Dart as an exodia quarterback. The concerns I have are Malik neighbors. This injury is really concerning to me. Matt Niggies is his coach. I don't know that there's a single patch from the homes isn't Matt Niggie proof. So why do we think Jackson Dart can be Matt Niggie proof? Like that is a legitimate concern. And I don't like going up against Brett. Although shout out to me. I did it last year with Drake May a little bit. But there's there and he runs duty. Like if you take out the Vikings game, he let all quarterbacks and fantasy points per start. So like he's going as QB 12 13. And I just really think I'm not a film guy. But when I have I almost never have film takes. But when I do, I listen to it because I'm usually right because it's like the bar for me to have a film take is so high. I because I stay in my lane. Fantasy boy. PFF taught me it's if I believe it, I got to lean into it because I'm probably right because just because the bar to have a film take for me is. All right. So I get another question for you. Okay. And it's another one. I think we're going to disagree on peak for peak. Who was the best quarterback of all time? Oh good Lord. Do I want to I already know what you're going to say? So I'll give you mine. I'll give you I already know who it is. You don't I think it's Aaron Rogers. I think I think people sleep on how freaking awesome he was just because like how how shit he's looked the past few years. I know like some some people don't like his politics or his ego or his personality or whatever. But dude, like think about prime Aaron Roger. Like even before he won MVP and back to back seasons, like the Jordy Nelson era where he was throwing five touchdown passes at half time and then sitting the rest of the game. Like the like I think I think his prime was way above Patrick Mahomes prime. But doing a lot of the same things. These off script plays, you know, the mobility, the maneuvering in the pocket, the insane, you know, no look passes. So that's that's my that's who I think I would go with. Honestly, what do you have? Tom Brady. You know, I mean, it's not as flashy as prime Rogers. I don't care about flash. You know this. I want to guy who's going to run the offense who's going to expertly dissect the defense on every play. He was going to get to the right, make the smart right throw every time. And then on top of that, when Brady needed to put the ball into a tight window and rack up those hero throws, he could. He was the best man. I would take Peyton and Brady over Rogers both any day. Prime for prime, like the best prime for priders has ever been versus, you know, correct. Brady was unstoppable, man. Dude, I mean, so how how blessed. So so so prime for prime, every quarterback in the NFL right now, Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rogers, and then add Tom Brady, Peyton Manning drew breeze to it. Who is the best? Is it the three old heads or one through three? Yeah. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. The argument you can make for Mahomes is that he broke the NFL. Like he literally, like this arrow we're living in of defensive football is strictly because of Patrick Mahomes and Tyree Hill. So hey, and don't forget about those old heads, but like, dude, defense was so much tougher to play against back in those days before they changed a bunch of the rules. Pre-analytics era too. They weren't like Dan Merino wasn't, didn't have an analytics guy telling him what's efficient and what's not. He just had to figure it out on his own, you know. All right. Next question for you. Why are you worried about Brock Bauer's this year? Because this is this is not a guy people are worried about the fantasy community drafting him well above Tramack bride. Yeah. I don't know that I'd frame it as I'm worried about him. I'd frame it as if he fails. It's because of X kind of thing. And the X is that same thing as it was last year where it's like I think they could get into some game scripts where he can be removed from from the game plan. They have nothing around him. Jalen Nailer is their best wide receiver. Jack Bash is a bust. He's going to be a bust. Trey Tucker is a 5-7 deep threat. I mean, what are we doing with this with this pass catching unit, right? And so teams can completely game plan for him and remove him. And I actually this is a rare instance where I think lining him up in these crazy exotic alignments actually hurts him because like you go play dead. They did this against Denver last year. We're going to go play Denver. We're going to oh he's our best pass because we're going to put him out wide and get the match up. Okay, cool. Now you have Patrick's shirt. pain covering him. Congratulations on that. You just literally took your best player out of the game. I don't think Kubiak's gonna be that stupid, but I do think this idea that we can play him in any position we want, I think with the environment they have actually hurts Brock Bowers, 'cause he's going to draw the best coverage defender on every snap. You put him in line, at least you have a chance, they try to brag at him with linebackers or something like that. So the opportunity for him to fail, I think is actually pretty high. I think the Raiders could be a train wreck this year. I do, they're things I like about what they've done on the offseason, they improved offensive line. I think Gentied might have a nice bounce back, which obviously opens the door for some play action stuff, being on schedule really helps pass game efficiency in general. But man, I am worried that they don't have a way to hide Bowers. And by the way, something that no one wants to talk about, Bowers isn't a great route runner yet. He's not a great separator. He's a freak athlete that needs to develop the nuance of Raiders. No, we hope he just spent the last four months since the season ended developing that, right? And continuing to work on that, like a Jemar Chase who had the same criticism of. But as it stands right now, the last bit of tape we have on Bowers, he's still not a good route runner. And most of his production is catch and run stuff with the occasional scramble drill down field. And so he's been closer to Isaiah likely than he has a traumatic bride. He just does it at a really, really high volume in efficiency. But usage wise, yeah. So those two things, man, he's got a develop a little bit as a player, I think, to maximize that ceiling, which is fun for him. You think to me, you're like, bro, if they traded for Chris O'Lava, he would go nuclear. Absolutely. That would assuage all of my concern. If they traded for a Chris O'Lava, or I saw someone else speculating who was it. You have the-- Justin Jefferson? Someone's saying-- Yeah. Who are you following? Who thinks Justin Jefferson could get traded? I don't know. I don't know. It was some-- I don't think that's ever happened. But you had a leader, I think. Fantasy-- the fantasy bros out there are like, oh, you just projected target volume. There's no one else. But you're saying from an access and notice perspective, that can actually be a hindrance. And you'd rather have 140 target wide receiver enter them X. Make your Jaden Higgins pitch. I know you're way in on Jaden Higgins this year. So the listeners to you. I think Jaden Higgins is probably the most underrated route runner in the league. And then when you adjust that for his size, he's disgusting. I think he's nasty. Your mind's me of younger Nico Collins. The year I predicted Nico to break out, I was seeing the same things on tape as I'm seeing with Jaden Higgins where it's like, this dude has every tool in the toolbox to be the most elite separator in the league, adjusted for size. Where he's got the mobility and the ankles and the hips, the ability to sink and explode out of his breaks. But also that ankle flexibility, he can speed roll a lot of his cuts as well. So he can kind of mix up. It's like a pitcher that mixes up his pitches. He already has the the art of deception down, the head nods, the fakes, the juke's. He's great getting off press. His hand technique is synced up with his feet. I think he's the total package, man. It would not surprise me at all if Jaden Higgins led them in receiving this year. I'm not predicting it. I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me. But yeah, I think if you wanted a Nico Collins clone, you drafted him in Jaden Higgins and Higgins ceiling might be higher just 'cause I think he might be an overall better prospect than Nico was. - Man, that's a crazy take. I can't say I agree with it when Nico Collins ranks top three in yards per round over the last three seasons. - You just always heard. - Yeah, yeah. Just the fact that Brett has this level of conviction and he's an elite film guy and like honestly, wide receiver, I don't know that I don't think anyone's as good a wide receiver as you are that might be your best position. I'm gonna be way in on Jaden Higgins this year. That's gonna be one of my guys and my arguments really just gonna be like, hey, check out, check out School of Scott when I interviewed Brett. So staying on topic, I have a question. - That's great. - Does CJ Straub's S2 score show up on film? And like I need you to hear me out here. I don't wanna call the guy stupid, but there's like a lot of implications that he might be stupid. I Greg Kassel just two days ago was asked about CJ Straub and was like, you need to take predictions off his plate. He can't do protections. You just can't have that. And that made me think of the S2 score, which was like, you made all the, oh, this guy is like an idiot. It's the worst S2 score ever. This is the most predictive thing ever. And then he balled out as a rookie. We all forgot it, but yeah, he's also sucked. Like the last few, he's running bottom three and accurate throw rate, each of the last three years. And then I found another stat on him, which was last year, he was, you know, shout out fantasy points data. I can cook up like the dankest stats. He had the best EPA per dropback on scripted plays last year. So just like the first try of the game. And then on all other plays, he was well below average. I love to see Caleb Williams on that stat as well. - You know, that's why I looked it up. And Caleb actually was like, kind of, wasn't much of a difference. I think the first half of the season, and the year before it was big, but not so much over the full sample. - Gotcha. Yeah, CJ, I mean, again, I'm gonna avoid calling the man dumb. I don't think he processes football well, if that makes sense. And I think that probably showed up in the S2 cognition test. You know, I don't know exactly what goes into that test, but I'm guessing that's why he scored low. He doesn't strike me as a guy who studies a lot of tape. You see the mistakes he makes. He misses coverage of skies as constantly. He takes, some of the worst sacks you'll see take in our CJ Strauss, where it's like, we're in third and two from our own, or from the opponent 30, ready to kick a field goal if we don't get a first down, and he takes a 12 year. I'm not exaggerating this happens all the time. A 12 year old sack. And puts you into, now you have to punt. It's like, it's at so many points left on the field because of Strauss. The untimely turnovers. Yeah, he's not a good processor man. It's tough. 'Cause he has so much talent. I think he's got one of the most accurate arms, you know, in the league, if you can just kind of focus on making the smart right throw. So, yeah, I'm kind of out on Strauss. I think they'll probably extend him 'cause that's just kind of what you have to do, but I would love to see them take a quarter back. I think actually, motion man, tray. I think we just did our draft show. I'm pretty sure we gave them a quarter back in our mock draft. I'm pretty sure. But, yeah, I would love to see them do something crazy like that. In your opinion, why, what took JSN so long to break out? And I asked this because I'm hearing a lot of this year's JSN, and I don't know that there's ever gonna be another. Yeah. JSN for the uninitiated was like, coming out, I said was key to Nallanry and carnated. I said he was the best slot wide receiver prospect of all time and Jim Negi laughed in my face when I said that. And then he sucked for two years with some like Shane Waldron, some awful play callers. And then he didn't just break out last year. Like he had the best yards per team pass attempt since Lance Allworth in 1965. It was like one of the best wide receiver seasons ever when you adjust for how run heavy the Seahawks were and how there weren't any other targets on the team to throw to. What, explain it, what happened? The first two years, what happened last year? I love this narrative he sucked for two. He had 100 receptions as a second year player. 100, 100, 100, 0, 0. How many people in NFL history called 100 balls their second season in the league? How many have done it over the last five years? It's a different, it's a different NFL. Well, no, passing across the league is down actually. Two years in a row, it's down. So they were in the run game revolution. So don't give me the new era. It's actually going the other direction. All right, well, he had exactly as many yards per game as DK Metcalf who I think stinks. Tyler Lockett at age 32, stung. Yeah, but okay, so that's that's where I was going to it. It's circum, it's a pretty circumstantial where like, especially as a rookie he comes in, he's got DK, he's got Tyler Lockett who are made men. These are paid dudes. At the time, Seattle was still running a ton of 12 personnel as well. I mean, they got rid of both of them at the end of the year. Yeah, and then he went on to catch a hundred passes. So I'm just saying like you have a, well, no, DK played two years with JSN. Lockett did not, but DK did. Anyways, made minute receiver with horrific quarterback play, like legitimately terrible geno smith. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I heard Geno Smith was a top 10 quarterback heading into last season. Yeah, well, about that. Low and behold, yeah, Raiders moved on pretty quickly. Um, yeah, man, I, I think it's mostly circumstantial. Rookie season environment wasn't good. Um, you know, the whole coaching staff was gutted and then you have to deal with Tyler Lockett and D, who yeah, we can easily say they were on the decline in their career, but they were still paid like top dudes. They, they were forced to use them in the offense. They was a 12 personnel heavy team. Smith wasn't, Jackson Smith and Jigba wasn't on the field of ton. And then year two, I felt like he took a massive step. Going to a hundred receptions. I'll say that again. Now was it super efficient on a route, per route basis? No, not really. Did he score a lot of touchdowns? No, he could have been better, but considering the environment. considering the quarterback play, I was impressed with what he did as a sophomore second year player. And then last year the breakout, he is exactly who we thought he was though. Scott, you and I love JSN. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You were, I mean, you think you were marginally higher on him than I was, but like, well, you, part of it was because of you. You were like, I, hey, I think he might be better on the perimeter than in the shot. And I, hey, we saw that last year. Yeah. Yeah. This isn't complete alpha. I thought the idea that he was slot only was so, or reminded me of the Justin Jefferson conversation all over again, to be honest with you, but I actually really like this framing because the people you're saying, oh, this year's JSN and Slad Maconkey, it's Brian Thomas Jr. You saw an upward trajectory with JSN. You're not, you're seeing a downward trajectory with those receivers. That's something that really matters to me. That was actually really predictive for my, my prospect models was having that upward trajectory, not just a great first year, disappear, good, final year, something like that. All right. So a question I think everyone's going to like, who are some good, so who are some guys who are just damn good at the game that you that they need to draft? Like who like fantasy players might be under rating because, you know, the situation is whatever, but like the cream rises at the top and like, hey, no, Jayden Higgins, right? Is he as way better than he's getting credit for? That's an awesome question. I mean, Jayden Higgins is probably the first guy to throw out obviously. You already asked me about him. Man, I'm trying to think of my, who just did this sleeper video with Graham and I had guys in there. What about Christian Watson? Is that fair? I know he's been the lead for a little while. We love Christian Watson here at fantasy points. Yeah. Watson is like supremely talented. Like if I were to rank out my top 20 receivers in the NFL, I'm fairly confident he would make my top 20 and just tear talent alone. They talk about environment and situation where it's like cool. They consolidated the offense finally. No more Don Tavian wicks, no more Romeo dubs, no Randos receiver off the street to get a 25% route share should be these three for the season. Maybe Savion mixes in as like a gadget guy, right? But I think Watson's talent. I mean, he's awesome, man. I think he truly is the route running. It's been good sense college. Like I don't know how a North Dakota state kid had the route running chops. Christian Watson did, especially as like a fifth year player. You would assume he wasn't good at that stuff, but no, he's a fantastic route runner. He can win vertically. He's great off-press. He's big. He's physical. He's a freak athlete. And it seems like he's got his health in order, man. The hamstring stuff should be gone. He's got a lot of things to do. We've been waiting a long time. So, what's the most important thing that you've done? You've done a lot of things. I've done a lot of things. all baked into ADP current, wide receiver two. That means Devonte Adams is a lot cheaper than he should be. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to make of this, but I'm gonna present it to you. I haven't talked to you about it. So last year, we saw in week six or week seven, the Rams start playing a lot of 13 personnel, right? And so it went to 40%, then 50%. And until Devonte Adams got hurt in week 14, week 15, Pukinakua got zero of those 13 personnel snaps. That was all Devonte Adams, a little Kanata month field. And then Devonte Adams got hurt and Pukinakua got all of those snaps. And those are valuable snaps if you get it because you're competing for targets against tight ends. It's lesser target competition than wide receivers. So your target per route run in those sets is like three times what it is in 11 personnel. But if you don't get those snaps and your team is running 13% out 50% of the time, you're just a part time player. It's really hard to be productive. And I know Pukin was still in those weeks, but it's just like we've never seen a sub 60% route share wide receiver average more than 12 fantasy points per game. And so why would the Rams have Adams in that role instead of Pukinakua? Like it doesn't make it Pukinakua is so much better, right? And so I got easily explainable actually, but go ahead. So I framed this to Maxis Gano. And he was like, I actually think there's something there. He's like, the way this would show up. Well, he was like, well, Devonte Adams the X and Pukinakua is the Zeeer power slot. You kind of always want the X there and 13 personnel. Because you're going to get man coverage. You want you want you need the guy to win his route and win it relatively quickly. That's why these plays were so effective. And so if there's something to this, they would show up in our separation data, shout out fantasy points data. And he's like, what is Adams win rate from 13 personnel versus Pukinakua? I pulled it up, bro. Pukinakua is really good. It was like 15%. Devonte Adams was like 45%. It was insane. It was insane. So is there something to this? What's going on? Well, I think the premise of the argument is a little faulty because you're assuming the Rams are going to live in 13 personnel 40% of the time. And I just don't think. He did last year. No, towards the end of the season they did. Yeah. Because you think what defenses aren't going to be just stupid like they were last year, matching. Some of that. I also think they knew at the time they had found an edge and were exploiting it to the max. I think that like McVeigh is always evolving. He never does the same thing twice. Like he used to be an 11 person, he'll have a team. He used to be an outside zone only play caller. Now he incorporates a ton of duo and inside zone and even some power. So like, yeah, McVeigh is kind of always evolving it. But second, so like I think just the assumption that they'll be in 1340 plus percent of the time for the entire season is a little crazy. That'd be like 1980s football. It would be unprecedented. I mean, it's, it's where the league is headed. You know, every GM like overdrafted a shitty blocking tight end. Well, I actually wanted to talk about your love one thing before you pivoted here. Oh, okay. Because I do think there's some true like one of the things I love about the way you think is you do present these downside arguments to me. All like, if I have a take, you always like basically put me on trial and just you're like the prosecuting attorney just hitting you with all of these things. And I have to, I have to come up with reasons or answers for him, you know, and it is concerning. Because Colcomat, like people call him, but he's a super accomplished player in this league. They drafted a tight end with a top 70 pick. A guy I happen to love. And so to your point, I'm not saying. Same route. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying leveling is is on bus watch or anything. But the risk is you can't deny that it's there. 100% is. You can draft them just like you can say, I'm okay with the risk and draft them. I'm just, but you're 100% spot on that. There is no one's talking about that. No one, it's all just, oh, he, we saw the breakout. The offense is going to run through him. He's the wide receiver one. It's going to be a top five offense in the league. Chris's projections are kind of down on the bears. And like, I, I fought him tooth and nail. And over time, it's like, yeah, a lot of people think the bears offense is going to be what it was over the last four games where again, it was insanely fluky negative game script. But this is supposed to be what a nine win team this year, 10 win team this year. So like that's I think less or maybe maybe less, but it's not going to be trailing 85% of the time like the were over that stretch. And they're probably going to try and run the ball more because that's what Ben Johnson talked about all off season. So yeah, it's the bears are interesting because they had the easiest schedule in the league by far last year and they pivot to the hardest schedule in the league this year. So and then other assumptions we're making with the love and thing is that Caleb Williams continues developing, which I, I think it's fair to assume he will, but like it's still an assumption either way. You're still assuming he gets better, right? There's a lot of red flags. But anyways, I just, I want to talk about that for a sec. As far as your puky thing goes, it's a, it is a concern if they live in 13 personnel. And Devonta Adams is the best ISO route runner in the league still. So yeah, I mean, still at age 34, 35, but when does it fall out? Like I know John Hansen's like out on puky or out on Devonta just because the age. Listen, but route running is something that age is gracefully. You see it with keen and Alan come, dude, like out alphaing lad Maconkey and like especially if you're you're in the slot, but yeah, no, I like route running is something you lean on athleticism for really a lot. Like a lot of the best route runners or guys who had the awful sport scores. So like I'm kind of optimistic that as long as he stays healthy, which is really the big thing. Yeah, mate. He's, he's the better separate like Pukka, Nuku is maybe the best wide receiver in football. But he's not the best separator. Just like Jamar Chase is Jamar Chase is kind of an overrated separate. Yeah, Pukka wins on physicality and just kind of like pure determination. Like he's determined to win. So he does, you know. Yeah. Cool. What's next? I don't know. Do you have any questions for me? There's a few things I had on my sheet. You never, I thought you were going to ask me about Lamar Jackson. You never did. Yeah, yeah. So there's some things I'm seeing in the data that, you know, I think is worth talking about. Zay Flowers play action splits were like insane. So he ranks like what? Top seven in yards per round of the last three seasons without play action. He's tied with Adam Thielin. Thanks for the awful. And then you see it with Lamar Jackson too. You were tweeting about this. How, how awful Lamar Jackson Jackson's accuracy was with and without what is that? You know, we were talking about play action being a cheat code. But is it possible that, you know, some quarterbacks really need it more than others and why? Yeah. Yeah. And then we were inherently what I call slow trigger quarterbacks. Lamar Jackson's one of them. And what I mean by slow trigger is they're more see it throw it types. Like Lamar is not throwing into tight windows. He's not, he's not throwing with a ton of anticipation. He's not leading players into space. It's more, I see a guy open. So therefore I throw it to him. So when you don't have play action, just pure space is less, right? So there's less opportunity to throw into a tight window. Or I mean to throw into an open window where with play action, you're creating those voids in the defense. You're creating opportunities to deliver the ball. I also think there's a rhythm component of it where it's like play action forces you to be and rhythm a little bit more. It's like your foot works really dialed in and like, you know, you pop, you see that defense. You can make a read off of it. And I think it might lend a little bit to what we were talking about earlier with maybe the site picture for Lamar without play action is messy. He sees rotating safeties. He sees disguised coverages. He sees inverted cover too. Doesn't know how to process that information. So with play action, you are taking some of that out of it where it's like I have to fake this mesh point. By the time I get my eyes around to the defense, the site picture is clear. And I know what the defensive responsibilities are. I have guys open in voids in space. Yeah. I thought, I thought, too, you were going to tie something about it. Oh, go ahead, sorry. You finished that thought. You were asking me about the way mobile quarterbacks are played versus non mobile quarter action something. Yeah. So this is this is a perfect tie in is basically. So I'll send this to to try be a discord DM. You could put on the screen. But if you look at Lamar Jackson last year after he suffered his lower body injury, he was literally Aaron Rogers by every measure by fantasy points for game. He were exactly 14.2 fantasy. That's awful for Lamar Jackson, but it's also EPA per dropback. Lamar was worse, passer rating, accurate throw rate, hero throw rate, turn over, worthy throw rate. Lamar Jackson worse than every measure after this lower body injury. And so this is what I was saying is like, yeah, this is, you know, I always screw it up. This is Cyclops without the radio active vision. What is it? It's not laser vision without the laser vision. Yeah. It's like you're robbing him of the thing that makes him special and when he doesn't have that, yeah, he's a bottom five quarterback with it. He's a top five quarterback. And that's because this is another a fish and see cheat code is being a hyper mobile quarterback is playing is being quarterback on easy mode. And this this there's multiple reasons why it's it's you know, you have to leave what the linebacker in there. So it's lighter coverage. It's you see it like I we always all the stats nerds are like Josh Allen's pressure to sack pressure my homes pressure to sack Lamar Jackson. It's because they see a softer version of pressure. I never really understood this. So I'd like you to kind of just elaborate on on all these points here. Okay. Yeah. So mobile quarterbacks don't see the same pressure packages as like a Jared Gough or even a Justin Herbert or a bone X in the reason for that is because they're so hyper mobile that the most damage they can do to you is escaping the pocket. That's what they want. Ultimately when Lamar Jackson is in shotgun or under center, his thought is if I can extend this play and create with my legs, I can do damage to the defense. That's his default position as a quarterback. So the one thing you don't want to do as a defense is give him that opportunity. And so when you when you when you pressure these quarterbacks say you have a dominant passage like Miles Garrett. When Miles Garrett wins and he's the only guy on the D line that wins, you all you've done is flush Lamar Jackson out of the pocket. And now you've given him the opportunity to go create and play in space and make things happen with his legs and throw down the field. So what you see teams do is they call it a contain rush and you know, basically it's a four or five four plus a spy or a five man rush where it's like we're going to occupy the gaps. We're going to take away the rushing lanes and we are slowly going to shrink the pocket on the quarterback to keep him there. Even if it costs us time to pressure or time to throw, we're willing to make that sacrifice because we trust our defense to cover in structure better than they can cover out of structure. And that's the big rub. None of these guys see normal pressure packages at all. And so like came up the way team started playing Caleb Williams towards the end of the year was like, Hey, we're going to contain rush and look at the two lines games actually they shut Caleb down in both games. They didn't go after him. They literally was like, he can't beat us from the pocket. So let's just keep him in the pocket. The second you have a guy win and pressure the quarterback. He's now breaking the the pocket and you don't trust your pursuit rushers to get there in time. And it that's the strategy that most teams apply to these hyper mobile quarterbacks. I think Caleb will see that type of pass rush all year this year for the first time. But yeah, whether it's, you know, Kyle Murray, same thing kind of thing back in the day, but my homes, Alan Lamar, they don't they Jackson Dart probably this year won't see the crazy pass rush either. And furthermore, you don't even see a lot of a ton of like singular blitzes either because a blitz does you know good if he if he escapes your blitz, right? If they do blitz these guys, it's usually like a full commitment. We're sending eight players after the quarterback to take away all of those rush lanes. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, no, I think it does. All right, we're we're running out of time here. Any any any questions you have for me, bread, anything you wanted to talk about that I didn't ask you? I didn't know I was supposed to prepare questions. Sorry. I always have questions for you, but you know, not on the spot. I don't. All right. Well, everyone who tuned in, thanks for listening. Hey, if you're listening on school of Scott, I did do two shows with Ryan Heath were Ryan teared out his his favorite quarterbacks and tight ends who he thinks should be the Exodia. Make sure you check that out. That's on fantasy football daily. I'm pretty sure. It's on our YouTube. If you like this, we're going to do this again. So make sure you're you're joining us live on YouTube to ask questions yourself or hitting the up on Twitter or on discord or Brett. And if you want to have some questions answered live Brett and I, make sure you just send those to us and we can get those in. Thanks for tuning in.