2026 Awards Predictions: MVP, Breakouts, Busts & Rookie Picks! (09/08 Fantasy Football Podcast)

[MUSIC] Are you ready for the season to start? Yeah, you are. You know you love that NFL tradition Wednesday night football. Tomorrow we've got football for you and week one will begin. But right now it's awards time here on Fantasy Football Today. We're giving out awards before the season even starts. Who's going to be the fantasy MVP? Who's going to be the fantasy? The fantasy rookie of the year. And thank you so much for being with us for the next hour or so. As we go through it, we're also going to give you some big injury updates and some storylines that we're looking forward to seeing in week one. I'm Adam Azer with Dave Richard. Dave, is it true that in high school you were voted most likely to be on a famous game show? No, that was not true. I was most likely to be in the movies in high school. And a completely different career path. Something to talk about another time. Yeah, I would actually like to hear that story. Jamie, is it true you were voted most likely to have a famous family member? No, the family member was famous before I was in high school. So that was already established. So you're over two. Good job. Okay. Would you believe, I'm sure you would, that I was voted most humorous in eighth grade. Right? Um, I would believe that I would also believe that you were voted most likely to be the worst backup goal in the history of your high school. Weren't you homeschooled? No, I wasn't. That was good. You should have been both humorous. All right, let's talk about week one injuries here. And let's talk about the 49ers. They should sponsor an injury segment. Um, McCaffrey, Evans, Kittle, Dave, how are you ranking all of these guys who have been banged up? I'm ranking them as if they're going to play and in the case of McCaffrey and Kittle. These are must-start guys. I'm not going to think twice about it as long as they're out there. I know it's a tough matchup for McCaffrey, especially, but I want him in my lineup. And you drafted Mike Evans, probably in that wide receiver two flex range. I'm okay with him as a flex as well. A little bit worried about just how effective he'll be. I do like the improvements that the Rams made on defense. Obviously, that's easy to say with Miles Garrett and Aaron Donald being there. But even in their secondary, they have both the starting cornerbacks from the Chiefs last year. I think that was done to improve their man-to-man coverage. And that'll make it a little bit harder on Mike Evans. So I would have expectations in check for Mike Evans. But I'm happy that he's going to play and that he downplayed his injuries because we want Mike Evans to play. Jamie, do you consider George Kittle a must-start? I'm just worried about his snap share. I do not consider a must-start. I think this is the one game where you kind of want to see what he looks like and see exactly what he's going to do from a playing time standpoint. So you're right. I think if you picked up or drafted, Joanne Johnson along with George Kittle, I know you did that a lot. That's a move that I would make. I would start Johnson over Kittle. I think if you drafted early in the process and you drafted Jake Thomas, for example, I'd probably play Kittle over Thomas. But there's a sliding scale of the Titans that I'd play over him. So like Mark Andrews, was somebody that we saw paired with Kittle, Dallas Goddard. We saw that pairing as well. You know, those guys, I think, are just in a better spot than Kittle this week. As we know with him, it could take one play and he's going to make your fantasy week. But they've just alluded to it. The defensive additions and changes for the Rams are so good that if you have a question mark and I really do about Kittle, I'm sure a lot of people do as well. I would sit in this week. Okay. Puganakua, we're expecting to play. He'll be in line-ups as long as he's active. But Travion Henderson on Wednesday, Dave, doesn't look like Travion's going to play. How good of a start is Ramondre Stevenson against what was a really tough matchup in 2025? And I still think it's going to be a really tough matchup. But I would absolutely use any running back that's going to get almost all of the touches in his team's offense. And that's what it looks like is going to happen for Ramondre Stevenson this week. And let's not forget that by the time the Patriots played in the Super Bowl against the Seahawks, it was their 21st game of the year. Their left tackle was banged up. The interior of that offensive line was as good. Now look at what the Patriots have done this off season. They added Elijah Vera Tucker at guard. They're healthier now. Will Campbell is healthier now. They kicked Jared Wilson inside. I think this is a better offensive line across the board for New England. And I think Ramondre Stevenson can benefit in this first game. I'm starting him. Jamie, let's talk about the Bears facing the Panthers this week. And a couple playoff teams from last year. We got Roma Dunze and Kyle Menongai on the injury report. How much does their availability impact the rankings this week? I mean, we're going to find out just how healthy they are. You know, Dunze, they downplayed the injury when he got hurt last week. Same day that Dianne Drake Swift got hurt and gave us all a scare. So if he's out, that makes Luther Burton easily a top 15 wide receiver. He's already a top 20 wide receiver for this week. So I think you just continue to start him with confidence. So Dunze, I'm going to be a little bit cautious about now just depending on who I'm comparing him to. In the rankings, but you hope to see him get in some level of practice this week. And it's not going to change anything for Colston, love Lunar Caleb Williams. I think in the case of Menongai practicing, that's a very positive sign for him. I'm not going to play him, but I'm going to be a little bit more cautious with Dianne Drake Swift. Certainly, I'm still drafting on Tuesday or Wednesday, Thursday, any time before Sunday. I'm going to lower some of the expectations I had for him because we heard week to week with Menongai. And the fact that he's able to practice leading into week one is a very positive sign for him. So we'll see it just in terms of his participation and what his, you know, level of, you know, game, game script will be. But I don't expect to see much from Menongai at least for this week, but it's a positive sign again in these practicing prior to week one. Aston Gentie facing the Dolphins Jeremiah Love at the Chargers. Both look like they're going to play certainly Gentie. And the Cardinal said they're optimistic about Jeremiah Love. I guess I shouldn't say certainly Gentie, but it's trending in that direction. Dave, if Gentie and Love play this week, are they must start running backs? There are number two running backs. I can find 12 other runners that I'd rather start than either one of these guys. And I like the match up for Gentie, considerably better than the one that I like for Jeremiah Love. And really the whole bottom line is, are these guys going to get workhorse touches? Or are they going to end up splitting with another running back? We know that Jeremiah Love will have company in Tyler Algera. Algera is certainly a successful short yardage and goal line running back. That's just one area that the Cardinals can take some pressure off of Jeremiah Love. And then Gentie certainly can handle that role. But Mike Washington had a great preseason. He had a great training camp by all accounts. He could end up taking some low value touches away from Aston Gentie. And then Gentie has in the neighborhood of 15 touches and not 20 touches. I like Gentie better. He's closer to a top 12 running back. Both of them are top 24. We're going to keep an eye on Jonathan Brooks. We're going to keep an eye on Ameca Buka. Looks like Alec Pierce is going to play this week. We've had a pretty good injury report, I think, over the last few days. Some guys will be had questions about our training in the right direction for week one. So I want to ask you guys some of the storylines that you're looking forward to seeing. I mean, we've been speculating about backfields and wide receiver units and how targets are going to be distributed and those types of things. But Jamie, I'll ask you, which backfields are you keeping a close eye on in week one? What's going to happen in the future? Pittsburgh is certainly one of the ones on the top of the list. I think we're not going to get really a full example of maybe how this works because I think the Steelers play with a lead. And by doing so, I don't know if we get the full scope of who's going to be the best pass-catching running back there, especially with their chasing points. So I actually prefer Rico Dallow for week one. I prefer Jalen Warren for the season, but they've been basically ranked back to back. And I've shuffled them back and forth almost on a week-to-week basis. So that's one I kind of want to see what the usage is, if there's a goal-line opportunity or two, if there's some obvious third-down situations, you know, to see who's going to be on there, if they're going to throw to their running backs on first and second-down. Remember, it's a new offense. So Mike McCarthy's system different than Arthur Smith's system, but you still have a very immobile Aaron Rodgers who's probably going to need his running backs catch passes with both guys can do and they kind of sort of interchange their roles. I think you want to see what happens in Washington with those two guys there, Cory Croskey-Marit and Rashad White. That's one you want to kind of keep an eye on and see how that sort of unfolds. Jacksonville to see what happens between Basel Tutin and Chris Rodriguez. I think they both could be successful in the game against Cleveland, meaning maybe one finds the end zone, maybe the other gets the majority of the work. And I think you could probably figure out which does which with Tutin being hopefully the workhorse guy there. So there's several backfills. I think we kind of want to see just how this workload, you know, is distributed in week one. I just don't know if we're going to get the definitive answer in some of these situations. I'll give you one more and it's in the very first game of the year. It's Seattle with Jardin Price and George Halani. I know we're all excited about Jardin Price and certainly he's got the talent to be a great running back. But think about what this Seahawks team did last year with its running backs. And think about how they might want to ease this rookie in in a spotlight game. His first NFL game. Obviously, if he gets a hot hand, they will let him run. But they trust what they've got in George Halani. That's a running back that might belong on fantasy benches to begin the year. Yeah, and I think Bucky Irving is someone I'm keeping a close eye on here with Sean Tucker, a game time decision this week. But I just want to see Bucky Irving get off to a great start here because I think he could end up being a really good pick in fantasy drafts. If you took him in round five earlier in the process or, you know, maybe he moved up. I know we were always a little lower on him than 80 p. But if you took him in round four, he could still really pay off. And I certainly expect Gainwell to play on passing downs. But if Bucky Irving can get, you know, 15 or more touches, I think that'd be awesome for him. I think they're both great plays this week, though, Adam, because this is the highest projected total of the of the week one slate. You know, so you could see Bucky getting the rushing opportunities, especially like you said, up Tucker's out. And then if he gets into it, gets into a shootout like we expect, then Kenneth Gainwell can definitely be at least a flex week. Yeah, I mean, there's so much that I would love to just maybe like do a mock draft after week one. after week one, and see what changes I do. don't think we'll do it. We have an interesting exercise. - We should. It sounds fun. - We should. Yeah, we should do it. All right. How about target distributions, receivers and tight ends and running backs and all that? Dave, give me a team you're looking at in terms of how they're going to distribute those targets. - I'm real curious to see what the Broncos do. They got Jalen Waddle this off season. I've certainly talked him up from the moment that the trade went down thinking that he was going to be the target leader for the Broncos. How big of a target leader will he be? And this is a big time game for them against Kansas City. And I mentioned that Kansas City lost both of their starting quarterbacks to LA this off season. That means they're starting two new guys, one guy they've had on the team before. But the other one is first round pickman, so we're delaying. I'm real curious to see how Denver deploys Waddle in this game. Is it going to play in the slot a lot? And does that mean that the target volume won't be there for Coral and Sutton? Pat Bryant's name got a lot of attention in training camp. What kind of workload does he get through the air? So I'm real curious to see. That would probably be the first team on the list for me. Jamie. Yeah, Arizona, you know, I think just looking at what happens with Marvin Harrison and Michael Wilson. And just to see how those two guys are going to be used. And, you know, we heard this the start of the off season when Matt LaFlora, excuse me, Michael Flora says, you know, we're going to have Wilson in the Puccana Cooer role. And we're going to see Marvin Harrison in the Devonte Adams role, but there was no training pride with the Ram. So how does that all come together? You know, and then you see Harrison have a very bad start to training camp with a lot of drops. And then just it's highlight after highlight after highlight. We don't hear a lot of Michael Wilson. But you like what his usage is in the preseason. So I think there's still a lot of unanswered questions for this, the duo there. And then, you know, factory and McBride as well. The run game should be better. The schedule is going to be awful. It's just hard to get past how little Michael Wilson did last year when Marvin Harrison was healthy. And so hopefully that's not the case for people that are investing in Michael Wilson. And it would be nice to see a full season of Marvin Harrison with Jacobi Brissett, because those four games and those guys were together, it looked like we were going to get that Harrison breakout. So it would be nice to see that happen in his third year in the NFL. Yep, Arizona for sure. I think San Francisco, although I don't know that we can draw too much from any team that's going to play the Rams this year. Just like really, really tough matchup. But how is San Francisco going to distribute those targets? What does Stribbling do in his first game? That's really interesting. Pittsburgh will be interesting. And you know, guys, before we go to break, I'm just looking, you know, I heard what you said day about Jalen Waddle against this secondary that's going to be starting a rookie. And the Jerry Sney looks like it might be their slot corner. And he's been pretty bad for the last couple of years. And I'm looking at the line, man. Like how are the chiefs favored? Bull prediction, the Broncos smash the chiefs in Arrowhead. On Monday night football, they win by at least 10 points. The Broncos are a better team. They should be favored in this game. What do you think? I think if that were the public perception, it would be a much closer line. But I think the public perception is Patrick Mahomes is coming back in Kenneth Walker's in Kansas City. And it's Andy Reed. And it's a chiefs home game. And so the public is going to lean toward Kansas City. Jamie. Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. It's just, you know, sometimes we see these weak one upsets where it's like, oh, I forgot about this team. I forgot about this player. Not that people are forgetting about the chiefs. But you don't hear them super bowl favorites. Like we've heard every year for the last, you know, 10 plus years or whatever it is, eight plus years, says Mahomes has been in the NFL. Wouldn't shock me if they win this one. And then they kind of go on a little bit of a run here to start. They're scheduled. They get the dolphins and the Raiders before they're by it. So like they could get off to a great start. And if they do so with this particular game, I think we get, you know, back in the, we get the chiefs back in the mix of some fun conversation. So wouldn't surprise me if they win this one. Yeah, I mean, the chiefs are really good, probably. But the Broncos should have gone to the Super Bowl last year. They would have if Boenix didn't get hurt. Anyway, most likely to beat the chiefs in weak one would be the Broncos. We will have more superlatives when we come back on fantasy football today. I'm going to talk to you right now about Omaha steaks. 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Terms apply, seasite for details. Let the awards begin. We have a lot. We have so many awards. We're going to win an award for most awards on this show. I think we'll at least be nominated. Okay, let's start out with some good positive. You know what award we want, Wayne? What's that? Best game show with who has more? You're saying that who has more is so good that it will take the awards away from this episode or you're saying who has more sucks? Yes. Okay. We don't know. Good awards. Fantasy MVP, Dave, who's the fantasy MVP and this takes into account draft value. I wish I had more of my life back after the way that this segment started. I'm going to go with Jared Goff as the fantasy MVP, drafted late, potent offense. We all know what he's capable of doing in Detroit. He could have a Stafford 2025 type season, better yet. He could have a Jared Goff 2024 type season. Remember that year, he got off to a little bit of a slow start and then finished from week four on with 25.5 fantasy points per game in six points for passing touchdown leagues. The offensive line is okay. The defense is a huge question mark and we know that the pass catchers are awesome. Who you got, Jamie? Devonte Smith, obviously, somebody very excited about since they made the move of getting rid of AJ Brown and I think we're going to see a big season for him. Thankfully, he's over the hamstring injury that he dealt with in training camp and we've said this non-stop that the opportunity is there in front of him. The three games that AJ Brown missed, nine targets per game is what he averaged over 16 PPR points per game is what he's averaged. I know you'll talk about since you did this morning what he'll do without Dallas Goddard. So I don't want to do your thunder because I'm coming up in a later category. But for a wide receiver that you got somewhere around three, we've seen him go at the beginning part. We've seen him go at the end part around three anywhere from like wide receiver 13 through 18. I think he's got an opportunity to finish as potentially a top five wide receiver. There's just that much upside for him. So we've never really seen him in this role for an entire year and so hopefully he stays healthy. Hopefully, Jalen Hertz can get back on track because the last few years have been a little bit of a struggle for him and once again, another new coordinator. But I do think Sean Manion system will favor Jalen Hertz and doing some different things and I think that will open up some opportunities for Devon Day Smith to be that alpha to command those targets and to reward fantasy managers that took him in round three and probably should have said, Oh, I might have taken this guy in round two. I could have been better off. I'm going to go with Mike Evans, probably not in week one. And he does have a lot of tough matchups this year and that could be a problem. But the 49ers the last two years, Juan Jennings has led the team each of the last two years in end zone targets, I think Mike Evans is going to be that guy this year. And what I love about it, looking at CBS average draft position, if you're drafting on Tuesday, this guy's going in the seventh round now. So he has fallen so much because of the injuries, but hearing him say the injuries were no big deal. He could have played through them. I think he's going to have a really good year. I think it'll be about a thousand yards and I think he's going to score double digit touchdowns. And because he's going so late, you're going to get a top 20 wide receiver as wide receiver 30 something maybe in ADP. So he's my pick for fantasy MVP. How about fantasy rookie of the year, Dave, we're going to keep it with the 49ers. We're going to keep it with the 49ers and the guy that would obviously benefit if Mike Evans misses time. And that's Dejean Stribbling who was fast-tracked in the offense this preseason, certainly looks like he's going to play a lot as the number two receiver. Yeah, that means ahead of Debo Samuel might be third on the team in targets over the course of the season. Actually, you should might be fourth, which doesn't sound good, but it's the contingency upside that I would bank on here. And that's why he's on the bench in a number of my leagues. We know that Mike Evans over 30 has a history of getting banged up. George Kiddell coming back from injury. He's over 30. Debo Samuel, he's over 30 and he also has a history of getting banged up and no kidding. He started on Christian McCaffrey who turned 30 this year. Hopefully he plays a lot, but I think they want his target volume to go down a little bit in San Francisco on a week-to-week basis. Stribbling can win one-on-one matchups. He's a physical outside receiver. He could be the guy that replaces Joanne Jennings as the end zone target. Not a bad idea if you're drafting on Tuesday to take Mike Evans in round seven. I don't mind that value, but get Stribbling late because I think he's got a chance to be the best fantasy rookie. Yeah, handcuff a lot of your 49ers, apparently. So Dave's going to do it with the receiver position. I'm going to do it at running back. And I think Caleb Black, if he gets the chance to be the lead rusher for San Francisco, be the fantasy rookie of the year. And that just plays into Christian McCaffrey. history, which we don't want to see come up again, but two years in his career with over 400 total touches, two years in his career, he missed the following season playing up to only four games in that year. So coming off a season with 450 total touches in 2025, he's 30 years old now. Black appears to be the next man up. It could still be Jordan James could be a committee, which would be awful. But again, if you get to be the lead running back for San Francisco, it's been a very good opportunistic spot for a lot of players. And I think Black will be that next man up behind Christian McCaffrey. So if in fact we do get McCaffrey missing standing period of time, I think Kaelin Black will be a league winner for fantasy managers and the easy choice for the fantasy rookie of the year. Yeah, and I dug deep for this one here. I wanted to give a name that probably wasn't on people's radar. So I went with Jeremiah Love and I think he's probably pretty good. But actually, I think he's going to surprise people. There's been so little buzz about Jeremiah Love right now. Think about how excited people were after the preseason game. We saw how good he is and then he gets hurt. Looks like he's going to play week one. He's fallen to round three, round three, four turn basically. Obviously, you can go a lot earlier than that. People are excited about him. But this is a pretty bad rookie class. We hated it for dynasty purposes. The wide receivers that went in the first round didn't exactly end up in great opportunities, great possibilities for week one. So I think Jeremiah Love is really going to stand out. And I know, obviously he's David Jamie's favorite rookie as well. But I think he's going to be good value for you because he's going to fall into the fourth round in a lot of drafts. And you know, it's going to take a few games, but they're going to get him featured. And he'll have a very nice rookie season. Unfortunately, I don't know if it's unfortunate. I don't have any Jeremiah Love. Maybe maybe one league, but I might regret that. All right. Break out player of the year. Dave, you'll start it off with Bazel Tutten. Liam Cohen's new, Bucky Irving. I think that's what we're all hoping for. And maybe that we were hoping that that would be the case last year, but it turned out to be that Travis H&N in his last year in Jacksonville wound up being the best running back for them. But he's gone. He's in New Orleans. And now Tutten is at the top of the depth chart for Jacksonville. He's fast. He's violent. He should earn opportunities because of what differentiates him from Chris Rodriguez. And that's primarily his speed and elusiveness. I think he leads this team and carries over the course of the year. We're a little bit worried about touchdowns from him because Chris Rodriguez is the big or running back. But note that last year, Bazel Tutten had a better success right inside the five in Jacksonville than Chris Rodriguez had in Washington. And I think Liam Cohen will catch onto that. So I don't know if every single goal line carry is going to go to Chris Rodriguez. I think Tutten will get his fair share. I think he can end up being a big breakout running back. Very excited about Jane Reed. You know, just seeing the fact that the Packer's run game could be a little bit suspect with Josh Jacobs on the commissioners' exemplest. And we don't know exactly how that's going to all play out. So I think we're going to see the Packers throw more. And that's going to allow all of the receivers, you know, Christian Watson Reed and Matthew Gold. And that's the order I would draft them to all have big seasons. And Reed 2023 was fantastic. He was healthy that year. But really, it's just about target opportunities. 23 games in his career with at least five targets. 15 of those games. He's been over 13 PPR points, averaging 16 PPR points per game during that span. I think we're going to see a very more productive passing. I don't know how great is going to be in week one, because Minnesota is obviously really good and going to put a lot of pressure on Jordan Love. But I think as the season unfolds, we'll see all three of these guys including Tucker Crafts. We're going to put all four of them in there in terms of the pass catchers. Really benefit. But where you're getting Jane Reed and the production that he's going to give you could actually finish as a top 20 fantasy wide receiver. So really loved the opportunity to draft Jane Reed around 11 based on his ADP. I was taking him in round eight. And I think a reward fantasy manager is finishing close to a top 20 wide receiver for the season. Devonte Smith is my pick. And I'll just say listen to what Jamie just said about him. But I'll also say that in 17 games over the last four seasons without Dallas Goddard and with AJ Brown, he has averaged 17.1 PPR fantasy points per game. If he does that as a third round pick, that is an awesome pick. But I think he's capable of even more than that because that was without Dallas Goddard. Now he's without AJ Brown. And even if Jalen hurts struggles like he did last year, we still saw AJ Brown put up good numbers. And that was with the bond a Smith. So there's not much holding Devonte Smith back here. He's going to have an awesome season. And let's get another another superlative here, a positive one. We'll do some negative ones next. But come back player of the year. Dave, I hope you're right about Malik neighbors. Yeah, there's really only one answer here. And it's going to be Malik neighbors. We don't know exactly what to expect in week one. But the fact that he didn't miss any training camp after an off season full of doom and gloom is fantastic news. And I know those concerns about the passing game in New York. Matt Nagy isn't exactly our favorite play caller. But even he had the sense to hyper target Allen Robinson and even Darnell Mooney for a season in Chicago. He's going to do the exact same thing with Malik neighbors. He's going to dominate targets for the giants. You're going to be happy when you took Malik neighbors in round three because he's going to perform like a round two or maybe even a round one pick this season. Yeah, I feel the same about Lad Makonky. You know, a guy that was just absolutely terrible in his second season in 2025. But we saw the upside in 2024 and his rookie campaign. And now there's no more Keenan Allen. There's hopefully healthy offensive line, at least the offensive tackles. And you have a better play caller with Mike McDaniel. So Makonky getting all sorts of rave reviews. Justin Herbert's going to have a big season. And I think you just look at Makonky 15 PPR points per game was what he was averaging in his rookie season. I think that's the floor. So I'm expecting Mike Lad Makonky to come back and have a big year. And almost do a lot of the same things Dave said could challenge to be a round one pick. Could challenge to be a top 10 fantasy wide receiver. Somebody that fantasy managers not necessarily forgot about. But I think you know, you get the sort of polarizing view when you get to that spot in round three. Oh, he burned me last year. I don't think he's going to be good again. Yes, he will. He's going to have a very big season in 2026. I'm going to go with DJ Moore. What's he bouncing back from just being really bad 9.9 fantasy points per game last year. He was a huge bust. In fact, DJ Moore had pretty similar ADP last year. Compared to what he has this year. But this year, I think it's going to pay off. I know he's 29 years old and he's really just had a pretty overrated career. If you just look at his fantasy points, only two standout seasons. Josh Allen's going to get the best out of DJ Moore. DJ Moore is going to lead that team in every statistical category. And I think he'll be around 15 fantasy points per game. He'll be basically a must start like Mike Evans, like I said earlier in this segment, not necessarily week one because Derek Stingley could be all over DJ Moore, but it's going to be a very good year for him. Who's going to have kind of a bad year? Who's going to be our least valuable player? Our biggest bust as a rookie. Those types of things. We'll talk about it in our next segment on fantasy football today. The biggest bust. The worst rookie of 2026. Getting super negative here on fantasy football today. Jamie, let's start with the biggest bust. Who's getting your preseason award? It's the Von H and you know, and I hate saying it because I love watching a play and I love the town. I love what he's done for fantasy managers the last two plus seasons. But it's just a bad team that he's going to be a part of. And I'm very concerned about what I think has made him so special as his role in the passing game. So we'll see if Malik Willow continues to involve him. We'll see to what level he involves and because Chloe's going to throw him the ball. But this is a receiver that's been this is a running back has been so successful as a receiver. And now you have a quarterback and Malik Willow is who statistically the last two seasons lowest target rate in terms of throwing to his running back. So that's obviously a little skewed because he hasn't played very much. But I think we're just going to see a lesser version of H&N. A guy who was being taken at the end around one. I was saying all offseason. I wouldn't draft him until round two. I hope that that's where he ends up finishing as a round two pick. It could be worse. Remember, this is expected to be the worst team in the NFL. You listen to almost every prognosticator who says the dolphins will have the first pick in the NFL draft next year. That's not going to lead to a lot of touchdowns. So I love they's going to get a lot of work. I hope that's going to be the case for 17 games. But I just think the money is going to disappoint a lot of fantasy managers this year. I could see the browns giving the dolphins a run for worst team in the league this year. And the dolphins are taking on the Raiders in week number one, which actually leads me to an interesting point about why Ashton Gentie is going to be the biggest bust. Obviously worried about his health, worried about the workload in part because of his health and the fact that he heard his ankle in training camp this year. But also this offense isn't expected to score a ton of points. Here's the case in point. They're taking on Miami and week number one. Their implied team total is just 22 points. You would expect the Raiders to blow out the dolphins if they had a potent offense. I know they've got bright powers and that dude's a stud. And Gentie's a stud too. I'm just worried about how long it's going to take him to round into shape. How effective he'll be. How much work he's going to get. I kind of feel like taking him in late round two early round three was the right time to take him. We should be thankful that the injury happened because now the draft value implied with him when we took him in drafts isn't anywhere near where it was. He was basically taking a full round later from where he was after the injury. And I think that that's okay. But I don't think he's going to be amazing. He's going to be the biggest bust. I'm going with Tramick Bride, third round pick. Don't take him in the second round. And look, he's so good. And he's got two straight seasons with more than nine targets per game. And usually guys who do that, they do it again the next year and again and again until they're basically too old to get that type of target volume. It's impressive players on that kind of list. Why am I calling Tramick Bride a bust? Well, I believe in Michael Wilson. And after Michael Wilson broke out last year, we didn't really have a lot of games where we had Wilson, Marvin Harrison, Jr., and Tramick Bride all playing and all healthy. But when they were all on the field, kind of second half of the season after Michael Wilson established himself, they all had about a 20% target share. This was a very small sample size. So I don't know what it's going to look like. But I think the target chair is going way down for Tramick Bride. I think Jacoby Bersett could get benched and you could have Carson Beck at some point. We've got the toughest schedule. We've got such good defenses in that division a lot of Not things working against Tremac bride is a fantastic player. I don't love the situation. And just remember the first six games of the season, he wasn't even that good. That was with Kyler Murray. So it's not like we've never seen Tremac bride not be great. So I think he could be the biggest bust. The worst rookie. Ooh, Jamie didn't like my rookie of the year picket seems. Jamie's going with Jeremiah Love for worst rookie. This is the crap on the Cardinals segment apparently because you got another one coming up that you don't like. This isn't about him being the worst rookie based on production. It's about being the worst rookie based on his draft value. So he's going to get drafted probably in round three or was drafted in round three. And I don't think he's going to live up to the billing. We talked about this already. You're looking at a situation where this is going to be a bad team. This is going to be a team with a very difficult schedule. Then you factor in that he's coming into the season at less than a hundred percent. High ankle sprains tend to linger. We don't know when he'll be back to full strength. And you have a committee that could be bad if James Conner ever gets healthy and they decide to play him at some point later in the season. But Tyler Rodriguez most likely going to steal touchdowns. So tough offense, tough schedule, tough situation. I think people may end up overdrafting or not really getting the value that they got out of Jeremiah Love. So he should be the best rookie in terms of production. I just don't think we're going to have a similar situation where Ash and Gentie was a complete bust. But we're going to have a situation where I think a lot of people said could say I should have taken somebody else instead of Jeremiah Love in round three. All right. This might be me kicking somebody when they're down and maybe the most obvious bust pick of all for rookies. But I'm going to say that Jordan Tyson is going to be a waste of a draft pick. Even if you took him in round 12 plus on I are to start the season we're not going to have him to begin the year. We don't know when he's going to come off. We don't know how effective he'll be when he does come off. I'm scared it could be close to a lost year for Jordan Tyson and the dude has tons of ability. But I just feel like all this time that he's going to miss on top of Chris Olave, Joanne Johnson. The things that those two did last year with Tyler Shuckett quarterback, they should be able to build off of. Remember, this offense really did not change that much from one year to the next other than Jordan Tyson joining the fray. And now Tyson, we just don't know when he's going to be back. So maybe the most obvious call to say that he's going to be the worst rookie. But I'm saying if you drafted Jordan Tyson, you better have an IR spot to slide him into because otherwise he's going to be wasting a spot on your bench. And I'll go with Carnell Tate, just hate what we've seen from the Titans offense this preseason. I don't think we've seen any starting offense more than the Titans. And somehow they've been so bad even going up against backups. Now look, I think that could easily change, but it's not like we have a ton of reasons to believe in the Titans offense. We're all just hoping that Cam Ward takes the next step. And I don't really think that Carnell Tate was that great for prospect. I think it was just a weak wide receiver draft and a weak draft overall, bad quarterback draft. And that's why he went so early. So I think it'll be fine, but I actually wouldn't be surprised if Juan Dale Robinson leads the team and catches. I think I probably would project that yards, probably Tate, but I also think they're going to get the other guys, the annoying Iowaners and decays and Ridley's mixed in there enough to take away from Carnell Tate. He's a number three receiver and he was going in like the seventh round basically. He's fallen, which is good. I think that maybe now you get good value, but I don't think we're going to have a standout season from Carnell Tate. All right, the next award is the don't call it a comeback, because this is a candidate for comeback player of the year, but he still isn't all that good. Jamie, who you got? Terry McCorn. You know, I was so excited about him when the off season started and looking at this receiving core and really lack thereof in terms of who's going to be a member of the supporting cast. And not that's the fun digs that 32 years old is going to be the biggest reason why Terry McCorn troubles, but it's obviously a reason. Then you factor in the offensive line and the concerns that we have there. And does Terry McCorn have the ability to get back to the level that we saw in 2024? Remember, the majority of his career, he was always a good fantasy wide receiver. In 2024, he was elite in the first year with Dave and Daniels, and I hope fantasy managers just aren't reaching for that again or expecting that again because just because both are healthy. Last year, it was the contract situation from McCorn, got off to the slow start, and then Daniels got hurt. So I think he'll definitely be better than what we saw last year. I just don't think we're going to get another top 20 season out of Terry McCorn. I wasn't drafting that way and I'm not expecting him to perform that way. Man, I hope you're wrong. I'm a Clawin, but I kind of get where you're coming from on that. I like rooting for him. Does it count if we're messing with the Cardinals if I say Kyler Murray is the candidate for comeback player of the year, but he won't be and he still thinks, I can't, I've tried really hard. I can't buy into a quarterback who's averaged 18, 20, 20.8 and 20.8 fantasy points in each of his last four seasons. In fact, in those four seasons, he's played 40 games with at least 20 pass attempts, which is an issue in and of itself. That's 10 per year. But he had under 20 fantasy points in half of those games, 23 or fewer in all but 13 games. I know that he's in Minnesota. I know that we want to give Kevin O'Connell the benefit of the doubt. We did that last year. It was a mess with JJ McCarthy. The camp reports weren't glowing about Kyler Murray either. I am willing to can see that he's got great receivers around him and that's different from what he's had in Arizona, but I'm just not ready to say that Kyler Murray is going to finish this year as a top 12 quarterback. And that's the reason I'm putting Justin Jefferson in this don't call it a comeback category. I think he's going to be so much better than he was last year. Last year was probably the biggest bust in fantasy. It was a number of three receiver, but I am not taking Justin Jefferson much. I don't think I have him in any leagues. I would take him if you're still drafting in the middle of round two. And I think he's kind of a late round one early round two pick, but all of those top 11 running backs, I would take ahead of Justin Jefferson. And it's because two things he's amazing, but Kyler isn't. You know, I just don't think Kyler's that good of a quarterback. I don't think he's a bad quarterback necessarily, but I don't really trust him to be a consistent quarterback. And you look at Justin Jefferson and when he's had his best years, look at some of the passing stats, just the raw passing stats for the Vikings. We're talking sometimes about 4,500 yards, 30 to 35 touchdowns. If Kyler Murray is going to bounce back, it's going to be partially because of his leg. He could still rush for 600 yards. He's just not going to throw that much. He's probably not going to throw 30 touchdowns. So that to me makes Justin Jefferson a guy that we're expecting big things from and he's going to bounce back, but he's not going to be the Justin Jefferson that we knew and loved. And now that was don't call it a comeback. How about don't call it a breakout waiting for that rap song to drop, but this is a breakout candidate who isn't going to break out, Jamie. I'm a little nervous just about to make a book of getting to the ceiling that we were hoping him to get to, you know, and it's really just because of the toe injury. We know turf toe. We can linger. It could be a problem. It could just be an issue. All season long. And you know, God forbid he re aggravates the injury and then he has to miss time. So I'm still very excited about his upside. We saw it in the first five games last year when Mike Evans was in the lineup, when God was in the lineup, Jalen Mcmillan was not a thing. And then a book comes into camp with all these expectations. And we were excited to take him in round three in some cases at the start of the draft process. And then he gets this injury and all you hear is how good Chris Godwin looks and the role that Ted Hers is going to play and that Jalen Mcmillan is still going to be a factor. And so I just wonder it's going to cap the ceiling of a book who still is going to I think perform like a fourth round ride receiver. But that's put him put some closer to top 20 range. When I thought at the start of this, he could be a top 10 wide receiver. So that's still in the range of outcomes. I just don't think we get there this year. So still happy to start him, we can week out until proven otherwise. But again, my expectations have changed dramatically because of this to injury. And you know, to the same degree, I feel like that with Luther Burton, where I'm worried about him hitting that ceiling that we're talking about. I think he's going to be good. And obviously by the nature of a definition of a breakout, it's going to be his best year. He's going to be better than it was last year. He's going to be a good borderline number two fantasy wide receiver. I don't think he makes any type of a leap to being a top 12 or even a top 16 fantasy wide receiver. His best four games stretch last year. Yeah, it was pretty good. 15.2 PPR points per game. Those were all games without Roma dunes on the field for Chicago. I don't know if we can just transfer that stat over and say, well, there's not going to be DJ more this year. It's the same thing. I don't know if it's the same thing. And we talked about receiving course that were real curious to see earlier in this show. I'm curious to see how the targets shake out in Chicago. And yeah, Luther Burton should be able to get around six and a half to seven and a half targets per game. I don't know if that equates to huge numbers. And I'm especially concerned about the touchdown numbers for Burton because he wasn't a huge factor in the red zone last year. And I suspect that with Colson leveling on this team, as long as he's healthy, same thing with Oduinze, those guys are going to get more targets in the end zone than Burton. I'm going with Marvin Harrison Jr. here for don't call it a breakout. Not a very popular breakout pick, I suppose, but I just haven't drafted any Marvin Harrison Jr. I have said some crazy things on this show. I said, the Broncos are going to smash the chiefs. I said, Justin Jefferson's not going to bounce back. Trey McBride is going to be a bus. I'm setting myself for some some serious freezing cold takes here. But I think that Michael Wilson is a better player than Marvin Harrison Jr. Maybe Marvin Harrison Jr. Will show me something this year that he hasn't shown me already. But I think Marvin's a better fantasy option because he's an consistent end zone target and touchdowns are a big deal. But I think Michael Wilson's just a better player. He's obviously faster. He can make guys miss. Marvin Harrison Jr. Just kind of a big body guy and I just, unfortunately, I think he was overdrafted in the NFL draft. So I am out on him. I'm out on Trey McBride. I think they actually might have a pretty good passing offense. But individually, I think McBride's going to be a bus. And I think Marvin Harrison Jr. is just going to be kind of whatever. He's certainly not going to break out unless there is an injury to one of the other guys on the team. We have more awards. This wouldn't be the awardiest award show ever if we didn't have more. And we will come back with those awards after this on fantasy football today. Welcome back everybody to fantasy football today on football eve getting ready for a week one. Let's talk about the most likely player to be drafted in round one next season, currently drafted in round three or later, Dave Richard, who is most likely to be around one pick next year. I might not expect a huge year from Jeremiah Love, but I am sure we're going to see signs of him playing well and that's going to encourage us with the Cardinals making enhancements on their offensive line and a quarterback to take him as a first round pick in 2027. Yeah, for me, it's Brock Bauer's and I'm cheating a little bit because he's the first pick in round three based on ADP, but look, we know when tight ends hit and hit big and hit consistently, fantasy managers are getting excited and I think that's going to be the case with Bauer's once we see him in Mendoza and what the future of this Raiders passing game looks like. So really excited about Bauer's being the next Travis Kelsey, that Rob Runkowski, that guy that we're looking for at the end of round one. Malik neighbors, baby, is obviously going to be a first round pick. He may have been a first round pick this year if he weren't coming off the ACL and everything got delayed and yet that second surgery Malik neighbors. I don't know how great of a year he's going to have him a little nervous, but I think he'll show enough to make people more confident next season. All right, player, you fear you drafted too much of Dave, you think you drafted too much Jonah Coleman. Yeah, maybe got a little too excited about the rookie running back in Denver. It really comes down to is Jake Heydobbins going to get hurt and if he does, how big of a role will Jonah Coleman have? I love the way he looked in the preseason. I've loved his film from Washington too. He's a good NFL runner, but maybe I just got on top of him a year too early. We'll see. That's a long season. Hopefully, I stay patient with Jonah Coleman and keep him on my bench for as long as I possibly can. Yeah. You mentioned earlier Adam about DJ Moore and I totally agree that he's going to have a big season in Buffalo, but I drafted him, I drafted a lot of Jonah Coleman too, but I drafted a lot of DJ Moore just with the idea that the value was amazing. Got him in some cases in round five, but I was drafting him in round four. I just think there's still top 20 upside here. I just hope that the schedule is not too tough, that he at 29 is not hitting that part of his career a little too soon as we saw last year, which could have been a reason why I only got 85 targets because the player of his caliber should have commanded a little bit more attention. So hopefully he gets the reward fantasy managers as a top 20 wide receiver. And I took a lot of Christian McCaffrey because Dave and Jamie didn't. And I'm drafting sixth today and I might take Christian McCaffrey again, so I'm a glutton for punishment. And the situation is the good thing is it's been a very drama free training camp, not a lot of it. Oh, wait, there's been plenty of drama. Never mind. Christian McCaffrey is going to make or break my fantasy season. How about the player you fear you did not draft enough of Dave? Why do you hate Derek Henry? I don't hate Derek Henry. I actually love Derek Henry and maybe I underrated him a little bit and didn't put him high enough in my rankings to consider him as an early round tour, even a late round one pick in the full PPR leagues that we do. He's a first rounder in non PPR and you can even make the case in half PPR. But the dude's been a beast for so long. He did not have a great year weeks one through I think 15 last year. But I think he can bounce back from that in 2026. I wish I'm going to say that I wish that I had more Derek Henry by this time in November. I was very much out on Sequan Barkley last year and it was the right call and I wish I had a lot more of Sequan Barkley this year. And part of the reason I did not was because whenever it came up to the part of the draft where I had to take Barkley, I just like Ken Walker and I'm already in Hampton a little bit more. And so I took those guys almost constantly anytime Barkley was on the board and I feel like I'm going to regret it because I do like the fact that they're talking up using it more in the past in game. We didn't really see that much last year. I think he's going to get a healthier offensive line in front of him. Hopefully that'll be the case for the majority of the season was a big reason why he struggled the last season. This could be the last hurrah for him having one of those elite fantasy seasons and I'm going to hate watching it on a lot of other people's fantasy rosters. I'm going to hate watching the Cowboys, especially in week one go crazy and I did not have enough George Pickens really wanted to get him and I don't know if I have any George Pickens but I think he's going to have a really good year. It's tough to take these guys because they're going, you have to take them over other great players. But Pickens, Lamb, Dak, Javante, I have a lot of Javante but the passing game not enough. When we come back, your questions, your tweets on fantasy football today. Let's see what's on your mind here. Andrew, Dave, he wants a free spot on his bench here. Who should he pick up? Let's see if Trey Tucker's available. He's out there in about half of CBS sports leagues. If he's not rostered, get him. If he is rostered, look for Chris Bell of the Miami Dolphins. All right. Next one. Jamie, I'll give this one to you. Half-point per completion. Drop Josh Downs or Chris Rodriguez for Baker Mayfield, Pertie or Love? I probably would drop the quarterback just because I don't think you need to carry three. We can get away with that as well as superflex, so we got to go, Jamie. Yeah. Sorry. Tough one there. Oh, thank you so much for watching fantasy football today. Check out the podcast. Good luck in week one, everybody. Take care. The world crowned its winner now the Champions play. 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