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Speaker 4Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Heifetz, and I am joined by Danny Kelly. And today, we will once again be joined by Josh Norris and Hayden Winks from Yahoo Fantasy Football, because Craig is on vacation in Hawaii. We had Josh and Hayden on while Craig was out. And we had such a good time, and they were so good that we actually just went long enough that we split it into two parts. So part one we published last week. This is going to be part two of our favorite players entering this season. It's just our favorite picks relative to value and honestly the most important players in fantasy this year. So we hope you enjoy the episode. And then Craig will be back this week, and then we will get to hot quarterbacks. What everyone's waiting for. Because Craig is back. We can't do hot quarterbacks without Craig. So that's a promise we made when he left. So without further ado, part two with Josh and Hayden, favorite players. All right, let's get to the show. Wait, what about the live show? Yes, live show. Also, yes, live show Thursday, August 27th. We still have some tickets left. If you're in Southern California, live show Thursday, August 27th. Tickets are in the episode description. The link, your Earl, as DK calls it, the ringer.com slash events. And yeah, so go grab tickets to the live show Thursday, August 27th. Now we can get to the show. A similar-ish player to Jalen Hurts, not necessarily physically, but questions about whether they can run an offense or whatever. Hayden, you said Kyler Murray for the Vikings was one of your favorite. DK, what are we calling this episode? Sleepers? Sleepers slash values. Sleepers slash values.
Speaker 1Great values.
Speaker 4Hayden, your sleeper slash value quarterback is Kyler Murray, who I think there's similar questions of can they just, do they have to play to their style because they can't see over the line of scrimmage or can they run whatever offense? He's in Minnesota. Why do you like Kyler so much this year?
Speaker 5I just like Kevin O'Connell and Justin Jefferson. I mean, it's just been a print fest. It doesn't matter who it was. I remember Sam Darnold, like how egregious he was. And then he was the quarterback eight in this offense. Kirk Cousins was the quarterback seven with Kevin O'Connell for over a year. Nick Mullins was the quarterback eight when he got his starts. Josh Dobbs, literally off of a private jet, comes into the facility and doesn't even know the playbook. He was, he averaged almost 18 fantasy points per game as well. The offensive line is healthier this year. Kyler Murray has been a fantasy quarterback. All those guys I just mentioned, they don't run. Like that was all passing stuff. Kyler Murray runs on like those guys. So if we just get like some semblance of the passing numbers that those offenses last four years have done with Minnesota, plus 30-ish rush yards per game, which Kyler Murray's average. I'm like, this is a layup line quarterback one. So like in best ball, it's a little trickier because in theory he could get benched in a redraft. Even if he does get benched, you know, halfway through the season, you just pick up. Somebody else quarterbacks really deep. So to me, it's like, that's the thing is there's like maybe like 15 to 20 quarterbacks. I do think you could start in week one in fantasy. So if you want to just load up and win the flex and then you just kind of double dip Kyler Murray, Jackson Dart, Kyler Murray with Dak Prescott, you name the combination. I do think that's how I'm kind of playing it in redraft just because like this depth is so obvious this year with a lot of young players. But I think, you know, Kyler Murray throwing the ball to Justin Jefferson. Versus Marvin Harrison. I think it's going to make a pretty big difference.
Speaker 6Yeah. Hi Fitz. You made a comment like 10 minutes ago where you said it's, I think more difficult this year to find sleepers or identify sleepers. When you get into drafts this year, like once, I don't know, round 10 or 11 hits, you're like, I don't want to select any of these players. It is disgusting out there. And I think some of that is maybe the running back poor draft class that we just had. I think some of that is the changes in heavy personnel across the league. I think some of that is the changes in heavy personnel across the league. I think some of that is maybe the running back poor draft class that we just had. I think some of that is the changes in heavy personnel across the league. I think that we're getting more of these two and three tight end looks, which means those fun slot receivers that would, you know, theoretically get us fantasy points over the previous years are just irrelevant now across the league that what Hayden's saying instead of maybe taking the elite or especially kind of those middle tier quarterbacks, just wait for freaking Kyler Murray in your drafts. And like Malik Willis is also out there as a crazy, you know, shot in the dark as the late round quarterback that had the floor of rushing and then hopefully the ceiling with the passing on top of this. And you'll probably like your drafts on paper if you wait for Kyler versus taking one of those middle round quarterbacks.
Speaker 1I think this is, yeah, this is going to be such an interesting season for the Vikings because it does feel a little bit like the shine has come off of Kevin O'Connell just a little bit based on what happened. But when you say, Hayden, when you read off all those quarterbacks that were just absolutely going bonkers and fantasy and how is JJ McCarthy the worst quarterback in the world? What the hell happened?
Speaker 5Because that was, I mean, Brosner's right there with him. Brosner gave him a run for his money late in the year.
Speaker 4But yeah, maybe that was like a false flag to make McCarthy seem better. I don't know.
Speaker 1Right, right. I just think I agree with everything Hayden's saying here. I think Kevin O'Connell is the truth. I think he knows how to coach up and make things easier for his quarterback and, you know, put together an offense that is going to, it's like what Shanahan does essentially. You know, it's like every guy who goes in here is going to average eight yards per attempt, you know? And the JJ McCarthy thing is just like, wow, like it's taking, it's basically maybe he like lost his magic or whatever. What is, Hayfiz, what's the reference you always use? The Monstars or whatever?
Speaker 4Oh, like when they take Michael's secret stuff. Well, I think for Kevin O'Connell, I think it was Grant Udinski leaving to the Jags. I think Kevin O'Connell, everyone said it's a quarterback whisperer. I think he might just be really hot and tall. But the, or the, yeah, they stole a special Udinski. I will say, I think of all the things, or sorry, DK, you keep going.
Speaker 1Well, I was just going to say, you know, Kyler is such a polarizing quarterback in so many ways. Not, not, not only the way he plays football where, you know, he's very short and he scrambles a lot and, you know, there's certain parts of the game.
Speaker 4You compared him to a toddler that stole your phone in your draft.
Speaker 1He just has a very polarizing style of play. And the body language thing is a major.
Speaker 4And GTA 6 is coming out this year, which could be a catastrophe.
Speaker 1There's the meme that is also proven true pretty much every year that he falls off, you know, after they released the newest version of Call of Duty. And so.
Speaker 4Which is an unfair stereotype because he only plays the video games after he gets hurt every December like that. You know, that's the real reason.
Speaker 1But I want to believe, I want to believe. And I think I will be taking Kyler just because I think the upside is certainly there, especially where you can get him.
Speaker 4If I had to pick which of, and again, I, if everyone here brought like some of their favorite players, if I had to pick one that I'm most confident is a good fantasy pick, I think it's this one with Kyler Murray, because I think it aligns with everything, real life and fantasy trend line that's happening, which is to like the opportunity cost of taking Kyler Murray is nothing. Again, shouting out you guys at Yahoo. Now the player going after Kyler Murray in fantasy drafts is Michael Pittman on the Steelers. If Michael Pittman and Aaron Rodgers is the reason I lost my fantasy league. So be it like the idea that like, we're going back, there are so many rushing quarterbacks that you might as well wait on quarterback again, load up with all these other positions and not play whack-a-mole at running back or receiver, which is just mentally and emotionally taxing and makes fantasy not fun. I think waiting on Kyler. Murray makes so much sense for so many reasons, including you're not compromised in getting a rushing quarterback two years ago, he had 570 yards. He basically would've been tied for Josh Allen for the most rushing yards last year, if that was the 2025 total for Kyler, he did that two years ago. He's still athletic. He's recovered from the ACL. The combination also of all these quarterbacks in real life. I think to me, the trend, everyone talks about the two tight end sets and, and, and that's absolutely a trend. But to me, the defining trend of football in the 2020s is the recycling of the careers of the elite quarterback prospects going from bad teams to good teams. Like if you look at all these guys that have had reclaimed careers, they were all really high prospects. Sam Darnold who won the fucking Superbowl was a top three pick Baker Mayfield, who was scout team safety in the Panthers was the number one pick. You know what I mean? Josh Allen developed, but if you look around, Kyler Murray was a number one pick. Like all these guys have elite traits. And I think Kyler Murray is still at the tail end of his physical prime. And it's not to your point. If Sam Darnold was the number eight quarterback and he's not even like a huge, right, you can run a little, I don't know. I think Kyler's a no brainer. I don't think there's opportunity costs. I think it makes sense on every level. So I, I really love this and I agree. He's my favorite quarterback this year. And the only reason I even have to think about it is Lamar and Jaden and other guys are going later. But as long as Kyler's outside the top hundred, I think he he's my, he's my quarterback at least at the same time.
Speaker 6Can I express those some frustrations about Kyler Murray's game? Because I don't know if we've done that enough in this conversation. Like he does drop his eyes and play the hokey pokey and like turn down throws a lot. Yeah. It is so obvious. And for all of you that played fancy football, uh, Trey McBride's production blasted off after, you know? Kyler was replaced by a Cobra set. Because whenever you go and watch the games inside the red zone, inside the 10-yard line, Trey McBride was open in those situations. And for some reason, Kyler would just not target him in those scenarios. He needs to stand tall. He needs maybe difficult. And then in the face of pressure, like throw the middle of the field, trust what the offense is going to be there. And like I went back and watched Nick Mullins to prepare for Kyler Murray in this offense. And like Nick Mullins was doing that. He had zero fear when there was, you know, a missed blitz pickup or a free rusher in his face because he knew KOC's offense, which, you know, just a couple of seasons ago was ninth in scoring and eighth in scoring. Like if a play was going to be open and the ball is there on time, then your big play was there to be made. And so we just have to have Kyler like have trust in his environment. I understand where that was lost in Arizona. But at the same time, that's kind of like the last, you know, exposure that we do have here with Kyler Murray.
Speaker 4And to that. And again, because I think this is one of the more interesting things also for real life football, because the NFC North is the best division in football. It's hard to pick who's going to miss the who's going to win the division and miss the playoffs among the Lions, Bears, Vikings, Packers. The other thing is we haven't talked about enough is what does the offense look like? Because Kevin, the Vikings have been under center almost half the snaps the Vikings have played. Kyler Murray, I believe, has been under center at times about one out of every six plays, which Bill Barnwell, he has been at this great stat. Kyler Murray has basically been in shotgun 10 times more than he's been under center. It's like. Eighteen hundred snaps to one hundred and eighty. That's pretty nuts. And I am curious what it looks like with the Vikings. But I think there's something to be said. There is a world where at the end of this, just any coach's stock that rises, falls. Brian Dable's stock rose and fall quickly for the Giants. Dan Campbell, one more bad season with the Lions and people are going to turn on him. Kevin O'Connell, quarterback whisper again. If they didn't play well and he let Sam Donald go for McCarthy and then can't do anything with Kyler, like that is the downside. And also Kyler gets hurt a lot at the end of seasons. And like in the fantasy playoffs, he might not be there for you. But I think he's so cheap and overcomes it. But I think those are good. Good points, Josh.
Speaker 5My last thing real quick is the NFL PA reports. I mean, I've never been able to benefit off of reading those. We're going from dead last with the Arizona Cardinals to literally number one. I mean, that is like speaking of environments like this is like we're talking about, like picking up, you know, meals on a Wednesday. It's way better for Kyler Murray this year than it was previously. So it's not even just the the environment and he's throwing to in the offensive lines, like literally like just like walking around the stadium, being appreciated. Like his family is allowed to like take home food. Like all those things are happening for Kyler Murray for the first time ever.
Speaker 4It's such a good point. I think culturally, I think it's I think it's hard for us to understand these guys who go to college and like Kyler Murray going to Oklahoma, Joe Burrow going to LSU. And then Kyler goes to Arizona and like your college facilities were 10 times nicer. Joe Burrow goes to the Bengals that have a went from LSU to a team that didn't have a practice facility in the winter. And it's fucking jarring to go to an NFL team that suddenly is charging you for box lunch when you're dining hall in Oklahoma was like nicer than anything. Yeah. Arizona's ever had his high school. That school that he went to in high school is ridiculous. Kyler, one of my favorite stats since I've been covering the NFL is that Kyler's height. Firstly, the best quarterback maybe ever in the history of Texas high school football. He went 40 something, you know, won three championships in a row. But his high school stadium had a larger capacity than the one the Chargers did in 2019. Kyler or his rookie year. Kyler played in front of fewer people for Cardinals Chargers game than he did when he won a championship or regular season. High school games when he was in high school.
Speaker 5I was an intern for the Chargers during that. Were you really that season? Yeah. That's where I was at the StubHub Center. I was Carson. That was that was me. I changed the whole marketing department for forever. The Chargers.
Speaker 4What was the saddest thing you saw when the Chargers? Oh, no.
Speaker 5Oh, my goodness. Because I would go. They would.
Speaker 4I would go there. The new facility is great. I love the Chargers. But during the transition was tough because they got kind of outed from L.A.
Speaker 5Stadium deal. I didn't get a plus one for the. The. The Christmas party after being there for a full year. And that was kind of like. So I was like, really? That's kind of crazy.
Speaker 4OK, Josh, give me another sleeper and or favorite player entering this year. Whatever satisfies DK's criteria that you a player you like for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 6Yeah, I actually think I'm stealing from DK's list here. But let's go with Terry McLaurin. He's wide receiver twenty two in consensus rankings right now. And one of my favorite things over the summer is. To try to find these hidden edges. And I think one is when new play callers come in and it's so difficult for us, especially with a veteran like Terry McLaurin to try to predict the difference in usage and how much that is going to change his fantasy output. And I think the commanders are like at the top of the list for a lot of the fancy names this season. In his career, Jaden Daniels has thirty three drop backs from center thirty three from under center. OK, we know Cliff's offense while very. Very successful during Jayden's rookie season, it got extremely stale and it kept someone like Terry McLaurin so static, right? I think he ran seventy four percent of his routes just on the line of scrimmage at that left wide receiver spot like that is absurd for your number one pass catcher. So now we think the defense knows where the best player will be at the start of every play. Exactly. And Cliff didn't want to do anything about it. I understand they had success, but then this is probably why they want to replace him this this offseason. So. Now we have like a more balanced approach. All you're going to hear from Washington this year is we're going to get more motion, we're going to get more play action. And then David Blau already said, hey, how do we get Terry McLaurin ten targets per contest? That is music to my ears to so clearly the best offensive player on that team outside of Jaden Daniels that if we talk about funnels and concentration of targets and opportunities, I don't see how Terry McLaurin doesn't average eight and a half to about ten and a half targets per game this season.
Speaker 1Yeah, I. Had this too. I love Terry McLaurin this year, and it kind of goes to if you're trying to identify offenses that could bounce back and be closer to what their potential is. Last year, it was just truly everything that could have gone wrong for the commanders last year did injuries, you know, just the coaching.
Speaker 6Terry held out for training camp as well. Like he missed. And that obviously now, as we know, after the last three or four years, impacts fancy output is when these guys miss training camp, especially when you're living.
Speaker 4Yeah, I think that's something on the narrow razor edge margin of just being the best deep connection in the NFL, which is really what Jaden and McClure were doing. Like those are very thin margin plays that you need the practice time.
Speaker 1I kind of look at and some people might take this as a negative. I kind of I'm saying this complimentary Terry McLaurin has kind of Terry McLaurin and Jaden Daniels specifically kind of have that Russell Wilson DK Metcalf connection where it's like he's just trusting. I'm going to throw it up there down there for him because I trust him to go get it. I think Terry McLaurin is a very good player. I think this. Offense could make a big jump back to what we saw in twenty twenty four when they were like off the charts levels of swag for that whole offense. Basically, like Jane Daniels was the best rookie quarterback I've seen. It felt like forever.
Speaker 4He was since RG three. He I mean, I'm in D.C. The Jaden almost sink, not single handedly, but I actually I don't talk about this a lot, but like I do do reporting sometimes. I asked Terry McLaurin himself and they were mad at me because I wasn't supposed to talk to him. But I asked him in the locker room. Because we proposed the same weekend to our wives and I asked him, like, I started with that and then I asked him, like, how much of the success of this like this crazy season you're having is Jaden Daniels. And he actually thought about it for saying he's like half. He's like literally half Jaden, half every other person who works for the team player coach assistant. And he was like, that's how important quarterback is. And but like, dude, he literally is the best season in 30 years. I can't tell you how many I lived here for five years. No one walked around with a goddamn commander's jersey. No one had them. They weren't. And now they're like there were more. I live in the city. There were more Ravens jerseys at my supermarket or the stores by it than there were Washington. Now it's like you see Jaden everywhere. So he's a phenomenon. It's a fun player to have, which I actually think is the most underrated part of fantasy football is just like, do you like having these players?
Speaker 1Yeah. And Jaden is top. What's it like to have a gun? It's like having two cocks. I mean, having that guy on your team is like having two cocks. But yeah, McLaurin. Like the other thing I think that's interesting is like, we don't really know anything about what David Blau is going to bring. Like, what do we what do we know about David Blau? He also wants to try to get a quarterback. That's good enough for me. He's not going to get a quarterback.
Speaker 4Well, he said he wants to get Terry 10 targets a game. And that's one of those that sounds sick. And you're like, well, coaches aren't great with math. And like, you know, who are they throwing to if they're not getting Terry McLaurin 10 targets per game? Dude, I fucking Luke McCaffrey. I don't know. Is it? I mean, do you get like Shigel Conquo? And he doesn't know how to catch.
Speaker 1It's like Trelon Burks. Antonio Williams, the rookie, a handful of random other dudes. Let's see here. There's. Oh, it's bad. Luke McCaffrey, Jalen Lane, who's more of like a special teams guy. They signed Deami Brown and Van Jefferson.
Speaker 4This is how the Packers used to look. Devante Adams had four number four receivers. And Washington has eight number four receivers.
Speaker 1I think. And you're. Yeah, I think it's going to be Terry McLaurin. And then Shigel Conquo might have actual chance to be to be something in fantasy. But the other thing that I wanted to bring up here, which I think is and we don't know yet, really. But I think there's a chance this is another team. I mentioned it with the 49ers. This is another team whose defense is probably going to be not very good. I mean, if you look at what they did in the offseason, the almost their entire starting like defense is free agents that they signed this offseason. When has that ever gone? Well, you know what I mean? Like in the history of the NFL, it's usually not a good sign. If like you're filling your entire defense, all the starting spots with free agents or rookies. Sonny Styles obviously could be really good. But, you know, it's just a bunch of kind of hired guns to go on. Defense and try and fix fix it like some of the holes that they had on defense. I think this is going to be a shootout team. I think they're going to have to score a lot of points. and I think they're going to have to let Jaden do his magic and McLaurin is going to be the big benefit from that. He had the second most touchdowns in the NFL in 2024. I feel like we're just kind of forgetting about it. We're enamored with the shiny new things that are happening from last year. Caleb Williams and the Bears offense, everyone's really excited about that, but I think Jaden Daniels can kind of bring the magic back for the Commanders on offense at the very least. So yeah, I will mention with the Chig thing, I was talking to Ben Stanek, does a great job covering the Commanders, and he mentioned, he's like we can't really talk about what's happening at practices, but I will say I saw Chigokwankwo catch a lot of passes or something like that, you know what I mean? So I'm like, at the very least they don't have a number two receiver on this team. Maybe Antonio Williams is the guy. Maybe Traylon Burks finally can stay healthy and he can do a little bit of stuff. Ayuk, Debo. Or Ayuk, maybe they sign Debo, maybe they sign Diggs, that could kind of change the...
Speaker 6I don't want to alienate your offense, but Chigokwankwo is my most drafted player this summer. And then I'll just not say anything else the rest of the show. It's pretty disgusting, but it's for all the reasons we just discussed here.
Speaker 1Yeah. I mean, look, 2024, not that he's the same player even remotely, but Zach Ertz was the number two receiver on that offense. So a lot of the offense flowed through the title.
Speaker 4He had incriminating evidence on Cliff Kingsbury's trip to Thailand. That was probably what was going on there.
Speaker 1$16 million guaranteed. They paid him kind of a lot. That's not nothing for a guy who hasn't really done anything in his career.
Speaker 4But Washington's a weird team, to be honest.
Speaker 6I mean, I also have a whole paragraph written on Bill Krosky-Merritt here as well.
Speaker 4Sneaky good offensive line. What do you think of the Washington running? We haven't talked to Washington backfield. Rashad White, Bill Merritt, like this is kind of, I mean, this is the island of misfit toys.
Speaker 6It's a weird backfield. I'll just throw one stat at you. All right? Per fantasy points, the commanders were best in the NFL in outside zone runs last year in terms of blocking at 6.1 yards per carry. This is supposedly what David Blouse also brings to the table this year. Bill Krosky-Merritt led the NFL in yards per carry on outside zone runs at 7.6 yards per carry. He doesn't catch passes, at least didn't last year. He fumbled way too much. He became a meme player because he had this long-ass name, and we all just condensed it down to Bill. And as a seventh-round rookie, that gets a ton of hype in the preseason. His uncle did that. I'll have you know. And then didn't do anything in the regular season as much, despite actually leading this team, what, in carries and rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, I believe. I don't remember any of that. I'm just into, hey, maybe the second-year seventh-rounder, where they only added Katron Allen and a pure receiving back in Rashad White, might actually have a bit more opportunity than is getting credit for as the running back 39 consensus rankings, right?
Speaker 4You have piqued my interest because I do think I am a big believer that players that go late in drafts or undrafted that then perform, and then the team, to your point, doesn't do anything to change their role, we always underrate. Amon Ra St. Brown is the perfect example of this. If a first-round player had done what Amon Ra did his rookie year, we would have just taken it at face value immediately. But because Amon Ra wasn't expected to be that good, it took two years for us to actually be like, he should probably just be in the first round of fantasy drafts. It took a long time. And obviously, he was still a third or fourth-round pick, and Bill was not. But I think you're right that if they let Chris Rodriguez go, and Chris Rodriguez might maybe be the starter for Jacksonville. And so, yeah, I don't know. Hayden, do you agree? We have Merritt here next to Kyler Murray, who you were just saying is your favorite.
Speaker 5I think Rashad White's just annoying enough to get in the way of this. And then I kind of liked Cateron Allen for what he is as an RB3. I think it's going to be a committee. Rashad White, I can see him being the goal linebacker because he's got a little bit of size on Bill, and then catching some passes. So he's one of these names where I think where he goes, I can see him being a flex play. You're not going to win your league because of Rashad White. But there's some Javante Williams kind of there if the offense takes off, and he kind of consolidates things. But I'm kind of staying away from the backfield. There's some upside here, but I think that the skill sets complement each other so well that I think they're just going to lean into that and just kind of leave us stuck. Final point on this high-fives.
Speaker 6The commanders are projected for the same amount of points as the Colts, Bucks, Texans, and Jaguars this year, and really we're only drafting with confidence Jaden Daniels and Terry McLaurin, and that's it. And I feel like there is at least one, if not two, names that will be fantasy relevant for certain sections of the season.
Speaker 1Vegas thinks that this is going to be a good environment for fantasy points. That's what Jared Smola found. They're top ten. They're tenth in fantasy environment. And like you just said, Josh, we're kind of just overlooking it. I agree it's hard to figure out what's going to happen with this backfield. If you would have told me that Bill Merritt had 800 yards rushing and eight touchdowns last year, I would have been like, no, there's no way. No way in hell. He had 805 yards rushing. I don't think I realized that at all. But yeah, I think finding, I think there is a value to be mined from this offense if they get back even close. They don't have to get back to what they did in 2024 because that was like lightning in a bottle potentially. But I do think they're going to be a lot better than they were last year.
Speaker 7I didn't like what you said, but I do think they're going to be a lot better than they were last year. Odin pauses about the future. This is the love story of real hinge couple Odin and Edward. Written and read by me, Curtis Garner. Listen to the free audio book now.
Speaker 4Another name I want to get to. I was surprised when you threw this guy out, Hayden. You said Malik Neighbors for the Giants, who I was very, I'm a huge Giants fan. I was very blinded by optimism in like the beginning of the spring. I yelled at Craig because he rated him like Neighbors low on something I don't even remember. And then second surgery, like slow recovery, all this stuff. Malik Neighbors has plummeted. And then do you think it's gone too far? Like you think Malik Neighbors is like a value now if he's like now gone from top 20 to a top 50 player?
Speaker 5He's in round four. And I was like starting to do some just like simple, you know, boy math here. And I was like, all right, if we take 80, let's say 85% of his career fantasy points per game, he's still like the wide receiver 13 based off of that. And keep in mind, those games that he was playing with the Giants for the first year in the first four games, that Giants team was 31st in points, 27th in passing yards. I don't think we expect the Giants to be 31st in scoring this year. So I do think there's an outcome where he's not as good, but the environment kind of picks up a little bit because Jackson Dart and the offensive line, they made some investments. And I just think that the report from Jordan Ron on who said that he thinks is going to be closer to the Andrew Thomas situation, which he came back. In week three, he didn't start on PUP run on things. There's a chance that he could be eligible for week one, and he's not expecting this to be a huge deal because July he's made up a lot of ground. That's what they're saying from the coaching staff. So all of a sudden, I think that we've kind of hit the bottom of this. He's going to probably start the training camp on PUP. Maybe that drops his ADP a little bit. But right now, if like we learn that he's going to be available in week one or week two, like would we not be drafting him like where Devante Smith is like George Pickens? Like that feels really appropriate for me. And if he had no injury, he would be the sixth overall player in fantasy. So I think that the injury discount I think is fully priced in at this
Speaker 6point. I've recorded over a thousand shows with Hayden and him mentioning Malik neighbors for this one floored me, but he just outlined why. Can we just go through the timeline though? Just real quick of what has happened to Malik neighbors here. I mean an ACL and lateral meniscus tear in week four, then surgery was delayed a month because of that meniscus. Then he had a setback as you said. So a second surgery to remove scar tissue that was restricting his rehab. And then other than that run on report with we've heard all summer is that he's most likely going to start on PUP, which means what you missed the first four games. And then we don't know about the timeline, all that stuff. My biggest issue with Malik neighbors is this, that he's still going in this area of wide receivers that leave you with the question of what if like there's a lot of optimism, around Emeka Bukha and Ladd McConkey and team Mac and Garrett Wilson. We've already talked about Jalen Watto and Luther Burton and all these guys because in your head, your first response from Malik neighbors is on the board in comparison to those is, oh, well, he's injured and it's almost like pessimism versus the extraordinary optimism of, oh, those teams are oh and oh and all these teams have improved and they're young and up and coming players. And so that's my biggest difficulty of not only ranking but drafting neighbors right now is who he's going around.
Speaker 5The other thing I want to say is you don't get zero points if he misses the first three games, you still start somebody in your roster like you're getting some in like the first three weeks. If you can't put somebody in your roster and you're starting lineup in fantasy, that's like going to give you some points. That's a personal problem. Like we're not talking about later on, like week one, you can't throw frickin Josh down in your starting lineup and like get away with with it. And I like all those players that you mentioned as those receivers are all very good players. Neighbors. It's like almost Jamar chase. I mean, like he is exceptional. I went back and watched him just just this morning. because i was getting fired up after the raw non-report and i was like dude this guy was cooking everybody yeah his adot last year was 20 yards down the field you know so he was winning all the way down the field he was dominating underneath the year prior and he didn't get to have jackson dart like i was looking back he had tommy devito uh daniel jones when he was on the giants all these like backup receivers it was so bad like he he was he had a stretch where he was the wide receiver 40 for like a month and still if you average out his entire uh um career he's the wide receiver six in full ppr even having some of these disastrous months with quarterbacks that are going to be offensive coordinators instead of nfl uh quarterbacks so i just think like if it's week one week two week three and he's in the fourth round we could survive with
Speaker 4josh downs in our starting lineup for two weeks it's easy to say round four it's harder when i put names to it would you take malik neighbors over lad mcconkey i have um
Speaker 5malik neighbors ranked 25th overall i would have him over to 25th i would take him over so you're
Speaker 4basically saying that you think he'll be fully healthy in week five you'll miss the first month and if you go three and one and then you get neighbors in week five it's like you had two first or second round picks for the rest of the year and you think he's fully healthy and then he's like an actual number one receiver rest of the season the other thing is look at your leagues
Speaker 5a lot of leagues like let's say they're 12 person leagues six teams make the playoffs two of them have buys like you don't have to come out three and one like you you can sneak into the playoffs as a fifth and a half and you can sneak into the playoffs as a fifth and a half and you can sneak into the playoffs as a sixth seed um i just i just look at it like if he's anywhere near himself we're talking about a huge discount and i think the giants are going to be better on offense this year than when malik neighbors was the wide receiver six in fantasy like they were they were legitimately 31st in points per per game when malik neighbors on the field like that's
Speaker 1not going to happen this year here are the four players last year that had a 30 plus target rate jackson smith and jigba amon run st brown jamar chase justin jefferson those are the four players last year that had a 30 target rate malik neighbors had a 30 target rate in 2024 this is the potential to be an elite elite player obviously in this in a bad offense but still i mean in fantasy you you can't you can't you can't get it all uh 30 percent target rate you're almost guaranteed to score like
Speaker 4a ton of points josh why were you so shocked after a thousand episodes of hayden that hayden wanted bleak neighbors i mean because i think we recorded show two weeks ago where we thought the
Speaker 5it's not going to be that bad i'm like all right i don't know fucking better than jordan ronhan he's
Speaker 6only with the team every day of his life i made the malik neighbors thumbnail and it just says it's bad with malik neighbors on it that was that was because of you that was because that was your part of the segment not mine is higher neighbors than anyone else in the fantasy football industry
Speaker 4it's incredible let's get a let's get a new thumbnail going okay i i every now and then i like to pretend like you know as a someone who is a business minor i like to pretend i know anything and i just like quote board buffett and you sound like you're smart but i don't think there is like a couple the two warren buffett things i always think about are just be bold when everyone's fearful and be fearful whenever it's bold which basically means like if everyone's being a little bitch like go get go for it and everyone's kind of being wrecked like i like yeah maybe i was being a little bitch about malik neighbors and hayden's like just take him and then i look at luther bird and everyone's like taking luther burden over like you know the guy like the guys we were just talking about like yeah that's a little nuts so i i get what you're saying hayden where you're like if malik neighbors comes back and it's fine it's like probably the single biggest miss there is i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't i'm incredibly i don't know what do you dk have you been swayed i'm incredibly biased as a giants
Speaker 1fan and i'm yeah i think he yeah i mean obviously there is an injury fear here and and he might not be himself right away but he is an elite elite player you know hayden laid it out like watching him he is he's on that jamar chase level of explosiveness and power and body control hands run after the catch he has like an entire he has the entire skill set it's easy to forget how fucking he was in college um and how good he was immediately in the nfl so yeah i think this is a a worthy risk um and i i am swayed i don't i don't know what i'm gonna make of the giants offense but i do think he's just gonna be the only pat the only talent like super talented pass catcher in this offense the other guys they have are darius slayton who i don't know injured he's injured himself right now too by the way yeah there we go and then calvin austin you know um malachi fields who they drafted in the third round like this is the target he's gonna be the only guy who's gonna be the only guy in the third round like this is the target he's gonna be the only guy who's gonna be the only guy competition we're talking about isaiah likely yeah exactly isaiah likely is another interesting one can i high fits can i flip it this is a hayden just did a bullish on injuries um take can i do a bearish on injuries take please say one of my favorite sleepers is tyrone tracy of the giants watch one video of cam scataboo and tell me this guy's going to stay healthy this year you can't convince me he said i'm not gonna hurt myself he said if he said it you call him you're gonna call
Speaker 4him a liar this guy's gonna hurt himself he said i'm not gonna hurt myself he said i'm not gonna hurt
Speaker 1himself he said i'm not gonna hurt myself he said i'm not gonna hurt myself he said i'm not gonna hurt myself he said i'm not gonna hurt myself he said i'm not gonna hurt myself he said i'm not gonna hurt myself he's doing freaking backflips in some i don't even know what context some people would say that when you break your tibia and you get 95 of the way to a backflip that's that's good there's not a player i trust less to stay healthy than cam is that what you kind of want from your running back though like you wanted to be kind of a savage like thank you um i don't look this is part part joking this is only half serious but like betting on scataboo to stay healthy to me feels like really risky and scary and he's going i think he's 39th overall player right now like he's next to malik neighbors it's not cheap to get him um so if you really you know if you if you believe that he's not going to stay healthy which i that's what i believe you know grabbing tracy who's proven to be a serviceable starter when they when they when he gets the opportunity um you know last year he went after scataboo went out he finished as the let's see here uh shoot i had it in front of me he was the rb18 in half pbr points per game and you can get this guy really really late and that was this was on a bad really bad giants team so
Speaker 4if the most uh if the most uh naturally entertaining nfl streamer cam scataboo gets injured you can
Speaker 1arbitrage it with tyron tracy is that what you're rooting for yes um and it's like you know i think tracy's like a decent player he's obviously he obviously got sort of market corrected by scataboo um but you know tracy averaged 14 touches a game last year in 15 games and he's a good pass catcher um he had in in the stretch after scataboo got hurt which was week nine on he had 32 targets which was 12th among running backs like he they were using him in the passing game um this is not a very exciting pick
Speaker 4obviously this is such an old man boomer thing you're just like look at you're watching the news being like what's going on in the cities like you're basically just sitting there like what are these kids up to their back flips in there oh i don't know this streamer why you say why
Speaker 1you going on this stream i don't like this young guy i don't like the cut of his jib
Speaker 6that is basically what you're doing yeah i mean look we we saw cam scataboo doing backflips but i've also seen dk do three kickflips in a row like this this should be someone that dk should appreciate skateboard dk would love cam scataboo yes and think as mistake yes yeah um he
Speaker 5also landed a kick or a backflip the month prior he we know he's capable you know i watched him do it in the softball he's doing he's doing the fact that he's doing backflips is what i gotta be honest
Speaker 4if he got he almost landed the backflip and it's july i don't need him to nail the backflip to like august 30th like he's doing backflips and he's doing backflips and he's doing backflips and he's
Speaker 6got he already done it he's done thank you it's like mike mcdaniel talking to quentin johnson being like hey i don't need you to turn on your routes yet until we get to training camp you know right now it's just run straight and fast and that's all i need until you know we get to he it's not the twisties like he's a mobile it's not a permanent issue hi fitz what did he do when
Speaker 4he was a kid he ran he ran into telephone poles all the time as a hobby you don't have to be a i want a thousand of them that's the whole reason i look i people run into telephone poles i want to plug in my fantasy football lineup i don't want to know what they think about asthma i don't want to know what he thinks about head injuries i don't want to hear him talk to streamers i want to watch him play football i want him i want him to yell whoa like whenever he can like he's rick flair and
Speaker 1then i want him to like i don't know i want your team sure is something man between fucking weird my god i it's a gen it's a gen z like they are you know it's so funny they really are the first
Speaker 4gen z true gen z team scataboo and dart the giants really are such a gen z team malik neighbors shit talking the fucking odell is always acting that way too juju the oldest 29 year old in the world hayden you went to usc right i was in class with juju i played out class did you take what class did you have um that is this it was like some sports
Speaker 5business bullshit yeah it was it was a nothing class did he go to class uh he went on occasion i was there you know wow true nfl stars um yeah this is gen z team though i agree
Speaker 4it's weird it blows my mind to think that dave gettleman gave a dory jackson too much money for the giants now the like joe john harbaugh signing juju smith schuster that like freaks me out a little um wow the yeah i'm i'm really concerned for the giants i i am happy to get unbiased opinions i just keep thinking of like i guess he i've someone who's seen people skewer the matt nagy and greg roman next year and everyone kind of pillorying them and just being like john
Speaker 6like i don't know i just yeah it's my one thing is i would have felt a lot better about the giants if the browns didn't hire todd monken it's like this one yes like crossroads thing that if the giants were able to get todd monken as their oc and their play caller i would have felt like much better about this offense but then the drop down to matt nagy just gives me way more
Speaker 4concern well at the end of the day matt nagy has been with andy reed forever and andy reed was like we're we got to move on We've got to move our separate ways, which that's not good when a coach who has had a guy has him leave and Jim Harbaugh has been with Greg Roman forever and then he moved on from his friend Greg Roman and John had to hire him and I'm like that's also bad you have two guys running the offense who are basically like their longtime collaborators are like we think the game has
Speaker 1moved beyond the office they just put him in the basement and hopefully he quits they are it's like
Speaker 4they're just pre-COVID schemes like Greg Roman's a pre-COVID scheme and I'm really concerned for the I don't know I'm just really worried about the everyone agreeing that John Harbaugh was an amazing hire for the Giants while Ravens fans don't give a shit that he's gone just is like
Speaker 1that I don't know there's some parallels to the Pete Carroll thing last year yes it's very similar
Speaker 4if you take out all the like an adult in the room finally and then you look at it you're like what is I don't know um anyway we'll see how we'll see if he actually can practice in the middle August we'll see what happens with Davis's recovery speaking of the Chargers though I will say my favorite team entering the church so I think while the last 20 years in a row people have said the Chargers this is the year I think this is the year for the Chargers I know the last 20 times people said it they've been wrong
Speaker 1but it's the meme of the guy digging and trying to find the gold right like stopping right before
Speaker 4they get there exactly diamond hands on the Chargers uh I really think that Chargers have a chance to be the cheat code for fantasy football in 2026. I think there's a chance you could stack the entire Chargers team on your Fantasy League which sounds insane because it's the Chargers and you're betting they're stay healthy but I think that Justin Herbert is the best quarterback that's ever played in a Kyle Shanahan-esque system and that's what Mike McDaniel is going to bring and I also think Mike McDaniel replacing Greg Roman as the Chargers offensive coordinator is the biggest upgrade at offensive coordinator we've seen in the NFL since Sean McVay took over from Jeff Fisher 10 years ago and it is hard to wrap your mind around or project how much better every one will get when Mike McDaniel is working with Justin Herbert and an actual offensive line and I understand so it's like well they could get hurt yes that is possible but if they don't I don't think people are prepared for the upside Stephen Ruiz and I used to joke who Stephen Ruiz here works here at the uh ringer and is great is just brilliant we used to joke that if Justin Herbert played for Kyle Shanahan we thought he could break Peyton Manning's passing touchdown record because Kyle Shannon's thing is all about simplicity and creating space and allowing players to make fast decisions and Justin Herbert is one of the fastest processors in the NFL he's better than two at it even though the two is a good quarterback but like Herbert is so much better and the Chargers offensive line at his strength is so much better and I just think every single player on the Chargers you could convince me is a great value Mike McDaniel's compared o'marian Hampton to Terrell Davis who made the Hall of Fame after basically four seasons Keaton Mitchell is basically going to be the Devon HN and maybe that won't work but he's going 140th in drafts which is people take kickers and defenses before Keaton Mitchell will be off the board as the Chargers backup running back and if he sucks you can cut him but the two guys for me I keep coming back to are lad McConkey who Ryan Heath at fantasy points that you referenced earlier Josh yep said he wrote this great article about two receiver sets three receiver sets why was J Jackson Smith the Jake offensive player last year and Ryan he said that the most likely player that replicate jsn's usage in season is lad McConkey and guess what if he gets hurt then Quentin Johnson is another player that is going outside the top 90 picks even though he's probably going to be the Jalen Waddle version of this Chargers team every single player on this team is valuable I think Justin Herbert might win MVP so I I just think that this is like the most obvious thing that's hiding in plain sight I know everyone keeps talking about Mike McDaniel for the Chargers coordinator but I don't think people have actually thought what the ceiling will look like and the ceilings that they're the best offense in the NFL and you actually could get every single player on the offense if you really wanted to yeah
Speaker 6here's a whole episode for you hi Fitz like one question that we wish could have answered prior to the season for me it would be is injury luck finally on the charger side this year right and if that's the case if it is then I think the only mispriced player in a negative way is a Ronda Gatson and drafts and then all of the Chargers are kind of underpriced like if we look at it offensive line combinations which by the way a lot of teams that make the playoffs and then go on to win the Super Bowl and actual contenders have good and healthy offensive lines and injury luck is on their side continuity we all know the Chargers last year the five starters that played the most for them which also included some guy named dekelis at left tackle uh that was only 16.5 percent of their snaps easily 32nd across the league last year so like they had eight left tackles but the craziest part of that high Fitz is yes both their tackles got hurt and both their tackles are awesome but they also went into the season with the plan of this guard center guard combination and those guys played and they sucked they were horrible and now they have all been replaced um we affect we actually have an entire episode with Ryan Heath about that exact article if people want to check it out on our channel because I'm right there with you as much as I have hesitations about like Omar and Hampton a little bit in terms of how he runs and if he's as good as these other guys I don't care about my individual evaluation it's going to be electric with him in this Mike McDaniel offense I can say the same thing about qj I don't love every single aspect of his game and I test I don't care I am drafting a lot of Quinton Johnson so this is one of those where I'm kind of putting my individual biases aside and I love lad McConaughey so I'm going to select him as much as possible and just drafting as many Chargers as I can in facing
Speaker 5football this season I looked at the highest passing touchdown seasons since 2016 because I was looking at like the Shanahan Matt Ryan season that's kind of my my thing and I was looking at this the Shanahan tree and um that is five of the top nine passing touchdown seasons over the last decade have been Shanahan tree guys Rogers with LaFleur Stafford last year with McVay Joe burrow uh Baker Mayfield with Liam Cohen uh Matthew Stafford once again with Sean McVay Matt Ryan's on that list Rogers did it again and then the other ones is like Mahomes Tom Brady Lamar Jackson like total aliens and whatever schemes they're running um yeah like this could go absolutely crazy I will say the interior offensive line it still is you know the commanders just cut Tyler Biotic for some reason I don't know why they did that that was a misread of the center market that was that was really bad that was a total misread um and then Cole strange is the right guard and then their left guard is a center uh who's now switching positions to left guard um from Florida rookie there so I think that they're still gonna have some issues I think McDaniel is gonna take care of this I love lad McConkey um and Herbert's like riding that threshold where if you can get him late enough I think if you've kind of filled your Flex and Herbert's now you're starting quarterback I think that's where I'd be pretty stoked to have
Speaker 1them um hyphens mentioned the upgrade in offensive coordinator going for Rowan to McDaniel and then I I mentioned this before I think this is potentially one of the biggest quarterback upgrades uh offensive coordinator could have going from Tua who is um like limited obviously he does some things very well like processing getting the ball out quickly but like in terms of physical limits yeah there there's no one is more physically limited I think in the NFL as a starting caliber quarterback than Tua and Herbert is maybe the freakish like
Speaker 4most freakish athlete other than Josh Allen the real Mr Unlimited apologies to Russell yeah
Speaker 1um just to throw a little cold water on Austin just dropped this note in our chat which is is a good point I need a cold shower from week three to week 10. the Chargers schedule road bills Road Seahawks home Broncos Road Chiefs Road Rams home Texans Road Ravens okay that's didn't love that scary um that's that is the I think obviously apart from just being
Speaker 4you know snake bit so they'll be bad for them and then everyone will get hurt through 10 weeks and then right or just trade for them after the shitty thing no I that is a little scary part of me is like yeah some of those could be shootouts that's fair uh also like yeah it's obvious that this could happen because I'm talking about the Chargers staying healthy and being good for the 20th year in a row I think I think the way I'd look at it is if you're really a bullet basically all these guys you can jump in wherever you think the water is fine I think at the very least you should take Keaton Mitchell as long as he's going outside the first like 12 rounds because then it's like take a free piece and then if you're just basically like I don't know if I want like Kenny gain well in the Bucks then maybe you could get like Quentin Johnson or maybe you don't want Jonathan Brooks off like again if you think lad mcconkey's gonna get hurt then something Quentin Johnson's gonna be the number one receiver and in all these receiver sets for a Mike McDaniel Herbert offense and I don't love Quentin Johnson as a player but he no longer is like the worst receiver in the NFL at catching the football he got closer to average and he's a perfect fit for Mike McDaniel with crossers and all these things he does he fits with and again getting my Quentin Johnson running before pre-line of scrimmage which Mike McDaniel does more than anyone like John I mean he had a huge touchdown versus Jim Harbaugh's Michigan I mean like yeah like like
Speaker 1after the catch in space he's dangerous it's perfect for Mike McDaniel and then if you are
Speaker 4actually bullish beyond that you again if you want a free you can get a ronde gads in the tight end lad mcconkey I think he's going to be the number one where I think getting so get odd charger on your team how much charger is how much you think it's whether I'm talking to my ass or not that they'll stay healthy maybe you don't care about the schedule but I'm just I don't want to ask Josh
Speaker 1and Hayden what they make of the Keaton Mitchell versus uh Omar and Hampton split and basically like I think part of me thinks I'm wish cast wish casting the Keaton Mitchell thing a little bit too much because I love Keaton Mitchell it is a little weird the Ravens were just like yeah we're good go ahead leave it's kind of the same thing that we were talking about earlier with the coaches um and You know, like comparing him to H.N. is exciting, but like Hampton is going to get the vast majority of the volume, isn't he? Like, how do you guys see this split going in reality versus, you know, thinking about McDaniel putting the wanted poster up in the in the in the facility and like getting excited about that stuff? I mean, I'm excited about Brennan Thompson because he because he was like calling him Tyree Kill or whatever. But yeah. What do you guys think about this Keaton Mitchell Hampton split? And like, what do you really expect this to be?
Speaker 6DK, isn't Keaton Mitchell like the perfect player for our fantasy football bubble to obsess over for three to four months in the summer when he makes the move into Mike McDaniel's offense? Because, you know, you can sort by, you know, rushing yards are expected or explosive plays. And, you know, depending on underlying metrics you want to look at, he ranks super high in all of those. Again, I am not obsessed with. With Omar and Hampton as individual talent. I also think that this is the perfect system for him where Mike McDaniel offenses during his time in Miami ranked fifth in yards per rush for running backs, fifth in success rate and first and explosive play rate. We know Hampton had a point two seven missed tackles force rate this past year. What McDaniel is so good is giving these guys space and just allowing them the ability to get in the open area and use whatever traits that they have. And Omar and Hampton is just a big ass dude who's super freaking fast.
Speaker 1When he gets rumbling, it is a sight to see for sure. He's a runaway beer truck.
Speaker 6So I think it's going to be. At worst, 70, 30.
Speaker 5I'm worried that Kamani Vidal is going to play the passing downs because he's the best pass protector. And I thought Hampton was terrible in pass protection. He's a good receiver, but the pass protection part is going to be an issue. So if it's not like 70, 30, it's actually. We keep that split, but also it's 20% Kamani Vidal. That's where it's like, okay, I'm trying to make the math work at 14th overall. So I have Hampton like 22nd over. I think it's going to be like outstanding when he gets the ball in his hands. But I don't think that he was like super consistent as a rusher. I thought he was sometimes a little bit indecisive. You never know if that's just because he didn't trust the blocking, which he obviously shouldn't. But I thought that he was like by himself, indecisive. And I do think that Keaton Mitchell is like going to get eight touchdowns. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a game. I think they have to. They gave him $5 million guaranteed, $9 million over the next two seasons. Like that's like Rico Dowdle money. Like we're not like questioning if Rico Dowdle is going to get the ball. This is such an obvious fit. The money is there. To me, like the Hampton evaluation, I think it's just like if it's three running backs and it's actually Kamani Vidal out there as well, like that's going to be a pretty big bummer for a top 15 pick.
Speaker 6One final point, DK. Do we have to decide between the two? Because I know. You know, we're not going to get exactly what we got in 2023 from that Dolphins offense with this Chargers offense. But in that 2023 season for Devon HN's rookie year and Raheem Mostert, you know, those guys were running back three and running back four and points per game. Now, Raheem Mostert was what? Over 30 and had the most touchdowns other than John Riggins for a 30 plus year old. And, you know, Devon HN, it took him some time, but then he became one of the most explosive players in the league. I guess my point is, however, the rushing tack is going to be, it's going to be incredibly successful. And I just want to. I'm going to go draft the pieces that are attached to it. And I'm surprised at how in on Hampton I am this year.
Speaker 4I love that. I'm probably wrong because everyone's always wrong about the Chargers, but everyone who's ever played for Mike McDaniel had the best performance of their career. And I keep thinking about that. Hayden, another person I like a lot this year is Christian Watson. And I was hoping someone would bring me down to earth because I just, this is a player I don't understand why everyone's not as high as me. And I saw you on, he was on your list, which made me feel a little less crazy. What do you like about Christian Watson this year?
Speaker 5Well, he tore his ACL in the same season, like calendar season, as he finished the wide receiver 17 on a per game basis. Like that is, that makes sense. And that goes back to the Malik neighbor stuff. Like I literally just watched Christian Watson do this, who did it, what in the playoffs or week 18. And well, at least Malik neighbors tore his ACL and, you know, week four, but these freak athletes who have youth on their size, like on their side, they can go absolutely crazy coming back from some of these seasons. He looked really good to me. He's obviously the perfect fit for what Jordan love wants to do down the field, but it was not just like deep shot after deep shot last year for Christian Watson. There's a little bit more versatility to his game. They got rid of wicks. They let Dobbs walk. There's not going to be a rotation anymore. He's going to be on the field every single snap. I think Matthew Golden will be on the field for almost every snap. And then Jaden Reed in the slot. I don't understand why there's not more optimism here. I haven't ranked back to back with Jameson Williams. Is Jameson Williams that much better than Christian Watson in real life? I think that's a true toss up. And I think there's a decent chance that Christian Watson is going to lead this team in targets. And there's no chance that's going to happen with Jameson Williams unless there's like an unpredictable injury. They go more than a round apart. I think that Christian Watson should be right next to Terry McLaurin, Jameson Williams, all those guys. I think the more I think about it, I think I'd rather have Christian Watson than Terry McLaurin straight up. I think he's like a little bit better of a player. And this offense is a little bit more bankable from just watching Jordan love all these years.
Speaker 6Yeah. I mean, Watson totally changed his game and the usage with him changed as well. Like we can go back to his rookie season and just the high variance of it that he was running so pure and so hot on the downfield passes from Aaron Rodgers. Whereas this last year, I just pulled some of the stats of like just the targets that were given to him. And there were just way more gimmies, which is great. Like we're not living on these 20 plus. Yeah. Passes over and over again for Christian Watson anymore. Instead, he's a go-to player for them on second and medium go-to player for them on, on third and short. I mean, just pure out routes that jumped in the first, what, three years of his career at 7.7% of the routes that he ran and his targets that he got up to 35% this past season. Whenever you think of Jordan love, it's these out patterns over and over and over again, along with the deep posts and the corner routes on top of it. So I think Watson is the premier player. He's the last catcher in this offense now, other than Tucker craft, but even how they win is totally different too. So you're not going to get any negative feedback from Christian Watson and us hyphens.
Speaker 4Guys like Christian Watson going. So later why I kind of feel comfortable taking like a bunch of running backs and being like, maybe I'll just grab Derek Henry in if when he falls in round three, because people are scared of taking Derek Henry as the oldest running back in the NFL. And then I can get Christian Watson as my second or maybe even third receiver, depending on how things go. And I just feel like that is a cheat code. And that's what makes me want to like get quarterback later and all these things. I just, I agree with Hayden. I think that the upside for Christian Watson, because not it's a fool's errand to be like, who's this year's JSN. It's like when people are like the giants of this year's Patriots, I'm like, well, there is no Patriots this year. No 80 to one team is going to make the Superbowl. But if you are just trying to pick which receiver of that, like next tier down is going to maybe join the upper echelon. I'm like, yeah, to me, it is more like Christian Watson. I wouldn't be shocked if it was a Mecca, a Buka, a healthy Malik neighbors. I agree that like, I think. I think Terry McLaurin is like a harder path there. Like Watson, just he's, he's just a playmaker. I think he transformed the Packers offense when he came back. DK, am I high on my own supply?
Speaker 1No, I think I have a blind spot for with Christian Watson a little bit where it's just, I think about him getting hurt and that is kind of a turn. Well, it's not a blind spot.
Speaker 4You just watched all the games. He wasn't there.
Speaker 1But yeah, I mean, I think I agree with everything you guys are saying in terms of like the talent is very obvious and very clear. Big guy who can run like the wind. Um, in an offense that we trust, a play caller that we trust, a quarterback that's been very good. Um, and there's a lot of variables here that kind of line up for a big season.
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Speaker 1I was going to bring up one more guy if, uh, if you guys want to talk about him, because I don't know where to land on him. He's certainly not a, uh, good guy. He's not a good value necessarily or a sleeper, but basial tootin for the Jags. Oh boy. He's a player that I wanted to bring up because I, I don't know where I land on him. I think I want to be in on him, but it is, there's just a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker 4Can you remind us the toot and scouting report for those who aren't versed in football?
Speaker 1It's electric speed, um, and tackle breaking and, and, you know, runaways like big plays basically in a, in a good pass catcher, but kind of just didn't really show any of that his rookie year. Um, and kind of got stuck behind, uh, Travis HN, Travis ETN. Um, but going into the season, ETN HN is, uh, now on the saints, there is this potential for a massive boost in volume for toot. And there, there's just an open, huge amount of open volume in the Jags offense in an offense that, you know, with Cohen, Liam Cohen, he's generally speaking had created a lot of opportunity for his running backs. Um, so whether we're taking Chris Rodriguez or right. and that is the question. I think... Right now, Rodriguez is hurt, and that is kind of the tiebreaker for me, that I'd rather just take the explosive guy that has been pretty good when used near the goal line. He's a thicker guy than I think people give him credit for. He's short, not small kind of deal. He's like a thick, explosive runner with 4.3 speed. Not a lot of proven production. But, I mean, if you look at last year, I was just picking out some stats. I was looking at this. I thought it was interesting. Among running backs with 200-plus snaps last year, in points per snap, because he didn't play a ton of snaps. He was like 20% snap rate. In points per snap, everybody around him is like really good players. You got the guys in the NFL, Henry, Cook, Gibbs, A-Chan, Skadavu, Warren, Jacobs. Jalen Warren and Josh Jacobs were the guys that are ahead of him. The guys right below him are Jonathan Taylor, CMC, Bijon, and Travion Henderson. So that's obviously like a cherry-picked stat. But in terms of points per touch, points per snap, I think he did show a little bit of potential. So yeah, I haven't actually heard your guys' take on Tootin'. So I'm very curious to hear what you think.
Speaker 6I said earlier, the question I want answered is that the Chargers have good injury luck. Maybe the second one is, hey, give me the backfield split of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Because we need to get the Liam Cohen backfield correct this year. And if we do, then that automatically puts you in playoff contention in your fantasy leagues. Because just over the last year, we've had a lot of players that have been in playoff contention. But over the last two years, when Liam Cohen has called plays, that's Bucky Irving's rookie year. And then it was Travis A. Chan last year, right? And that's what we have. And that's pretty dang good. And, you know, whatever offensive line he goes to, whether they invest a lot or not, he has rushing success. Tootin' is fascinating. Because what? He was like a zero-star recruit, and correct me if I'm wrong here, Hayden and DK, but like Delaware. And then transferred up to... North Carolina A&T. I'm way off. And then finished up...
Speaker 1He went one season at North Carolina A&T is what I'm seeing.
Speaker 6He was zero-star, though. And then went to Virginia Tech. And, you know, what Liam Cohen and... Who's the boy genius? Gladstone. James Gladstone. Doogie Howser, we call him. Yeah. Are we sure he's a genius? That's kind of what I'm saying here. The funniest thing to me was Gladstone said in his interview to become GM of this team is like, Oh, yeah, we're going to draft Basial Tootin'. And that's like way early in the draft process to say that stuff. But it seems like he and Liam just care so much about yards over expected and forced missed tackles and all this stuff. Final point is, I think he just lost his balance way too much last season. Like there were opportunities where he just tripped over his own foot after making the first man miss. And so that turned, you know, a 17 or 27 yard game into a seven yard run. And that just happened way too often for a guy that played 21% of offensive snaps. But at the same time... When you lose someone like Travis Achan, and you replace it with Basial Tootin' and Chris Rodriguez, then at least that seems like there's a lot of money in the bank here and credit that Tootin' did behind the scenes for him to like have at least the first opportunity to be the lead back. And hopefully he just doesn't drop that opportunity.
Speaker 5I'm undecided on this one. I'm just going to listen to John Shipley in training camp. I will say that the hard part with this is Liam Cohen coached Chris Rodriguez. In college and... Kentucky? Yeah, and Chris Rodriguez went crazy. And then that's who they bring in. And then it was one of those when we were reacting to the free agency week. It's like, oh, Chris Rodriguez to Jacksonville. And everyone's like, oh, perfect. Basial Tootin' to the moon. And then like an hour later, it's like for $10 million. Everyone's like, what? $10 million? That's like a lot more money than I was expecting. So that's difficult. When I think of Tootin', there was a play that stood out last year. They ran a screen to the right. All the offensive linemen went to the right. He went to the left. Now, he caught it and scored a touchdown. He made a couple guys miss.
Speaker 4It was unbelievable.
Speaker 5Liam Cohen's like, what do I do with that? He is going the wrong way. By the way, everybody in Jacksonville was going the wrong way pre-snap and during the plays. I don't know what the hell was going on there. So I don't know what Liam Cohen thinks of Tootin'. I know that he thinks highly of Chris Rodriguez. All the fancy boy stats, by the way, like yards after contact and stuff. Chris Rodriguez was just straight up better than Tootin'. So it's like one of these hard things where like, the nerds want Tootin' to matter, but don't look at the nerd stats from the pros because then you have to admit that Chris Rodriguez is actually good. So it's one of these, we just don't have a good read on it. I'm just going to listen to Shipley and pretend that the rookie season didn't exist.
Speaker 4Reminds me a lot of Travion Henderson with the Patriots last year where everyone wants Travion Henderson to be this crazy, explosive, big play on a team. And then Ramondre Stevenson, even after fumbling, just the coach loves him. And I'm like, Chris Rodriguez is basically going later than Ramondre was last year. And I could totally see Chris Rodriguez actually being a value. Cause we all want to disappear him. I will say, I know I just said Keaton Mitchell could be HN, but I think that Basial Tootin, the upside is he's like HN. Like he is actually probably the fastest running back of actual substance to come in since HN. HN is underrated vision, but I do think the reason Tootin didn't get so many touches was a combination of, he needed more seasoning and they were like, well, they knew they were going to let Travis, the artist formerly known as Travis Etienne go in free agency. And so they used the tread on the tires and they're like, we'll use these guys this year. I do think they plan to use Tootin a lot more this year, but Rodriguez.
Speaker 6What 15 to 20% of snaps, no matter what, because great pass pro. Yeah. Yeah. There's all the little things, right? Two minute, four minute seconds,
Speaker 5special teams. He's a madman on special teams too. Yeah. He's wild.
Speaker 4Coach's favorite.
Speaker 1To be clear, Chris Rodriguez surgery on his left foot. Yep. Don't love surgery on your foot in the summer. There's they're saying he's going to be ready for training. Well,
Speaker 4maybe it was like a bunion,
Speaker 1but we'll see. I do think it's going to be, yes, this is a, I'm, I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm like, I'm excited about Tootin because I'm holding onto my priors. I liked him coming out. I thought he was really exciting player. But a lot of times coaches kind of go with the guy that they trust more. And that could end up being Rodriguez. But if Rodriguez is hurt, this is kind of moot. And I, and I think you're going to get a lot of value with Tootin if he is hurt. If he doesn't play early on, like that is Tootin to the moon.
Speaker 4These are a lot of favorite players before we go. Are there any, any parting thoughts on just the season, these players, anything, Josh, anything that sticks out to you?
Speaker 6I'll just say there are a lot of players we dislike as well. It sounds like for this episode, we like the entire league. That is not the case. Like if you want to bring up Marvin Harrison, Jr. Hayden might just leave the program. I will.
Speaker 4I, I, we always joke at the end of every season. We're like, we write down things that we, no matter what, we will not talk ourselves. It's like the odyssey basically. It's like siren songs. And one of them was, I will not rank Marvin Harrison over Michael Wilson, no matter what anyone tells me, no matter what. No, I'm not going to, I, I, I have to, I have to, I know. I, I lied also. First of all, go, I'm going to keep you guys for one more thing. You guys have been very generous with your time. Please go to YouTube. It's Josh and Hayden on YouTube. Yahoo fantasy football launches. What day, Josh? July 27th, Monday. Go check it out. Their show is unbelievable. I am going to keep you even longer. I'm going to ask you real quick dad corner. Cause all of you guys are dads, except me. My brother just had a baby. I actually changed a diaper for the first time, two weeks ago. Cause they're trying to get me to babysit immediately. And actually, not look at their phone. Any dad stories, dad advice.
Speaker 6Hi,
Speaker 4Fitz.
Speaker 6Let me ask you with, with that diaper. How old are we talking here with the child? Like, is it still that super dark Brown shit? Or is it a month old Dijon mustard? Yeah.
Speaker 4Okay. That changes quickly. I, I've been, I've been told it will be, you know, a man never steps in the same river twice.
Speaker 6I just took my six and a half month old to Ireland. And both times we landed that landing forced him to have a blowout. So both times I had to allow the entire plane to exit as I was in the tiny, tiny, uh, bathroom of an airplane as he's pitching a fit, trying to change this blowout along with his clothes on top of it. So I'm not sure what landings do to him, but, uh, something nasty.
Speaker 5Yeah, that's tough.
Speaker 6DK had a blowout last time we were in a plane.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. That was tough. That was tough. Landings, man. It's genetics for me. Um, all right. So Hayden, how old is you?
Speaker 5You have a two year old. Yeah. Approaching to my, my advice would be, don't have a kid in October. Uh, if you cover the sport, uh, that's, that's one piece of advice. Uh, I would say that we are looking at now credit to me. I took like two weeks off and I got right back in there. So, uh, I think I, I earned some stripes there. I think for you, Danny, if you can prove that you can do it, if you can change a diaper and feed them, your brother is going to love you. Like I'm, I'm trying to get my brother to, uh, that can trust him that he's willing to change a diaper. I'm not there yet. So babysitting becomes harder. So if you want to step up, like you changing the diaper this early on, like that's a great sign for, for the family dynamic right there.
Speaker 1Yeah. You got to learn how to do a swaddle. Do you know how to swaddle yet?
Speaker 4I've, I've tried to swaddle my cat to cut his nails and I can't even do that. That's probably much harder actually. Than a baby. But, um, the swaddle, you just kind of tie them up like a little caterpillar or whatever. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 5It's pretty complicated. They have, well now they have the, the, the Velcro scraps and stuff. We, we quickly, we, we tried to do the, the blankets and then you're like, Oh, they got the, the ones with the Velcro. Like we're doing technology. Yeah. The technology is going fast.
Speaker 6My biggest learning lesson has been as soon as you nail down a routine, that routine changes. So like for when my son was, I don't know, two months old, I had this whole routine. that would spend almost 45 minutes to get him down to like finally go to sleep and i would like sit him up at first so he could burp and you know we'd listen to the same songs and rock back and forth and then i put him in his clothes and then i did some more rocking so he'd fall asleep then i swaddled him and as soon as we freaking got that nailed he didn't want to do that anymore never get your hopes up with sleep never get your hopes up so that changed quickly so now now we're in a different one
Speaker 1yeah you just gotta be able to roll with the punches really for the first like four years
Speaker 5four years three years maybe i don't know four years they get they they also get more fun you know as every month they're doing new bits like my son's like officially doing bits now so that's uh like that's that's good that's that gets excited like marvin harrison jr this year is that his bed no no i've taught him well what's a bit from a two-year-old oh um well he said it's like bye like we had a we got a bounce house for the fourth of july and he waves bye-bye to the backyard every single time to the bounce house we the gardeners are a big thing he'll like chase down the gardeners and then he wants to vacuum we've bought him two toy vacuums and he just wants to vacuum all day so whenever you put him to work yeah exactly so we're teaching him chores and stuff he doesn't know it's it maybe it's my bit of teaching him the chores it's not his bit but he's going along with a bit which is all you could ask for that's great if i'm still trying to get
Speaker 1calvin to like help around the house it's an ongoing battle so that's a good sign calvin knows every whale that there's ever been calvin can calvin can name like 150 birds based on these like bird uh wow like flash cards he can't do the bird calls like that one i was gonna ask yeah
Speaker 4he's not gonna go viral yeah yeah all right well you guys have been very generous with your time thank you for the data advice thank you for the players uh i'll just take these guys and that way i'll do it if they do well then it's my credit and then if they do terribly i'm just gonna blame you guys so thank you for that um thank you dk thank you josh and hayden please go check out their youtube please just check out their pod it's fantastic coming out july 27th thank you to cam thank you to nate kale thank you to austin thank you to abu thank you to everyone behind the scenes thank you to craig wherever you are in hawaii uh please get tan and uh craig always says a millennial banger so i'm gonna put on a hanger you hayden you have to come up with a just a millennial banger song from whenever you were in high school or college because we're the same age so thank you a lot
Speaker 5lord lord hayden what do you got here can you think of a song like any any of the acon songs that's where i went to t-pain sprung yeah anything t-pain acon i love that actually you know what i
Speaker 1had a song like queued up here in case hi if it's uh sent it to me remember cyclone by baby bash featuring t-pain hell yeah hell yeah that song is like it like in a in a dance club or like in a bar and people are dancing like nothing is going to set the dance floor off more than that song i feel
Speaker 5like danny i wore this allison change shirt because i knew you were a seattle guy i didn't know if you were an allison chains guy or not but that's my my favorite band oh my god i heard we heard some
Speaker 1allison chains in the bar the other day i went to the mariners game and and they were playing allison chains i was like this is so cliche but i actually love it i love it goodbye everyone you
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