Field’s Top 25 players in Fantasy Football | Fantasy Focus 🏈

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We're finally going to pay it off. Some draft advice, some salary cap advice, and some dynasty draft advice, or just some dynasty league advice as well. But I have to say, this studio is feeling good with Liz Loza in town every single time. Great to see your face, Liz. What are you here for, by the way? I'm here for a live show that we're doing this evening. No, we're doing, yes, this evening. We're doing it this evening. That's correct. We are doing it this evening in New York. New York City. That's right. I have to apologize. The reason why Liz was uncertain about whether we're doing the live show this evening is I keep telling Mike it's tomorrow night. And to show up then. You did that. What? I can't go to the pool tonight? You said I didn't have to do anything tonight. Sorry. Yes. You're still going to do a Central Park walk by yourself. By yourself. By alone. And so, we are in the old studio. And I forgot that we were in the old studio when I got dressed today and I showed up to work in shorts, which I wouldn't say is completely taboo. Wow. No. I try not to. I don't have too much thigh. Skies out. Skies out. Thighs out. I remembered this studio, which is why I literally wore a hoodie and full pants. What? What is the problem? No one judge me. It's chilly. Oh, you're chilly. It's chilly in here. Yeah. That's cute. You're adorable. Yeah. Well, listen. It's not cold in here. I don't think you, Mike. I don't know how to be able to get out of this one. I wear pants because I have to because I'm a professional and we're in studio. But I refuse to oblige to any sort of cold air until, like, I don't know, October. October. I will hold on to something. As long as I possibly can. Amen to that. I agree, Mike. And super pumped about the top 25 today because I think this is something we don't do enough of, which is we do a ton of wide receiver stacking. All right. I have, just making this up here, Drake London ahead of Rashi Rice. But the truth is that the most consequential decisions you're making are usually at the very top where you're like, all right, listen, it's pick four. You guys are always telling me you have to grab running backs early. But Bijan Robinson and Jameer Gibbs and Christian McCaffrey are gone. Am I really? Am I really going to take Jonathan Taylor ahead of Jamar Chase? So hopefully the top 25, which I want you guys to poke as many holes in as you can. That'll be fun. Gives you a little bit of perspective from us about, like, all right, here's kind of where we see the differences between the elite players because everybody in the top 25 is awesome. It's just a matter of how you approach them during the draft. Yeah. Look, I have the show note here, but I usually bring papers with, like, notes for all the players we're going to talk about. I didn't do that today. And the reason for that is very clear. I just want to have, like, full. A full range. A full clear head to just, like, slam all of them. Yes. Like everything. Mike, you also didn't do it because you knew I wouldn't. So you're just going to look over my shoulder and read off my notes. I brought Liz in to attack. So I love that. We're coming for you. All right. Before we dive into that really quickly, we did, unfortunately, have one bit of news yesterday. Yeah, this one was tough. Jaden Higgins, unfortunately, going to go on to the IR season ending. IR going to miss the entire 2026 season. Really unfortunate. He was going to be the wide receiver. Two of this Texans offense. Liz, I know you were in on him. Unfortunately, if we're going to move forward and look ahead, we got a couple of wide receiver twos that we can maybe prognosticate on. And I'm curious, from this perspective, Tank Dell, who obviously had a major injury in 2025, ACL, MCL, LCL, all the L's were a problem. December of 2024, actually. Yes. And obviously, you know, we saw the big play upside when Tank Dell was on the field. It's just we've had some injury history there. And then you've got the draft pick from last year, Field G8s. Noel ran a 4-3-40 at the Combine, 41 and a half inch vertical. This kid is super athletic, but also been dealing with some injuries, a pinky and a hamstring right now in training camp. Do you have a lean as to which one of these two you would rather have if you were going to take a dart throw? I think the question is, is anybody a lean here now? Like, I think we felt good about Jaden Higgins being not just the number two, but a capable number two. A guy who, like, in a few years from now could be a number one for Houston or somebody else. I'm not convinced that there is a second Texans wide receiver. That right now should be rostered in 10-team leagues. I would take, if I had to. No, go ahead. Finish with that. I was going to say. I think if I had to take a shot on somebody, like, I'm just going to chase the upside. And the best player out of the guys that is remaining, Xavier Hutchinson. I didn't mention Xavier Hutchinson. Jalen Noel and Tank Dell. The best player is Tank Dell. He's coming off of this massive injury, like one of the scariest injuries we've seen in the NFL in the past couple of years. I'd still roll the dice there because if I'm not convinced that any of them are going to have value, I'd rather roll the dice. I'd rather roll the dice on the guy that I think has the theoretical highest ceiling. Yeah, I agree. He was 18th in fantasy points as a rookie. And then before that injury, he was kind of boom bust. He dropped off. He was averaging about 10 fantasy points a game. I think that you'd throw that dart late in your draft on Tank Dell. That's what I would do. But I laugh because, like, we're going to pick Dell and Noel and then, like, Xavier Hutchinson is going to run 500 routes. Justin Watson is going to be out there blocking. He'll probably make the 53 now. So, you know, it is what it is with this Houston offense. By the way, so is an elite defense. So they're not going to be so reliant on their passing game in the second half. Yeah, I think Noel and Dell find late round picks, but I wouldn't get too. I think it also further secures Dalton Schultz's floor. Like, we know that he is a capable safety valve. And I think my problem with Noel is that, as you mentioned, he's like a speedy slot guy. There's not really an alpha about him. And I'm not sure that that's what is going to best complement this offense, especially when we talk about Nico Collins's history of lower body issues. And I fully understand that. That's part of it. Part of why I like him in this offense is because I'm worried about the offensive line and C.J. Stroud being able to get the ball out a little bit quicker. But both of these are just dart throws, to be honest. So I think maybe the most important question from all this is, did Nico Collins get a bump from any of you guys? No, negative. Yeah, all right, same. I have expressed my concerns over this passing offense. It was a cumbersome offense last year. We'll see if things get better. But there are questions about the way in which Nico was deployed. That became a big talking point throughout the year. And then there are questions about, whether C.J. Stroud is more the rookie version or more the version that we saw last season. It's better than what we saw in the playoffs against the Patriots, which was one of the worst quarterback performances I've seen in a long time. Yes. But how much better will determine how much upside this entire offense has. We've said this a couple times. This could just easily turn into an offense, in my mind, that's just played really, really good defense and smashed the ball with David Montgomery. Yeah, could be. Don't mind that. By the way, I think it was maybe a month or two ago, there was a report that, the top three receivers for Houston were Nico Collins, Jaden Higgins, and Jalen Noel. Because Noel was, before he got, he got hurt during training camp. But before that, he was generating some hype, like year two breakout hype. And Tank Dell saw that and posted on social, like, you know, whatever. Ha, ha, ha, we'll see about that sort of thing. So a little bit of rivalry, competition between these receivers, a little bit of motivation, but Dell's feeling pretty good about himself. It's difficult for me, and this is the last thing, so we don't need to talk about it more. It's difficult for me to want to draft a guy that's 165 pounds, even if he is really good. Like, we've seen part of the problem with him staying healthy in this league. He's just a slight frame. All right, let's dive into the top 25 players in fantasy football. Field Yates, this is your list. Yeah, I'm going to start, and I'm going to have you guys just kind of tell me when you want to break it up, whether you want to say, here's why I strongly agree, here's why I strongly disagree. Okay. If you've been listening to the show, or maybe any of the shows you know, number one player in fantasy football for me this year is B. John Robinson, running back for the Atlanta Falcons. I don't think what I need to do here is, no, that's okay. Is make the case for why B. John is RB1. No. It's more so make the case of why I have him ahead of Jameer Gibbs. I think I've used this logic before. I think he is an ever so slightly better player than Jameer Gibbs, ever so slightly. It's like a 2% difference. It's fine. Worth noting that both of these players had backup running backs depart this offseason, notable David Montgomery, Tyler Algier. B. John got, I would argue, a better backup than Bryan Robinson Jr. But I would have maybe said that he got the worst backup if it was Isaiah Pacheco of a year ago versus Bryan Robinson Jr. of a year. Like, it's comparable, right? I just think, if I had to guess, if I had to break the tie, I think he's a little bit better player. And I think B. John is just slightly less vulnerable to the dud games. To that end, over the past two seasons, B. John has five more games with 20-plus points than Jameer Gibbs, and two fewer games with 10 or fewer fantasy points. Who's been a slightly more consistent player. I think he's a. He's a slightly more talented player. I have B. John Robinson, player one overall. Yeah, I mean, I said wrong because I'm a jerk, but, I mean, it's a toss-up. They're both. Gibbs or Robinson, presumably you're going to have Gibbs next. I don't think that's going to shock anyone. It's a toss-up. I had Robinson first earlier in the offseason. I ended up moving Gibbs ahead as the backup situation sorted itself out, I imagine. And, by the way, Dan Campbell has said more Jameer Gibbs to come. Like, his role will expand. And he was already a top three running back in consecutive seasons. That's the thing about Gibbs. I agree. with you And I have B. John Robinson number one overall. He has yet to knock on wood, knock on all the wood, miss a game so far in his career. He's only 24 years old. So I like the durability. I like his frame a little bit more. I believe he's a sturdier player, if you will. But platitude after platitude that you can easily rip off about Gibbs. And yet I know we're not supposed to put a lot of stock into coach speak. But when Dan Campbell says that he wants Jameer Gibbs to be the, quote, team's bell cow girl fiend, I mean, it's really hard not to like get the vapors when you hear that. I'm with you on that. I think the real question, it's not even a question. This is a an emotional decision because you make either one of these picks at 101 and you have you've not made the wrong decision. It's just which one do you personally like more because it's your team? All right. So my RB2 is Jameer Gibbs. Just a quick again, it's we're not going to haggle over player one versus player two too much more. But the reason why Gibbs is not any lower than two is since he became an NFL player three seasons ago. Yep. He's one hundred and nine point three points better than the third highest scoring running back in that time. Incidentally, that is Derek Henry, who will come up with the ranks in a little bit. Here's where I think it's interesting because I think you go a couple of different directions. I think at least one of you will be in lockstep with me on who player three is. And I know one of you will be very far away. My third player is Christian McCaffrey. If I told you I was getting 17 games of Christian McCaffrey, I would put him player one and it wouldn't be close. Yep. This is a slight hedge, right? Christian McCaffrey, an older player than Jameer Gibbs, an older player than Bijan Robinson. But if he is healthy going into week one, I'd venture a guess that Mike's projections will have Christian McCaffrey as the highest scoring non quarterback for week one. He I mean, he is, by the way, in the time that Jameer Gibbs and Bijan Robinson have been in the NFL. Christian McCaffrey is the fourth ranked running back. He's also missed 13 games, right? So like the guy just plays and plays or sorry, whenever he plays, he produces. It's a question about whether he's going to stay healthy. But to me, he's relatively healthy or at least healthy enough right now that I feel good about him as my third ranked player overall. Does either of you agree? Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I don't have him in three. I have Chase ahead, but I have no issue with this. And, you know, we've had this debate on the pod over the last two weeks. I'm still on him because, you know, plain and simple, he's a unicorn. I mean, the guy is just a unique animal. We saw last year the fact that he could slip. His efficiency could fall to three point eight yards per carry, which is not good and still just dominate the running back position of his career points. Yeah. And he's still dominated. And by the way, even if he slips a little more in efficiency this year, my projection is over 100 points lower than where he finished last year. And he still falls third at running back. It just shows you the caliber of volume that he sees in this office, specifically in the. Passing game. So not to mention this offense, which is it doesn't matter who the quarterback is or what's going on. Kyle Shanahan's offenses are just money in the bank. They're going to be highly efficient. So I'm not he could play poorly all year. If you're giving me 20 plus touches a game, he's going to be a superstar just for for data points of both of you at four for CMC. No. OK, you're lower. Well, I am. I am lower than that. I do have Tamar Chase ahead, but I just do not believe that his efficiency is going to rebound after three point eight last year. Yeah. Well, that actually helps the cause, right? I mean, not when forty three, despite being the RB two and carries last year, only forty three percent of his fantasy points came from the rush. So there's an over reliance, if you will, on receiving. And he has the 10th most difficult strength of schedule. And he's entering his age 30 season and he's coming off of a 400 plus touch season. So I am not as confident that he will be able to bridge, admittedly, one hundred and nine points vast that he'll be able to bridge that gap in a way that is successful at a top five pick. So this is where Field and Mike and I have disagreed, because when I talk about the touch, count, they the argument back is the touches. We're not worried about the rushing regression or the inefficiency there because he's getting his touches in the passing game. So as long as he's getting his catches, I don't care about the regression from the touch count. You and I disagree from that standpoint. I still feel like there is concern to be had for a 30 year old player who had 450 touches last year. But that's why we are different. OK, so Liz has him down in RB six. I apologize that I thought you were closer to three here. Would you guys all have Jamar Chase? Yes. Yes. Yes. OK. So I have Jamar Chase fourth. Not that far behind Christian McCaffrey. You could coin flip it, but just some context on why Chase is wide receiver one and player four overall. It was Pukunikua until Adam Schefter went on his podcast and suggested a suspension for Pukunikua was in the realm of possibilities. Yeah, that's enough to break the tie and move Jamar Chase up. You could make the case for Jamar Chase, even if Pukunikua is going to have 17 games that he plays this year. Over the past two seasons, Jamar Chase, 11 games with 25 plus fantasy. He's a triple crown threat. It's very similar between him and Puka and Jackson Smith and Jigba. To me, the biggest case against Jackson Smith and Jigba is simply that we haven't seen him do it multiple times in the same way that we have Jamar Chase and Puka. So I have Jamar Chase fourth overall, a worthy first non running back off the board. Yeah, pretty wild. Chase has led the NFL. It's not just that he's a superstar talent. He's finished first at receiver and pass routes and targets back to back seasons now. Yeah, he's 125 catches. In multiple seasons now, he's only a third player ever to do that. I mean, the guy and he's still, how old is he now? He's 20. He's so young. 26. I mean, right in the midst of his prime, the guy is just unreal. So and it's funny. He just feels like I don't want to say a boring pick, but just like a ho-hum. You know what you're getting? Jamar Chase. I love that at third overall. Give me boring. 100%. Is it even a question for you guys before it was, do you want Puka or do you want Jamar Chase? Is it is Jamar sort of in a tier of his own now with the Puka situation? I wouldn't say that. I don't think so. I mean, I have Puka Nakua fifth in my rankings. Oh, so he's next. Okay. All right. Puka's next. We're going to start to sort of split these guys. We'll start to explain why 13 versus 14 versus 15 is more notable because, again, it's hard to poke holes in any of these guys. Puka, it's just the possibility of being suspended. But over the past three seasons, his first in the NFL, he has 15 games with at least 115 receiving yards. That's three more than any receiver in the NFL. He's missed. Six games during that time. Puka's going to be money. He's the best bet every single week for 10 targets in the NFL period. Full stop. He's also the best bet out of everyone we mentioned to miss games due to suspension this year. And potential injury. Yeah. And that's why he's not number one in my rankings. Also, you mentioned he might have 10 targets in a game. He has 11 end zone targets total over the last two seasons. Are you serious? So if you want to pick him apart, that's it. We need more end zone work. I don't know if that's going to change with Devontae Adams there, but that's what we're picking apart. I found the touchdown. That's really fascinating. Obviously, not all touchdowns are like target in the red zone. Fine. But he was the wide receiver, too, in touchdowns, despite seeing half as many red zone targets as Devontae Adams. Which only speaks to, obviously, his yak appeal and his just the potency of this offense as well. Also, Adams had, what, nine more end zone targets than any other player in the NFL last season. Yeah, 31. 31 red zone targets. Keep us moving here. I'd have a hard time having somebody else inside my top five, but obviously Mike and sorry, Liz and Daniel do. Feel differently. Number six, I think, is pretty firmly in a tier as well. It's the reigning offensive player of the year. Jackson Smith and Jigbo. They had the NFL in receiving yards last year. He was fourth in receptions, fifth in targets. He plays in one of the run heaviest offenses in the league. But this is just clearly like no other player is going to see a bigger share of his team's passing game opportunities than JSN based off how things look last year. I think his target share was number one last year. It was 36%. Yeah, that's a ridiculous number. Even if you're throwing the ball at a middle-of-the-pack rate, 36% is just too good to ignore. An ascending player going into his fourth season, room to believe he'll only get better. JSN could easily be wide receiver one again this year. How about this for a wild stat, just in terms of JSN's floor? He had at least 13 fantasy points in 16 of 17 games last year. Didn't he have like one game in the playoffs where he had like two catches for seven yards? Of course! Of course! Well, better in the fantasy playoffs? Oh, I don't even remember. Yeah, but regardless, the floor there was unreal. I also love the evolution of his skill set. You know, he was unloosed from the slot last year and he showed up. Interestingly, 76% of his total receiving yards came from the perimeter. Yeah. And you got to see a player who was maybe dubbed a certain thing when he came out of Ohio State. And then Clint Kubiak unleashed him in a way that I expect Brian Fleury to try to build on, obviously. The one thing I'll say about him really quickly is, like you had said, Treat your taste buds to an explosion! Explosion of flavor with Fruity Rainbow 5-Hour Energy Shots. 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These other wide receivers that are in the top five, they all have like legitimate dudes that they're also catching the balls next to. He is the one guy that just doesn't have any of that. So, good point. We've got 19 players to get through and 26 minutes to get there. Jonathan Taylor is my seventh ranked player overall. He's RB4. He has been amazing. He's the best threat along with Derrick Henry to lead the NFL in both rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. He's Derrick Henry Jr. He's exceptional. Daniel Jones being hurt this past year, I think, only increases the odds that Jonathan Taylor hogs more goal line opportunities and he was already getting a ton of them. Feel pretty good about Jonathan Taylor. Anybody have major objections there? Nope. I'll just say this. 12.9 fantasy points per game. Without Daniel Jones last year, he plummeted and now Jones is back. We might be too low on him, frankly. I mean, if that offense plays like it did last season, he's going to outperform his ADP. Devon Aitken is my fifth ranked running back and the eighth overall player. He has 3,057 rushing yards in three years. He is maybe the most efficient runner in the NFL. The concerns are obvious. It's going to be a worse offense this year. He's playing with a mobile quarterback, which might decrease his target share a little bit. The Dolphins just might not be very good. Not being very good might also help Devon Aitken. They might be playing from behind all the time and name a Dolphins wide receiver. There's not many of them that you know. The average walk around the streets of New York today might have a hard time doing that. So Aitken could be right back in the AD catch territory this season. I think that's a really good point about them trying to play catch up and him being involved because Aitken averaged nine and a half fantasy points per game as a pass catcher over the past two years, which is second among running backs behind only Christian McCaffrey. And the assumption though was with Malik Washington under center, he wouldn't be getting the checkdowns. Malik Willis sorry, under center. It could be Malik Washington. You're right. Gadget plays. That he wouldn't be getting the checkdowns like he was from Tua, but I think you make an excellent point about playing catch up and that is something that maybe we're not. I think the Aitken bet is a talent bet and you're just assuming that this kid is so special that he can continue to produce. I think he's a special player. Alvin Kamara to me. Prime Alvin Kamara. That's how I'm viewing him. So I feel pretty good about it. And I know there's been a lot of talk about like, you know, running quarterbacks and not throwing the football to running backs as much. Yep. That is definitely possible with Malik Willis. I think the two things that I am mindful of is one, the sample size of Malik Willis is still pretty small. Two, he has nobody else to throw the football to. Right? Like we're sitting here hyping like Greg Dolchich and Caleb Douglas. Yeah. Caleb Douglas is potential sleepers. Right. For the Dolphins offense. That tells you how thin their wide receiver room is. Number nine for me, Eddie Eddie could have this guy higher. Wouldn't bother me a bit. I'm on Ross St. Brown. Yep. No team has scored more points in the NFL over the past two seasons than Daniels Lions. It's going to go for at least 100 catches. Probably have at least 1,200 receiving yards. Doesn't have quite the same level of upside as the three wide receivers that we have already unveiled. Yep. But I don't know too many teams that regret taking Amon Ross St. Brown in the first round at the end of the season. No. Yeah. I think he's the one first round wide receiver that you're drafting because he is so consistent and steady, but you know you're not going to get wide receiver one at the end of the season. He'll have monster games for sure. Yes, but I don't think he's going to be wide receiver one at the end of the year. He might have some wide receiver one weeks, but to your point, though, he's finished exactly third in fantasy points three years in a row. There you go. Also, though, here's a little fun nugget. Here's a fun nugget, though. The only wide receiver in NFL history with 90 plus catches in his first five NFL seasons. The only one. He's remarkably consistent. I just think we at least I believe he is a just a touch below the three first wide receiver in terms of overall upside, and I think it's important to get running backs early if you can. I do have two lions inside your top 10, though. That feels nice. Thank you for that surprise there. By the way, if you're picking one to put in the Hall of Fame right now, are you going to Monrath St. Brown or 2026 Monrath St. Brown Luther Burden, who's already established which one goes in? It's a tough call. Burden is coming just a few players away. I promise. Don't make that promise. Number 10 for me, James Cook. Bill's running back. I don't know. The guy led the NFL in rushing yards last year. He's got back-to-back season with at least 12 rushing touchdowns. Make of this whatever you will. There's been talk about him getting more receiving work this season. James Cook came into the NFL as one of the best receiving backs in his draft class, so there's more upside there. I'm not convinced that he's going to have a decidedly different receiving role. I don't think it matters because he's playing behind a top five offensive line in an offense that's going to score a ton of points. Josh Allen's going to take away some of James Cook's upside, and it hasn't mattered in the past two seasons. Yeah. If Ty Johnson's active, he's a little beat up right now, but if he's active, I'm not expecting much more from James Cook in the passing game. They love Ty Johnson in the passing game. I don't think that's going anywhere. If Ty Johnson's out, maybe. Josh Allen has called Ty Johnson the best third running back in the NFL many times over, and he's not going anywhere. He is not to the same level, but Tom Brady for all those years had his James White, Kevin Falks, and Shane Vereens, and Danny Woodheads, that even if they're not starting running backs, they're awesome change of pace guys. Number 11 for me, and I'm optimistic here, so I imagine someone here may have a beef, but Derrick Henry. I don't know. I think we do this all the time in fantasy football, and I've been guilty of it for sure in the past, is that we look to the new shiny object, and we're like, oh my gosh, this guy is going to be so great. He's going to redefine what it means to be a young superstar in the NFL and the world of fantasy football, and then it's like, oh wait, Derrick Henry once again is second in the NFL in rushing yards. He's done that for the past four seasons. I think this Ravens offense is rejuvenated. I think Lamar has something to prove this year. I think this entire franchise feels like they have something to prove this year, and Derrick Henry's going to have a couple of clunkers. He'll be lucky to get to 25 catches this year, so you may have to ride the wave. Remember last year, week one, he had kind of a dud game against the Bills. It doesn't matter. He's going to have monster weeks each and every season. Mike used the term unicorn for Christian McCaffrey. I think Derrick Henry is a unicorn as well. I like to call him, I like to call Henry fantasy's greatest anomaly, most consistent anomaly, because he just keeps proving everybody wrong. Also, another player that there are some rumors he might see some more receiving work, which he did see at the end of his career in Tennessee, so there's some growth there, and I just, we love the schedule, too. Love the schedule. The Ravens schedule is fantastic. Yeah, new coaching staff, too, which could play into more passing game work. Wants to, quote, hunt big plays. When I hear a new O.C. say they want to hunt big plays, I'm thinking Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry rebounds. I think this is higher than almost everybody else here. I'd be curious. Mike, you have your top 25 or whatever, top 100? I sure do. And where is Derrick Henry ranked for you? Yeah, I'm a little bit lower. I'm at 17. Okay, so a little bit lower. I'm optimistic, but you don't think this is a it wouldn't be criminal if somebody took Derrick Henry? No, absolutely not. We talked about this tier of running backs. He's definitely in that vicinity. I mean, he finished RB8 last year. I have him at 10 on my board. It's like, you know, it's a very, very close. My top 25 is running back heavy. As it should be this year. 14 of the top 25. So you're going to see that. You're going to see how my running backs are pushed up the board. Number 12, one of lowest I've ever seen this player in fantasy football. Yeah, and it feels weird to have him this low, but it's Justin Jefferson. Yep. Who is going to play with not J.J. McCarthy, and that's a good thing because he has 1.99 fantasy points per target from every quarterback not named J.J. McCarthy in his career. Yeah. Is he guaranteed to get 1.99 fantasy points per target? No, but if he sees 150 targets this year, that's about 300 fantasy points, and that will be a major, major bounce back season for Justin Jefferson. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about him a lot. Kyler, because he runs only one receiver in his whole time in Arizona was a top five score at wide receiver. That was DeAndre Hopkins, but it was DeAndre Hopkins, and Justin Jefferson is in his prime a little better than Hopkins. All due respect to him. Jefferson's a better player. So as long as he keeps feeding him and he gets a 30% target share, Jefferson will be fine. Everyone else in the offense, I'm more concerned about, but Jefferson, I feel like will be good. He was also able, Murray, to convert on the deep ball to nuke back in 2020, and I think that is where we are most holding our breath because obviously we know what a downfield threat J.J. is. I mean, Mike's got him projected for 166 targets, so if that 1.99 fantasy point per target rate continues, he's going to be pushing for, you know, top three to five wide receiver upside. This is an easy thing to say. It just makes sense, but like part of why I like drafting at the end of the first round is the value that I feel like I can get because I can still get a running back that I would like, usually in the top of the second, and I can get someone that I still think will push for wide receiver one. We're getting as much value on Justin Jefferson as we ever have because of that scar tissue that happened from last season. Other than that, he's been that, he's been this guy with everyone else at the top of the draft board his entire career. James Cook plus Justin Jefferson. That's an unbelievable start. That is excellence right there. That's a great way to start. The end of the round can be good. Let's take a couple questions here for them from YouTube before we dive into the rest. We got the first 12 here. This one comes from Quinton Thorne, producer Q. Picking nine in my draft. Would I be crazy if I take Justin Jefferson over CeeDee Lamb? Not based on Fields' list, Q. Any disagreement? Well, here's my projections for them. 294 for Jefferson, 293 for Lamb. So, pick your poison. Yeah. Not crazy at all. Was that just a way for us to segue into my next player? I don't know if we have. We have two more questions. Two more questions. All right. This one coming from our chat. DIV free. McCaffrey or Devon Achan injury risk versus a bad offense, guys? So we had at least two votes for CMC, me and Mike. Over Achan, I'll take CMC. CMC? I would take Achan. Okay, so we've got a three-to-one difference there, Christian McCaffrey versus Devon Achan. Maybe I'll woefully regret the Christian McCaffrey optimism at the end of the season, but if he plays, you know exactly what you're going to get. If he plays 12 games, you won't regret it. I hear what you guys are saying. It's just that last year, when you were worried about it, you weren't saying these same things. You weren't like, if he plays 17 games, he'll be RB1, so I'm going to rank him as RB1. But his game did slip. He was atrocious as a runner last year, and he was still by far the RB1. I'm surprised you didn't have him rank that way then. They didn't go out and make a change. Why didn't you rank him like that? Because I was wrong last year. I should have been higher on him. I mean, obviously, we all should have been higher on him last year. No, we all shouldn't have been. Some of us were higher on him. Yeah, I was higher on him last year. I think to the question, though, A-Chan and CMC are not going in the same place. So are you letting CMC fall to you where A-Chan would go? Then I like the answer of CMC. Unless this is a salary cap situation in which you're trying to spend some of your money, which we could talk about maybe at the end of this episode. Well, we will be talking about that at 1045. But we've got to get through it. We've got 15 more minutes. I'll just say this. By the way, we'll find out who's wrong, but we have a process landing on Christian McCaffrey. Absolutely. You've got a process landing on Christian McCaffrey as RB10. RB6 in Liz's case. And we'll see how the cards are dealt. I will say this. On a points per game basis, I don't think he'll finish 6th or 10th. He might finish there if he misses a few games, but he'll be first or top three, or he'll be 70th if everything just falls apart. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right. Let's keep going with top 25. Did you say CeeDee Lamb was going to be your next one, Field? He is. CeeDee Lamb, my wide receiver six. He's ridiculous. The biggest question. The biggest question with CeeDee Lamb is simply, we are now down to player, we're only at player 13, and this guy's got a real threat on his own roster, right? And this is probably the offense where you feel good about him feasting. Last year, both he and George Pickens were top 12 wide receivers, so there's evidence these guys can be dominant. But CeeDee Lamb was not as dominant last year. Maybe the injury was the driving force behind that. And maybe George Pickens is not as great this year. He's on the franchise tag. If George Pickens has a tight hamstring, is he going to say, hey, tap the helmet. I'm coming. I'm out for the rest of the game because I've got to protect my long-term future. Still, CeeDee Lamb, wide receiver six, one of the great star talents in the NFL. So good. His last full season, he was number one in scoring among receivers and fantasy points. I know George Pickens is there, but he's a good offense. He also cleared 1,000 yards despite missing basically four games and the emergence of George Pickens and working through various nagging injuries. And he's going to score more than three touchdowns this year. So I'm with you. I hate to say this as an Eagles fan, but the Cowboys are going to be pretty good this year. They are. And that could actually, the defense being even average is going to limit a little garbage time for this offense, but it's still CeeDee Lamb at the end of the day. Defense just needs to be average for this team to be a real factor in the NFC North. Honestly, their defense might be good. Their defense might be good. I mean, they have some serious talent. Now, it's not the same. Corner's a question, but on paper, that defense looks really good. All right. Player 14 for me, Daniel's guy, Chase Brown. Yes, sir. Eighth-ranked running back over the past two seasons. He's got 225 or more carries and 50 or more catches. Only other running backs have done that over the past two seasons. B. John Robinson, Jameer Gibbs. Not as talented as those guys, but he's got a role that's very, very useful, and nothing the Bengals did this offseason at running back makes me feel like Chase Brown is due for a big role hit. They brought back Samaj P. Ryan, who's kind of been there. He's just one of those guys that is valued more by Cincinnati than probably the rest of the league. He's a good, solid player. Not enough to take away the shine of Chase Brown. And an offense that's going to score a ton of points. We expect them to score a ton of points. Yeah, I remember. He had that. Really slow start last year. The first two months, we were like, uh-oh, this is really bad. Joe Burrow didn't help be hurt. And then he was elite the whole rest of the way. That was a little bit of it, but Burrow was playing for a chunk of that. That was an odd start. Poor rushing efficiency for Chase Brown, but still, at the beginning of last season. He's like a mini-CMC in a way. He doesn't need a huge rushing production because he's going to just dominate in the past. I don't think that there's a Samaj P. Ryan problem either. By the way, I saw a couple of headlines. Who knows what they were for? But there's a Samaj P. Ryan problem, and I was like, no, there's not. I don't think there is. There's going to be a James Conner landing spot, too. We've got to keep an eye on that. Please, no. Don't say that. We'll adjust the ranks if that's the case. But for now, I feel good about Chase Brown. Number 15 overall for me is Kenneth Walker III, my ninth-ranked running back. I'm on the optimistic side based off of ESPN consensus ranks. I just think this is one where it's like, don't miss the forest through the trees. What's the expression? Whatever the expression is, basically, it's right underneath us and just examine the important factors and just focus in on those. He's a talented player, got a ton of money for a team that desperately is trying to fix its running game with not much competition, with a quarterback coming off of a major knee injury, then Kenneth Walker III is going to mash. Yeah. I'm a hair lower, but again, he's in this tier. Six through 15 are basically a wash. I'm at 12, so I'm barely lower than you. A couple spots. And overall rank for you? Overall, let's see. I've got to scroll over to the overall. I'm at 19. Okay. So we're not that far off. 15 or so. 15 for me, 19 for you. I think it's important. If we have a 12-spot gap, I think it's worth talking through. At this point in the draft, though, that difference means I might not draft him at all this year, and you may. It's so close in that range. I'm probably going, even like Saquon Barkley. You haven't mentioned him yet. I have him ahead. So I haven't had much Walker this year. We'll see how it plays out. To me, it's a very important note now. As a number 16, we have our first tight end. Trey McBride, who over the past two seasons has 61 more catches than any other tight end. Yep. And the gap between him. And the fifth tight end, who's George Kittle, in terms of catches over the past two seasons, is 102. There's just this dramatic, massive difference between the first two tight ends and everybody else. I have flipped him and Brock Bowers back and forth like eight times this offseason. Again, not too concerned about it. I'll spoil this now. Brock Bowers, because a lot of the same logic applies here, is player 18. So 16 and 18. I understand that there are going to be drafts where they're hanging around in the middle of the third round. I have seen too many drafts where I'm sitting there at the back end of round two, hoping for one of those guys to arrive to me. It doesn't happen. So if I'm sitting there with the fifth pick in a 10-team league and I'm getting pick number 16 in the second round, I am pulling the trigger because I'm not convinced they'll get there to me at pick number 25. I mean, the space between Trey McBride and everyone else last year was over 100 points. We have a graphic, actually, that demonstrates just how these players. And then Kyle Pitts and then Travis Kelsey. These are overall numbers, not per game, obviously. How small the gap becomes as you go down the list. So obviously you want the top because it is such a huge, like a monster advantage at that position. And obviously we know that Brock Bowers' numbers, had he not gotten hurt, would be up there as well. Actually, you said that's total, not per game, but that actually is McBride's per game with Jacoby Bursetta. People don't realize that. How close can I ask? You've been flipping them back and forth. Is this basically just like a. I woke up yesterday and I was wearing red and I was like, I'll McBride. It's that kind of close. Brock Bowers is player number 18 on my board. This is Jameer Gibbs versus B. John Robinson. It's really not worth fighting yourself over it too much. They're both mega, mega start downs. Quarterback's the only position that doesn't have that, right? I mean, tight end, we got Bowers and McBride. Wide receiver, you got Puka and Jamar Chase. Running back, it's really just quarterback. It's Josh Allen alone. For fantasy purposes, yes. Number 17 on my board. Is Drake London for the Falcons. That would bring him to wide receiver seven. He's wide receiver six over the past two years. Man, I would love to see Drake London with consistent quarterback play. Definitely concerned about that. It's a run. It was a run heavy offense or has been a run heavy offense previously. I don't know. Like mega talent. Four years, $140 million this offseason or whatever it was. $140 million, $141 million this offseason. Target share should be excellent. The wide receiver two and beyond of the depth chart is incredibly weak in it. Atlanta, this guy is a good bet for a 30% target share. He's super talented and he's great in the red zone. He didn't have great quarterback play last year and he still did pretty okay. Yeah, and neither of his quarterbacks are scrambling at all. That's a true, that's a point. That's going to help add a little bit of extra volume. Also, remember week six through ten last year? The number one scoring receiver three times in that five-week sample. We've seen an enormous ceiling from him. Wide receiver three in fantasy points per game until he hurt his PCL. Average 19.7 fantasy points per game. Wide receiver one in my heart. Because he's on my dynasty league. Ayo! Number 19 in our rankings. Again, Brock Bauer's number 18. He's tight end too. Number 19 is Rashi Rice for the Chiefs. He's been targeted on 28% of his routes in his career so far. Just some context. Amon Ross St. Brown, who Mike said was the only player in NFL history with 90 or more catches in each of his first five seasons. So we think he gets the ball a lot. So Rashi Rice has been targeted on 28.2% of his routes. Amon Ross St. Brown for his career, 27%. So he's a target vacuum. Am I a little worried that maybe the Chiefs offense replaces some of the short passing game with the running game this year? A little worried, but not enough to move him much further down than wide receiver eight. Did I see from one of our colleagues that it seemed like a suspension wasn't on the horizon as of right now? I don't believe a suspension's on the horizon right now. Okay. Which is a part of the conversation with Rashi Rice is we've had some off the field issues. That's a part of why we're. I think the bigger concern is the knee and it maybe not having the same amount of power. power as it did before the injury. rehabbed in jail like that's wild this dude had surgery and then like a day later was in the that's wild um number 20 and this is a player that i think has of all the guys that i've discussed so far is the most vulnerable to a big slide yeah mike mentioned him yesterday as one of his followers in the preseason it's josh jacobs uh currently rb10 the specter of a suspension is possible um and he has been banged up and there is a player every year who kind of just hits that wall amongst the older running backs that we have discussed he is the one that makes me most concerned about potentially hitting that wall he's currently at 20th overall but um if he slides to 27 or 28 in two weeks don't be surprised yeah that's a good call i'm worried about him hitting the wall too because he was hurt and then came back down the stretch and his usage and production really did slip uh but at the on the other hand he has he's averaging about a touchdown per game since he's been with the packers and and he was like efficiency wise when he was healthy last year he was like top five at running back i mean he was exceptional so uh this is he's a tough one he could end up being a guy that's a league winner because he's so cheap now third fourth round of drafts and if he's healthy it's going to pay off in a big way he's also he's never in his career averaged more than 4.8 yards per carry he's also never touched the ball fewer than 16 times in a game this message is brought to you by apple card shave ice by the beach a trip to the state fair and a throwback flick at the local drive-in more than just items to check off the summer bucket list there are also opportunities to earn two percent daily cash back when you use your apple card with apple pay apply for apple card now and use in minutes with apple pay subject to credit approval apple card is issued by goldman sax bank usa salt lake city branch terms and more at applecard.com pros find the right flooring for the job and lowe's newly redesigned flooring showroom shop our expanded assortment of trusted brands and get up to $1,000 a month for a free gift of $1,000 a month for a free gift of $1,000 a 35% off style selections stain master and stain master pet protect special order carpet and while you're here save $100 on a dewalt 20 volt max six amp hour two pack of batteries now just $179 get more of what you need faster and save more where it counts from the ground up our best lineup is here at lowe's valet to 826 while supplies last selection varies by location chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month each lasting four hours or more botox on a botulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start it's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month it prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo prescription botox is injected by your doctor effects of botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing speaking breathing eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk side effects may include allergic reactions neck and injection site pain fatigue and headache allergic reactions can include rash welts asthma symptoms and dizziness don't receive botox if there's a skin infection tell your doctor your medical history muscle or nerve conditions including als lou gehrig's disease myasthenia gravis or lambert eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects why wait ask your doctor visit botox chronic migraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more that's unbelievable game wow yeah at least 16 times per game that's insane so that's yeah he's crazy volume the one thing about josh jake is that he's just like does it ever feel like he's a target for you in drafts or is he a guy that you're drafting because eventually got that's exactly right value spot yeah right now yes yeah right yeah it's fair i understand yeah you haven't met 10 that was a bad question for you no no but even i thought you were saying in years past in years past he has been like this year it's like you're not going in targeting him because he's getting a little bit older he's got all those touches and there's some of the concerns with the suspension however eventually he's going to get to a spot where like if this guy plays it just feels like he's not a target but he's a value play for me in the fourth round he fell this far i have to think about this yeah it's kind of like that five minutes for five players number 21 jeremiah love we talked about him a ton still nourishing that high ankle sprain my guy he could move up or down in these rankings he can move up to 19 he can move down to 25 because obviously if his high ankle sprain all of a sudden it's three weeks from now and we haven't seen him at all on the field he might be a threat to miss two or three games to begin the season uh saquon barkley is number 22 in my rankings i think he's going to be a threat to miss two games to begin the season i think he's going to be a threat to miss two games i think this is one of the wider range of outcome players in fantasy football obviously we know that over the past two years he's had a wide range of finishes um it's a very different offense it's a very different offense it's a totally different scheme it's not as much jalen hurt centric they have a new offensive line coach for the first time in forever not mike goalie jr we don't spend a ton of time talking about offensive line play on this show but jeff stoutland is on part of the mount rushmore of offensive line coaches in nfl history so changing offensive line coaches is notable to me for a running back a bounce back season is definitely impossible is definitely in play for saquon and keep in mind that two years ago when he got to philadelphia he was ranked like around here and went on to become rv1 like the best version of saquon this is a league winning player yeah i can't add much more than that it's tricky one with the scheme change i do think it's going to be beneficial for him which is why i have him ranked ninth after he finished 14th last year so i do expect him to be a little bit better but at the same time i think he's going to be a little bit better than saquon because he's going to be he's 29 years old coming off a down year so i don't i'm not going to rank him near near the top and i think his best days are behind him to clarify though you believe that because of the passing game transition the team and the offense will leave lean more heavily on the run and that'll increase his rushing under center more reliance on him more play action in this offense i think all these things are going to benefit running through the offense through him and also don't forget aj brown's gone too so even more dependence on barkley yeah seven plus touchdowns in all four seasons for aj brown's there's some touchdown equity somewhere to be had ashton gentry is 23 for me i wanted to get heavier into the ashton gentry investment i'm still a little nervous that this offensive line is better but not fixed right tyler linderbaum for sure is a dramatic upgrade nobody else this offseason that they added is like all right great like we are clearly better it's more banking on health yep in the case of colton miller their left tackle and internal improvement for some of the young guys they have drafted over the past couple of seasons and definitely 100 better coaching amari hampton is number 24 for me i know daniel feels better gosh i thought we were gonna make this whole list he wasn't even gonna be on here he makes the list he cracks the list at number 24 again you guys have heard my reservations on omar and hampton compared to where daniel has him which might be a top 10 player overall he's rb5 rb5 for me yep so he might be a top 10 player for you then he might be but i don't need to draft him there that's just where i think he's gonna finish i can still wait and grab him in the second round because it's that's still ahead of his adp and i'm able to grab a guy but i have him there you're gonna hate keaton mitchell so much this year i mean every day you're gonna be so mad this keaton mitchell hype is also you know what mike mcdaniel i can't stand when nerds try to trigger other nerds oh like this is i listen mike mcdaniel went to yale i went to brown i'm a nerd i'm okay with it i just happen to have a glow up in college yeah it's fine so like when mike mcdaniel on august 5th says hampton has shown the most growth of any player and then five days later says bad news fantasy managers i'm gonna run a hot hand shut up there we go brown girl i mean breach bro we are both dorks and we can both be proud you don't need to like try to try to jab people just because they got a kink that i also know you got analytics guy wow i love it look at that fierce liz loza i'm all about it yes um he's really talented hampton's really talented i just think there's a chance that he has some of his work eaten away by other backs in that backfield last but not least malik neighbors you're welcome man if you look at this guy could be high on i love it i love the malik neighbors call because if we we are allowed to change our minds right as more information becomes available it is in fact uh beneficial to everyone that we weigh the new information and the data and in fact evolve our opinions instead of being stuck to a take that we made back in may i think that's good for life advice by the way as well and so as we learn more about malik neighbors i am i am changing my mind on him and i'm pushing him up my ranks all i'll say is i don't care what is is is mentioned by the giants coaching staff i don't care how good he looks in a practice between now and week one he's still risky he is no doubt so just like a lot of reasons you know and and i have i have optimism he's my wide receiver nine top 25 player overall but i'm acknowledging that this is a riskier top 25 pick than others we talk we've been saying often like when we're debating running backs between like rb 30 and 31 like it depends on what you've done so far to that point in the draft it matters when when you're weighing taking malik neighbors at the end of the second or beginning of the third round as well what you've done with picks one and two influences pick number three but there's my top 25 for 2026 do you guys have any names off the cuff really quickly before we move ahead and talk salary cap drafts that names that should have been in the top 25 that field did not have in the top 25 yeah i have two i think there's only two exceptions okay i also recall but again these are 23 and 25 so okay they're very close they're at the end reese hall i have a 23 obviously we're keeping an eye on his injury right now it looks like he has a decent shot to play week one not super worried and 25 is nico collins oh again nothing i'm feeling no major qualms are very close aj brown i was surprised didn't make the list okay these guys are all close aj brown's my 10th ranked wide receiver so he's not far behind nico collins a little bit lower than that breeze hall is kind of closer there i think the name that probably will to like the average draft that you see that will be most surprising to not go my top 25 is josh allen but that's a philosophy thing right i think josh allen will go top 25 in many and i mean many of the drafts that i participate in i was surprised to not see either Jake Bobo or Alan Lazard Brandon Aubrey we're talking dynasty in a couple complimented the good stuff there we go all right well let's talk about some different league types then because we always talk about the regular drafts that we do when we do mock drafts it's pretty much just a standard snake draft that's the way a lot of drafts happen but salary cap drafts are so much fun they're my favorite kind of drafts to do are they you're a sicko i am a sicko you don't have three kids in the car about four hours yeah yeah oh my god i have a kid jumping on my back and i'm trying to bid for whatever and you can't walk away from your computer for a second there's no like you pick at the turn you can go get a snack use the restroom there's none of that yeah the best ones you do live too oh yeah absolutely use a paddle four dollars sold i love that i love that all right so then let's take some salary cap draft advice so do you guys have any things that when you go into salary cap drafts you're like these are a few things that are important to me or how i approach these kind of drafts anybody here a stars and scrubs approacher i am i usually are for those that are unfamiliar stars and scrubs is basically like let's just say your budget's 200 bucks yep you are willing to out of the and christian mcafree and josh allen and uh puka nakua but the rest of your roster is going to be basically waiver wire level players stars and scrubs pretty self-explanatory so you guys know my background is in accounting that's where i got my degree i did accounting for a while so uh i know a little bit about a budget you know yeah and how to set that kind of thing up that's what i do with these when i when i'm going in i go to excel and i say okay here's a player i want i decided this year i'm i'm getting jeremiah love because you can do that in these you can spend whatever you want to spend all your money to get one player if you want and i lay it out i say okay i think he's going to cost about 34 loves the target 34 and then you kind of figure it out because when i'm done it's usually like let's say the cap's 200 i'll be at like 227 because you're always too like you want more than you can get um and then you have to kind of figure out well i can't afford uh whatever i can't afford chris alavi in my flex like it's just too much like you have to kind of set it up and then have a plan because you can't just assume you're gonna as it goes along you adjust maybe you i got love for 27 or i had to pay a little more and then you're like okay i can't spend as much on tight end if i feel like if you don't do it that way you're gonna end up burning yourself you're gonna overspend or underspend you can't do it and and to your point about stars and scrubs my bench is usually like two dollars two dollars two dollars one dollar one dollar because there's always going to be cheap discounts or like the the bench players are always going to be super cheap at the end i think that's great advice i think there is a struggle though for people who are just trying to start a salary cap draft um that they don't know is going to cost and espn actually has a really useful tool next to the adp there's an average salary um did you determine those numbers uh the i think that's like adp but yes on our cheat sheets those numbers are determined by our overall but that's a great place to start because i'm like i don't know what it would be john out of 200 i don't know what that number and then you can start from that number be like all right well if i calculate it and it begins the process for you an essential for me and i'll use daniel and an example of a player that i know he would do this is especially early on if there are high profile players and go then i'm not invested in yep oh but i know we'll go for a good amount of money i'm nominating them like if i'm doing the first pick i'm taking christian mccaffrey and nominating him because let's just say in a 200 salary cap league he goes for 41 bucks that's 41 dollars available unavailable to to one person in your league that makes you has it gives you 41 dollars more worth of leverage just be careful though because sometimes people will be patient early and you'll be like oh no they're not going for as much as i thought and then you try to try to run the amount up and then no one bids and then you're stuck with the player you don't want i stay away like i like i generally if it's christian mccaffrey go ahead yeah yeah but you people do it though and then you get trapped with a guy you don't want yeah i do think also that the beginning is interesting because sometimes people are tepid so you'll find a player a really buzzy player that is not very expensive because people are like wait like surveying the room but i agree with you if there's a player that i know has a lot of hype then them early and watching people spend all their money is a delight there's no better drama than that you're you have the high bid on a player you want and it's a good value and the timer's going down three two one when you get that player there's nothing better and so fantasy i mean it's it's kind of like waiting in a in a redraft like as the guy you want is one pick away and they make it to you it's a very very similar how do you guys feel about driving up the cost on someone on purpose that's why i was just saying the name of the game dangerous but it feels good like when you bid on them as well when you're like all right one dollar more one dollar more just to see them because you can always get a feel for how somebody else is yeah like if you bid and someone immediately goes bid right back like you know that like all right this person's invested but if you bid and it's like three two and somebody like presses a bid they're probably not that confident in that player um last thing i'll say and this dovetails with mike mentioned for his bench i always keep a kitty i always do like whatever it is if it's 10 20 it's remarkable how you get to like two-thirds of the way through the draft and you're like oh my god like the difference between the guys that are going for a for three dollars and the guys that just went for fourteen dollars is basically nothing but half the league only has one dollar bids left available yeah and i've got the ability to spend six dollars game changer i like at least that budgeting a couple dollars because if if it's a guy you absolutely want on your bench let's say you're like my guy this year is terrence ferguson and some and you're like out of money and someone someone else bids one dollar on him and all you can and you're out like you're out of money you can't but if you have an extra couple bucks you could go up to two and no one else is going to bid because no one else has money yeah so that's why i like to keep just a little bit of extra i would also if you are just because we've talked about this with our redraft strategy if you're in on a late round quarterback late round quarterbacks don't mean anything in a salary cap league because there are no rounds technically right but if you bid up or if you nominate quarterbacks early and let everyone else fill it out and everyone else has their quarterbacks and they've spent money you can just continue to wait and get really cheap quarterbacks at the end of the draft it might be fun to get josh allen or jayden daniels but you might spend 35 dollars or you know 25 dollars on a quarterback when you can get justin herbert or trevor lawrence they might go for one dollar some of those guys will go for one dollar for sure guaranteed so all right let's take a quick question we got a social question here from our crew this one comes from sports video eight stupid question from for and from the chat any tips for people forced to do auto draft in a salary cap league draft's not at a good time you just can't make it how do you like set up a queue in a salary cap send a lieutenant yeah hire somebody hire some ai to do it i think if you really have to do that and you can change your values just kind of bump up the prices a little bit for guys you really want and vice versa if you're like if you're daniel and you're in that situation you're knocking christian mccaffrey down to from fifty dollars to thirty dollars maybe that's the better strategy rather than saying like i want to make sure you don't want to overpay for a player but you definitely don't want to pay for a player that you don't want so making sure you knock down players that you don't want on your squad that's that'd be my only suggestion yeah we are strong advocates of not auto drafting we are especially strong advocates of not auto drafting in a salary cap because things can get wonky like you're going to do okay in a 10 team snake draft it with auto draft it's gonna be fine mike's the algorithm for the way that the draft will break down we'll still give you some pretty good players yeah but yeah uh salary cap you might get four quarterbacks like who knows but if you have and if you have a third pick and you're auto drafting in a regular draft like you're still going to get you'll be fine let's talk about some dynasty stuff here guys mike you've put together a big dynasty list field do you put together a dynasty list here for espn as well that is just mike clay things that mike dominated this company his dynasty ranks we know that ageism is a crime but you really enjoy being able to do dynasty conversations yeah because i can bury those old 27 where they belong that's right way down the board yeah let's talk about dynasty i just when you're going into a dynasty draft how is it that you're looking at the top of the board because in a lot of the drafts that we have like you have superstars that would come off the board cmc is not going to go third overall right josh allen might not be the same kind of level of quarterback maybe you'd want a younger guy like drake may or jayden daniels how is it that you're breaking down when you look at dynasty drafts the age and the talent versus the youth and what could be yeah first of all like yes i do our rankings we're all in dynasty league we all know we all know the strategies i believe you won our dynasty league last year i think i won the year before field i think won the year before that yes we have one two three of the last three i won my dynasty i'm not in yours but i did win mine last year we do need to change uh yeah so um i look i can just tell you i could just tell you what i do is when i'm doing a startup dynasty draft i if if you're in the prime or older in your career i'm probably not interested like i'm building very young because i'm okay not competing year one i just want the young players because not only do you have a really young core you probably are going to get one of the first picks the next year in the massive imagine doing a startup last year and this year you would 1.1 you add jeremiah love to your team um and also when you're trading in dynasty and you have like a 27 year old wide receiver disgusting like no one wants i mean no one is interested whatsoever people are disgusted that you would even suggest trading an old old geezer like a 27 no one if you're 23 look you could be 27 with six consecutive top 10 finishes zero interest but you could be a rookie wide second year receiver who's done nothing in the nfl but as upside and everyone wants that will play pay top dollar so there's this perceived value of players that are young on the trade market in dynasty so i want to just load my team up with those sort of players early on and then just wheel and deal until i build a powerhouse well mike to that end use my my dynasty team that we just talked in that league we just talked about as a good example two years ago i win the championship try to bring your brain back to two years ago my team included lamar is my quarterback he's still very valuable in Dynasty, but Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, James James Conner, David Montgomery, Debo Samuel, Michael Pittman Jr., Keenan Allen, George Kittle, Travis Kelsey. I think I have one young wide receiver who's actually good. Oh, Jacoby Myers, right? Like two years ago. Awesome unks. Those teams, that team. Now they're all retired probably. I mean, it was awesome to you. It was an absolute, I mean, Saquon was peak of his value, right? Like we kicked butt. By the way, can I just mention this? Like think about all the players you just remembered on that team. Like you're also like married to your dynasty team. Like you remember everything. Like it's much more important than like season long you just recycle to new players the next year. But dynasty, like you remember stuff like that because you, like I have so much puka nakua in dynasties and like it's like just such a big deal to hit on a player like that and you remember it for a long time. So think about two years ago how that team looked versus now. And like that team feels like it's stuck in the middle. Like I was getting offers for George Kittle this offseason. It's like Isaiah Likely. I'm like, God, really? Like the guy who? Isaiah Likely really for George Kittle? We're not even sure. But you did win because there is a tendency in dynasty to always be looking to the future and never actually winning a championship in the present. Oh, that's true. And so I do think you need to have a little bit of balance. And I am shocked that that team, I mean, I know when you say the players why it did so well, but that you would invest so heavily in running back because obviously in dynasty there is an assumption that you invest in wide receivers due to the shelf life between the two positions. We're probably, what, seven or eight years into that league now? So that league has taken a lot of different twists and turns. On the ways. I believe our commissioner, Scott Clark, said there's only one or two players left on the original squads that had been drafted from the original draft. It's very low. I know for my team, it was George Kittle and Jake Bobo. I got TJ Hawkinson. Bobo wasn't in the team though. TJ Moore, I think. I think TJ Moore is left on nine. It's very low. So things can change very fast in that league. And that's the nature of fantasy football. But dynasty, another thing is like to Liz's point, wide receivers obviously age a lot better than running backs do. But I would say that when I'm in the draft each year, the rookie draft, I basically ignore what my roster looks like and what I need. I just hate the best player. If I have the first pick, and I don't care if I have B. John Robinson and Jameer Gibbs, I probably wouldn't have the first pick. But if I did, I would still take Jeremiah Love this year. Yes. Like I just take the best player because I'm going to trade. Mike and I did a dynasty draft. We have a league in which when we did this draft, we had this exact mentality, which is we did not care about winning the first year. At all, it was just load up on as many young prospects. It doesn't even make a difference about what position you want talent that can be usable either for your squad or for trade bait later on as you develop more players. And what's wild about that is we didn't do a great job in the initial draft. We had a lot of busts that we drafted. Anthony Richardson was one of our guys. Yeah, and we just kept chipping away at it. And now, like heading into this year, I think it's year three maybe. Yep. Our team is a powerhouse. It is. I mean, we are in Jaden Daniels, Bo Nix, Hampton, Jeremiah Love. Who are our receivers? We're stacked there. It's huge. It's too good. George Pickens, Olave. We have Kyle Pitts, a tight end. Mendoza is our third quarter. I mean, it works. I mean, that strategy has always worked for me. Now, that's a lot easier to do if you are, you know, some dynasty leagues require a little bit of an entry fee. It's sometimes tougher to punt on a dynasty league entry fee to just be like, I'll be good in three years. But still, you got to figure out what you need to do. Exactly. We have Luther Burden on that team. Oh, that's the worst. Also, one just quick thing. Just because dynasty is different from keeper. I like dynasty more than keeper leagues. But if you're not ready to do the full jump into keep everyone on your roster, I think keepers is a great way to just dip your toe in the water. I got a couple of players that I really like. I want to keep drafting or keep the guys in my squad that I want to root for. So, like, doing a keeper league is a nice way to, like, do something a little bit different than your standard redraft league, but not go all the way in where you're like, if you have a bad dynasty team, it takes you a while to turn that around. Yeah, totally. I like the kind of you can keep a player for, like, two rounds. Earlier than they were drafted the year before. That's my favorite because then you there is an advantage to like a as opposed to just keeping any two players. You're like, I'm going to keep Bajon Robinson and sure. Whatever. Chris Alave. Make it out of like Puka Nakua again and you to use him as an example. If you took him late a few years ago and now you're this year, you might be keeping him for like a 10th round pick or 12. I mean, which is like last year. Yeah. Yeah. You get a huge benefit from being a good drafter and sticking with it to the end and looking for sleepers late in your in your draft. Yeah. Being able to get some like last year. JSN probably would have been a fourth or fifth round pick for you to be able to get JSN now as a third or fourth rounder when he's going to come off the board as fifth overall and be great valuable value. All right. We got one more question here from our YouTube chat from King Rancelot. Here's the questions we need. Is cereal a soup? More of this. It is not. Come on. No. What makes a soup a soup? It's hot. I mean, gazpacho is hot soup that was cold to cool down. What's cold soup? Is there a cold soup? Gazpacho is a cold soup. It's like cool tomato soup. That sounds awful. It's not. Why would you eat a cold vegetable? I mean, a salad. You never had one of those. That's different. Daniel, not the biggest vegetable guy. Yeah, sure. I'm working on it. Rosie's been working on it, guys. OK. He has fewer vegetables than my three kids combined. That's true. I love cereal is more of a sweet stew than a soup. Cereal. I don't think super stew when I think cereal. That's just a different thing. Yeah. So when you do like a bowl of yogurt with granola on top of it, is that also a soup? No, that's yogurt with granola. That's OK. I got it. That's just a delicious treat. That's just sustenance. Yeah. That's Mike's favorite dessert, right? That is Mike's favorite dessert. I haven't had it in a while. But yeah, I'm more of a smoothie guy now. You can tell. I've been bulking up. Look at you graduating. I am a smoothie guy. Put all the stuff in there. School Mike, 2026. Love that. I'm telling you, go back and see the video from last year of Check This Out, and Mike looks like a bag of bones compared to him now. Yeah. Well, I actually had a little time to work out this summer, but unlike last year. P90X. You know, that's right. Do you remember when P90X was a thing? Yeah. I thought Mike still does it. No, I don't do that one. It's like, did you ever hear that Napargetsy bit where he was like, I want to start getting in shape because I have, like, before his first special, and he's just like, so I decided to do what, like, Marines do and get the P90X. It's like, it goes from nothing to that. It's just, like, ridiculous. Not going to happen. Not going to happen. He's like, I want to be the before guy. Like, I'm going to be the before guy. Serial definitely not on the P90X plan. No, it is not. It is not. Oh, it's not? Liz, big shout out for Facts vs. Feelings. Today, when you're done with this show, go check out Facts vs. Feelings here on the same YouTube channel. Like and subscribe, and we've got a live show in New York City tonight. If you're going to be there, it's going to be a ton of fun. If you're not going to be there, you'll be able to watch us on Friday, still at our normal time, 10 a.m. Eastern. We're going to tape the live show, have it come out Friday morning, so we will see you guys tomorrow. Yeah, it's not too late. Come on out tonight. Don't forget to love each other. We love you guys. We cannot wait to see you later. Peace. Facts vs. Feelings Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save.