Players that NEED to be on your radar | Fantasy Focus

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Probably, yeah. His spare computer? It's the Fernando Mendoza of computers to Mike Clay. That's right. It's going to make more sense when we dive into the news in a moment. My name is Daniel Dopp. It is just the two of us as Mike is on vacation one more time. He thought, you know what, guys? I only have one more chance before we get into the season. I already thought we were in the season. Right. I mean, since you and I last were on vacation, Mike has now embarked on a second vacation. Must be nice. I'm sure he's listening. We miss him as we always do. Shout out to Mike. Okay. Well, I miss Mike a little bit. On today's show, we're going to dive into a bunch of really fun things. So Field and I bring in some players that need to be on your radar. Guys, inside the top 70, we maybe just haven't talked about enough yet this year. We want to make sure that we get to them as well as diving into some flex appeal names in the second half. We're going to talk about names outside the top 70. First and foremost, I want to tell you guys a really quick fun bit of information. Our guy, Eric Moody, getting a show on Sunday morning. That's right. Eric is always in the chat with us here on Fantasy Focus. And now Fantasy Focus Sunday kickoff presented by Lowe's is going to be live on the NFL on ESPN YouTube page every Sunday. You can get all of your lineup questions answered live from 1130 a.m. to 1 p.m. A second screen experience while we're doing Fantasy Focus countdown field. People are going to get their questions answered. Okay, Eric Moody. That's right, baby. Okay. So we're not just talking about a new show. We're talking about a new show that's sponsored. That's right. Right. Like it's sponsored by Lowe's. So shout out to Lowe's. That's right. Love those guys. Eric Moody, like he has put himself into the race for time's person of the year. He's put himself in the race for the 50 most influential sports figures of 2026. I see you, Eric Moody. Respect. So get out. All of your questions to Eric Moody. That's right. Of course, on Fantasy Focus countdown, we try our best to get some lineup questions answered during the show. And maybe all the lineup questions, they'll go to Moody. Correct. Maybe today, just as like a little bit of a teaser, we thought, why not bring you a bonus episode? 1 p.m. today, Eastern, get all of your draft advice and all of the questions you want answered. Eric Moody going to be there on the NFL on ESPN YouTube page. So shout out to him and go check that out this afternoon as well. Field, we got a little bit of news from the league before we decide to dive into the players that need to be on your radar. It's a very small bit of news. Okay. Kirk Cousins officially designated as the starter for this Raiders team. What does that mean to you? Nothing for fantasy. Okay. I hear that. I would say that my ranking for Ashton Gentry and for Brock Bowers is the exact same as it was going into or before this news was officially announced because a we all thought this was going to happen. Yes. B it's not like Kirk Cousins is a and Fernando Mendoza is going to be on your radar. It's going to be on your radar. It's going to be on your radar right now, right? Like those guys, obviously, Fernando Mendoza has a way higher ceiling as a player and he'll get there in time compared to where Kirk Cousins is right now. But I don't think that any of us expect that week one of his starting career, Fernando Mendoza lights the world on fire in a way that Kirk Cousins can't get to occasionally. And all of a sudden, Brock Bowers goes from tight end one to tight end zero. Like how does he move forward from here? And none of the wide receivers are really on our radar prior to this. So no, nothing burger for me. I can't wait to see Fernando Mendoza as the Vegas starter. That to me as the biggest piece of news from here is that we don't get Fernando Mendoza early, but it was expected. It has no fantasy impact whatsoever for me. Is this one of those things where even if Kirk Cousins is playing well, you think eventually there's just like a time where it's like, all right, nope, we drafted this kid for a week. If he's playing great, they're not going to play Fernando Mendoza until they need to. But I don't think Kirk Cousins is going to play great. I agree. I mean, he was embattled over the past few seasons with Atlanta. I expect it to be a, I don't know, call it four to six week run before Fernando Mendoza takes over. And then the fun really begins. And at that point, maybe there's a little bit more overall upside for the offense. But as far as preseason rankings go, Brock Bowers already tight end one for me and Ashton Gentry, who we'll talk about, or we have talked about a bunch in that second tier of running backs and no Vegas wide receiver was registering on our fantasy radar right now. Nope, they were not field, but we are going to talk about some players that do need on your fantasy radar. And we brought a couple of different kinds of names here field. I got some names too, that I brought us. I got some names. I think that we need to know about and some names that I'm going to dismiss, but you need to know about them at least to decide where you're at on those players. So we brought seven players inside the top 70 of ADP. I'm going to start with you, my friend, who are you going to go with first? Yeah. I think just, we have talked about a ton of players and we have talked about probably all these players a little bit, but as you guys know, for our daily audience that watches or listens or comments while watching, we've hit a ton of Jeremiah Love and Colston Loveland and Justin Herbert and Christian McCaffrey and Omari and Hampton content, which has made us feel a little bit thin on some other guys. So I'm going to begin though with AJ Brown, who is a top 10 wide receiver in rank by all of us here at ESPN. And in terms of overall ADP going at the two, three turn, I think everybody knows that AJ Brown's a remarkably talented player. There is a chance that we see the best version of AJ Brown ever. Now there's also a chance that we see the worst version of AJ Brown because he's getting older and he had a knee issue that according to Adam Schefter sort of gave the Rams some pause when they were discussing an AJ Brown trade, which that was before the Miles Garrett trade. I don't think both of those things happened, but I think that AJ Brown is in for a monster, monster season. The hallmark of AJ Brown's game is his speed, his ability to stretch the field. Over the past four years with the Eagles, he had 61 deep touchdown passes, which is passes that went over 20 air yards before they reached the receiver's hands. No player in the NFL had more than AJ Brown during those four years and is 21. That's what he does. During his time with the Eagles, his average touchdown length was 24.6 yards. That's incredible. Nearly every touchdown catch he had was nearly 25 yards. And yet he was not playing with a good, deep touchdown. He was not playing with a good, deep touchdown. He was throwing quarterback from 2025, sorry, 2022 to 2025. AJ Brown caught just 43.5% of his deep targets for some perspective. That was 62nd out of 88 qualified wide receivers. However, he scored the most fantasy points per deep catch as in like the efficiency wasn't great, but when he did connect, he is lethal because he's bigger, faster, and stronger than almost every defensive player on the field. So he's going to be anywhere near him. He goes from Jalen Hurts to Drake May. Yep. How does Drake May stack up as a deep passer? That's a great question, Field. How about this, Daniel? Last year, he had a deep passer rating of 131.0. Seems high. The average in the NFL was 103.3. Drake May was the best deep passer on deep passer rating in the NFL last season. He was. And this wasn't a case where Drake May was great, but didn't throw the football down the field all that often. Right? There are guys who don't shoot that many three-pointers, but they've hit 50% of them, and people are saying, well, Steph Curry was only at 41%. This guy might be a better shooter than Steph Curry. That's a crazy argument to make because Steph is the greatest shooter of all time. Drake May may not be the best deep passer of all time, but he was seventh in the NFL in attempts last year. So not only was he throwing the football incredibly well down the field, he was throwing the football a lot down the field, and he wasn't throwing to A.J. Brown. His best deep threat last year was Keyshawn Booty, who's a fine player who the Patriots traded for a six-round pick and a depth-level safety. This Drake May to A.J. Brown connection could be as lethal as any deep connection in the NFL and maybe not just for this year, but that we have seen over the past few seasons. I'm with you on that field, Jates. I love A.J. Brown this year for all the reasons that you just explained. Who led the league in completion percentage last year, just across the board? Do you know who it was? I'm going to go with Drake May. It was Drake May. Thank you. Even though he was throwing the ball farther downfield and having all of this luck, not luck, I shouldn't say luck, having all of this ability to find his receivers downfield, he didn't even have a guy like A.J. Brown. I am so with you. This is a match made in heaven. I am trying really hard not to get excited to think about my. I had a bold prediction at the end of last year. A.J. Brown, 1,700 receiving yards this season. He then gets traded to. Was that on FF Countdown? It was on FF Countdown, yes. Nice. And so now gets traded to this team where it's like, that actually might be a possibility. Are we going to see like a little mini Randy Mudd? In the A.J. Brown game here in New England? I'm just saying, there's at least a possibility because this kid, both of their skill sets just match up so well with each other. Love the argument. really do by the way they might be a slow start they do play seattle in six days it's a very very difficult matchup yep but be patient aj brown is in for a monster season what about davante adams field tell me about him we've been on on the uh davante adams train for a long time because the dude has been unbelievable top 10 in let me see one two three four five six seven seven straight seasons heading into last year the dude was awesome last year though we started to see a little bit of a different kind of davante adams because his targets came down fewest targets since 2017 2017 was a long time ago field yeah it was that was wow that was nine years ago wow man fewest targets since 2017 and when you look at what he did in the end zone his end zone targets were through the roof he was clearly this massive touchdown maker for matthew stafford and matthew stafford did something that most quarterbacks aren't able to do as far as a repeatable thing you year in and year out okay 40 plus touchdowns it's hard to do it's a really difficult thing to be able to do i love davante adams he's 33 years old and i think we have seen his adp now coming off the board as wide receiver 20 fall into what feels like an appropriate spot because we know what this offense is we know what his quarterback is like we know who he is as a player the question more is as a veteran that we know is on the back nine you know back two or three of his career what do you still think that davante adams can be and are you just saying when i go to the court i'm going to be the one that's going to be the one that's going to be the when i go into a draft i'd rather have the upside of someone else that's around him or i'm okay with him being a veteran that's just going to give me a nice solid floor i think there's a couple of different ways you can approach it i want to give you a few names just around him to think about let me guess terry mclaren terry mclaren is right there next to him metcalf dk metcalf no he's too far down okay got it yep um ameka abuka yep lad mcconkey yep i prefer mcconkey davante adams t higgins jalen waddle dj moore terry mclaren i think i would have him probably like fourth out of those out of those six guys yeah and i don't dislike davante adams but he's not a guy that i'm targeting because within this offense he's the number two guy i think major touchdown regression mike talked about that when he was here on the show a couple of times about how much we know that is going to come down i think when you look at this rams offense the way that they started to utilize two running backs as well quite a bit in that situation i have a lot of guys around him that i just think have more upside in their game he's that veteran that still has a nice floor but he's not going to give you those peak davante weeks that we used to see so if you're drafting him you're drafting a veteran that you think you're getting a good value on but you're not getting a ceiling play and because of that i think with where you're drafting him in the fifth round i'd rather have a higher ceiling play than davante adams so i just think it's important to understand where he's at in his career what he's done recently how his team is going to play out i don't think he's a bad pick to be able to go out and get him but there are a couple guys that i would rather have over him in that range my reasons for more optimism are as follows there's three of them one is you mentioned the insane touchdown upside like that does persist because master stafford has 40 or more touchdown passes in two of his five seasons with the rams he joe burrow jared goff probably the three best bets for 40 passing touchdowns this upcoming season as well so i still think there is crazy touchdown upside for davante adams last year davante was managing this hamstring injury which sort of relegated him to being a role player it just didn't work out for him and i think that's a good thing about davante adams it just turned out that it was the greatest role in the history of fantasy football which was we don't throw the football down the field very often to you but we throw the football every time we're within like six feet of the goal line it was jimmy graham yeah he was jimmy graham good call right there yes um so i still like the fact that i think there's a chance that he has a more expanded role this year because he is healthy going into the season and the third reason for optimism for me which is why i have him six spots ahead of you wide receiver 20 year wide receiver 26 is that uh davante is an injury to or a suspension to puka nakua away from being the wide receiver one in a ridiculous offense true so those are the reasons why i'm more optimistic than you are but 33 mike probably would side with you wide receiver age 33 season not named larry fitzgerald mike proverbial computer mike right here is breaking the tie by saying good call by daniel hey thanks thanks for that computer mike yeah every game day starts before the lights go up before the snap before the snap before the snap before the snap before the snap before the roar something's already at work cleaner quieter energy production running where the game lives strong enough for fourth and goal smart enough for what comes next powering game day powering the fans and powering the communities that show up every saturday the same energy that runs your stadium runs the schools and the hospital in your neighborhood that is performance powered by bloom energy powering game days powering communities taking a quick break to tell you how saturday's game time can get a little messy your crew came over to watch sacks on the table drinks in hand and somebody celebrating like they just won the whole season and beyond and when that energy gets going your walls can end up taking the hit whether it's a big spill or a noticeable scuff that's where bear ultra interior paint comes in it adds an extra 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fast funds terms apply at sofi.com slash team sport where you go to the next one field uh joe burrow who we've talked a ton about all the quarterbacks and there's so many good quarterbacks one of the reasons why we haven't discussed joe burrow as much it's just because we've spent a lot of time on i don't know 14 or 15 other quarterbacks that could have huge seasons which i still believe is the case and i don't feel any differently about those guys but i wanted to speak more about joe can i ask you a question before you get into this yeah absolutely last year did you have because i did did you have joe burrow at the very end of your tier one of quarterbacks yes i did yes and this year it feels like that's the end of your tier one of quarterbacks and i think that's the case for me he's not in that same echelon a little lower and part of that is i think because of some guys that have made the leap correct you know jackson dart has made the you know i think some people can make the case he has made the leap mike certainly would yes you know my optimism on justin herbert jalen hurts is the other guy that's kind of trending in the wrong direction but could certainly reassert himself as a tier one yep qb1 uh but let's just sort of give you some numbers about joe burrow and how effective he has been over the past three seasons if you just look at five games because there might be a guy who's played one game in week 17 against a fake defense or some young quarterbacks that have done it uh joe burrow has scored 20 or more fantasy points in 44.1 percent of his games over the past three seasons 20 or more 20 or more yes so that's a good number right it's he's below the likes of josh allen not the likes of he is below four other quarterbacks in percentage josh allen lamar jackson jalen hurts and brock purdy hey i mean but pretty similar to joe burrow has crazy upside yep um but joe it just feels like the chances of him throwing for 250 passing yards and two touchdowns every single week are as good as any player in the nf agreed like really there and since if you look at the turn of the century since 2000 uh joe burrow is third in the nfl in touchdown passes through 77 career starts 157 nine fewer than aaron rogers and 29 fewer than a player named patrick beholmes we'll discuss a little bit later on there's a little bit of mobility here for joe not crazy like enough it's not he's not gonna run for 500 yards in a season mike's got him projected for 189 rushing yards which isn't crazy but it's not matthew stafford or garrett goff where you're getting a literal zero for them yep um so i think joe burrow just needs to be discussed a little bit more i've happily walked away from my draft with joe burrow and i play in a couple of leagues with six point passing touchdown scoring style love joe burrow and those i'm in another league which has a draft on tuesday night that not only do you get six points for a passing touchdown but you get point bonuses for 300 and 400 yard passing games plus yeah 40 and 50 point uh 40 and 50 yard touchdown passes and joe burrow will be a preferred target of mine in that league absolutely i mean especially given the way that he plays that game and all the things that he does with his wide receivers who we will talk about in just a minute yeah we've got a question from chat actually about joe burrow would you go with joe burrow or dac prescott and the wide receivers that dac and that cowboys offense has i've got joe burrow ranked ahead of dac i think he is a slightly better player um i think the mobility is pretty similar between these two guys the wide receiver duo is pretty similar between these two guys agreed i just think joe burrow is a little bit better player than dac prescott i think you are right i would go with joe as well the big caveat for me and the reason why i think people are at least have knocked joe down is because we saw it again last year like he missed a good game and i think it's a good game and i think it's a good portion of the season unfortunately there's always this like injury thing that's kind of hanging over your head when you draft Joe Burrow and you hate to put it on a guy but that's happened so if you draft Joe Burrow I got no problems with it because when the guy is healthy and starting he's one of the best how many he had like seven straight weeks of 250 plus yards and two touchdowns or something like that last year the dude is unbelievable we have another question here from Zebediah wants to know Burrow burn me last year because of his turf toe this is what I'm talking about field do we know if his O-line is going to be better this year they did address it a little bit in the offseason they feel like their offensive line is going to be better yeah I don't know that I guarantee that but you know they have two high profile offensive tackles yep they've got some steady interior presence none of them are great right I would say this is like it's best a mid-pack offensive line at best yeah I'd have to go check um I know Mike has that piece that he put out recently that overviews how offensive lines are ranked and as Mike explained a couple days ago on our show it's not Mike's personal rankings right this is not Mike's personal rankings right this is not Mike's personal rankings right it's not Mike Goldick Jr. it's Mike Clay Jr. right he's not grading every guard and tackle and putting together a ranking Mike is compiling offensive line rankings from several reputable sources around the web finding consensus or not consensus finding an average amongst those rankings yep and then pushing those out in an aggregate ranking of those offensive lines I can't recall where Cincinnati was I'm going to guess they were like at best 16 at best and it might be more like 22 yeah hope they should be better it's fine whatever it was last year there is an expectation that it will be better here in 2026 with the way I've addressed it part of that is because they still do have two really good wide receivers field one of them being Jamar Chase the other one being T Higgins who we honestly don't really talk about a whole lot I don't even know what there is to talk about because I know why that's right we know exactly who this player is right yes that's how so I wanted to talk about him because we haven't yet but I figured it was worth it and talking about T Higgins because he's still a serviceable wide receiver too hey I never feel super excited to draft him though because I feel like when he's been given the keys when Jamar Chase hasn't been there it's not like wow this guy flourished into an unbelievable wide receiver one I actually think George Pickens did a better job of that last year when there was no CeeDee Lamb than we've often seen with T Higgins being the wide receiver one in Cincinnati however yeah all right I'm gonna pull up I've never seen T Higgins there's a bunch of things he's not done never seen him catch at least 75 balls in a season that's not really his game never had 75 balls in a season he has topped a thousand yards twice in his six-year career which was surprising to me I would have thought T Higgins had more than 2,000 yard seasons the last two years is where it's really been making his money 10 touchdowns and 11 touchdowns from his guy Joe Burrow and last year obviously it was tough to start the season without Joe being there for the beginning of it I know Joe Flacco was there still a serviceable quarterback but I'm looking at this situation this is what he has done so far in his career last five years wide receiver 13 wide receiver 19 wide receiver 41 wide receiver 6 wide receiver 15. So more often than not if you and I realize there's two extremes there the wide receiver six season the wide receiver 41 season feels like he's just somewhere in that like mid-range wide receiver too he's gonna be a consistent option for you he'll have a couple of boom weeks he might have some lean weeks because of the fact he's got Jamar Chase and Chase Brown also in this offense but T Higgins I think is exactly who we think he is. I have a name a veteran and I'm gonna pause for dramatic effect all right if anybody's out there listening or watching or chatting right now and you can think of this there's a receiver who for I don't know probably about a half a decade we would talk about him and we try to analyze him early in his career and then we just kind of accepted that like when you draft the player you take the good with the bad with the unhealthy he was injury prone scored a lot of touchdowns super talented huge like Sean Jeffrey. No but that's another good example all right dang it the answer is Mike Williams for the Chargers yes it was like hey Mike Williams and I think that T Higgins in some ways is a low maintenance wide receiver too what I mean by that is you sign up for all the good all the bad and all the potentially unavailable when you draft T Higgins. Yep 21 touchdowns over the past two seasons tied for the second most receiving touchdowns last year with 11 love that but he might have a I don't know. games where you want to pull your hair out you can't do that when you draft T Higgins right like we acknowledge he is a wide receiver too in his own offense it's hard for a wide receiver too in his own offense to be anything more than a wide receiver too in fantasy football the Cowboys are one of those rare exceptions where that might be the case right and I think that T Higgins is going to have some weak winning games yep and he's going to have some games where you just don't really bother watching it and you stomach the 8.4 fantasy points and move on. This is. Four of his last five seasons yep 219 points 220 points 222 points 211 points so his last two seasons he's been within basically nine points of each other for all four of those five seasons unbelievable very consistent but yes when you draft T Higgins this is a part of it I don't feel like super sexy drafting T Higgins but he's still obviously one of the best wide receivers in the game attached to one of the best quarterbacks that you just mentioned in an offense that is going to score a ton of points. So first of all you should always feel. Sexy you're handsome I appreciate you second of all when you discussed earlier Devante Adams and some of the other wide receivers right around there you mentioned T Higgins I did some of the guys that were in that tier I think Ladd McConkey T Higgins I got a couple of. The most likely one are amongst those guys that I think you could make the case for like top 12 wide receiver upside I think is Ladd McConkey sure bad McGrath McGrath McGrath McGrath right. Yeah. I could be. I'm with you. I'm not even going to say this anymore I'm not even going to say I could be wrong like we do this what happens you could you could you could be wrong all the time. I don't see T Higgins having top 12 upside. I agree with you. You mentioned when Jamar Chase has been out he hasn't gone super nuclear. Correct. So if that's not happening and it's not happening when Jamar Chase is on the field then how is it happening. Right. So I think T Higgins is an as advertised wide receiver too. Love that field. All right give me your next one. DeAndre Swift. And I. Thought about bringing some numbers here on DeAndre Swift and I know you're going to disagree with this one. Wait. Do you. I might. I might be more in on. Are you in on DeAndre Swift. I am. I'm in on DeAndre Swift. I'm at running back 19. Oh I need to move him up then. I shouldn't have. But I know you're also for a while a common on guy guy right. Yes. And that may still be the case. But I think I've I've I've tried to think about like what conversations we've had. About. DeAndre Swift. And the answer is not many of them so far this season. No. I. I've. I've. I've. I've. I've told this story. I'll just retell it in case people either forgot or weren't listening or watching on the day that I mentioned this. But I was walking through the ESPN hallways. Courtney Cronin who covers the Bears for us was doing a radio interview. I heard the last bit of a sentence was which was he's been the most consistent player in training camp for us. Yep. And I asked her after the fact who were you talking about. Was it Luther Burden. I was. Colston Loveland. You know the funny part is that I thought it might be Colston Loveland. And she was like it wasn't Colston but Colston has. He's been right there neck and neck with this play or like you know he's been amongst the most consistent. So she's like your optimism on Colston Loveland looks to be well founded. She's a DeAndre Swift. Oh it was DeAndre Swift. DeAndre Swift. So this is a good offensive line. Now some attrition for sure. They're still trying to figure out exactly what their left tackle spot looks like. Andrew Dallman their very strong center decided to retire abruptly this offseason. They both traded for a veteran and drafted a second round center. And there before. Yeah. But you trust this. Like you trust Ben Johnson running game. Absolutely like a fundamental fact of real life. Now I know that we're trusting a lot of things right now in this Bears offense. I think the reality about the Bears offense is that because we think they're going to score a lot of points there is theoretical upside for each of the pass catchers. Yep. Loveland Dunzay and burden. Yep. And Caleb Williams. Yep. And the backfield DeAndre Swift. So to me DeAndre Swift is just kind of an overlooked solid RB. Two who's going to see a lot of opportunities as a runner. He's going to get way more of the opportunities as a receiver than Kyle Monunga. I will. Yeah. And he could walk into eight touchdowns because the Bears are going to score a lot of points. And one thing that Ben Johnson is not afraid to do is when opportunity knocks to pound the rock down your throat. He's going to make a statement. So DeAndre Swift my RB 19 a guy that I have felt comfortable leaving drafts with as my RB to obviously. But in a build in which I took Trey McBride or Brock Bowers in the second round in my first not knowing I was going to get those players. But you know my first round pick was you know if you get JSN and then you come back around and pick 16 or something like that and you take Brock Bowers and I can walk away with DeAndre DeAndre Swift as my RB one to all your RB one if I go if I if you go early to build in which I'm like I'm going wide receiver tight ends maybe even wide receiver again because the value is just too good. DeAndre Swift is just good enough that I can walk away with him as my RB one and I not perfect but I could do it. I want a piece of this Bears offense in one way shape or form whether it is one of the pass catchers whether it's Caleb or whether it's DeAndre Swift there is a part of this Ben Johnson offense. I got to watch it enough times in Detroit. I don't care that he now plays for a rival team. Dude is unbelievable at what he does and he is going to light this team on fire again. I believe as him and Caleb just continue to grow this question comes from Jordan stuck from. Our mailbag. Why does it seem like everyone is low on Caleb Williams. It seems like you could have a breakout year with all the tools around him. It does seem that way field. Well we do have two anchors at quarterback. six do we matt bowen's there i think eric moody might be there don't quote me on that and moody's in the chat so he can tell me i'm a big dub indian not the first time i think i've got caleb williams at nine i have him as a top 10 quarterback as well it's two things uh one is there's so many so many quarterbacks two is i just want to see it more consistently from caleb that's one of them he was quarterback i'm still blown away by this quarterback five last year in total fantasy points but consistency is still one that i want to see more often from caleb he has that gene he's got a lot of that gunslinger in him where i've seen him do some stuff where i'm just like oh my gosh are you kidding me totally but then it's like hey well let's make the easy plays easy big guy how about uh this one came from don't even bother trying all right thank you field how big of a role will kyle manungai play with deandre swift healthy this is one of the questions how big of a role will kyle manungai play with a healthy deandre swift we've watched ben johnson offenses utilize two running backs in the past yeah that's two different teams though just because he did it in detroit doesn't necessarily mean he's going to do the same thing in chicago there's a possibility though that i think you will see a healthy dosage of maybe 35 40 percent deandre or kyle manungai and you know 60 65 deandre swift that's the kind of way i look at it yeah i agree um manungai is going to have a real role and a valuable role i also think games in which the bears are leading and trying to kill the clock manungai will be the guy they lean on yep and i think that when the weather turns and they play in the nfc north they play in a division where any of their home games from like halloween on could be bitterly cold yep although i did hear that it was 111 with the heat index yesterday in chicago what whoa crazy anyways um they play bitterly cold games from basically halloween on it's in play they also could play green actually i don't know when they play green bay uh in green bay but the bottom line is the bears could have some cold stinking they always do late in the season and i think manungai is going to be the guy that they turn to when it's time to play grown man football fair but not enough i i know you may see it slightly differently is i think you put a little bit more value in the guys that are elite insurance policies are running back correct manungai blake being the most the two prominent examples that i think of there yes um standalone value for manungai i think is going to be hard to find except for in a very very deep league it'll be tough to it'll be tough to make that happen with all of the pieces in that offense that we expect to get the football from a weekly basis as you know managing maintenance repair and operations is never easy but for the ones who always rise to the challenge granger has your back from professional grade products you can count on to fast dependable delivery they're there to help you keep things running smoothly plus their technical product specialists are here to help answer your toughest questions and because granger knows safety is always a top priority they're committed to being your partner in protecting both your people and your facilities call 1-800-GRANGER click granger.com or just stop by i like things my way my coffee my schedule and my treatment so i talked to my doctor about self-injecting with the vivgard hytrulo pre-filled syringe which contains f-gartigamide alpha and hyaluronidase qvfc it's injected under your skin subcutaneously it means i can inject in my space on my time it's my treatment my way visit vivgardmyway.com that's v-y-v-g-a-r-t myway.com and talk to your doctor about vivgard hytrulo brought to you by argenix harry douglas here game day brings the excitement your stay should feel just as memorable with marriott bonvoy official hotel partner of the ncaa and u.s soccer you're connected to a portfolio of brands designed for how you travel some offer complimentary breakfast others give you room to spread out space to stay productive or extended stay comforts so whether you're a traveling fan or part of the team marriott bonvoy celebrates the moments that live on before and after the game marriott bonvoy where game day checks in let's really quickly talk about harold fannin jr field go for it here's the thing the numbers i don't really even want to talk about the numbers with harold fannin jr he was awesome last year as a tight end as a rookie one of the best uh not just tight ends one of the best rookies that we saw in fantasy last year and he was incredibly consistent down the stretch part of that was because they just didn't really have a lot of options the problem with harold fannin jr and it's not even really a problem he plays at a tight end position tight end where we desperately want people that are going to be out there and doing the things that he's doing right he's just on a team with a crappy quarterback situation that makes everyone feel like you're dumping a bucket of cold water over what was a hot end to the season last year so when you look at harold fannin i got a bunch of guys that i really like at the tight end spot he's right there in the middle definitely a tight end one without question yep but all of the negatives are not negatives about him or his game it's about the offense it's about the quarterback it's about the organization it's about the fact that they also brought in two first round pass catchers that they also want to try to get the ball to as well as the running back that they drafted last year in quinch on judkins there's so many things that i just don't know about this browns offense and i feel nervous about it still going to be a tight end one for me but i'm curious where you're at on harold fannin when you look at he falls in the middle of your tight end gap largely like him i haven't i haven't missed tight end five so i'm clearly a harold fannin optimist to try to speak the same language i think you just spoke right there and make the case not against harold fannin but the causes for concern would be i think a couple fold one is they just drafted two wide outs yep in the first 37 picks of the draft so that's you know those guys denzel boston and casey concepcion could take on a real role and there's just more guys that are going to eat this upcoming year compared to where they were last year yep two is and hear me out for a second teams that were bad on offense last year are not going into this year trying to replicate the formula that worked for them last that didn't work for them last year right like correct i don't think the browns vision of the offense is the second half of last season when harold fannin took off it's a new system new head coach and todd munkin so it's definitely not a vision of the exact same offense they ran last year with kevin stefanski it felt a little bit like harold fannin last year was feasting in part because it was like we can't do jack crap else yes so let's just throw the football to harold fannin three yards down the field let him do some cool stuff after the catch and move on if that happens this year that kind of feels like both of the first round wide receivers are gonna be live up to expectations well either that or they just can't get the football out to their wide receivers down the field so i think that's a good idea i think that's a good idea i think that's a good idea i still like harold fannin but there are i do too yeah but there's serious pause for me just given that offense i think that there are really this is going to sound counter to what i've been talking about for a lot of the preseason there are three tight ends that don't make me really at all nervous you can guess two brock bowers jay mcbride i was gonna say brock right but i didn't brock right does not make me nervous because i'm not bothering with him and colston loveland believe it or not really and the reason why is just that we have now gotten to the point where the gap between colston loveland and tyler warren's real yeah and there are just more mouths to feed in chicago yes so that i'm with you i'm still very optimistic i'm just saying like if you told me one between colston loveland and tyler warren finishes more like tight end seven or eight i think it'd be colston loveland that's part of why i've had warren at three and loveland at four because if you put the receiving cores next to them yes loveland clearly has better people to have to also share the field with but if you told me that one of the receivers is going to be loveland at three and one of them broke the mold and became a top two tight end i think it's colston loveland as well so this comes down to how do you formulate your rankings and your draft strategy pre-season also if you said which one of these quarterbacks do you like more i probably like caleb williams when they like daniel jones again this when when we are getting to like going into the season when you're doing your draft the point is to win the league yes right when you're playing a weekly game the point is to win your matchup right so like there's more nuance with our rankings yeah each week during the season and there's more nuance with your decision making if you're playing against somebody and you're a gigantic favorite and you're debating between like hey josh allen and a bad matchup versus sam darnold in a neutral matchup you may be like all right listen i'm playing against some like some crap team like i can afford to be play it safe right yeah if you're if you're a huge underdog and you've got josh allen in the bad matchup versus sam darnold in a good matchup you're like i i don't care like josh allen might be a good matchup might be impervious immune immune i'm not sure if impervious is the right word it might have been whatever he might be immune to these matchups and he might hang 40 on these guys even if they are you know even if you're playing the broncos he might still get there the thing with tight ends five through nine is there's we feel really good about the first three to four yep tight end five harold fan and there's question marks around his team sam laporta there's question marks around his health uh kyle pits there's question marks around the consistency and what the quarterback quarterback is going to be there as well uh george kittle questions about him coming back from an acl like all tucker craft so we get to a point where like they're still tight end ones we just have more question marks on these guys harold fannin is just one of those guys but still a really awesome player expect good things in year two field give me one last player here before we go to the mailbag one more time just a reminder of how good saquon barkley is and saquon is like last year he's being drafted at his ceiling yep this year there's maybe a case he's being drafted at his floor because he's going rb tennis and i think there's a chance that's his floor uh I don't really have too many numbers from last year to help the cause because he wasn't good last year. and I don't think he's going to be as good as two years ago. But just a reminder, if he can find himself somewhere in the middle, he's going to pay off. I agree with you. Two seasons ago, Saquon Barkley had 10 games with 15 or more fantasy points. That's really good. He had seven games with 20 or more fantasy points. That's also very good. He also had five games with 30 or more fantasy points, which not only was the most of any player amongst running backs in 2024, it was the most games by a running back since Christian McCaffrey in 2019. Yeah. So over the past, what's that, 2020 through 2025, six seasons. Six seasons. He has the most single game, sorry, most games with 30 or more fantasy points in a single season of any running back. That's crazy. Pretty good. Yeah. So Christian McCaffrey hilariously in 2019 had eight games with 30 or more fantasy points. He did. That was an awesome season for him, by the way. It was unbelievable since he was in 2019. I think the thing for Saquon, for me, and this will be the last thing really quickly, is I am more out on Jalen Hurts. The efficiency has gone down. Tush push hasn't been quite as good. I do think with the discount that you're getting after a way that last year ended, like you said, Field, we're going to net out more in the middle. And if you net out more in the middle, then Saquon is really good value with where you're drafting him in drafts right now. There's a little bit of scar tissue from last year, but I fully agree with that sentiment. I'm with you on that. Eagles are saying the right things about him. The offensive linemen are like, you better watch out. He is going to kill it this upcoming year. So we'll see if the offensive linemen are as good of fantasy scouts as we hope to be. And Saquon Barkley bounces back. Well, Field, we might not bounce back from this one as we had a punishment wheel that we were doing a little bit of a, I'm sorry, what's the word? I was going to say bidding on. It's not bidding. We were polling. Yeah, polling. We were polling on this. We had three things we were doing. It was going to be slam poetry, super sour starts of the week, and baby food taste test. Ugh. And baby food taste test won, Field. All right, on the plus side, I can provide this. You're already kind of immune to it. You're immune to it a little bit, right? Unfortunately, you know, baby usually start to eat soft foods as a baby around six months old. My youngest just turned two months yesterday, so no soft baby food around the house. Yikes. The thing is that, like, you start with, like, peas and squash. Ugh. And, like, sweet potatoes. I'm going to throw up in my mouth when we do this. I can't lose this week. Honestly, baby Daniel didn't eat vegetables growing up. I mean, this is a part of it. Adult Daniel? Adult Daniel doesn't eat vegetables. He doesn't eat vegetables because a baby Daniel's doctor back in the 80s, back before doctors were doctors, said if he doesn't like eating mushy vegetables out of baby food, then don't make him do that. So then I never learned to like vegetables because of that. So maybe now, Field, as a 43-year-old man, I will eat mushy peas out of a baby food can. Have the tides turned at all or no? No. Well, a little bit. Rosie's got me on some vegetables. A little bit. A little bit. Not a lot. I think you got to do, like, I think you have to find, like, entry points into vegetables. Oh. Okay, that works, too. Because applesauce is a great baby. Well, it's baby food and it's mushy, right? I don't know. Hopefully we have a strong British audience. We have at least one. We do. British member of our production staff, a very important member of our production staff, and Dave Presley. I think you got to go with some bangers and mash. Okay. Like, they have mushy peas in the UK. I'm telling you, they're better. Are they? I think they have, like, a crap ton of butter and salt. Oh. So they don't taste like peas. They just have, they're green, and they have the consistency that is mushier than a traditional pea. Well, for those that are still in the, in the chat hanging with us right now, we're going to do a second poll, because we got to fill out this punishment wheel. The second poll is going to be, wear rival gear while giving your takes, do a mouthful of marshmallows like we did last year, or smelling salts. I feel like smelling salts is the most diabolical of those. I probably need to establish, like, rival gear for me. I, you know, I'm from Massachusetts. Sure. I'm a huge Patriots fan, so I guess I'd have to wear a Jets jersey? No. No, no, no. Who, uh, who's the Cardinals? Wesleyan Cardinals? Yeah. Who's the Cardinals? The Wesleyan Cardinals. It would have to be Williams or Amherst. I would never do that. I would never. Never. That works right there. I would call out and go on vacation before I do that. All right, a couple questions here really quickly. We'll do a few of them before we get back into this. This one comes from Ryan, wants to know, what did you guys do to Mike Clay? You know something, Ryan? All we did was offer an opportunity to him. We offered him an opportunity to be here. And he said no. That was it. Mike just calculating O-line stats in his off time. That is exact. He's probably doing it right now on vacation. Malik, you're not wrong. Yeah. Greek goalie says, stop sacks of veggie causes colorblindness. Fact versus feeling. That is a fact. I am colorblind, and I didn't eat vegetables. Carrots really improve your eyesight. That's the rumor. Honestly, guys. We might be onto something here. We should talk to someone. We should talk to the FDA. I'm going to order you 900 carrot sticks from the cafeteria for lunch. Do not. Steady climb. Oh, we got one more. All right. What's up, Focusers? Only Dan from Iowa. Oh, love that. Danger zoned. All right. What super secret rookies with high-end upside do you guys got? Thanks for this one. Super secret rookies? I'm going to give you two names. Okay. Okay? These guys are undrafted right now. They shouldn't be drafted. But two names that play behind, I would say, okay, but not great starting running backs. Okay. Katron Allen and Nick Singleton for the Commanders and the Tennessee Titans. That's right. Playing behind Bill Krosky, Merritt, and Tony Pollard. Teammates of Penn State, both rookies drafted on day three this year. Give me those two guys. I'm going to say, is it Ted Hurst? Ted Hurst, right? I just want to make sure that that is right. Ted. Have you met Ted from How I Met Your Mother back in the day? Oh, my gosh. I haven't thought about How I Met Your Mother in a minute field. Where did the main character go to college on that show? Syracuse. Wesleyan. Dang it. I had a feeling it was Wesleyan. All right. All right. All right. Let's dive in. We're going to do some flex. We're going to do some flex appeal here. You hear Field and Mike do this on Fantasy Focus Countdown mostly every Sunday. We go through flex appeal. Players outside the top 70, we just wanted to touch on and make sure we have a little bit of a conversation about Field Minister Yates. Do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first? You can go first, Daniel. I think that it's important. I just want to give a precursor, if that's okay. Yeah, bring it. Which is, these are guys you mentioned drafted outside the top 70. We also just haven't talked about them a whole bunch. We have told you guys many, many times that, or at least I think we have conveyed that it's important to know whether you're getting the stats. Are you getting the stake or the sizzle with players? Yeah. Right? Are you getting the guy that, if he hits, like Michael Wilson last year, if you drafted him and he went nuclear, he's like a league-winning player, but he has zero value for you during a lot of other weeks. Yeah. Right? Or are you going for a guy, I'll go with Tony Pollard from last year, who, generally speaking, and there were a couple of exceptions here, was solid, was fine, but rarely spectacular. Some of the names that we're going to give you as preferred targets are guys that we have actually made the case against from an upside play. Agreed. But we're making the case for, in just like an innings-eater play. Correct. All right. So who's up first for you? I'm going to start at the tight end position and go with Jake Ferguson. Okay. We haven't talked about him a lot this year, in part because we expect both of these wide receivers to be healthy. Wide receiver Gord, CeeDee Lamb, and George Pickens, but when one of them was out last year, you saw Jake Ferguson become a real outlier. He was a real option at the tight end spot. The dude was awesome for a number of weeks. What happened, though, is once CeeDee Lamb came back, he kind of fell into that third and sometimes fourth pass catcher role with Ryan Flanoy there also as well, and he just became a part of the offense rather than a target within the offense, right? So when he had the opportunity, when there were people that were not there and he had a path to targets, Jake Ferguson totally took advantage of it. He's got two top 10 seasons at the tight end position. But I think more often than not, the sizzle that you saw last year was because he was taking advantage of opportunities due to injury from his teammates. Otherwise, he's less sizzle and more just a solid, steady, low-end, tight end, probably 10 to 12 for me that you could, if you wait at the position, you can grab him and start him in an offense that's going to score a lot of points, throw the ball a lot, but he's not someone that I feel like is going to sizzle like he did last year when he was really sizzling. If you missed the tight end run early, which is. I call it nine guys. But if you missed those nine guys, the next three that come to mind for me are Travis Kelsey, Dallas Goddard, and Jake Ferguson. Yep. It's like I feel pretty good about each of them. Kelsey, the best. But I'm not making them like gigantic priorities for me. Agreed. I'm going to go to running back from Andre Stevenson, a reminder of the Patriots play in six days from right now. Last check, they haven't seen Travion Henderson back on the field since he suffered an ankle injury, I don't know, a week or two ago. Oh, Ramondre Stevenson is in line for legitimate work early in the season, and Ramondre's been fine, been solid. As a matter of fact, probably better than solid through this metric. There are seven players over the past two seasons that have 30 or more catches and seven rushing touchdowns in each of those two years. It's a crazy list. Ready for this? Okay. Jameer Gibbs. Okay. Bijan Robinson. Yep. James Cook, Saquon Barkley, Kyron Williams, Josh Jacobs, and Ramondre Stevenson. No way. Right. So I think that Travion Henderson obviously has. He obviously is a more explosive player. He can be a bigger threat as a screen game receiver, but Ramondre is just like a rock solid player for the Patriots in real life. I know the fumbling thing. He is one bad fumble away from being sent to the bench for the rest of the game. I think you and I also acknowledge that this coaching staff had more tolerance for Ramondre's butterfingers last year than they did Travion Henderson's past protection issues and and maybe lack of power running between the tackles. Yeah. This team will not quit Ramond Ray Stevenson. And if there is, especially right now, at least to start the season, it feels like he's in a really great spot. If you were in a knockout league field, Ramond Ray Stevenson is not a bad low-end starting running back target right now. He went higher yesterday in that knockout league draft that we did online, or on the show, I should say. Dalton Kincaid is another guy I want to talk about. All the tight ends, yeah. Man, we've been trying to pump up Dalton Kincaid. Oh, hold on really quickly before we move on. Spicy Tuna Abel wants to know, Ramond Ray fumbled as Field was finishing this sentence. Field! I mean, I don't really have a good response to that because he may have fumbled during this, and yet, he's still in the game in the next series. He's looking like Mike Clay in that Check This Out video at the end of it. So good. So great. All right. Let's talk about Dalton Kincaid because I've wanted to make this a thing for years. Not just me. The entire industry has wanted to make this a thing. Yeah, the Bills wanted to make it a thing. Former first-round tight end. Here's what he's done in his three seasons in the NFL. Tight end 14. Tight end 18. Tight end 13. And fantasy points per game. What's changed this year other than they added DJ Moore, who we expect to maybe siphon even more targets away, to this offense to make you feel like, I'm going to change the way that I feel on this post-post-post-hype sleeper? Nothing. Yeah. Nothing for me. Is he still even, like, is he, when you look at Dalton Kincaid, is the shine just completely gone at this point and he is no longer a sleeper target for you? He's more of just straight-up tight end two. He's fine. He's fine. Okay. There was Jeremy Fowler, who I did this whole thing yesterday about Graz and doing great content and the aggregators going nuts with it. Yep. Same deal with Jeremy Fowler, but I do believe he mentioned the possibility of Dalton Kincaid getting an extension. I don't know. Maybe that, rather than post-hype, we go post-payment. Sure. He has a breakout. I don't know the answer if that's going to happen or not, but no, I don't, like, to me, I really believe if Dalton Kincaid breaks out and becomes, like, a top eight tight end this year, the process was fine. The result was just unexpected for me. I think if that happens, so, first off, I would not advocate in a standard 10 or 12 team league, more often than not, to draft Dalton Kincaid. Yeah. He's a fine waiver target if all of a sudden he starts to be a thing in this offense that we've been waiting to see happen, but I am out on using a roster spot waiting for this to come to fruition. With you there. All right. Let's move on. What's the next one, Field? My wider spot is wide receiver 31 who's got an ADP of wide receiver 35 going at the 8-9 turn. Was wide receiver 15 from weeks 9 through 18 last year. So, more than half the season, he was wide receiver 15. He scored 14.9 points per game in that stretch. Okay. More than Zay Flowers during that stretch. More than CeeDee Lamb during that stretch. He was eighth in yards per route during that stretch. Better than Drake London and Almonra Saint-Brown. Who is this? Hmm. Parker Washington. Shut up. Yeah, believe it or not. Parker Washington who was excellent down the stretch last year. And this one just comes down to like, is there a legit wide receiver 2 staring us right in the face of Parker Washington? Great question. Legitimately good football player. Legitimately good offense. And even in a crowded wide receiver room, maybe it's not that crowded. Maybe Travis Hunter is a 30% of the offensive snaps wide receiver. And maybe Brian Thomas Jr. is just an incredible role player for them. These are not guarantees, but maybe. That would be sad for BTJ. It would be. But his stock is down after last year compared to where it was at this time going into last season. Yep. And yeah, Jacoby Myers is going to play a lot. That doesn't necessarily matter as Jacoby Myers being on the field last year resulted in 2.66 yards per route for Parker Washington. When Jacoby Myers was off the field, that dropped from 2.66 yards per route to 1.53 yards per route. He was a more efficient and better player with Jacoby Myers on the field. I don't exactly know if that's just coincidence or if maybe Jacoby Myers being on the field adds one more credible threat and defenses are just accounting for one more player and everybody has a better matchup. But if it's Jacoby Myers and Parker Washington as the lock it in basically every snap wide receiver that's still plenty good enough for Parker Washington to be a really productive wide receiver. Yeah, I am with you on that. He came on last year. It feels so weird and I make this joke all the time. It's just crazy that we're talking about Parker Washington as the Jaguars wide receiver that we are most excited about heading into fantasy football season with all of the things that we have talked about over the last two years. And yet, this feels just real. Like when you just, he passes the eye test, all the things that he is doing. Riley Nagel wants to know from our mail. You truly think Jacksonville moves on from BTJ by the deadline? Riley, I agree with you. And here's what I would say. If Liam Cohen has ever asked about Brian Thomas Jr. or James Gladstone has asked about Brian Thomas Jr., I bet they would say nothing but great things. Of course. He's done everything we've asked out of him. He's incredibly talented. We think he's going to have a huge year. I've read all the optimism surrounding Brian Thomas Jr. I have. And maybe it will all prove to be correct. But I can't overstate just how important it is to acknowledge who drafted who. Like there are just a lot of, there are players who transcend regimes, obviously, right? You know, Drake May, well, I guess he was, Mike Vrabel was not the coach when they drafted Drake May. Drake May will be the Patriots quarterback for a long time. For a minute. Right? There are guys that just fit into that category, you know? But there are players who are just very regime specific. Yeah. And they don't feel the same level of loyalty. They don't feel the same level of responsibility. So if they trade away Brian Thomas Jr., it wasn't us. We didn't draft him 17th overall. Someone else did. Someone else made the mistake. So maybe we get him for, maybe we trade him away for depreciated value, but that's their fault for doing it in the first place. Right? On top of that, when you invest in a player, a big pick, you're trying to justify that cost. Yeah. Right? So anyways, maybe I'm wrong. That's a Brian Thomas Jr. rant, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's traded. If you were the Houston Texans, would you be like, you know what? That would be cool. I think the Texans have a, they are more shopping around the margins right now because they have such an expensive roster with a CJ Stroud contract not done yet. It might not get done before the season, but at some point you're going to have a probably $45 million per year, at least contract on your books. Field, let's talk about a wide receiver that's being taken directly after Parker Washington. Yeah. Stephon Diggs. Diggs-ah. Two kind of different wide receivers here. Again, this is another one of these guys on the back nine of his career with Stephon Diggs. Stephon Diggs and the people that he's going around is part of the conversation here for me. You look at this, Michael Pittman Jr., Parker Washington, Stephon Diggs, Michael Wilson, Alec Pierce, Matthew Golden. I'm not sure that when I look at Stephon Diggs here, I think it is better to hear. It sounds like he's settled in. I'm the wide receiver too. I'm not a wide receiver. I'm okay with that. I want Stephon Diggs to have that mentality on the field. He said he's the best wide receiver one in the NFL. He might be right. He said he's the best wide receiver one. I'm sorry. Wide receiver two in the NFL. My bad. That's all me. But, dude's been unbelievable still. You look at everything he's done over the last, I'm going to go back to 2017. He's been a top 25 wide receiver for every single season since 2017. He's really good. And now he's going to take those talents to Jaden Daniels who we hope is going to stay healthy. Gives him another really trusted, just a safe pass catching option. He's going to be the number two behind Terry McLaurin. When you look at where he's coming off, boards, field, I see Stephon Diggs. I'm going to give you the round. The round. Stephon Diggs is coming off the board in the 11th round. Yeah, I love it. There are more like high upside guys around there, but this is part of the roster build. When you get to certain parts of the draft, if you need the upside dart throw of Christian Watson or of Alec Pierce or of Matthew Golden, I get it. Yep. But if you need that safe veteran floor, which sometimes you do based on what you do earlier in the draft, I think Stephon Diggs is a really good value in the 11th round. He might have more upside too. He was 12th in catches last year. And over 1,000 yards, he played 55% of the Patriots snaps last year. That was coming off of the ACL tear. You're right. Right. It was like super efficient. Yeah, it was crazy. So I'm in on Diggs as well. I've got him. I see 14 spots higher in my wide receiver ranks than Mike. I think he's a guy that is, when you look at this, just the average fantasy fan, like we just get more excited about the upside, the new shiny toy, the exciting thing that like, I don't think Diggs is one of those guys. He's really good value if you decide you want to grab him, even though it might not feel sexy. This would be a fun trivia. Who was fifth in the NFL amongst running backs in both targets and receiving yards and fourth in catches last year? You think about the preeminent guys, Christian McCaffrey, Jameer Gibbs, B. John Robinson, Devon A. Chan, all those guys. Chase Brown. Chase Brown. All those guys are amazing, right? Yeah. There's a player who as a receiver alone is in the same zip code. Kenny Gainwell was going the 11th round. So I think this is more of a sizzle that, I'm sorry, a steak than a sizzle play because he's going to have just an ordinary rushing role. Bucky Garvey is going to be the lead rusher for Tampa. But if they ever want to play with tempo or if they're ever trailing, end of half, end of game situations, he's going to be on the field. He had 486 receiving yards. He had 73 catches last year. He's like one of my favorite bi-week films. He's my favorite RB4. I have him as ranked as a borderline RB3 slash 4. It's like you don't want him starting every single week and it'd be nice. It's always great to have a strong backup. Like when your third running back is, you know, DeAndre Swift, that's a very comforting feeling. Yeah. But man, Kenny Gainwell. Gainwell needs to be drafted and appreciated a little bit more than he is right now. ADP is just outside the top 100. In our dynasty league, DeAndre Swift is my third running back. You won the league last year. It feels really good. And I have Kenny Gainwell also on that squad and we play three flexes field and I love being able to have that opportunity to throw him in the flex every once in a while. That's half PPR and it still works. Chat loves it apparently as well. Chat loves Kenny Gainwell. Here's the knock because I'm all in on Kenny Gainwell. The knock on Kenny Gainwell is that if you just mentioned Bucky Irving is going to be there. If Bucky Irving gets hurt, this backfield doesn't become Kenny Gainwell's. Sean Tucker will take over that role and Kenny Gainwell will stay in the role that he's at. He just isn't a true replacement back as far as a three down guy, but he's going to keep his role regardless of who is there. The steak is real for Kenny Gainwell. He's a steak not sizzle and I think steak is important sometimes. Also, great dinner. The best meal. Great deal. Great dinner. Great dinner. Filet. I'm a big filet guy. Yeah, but no vegetables for you. No, I don't do that. I'll throw some vegetables. When they put the mushroom sauce on there, I always have to scrape the mushrooms off. I don't even want the mushroom sauce on it because the mushroom essence oozes into everything. You got to get a wedge salad. It'll work on you. What's a wedge? Is that the thing where you just pull the thing out of the ground and you just have a wedge of the. A wedge of lettuce. Okay. Usually with a blue cheese, maybe a bacon crumble as well. I'm out. Tomatoes. Mold. Let's talk about something else. Put ranch on there if you want. Ranch is gross, but you can put. I'm going to throw out something crazy. Okay. This is crazy. This would have been good maybe for our Hot Takes episode. Which is coming tomorrow. Yes, it is coming tomorrow. I'm going to be quick. I'll be quick on this one. I'll be quick on mine. This quarterback. He's finished as quarterback 32. Quarterback 32. Didn't start either of those seasons. Then QB 5 in his first season as a starter. Then QB 17 and QB 15. Is there a chance given what this backfield situation has turned into in Green Bay. Yeah. You're speaking my language now. that Jordan Love might just have to chuck the ball a ton? Because we don't know of Marshawn Lloyd. We've never even seen him stay healthy. Chris Brooks doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence. They traded for Caleb Johnson who couldn't even make the field in Pittsburgh. Yeah. I can get myself to a narrative situation where Jordan Love just has to throw the ball a ton this season. Quarterback 16 for me for a reason, which is five spots ahead of you, six ahead of Mike. I think I need to move him up in my rankings because I am more nervous about the running back spot and they have a trade. A more condensed target tree. I'm still a little bit nervous because of the Tucker Craft injury history, right? Christian Watson injury history. But when these guys are healthy, we saw that QB 5 season a couple of years ago. I'm just throwing it out there as I wouldn't be shocked if you like him as a QB 2 to maybe make more noise than where he's being drafted as. Okay, I dig it. I'm in on Jordan Love as well. Maybe one of the great quagmires in fantasy football this year. Great term. Love that term. Patrick Mahomes. Ugh. There's a respect that you have to give Patrick Mahomes as the most accomplished and to me still the best player in the NFL right now. He's coming off of an ACL tear. It's one of the confusing factors. He has bad wide receivers, not named Rashi Rice. Also a confusing factor. But let's just look at the opportunities, right? Because we talk about fantasy football is the cross section of talent and volume. Here's Patrick Mahomes in his opportunities for quarterback ranks over the past six seasons. We define that as passing attempts plus rushing attempts, right? Yep. Rushing attempts are very valuable. Passing attempts can be very valuable as well, of course. Second, third, first, fifth, fifth, and second. The ball is in Patrick Mahomes' hands a lot. They put a lot of trust in Patrick Mahomes. The Russians need to go down this year. They signed Kenneth Walker III for a reason. Mahomes coming off of an ACL tear. A more effective running game is going to have a legitimate impact on Patrick Mahomes' play action output. The last time the Chiefs had even like a serviceable running game was 2022. That was when Isaiah Pacheco averaged nearly five yards a pop. Patrick Mahomes in 2022 averaged 9.5 yards per attempt off of play action and a touchdown rate of nearly 8%. His play action touchdown rate in the three years since then, 3.2%. So it turns out that running the football, it doesn't always correlate to better play action, but it can correlate to better play action offense. You do it well. So he won't be running as much, but he'll be a more efficient passer. Another reason why Patrick Mahomes, I've drafted him in a handful of leagues now, is my second quarterback, which is crazy. It feels crazy, but I think we should normalize the idea that Patrick Mahomes right now with the weapons that he has is more of a high-end QB2 than a low-end QB1, and I do think that that is okay with where we're at because it's not about Patrick Mahomes not being unbelievable. I'll be really quick on my last one, Field. Chris Rodriguez, you just talked about guys that didn't bring in a player. I didn't draft this guy, so I don't worry about it. What about when you do the opposite? When you are a head coach and you bring in someone that you know that you really love. You coach in college. Is there a chance that Chris Rodriguez should just be given a little bit more love given his potential path to touches? He's going to get some love. I think he's going to end up being an annoying player in fantasy as opposed to a productive player in fantasy. Okay. When you say annoying, is that Tyler Algier? Yes. Taken away from the upside of the player that we actually want to roster the most. Would you not say, though, that Tyler and mind you, different offense. Let's say that Basial Tootin were to get hurt. We would have said in the past, Tyler Algier, if something happens to Bijan, he'd be a top 20 running back. That's the same potential thing for Chris Rodriguez in what we think should be a good Liam Cohen-led offense. I could see him being like J.K. Dobbins last year. Okay. Fair. If something happens to Tootin, because I still think it's going to be a clear passing game role for your boy, Amir Abdullah. Yes. Or LaQuint Allen. Yep. Amir Abdullah and Laquan Treadwell. What awesome stories. Guys still doing it. Still doing it. A decade into their career. I love that. I loved Amir back in the day. Just a name I wanted to throw out there. We haven't talked a lot about Chris Rodriguez. To be honest, we haven't really talked a lot about Basial Tootin. We've been talking more about the passing game in Jacksonville rather than the running game, but two guys at least to keep an eye on as well. Last one for me. I'll just name it. We don't have much time here, but Matthew Golden and I can't put too much faith into all of these Packers wide receivers, but the first wide receiver they have taken in the first round since Javon Walker in like 1942. I think it was 2003 for Javon Walker. So Matthew Golden, who went 23rd overall, I think it was, last year to Green Bay. If this offense is, as we talked about, more Jordan Love-centric and as we talked about, more pass heavy, opportunity for Matthew Golden to stamp his case. Where did that 2002 Javon Walker go to school? Florida State. You're so good at this. I have no life. I love it. Alright, Field and I are going to be back tomorrow. Again, just Field and I diving into a Hot Takes episode. It's going to be a lot of fun, my friends. Make sure you come back and hang out with us. Thanks for hanging out with us today. We love you. Don't forget to love each other and be kind to yourself, you guys. You deserve it. I'll see you tomorrow. Peace! Your quick project wasn't so quick after all. Stay ahead of the game with Express Delivery from the Home Depot and get what you need to keep it moving. Just order in the app or online, get it delivered fast and track your order along the way so you can get that project over the goal line. Get what you need in two hours or less with Express Delivery from the Home Depot. Subject to availability, order select in-stock items by 4 p.m. Restrictions and fees apply.