1117: Players to Avoid

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Shop and store are online now and earn your Sunday with help from Lowes, official partner of the NFL. - This is the lay round podcast with your host, JJ Zacharyse. - JJ Zacharyse. - What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyse and in this episode 1117 of the late round fantasy football podcast. Thanks for tuning in. On last week's show, I talked to Evan Silva about a handful of players that were targeting and drafts this year. That's just based off of where we have them ranked and where they typically get drafted. Today, we're doing the opposite of that. We're looking at players to avoid. And to help me out, I brought on my friend Rich Rebar of Sharp Football Analysis. I brought five players at the table. He brought five players at the table. It's not that we're fading these guys no matter what, but we do think they're a little bit overvalued by the market. Now, before getting that conversation, I just want to send another reminder to check out the late round draft guide. There's well over 270 pages of content that includes game theory, strategy, ways to spot breakouts and busts, players to target, players to avoid, and more. You get cheat sheets with the guide as well and everything is updated weekly. Check it out, learn more, lateround.com. Now, let's get to these 10 players to avoid with Rich Rebar. All right, Rich, welcome back. Another year of targets and avoids. This year, you are on the avoid show. Always the more difficult show to do. It's a little bit tough to talk avoids because people come after us a little bit more with these. It's a tougher topic to dig into. But again, these are simply players that we like a little bit less than what the market does. That's what this really comes down to. It's not even a full fade situation if these guys are available at the right spot. We'll still take them. But yeah, I mean, these are players that generally were not drafting a ton of because we don't think they should be going as high as they are. So with that being said, Rich, give us the first player that you're generally avoiding. Yeah, I also think to the avoids have gotten a little tougher in over the years, just because I think that the general consumer is a lot sharper in the markets, just being set a lot better in fantasy football. But yeah, I'm going to start over the couple, you know, higher price guys here. And it's not like you said, it's not that they're necessarily avoids. It's that I think that they're a little bit overpriced or like players that are typically go after them more than them. So yeah, I'm going to start with Jonathan Taylor. And I think that that one might be a little bit surprising to people, you know, the guy that led the NFL in rushing attempts, rushing touchdowns and, you know, had 85% of Indianapolis backfield touches. It really doesn't have any competition again this year. Those are all very high notes for Jonathan Taylor. He's finished as an R.B.1 score and four of his six seasons. The only blemish was something that we saw at the end of last year, even with David Jones's starts that's gone on for his career, it's that when the cult struggle as a unified team and winning games, this is where Jonathan Taylor typically slows down. He's the highest correlated running back in terms of like winning and losing and that's been a thorn for his entire career. He's averaged 22.7 PPR points per game for his career and wins. That is the most of any active running back since he entered the NFL. He goes to RB 15 and losses. Last year, he averaged 32 points per game and wins 12.3 PPR points per game and losses. And even if we remove all the Philip Rivers, all the Riley Leonard stuff and his four losses that Daniel Jones played in full, he was the RB 21, RB 29, RB 28, RB 18 in those games. And why that is noteworthy as we had into 2026. If we got Daniel Jones returning from Achilles injury, Michael Pittman's gone, Braden Smith's gone. We don't know when Alec Pierce is coming back at this point. Alec Pierce is a pretty big deal because he's the only guy in the offense that can stretch the field. Over the past two years, Jonathan Taylor's faced eight or more defenders in the box on 43.2% of his runs with Alec Pierce off the field. That's 155 attempts sample, too. It's not like 25 carries or anything. And then with Alec Pierce on the field, it goes all the way down to 28.7% because you have to respect Alec Pierce stretching the field, occupying a box defender. Right now, the Indianapolis Colts are only favored in six games on their schedule. That's 21st in the league. They have a really tough opening gauntlet. They go Baltimore, Kansas City, Houston. They have an international game in its Washington, which are not scared of. But then after that international game, they forego the by-week and on a short week, go to Pittsburgh. And then so it's like, this is a really tough opening schedule for them. And then when you look at the Indianapolis Colts, just there are team when I do my team regression series that just kept popping up. Week series after series. Jonathan Taylor scored the most points from fantasy, from the one yard line last year. Almost 20 more fantasy points than it scored in any previous seasons. No team was better last year at converting goal to go opportunities than the Colts. They scored an offensive touchdown, 94% of their goal to go opportunities. There's a third best rate for any team in the 2000s. And it was a 32-trip sample too. Sometimes you see these teams convert 90%, but they only have 15 chances or something like that. And then they scored on 51 and 1/2% of their drives, which was the most in the NFL. Since 2010, there have been 24 other teams to score at least half of their possessions. 20 of those 24 teams scored fewer touchdowns in the following season of the average loss of 12 touchdowns per team. So yeah, when I line up all the things for Jonathan Taylor, it just kind of looks at, I look at other guys that are growing in his area, like Chase Brown, even Sequan Barkley. These are guys I think that I just have a little bit higher than I'm gonna have more faith in their team environments than Jonathan Taylor. It's not that I'm out on Jonathan Taylor. I just have a more lower as like more of a floor-based RB1 kind of like this year Sequan, where we were at Sequan last year. Statistically, I think he's still gonna be an RB1, but are you getting like that weekly hammer with any consistency? I think it's me a lot more volatile this year. - I think straight up, the reason that this is an avoid for me too, if you wanna dumb it down, is simply that I like James Cook a lot more. - Oh yeah, I like him. - Or like a decent bet more, like a 70, 30 type outcome situation with the two of them versus Jonathan Taylor. You know, the thing with like a James Cook profile is that there's a very clear path of room for growth with James Cook and that's in the receiving column, right? Like if reports are true and they do use him more and obviously if this like Ty Johnson thing going on, which actually could help, cook a little bit. But with Jonathan Taylor, like there's not much room for growth, you know, he's seen 92% and 86% running back rush shares over the last two years. That's elite numbers that I think projection wise, you can probably put him in that bucket, but that's still a really hard to sustain number. And we've seen a very, very large sample now of Jonathan Taylor not being a huge pass catcher, wasn't really a huge pass catcher in college. I'm not saying you can't do it, but wasn't a huge pass catcher in college. And then he still hasn't seen more than 11% target share in the NFL. So like there's not that much room for growth for him. And then like you said, it comes down to that environment and the environment is very, very, very scary. I mean, the Colts through the first 10 weeks last year, they're first in points per game, first in drives heading in touchdowns. You know, first by a wide margin percentage of touchdowns that came on the ground too. You know, like they were scoring, you know, very much via the ground, which is something that regresses. So I'm with you at Jonathan Taylor. You're probably a little bit lower than I am, but it's still a fade for me generally. Like he was a player in the, in the draft guide, immediately upon release where I will say I cooled off a tiny bit because when I released that, the Daniel Jones stuff was still very much up in the air. Sounds like that's at least a little bit better, but now you have the Alec Pierce thing too. And it's all, you know, just pointing to a, a scarier profile than I think people realize. - Yeah, and I still haven't like ninth overall. It's just like I've got to have in a spot to where you're gonna, I always wanna steer people to where they're taking James Cook, Chase Brown, and I have kind of Walker over him too, which a lot of people probably bristle at because we've done the kind of Walker thing before, but definitely look at his environment and his opportunity as being a little bit more stable as well. - Yeah, all right, I'm gonna move on to a player that everyone's been making fun of me for because I bring them up on every show as like an example of the kind of player that I don't typically draft, and that's Cortland Sutton, okay? - This to me profiles as a single, not a home run type player, and when you're in the middle rounds, I want that triple, I want that home run. Like I wanna go for a player that I think has a legitimately high ceiling. He, I mean, he averaged fewer than 13 PPR points for game last year in a wide receiver room. That was, I mean, beatable on paper. You had a rookie Pat Bryant, Troy Franklin, who essentially lost his gig as the season went on, you know. Franklin went from being their wide receiver one, if you will, and I'll get to that in a second to then, you know, losing a lot of snaps and obviously now. They have Jalen Waddle, but last year, Courtland suddenly had a 21% target share. His targets for our run rate was under 20%. It's not like he was being hyper-targeted in this offense without Jalen Waddle, right? And this is also an offense that doesn't necessarily just feed their ex. And I think that is very, very key for what they did in getting Jalen Waddle. Last year, Troy Franklin was playing that zero and we saw, remember that five week stretch where Franklin was like an eight plus targets per game and the narrative was Troy Franklin is the Broncos wide receiver one. I think that's very much role-based, but the difference is is that instead of Troy Franklin playing that role, you have Jalen Freaking Waddle playing that role who's one of the most efficient, better wide receivers in the entire game. So much tougher competition for Courtland Sutton. Not only that, last year, he ran the third most routes in football, like there was a team that I do expect to still drop back to Pasadise and Bit. We saw that the last couple, basically since Bo Nick's has taken over. But he had the third most routes in football. He barely eclipsed 1,000 yards despite that. He had a 1.62 yards per out run rate. And now he's entering year nine and he hasn't topped two yards per out run in years. I mean, he hasn't been that efficient of a receiver at all for a while. So my TLDR was Sutton, is that like, he's fine. I just don't want to draft fine when I get into the middle rounds of drafts. And I know that people who play basketball are sitting there being like, first off, this is not a best ball take so much. Like, I think that he can have spiked weeks. But people look at best ball ADP and they think that that's like where Sutton will go in a season long draft. But he goes a lot higher. There's platforms like on Yahoo, where he's going ahead of guys like Parker Washington, Josh Downs, even some running backs that I like more. If you look at ESPN, he's going way higher. He's going over some very, very legitimate, like guys that I have my top 25, top 30, a wide receiver on that platform. And maybe not nearly he doesn't, that doesn't happen. But I mean, I've been in drafts already. We're Sutton's more of a brand name, household name, and it's a good offense that we want to invest in because of Sean Peyton. And he's just not giving you that crazy upside. I just worry a lot about what this looks like with Jalen Waddle entering the picture, considering the fact that Sutton still only had a 21% target share last year without Jalen Waddle. I think that's a big, big problem. So he's just not some of them going after this year. Yeah, it's hard to disagree with that one at all. I mean, he was outside of the top 40 and targets per out run and yards per out run last year. And like he said, just against way weaker competition that we'll have this year. And the run games should be better. That's when they really swerved into the past last year was after the Dobbins injury. And now that they have Jonah Coleman as insurance for if and when Dobbins misses time for the season that they won't have to go. Extremely that past heavy that they'll be able to be a lot more balanced. And like you said, I mean, it wasn't even a five-example. It was from weeks two to 11 to Troy Franklin out satin him out target and out satin him too. And what's crazy about that was especially with Jalen Waddle because you think about Sutton and you're like, well, he'll sort of like touch down equity, right? Like he's the big clash here, but it was actually Franklin was out targeting him in the end zone. And Troy Franklin, one of the weirder things about him is they had all these plays dialed up for him in the end zone. And he had like three two point conversions too, which don't even count on like the end zone target stuff. But like that's all stuff like Jalen Waddle can do. And the other thing too with adding Jalen Waddle is Sutton's going to have a lot more deeper like depth of target. He's going to lose some of those intermediate and like those fantasy smoothing routes. We don't want to lean just in on those guys that requires like playing the boundary X. It doesn't get a lot of those free squares. So yeah, he's a guy I haven't even thought about drafting once in like a manage league yet. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I said, I think you could make the case easily in Bestball because your consideration set should be pretty wide in a Bestball environment. But yeah, in season long in a manage league, it's a lot more difficult. All right, Rich, give me your next player here. Yeah, this one is one that I think some other gamers have too. And you've probably heard this one before too. But similar adjacency to my Jonathan Taylor take is not that I think this guy is going to be like brick out. But Devon H Ann is, you know, he's just in a very unique case here. And especially he was like a lot of the conversation that goes around him. So one thing I didn't bring up with Jonathan Taylor here, because it definitely applies more so for Devon H Ann and Jonathan Taylor is you look at since 1990, yearly top three scores at the running back position. Like we talk about ceiling, right? Like ceiling is what we look for. They've played for teams they have a 9.9 wins per season. Just 17 of those backs, which is 16.7%. Played for teams that won fewer than eight games. If we extend that out to top six scores per year, those goes that goes to 9.6 wins per season. And over that same period, only 18.8% of those guys for top 12 guys that has been on teams that win six or fewer games in a season. Like you can do it because, you know, 18%. It's what, you know, out of 12 guys we're still getting one to two of those guys a year, right? So you still could be that one. But are you going to cut your teeth and say, I'm going to get the one? We have a few of these guys down here at the bottom this year, you know, as to JT's down here. Jeremiah Love was pushing that. I think we're going to see him not get there in terms of ADP, but the other thing too with H&N is, you know, he's clearly the best player that Miami has in office. So it's easy to expect him being like the centerpiece of the offense, but we still need to price in some fragility with all these moving parts. The crazy part to me is that we already have a sample of this, right? Like he's played eight games without to a tongue of a low over the past two seasons. And in those games, he ever just 10.5 PPR points per game. He has one RB1 scoring week compared to 20.3 PPR points per game with to a tongue of a low. And now we lose Mike McDaniel on top of that. In the two games that two have missed last year, like things that it bottom out use the RB14, the RB17, because again, that touch value, right? 18 touches, 21 touches in those games. But we didn't have the ceiling that we were accustomed to. Now we're getting, you know, this offense with Malik Willis and it's just going to reduce the overall passing upside of this team, you know, with Malik Willis on the field for his career, offense has thrown the ball 40% of the time. You know, in Green Bay, it was 38.7%. It's probably going to be proxy, just be higher than that. But they're going to be a run based team here. We talk about all the time too, with like running backs attached to mobile passers. Malik Willis has number one in the NFL. He's at NFL in Scramble rate, highest league 14.5%. Now his target rate to running backs is only 10.2%. But it's going to go up by default with throwing to H&N versus, you know, Josh Jacobs and you know, Derek Henry. But it's still going to be something that lowers based on two. We saw H&N play with Tyler Huntley. He ran 85 rounds with Tyler Huntley and Tyler Huntley starts. He was targeted six times on those 85 rounds. And then when you talk about, a lot of people say, well, Miami was already bad last year, right? I want to, let's add some context to the 2025 dolphins. This was a way more competent team than I think anyone remembers them being. They won seven games. They were 16th and rate of snaps led last year, one spot behind the Buffalo Bills. They were 14th and snap rate trailing ahead of the Lions, ahead of the Bills. They even led by double digits at the 7th highest rate in the NFL last year. Like, this is not the same environment for a team that is favored in one game right now. They're protected to be 31st in scoring. They have an average margin of spread of minus 6.9 points. It's only the Arizona Cardinals are worse. Like, these are not competitive comparable, you know, apples to apples, you know, environments. Like, this is not where we haunt for upside in terms of team environment. Again, I think this is another guy that can maybe flirt with like being like an overall RB1, like, but we talk about this all the time, JJ this time of year, where people cite like, this guy was the RB9 or the RB11, or even it from a points where game stands and just like, they don't apply any context, like what that actually meant, right? Ask anyone if they own, own action JT as an RB1 last year, felt like they had an RB1 when they set their line up. - Right. - And I think that's what we're getting here. I think this is gonna be a very volatile, weekly RB2 that could finish as an RB1. - Yeah, just to give you some more context and some more data around the team environment stuff. We look at team environment score in the draft guide this year. It's really just a way of putting a number to player ADP. So it just takes ADP of a certain team and it brings it together from an expected fantasy point score perspective. And the number itself doesn't need to make any sense to you, but scores below 75. Team environment scores below 75. There's been since 2014, 14 running backs drafted the top 10 at the position with team environment scores below 75, which is where HN finds himself this year. 12 of those 14 then played at least eight games that following season, that upcoming season. Only three of them outperformed ADP expectation and the average running back played two points per game below expected, which is not good. I mean, that's a really, really bad hit rate. So everything you said, I totally agree with. And I know that people are gonna say, again, in best ball he goes later than what he goes on some of these platforms, CBS, ESPN, he's the RB-5. Realistically, do I think Devon HN's gonna have a higher target share than like Chase Brown this year? Probably, maybe, but I think that it's probably closer than we would wanna admit. And if it's closer than what we would wanna admit, why would we be so anxious and ready to draft Devon HN over a guy like Chase Brown when we know the environment is completely stable? So, you know, that alone is a reason for me to be a little bit lower than the market on Devon HN. Okay, next on my list, I already talked about one player from the Denver Broncos. So why not just double dip here and go with another one? I'm gonna go with JK Dobbins as another player that I'm generally avoiding this year. And honestly, the logic's pretty similar to what I talked about with Cortland Sutton already, where I just see Dobbins as someone [BLANK_AUDIO] a single and not a, not even a double, I would argue, but just, just a single, uh, definitely not a home run type player in the middle rounds. And, you know, I know that, that people will look at his ADP and say, oh, but RJ Harvey's going higher than Dobbins and yada yada. Well, first off, on some platforms, that's not the case. Dobbins just goes ahead of RJ Harvey on some platforms. But, uh, on the other side of that is, again, I'm shooting for upside. I would argue very strongly that the upside sits more with an RJ Harvey type, uh, who's a second year player. Yes, had very questionable between the tackles numbers last year, but was a very good receiver way better than Dobbins. I'll just talk about that now because I'm talking about Dobbins. So I would argue that Dobbins was in a near ideal situation last year before he got hurt. Uh, RJ Harvey wasn't playing a ton on early downs. We were getting that rotation in Denver, but Dobbins was seeing a lot of work in that Denver backfield. So my first question to people who are very pro Dobbins is, do you still think he's going to see that same kind of work? I think most would say who are drafting him would say, yes, he's going to see that, that kind of work and that, you know, what, what he was getting pre injury. I would argue them back. Why are you so excited about this, right? His workload, he ran around on just 30% of Denver's dropbacks last year when he was healthy. He had a 4.2% target share. His yard per route run, Rich was 0.32, which RJ Harvey was actually really strong on a per route run basis. So I see no reason for them to all of a sudden change things up and not use Harvey in that past catching role. And there's really no indication that that's going to be the case. Dobbins was good on the ground. There's no doubt. Um, but the receiving profiles is really, really questionable. And if you look at how he actually performed on a points per game basis last year, he averaged 11.6 PPR points per game through week 10 last year, JK Dobbins was the RB 24 and fantasy football under relatively ideal circumstances for him right now. And I say that because I don't think the workload is necessarily going to get better. All they did was add Jonah Coleman, this off season who already has looked the part. I thought, you know, I think you and I both really liked him as a prospect within the context of this class, of course. Um, and then, you know, RJ Harvey's another year better, another year in, he might end up being a little bit better. So I just see Dobbins really paying off only if RJ Harvey gets hurt. Uh, and he and Denver's able to use him more as a pass catcher. But even if that's the case, I think Jonah Coleman is still going to block him to some degree. And also, we know that like I'm making this argument against Dobbins without even mentioning the fact that he's hurt every year, right? That he's been banged up year in and year out. And, uh, I could see a scenario where Denver wants to keep him fresh and keep him going where they don't feed him that same workload that they did last year. And I think that's a huge reason as to why they went out and they got Jonah Coleman in the first place is that he's a very steady all around back. He can play a backup role to both RJ Harvey and JK Dobbins. And then on top of that, again, like Coleman himself could end up taking some of the goal line work in this offense because of his size, uh, and not wanting Dobbins to be so, so banged up. So all of that to say, this isn't an ambiguous backfield. And I want to attack ambiguous backfields. I will attack ambiguous backfields. I've been drafting the mo, if I look at this backfield and the three of them, I've gotten the most Jonah Coleman of the three because it's very cheap to just go that route. And I can see what happens more of a bestball thing because I haven't drafted so many teams to be able to say I'm definitively one way or another. But I definitely have been taking more RJ Harvey than JK Dobbins because again, if you look at trends and what's worked out historically out with middle round running backs, year two guys, pass catchers and not overstating and over rating what they did on the ground the previous year because ground game work does fluctuate quite a bit year over year. I don't think Harvey is more than likely going to be special or anything, right? But I do think that there are outs here where he could still outperform ADP and be better than where he's being drafted right now. It's just really hard for me to get there with with JK Dobbins and making that same argument. So, you know, to me, we've had this discussion before and I know that you're a big arbitrage guy, but all summer long, my arbitrage with JK Dobbins has just been Jordan Mason who, you know, goes after, at one point who's going like three or four rounds after. It's the same kind of bet. I mean, you could even squint and say Chris Rodriguez is the same kind of a bet even later, right? I would much rather be spending those costs on these two down profiles than going for JK Dobbins. Yeah, 100%. I mean, there's a place. It's a bummer because, you know, JK Dobbins is a guy, I think a lot of you want to root for. He's in snakebitt. He was, there's a place in the multiverse where this dude probably already has like, you know, 7,000 rushing yards, you know, at this point of his career. He was such a good prospect. He's been like said, really snakebitt, but 11, 11 receptions last year for 37 yards like this. He had one week last year where he finished as a top 24 running back without a touchdown. Like, so if he doesn't score a touchdown, he's basically giving you one unusable production. And even with touchdowns, his highest scoring game was 15 and a half PPR points. I did an article like five or six years ago on, you know, how running back to production in your weekly lineup is like the most replaceable commodity that you can find. And that's like what we have here. Like, there's no sense of paying a premium for this archetype, even in non PPR, even if you're doing something that's half PPR or standard touchdown driven, you brought Jordan Mason, typically goes about two rounds after him, almost two four rounds, Chris Rodriguez. You can even squint and say when Zach Charbonne comes back, this is what Zach Charbonne is. You can even tell yourself a song. And like, this is what Tyler Algieris, which is probably not, but, you know, maybe, but, you know, this, this type of guy is just so replaceable. And it's a bummer because like I said, he's on a good team and you think like this archetype is going to get elevated because of that, but it's just not the case. Yeah. And look, I know his ADP is an out of control, but I don't want to use that as an excuse to draft players that I don't think can, can really give you that upside, right? Like, there's still an opportunity cost to a degree in that area of draft because the opportunity cost are players who do have that kind of upside, right? And like, again, it, it feels like I'm on an island with this take because it feels like a lot of analysts are way in on Dobbins this year and, and really do like him and hate RJ Harvey because he just wasn't very productive on the ground last year, but it's one of those things where like we know historically, ground game numbers fluctuate. And what is stickier is the passing game work and how they, how they're deployed that way. Not only that, we know the Sean Peyton offense favors past catching running backs and has historically, I'm not, I'm not, this isn't a pro Harvey argument by any means. Like I've been like one or two running back spots ahead of market with Harvey. It's not like a strong stance or anything like that. It's more so me just saying, I want to sit with the upside case and go with the upside play as opposed to drafting a player like JK Dobbins, like maybe in some environments if he falls and you really, you know, you went like hero or B and you really need a running, you just need some production or running back. You click Dobbins name, but it's even in that scenario, I'd rather just wait and try to get a Mason or something like that. I think Mason might even have more upside than Dobbins because there's just less in his way in terms of competition and in terms of really past catching stuff. And like I said, Dobbins past catching work last year, genuinely horrific. I mean, like the yards per out run stuff, 0.32, you almost never see a player come back from that and give you a good target share of the following season. So just a lot of reasons why I'm out on that. Alright, give me your next player, Rich. I started with at least the players at the top here and out. I'm a soften up a little bit. And this one's interesting because usually one of the tried into ways I play fantasy ball is, you know, if a guy makes like a giant bright market jump from the previous year, it was like a cheap player that became really expensive. I'm always kind of, I always kind of question that of paying the iron price. And then inversely when a player was really high priced and falls, I'm like, you know, more open to saying, Hey, I'm going to buy the discount. But in this case, I've had a really hard time warming up to Brian Thomas, Jr. He's coming off of that down second season. You know, obviously I just don't think he was a fit for Liam Cohen's, you know, system, which more of like the intermediate crossing routes. And, you know, he played through, you know, wrist and shoulder injuries, you know, that didn't help those things. But when the Jaguars kind of found their footing, because this is, I think a lot of people forget like the Jaguars were like an awful offense for like the first eight weeks, like this absolutely horrendous. But when they found their stride, it's when they made the trade for Jacobi Myers. And then the elevation of Parker Washington to the Travis Hunter injury, everyone kind of found their stride with Brian Thomas Jr. then. And that point was playing the X wide receiver in this offense. We had Park Washington and Jacobi Myers kind of fluctuated between slot Z with a little bit of sprinkling for slot stuff for Brian Thomas. It was mostly those two guys that were intermixed. And when all three wideouts were on the field together, they were on the field for 106 routes together. And Thomas was third on that trio and target rate per out run at 17%. 21% for Myers, 26% for Parker Washington. I mean, Liam Cohen has said some positive things about Brian Thomas Jr. at this season. But dude, he talks like he talks about Parker Washington, like he is blood. But but the thing is, they've already said like Brian Thomas Jr. is basically going to play primarily X in this offense. And from week 10 on, he averaged 17 air yards per target. 33% of his targets are 20 and more yards down field. That is a very, very tough way to live as a viable weekly fantasy target. I mean, it's just really, you need those, like we talk about those smoothing targets, those freebies in a sense. Like this, he was basically operating like Jacksonville K. Sean booty. That's like what his role was in the offense. And so if we think he's going to play primarily X and like say, he could still get a little bit of sprinkling. this Jacksonville schedule in terms of what they face in terms of outside perimeter play and I'm like no like wide receiver cornerback like we have to fade all these guys but listen to this schedule for Brian Thomas Jr. Denzel award Patrick Sir Tan Christian Gonzalez DJ Turner Quinyon Mitchell Derek Stingley by week sauce gardener that is eight weeks of the seat your eight weeks into the season what week are you going to be like I am confident putting Brian Thomas Jr. in my weekly lineup like you're just hoping he scores a touchdown or cash isn't a big play like it's it's just really hard for me I think with all the tea leaves that saying like he's in a role in the offense that's not going to be conducive for consistent fantasy points and then it's going to run up against I think the worst of the defense of opponents that Jacksonville faces over those opening two months I have a hot take I think we might see Brian Thomas Jr. in some like shallow manage leagues outright release like at some point earlier in the 2026 season yeah I mean I could see it that was I remember you know I was doing that early season schedule analysis episode and I referenced a lot of sharp football stuff with the secondary rankings and whatnot and Jacksonville popped up as a okay this could actually be pretty tough the first half of the season like it's it's a very very tough schedule and obviously you know you noted him seeing the toughest matchups in that offense a wide receiver is could end up being really tough I hate to use this I do think he is a better and best ball type player because the because the big playability is certainly there for for a player like him right but I do think that there's going to be a lot of that unpredictability to your point you know in the way that this offense functions and it just you know all these all these signs just point to Parker Washington just being being a I mean the some of these platforms he's still going so late Washington I'm still getting him at you know past way past wide receiver 30 price tags and to me he's just like easy it easily the the best Jacksonville wide receiver and fantasy this year and this this just plays into that a little bit more you made a great point it's I think a lot of people think about better and a best ball is just like the big play archetype but it's not necessarily that it's it's it's under it's JK Dodman's fits that mold to it's just knowing that you get the weeks that they hit in your lineup right and they they get it but in a manage league like you have to guess that like if you want to get Brian Thomas Jr. Ray like you basically just have to leave him and you're you're going to have to just leave him the lineup right and you're always going to question it like when you're looking you're going to be like oh Brian Thomas Jr. is going to its Patrick's or tan this week well my wide receiver five has a pretty good matchup yeah I go with it should I go with him instead like that's what it's going to be like I think for the first two months of the year I've taken I've taken Brian Thomas and one league so far out of the many manage leagues that I've drafted and the one that I took him in was one of the King's classic ones it was the auction and the reason for that well I was kind of getting it was kind of scary with one of the players and that I mean it's a crazy draft 14 team four there's but there's deep starting starting lineups too right where I think a player like this is a lot easier to take on when you don't have to make those decisions right where you're just like I'm just going to take the lows with the highs and then allow the other guys in the lineup to just kind of you know be the baseline for me but if you're starting two or three wide receivers especially if it's like a two wide receiver one flex league you just not somebody that's very appealing because of how unpredictable and volatile that production is going to be so and again like I was going to say this like the dobbin thing you bring that up I think that he's another guy Chris Rodriguez and the like they're probably better in bestball players and they are a manage because yes they're going to fall into the end zone you we don't know exactly when that's going to happen you don't have that that baseline of them being you know reliable receivers to give you at least some production on the ground so I'm with you it's not it's not only the big playability because I mean certainly JK Dobbins you wouldn't look at him and be like oh this is a huge big play guy but you know it's it's just the the unpredictability aspect of things and it used to be the receiving running back so we that archetype has kind of gone away a little bit like the James Whites because you never knew when James White was going to catch 10 passes but bestball he actually was undervalued because you you'd just get those weeks when he got him yeah exactly when when one game's great oneself yeah all right I'm going to move on from the the Broncos I'm not going to name all give us another Bronco do bonus what will be on the other side of this lift you know we'll go with we'll go with Matthew Stafford right now I think that the quarterback market is pretty sharp this year and it's it's kind of hard to really have like a hardcore fade I'm just saying Stafford because if you do look at some season long platforms QB8 on ESPN right now which is a lot higher than I expected QB12 on CBS I think Yahoo it's a little bit more reasonable the market is getting smarter though dating back to 2014 we've had 13 quarterbacks earn an ADP after posting a touchdown rate of at least 7% while averaging fewer than five fantasy points per game via rushing the previous season so they weren't doing much on the ground but they gave you that outlier touchdown rate season every single one of those quarterbacks the following year were top 10 options and the majority of them the average was in the QB5 to QB6 range so the fact that that Matthew Stafford is at the highest being drafted alone QB1 tells me that the market's getting sharper because we know that touchdown rates regress Stafford at a 7.7% touchdown rate last year of those 13 quarterbacks I just mentioned 12 of them played at least eight games of following year and of those 12s these are guys who had a 7% touchdown rate or better they average only 18 points per game the following year which you know they the majority then played below expectation you know obviously the Rams are going to be good this year more than likely so I don't I don't want to discount that but dating back to 2014 I think we also have to recognize that last year's Rams were third and passing touchdowns per game there were six and total touchdowns per game that's all NFL teams across all those seasons since 2014 that was on a team though there's also 28th in yards per play so they weren't asked for there was really good at converting last year there was a very very strong offensive team and they were ninth in percentage of drives across that time frame that ended in a touchdown so you know it was a very efficient offense that I question you know will they be able to do that and repeat that year over year I'd also argue that the defense could end up being a lot better but I just think that it's a it's a tough bet when I don't really see much of a difference between Matthew Stafford and like Jared Goff you know like I I don't think there's any real difference from a projection standpoint I'd maybe give Stafford the edge like a 52 to 48 type edge but that's not what ADP is going to show you're going to be able to get Goff multiple rounds after that you know on a lot of these sites and then obviously there's players that you can draft late this year that are going to give you that three to five point per game with their legs that that's just really difficult for you know we know Matthew Stafford's not going to get there he's going to be under one this year so you know all that I don't think Stafford's terrible and like the QB 15 range to QB 17 range that's fine but if you're drafting as a low on QB one this is the kind of profile that we generally generally should be fading year over year I mean this is since we've been doing this show I'm trying to think how many years we've actually done this home in home if I think five or six and I think the the previous year quarterback that had the seven and a half percent touchdown rate has been a staple of this of this program every year we don't think it's Baker may feel last year I don't remember who it was here but if you use go down and check each year it'll be that guy and you know just unfortunate Stafford I mean the Rams definitely were trying to get him at one point get him to MVP like it's just it's just try to true I mean it's crazy how many more touchdowns he had last year than the and you can't just say it was only Devonte Adams you know like you can't point to that be like oh yeah he threw 17 more touchdowns because he does have one other 40 touchdown season with the Rams but I mean you look at so last year the Rams as a team they they reached the red zone or scored a long-range touchdown by proxy just skipping the red zone on 54.2% of their drives only the 2007 Patriots have a higher had a higher rate than that then you just look at the short yardage touchdowns that he had 73% of their touchdowns were through the air last season the previous three years the Rams are at 59 and a half percent 59.1 51.6% like it was it's just so much stuff lines up where they were just trying to get him these touchdowns like natural aggression probably a little bit of boost for the running touchdowns to be up like you said they're probably going to be in a little more if the defense is this good they'll be in better scripts you remember at the end of the year when their cornerbacks got really banged up and you know they had Trent McDuffie and Jalen Watts in this year too that's when they started to get involved in like a little bit of shootouts at the end of the year you know they had they they outright just lost hit landed chasing points they actually had to score a lot of points against the Cardinals even in like week 18 when they played their starters they played that crazy game against in Seattle right they got that got pushed the Lions pushed them in a game as well they ran away in the second half so just all these things lined up it just converged on Stafford you know hitting that that touchdown rate I think he's still like a like a solid bet like if you want him in like your two cubic leagues and stuff you can any is affordable like if you still want to just like if you break glass right like if you keep pushing the position and he's there yeah I don't think he's gonna be like a a throw away pick at like cubic 14 cubic 15 when he slides in those leagues at all but that's where he should be priced because you're not getting any rushing equity in these pocket passers we just have so many of them down the line even he going where he is at a fair price like you said has arbitrage options you know Jared golf but I would argue Jordan love is an arbitrage option on him as well so like yeah yeah there's just no basically this is the PSA to just not reach for Matthew Staff right is what this really comes 100% for adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms Every choice matters. 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Because only LifeLock truly protects your name and your identity. To go get LifeLock at LifeLock.com and use promo code football for up to 30% off your first year, that's LifeLock.com code football again, LifeLock.com code football. All right, man. Next one for you. I'm going to stay at quarterback, too. Like you said, it's really hard to really push back at anyone that says, hey, I'm in at this quarterback. I think the market's price-fiddy fit pretty fair. But I think in the pocket where he still goes, patch of a home still been the toughest click for me, I think, at the position for guys that you actually get drafted in every draft. And patch of a home set the bar so high in his career that I feel like we've won overlooked exactly what the Chiefs have given us passing and what he's giving us passing the last like three years. And then us just like always are constantly chasing that ghost of what we saw the ceiling, right? When something when a player or a team shows you their ceiling, it feels like, man, what if they just get that back like because this is the cheapest mahogas ever been. That's the argument. You always hear, right? This is the cheapest mom's ever been. And I do think if you're in like a two QB super flex keeper league, he is appealing in those formats because in 2027, the offense could just be outright different again. And he's a year removed from the ACL. But over the past three years, Patrick Mahomes is 17th in the NFL and completion rate. He is 23rd in yards or pass attempt. He is 20th in touchdown rate. He is 20th in interception rate from just that passing points perspective. He's not been good. And now what has helped him last year was that he was the QB four and points per game because he ran more than ever. He had 25% of his fantasy points came from rushing alone. That was the highest rate of his career. He himself, even before we get to the injury, has said, I think I maybe was running too much last year. And he's coming off the ACL so we just can't count on that. Even if he does like start to ramp up and he does scramble more as the season goes on, the passing stuff is really hard to bank on coming back. Slime people say, well, Matt Nagy's gone and they're getting Eric the enemy, but like Eric the enemy's overlap also is a pecs Tyree kill prime Travis Kelsey. What did Eric the enemy do after he left Kansas City to like give you a vote of confidence to say like, you know what? It was probably Eric the enemy's like, that's why this law worked out. So bringing him back is going to work out. Matt Harman brought this up and far be it from us to push back on anything Andy is going to do in his career because he's going to walk right into the hall fame. And he's been an incredible head coach. But when you look at the way the NFL has tried to solve for this defensive meta and you could argue the chiefs right like the forefront of make driving us to this point, they have not done like the easy button stuff. Like they're not doing the under center pre-Sanmo stuff. Now they're going to do some of that more this year with Kenneth Walker, but they never changed anything with their wide receiver room. I mean, the big thing that's happened while the NFL has changed defenses is the chiefs go on the opposite way. Teams is just to play more man coverage against them because they don't respect their wide receiver room. You know, you'll get the man coverage stuff from a home is the past year is being 26th in quarterback rating, 21st in completion rate, 28th in yards or pass attempt. And so they run this offense through a very Debo Samuel S. player and Richie Rice. Great for fantasy that he's used that way. Xavier Worthy, you know, if you want to give him a hall pass for a year or two, that's fine. You still have to take a step of faith that he's going to play better in year three. He still has an undersized receiver. He put hands on him. He's Kenny beat man coverage and then on top of all this, I mean, Kansas City has like is a gauntlet. I mean, they have a rough paper. They open the year with Denver and week one. They have a little soft little pocket, but remember, my home is a week five by. So he's the earliest buy. So you have to plan on like, you might not want to play him in week one because he faces Denver. And then he has a week five buys. You need a quarterback for him and that's you're probably taking two quarterbacks with Patrick Mahomes and one quarterback leagues. And then outside the buy, charger, Seahawks, Broncos, like those aren't going to be spots where you're going to count on like, you're passing value to get you there. And then, you know, in the fantasy playoffs and end of the year, it's, it's rough. And like that, there's fluidity there. Like we could have injuries. These defenses could not look as good by the time we get to that point of the season. But, you know, Patriots, 49ers, chargers, like you're not excited about those on paper either. So when I look at Mahomes and some of the guys going after him, I just think like they're still just outright better clicks to keep waiting at the position. And there are still guys after him that I think give you do a little bit of that dual purpose, that like duality that give you a little bit of rushing, you know, depending on, you know, where, where, you know, Jackson Darko's, we got bone nicks in there. Like we brought up, you know, even Stafford going after you're like Stafford is probably Arbor charge of Mahomes now and maybe it's even better. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I get it. I get all the things like the Cache of the Mahomes brand and the prices as cheap as there been, but I still think he's a really tough click where he's at. Yeah. No, I'm with you. Look, he had 5.2 points per game last year via rushing his previous career. How is three and a half? I mean, it was very clearly a totally different season on the ground for him. Now he's coming off an ACL and oh, by the way, they finally invested in a running back who is good, right? That can create explosives. I think that there's a very real chance that we just see them completely change the way they operate to close the end zone, which is going to be a really big deal for his fantasy value. He's also been, like, the crazy thing is that there's been all this Cyrus Allen hype, which I think is fine. He was an interesting day three pick, but they almost like need him to hit the way that this offense is situated right now. Like they need that peace and that versatility of the offense because like Cyrus Allen's profile was pretty vertical and in college and he was able to, I mean, he played a decent bit in the sloppy, played outside too. He had some verticality to his game and I think it would, I mean, it would be mega helpful if they just like had a hit at wide receiver because it's just how they've been operating is just not, as you said, not been working. So I'm with you with my homes and him coming off the ACL, assuming that he can maintain some of that rushing production is to me a little bit foolish, especially because they add a kind of kind of walker to the mix. All right. My next player, I will go with, I'm going to go with Travion Henderson next. So I look, I was in on Henderson last year, I was a mistake. Okay, I regret my, not really, well, sort of my process, but obviously the end decision. He had his moments, I don't think he was nearly as big of a bus as he could have been, but obviously it ended up being not a great season for Travion Henderson. I look at what's going on right now in New England. The drumbeat is pretty loud in Ramondray Stevenson's favor. I would say at least it's not moving in Travion Henderson's favor. And our baseline, in my opinion, should be that Ramondray Stevenson is the lead back in the backfield or at least like the RB1a. Look at what happened in the playoffs last year, Stevenson had a 71% snap share to Henderson's 31%, 13% target share to Henderson's 5%, 55% route share to Henderson's 25%. And last year in total, because of this resurgence that Stevenson had during the second half of the year, he was so much better the second half of the year versus the first half of the year. He was first among qualified running backs and rushing yards over expected per rush according to next gen stats. He was also first and catch rate over expected among qualified running backs according to next gen stats. So he was both good on the ground and through the air, Ramondray was all while being, as we know, the better pass blocker and the guy, the guy who was better in pass pro. And so I look at what's going on here and I worry, you know, I know there was a recent report about how we could see a 50 50 split where Ramondray gets the early down stuff and the short yardage and goal line work and Travion plays more on third downs, but there was a caveat that said if the pass pro holds and that's a big caveat, like that's a really big deal. Here when, when Ramondray Stevenson was healthy, he had an 88% long down in distance snap rate, whereas Travion Henderson, if you include the games that Ramondray was out, was under 30%. So they used Ramondray Stevenson in those scenarios. And I think the, the pass pro stuff is a very real concern because as they were using Ramondray, the, the Patriots last year ran just 27% of their plays while trailing. That was the lowest in the league. The schedule's tougher this year, so that's a number that's going to be hard to maintain. And if that's the case, Stevenson played twice as many snaps as Travian Henderson did last year when the Patriots were behind. So I'm just very, very, like I get the allure with Travian Henderson. Trust me. I fell into it last year. I get the big playability and historically rich, like what he did is a rookie running back. If you look at his explosive run rate, you know, his big playability, those guys do generally pan out at a decent rate, moving forward. The difference between what I talked about with like the Denver backfield, to what I'm talking about here with New England's because, you know, everyone knows that I'm an analyst that wants you that will tell you to chase upside once you get into like the middle rounds and stuff. Travian Henderson's got a pretty big opportunity cost where he's going. This is not a RJ Harvey situation where you can get him two rounds later or three rounds later when there's a very, very big drop in the kind of wide receivers and honestly other running backs that you will be drafting him over. You know, like I'll take DeAndre Swift over Travian Henderson all day. You know, like I think he's a far better pick than Henderson. I would argue very strongly that Bay Shaltuton, despite the reports right now, has a higher ceiling than Travian Henderson does because the environment he's in, maybe you could say it's a little bit worse. I wouldn't even argue it's substantially worse. But the competition's Chris Rodriguez or is Ramondre Stevenson, right? Of course you would say, oh, the Travian Henderson's, you know, talent profiles better, sure. I get it. But I think that you're at least like having those discussions very, very easily and clearly. And so there's a lot of opportunity cost of running back, but there's also opportunity cost at wide receiver, like Christian Watson types, like guys who have a lot of upside as your wide receiver, three, that you're going to be drafting Travian Henderson over. When Henderson to me, you know, I think he's going to enter this season as at the very, at best, the one B in this back field. So at this moment, and I had this decision that I had to make in our apex league that we're in, and where there was a big drop off where, but I needed to go running back. And there was a big drop off at both running back and wide receiver, so it was fine to go this direction. But I just took Ramondre Stevenson straight up over Travian Henderson in that draft. And to me, it's just the safer bet at this moment. And one where if you are a little bit thin at running back, and you don't have the opportunity to sort of just like shoot for the moon and chase that ceiling, I do think you should go Ramondre in those situations, and I do have Ramondre, I think in the same tier, but ranked ahead of Henderson right now because I'm worried about what this will look like when we saw the success that they had when Ramondre was more so the lead back. This is a very tough back field to diagnose like for in terms of just like, 'cause, alright, so let's say we simulate this season 10 times. I would say what, six to seven times out of the simulation, it's just like both these guys are like hurting each other. And then you get a vice versa like when guys go down. And so it would be very hard, I think, because it's even Ramondre outside of the playoff stretch when kind of the chips are on the table, and remember Henderson had like a late season concussion, I'd open the door back up for, you know, Stevenson, like the Stevenson stuff is like very small sample stuff too, then when you look at just kind of like from a ceiling perspective, I mean, Henderson had the Hyatt's yardage total for either of these backs and it came in a game with Stevenson playing, that was the Buffalo game, and then he had Henderson actually had seven to the top 11 yardage totals of this back field of the season last year. But then it's just like, so like, how does this work with both guys? Like you almost have to have a Detroit Lions type run out where it's your pattern matching, like Henderson is Gibbs and Stevenson's Monty, right? And like that's just really hard, like it's just really hard to have two running backs on a team operate to that degree. This Patriots offensive line is good, like if you would get it, but you said the schedule is a lot harder to bank on that, they added AJ Brown, they added Romeo Dobbs, so they're gonna have like two full-time receivers, and last year they had no full-time receivers. It's a very tough team, I think, from a fantasy projection stance outside of just saying, you know, AJ Brown's gonna be a good pick. So I've had a real hard time, and then so the thing is, like, I want to be in on Henderson the player. He's like, what I look for, you know, the upside, like the four 50 yard touchdowns, we haven't had a rookie running back to this in Sequon. We haven't had a player have two games at multiple 50 yard touchdown runs since Chris Johnson in 2009. This is the level of player we're working with. But you brought up the big thing with Travion Henderson is the cost, like this guy is going in just the hotbed of one, how I've been building my teams in 2026. I'm almost always taking wide receivers where his pocket comes up and then like you brought up to, even the running backs, he's going like even in full PPR, he's going like right after David Montgomery, who we know is gonna have more touches and maybe more touchdown equity. You know, you're, you brought up Basel II and he's kind of sandwiched in between those guys, you know, Jadarian price, Cajaderian price, like hit early in the season enough to like where if Sharbonne comes back, he's just the things are in motion and he's got that, that body of work and he's taking over. There's just a lot of stuff around his pocket. You can even kind of start to talk yourself and they're like looking at the QB ones in that range too. I really am. But also the tight ends in that range too are a little bit more appealing too. So he just really falls into a pocket where he's just a tough click because I just feel like so much more confidence in every other player around him, even for him being so auctions are where I'm targeting him, like the kind of dabble, just the seeks. You mitigate some of the opportunity cost and auctions and then maybe some large field stuff where just the running back pole gets deluded because everyone's hammering these running backs earlier and, you know, who knows if we have the next three weeks go like this weekend, the whole, there's be some jostling in that RB two range anyways. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I do want to be clear. Like I think that Trayvian Henderson is fine in a running back heavy build. If you go that direction, like the problem though is is, you know, if you're going running back heavy and you're starting robust RB and you have like two or three in the first four rounds, my argument would be, you should be taking a wide receiver in round five. You know, you shouldn't be thinking about going Trayvian Henderson's direction at the early parts of that, of that round. But let's just pretend that he slips, right? And you have a couple of wide receivers and you already have two or three running backs early. I think it's fine if he slips to like the sixth and he's there and that totally, you know, that's what we're talking about when we're talking about liking players, not liking players on today's episode versus their cost. I think Henderson makes a lot of sense for a lot of builds. My bottom line is that, you know, you have to speak to what is most likely going to happen, which is ADP. And again, I just think that there's a lot of running, like there's, there's, to me, there's a lot more, there's just more safety concerns with him based on the fact that Ramondre is more likely at least going to start the season as, as their lead guy. And then maybe Trayvian starts to take over a little bit. I just don't see this as the same kind of scenario as like a Denver backfield or something where the cost is so much different and where you, and honestly too, like once you get into like the early 60s and drafts, that's when there's a very clear drop off in my opinion at both running back and wide receiver. And right before that, I can see him being at the bottom of that like final tier of guys, like at the, you know, end of the, end of the fifth into the sixth round. That's where I think he belongs more, but he's not usually there in the end. And like I said, if you want to play it a little bit safer and you need, you know, again, it was my RB two situations and I went really wide receiver heavy in that draft. I would then just take Ramondre Stevenson over Trayvian Henderson, but I have them in the same tier because that's giving you this idea of, okay, what does my team build look like right now? Okay, I can then pivot to which guy want based on what I've done earlier in the draft. But I, I think there's a lot of risk with Henderson. I like him as a player. I'm still optimistic about his future. I just worry a little bit about what we're going to see here in 2026. I think that that Apex draft that we're in and, you know, a lot of people that are listening to show a lot of people that they are familiar with or in that draft, you know, Ian Harder, it's Mike Clay, Sean Siegel, Matthew Harmon and Trayvian Henderson, I believe that's where he was priced appropriately and he went to a team roster construction that made sense for him. Right. Exactly. I actually had a chance to take him and I took Jerry and Price over him as my RB three and he would have been my RB three, but he went RB 27 at pick what 60 71, he had picked 71. Honestly, it might even be later than where I would have taken him. You know what I mean? Like, like, I, but you're right. I think that's about where he should probably be going just given the risk. Yeah. And he went to a team that had Jamir Gibbs as RB one and then just hammered wide receiver afterwards and said, I'm fine having this volatility, but upside as my RB two. And that team also grabbed Jordan Mason later is kind of like the even maybe maybe like a insulation on that part too. But that's kind of, I think, where you see like a group of, I don't want to pet us and maybe removing myself sharp individuals, you know, does this kind of where you see like when you get a bunch of people that are like playing the game inherently like the way we believe we're playing it optimally all in the same room and where he's priced, it feels right. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Trumphia is administered as injections under the skin or in fusions through a vein every four weeks followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self inject trumphia, proper training is required. Trumphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur before treatment get checked for infections and tuberculosis. your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Ask your doctor about Tremphaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TremphayaRadio.com. Every player in the league has a scouting report, strengths, weaknesses, history, tendencies, everything an opponent wants to know. But what if somebody built a scouting report on you? Then they package it up and legally sell it to anyone willing to pay. Sometimes just for pennies. And then what? They may be looking to scam you, steal your identity, and start using your name like it belongs to them. If you fall victim to identity theft, LifeLock's restoration specialist will block and tackle for you, which means they'll handle your case from start to finish and restore your identity guaranteed. So go get LifeLock at LifeLock.com and use promo code football for up to 30% off your first year. Again, LifeLock.com code football. All right, you have one more to go over. But it's more than one here. So let us hear it. Yeah, I'm cheating and it's funny because you you know, you were ahead and down the Denver Broncos path. But obviously there are Broncos you want to draft. But my last kind of, you know, fate here is the Arizona Cardinals. That's a collective. Let me break this down as it goes to each position too. Now I'll try to do my best here because I don't want to just like hammer, I don't want to take like 15 minutes in each player. The Cardinals are the only team this year. Not favorite in any game entering the year. They're attracted to score the fewest points in NFL. I do believe there's enough talent here to where they aren't 30 second in points. Yeah, but then this team got absolutely ramrod it by the schedule this year. So the NFL, we know your opponents, right? Like it's it's set. But the where you play and when you play these teams is up to the league. Arizona opens the year against the Chargers, the Seahawks, the 49ers, the Giants, the Lions, the Rams, the Broncos, the Cowboys, the Seahawks, the Rams, the Chiefs, the Commanders, and the Eagles. Week 14 by. There are two spots on there where you're like, "Eh, there could be okay." Not only are they front loaded against teams that literally, I just ran off a bunch of Super Bowl contenders to compound matters. They play four home games through 11 weeks. And their four home games are going to the Seahawks, the Lions, the Broncos, and the Rams. So like they have to go on the road and you're like, "Yeah, Giants could be fine, right?" Or like, you know, commanders, they have to go on the road for those games too. So it's even like they didn't even get a hall pass on there. This team too, I think a lot of people are looking at the Cardinals and saying, "Hey, what happened last year if they're bad again, "we can run that back." And like, you have to look at what happened to the 2025 Arizona Cardinals in isolation. Like, not only did Kyle and Murray get injured, their entire backfield got injured. No running back even carried the ball 100 times for them this season. The offensive line, their most frequent offensive line combinations on the field for 23% of their snaps, it was 26th in the league. The defense was obliterated on injuries at every level. The final nine games of the year, the Cardinals led for 47 offensive plays. Only the Raiders and Jets had fewer. And just that intersection of events created an offensive environment that you just don't see a year over a year, be sustainable. At the end of the year, Tramik Breider in 694 routes. Just under 700 routes. It was the most ever by a tight-end since we've had route data. The previous high was 623. To get add some context to this, the average tight-end one, like a high usage tight-end, runs 30 to 35 routes per game. So Tramik Breider essentially last year played 22 football games last year. He ended up running 120 routes more than the next tight-end, which was Kyle Pitts, which is basically four extra games worth. And what that did is it created the largest tight-end one to tight-end two disparity in league history. Kyle Pitts only produced 66.7% of Tramik Breider's total. It was only the third time since 1990 that a tight-end two failed to produce 75% of the tight-end one output. And just the tenth time over the past 35 years, we've had the tight-end to be fewer than 80% of the tight-end once you output. So even if you believe Tramik Breider's going to be the tight-end one again, which I still think he's going to be fine in the context of tight-end scoring, you just have to bet on the field being better versus the tight-end one this season. And then that all bled into Michael Wilson, was second in the NFL with 630 routes run. We had a 330 route sample with him with Marvin Harrison on the field, and he only was target on 12% of his routes. Even when the back half of the season happened, and Marvin came back and played, and we already saw Michael Wilson build up some head of themes, it completely reverted back to Marvin Harrison. His target per route rate was only 17.9% of his routes with Marvin Harrison after Jacobi Brissett took over. And then Marvin Harrison Jr. were just three years in, and you're saying like, what do we have here? Then when you look at the Cardinals and I said at schedule, the week 14 buy is the big point that I want to bring up, because if we don't believe the Cardinals have enough wins by week 14, and their schedule actually is okay for the fantasy playoffs, we have to believe that's at least the point that the final firewall where Carson Beck's not playing, and they're just giving him a look the final month because they're going to be in the mix to draft a 2027 quarterback, and they just have to see him against live fire. And we could see him earlier than that, too. But that's the firewall where I think we see Carson Beck, and then we're counting on Carson Beck and the fantasy playoffs to carry our guys. And it's just a really tough bet. I'm actually pretty neutral with the market, like in Jeremiah Love, and where I was before this weekend, we'll see kind of where everything kind of settles at with where he kind of is. But I just look at this team, and I look at their whole team environment, and I factor in where we're going to be looking at these guys down the fantasy stretch, and I just kind of say, like, I'm going to probably go in another direction and make it first as all these guys. Yeah, I'm 100% with you. Even, you know, Marvin Harrison Jr., I'm a couple spots below, you know, consensus, wider, super wise. I'm a decent bit below with Michael Wilson because of the splits last year. And Tramick Bride, technically my ten and two still, but like where he gets drafted in the context of where Brock Bowers goes, I have a much, much bigger gap between those two. And I think McBride should go like more in like the later third, as opposed to like the late second. You know, you mentioned the routes run stuff. I wrote this in the guide where McBride averaged about 0.45 fantasy points per route run last year. If those 120 routes were declined, you know, were taken away from him. So he just, he still ran the most routes in the NFL at Tide, and he just ran a normal number of routes. He would have ended up scoring 15.4 PBR points per game instead of 18.6 PBR points per game, which is a, I mean, look, 15.4 points per game is good. Really good, but it's certainly not like what you're drafting for. Not only that, but he had some unsustainable stuff in end zone targets, the way that he was targeted, you know, in the, in the red zone. And, you know, it was touchdown scoring. Something that we never thought that we would be saying about Tramick Bride, after the way that he started his career in what he didn't college, too. But yeah, I'm with you. It's a very scary offense. I think you could even take a step backwards. And maybe this will sound idiotic by the end of the year. But like, are we this confident in a Jacobi Berset lead offense? You know, like, I know that he played better last year than what was expected. But I even think if you just dumb this down to that degree, aside from buying into the volume stuff, because like, I think you can make the argument that Michael Wilson, if there's one profile that looks like last year's Jerry Judy, it's Michael Wilson, where, you know, the splits look really good when that's what happened with Judy. When Cedric Tillman was injured and when he had James Winston, and like, it's exact same kind of scenario. You know, I think that there's at least a little bit more to like about Wilson. And maybe there is just a slightly later breakout with him, regardless of all of that. I just think it's scary to be investing into Jacobi Berset lead offense the way that we're, you know, investing in. So there's just a lot of scaryness to the the Arizona Cardinals offense. But maybe they surprise us. We'll see. Yeah. And like I said, when you, when you just put Dallas or Donuts, where all these guys go in ADP, you know, excluding Berset, who's not going to go and hit you wrong to be leagues. You know, you could, if you want to take me to, you could be out in no pushback, really. But it's just where they go in drafts. There's just another guy in that point where you just have more confidence in in their terms of, you know, offensive environment. And that's what makes it really tough. Because I think like Marvin and Michael Wilson are, are largely probably fairly priced where they go. But like, again, like, are you going to take, you know, you know, Marvin Harrison Jr., you know, over, over even Christian Watson, right? Like, no, no chance. I'm doing that or Parker Washington, who we talked about earlier on the show. Or are you taking him over where we start to look at quarterbacks? Are you going to take him over like a Kale Williams-Dak Prescott, where he usually goes against the, you know, so it's just, I just think it's just really hard when you get to each portion of the draft, where those guys come up. And even if you think they're fairly priced, there's just no insulation there. Right, right. All right, my last guy is Tony Pollard. You know, we actually talked before the show. And some of the hiring guys you mentioned, like, I certainly would have mentioned like an H&N. So I'm just so people know I am in agreement with everyone, everything that Rich brought up today. But Pollard's a guy that I have pretty heavily faded this year. Even in Bestball, like, I just have not clicked his name. You know, that's a range of Bestball drafts, where there are those really elite quarterbacks still going, like Jaden Daniels and Jalen Hertz and the upside guys. But even some wide receivers will slip there. And just straight up, like, I want Ramondra Stephenson over Tony Pollard, for instance, right? I'd rather just go that route. Contention upside still sits there with Stephenson in a way better environment. But let's just talk about Pollard. I just think it's a very traditional dead zone kind of archetype of player. He's not quite traditional. dead zone is that quite as high, but he's the next tier down from a lot of those guys. You're definitely not buying Pollard because of his environment, you know, there's questionable quarterback play. We already saw that in the preseason, bad offensive line. You're doing it because of projected volume for Pollard, but I'm worried about that. You know, he posted a yards per out run rate below point eight last year for the third straight year. Again, very predictive of future or at least pretty predictive of future target share. And that target share did dip to just eight percent last year. And he also, he had that stretch without Taj A spears last year where his usage numbers looked really good, right? But when spears was healthy, so in that four game stretch without spears, he had an eighty nine percent snap share, 69 percent route share. Great. They were using him as a as a bell cow in that backfield with spears. Those numbers were 54 percent in terms of snap share and 40 percent in terms of route share. You don't know exactly how this coaching staff is going to deploy this back field. But spears has been a viable pass catcher. We saw a spears play a lot with camp warden their preseason game for what it's worth. You know, I'm not saying that's definitive that that's the way they're going to deploy things, but I think that he's a legit threat. And then also maybe later in the season, they want to see what they have in Nick Singleton. I know he had a bad pass pro rep that was going viral, but they might want to see what they have in Singleton also later in the season. But just to me, I want to, you know, in this range of drafts, I would much rather be shooting for the better offensive environments than going with a guy like Pollard who's, you know, getting closer to 30 years old just hasn't been the same back that he was even a couple of years ago. And now that that Tajay spears is healthy, and obviously they drafted Nick Singleton. I just worry about what that volume is going to look like as the season goes on. Yeah. So Pollard, the only caveat I'll say for Pollard is he's, is I will take him when I take two in originarian price, like because he's like the insulation. It was like the same process that got me to like, so I was not bullish on Travis ETN or Javonte Williams last year. But when I was taking, and I recommend this in the, in the draft guide was when I was taking Trevin and Henderson and RG Harvey last year, I was like, this is where you take ETN and Javonte Williams just as like, hey, these guys can at least, they'll be, they won't be a zero for you if these guys turn out to be zeros. Right. That's the only time I take Pollard, but yeah, I mean, you just look at the profile. You just have more than six touchdowns in one NFL season. You know, how many touchdowns is he going to score? I tend to see tight ends. You brought up the splits with Tajay spears who got a little bit of usage. At one point, you know, this is a guy in a contract year who they, they were talking about maybe a cutting or trading this off season. But they're just, you know, going down the drain, do they just play single 10 just to see what he has. There's just a lot of, you know, outs here where you just don't have a lot of upside or like true median. Like I said, the only spots I'll take him is when I'm looking just for like that glue, just like to patch up like where I took a little risk. Like, because if I take a Gibbs, Abijana, CMC, then I treat it like almost like an anchor build. And then I'm taking like a Jadarian price or one of those other guys. But that's really it. That's the only time I'm taking him. You know, fall sometimes. But like a lot of these platforms have them at like RB 27, RB 20, like I'm like four or five running Mac spots below that. And that's again, that's, that's not just four or five running Mac spots. It's also overall ADP where I'd rather be going wide receivers instead of going after, you know, that, you know, you're not forced to take a running back in that range. But like, you know, if you're, if you're in a, any sort of PPR format and you're staring at like Jalen Warren versus Tony Pollard, like I'm taking Jalen Warren, I'm taking Ramon Dray Stevenson for the, the, the upside case of what they can do as receivers, you know, like Warren, especially just someone who's just been a unbelievably good football player, you know, I know that there's risk of, of split backfield. But I would argue there's a risk of split backfield here with Tony Pollard too. Well, I mean, they're, they're contingency upside is far greater because we've seen it with Pollard already. Like he's the lead running back to the Tennessee Titans. He's basically been the last two years. Exactly. Right. Like what are we, what are we really hoping for here? So yeah. So Pollard's been someone that I just haven't clicked very often in all this year. But Rich, this was fantastic as usual. Let everyone know where they can find you and what you're going to be working on, you know, over the next couple of weeks until the season starts, but then also in the season. Yeah. I like you. You know, finishing up the draft guide kind of, you know, you know, please turn injuries off these last three weeks. I mean, every, it feels like every week and, yeah, I don't know about you, but it's not the, the big injuries like we can deal with because like, there's things that go in motion. Like if a guy is going to be out for the year, we can kind of give you up. It's these, the injuries that we've had, like the Agbuka, Breast Hall, Jeremiah Love, like, could they, could this get into the season? Could it not, like what do you adjust? Like these are the toughest ones to kind of diagnose, because you also want to keep one foot in on some guys you like too. And it's like, all right, like, so those are tough, but please turn injuries off these last three weeks. But so finish up the draft guide and, you know, last year you guys helped me out a lot on, on this program. Because you know, JJ has the best podcast in fans football and the best audience. And you guys love the promo I dropped last year. So I'm going to drop one more here for you and it just JJ and you guys are all my people too. If you like JJ stuff, you probably like mine. But you can use promo code draft at sharp football analysis and you get the draft guide for free. I'm just going to give it to you guys for free. So check that out. And then I also do this show at JJ. We oscillate where the voids were his show this year. We're going to do my show. And we're going to do the targets and JJ will have first pick of the targets. So look for that next week to see the guys where we're not pessimistic on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is the this is the downer episode we get to do the one next week where we're excited about these guys. But Rich, appreciate it. As always, everyone listening, make sure you check out layround.com, check out the draft guide. Make sure you are subscribed to both the podcast and the YouTube channel, youtube.com/atlayroundff. Otherwise, everyone, thanks for tuning in. If you're alignment in charge of keeping the lights on, Granger understands that you go to great lengths and sometimes heights to ensure the power is always flowing, which is why you can count on Granger for professional grade products and next day delivery. And you have everything you need to get the job done. Call 1-800-GRanger, click Granger.com or just stop by. Ranger for the ones who get it done. This summer, Prime Video is the place for steamy romances, addictive love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. The love hypothesis, L, the devil's mouth, sterling point, the last sunrise, and off campus. The slow burns, the second chances, chemistry you can actually feel through the screen. It's all here. 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