Players You Can’t Leave Your Draft Without! + Our Favorite Drafted Teams (09/03 Fantasy Football Podcast)

(upbeat music) All right, we're almost to the final weekend for drafts. And we're gonna get you ready with all the last minute tips that you need. Welcome to Fantasy Football. Today I'm Jamie Eisenberg, that's Dave Richard, that's Keith Cummings, gonna talk about players that you do not wanna leave your drafts without. But before we get to that, we're gonna talk about some draft strategies. We're gonna show one of our favorite teams each that we did. We're gonna talk about our favorite spots to pick in the first round, and we're gonna start right there. So, we know a lot of people get a chance to pick their favorite spots. You get a chance to pick your draft spot. You might get stuck with your favorite draft spot. You might get stuck with a draft spot. They, hey, what is your favorite draft spot to take if you're just looking at it as, okay, I get an opportunity to pick my spot in the first round, what's been your favorite selection that you have? And maybe just for people that are just listening that are picking in that spot. Well, I wanna get Jamir Gibbs on my fantasy team, so that probably means I gotta pick first. So, I'm gonna go with the first spot, and I know that means that I've gotta wait till my turn at the two-three, and then the four-five. I don't mind it one day. I think there's gonna be enough players there that are gonna be really good at the two-three turn, at the four-five turn, and I've got the best player in fantasy in Gibbs. Am I supposed to say something different? 'Cause I don't have anything different. 'Cause Jamir Gibbs does make, and it's funny, because I think three or four years ago, we always talked about how that's such an advantage to have the first pick. In the last three years, it hasn't been at all. The first pick is like sixth, and win percentage over the last three years. It feels like first again. Oh, I'll say the other thing is I really like twelfth. - That's the other one. - Yes, I like drafting on the ends, and one of my favorite things about it is, it frees you up from thinking about average draft position. You get to pick two picks in a row. You don't have to worry about, if these guys are gonna make it back to your next pick, you just take the guys you want. - All right, I was gonna say picking at the end, 'cause I, you know, and I'll talk about draft strategies while we can tie those two things in for me at least, because I love the opportunity right now. This is not something I think I've said in a very long time, but taking running back, running back. And you can do that at the back end of the first run. (laughing) You can do that at the back end of round one. We know that those top 11, you still wanna put Ash and Jenny in there's 12, but we know that those top 11 running backs all have the opportunity to be special, to be dominant, to be workhorses, to do everything that we look for. There's some questions. I mean, you know, we can debate Christian McCaffrey and Devon H.Anne, and, you know, Seikwon Barkley, Derek Henry, some of those guys, you know, there's pros and cons for all of them. But I think when you get two of them, you said this on a recent podcast. You get so excited when you see those wide receivers in round three and round four, we talked about a little bit more today on Fantasy Football today on our YouTube show and podcasts as well. We're like, you get potentially Devon Tase Smith and Zay Flowers and DJ Moore and Jaden Waddle and all those guys that we love, which we'll talk about a few of them coming up later in the show. It's just so easy to pick at the back end, but I guess so we're at both ends here. Let's just help people that are picking in the middle. And this may be your strategy, but like what's your strategy if you're picking in the middle of the first round? How are you approaching it? Why do you receive a running back? Like what's the way fantasy manager should tackle that spot? - You need to draft for value and you wanna draft the players that you absolutely love. So for me, if I'm picking, let's say it's fifth or sixth, I'm probably looking at one of the top four wide receivers there. If it's seventh or eighth, it's probably gonna be a running back like Jonathan Taylor, maybe Christian McCaffrey, maybe Chase Brown, somewhere in there. If I take a wide receiver first, I'm probably gonna lean toward taking a running back second. And if I take a running back first, I'm probably gonna lean toward taking a wide receiver second, but I'm not gonna pass up value in round two. If I'm there in round two and a running back that I really like is there, Chase Brown is there in round two, for example, or a wide receiver like Justin Jefferson, just for whatever reason slips in the middle around two, I'm gonna take him even if I take a wide receiver or a running back in round one. - So he just mentioned something that, I think we all would love to do if you take a wide receiver in the middle of round one, get a running back in round two, but we may not see those guys there. So you've talked about this and I totally agree, not opposed to going wide receiver or wide receiver. - No, I think both of our pick by picks and my FSGA draft, I had the sixth or the seventh pick. And I think all three of them, I started with a Munro St. Brown or JSN, and then it was Rashi Reiser George Pickens, and then it was a Flowers in Round Three. I think that's the one point in the draft. If you don't take Taylor or McCaffrey, where you go wide receiver, wide receiver, wide receiver, there's still going to be a starting running back, most likely there for your round four and round five pick. If that's the way you wanna go at it, or you can just draft an elite quarterback and draft an elite tight end. And I think the middle of the draft is the best place to play the semi-zero RB game. - And I did something similar just to go back to picking at the back end. You could also go wide receiver, wide receiver at the back end. If you wanna go CD Lamb, Joseph Jefferson, Jefferson and London, Lamb and London, Landon, Lamb and AJ Brown. And then I did the same thing. I took Lad McConkey in round three. Thankfully Travis H.M. was there at the early part of round four. And so it kinda makes you feel a little bit better about that. My next two picks worked out as well too. This is our St. Jude draft that we did the other night. Got David Montgomery as my second running back and Ramandri Stevenson as my third. So running back core of H&T, Travis H&T, Montgomery and Stevenson and then those three wide receivers. So there's lots of different ways you could build your roster. I think one thing in particular that we'll say just as an overall strategy, when's the earliest you're gonna take quarterback? 'Cause we see Josh Allen come off the board in round two based on ADP. That's not something any of us would do in a one quarterback league. When's the first spot in your draft teeth that you start to look at quarterback? - So if I'm drafting with normal people, it'd probably be late round three. When I'm drafting with you guys, it's never before round four. And a lot of times I don't take one there because there's going to be Jaden Daniels in round eight or something ridiculous like that. But I would say the three, four turn is the spot. - The whole point of waiting on a quarterback is to number one, get a steal. And number two, take advantage of all the other players at other positions that are there that can help your team before you find the quarterback who might not be as good as Josh Allen. Josh Allen is averaged around 25 fantasy points per game and six point. But you'll can find a quarterback that can get you to 22, 23 and maybe even closer to 25 if the season breaks right for them. And there's a lot of those guys this year. I look at quarterbacks, those first 10 in our rankings. All guys that I really love to have on my team. And if I can get one of them, say quarterback seven through 10, it's that Herbert, Dach, Trevor Lawrence, Caleb Williams tier. If I can get one of them in round nine, I feel like that's just such a ripoff from the rest of the league. And especially the people that are taking Josh Allen in round two and Lamar Jackson in round three or round four. That type of range, it's too soon for those guys. Wait a little bit and get a steal. All right, one more question in regards to strategy. What's your strategy for tight ends? It's almost the exact same thing. Except I do want to prioritize tight end a little bit more. And I'm okay getting a fair value when it comes to the elite, guys. And it's also format dependent for me on who you take at the top. Drop hours is a huge favorite. I still like Tremac, but I better and full PPR. I really like the idea of Colson Loveland being the top target in Chicago. And I'm willing to take him in late round three as long as catches count for something. After that, I'm looking into round five. Tyler Warren is still my guy. Sam Laporta, Tucker Kraft, they're in that range. And then after that, there's another group of tight ends, kind of like that group of quarterbacks I mentioned, that you can get in round eight plus. And feel good enough to start those guys. They're just not going to be the same as Brock Bowers and Tremac Bride. If I can get one of those first three tight ends, I'm going to try and do it in every draft. I just draft Sam Laporta in round six. You love Laporta. You have two guys that you target and you target early, right? Or earlier than they go. You target Laporta and you target pits. And I think that's important because you're going to let somebody else understandably so take those first three or four guys. And you're going to sort of have to look. Once you see Laporta come off the board, if you don't get him, how soon do you draft pits? The next pick, yeah, I have those guys back to back. My projections and my rankings. I like Laporta just a little bit more. But if one of them has been taken, I'll take the other one. Or if I'm at a spot where I think they might both be taken before I pick again, I'll just go ahead and take with Sam Laporta. And I say that in a two wide receiver league, there are times where Bowers or Loveland falls to a spot wall draft him. I've done 25, 30 drafts so far this year. I've not draft a treatment for right once. Right. Because you'd have him behind Loveland as your third tight end. So it makes sense you'd rather take Loveland first. I find myself drafting a lot of Isaiah likely just because I wait long enough that he's kind of the fallback option. If you miss on him, there's still Kelsey Goddard. Andrews can cade a lot of good potential still top ten guys. But not as high end as some of the other tight ends that we mentioned. All right. Just in terms of strategy, it doesn't matter where you pick. Is there something specific that you like to do? RB, you know, here are RB, is there, is there something? It doesn't have to, look, we're going to always say be flexible. Yes. But if you go into it, I'm picking fifth. I'm going to try and do this. Or I'm going to hope to pull off this. Like, what's your approach when you know what your draft spot is? See, I was going to go in a different direction and say the thing that I like to do in every draft is just load up on running backs from the midpoint in the draft on. I really want to spend all of my bench spots, except for maybe one or two, on running backs that have a pathway to impacting their teams in the NFL, my team and fantasy within the first three weeks of the season. But do you do that if you take two running backs early? I do that no matter what. Whether I take two running backs earlier, or I go zero RB, and my first running back is round five. Yeah, I like hero RB the most. I will, I've done all three. I've done no running backs till round five, and I've done two, three running backs in the first three rounds. But the teams that I like the most usually have a running back in round one, wide receivers and tight ends for the next three rounds. And then a fifth or a fifth or sixth round running back are both. All right, let's take a look at some teams that both, the three of us have built for different leagues. I don't think we're in any of these leagues together, right? Of the drafts that we're going to show. One of them was a pick by pick that we did. A pick by pick. OK, so this is something you can read on the site and see it. Yeah, but this is a team that I would love to recommend other people try and emulate. OK, so what spot were you picking in the first round we did this time? Ninth. Ninth. Jonathan Taylor fell to me and it's full PPR and I couldn't wait to plug him in as my first pick. I have Taylor as my main running back after that. Justin Jefferson fell to me in round two. And that's just an example of taking the value when it falls to you. Not that I had the intention of starting my draft with Jonathan Taylor, but the fact that he fell the ninth overall. That's unpassible for me for somebody who in wins was averaging 30 PPR points per game last year. Average over 20 PPR points per game for the season and then Justin Jefferson we expect a bounce back from. I'm going to give you the starting lineup. Joe Borough at quarterback got him at a great value. Jonathan Taylor, Javante Williams at running back. Javante running back. It's all right. Wide receivers. Justin Jefferson. Garrett Wilson in full PPR is going to get a ton of catches. By third wide receiver, I don't think it even matters because we have a flex but it could either be Michael Wilson or Matthew Golden gave him a gummery as my flex. Tyler Warren at tight end. I got a good value on him and you can see my bench. I've got one receiver whether it's Wilson or Golden. One of those guys won't start a lot of running backs and then Bownick's a steal late in the draft just in case he ends up playing as well as he did last year. And you like to take a back up quarterback and then you take Patrick Mahomes a lot so you're one of those drafters that would get. I would share a golf. Like now I'm starting to find myself taking Jared golf when he slips late. If you get good value on a quarterback you're going to take it right heath. What spot and what league was this that you did your team? This was my FFT Open team and so this was a 12 team league where you only start two wide receivers kind of thin roster. So I took a few more shots and this is in the order they were drafted. If you were to ask me like heath draw up your perfect hero RB team. This would pretty much be Jameer Gibbs in Round 1, Pickens and Bowers, Ibuka and Birdon. I don't know how in the world they were both there at the four or five turn but I loved it. Jaden Daniels at the end of Round 6, I still think he has as much upside at the position as anybody. That's the line's terrible. It might just be more rushing yards for him and then the RB2 candidates for now, Tony Pollard, Kyle Menongai, Zach Sharabene and Isaiah Pacheco are going to create two more spots for me to add back up running backs onto this team because they'll be in IR slots. Braille and Allen, I'm kind of surprised with the big preseason run that he had and the Breeze Hall injury that he's just there in the last round of almost every draft I do. It's because he's on the jets but it's a great pick. And then I like Quentin Joston a lot as a wide receiver for, but mostly I agree with Dave as many running backs you can get in the double-digit rounds the better. So if we could just put that back up and say I just have some questions about this build because I think it matters a little bit when you're doing this. And I know you did this probably at a time when maybe Menongai's situation wasn't as bad but you knew Sharabene was going to be out and Pacheco in his situation. Do you feel like you have enough running backs here? Well, I think I'm going to add two more as soon as the way he was open. But two more guys that aren't going to give you a lot of touches. So if Pollard gets hurt or God forbid Gibbs gets hurt, you're in trouble. Oh, yes. Well, hopefully if Gibbs gets hurt it's after Pacheco comes off of the IR. But maybe I had Jacob sailors, I guess. But no, I think like did you go too far with it? Well, I could have not taken Quentin Joston or I could have not taken Jaden Daniels. I was really in this type of tournament and I'm getting ready to do a couple of big gorilla drafts and it's kind of the same thing as like you want to win your league. But then you have to play against all these teams that just won their league. Yeah. I'm not worried so much about what if this goes wrong. I'm trying to target the highest upside if everything goes right. Makes sense. All right. The team that I'm going to show you was from the seventh overall pick. This was an analyst league I did with Michael Fabiano of Sports Illustrated. It's super flex and tight end premium. So got a little bit better value on some players than you would expect because the quarterbacks got pushed up. But as you see here, just to give you the starting lineup, it's going to be Dak Prescott at quarterback. Jared Goff will be the super flex. The running backs will be James Cook and David Montgomery to start but also at Algerian price. We could be a flex. We do play a flex and three receivers. The receivers I love getting Puccana Cua to start, Devonte Smith, Lad Maconkey, love that trio of wide receivers. And then if I want to, I could play Dallas, got it as a flex, but Travis Kelsey will be the tight end to start. I have a Mananga issue as you do also and this draft was done prior to the Josh Jacob news was why I got Mars on Lloyd in the 13th round, but he is probably my most rostered player. Him or Deandre Swift at this point, Swift more lately Lloyd more of the early drafts. But this was kind of a balanced roster that I like a lot and I'm excited to see how this is going to play out, especially getting the quarterbacks. What I'd like to get a third quarterback and super flex, but I think this will hopefully work out well and be competitive in this league. So there's three of our teams that we built showing you different strategies. Talked about some draft strategy. We have a lot of strategy information, articles you can read on the site. So getting you ready for your upcoming drafts for Labor Day weekend. Are we going to take a break right now? We come back ready. Get into the players. You do not want to leave your draft without Heath Scott five guys going to tell you. You could probably guess a couple of them if you've been watching us religiously throughout the off season. We're going to talk about those guys next year on FFT. Welcome back to fantasy football today. We're talking about players. You do not want to leave your draft with and we're looking at five guys that Heath Cummings has been drafting. Leave your draft without. Excuse me. I do want to leave my draft with. I'm going to be a completely different segment. Let's go back to fantasy football today. Here are five players you do not want to leave your draft without. We're talking about Heath Cummings five guys that he has been drafting a lot and he's very excited about. Let's show that list of the players. He does not want to leave his draft without George Pickens, Zay Flowers, Luther Bird and three wide receivers that we all love. Sam LaPorta and Brock Purdy have been very high on both of these guys. Let's start with Pickens. You're looking at him in the round two range. Yes. I do. I never draft him earlier than round two. I often find him in round three and throw like I did in the F-50 open and get really excited and have a party. But I do think that both he and CDLAM are going to finish as top ten wide receivers. We saw them both last year after LAM came back from injury. They were both in the top 12 range. They both had some pretty rotten touchdown luck. This is an offense with Jack Prescott and Brian Schott and Hymer the last three years. They've averaged 618 pass attempts per season. There's enough to go around, it will be super concentrated. If Pickens has one of his big touchdown seasons, he might be a top five wide receiver. You know what I was thinking about one of our recent conversations on our podcast about the Cowboys guys and you brought up a few times about how we haven't seen consistently two guys in the top 10, finishing the top 10 draft. Well. Top 12. They love George Pickens. They, Jack Prescott, loves George Pickens. CDLAM cannot say enough good things about George Pickens and it feels like all the stuff that we heard in Pittsburgh, everything that sort of followed him, any baggage, that it's gone. It may resurface at some point. Not that he's going to do anything off to feel, but just some of the antics on the field. But they are very excited to try and get him a contract extension and I think that lends itself to, hey, I'm okay in terms of CDLAM, sacrificing a little bit so that we make sure he's here and he stays. That made me a little bit more encouraged about Pickens. What's the earliest that you've drafted him? I've got him 15th overall. I don't think I've ever had to take him quite that early because London or H.A. and Vols and I'm so probably 16 or 17. Where do you have CDLAM overall? 11. Okay. Wow. So you've got two cowboys, wide receivers. Yes. In your first 15 overall. I do. Yeah. In full PPR. Yeah. Sure. And that makes sense to do that. And in non-PPR, of course those guys would assume you'd have them lower. But just to bring up your point, since 2014, one duo of wide receivers on the same team finished top 12 in PPR points per game in consecutive seasons. It was the Minnesota guys, Diggs, Thielin, and it was a long time ago. The Bengals wide receivers, Chase and T Higgins, they were both top 13 last year and the year before. So it's rare when it happens, but if there's ever a situation for it to happen, it's this one and that. I'm pretty sure if you either set it, the Bengals guys have done it, probably so. I try to. And still top 13. I think if you get top 13 production, you'll be okay with those guys. All right. Have you changed your middle name to Zay yet? Or is it? You know, one of the saddest things that has happened to me this season is that every time I draft an elite that you're a commissioner of, I have picked 10, 11 or 12 and Zay flowers have sometimes gone by the end of round three. And so I don't have as much Zay flowers as I like it on purpose. I only have three Zay flowers, teams, I'm going to do everything I can to change that in this final week. And so I'm adding some more leagues so I can draft more Zay flowers. Now, my position is that he is already an elite alpha number one wide receiver. Zayl didn't totally notice that because the Ravens threw so few passes last year, 420, which is laughably low, even for a Lamar Jackson offense. And flowers hasn't had the big spike touchdown season yet. We've got a new offensive coordinator. We've got reasons to believe they won't be as successful running the ball as they have been in the past. Their center's gone. Their full backs gone. I think there's a chance for a touchdown spike season. And if Lamar throws 500 passes, we could be looking at 30 more targets for Zay flowers. He was top five last year in route participation, yards per target, and targets per route run. What's the touchdown number you need to justify your love for him? Well, last year he was wide receiver seven with five touchdowns in a down here for wide receiver. Down here for wide receivers. So it doesn't need to be that high number. Six or seven. And I think I got him a wide receiver 12, which is about where he was per game last year. So I think the number of touchdowns will not matter as much if the past volume goes up like it should. If the past volume stays low, then he probably needs a score 8 to 10. Next guy that we have here is someone that you said, which I think a lot of us agree with. You were happy that the injury happened when it did because it saved you from drafting him too soon. Right. Now we've seen Luther Burton fall dramatically. Again, injuries play a part in that. He was going in the three, four-ish range. Now his ADP was early round six. We're seeing him creep back into round five. You're willing to take the chance on him going round four. I'm happy to take a chance on him in round four and I'm talking early round four if I have a pick in that part of the dress. This is a guy who amongst wide receivers who saw at least 50 targets last year was third in yards per route run. The only two guys that were better than him, Pukinakua, Jackson Smith and Jigba. This team lost DJ Moore in a lot of days of QS. They combined for 150 targets. He won't get all of those. He might get 100 of those. Ben Johnson said, "Buy-- he's buying stock in Luther Burton. I am also buying some. Scott and Luther Burton. Dave, we did our tears show, or did a tears show today on our podcast and I was watching the comments when Luther Burton's tear was up, I think it was tear four. Why is, why the hype for Luther Burton? We see it, explain a little bit more in depth 'cause he did a good job. Just sort of hammer home the point about what he could do. I think casual fantasy drafters see that Luther Burton average over only eight and a half PPR points per game last year. They look at the Chicago Bears offense and they know that Roman Dunesay is still there. Colson Lovelins there and that injury tag is still next to Luther Burton's aim. And that doesn't have to be there 'cause he's practicing. Should be good to go for week one, but they've got questions. I think his role in this offense is going to be outstanding. So when you can win at all three levels and you've heard me talk about this with a bunch of receivers in soft season, but he can win at all three levels. He can line up across the formation. They can find matchups for him and he can come through and get a much higher target share than the four per game that he had in 16 games last year. I think we could see a really big breakout season from Luther Burton. Don't hate the idea of him as a top 50. - You have a lot more connections than I do here in the building. So if you could just get and leave that injury tag one more week, one more week, that'd be great. - It's a lot of fun to draft Luther Burton. Sam LaPorta is again somebody you've been drafting a lot of, is it because of him? Is it because of the offense or is it because of the offense coordinator or just all three? - Yes, it's all of those things. It's one of the best offenses in football that I think might even be more pass heavy because that defense has suffered some serious losses. Almost their entire secondary from last year is either gone or on the pup to start the year. Drew Petsing has orchestrated the Trey McBride breakout. He smashes the easy button tight end targets because he comes from the Kevin's to Fansky tree and that's what Fansky does. I think Sam LaPorta is going to see more of those short area targets and Sam LaPorta is an awesome football player when he's healthy, he's healthy. - Brock Pertie is somebody you've come around on. You've obviously been very high on and the reason you've come around on is because he's been very high on them. You've plotted the set of that quite a lot. - He's made a very compelling-- - No, I'm saying, he didn't look at the front line. - Dave hasn't come around on him far enough though. - No, he doesn't have as much as you have. - No, I think people will look at Brock Pertie a lot like Jared Goff. It's like he's probably going to beat ADP but there's not any upside. And I just think people should know that he was number one in fantasy points per game through week 17 last year at the quarterback position. He's top four over the last three seasons. They've got Mike Evans. George Kiddell is getting on a plane and going to Australia. - He might be there. - He might be there already. Christian McCaffrey's on the team. Dijon Stribling's the best rookie wide receiver we've ever seen. And I'm not sure that defense is that good. So I do think I like Jackson and like Goff. We could see more pass attempts for Pertie this year. He's a, as soon as Dax gone, I'm looking to draft Pertie. - It's a repeat of last year with better receivers in San Francisco. Brock Pertie averaged 25 fantasy points per game in his last seven games last year. And you can get him well past the midpoint of your draft. - If you like to wait on quarterbacks and get just past that middle group of guys. So it's Jane Daniels, Jalen Hertz, that type of guys. And you don't necessarily think that Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert, Caleb Williams, those guys have more upside than Pertie or Goff or any of these other quarterbacks. Perfigot away for him. Brock Pertie should have another great season. It gives you a little bit of rushing production as well, which is something that we always like to gravitate toward. All right, so the five guys that Heath is not leaving his draft without George Pickens, they flowers, Luther Bern, Sam Laporta, and Brock Pertie. We're gonna take a break when we come back. It's Dave's turn. The players that he is planning to draft and draft quite a bit. That's next on FFT. It's Dave's turn to talk about the players. He is not leaving his draft without. And those five guys for Dave would be Jalen Waddle, Parker Washington, Blake Corum, Kasey Concepcion, and Jonah Coleman. Dave, Jalen Waddle, now the new, we hope number one wide receiver for the Broncos. Round four is basically the range where he's going to go. It was great for like up until like a week ago. He was going around five. I mean, it was just-- - Yeah, I like that better than round four. - Yeah, but I think you were looking at him at one point in round three. - Yeah, late round three and full PPR, if I really want a wide receiver that I think had finished top 12 and most people do want that, then Jalen Waddle is the guy for it. Denver didn't acquire him from to be second fiddle to Courtland Sutton or Pat Brian in that offense. And it's his versatility that stands out and his ability to win at all three levels. And it's been a long time since we've seen that from Jalen Waddle because of factors that affected him and Miami, playing behind Tyree Kill, playing with two at Tunga Valoa. Well, Tyree Kill isn't even playing anywhere in the NFL this year. And Bonyx is a better throw than two at Tunga Valoa. We saw that you have to go back four seasons. 13 games when two was a better thrower and then it was in a progressive offense like Denver has now 16.8 PPR points per game. And people are gonna say, "Well, we haven't seen that "so we don't know if he can do it." I think he can. He's healthy. He's gonna get the volume to do it. I'm expecting a big time bounce back year after many seasons where he was never good whenever Tyree Kill and Devon H. were on the field in Miami. - And you're Waddle over flowers. You obviously flowers over Waddle, why the difference are both you? - Because I'm a little bit worried about the touchdowns for Zay Flowers. Also the target volume, Zay Flowers, two years. He's been just below seven targets per game. I think Waddle can score more touchdowns. I believe he could be just as efficient as Zay Flowers has been. I think he'll see a few more targets than Zay Flowers will. - Yeah, I don't think I have enough confidence in Sean Payton to just throw the ball to. I know we had the Michael Thomas years and those were great. But with this offense to just throw the ball to Zay Lynne Waddle enough. I think the target share is going to be strongly in flowers favor and I'm expecting the Ravens to throw a lot more than they did last year. We kind of already talked about that in the last segment and Vonix led the NFL in pass attempts last year. I'm not sure that that, I think that probably comes down a little bit. So I think you're probably seeing a much smaller share of the targets going to Zay Lynne Waddle than flowers who had a 29% target. - That was kind of my concern initially when Waddle went there was 614 pass attempts. Top three in the NFL. - It's not going to be that high. - No, I don't think so. And I know you like Jonah Coleman because you think they'll run the ball a little bit more too. We'll get to that in a second. But just looking at it as the distribution of targets. Like this was one of those teams we talked, you made the joke the other day about the Packers when Jordan Love had this, you know, 2023 season. It was 130 some odd targets for Portland Sun. The next guy was 100. I think last year was Pat Bryant. No, not Troy Franklin last year. The year before that was Evan Ingram. I'm sorry, the year before that was the running backs. It's just like are they going to continue to do this? I think you're right. I don't think they bring in Jalen Waddle to say, "Okay, you're just going to be part of the pack. "You're going to lead the pack." - Right. - But that's why he's not going to get like eight and a half hours. - Right, but it's not going to be anything else. I'd be surprised if it got to that high. - And so like you're seeing on the screen here, his projection which I think is way too low. Like 114 targets might leave the number but I think he does a lot more with it that he's better than why you're searing 24. So I think round four is the perfect spot for him. I think it was when you were taking him round three. I was like, "Oh, I don't know if I want to do that, but I can understand why you were so aggressive with it." You are going to be aggressive with Parker Washington based on what his ADP is. Round seven, it's crept into round six a little bit, depending on what site you look at. You're taking him round five. - Yeah, I am a big fan of Parker Washington. You guys are tired of hearing me talk about Parker Washington, but I am not tired about talking about him from week seven on 14.4 ppr points per game. That's on seven targets per game. That was as good as CD Lam was as a whole in 2025. I think he takes a step forward. I watched him practice against Tampa Bay. He was dominating that secondary. Trevor Lawrence and here are on the same page. I think Brian Thomas Jr. will be a good downfield threat for Jacksonville. Jacobi Myers will play a role. I don't think Travis Hunter is going to play much of a role in offense. Parker Washington is super versatile. And again, just like I talked about Luther Burden. He can line him up anywhere. He can run inside or outside. He can win down the field. We've seen him do that. I think he's absolutely as smashes a top 60 pick in fantasy drafts. These are the types of guys every year that I bet against and more often than not. These are the types of guys that don't live up to what they did at the end of the year last year. The drum beat's been so strong for Parker Washington that I've just kind of moved his ranking along with ADP and I'll move his target share up a little bit every once in a while. But I do think like a lot of times we talk about what percentage of a guy's fantasy points came from one or two or three games. The 14.4 points per game from week seven on is heavily backloaded. A large percentage of the final four games in a large percentage of his career receiving your image happened in those final four games. It's like his games were not good when Jacksonville blew out an opponent. It's when Jacksonville was in a high scoring. Well, it was it was playing from behind when he would do well and that's pretty consistent with him. And this is an elite wide receiver. I love Parker Washington too. I think the concern would be is almost all of his numbers came after Travis Hunter left the field. A hundred percent. You know or got her excuse me. And so Jacobi Myers, a full off season, a full year now, hopefully a better Brian Thomas because he was awful last year for people that are buying Brian Thomas. And then it's that wild card of what Travis Hunter does. The nice thing is it doesn't sound like Parker Washington's coming off the field. So I think it doesn't sound like Travis Hunter is going to play a lot on offense either. He's going to play some. And so again it's. He tends to. I when he's on the field, do you think he's on there just a block? I mean, he was on there. They can't put him on there and throw on the ball every time. Oh, no, he's going to totally, but he's not he's not out there just to be a, you know, a traffic. Parker. Right. He's out there to make plays. So it's just a matter of do they throw enough? Is there enough targets? The start of the schedule is absolutely brutal after the Bible. He gets great. But I do think Parker Washington is worth taking. I would take him in round six, but round five is probably where you're going to have to get him. If you want to be aggressive with it. If somebody you would be taking, you said on the show, round eight, podcast this morning, round nine is essentially kind of where he's going. Round 10 is basically. What do you like about Blake Korn? - I like that the opportunity could be there for him to see more snap share than he did last year. And this is a Rams team. You look at that defense. It looks like one of the best defenses that we're ever gonna see in this era of the National Football League. Aaron Donald coming back, Miles Garrett at Pass Rush. They improved their secondary. They're gonna get a lot of turnovers. And that's gonna lend itself to L.A. Having a bunch of big leads, running the ball, not putting too much on Matthew Stafford. Stafford's an older quarterback at this point in his career. They don't wanna have him go out and throw the ball 35 times a game. Kyron Williams should be the one A to begin the season. But Blake Korn is gonna be that one B. And last year, when he was playing 30% of the snaps, 11 of his final 14 games, he averaged just 8.8 PPR points per game. But if he's gonna get more playing time and more touches, that number's gonna go up. Every report out of L.A. talks about how he's added explosiveness and quickness to his game. These are things he didn't have before. He's gonna play without thinking as much. I think there's a pathway where he could actually overtake Kyron Williams. I see Kyron Williams with a round 3 ADP. I don't want anything to do with that. Kyron in round four, okay. Could Kyron score more touchdowns? Yeah, probably. But I think there's gonna be some weeks where Blake Korn goes off. I wanna take him with one of those picks where the risk isn't that bad. And the reward is huge. And that's why I wanna have Blake Korn on my team. Now, as a starter, I might even draft some starters after Blake Korn. But if I can get him in late round eight or round nine, happy to carry him on my team all year long. You know how close we're getting to the start of the season that we've reached these. Somebody's going to take Kyron Williams' job part of the all season. And I am very excited about that. I like Korn in round eight. I don't think he's taking Kyron Williams' job. I don't think he's taking his job, but I do think that Kyron Williams has a problem. You know, it's not a small problem at this point. You know, we did hear this last year and it did come to fruition at the end of the season. Luckily, Kyron was the product. And I think to your point, though, their defense is gonna be so dominant. Their run game could be special. It takes a little bit off staffer. I know we kind of all agree about that. I think both guys could be great. And that's the fun part of it is that you get some great production from an early round player like Kyron and then you still get some quality production from Korn as well. Casey Concepcion's one of your favorite rookies. He said something on the show today that was, you know, I opened it. You would take him over Carnotated at this point. - I would. I think he's gonna get more targets. I think he'll do more with them. I think this is Cleveland's number one wide receiver over the bounce of the year. I could see him getting seven targets per game. And speaking of game script, this is one where Cleveland's gonna be trailing in a lot of games this year. They're gonna have to put the ball in the air. And I think that Casey Concepcion is the most QB proof wide receiver the Browns have. They can scheme them up on screen. Slants, short throws. And he can win there. He can also win a little bit further down field. But because those short throws are gonna be available to him, I don't know if the efficiency is gonna be a home run. But I think the target volume will be an in full PPR. I think he's worth that round eight, nine range pick. - You're giving the Browns QBs too much credit that there's somebody that's QB proof to them. There's nobody that's. - They can complete short quick throws. - And that's what I'm counting on with Concepcion. - To which team? - To which team. - To Concepcion. - Yeah, I think Shedor can complete short quick throws. - He did less. - I don't trust to Sean Watson to do anything at all. But hopefully that doesn't last long. - I mean, given his range, I know you take him earlier than he's going, given his range and what he should be able to accomplish. I mean, Casey Concepcion's, and he's got to take late or in drafts. It's just a matter of like, at what point are we gonna get to so frustrated with the Browns? And then if Shedor comes in, then Fanon becomes more relevant. We'll see what happens with Denzel Boston. So it could be a little bit of a, you know, mixing match type of thing with the Browns receivers, but I know you love Concepcion, understand what we're saying. And you love Jonah Coleman as well. Are we gonna see him as the best Broncos running back by the end of the season? - By the end of the season, I think you will because I don't know if J.K. Dobbins can handle more than. - Yeah, I don't know. Last year, he played a lot of games, and he was really good. He was on pace for 1,000 rushing yards, and then he got hurt. And I hate betting against J.K. Dobbins because he's so much fun to root for. But Jonah Coleman looked outstanding to me in the preseason. I think he's a great fit for what Denver wants to do. He dominated and short yarded situations at Washington. He was in a pro-style offense in Washington. And I think once he actually, like, took a deep breath in preseason games and ran with a little bit more patience, he gave the Broncos exactly what they wanted in that offense. And I think he can do a little bit more than that. He's not necessarily a bad pass protector. I think he can make improvements there during the year, and maybe even catch a few balls on top of it. He'll never be a three down back. RJ Harvey's gonna handle most of the third down's work for Denver. But in the event that J.K. Dobbins misses time, and maybe even in certain situations when Dobbins is healthy, we will see Jonah Coleman nice guy to put on your bench. - So one of those players you can have to be patient with and hopefully you don't get too impatient and drop him too soon, but could pay big dividends as the season goes on. And again, J.K. Dobbins has missed at least four games in almost every year of his career, except for his rookie season. All right, we're gonna take a break. We come back. It's my turn to give you the players that I'm not going to leave the draft without. That's next year on Fantasy Football Today. (upbeat music) - Welcome back to Fantasy Football Today. We're talking about the five players that I do not want to leave my draft without. And we're talking about some guys that we've mentioned quite a bit. We said that during the break that we've rehashed these guys over and over again, but that's the point. We love these players and we want you to make sure, we want to make sure that you guys draft them if you can. So for me, it's Davante Smith, Deandre Swift, Chris Godwin, Jayden Reed and Jaylen Coker and Davante Smith, stop me for this before, there's no AJ Brown. So Davante Smith has a great opportunity here. Three game sample size, it's a very small sample size, but we love when we get target opportunities. And in those three games, he had nine or more targets and all of them, he averaged 16 PPR points per game. And I think what we're gonna see is a Jaylen Hertz, that's reinvigorated because of the new offense and all the criticism that he received this off season. And sort of a wide open canvas for the receivers, but Smith is the most proven guy, Mackay Lemon, Dante and Wix, those are probably the next two options. We'll see how Smith handles this role. I think he's going to be special. I would be drafting him in round three. Does anybody disagree with it? - No, I love the idea of Davante Smith in round three. I'll give you a bigger sample size. In the 20 games he's played without a primary pass catching teammate. This is either AJ Brown or Dallas Goddard. He's averaged 17 PPR points per game. He scored 14.9 PPR points, 13 up 20 times. That's a 65% hit rate. He begins the season against the commanders. The Titans, the Bears. Three secondaries that are very beautiful. It's the great type of early season slate that Philadelphia can lean into with their new offense. And by the time they get to the Rams in week four, they should be hitting on all cylinders. - No, I think, I've got about 27th overall. It's, I would rather have Jay Flowers, but both of those guys I love in round three. - Yeah, same. I like Smith better than Flowers, but understandably so, in terms of biking both. The Andre Swift, I get more and more excited about him with every report that we get about Kyle Mananga, missing weeks, you know, who knows how long this is gonna be. And absence for him, you brought up on the show this morning on our podcast that there will be somebody else. Yes, it could be Roche on Johnson. It could be somebody else that they decide to use in tandem with Swift. But by all accounts, he's had a fantastic camp. They're excited about the outlook for him this season. And we sort of have gone through the last couple of years of, oh, Deandre Swift, oh, he's never been this. Oh, he's never done that. He always finishes as a top 24 running back. And in some cases, better than that. And I think just given the offense that he's in, knowing that he could have the future role, we always say this. We just got through saying this about Blake Horne. Well, if Kyron Williams missed this time, Blake Horne's gonna be a star. There's never really been really talk about the flip side of that. - Right. - If the backup missed this time, the starter can be an absolute monster. And I think that might be the case for Swift. So I'm looking at him late round three at this point. I think there's top 15 upside for him. Might be top 12 upside, if Mananga is there. I know you said you're a little bit concerned about Swift just from taking him too soon. But when's the right spot for him for you? - I, for me, it's round four. But it's gotta be toward the back of round four. And I've never been the biggest fan of Deandre Swift, but even I can't look at him and say, oh, you gotta stay away from him because it's Deandre Swift. No, last year who was really good the first five games, average 17 touches per game, 15.1 PPR points for him, even 12.1 non PPR points per game. So he's really earned it. And if he's got a pathway to being the guy that gets the majority of touches in this offense, without Kyle Mananga on the field, 'cause I think that'll be the case, watch out. He can get off to a great start. - Hey, if you mention this in regards to Parker Washington, I wanna feel the same way about Chris Godwin, because there's been this sort of steady drum beat of everybody's moving him up a little bit. ADP is starting to recognize that Ameca Buka with his tone injury might not be ready for a week one, but if he is, he's not gonna necessarily be 100% of Ameca Buka, are you doing the same thing with Godwin? - I am moving Godwin up. I was way behind early, even when everybody else was kind of doubting him. And so I've kind of stayed behind. I think I'm probably still around behind you. I think if he stays healthy all year, then he's probably going to beat his ADP. I question whether he has the upside, if a Buka's healthy for most of the year, to really be a difference maker. And I think if I was ranking the wide receivers amongst the most likely to miss time, Chris Godwin would probably be near the top of that one. - But you did say recently that when the old guys get to week one-- - That's right. - It's a good sign. He made it. - He's gotten to week one with no issues. And a lot of positive reports out of Tampa Bay. All right, I'm gonna lump these two wide receivers together 'cause you're getting them late. In the case of Jayden Reed a little bit sooner than Jaylen Coker, but the situation for both of these guys for me is very positive. For Jayden Reed, you have the Josh Jacobs situation, which I think will allow the Packers to throw the ball more. One time in Jordan Love's career, he's been over 30 pass attempts. It was 2023. They threw over 500 times that season. I think we get back to seeing that this season for them, Christian Watson's benefit, Matthew Golden should benefit, Tucker Crabbs should benefit. Jayden Reed, when he's healthy, has been absolutely awesome. Last year was a very frustrating shoulder injury, foot injury, but he's healthy now. I think we're gonna see him go over 13 PPR points per game or being that range because he'll get five or more targets. Dave, you got a very fun stat on Jayden Reed as well. - And the battle between you and I on Matthew Golden versus Jayden Reed lasted about one day because I found this stat on Jayden Reed. It blew me away. 18 games including the party. season where he's had at least six targets in a game. 17 of the 18 with at least 10 PPR points. Okay, that's a nice safe floor. 13 with at least 13 PPR points. Now we're talking and seven games with 19.2 or more full PPR points and most of those games he did play, he played on a packer scene where they couldn't run the ball effectively. Jacob's would be active but they just couldn't run the ball. He's a change up for them. So if anything happens here, where Marshawn Lloyd doesn't play to green based expectations or they're trailing in games, this is going to open the door for Jayden Reed. It's absolutely worth taking him with a late pick. And then he's you and I tend to fight over Jaylen Coker. You took him in a draft recently. I wanted to reach across through the screen and punch you. Last five games. No, no, he's too far, too far and I got over it. Last five games last season couldn't play off. Same amount of targets for Teddy Roman Macmillan and Jaylen Coker. Coker outscored him by almost five PPR points per game. How much do you like Coker this year? I like him a lot. I wish somebody'd listen to us because Coker and Downs are the two wide receivers that I feel like for the last four months. We've been every time one of us puts together a sleepers article. One of those guys is in it and every time I look at their ADP it's still way too low. So I do think that I really like the fact they're talking about putting both he and Teddy Roman Macmillan in a higher slot usage this year. I think that'll help his targets per route run because the target rate last year wasn't very good. He was just very efficient on the targets that he did got did yet. If he gets up to a 20% target rate this year he could easily be a top 36 wide receiver. We love concentrated targets and both Macmillan and Coker are going to get them. So we just like to see a better quarterback or at least better quarterback play and maybe a little bit more volume for the Panthers. All right we're going to take a break right now we come back and get to a few of your questions. So we'll get to some of your Ask FFT next year on Fantasy Football today. All right quick ending to the show here with some questions that will help you with your draft. Ten team league PPR got Trey Tucker and Croskey Marit Late, Najia Harris, Algier and Chris Brooks are still on the waiver wire. Would you drop Trey Tucker Croskey Marit to pick up any of those guys Dave. Definitely not Croskey Marit and Tucker if you're really loaded at wide receiver you don't necessarily have to carry him into the year you could pick up Algier or Najia. I would do it especially with Jeremiah Love a little bit next question. All right he's huge fan of the show. Down ten pounds is summer listening to you guys every day so glad that we could help somebody lose weight. Hopefully we'll help you. Fancy teams as well three receivers two running backs two flex and a half PPR league. What would your ideal strategy be would you get start would you start five stud receivers. I would be okay. Oh half PPR probably not. I would really like to have a great tied-in in this format and I know a lot of times well it didn't have to use a tie that. Good grief this is crazy. Half PPR running backs I think it's understated how much that format helps them versus full PPR get at least one good RBA it'd be great if you got two of the top 12. Yep here are being a 10 team league would be a good strategy. Next question. Rate this team full PPR 12 teams Trevor Lawrence Hampton you can see the roster Dave what would you rate this team. I like this team as I go through it I see a bunch of players that I would take in round five or round six usually when you see more than two of those guys. That's a good thing. I'm gonna give it a name minus. Love the receiving course ain't around Rice McConkey Christian Watson Chris God when that is awesome. Last one for us today. Good running back up too. Nice shot Irving. You didn't your sample. Well that was the last one I'm sorry. All right that'll do it for us here on fantasy football today. Good luck with your drafts this week and make sure you check out our fantasy football today podcast wherever podcasts are found. We are helping you dominate your fantasy. We've got a mailbag at 10.30 p.m. Eastern. Tonight you can watch live on YouTube and you'll hear that on Saturday and we're gonna get you all your stuff needed for week one starting early next week. It's here. Good luck with your drafts this week and for ETH Cummings Day Richard and our great production staff on Jamie Eisenberg. Thanks for watching fantasy football today.