The Hardest Fantasy Football Players to Rank in 2026 | Fantasy Focus

This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. Fantasy Focus. Fantasy. Fantasy Focus. What's up, friends? Welcome into Fantasy Focus Football alongside Mike Clay, who made it an entire week. Congratulations. It was in doubt. It was in doubt many times. It actually was, yes. Getting back to Connecticut at 3 a.m. on Monday morning and making it here for the pod, and then got sick after that. Still managed to battle through. Starting to feel a little better. I probably sound a little bit off, but made it through, guys. Your fantasy takes have been off, but your voice has sounded fine. Yeah, your voice sounds fine. Particularly Sigma today is what your voice sounds like, actually. Don't even start. No one knows what that means. I don't know what it means. Yeah, don't need to. Very excited about today's show. We're going to talk about the hardest players to rank in fantasy, which is so much fun because a lot of this is just feelings related, right? I'm trying to figure out where I'm at on a lot of these guys. You guys, I'm sure, will have some input based on. Some of the players that I've picked. Trust me, we're going to have some fun with this a little bit later on. Yeah, you said it's fun, but it's not fun when we're trying to rank them, which is why we're going to complain about it today and see what we think. I think one of the reasons why I'm excited to do this today with our hardest players to rank is that there is a process that leads us to every ranking we do. Nothing is done haphazardly. There are some times where the process is very clear, right? Josh Allen's been the highest scoring quarterback in four of the past six seasons. In the other two, he was the second highest scoring quarterback. There's lots of reasons to land on Josh Allen. Then there are other times where you're going through your rankings and you're like, wait, that's my RB16, and I have him ahead of those three players? What exactly was I thinking at the time? And that's, I think, in some ways the crux of how fantasy football is won. Generally speaking, it's not the person who drafts B. John Robinson number one. That's not the difference between you winning and losing your league, right? It's usually the stuff you do after you draft B. John or Jameer Gibbs number one overall allows you to win your fantasy football championship. So pumped about this show. Yeah, got a lot we're going to get into. First and foremost, though, really quickly, FantasyFocusLive.com. Head over there for tickets to our August 20th live show in New York City. Going to be hanging out with the entire crew. Liz Lowe's going to fly in to make this happen as well. FantasyFocusLive.com for a live show in New York City on August 20th. Come hang out with us. And shout out to our buddy Eric Moody. Follow him on social media at EricNMoody in the chat. We're actually going to do some fun stuff in chat today, my friends. Okay. Because if you remember, last year we had the punishment wheel when we do the starts of the week. We need to fill it out this year. And we want your help. Which means we are going to be bringing three punishments to the table for you to vote on in chat today. Throughout the entire show, you're going to have the chance to be able to vote on those. At the end of the show, we'll reveal which one of those punishments actually ends up onto the punishment wheel. The three punishments that we have today for you to vote on are a fantasy haiku, a temporary neck tattoo, or getting your leg waxed. Your leg waxed. Is that like a laxative? I would think so. A leg laxed or a leg waxed. I don't know which one sounds more painful. Yeah. Passing on both. What do we think on the neck tattoo? Personally, my brain went to, and I'm hoping and assuming, and chat, let us know if there are. I'm assuming there are a decent number of WWE fans. Oh, yeah. That are in the chat right now and listening or watching this show. And they call him QB1. They call him Cody Rose. And he has a. He has a massive American Nightmare tattoo. He sure does. Maybe we go Cody Rhodes temporary tattoo. Ooh. We probably would have to order one. That's all right. I'm sure you can get those on Amazon. I'm sure you can get them somewhere. Anyways, Cody Rhodes tattoo is at least being discussed if we vote on temporary neck tattoos. That's right. So hang out and chat. And if you're listening to this as a podcast, this is a great reason to hang out and chat and do it live every single day, 10 a.m. Eastern on the ESPN NFL YouTube page. I am so worried that leg wax is just going to dominate. I know. It's in my hand. It's your H-hand. Where's our jar? You got it. I need a jar. You're right. All right. Let's really quickly, before we talk about hardest players to rank, we did get a little bit of football last night, guys. Did anything stand out to you when you were watching that preseason football? The Lions are winning the Super Bowl. Oh, thank you. Let's just call what it is. Thank you for that. Thank you. Where do you guys want to start? Mark, you take it away, Mike. What do you want to go for? There's a few things. I mean, we talked a little before the show about a couple of guys who stood out. And I think, you know, today we're going to talk about guys who are hard to rank. Now, it's a lot easier to draft Jeremiah Love after what we saw last night. My guy this year looked exceptional. You, I think, texted us right after his, what, first carry or two? Yes, it was his second carry. Like, two carries for five yards. Let me get the exact text. Bust! Bust, yeah. I moved him down into the 70s in my rankings, but then he bounced back with a huge game. Yeah, man. He looked fantastic. 11 carries, 58 yards. Had a very acrobatic play in that game. Also had three catches for 14 yards. There was a lot. A lot of Tyler Algier mixed in there. Algier left the game first, but Jeremiah Love did start the game, and he looked the part. He just looks very intimidating as a running back. And I got to be honest, I just feel even stronger about my Jeremiah Love take after last night. I'm going to have him on a substantial number of teams this year. After two carries for five yards, I texted Mike and Daniel, you can't spell Mike Clay without the Jeremiah Love is a bust, all caps. Yeah, he did look good last night. A lot of people on the internet are saying, he reminds them of Adrian Peterson running. He's not as powerful as Adrian Peterson was, but Peterson, you know, on the short list for most powerful runners the league has ever seen. But he did look good last night. I would say in the other game, and I'm not, everything has to be taken with a block of salt, not a grain of salt. Yes, not a grain of salt. Other side of that game, we saw a 53-yard run from Mike Washington Jr., the backup running back for the Raiders. A few things here. First of all, I like the player coming out. He cracked my top 100. In the draft, I think he won the early fourth to the Raiders. So a decent investment in a running back, not a gigantic investment, but a decent investment in a running back. Clint Kubiak did say when he took the job, like, he wants to be a little more judicious about the workload for Ash and Jenty. Even if Mike Washington Jr. doesn't play a significant role when Jenty is off the field, I do, he does not take Jenty off the field that much this year. I think two things are important here. One, just good to know the insurance policy name. And it's good to know that, like, this guy can play, right? This is different than last year, whereas Ash and Jenty obviously played a lot. It was a disaster season. But Raheem Mosert was the backup. Like, if something happened to Ash and Jenty, we were not going to have Raheem Mosert anywhere near our top 10 or 20 of running backs in a given week. If something happens to Ash and Jenty this year, right now, I do think there is more optimism that Mike Washington could at least crack the flex territory, than he could, than you would say about guys last year. Super fair. Agreed. I think that's super fair. Yeah, like him. There's that list of guys late in your draft you should be looking at in terms of insurance running backs. And he's one of the headliners on that list as far as I'm concerned. I'm not talking about guys you have to take like Blake Corum in the middle rounds and like round nine. I'm talking about those late round flyers. That's where you should be looking for insurance backs. And that doesn't mean I took Jenty, I have to take Washington. It means you could take these guys no matter what. Because you're, look, if your opponent has Jenty and he gets hurt and you have Washington on your bench, you just got better. And he got better. And he got worse. I mean, it's double the fun. So no doubt those guys, he's definitely on that list. Still monitoring Tyler Algier. Like there's going to be a role. Yeah, no doubt. They were playing a lot. We'll just see exactly how much of that role manifests itself in goal line work. Yep. And just like sheer number of carries. Yeah, and don't get too worried about there's going to be another back involved. That's the case for every single backfield. Like in Philly, Tank Bigsby is going to have a role this year. It's the case, even in San Francisco, Christian McCaffrey might handle 55% of the carries and he's still going to be outstanding. Like that's normal for him to be in that range. Yes. What percentage of the carries? How many? 55. Okay. Thank you. Should have said 56. Yeah. What are you doing? It's preseason for me too. I apologize. I mean, but honestly, this is when I'm watching like this early preseason action. I'm clearly just looking for names that I'm going to tuck away for the back of my brain for the end of the draft. John Stripling was one of those guys. Is he the only healthy wide receiver for the 49ers right now? There's two ways to look at it for Dijon Stripling last night. On the one hand, he was playing with exclusively backups. Yep. Right? I mean, Curtis Roark and Adrian Martinez were the two quarterbacks that were playing. I covered Adrian Martinez when I covered the UFL a couple of years ago when he was the MVP of that league. Let's go. All right. And then so that would be like an indication that if he was that close to cracking the starting lineup early in the year, he would not have been playing last night. Right? The other side of it is he had seven catches last night. They were chucking that ball all over the yard. Who? The Titans offense left something to be desired last night. Yeah. Clearly, Cardinal Tate is better than Dijon Stripling. I'm just saying it's fun when you look at these two rookies. We don't know that for sure, but we'll see. But Dijon Stripling, a name to monitor later. Definitely. For sure. I think his ADP is going to start to climb up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. Long ways to go, though, in preseason. We have two more games. I'd imagine some of these teams that rested starters last night will play their guys a bit in the next two games. I think so. Perhaps we do see Dijon Stripling catching passes from Brock Purdy or even Zach Jones. Yeah. The thing to keep an eye on is if they start to, like, you usually could get a good idea team's offensive core based on that whole group didn't play uh and if stripling if like mike evans debo samuel and stripling are it and george kittle and christian mccaffrey and brock purdy are the group that are not playing yeah yeah probably a good sign he's gonna have a pretty substantial role uh and that was the case actually another name we should we can mention really quickly here if you look at the chargers tight ends charlie kolar and david and joku did not play but ronda gadsden was pretty busy in that game uh signal that perhaps he's the third tight end and i think they'll use a lot of 12 personnel he'll rotate in but uh i moved when they got in joku and started hyping up kolar as a good blocker i moved him way down our tight end rankings and i think he's i mean i wouldn't draft him i don't think gadsden's anywhere close to the fantasy radar which is too bad because last year he had a little stretch where he gave us some nice fantasy value in the middle of this yeah but they didn't have other pass catching options the other guys there like tyler conklin and will disley were kind of on the way out so yep uh yeah i mean maybe down the road together and picks it up but right now uh i don't think he is uh anywhere close to fantasy relevance if you are watching right now that's not davis mills in the headshot right there um but davis mills did play meaningful snaps for the texans last night graham mertz their third string quarterback tore his acl it's believed according to adam schefter so or it's feared at least at this moment so um davis mills will see a lot of action during the preseason i think but i you know like it's always fun to have preseason football back you don't want to overthink things too much you're just monitoring a chef you're just monitoring it you're just monitoring it you're just monitoring it you're just monitoring a chef d second chef d quote in about 30 seconds or mentioned in 30 seconds says preseason doesn't count but it can matter just file stuff away right point agreed get summer going with a firework freeze five hour energy shot you get that iconic freeze pop flavor but with zero sugar and a five hour energy boost bursting with cherry lime and blue raspberry flavors firework freeze five hour energy shots brings a caffeine kick without the kick without the sugar ignite your taste buds with firework freeze five hour energy shots available online at fivehourenergy.com and on amazon this episode is brought to you by google chrome you think you know a browser but gemini and chrome that's new it can help you with practically anything on the web like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration blog or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks gemini and chrome is here for it ready to make anything online make sense there's a link in the description below this video if you're no place like chrome check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus kroger helps keep you moving with easy to prep meals and convenient snacks from our exclusive brands pack a microwavable cup of private selection mac and cheese for a deliciously quick meal that's ready in just minutes snacks like simple truth baked chickpea crisps and hot honey pistachios are perfect for on-the-go munching delivering bold flavors and a satisfying crunch discover new favorites today kroger fresh for everyone all right let's talk about our hardest players to rank my friends we each brought four names to the table we're going to do a little bit of a round robin here field why not start with you in this one give me your first name all right we haven't at least that i can recall talked about this player these aren't ordered in like actually hardest to rank to least hardest rank it's just all four names that i just want to make cases i don't think we spent much time on so far amongst qualified there were 48 qualified rushers last year meeting a certain threshold of uh rushing attempts okay one of them averaged 3.4 yards per carry it was dead last of those 48 qualified rushers so the worst rusher on a per carry basis yep still ranks anywhere from rb19 to rb26 in everybody on espn's rankings do you guys have an idea of who this player might be yes okay go for it i just know who it is so i'm cheating but okay who is it bucky irving irving so here's the two years ago bucky irving looked like he was going to become a vital piece of tampa's offense for years to come yep during his rookie season he eats away at rashad white's workload he's absolutely crushing it he's rushing efficiently he's a factor in the passing game which he was by the way in college as well last season bucky irving has a prolonged stretch in which he is away from the team due to a health situation that frankly we didn't know that much about and i don't know that much more about it at this point so i'm going to leave that be right now on paper he might be the team's lead rusher and running back but they also signed to me one of the most useful role players and maybe more than a role player in the nfl which is kenny gainwell so on the one hand if he is the leading rusher and he gets a decent amount of work in the passing game i do believe bucky irving still has enough talent to pay off as a low-end rb2 on the other hand based off of his rushing efficiency last year and the fact that kenneth gainwell is going to be a big part of the passing game this year it's like is bucky irving going to end up sort of drifting down into the rb dead zone where you're playing him only because you don't have a choice otherwise so i don't exactly know which side of the ledger bucky irving is definitively on so i just kind of split the atom in between and i landed at rb21 yeah it's a tricky one but i think it's going to be a good rookie one i think he should be ideally he's like a better jaylen warren kind of in that same situation where where kenneth gainwell same role going from pittsburgh to tampa bay but you're hoping that you get a more efficient jaylen warren in this tampa bay office which frankly could be a pretty good offense with baker mayfield if he's healthy it should be a pretty good offense so ifm at 21 uh i think that in terms of ranking him this is probably about a ceiling i mean you could probably put him a couple spots higher but with gainwell there it's hard to imagine him going much higher and by the way it's not just gainwell if you look at the second half of last season when irving came back yeah and again he might not have been 100 healthy but irving lost his goal line role like he he was unlucky the touchdown department but sean tucker was there very clear-cut goal line back he's still there they tendered him as a restrictor free agent he's back on the roster i fully expect when they're inside the five sean tucker's is still going to be on the field not gainwell not bucky irving uh and that's that's a limitation to the ceiling of both of those back so as far as i'm concerned it's still irving the only reason it's a little tricky to rank him is should he be lower because if it's more gainwell more tucker perhaps this is too high to put him 21 but um i still think when every the dust settles he's going to be kind of just that fine like you said like flex option borderline rb2 but that's probably the extent of it to your point on the goal to go work bucky irving and i know that he did not play a full season last year so you have to take that into account but he was 27th in total carries last year he was tied for 48th in goal to go carries there were other players on his own roster two of them specifically rashad white and of course sean tucker that had more sean tucker had 13 goal to go carries rashad white had nine i know that goal to go is not the same as like first and goal from the one but i think first and goal from the one the answer is it's going to be sean tucker every single it was tucker and by the way that was not the case the first few weeks of the season when he was healthy so maybe it changes a little but it was that was their recipe down the stretch for a long sample of games and i don't expect that to you're saying i'm the one main takeaway that i heard mike saying that is maybe you are at least considering that 21 might be too high even for bucky irving i think it's close to a ceiling if you leave a draft with bucky irving as your rb2 are you disappointed do you view him more as a flex option or an rb3 and not an rb2 option for your squad and drafts if i'm drafting bucky irving i'm not allowing as my rb2 yep my rb3 will probably be my next pick be very short behind that's funny you say that because i'm in a draft right now an industry draft and i just the way you know i follow the board so so i went pretty wide receiver heavy early i got a good rb1 i can't remember who it was exactly but um i got to the point at the turn and it was coming up to me and it was like i wanted scataboo or judkins and i they both just went right before me and the next best running back was bucky irving and i was disappointed to do that next round came around i took rico dowdle just to get a little bit another another running back as an option another shot a perfect example of okay again i think two years ago and we we play in a dynasty league together we play lots of dynasty league so sometimes your brain gets fixated on these dynasty play like the dynasty value and i was like man bucky irving die me in the rough in dynasty and it doesn't feel that way right now so bucky irving first player that cracks my list mike your next up all right next up for me is and i know i have some agreement on this one this is one of the toughest for sure across the board arizona cardinals wide receivers junior who caught a touchdown yes he didn't mention that one for him by the way what a throw by brissette it was beautiful off balance just a perfect art it was great defense but he just he just got it right in there so we need that all regular season long but marvin harrison and of course michael wilson uh look harrison came out a little underwhelmed as a rookie but still put up decent numbers at eight touchdowns and obviously was injured last year uh and fell off quite a bit uh michael wilson was quiet throughout his whole career and then exploded down the stretch last season with jacoby brissette a quarterback but also with marvin harrison jr not healthy and i did a little digging on um some of the splits late last season and something surprised me more than i thought i knew michael wilson wasn't quite as good when harrison was out but did you know and here's the full screen graphic did you know that marvin harrison jr in four games with michael wilson and jacoby brissette four full games he outscored him in all four games and it was not frankly it wasn't even close michael wilson as you can see on the screen under 10 fantasy points in all four of those games marvin harrison jr had 12.9 plus in three of the four and was pretty effective in those games so i think this is very interesting headshot is so i know it's scary scaring yes that makes me want to move up in my rankings a little bit that's like i feel Did you guys see the picture of him this offseason working out? He does look jacked. He does. He does. There's a lot of footage of kind of people having to have Daniel's cousin in over here. Copycatting. I'm concerned. It's a lot. It's a lot. Mom and Dad wanted the hair down today, so I had to do the hair down. It's so wavy. Yeah. I'm a little upset with her, though, because she's trying to get us to shave our legs. Do something. Not shave. What is it? No, no, no. She's not trying to get you shaved your legs. Wax your way, Greg. She's trying to get you to wax your legs. Wax your way. Wax your way. Why does she want us in pain? I don't understand. I thought she liked us. But yeah, I mean, look, it's tricky to sort this out because Michael Wilson so far has looked like the better player than Marvin Harrison, but like you just saw, I mean, Harrison, when they played together with Brissette, has actually been the better option. So I still have Harrison ahead. He's at 32. I have Wilson down at 39. I do think the cat's out of the bag a little bit with Michael Wilson, but at the end of the day, I'm still going to lean toward Harrison, but this is definitely a tricky dynamic. Remember, it's a new offensive system as well here. It's not going to be as pass-heavy as last year. And at some point this season, especially if Arizona is eliminated, we probably will get a quarterback change to Carson Beck. So come fantasy playoff time, it could be a big question mark here. The Cardinals are slinging that thing collectively so far in preseason, by the way. Gardner Minshew was super accurate last night. Marvin Harrison Jr. was on my list as well, Mike. So great flag by you. Daniel, who do you got? They have the most exciting quarterback duo in the NFL. Jacoby Brissette and Gardner Minshew. I mean, he's looking good in that Hall of Fame game. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. Check responses, setup required, compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. Kroger helps keep you moving with easy to prep meals and convenient snacks. From our exclusive brands, pack a microwavable cup of private selection mac and cheese for a deliciously quick meal that's ready in just minutes. Snacks like simple truth, baked chickpea crisps and hot honey pistachios are perfect for on the go munching, delivering bold flavors and a satisfying crunch. Discover new favorites today. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Have no fear. Chosen Foods is here to defend your favorite foods from the forces of CD. Oils and sketchy ingredients with cooking oils, salad dressings and mayo, all powered by the good fats from 100% pure avocado oil and simple, delicious ingredients. Chosen Foods. I've already talked about this guy once, but I'm going to start with someone that I have been talking about, and that is Nico Collins. He made my long list. Because Nico Collins is being drafted as a wide receiver one. He has had back to back to back seasons as a top 10 wide receiver in fantasy points per game. But the thing is, I'm so nervous just about CJ. about this offensive line, about the injury history that we've seen that he's had. Field, I've said this to you already. When you look at Marvin Harrison Jr., he has been injured every single season of his career. Three of his five seasons, he has spent time on the injured reserve list. This is Nico Collins you mean? Nico Collins, yes. Sorry, you said Marvin Harrison Jr. I did not mean to say that. I meant Nico Collins. And so I get so uncomfortable trying to think about if where this guy's being drafted right now, Nico Collins, he's been coming off the board as about wide receiver 10. So the last of your top 10 wide receivers, last of the wide receiver ones. And knowing what this offense could potentially be, they have David Montgomery. I'm not sold on C.J. Stroud being the guy that everybody thought he was coming out. I think a lot of us feel that same way. I don't think he's that great of a quarterback right now. He's got a long way to still go. He's just fine. He's fine. Okay, he's fine. He was anointed a lot more than fine coming out. But I get nervous thinking about Nico Collins as somebody, someone that I would roster and draft as my number one wide receiver. That's the problem for me is the price I'm paying for him. Can I give you, because I agree with Nico as one of the more interesting and difficult players to rank. I think he's being ranked somewhere around, I'm lower on Nico than consensus by like three or four spots. He's still a really good player. The hardest part about him as a true wide receiver one, as a top 10 fantasy wide receiver, despite him finishing there, is I have a harder time with guys that it's so unpredictable week in or week out. How much? They're going to be featured. Like there's just such comfort in your wide receiver one, getting 10 or 12 targets every single week. And I know that's, you know, of course you'd love every single wide receiver that's on your roster to get 10 targets a week. I do kind of expect my wide receiver one to be in that eight to 10 range. He's elite for a reason. And it just felt like last year with Nico, there was a lot of conversation about whether like the lack of creativity and the way he was being utilized within the Houston Texans offense was a reason why his production was so up and down. He had stretches where he got white. And there were times in which he would fade for two or three weeks. That's really difficult to handle for your roster when he's your wide receiver one. I just wanted to wait and hear you guys out because I could not disagree more. Oh, amazing. Love him. Bring it, Mike. Yeah, I just don't. I have him highest. I'm at nine, but I don't think he's a hard guy to rank. I think he files right in there. Like, look, relative to wide receiver ones, obviously, I have him at the bottom end of wide receiver. So if he's your wide receiver one, you're not as strong there as other people are. But if he's your two, you feel great about that. But here's a couple of nuggets on him. Like, he doesn't feel like a volatile player to me. He's been really good. I mean, he's cleared 1,000 yards in three straight seasons. He's scored either seven or eight touchdowns in all of those three seasons. He's finished top 10 in fantasy points per game and top 12 in yards per route run all three of those seasons. And he was fourth in the NFL in end zone targets last year. Did you hear when I said he spent time on the IR in three of his five seasons? Yeah, OK. So do you think he's going to get hurt this year? Is that, I mean, still in his prime? I think that there is. This is, that's part of the equation, right? Is the concern that with the wide receiver I'm drafting. Has a greater injury history than some of the other wide receivers I'm drafting around him and the capital that I'm putting into that player. I didn't realize, Fields, you have him at 15. You and I are the only ones outside the top 10 on Nico Collins. There are just, there's enough with how good the top of the wide receiver room is that it's tough for me to rank him because I think his talent is clearly a top 10 wide receiver. But that offense and his quarterback and some of the injury stuff is what gives me a little bit of that pause that pushes him down for me. It makes it tough for me to rank. You want a fun board bet? So I just know of a player. I know for. For a fact, a player I have ranked higher than Nico Collins that I know for a fact you have ranked lower than Nico Collins. I'm back at Abuka. Okay. Just. Let's do it. Why not? Why not? I'm fine with that. Let's get frisky. I mean, Abuka's ceiling might be higher just because we don't know yet on him. But Nico Collins, I feel. This is why it's a, Nico Collins feels like a tricky one for this. If you're thinking range of outcomes. You just said Nico Collins wasn't tricky to rank. No, no, that's what I'm saying. He's not. I'm saying in terms of range of outcomes for players, Abuka's is wider. It makes it harder to rank him. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. It feels like one of the most narrow range of outcome players to rank in fantasy. Like he's probably going to finish between eighth and 15th. Like, I don't know. I don't think that's a hard, hard guy to rank. You know, it could be an interesting board bet to configure one time is rather than doing a board bet that's constructed around like points per game or total fantasy points. If at some point we do a comparison or we do a board bet of two players where it's like, I say Emeka Abuka has more top 10 finishes than Nico Collins or something like that. Yeah, that's tricky because he had more. He had more top 10s than like Teterow and McMillan last year, but he also had way more atrocious games than Teterow and McMillan last year. No, I hear you, but that's just, listen, it's a board bet. We can qualify it however we want to. But in the meantime, I say Emeka Abuka outscores Nico Collins in fantasy football in 2020. I say Nico Collins outscores Emeka Abuka in fantasy this year. Put it on the board. Did you just call him Nico colonoscopy? Yeah, I think you did. You did. Yeah. Never had one of those. All right, let's get going. You just mentioned Teterow and McMillan. Just got to, let's be honest. Teterow and McMillan. Oh, okay. That's a good one. You just mentioned him. Yeah. Yeah. This is a good one. All right. So he is ESPN's 14th ranked receiver in consensus rankings. I'm lowest on him as wide receiver 18. And he finished 16th last year. So, I mean, again, he played in every game, so points per game he was lower, but. It's just, and this goes back to the conversation we were just having, is that how often was he a top 20 wide receiver in a week last year? The answer is not all that often. The efficiency wasn't great. For us. For a guy who saw 120 targets last year. How many top 10s did he have? Speaking of the question you just asked. Didn't he have that one week where he had like seven for 120 and a touchdown? That's the one. Yeah. That's one. He had one top 10. One top 10. So I think we're all banking on big upside here for Teterow and McMillan. Yep. And we still haven't seen it yet. As a matter of fact, I remember the stat that applies to him, but was driven by Emeka Abuka. He had four games with 20 or more fantasy points last year. Did Abuka. No other rookie wide receiver had more than one of those. So Emeka Abuka had his one. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Teterow and McMillan had his one. And we're all kind of expecting, and it's totally fair to expect a huge jump from him. He was the eighth overall pick in the draft. He was my clear cut wide receiver one in the draft process last year. Travis Hunter was unicorn like Christian McCaffrey. On top of that, like there was some real signs of promise. He won the offensive rookie of the year. Like Teterow and McMillan is legit. Good. I don't have as much confidence in his quarterback as I do Baker Mayfield, for example, throwing the football to Emeka Abuka. And Teterow and McMillan did have, it just felt like kind of a little bit. It was an up and down nature to the way in which he was used last year. Yeah. Isn't it wild? You have the reigning NFL offensive rookie of the year. One of the first picks of the draft last year. He's top 15 in basically every category at wide receiver as a rookie. And then we're just like, we're still just not like in most times. If that's all the information you had to be like, this guy's the reason. I mean, this is the top 10 receivers dynasty second year league, but still we're like Bryce Young. We just don't know. We're just not sure if he can get that, that battery. Hey, the charge. That we need to get that leap. So I agree. He is a tricky one, but do you know who else doesn't know whether. Bryce Young, it's a real deal or not? Carolina. I was going to say the Panthers. Because they haven't extended him yet. Yeah. Like, they have time on their side. Yeah. He's playing on the fifth-year option this year, though, and no deal yet. I guess they should do that. How many teams just are like, we feel obligated, we have to sign him to a multi-year extension, and then the next year, it's like, you know, to being an example of, you know, there's many examples of that. Like, good for them for running the team the right way. Our former colleague here at ESPN, Mark Dominick, used to say, I'd rather be a year too late than a year too early to pay a quarterback. Because if you have to pay a quarterback a year too late, it means the quarterback has been so good that you have no choice but to pay him. And if your quarterback's good, it means your team's probably good, too. Yeah. Huge year for Carolina. Huge year for Bryce Young. Yes. See what he got. What do you got, Mike? All right. Next one for me is a guy who is injured right now. There's been a lot of kind of reporting. Organizer. No. It's a Colt, actually. Oh. Alec Pierce. I just guessed. Yeah. A lot of confusing reports on what has gone on with his health. Yeah. A lot of confusing reports. According to Chris Ballard, he should be ready to go for week one, is Alec Pierce. But he was a tricky guy to rank even before the health concerns, because he became one of the highest paid wide receivers in the NFL during the offseason. They moved on from Michael Pittman Jr., did the Colts. Alec Pierce has led all receivers, qualified receivers, in yards per catch, yards per target, and averages up to the target two consecutive seasons. But he's yet to finish a season better than, get ready for this, 48th in targets there, 42nd in targets, 45th in catches. 18th in yards, 18th in touchdowns, or 25th in fantasy points per game. And yet, he's one of the highest paid receivers in the NFL. So, the question becomes, are we buying into a more evolved route tree, something we haven't seen from him through four seasons in the NFL, and enough target volume for him to be a guy we feel is a consistent wide receiver, too, we'll say, in fantasy football. I have him at 31 right now. He might be a couple spots higher if he was healthier, but it's kind of an interesting move by the Colts. I don't want the Colts to go this direction and say, we believe in him, we're going to pay him a lot of money, and we're going to try to get something out of him that we haven't gotten yet for some reason. My answer is no. I'm not as high as a wide receiver. Yeah. Okay. Where do you have him? Where are you at? I have him at 40. Field's got him at 42. I mean, there's something to be said for the Colts' treatment of him. Well, here's my question. What if Alec Pierce had signed a four-year, $80 million contract? Okay. I'm just curious. Like, he got four for, what, 112 or something? Yeah. I mean, that's still a lot. No, four for 80, though. Like, Jacoby Myers got three for 60, and we're not like, yeah, we got to push Jacoby Myers. I know there's different circumstances here, but I do feel like Alec Pierce's value in fantasy got a big leap. Obviously, Michael Pittman Jr. was traded, and there were some other moves for the Colts this offseason, but the minute that contract got done, we were all sort of like, wait, is he better than we realize? What's going on here? Like, the market told the Colts that he was worth four years and $112 million. Did the market? Or did his agent? Well, his agent. That also tells me. Yeah. But still, if they make the decision to trade Michael Pittman Jr. and then pay Alec Pierce and not Michael Pittman. They should be featuring him more, right? Like, look, here's the thing. If they continue to use him the same way they have with no changes, why did they do that? Not going to be a fantasy guy. I mean, it doesn't make sense. You have to improve his target share. And look, he was wide receiver 28 last year, so we're going to see more volume and a more evolved role for him. And a guy that can't. And make those big plays as well in an offense, by the way, that was outstanding last year when Daniel Jones was healthy. I definitely expect him to finish in the 20s if he's healthy this year. He probably. Oh, sorry, Daniel. I know we use the phrase follow the money and like, you know, it tells us stuff sometimes, but I think sometimes there are still points, at least for me, as just like a general NFL fan where I feel like I don't need to justify when I feel like someone makes a bad financial decision by saying, well, I should just follow the money because they clearly. It's not the only analysis here. I mean, you're right to it. No, no, no. You're not wrong. That's why it makes it tricky, right? That's that does make it tricky. I do not understand this contract. I do not understand when they pay him the other wide receivers that are getting paid this kind of money. How much volume are they seeing on a per game basis? And we're clearly don't think that because even you've got him a wide receiver 31. Yeah. So like we're all admitting that with where we're ranking him, we don't understand why the Colts signed this guy to the amount of money that they did, because if it was any other 30 million dollar a year wide receiver, he should be a top 10. 10 guy. So all because all of that, I think, is for me, that's why this is so difficult. Clearly, the Colts do think something. But I think they just to me, rather than try to justify that, I feel like they just made a bad financial decision. I just get to I'll see if they did throughout the season. But I'm more out on Alec Pierce. Not the version, not the version of him that we're going to see this year. But I think there's a chance that Alec Pierce has a season that looks kind of like an old school version of Christian Watson. Oh, you think so? OK. Yeah. Like there's going to be some. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's going to be some absolutely gigantic weeks where it's like three for one or nine of the touchdown. And then there's going to be some weeks where it's like six for 62. And then there's going to be some weeks where it's like one for 17. You know, one for I see that would shock me. One for 17 is the extreme. But, you know, OK, but I just think they're going to have to. But you know what? I was trying to egg you on. You want to you want to see him have a bigger route tree, but also like he hasn't been practicing like he's hurt, too. So I don't know. It's it's a very fascinating situation. Also, they don't have a third, an established third. Receiver. It's Ashton Dolan right now. He was he didn't play last night, presumably because he's locked into that role. But that's that's a tricky one. Again, we're keeping an eye on Keenan Allen. Watch is definitely strong for the Colts. I was in an Allen watch, baby. Let's go. All right. Let's move along here. All right. What do you got? I'm bringing some lines to the table. What is it's tough, guys. Sometimes it's hard to rank the players. Jared Goff, quarterback one. It's not it. No, let's talk about William Jamo and Sam Laporta. I'll tell you what. If Alec Pierce turns into Jamison Williams, we would all be sweet about that. That would be like my. I don't like my Christian Watson analogy anymore. That's all right, buddy. It's all right. So I want to take a quick look at it. OK, because Jamo was really good last season. Yeah. Had a bunch of games where he was a top 20 wide receiver. And Sam Laporta, we also have some question marks on because we just added Drew Petzing to this offense. We saw how good he was with Trey McBride and being able to get the tight end involved. The big question mark is Sam Laporta got hurt last year. That was a big thing coming back from that back injury. So I want to take a look at the splits weeks one through 10 with Sam Laporta on the field. OK, Jamison Williams averaged 10.9 fantasy points per game. It was wide receiver 40 for those games over 16 and a half fantasy points. The other five games all under seven fantasy points. So pretty boom bust when you look at the wide receiver situation. Sam Laporta was tight and nine over that stretch for what it's worth. Eleven point nine fantasy points game. Then the back end, the back injury happened. And then from week 11 on without Sam Laporta, Jamo jumped from wide receiver 40. In points per game to wide receiver 14. Now we're going to get Sam Laporta back here for this season. And I think a lot of us, myself included, to start the season. I was a little too in on Jamo, not realizing we're not thinking about the idea that with Laporta also coming back and being a big part of that, he probably can't do the same thing that he did before. So for me, as much as I love Jamison Williams, and I think I was maybe a little too low on Sam Laporta, I have kind of, I have, I know what you're good. I've kind of, uh, that's a nice shot there of Jack Campbell. I like this idea of being able to maybe bring, uh, Jamo down a little bit more and Laporta moving up a little more, but these two guys, I think impact each other's rankings because of how they played when they were on the field with each other. I'm curious how you guys think. It's really good context on the numbers there of on off splits for Jamo when Sam Laporta is or isn't available. Um, I have reached a place of comfort with Jamison Williams. Me too. That's how I feel. And how I feel is the ranking sort of matters for Jamo in a week to week basis, but it sort of doesn't in the sense that. If I draft Jamison Williams, I'm acknowledging that he probably will win me a handful of weeks during the season. Yep. And I'll probably have a few weeks during the season where I'm like, uh, Jamo, he had two goose eggs, two zeros. Yeah. That's good. That's just going to happen. And I think last year. Yep. And he still finished 12th receiver in fantasy. I know. And 22nd the year before over a thousand yards back to back years. I'm with you. He might be a little volatile, but at the end of the day, the guy is, he's been delivering the last couple of years. And this is what we. We thought he would do. And when he was injured and suspended and all that, this is why we still had hope in him. And he's delivering that now. I want to ask you guys a real quick trivia question. Okay. Okay. What do Wanda Robinson, Michael Pittman, Jr. Mack Hollins and Nick Westbrook, a Kine all have in common. More Wanda Robinson, Michael Pittman, Jr. Mack Hollins and Nick Westbrook, a Kine. Sounds like it would be like a low yards per catch sort of number or low touchdown. Yeah. Number Jamo's career high is 26.9 fantasy points per game. Lower. I'll have more than Nick Westbrook, a Kine lower than Mack Hollins, lower than Michael Pittman, Jr. Lower than Wanda Robinson. We talk about Jamo as being this huge high ceiling guy. He's never even had a game over 27 fantasy points. So I love, I mean, this is me as a Lions fan. It doesn't feel good to say this, but I was a little surprised when I looked into it, especially with how things are going to work out. Just saying. Typical Lions hater. Every time. Field, you're up next, my friend. I have this player as my. My quarterback nine tied for the highest amongst ESPN rankers. You'd be nine. And yet I'm still not sure whether that's anywhere close to rational. The quarterback is Patrick Mahomes. And the big factor here is he was one of mine is what is your confidence level that Patrick Mahomes, the passer is good enough given the weapons he has around him to be a fantasy megastar. It's not what it used to be. Okay. Mike, where do you feel? Yeah, I think he can still put up enormous passing numbers i mean he was really good early last season i know he's running a lot but yeah right so the skill of patrick beholmes has not changed in my mind right matter of fact i think he's a better quarterback than he was perhaps when he was you know throwing for 50 touchdowns as a second year player and a first year starter it's just that at the time he was throwing to peak tyreek hill and travis kelsey and just some awesome complementary weapons sure rashi rice we've talked about this very productive receiver but very much a possession guy xavier worthy i don't know what to make of him right now the fact that we're talking about cyrus allen their fifth round pick yes is like a potential like savior for the passing game scares me a little bit and last year patrick beholmes scored 25.3 percent of his fantasy points via his rushing outputs right so his rushing yards and his rushing touchdowns yep that was fourth amongst all quarterbacks the highest he had ever ranked prior to that was 11th for a full season and he's been much closer to middle of the pack 13 13th 19th 15th 13th and 14th in the other six years so he was fourth fourth last year after you know the previous high was 11th so he's coming off a major knee injury yeah i don't think patrick beholmes rushing is going to be anywhere close to where it was last year and they added a much better running back behind him than what they had with walker the third the gravitational pull that prevents me from being like totally out on patrick beholmes it's just patrick beholmes yeah right that's what makes this hard is that like if you told me that patrick beholmes was thrown into the of us and still put up 250 passing yards and three touchdowns i'd buy it yeah you and i probably would have 240 yards and three touchdowns but mike would get one screen yes um but yeah so that's that's what makes ranking patrick beholmes hard yeah and by the way weeks one through eight last year 24 and a half fantasy points per game uh over the next six games just 15 fantasy points per game and then he tore the acl so he started he did come back to earth and then he had the injury so i'm pretty low on him actually i'm at 15 and uh part of that is that yes i think he's an exceptional player but yeah if he's not gonna run which he may not coming off this injury he can still pass right obviously he was to the so with largely the same or maybe even inferior weapons last year he was quarterback eight if you're only looking at the passing fantasy points per game okay right so with no rushing but rushing is a huge part of it right that's why guys that are lesser players than patrick beholmes have major upside because even if daniel jones or maybe not him because but like guys who are not the player patrick beholmes overall give you some sort of rushing upside who's your next guy mike my next guy is my next guys which is somebody somebody i mentioned or a group that i mentioned briefly yesterday jaguars wide receivers one of the hardest position groups to sort out in the entire nfl i will give you my order you guys could tell me if you agree or disagree on this order at 36 parker washington yep at 40 brian thomas jr at 41 one spot later the good old underrated jacoby myers and then at 62 travis hunter who i still believe is a fine late round flyer he doesn't cost you a lot 16th round adp right now and we'll see if he plays more on offense than we think then maybe he could pay that off probably better in best ball than anything but yeah um the end of the day washington's the guy that i'm buying into because it wasn't just late last season he was terrific down the stretch last season nine plus targets 19 plus fantasy points in four straight games but if you look at the 21 games since the start of 2024 when he had a route participation of at least 50 okay he's a 20 target share and 12.2 fantasy points per game which would have put him right in the wide receiver three mix last season so he's been good when they've given him a lot of work and i fully expect him to get a lot of work this season so he's the guy for me i still think brian thomas jr who again we've talked about this he hasn't been an elite player with trevor lawrence it's just been mac jones so i still think he'll continue that role that he played last year in which he is a vertical threat he was top five in average depth of target that led to a big dip in catch rate for him last season he had more drops last season but i think he sticks in that role and then jacoby myers very solid player he's going to be a great resource for trevor lawrence but the ceiling's kind of limited for him he's finished between 19th and 32nd fantasy points five consecutive seasons now so uh gimme washington i think he's the the maybe the safest play and also the highest in the league you just wonder when you spend a lot of energy on dynamics like this in the preseason if they might just end up like where the chargers were last year where it's like it could be yeah someone's going to score the most out of those four players someone's going to score the least but it might be that there are five weeks that washington leads them and there are six that myers does and five that thomas does and five that travis hunter does you know what i mean i definitely added up to more than 17 games right there but you get to the point i know what you mean yeah yeah by the way i should i should say this highest ceiling i probably misspoke there brian thomas probably is the highest i would agree because he has the highest top five season i should have yeah but washington just feels like the better overall well-rounded most invested on parker washington for sure they are being drafted back to back right now in fantasy drafts parker washington and brian thomas jr and that probably depends on what your roster build looks like at that point do you want more upside or are you looking for a safer floor if you're going to go for a wide receiver kind of depends on what what you've built their roster construction i am looking at travion henderson for my next player guys because i want to love this guy and rank him so much higher than i feel like i do every time i go to move him up higher i'm like but i don't think that i can he gave us some tantalizing things last year you guys remember that hundred yard uh kick return the punt return in the preseason opener yeah that made all of us heavily invest in travion henderson far too early that was a bad idea but he had a couple of other monster weeks week 10 28 fantasy points he was rb4 week 11 32.3 fantasy points he was rb3 and week 15 30.1 he was rb3 those are three monster games but if you add up all of the other games he had outside of that he averaged 8.2 points per game plus romandre stevenson is still there yeah i want to put him higher so badly because he is so fun to watch i clearly think he's a better player than romandre stevenson and in this offense that could be taking off with the addition of aj brown and drake may just take another step i want to find a way to make henderson be higher and i just can't when i look at how the the patriots utilized the two running backs together last year it's so hard for me i'm well i i am on the record here is i'm i'm a travion henderson fader for the most part it's not that i'm a romandre stevenson investor per se but i just you're a fader at cost right now or are you a fader on the player right now regardless i'd say it costs yes um there have say that there are more people that are bullish on him so he's going even sooner than his current adp and a lot of the mock drafts that i have done he's going to have more upside every single week he'll probably have a handful of games that are absolutely mammoth because he's one of the most explosive players yep in the league already uh and i know and i know your retort because we've already had this conversation is going to be what about the fumbles i hear you romandre stevenson he's not going away has earned this patriots coaching staff's trust i know they clearly value him a significant way so i'm going to put him in the lead and i'm going to put him in the lead and i'm going to put him in the lead travi henderson basically was a spectator during the super bowl the biggest game in the league and he's barely playing whatsoever that was last year i concede and i give you that i would just say that the chances of him usurping romandre stevenson are very low i think when the season begins on in 26 days the first player on the field for the patriots amongst running backs would be romandre stevenson and it won't surprise me if he plays 58 of the snaps and henderson is lucky to get to 40 so i'm largely fading you guys know that in 14 regular season games together last season travi and henderson had more carries than romandre stevenson hard to believe some mop up duty there but yes things kind of fell apart in the playoffs for sure like to your point uh stevenson did a more passing down work he was very effective last season um i'm with you i haven't drafted much henderson because he's too expensive but i will say this that doesn't mean that i'm going to rank stevenson higher because as far as i'm concerned if henderson gets a shot if he shows and earns more workload the ceiling is substantially higher if you look at the regular season last year romandre stevenson averaged 9.3 carries and 2.7 targets per game in those games with henderson so even though he was the lead back the volume for him was really low last year and also he has one career top 20 fantasy season romandre stevenson oh yeah i'm not in a top this is not the pro romandre you said that we're on the same page i just want to be clear that i'm still ranking henderson higher it's easy to say i'm out on henderson so stevenson must be higher because he's the lead back i disagree with that i i'm still not taking stevenson still down to 29 for me and henderson's a few spots higher just because of the upside that doesn't mean i'm going to feel good and weak when starting henderson but as far as like a bench guy go something like that to where he belongs but again his adp is too high so right now i kind of don't want either of these guys i just yeah i don't think it's going to work you've got him at 24 i've got him travian henderson you've got him at 24 mike i've got him at 26 fields you got him at 29 i think if there was no romandre stevenson all three of us would have him usually inside the top 20 we'd be having a different conversation but yeah that's not how the season's going to play out my friends one more player field late great toby keith saying a song that i always enjoy listening to i ain't as good as i once was but i'm as good once as i ever was and i'm wondering if the niners are banking on george kittle and mike evans follow that no i'm trying to play through the words and i ain't as good as i once was but i'm as good once as i ever was like hey listen i'm not every once in a while i can dial it back dial it up and just you know so but anyways uh george kittle and mike evans are my last two players kind of doing them in tandem here because the niners i think are banking on those guys creating some magic for them george kittle this year that's right shout out rito i love rito artist uh she's an amazingly talented artist um but yeah george kittle who is coming off of an achilles tear suffered in the playoffs right so this year this calendar year uh no surprise george kittle is a attacking his rehab and b looks awesome but this awesome me is going to be available in week one this awesome means going to play a legitimate role in week one this awesome mean that the niners are going to feature him as prominently early in the season i don't know but he's being drafted way lower than he has probably his rookie season meanwhile mike evans guys he'll be 33 soon yep uh you know obviously last year he got had a major injury um his yards after catch last season was just 4.4 his career average was 6.9 like there are some concerns for mike evans um it's just that this is also oh you know i take that that was that was kittle not evans with that yeah kittles my apologies dropped it um but and and evans uh turns 33 in like a week from right now um by the way but just is a touchdown dependent player who a team made a pretty reasonable bet on i just don't know what level of player mike evans still is right now that's what makes him hard i agree uh i had kittle on my list and i'm just comfortably low on mike evans i'll have zero exposure and we joke before the show like who's like the most likely player to score a touchdown in week one evans probably on the list like he'll probably score i'll probably have a couple in australia as well i just don't know just don't think you're gonna get consistent numbers from him this year it's tough it's tough like guys who are 33 plus at wide receiver in the nfl generally the guys that can pull off like a wide receiver two season are slot guys like a julian edelman larry fitzgerald late in his career that's it i mean there's really no one else to volume over the last decade and mike evans is not that type of player he's a vertical downfield player as a part of that when you're thinking through that exercise do you think more often than not it doesn't happen also for guys that change teams and are now playing in a new offense for the first time and 11 seasons fair i mean it is a kyle shanahan brock purdy offense and he might be wide receiver one like there are some positives for mike evans they're just offset by some negatives they are that's what makes it tough the given the cost of both of these players they are right next to each other in drafts i would much rather have george kittle given that position plus you can throw them on ir just grab another tight end and either at the end of the draft or on waivers i think you'd be in a great spot what do you got mike for your final one all right last one for me fellas is one kyler mcgillis murray uh he's interesting for a few reasons first of all um he yeah he wasn't great last year there's a reason arizona moved on he didn't clear 18.3 fantasy points in any of those five games but in the five years prior to that he was top 12 in fantasy points per game every single season yeah we know that he can still deliver with his legs uh he's more evolved now he's more of a conservative passer which isn't a bad thing in minnesota you want to get the ball out of your hands and get it to uh justin jefferson jordan addison even juwan jennings and and tj hawkinson uh that's good like i think week to week so when we put out our week one two three rankings he's going to be near the top 12 it'll depend on i think so but probably like in that 8 to 14 range pretty much every week a starting caliber quarterback but the interesting part about this is what happens if minnesota i mean detroit has an easy schedule and a really good team the bears are good the packers are good what if minnesota uh isn't in contention late in the season mccarthy yeah they're gonna take a look at mccarthy so come you know i don't know if i would want to go every time tyler murray is my quarterback and then get to the later part of the season and not have him if they decide look season's over let's take a look at mccarthy and here we are in week 15 fantasy playoff time and i don't have my quarterback so the good news is he's going in the 10th or 11th round of 12 team leagues you he could be your number two quarterback that's the good news the bad news is it's a tricky guy to rank because you could rank him 10th or you could rank him 25th if you don't think he's going to keep the starting job uh it's just uh it's kind of a fascinating situation also it's a it's a bit of a like meeting in the middle for both jj i'm sorry for both kyler murray and kevin o'connell because you mentioned the numbers for kyler in his pre-minnesota days his arizona days they're all very strong he was running around a lot the quarterbacks that kevin o'connell has had during his time in minnesota let's think about some of them kirk cousins not a mobile quarterback sam darnold same pocket quarterback jj mccarthy he can run but he's a pocket quarterback within this system those are the guys they've had real investments in kevin o'connell going to fold some of what kyler did in arizona into this offense or is the idea that kyler acknowledges like we're in a new phase of my career i need to kind of play by your rules and become an evolved pocket passer so very interesting player good call there mike and who's your last one daniel well guys i have been contemplating for a while now over the last week how much of a value i think a certain player is and i have been higher on them than everybody else but i want you guys to just take a minute and watch the game and see what happens next week watch what we've put together here for you is jadarian price the best rb2 option in fantasy charbonnet is on the pup list ken walker's in kansas city and dude that lineup would slap chasing the first drake london in the second king henry in the third and devonta smith as a flex in the fourth plus loveland and burrow and then jadarian price fills out your starting lineup that squad would be unbelievable hey where did these sunglasses come from kind of looks like i'm going to a nascar game what a dweeb i'm so docked and confused so you're going to a nascar game i did say nascar game yes i did guys let's take a look at that backyard by the way thank you very much yeah that is that is a nice little pond i wish that was my backyard but look at the lineup i did this as an exercise because i think this squad is unbelievable the 103 spot jamar chase drake london derrick henry all three of them within their adp devonta smith is your flex you get colston loveland as your starting tight end joe burrow as your quarterback and then jadarian price and then field just like you had talked about i feel like after i take jadarian price my next pick is definitely going to be another running back maybe that rico dowdle that mike had talked about because it is clearly not nearly as deep as the other positions but when you have jamar chase drake london devonta smith and jadarian price i'm starting all three of those wide receivers every single week i'm starting colston loveland every single week i'm likely starting joe burrow every single week i can load up on depth that running back you're taking a chance here you're absolutely taking a chance on a rookie but you're taking a chance on a rookie that's playing on a team that led the nfl and rush percentage that had 17 touchdowns from their two running backs that are now not going to be starting the season for this squad so i'm in on taking that shot but you you know you got to have some onions to make it happen yeah i just said the only question i have on jadarian price is if you're is how much passing game work he'll get heard and i've said that 94 times might as well make it 95 again six catches last year yep now is that because of jeremiah love or is it because it's an area that just not really his bread and butter we got guys in the nfl that still dominate in fantasy without catching the football much derrick henry nick chubb used to do it for a long time obviously jonathan taylor can do it as well but those players are pretty unique and rare if you left the draft with the squad that i just outlaid obviously you feel like you're a little bit more weak at the running back spot but how do you feel about the rest of your team i like it into it i liked it a lot yeah i don't think i didn't feel weak in the running back spot to me okay yeah felt good to me yeah i'm fine with that i think uh this is a good player for this exercise for sure because the ceiling is he comes out strong he has a big weak one he takes control of this backfield and never looks back and he's a good rb2 all season the other hand the other end of it is you know he's a late last pick of the first round maybe he has some things he has to work out he's not involved in the passing game zach charbonnet comes back they're rotating guys early in the season and by week five or six zach charbonnet is back if not earlier there's reports he might be ready for week one we'll see i'm pessimistic but we'll see uh and then charbonnet progressively works his way into a bigger role and then jenneria jennerian price is not even a starting caliber player for your team in the second half of the season so uh this is a guy with a wide what are the biggest range of outcomes i think in his rookie season luckily his sixth round adp not too bad so i i don't i don't i have no major issues but i think he's a good player for this season uh with the investment there the only pushback i would say is that there's some good wide receivers sixth round adp is what you said that's industry yeah uh yeah that applies to consensus for uh 12 team leagues including espn and then of course drafting his best ball he's going in the sixth round as well so but there are some good wide receivers going in that range which gives me a little pause on taking a dead zone running back i am interested to see how our platform with the espn changes with this because right now he's coming off the board in the ninth round of espn leagues in 10 team leagues so you can wait it sounds like maybe on our site but i wonder if on other places you might have to look at that adp to see if you could put together the lineup that i just suggested i've seen uh some people on social media like sort of throw some shade at espn adp right now and like you know it's it's it's it's unique it's whack and it's august 14th it's the inference and maybe i'm just misreading these things and i'm taking stuff too personally is it's like the inference sometimes feels like they're trying to say it's like an espn problem like no no we have no control over it we have no control over it we have no control over it we have control over the adp adp is determined by every person who goes on espn uses espn 14 million people whatever it was last year use espn and where they draft players determines their adp i think it's funny when people complain about it because like if you feel a guy like let's just say mike evans right he's lower in our draft room so certainly if people auto draft or whatever he's going to be lower in adp if you like mike evans higher than that lucky you take advantage of it like what are you complaining for it doesn't make any sense so yeah that's what we're complaining about adp is a very odd i will say if you're looking for espn adp on our site it used to be called underneath the tab espn adp it is now not called that is called pspn live draft trends yeah so make sure you check that out if you were looking for it we got some mailbag questions here from our chat i get a shout out to eric follow him on social media at eric and moody this first question comes from nicholas herrera wants to know is it a decent strategy to target stacks including a running back and a quarterback as opposed to wide receivers teams either throw it or run it for touchdowns and if i got a running back and a quarterback i am scoring no matter what because you're you're accepting one or the other instead of potentially both right so you want to stack a pass catcher explain that just give me give me that context a little bit more when you so like if you have let's say uh jared goff and jameer gibbs you're you're accepting that you get one or the other assuming it's a rushing or a passing touchdown right you know if you throw it to a monra but if you had jean robinson and jared goff you could get the passing touch and the rushing and the rushing touchdown you're the goal here is to stack a pass catcher with the quarterback because that gives you a higher ceiling if they have a big a big game whereas the running back you know you could the running backs could be naked essentially you don't need yes uh supporting cast that's like if you had robert and christian mcafree or something like where you're gonna have a guy that's involved in the passing game a lot uh maybe but like i don't know that's not that's not a sharp uh team building do you have a favorite naked running back uh no i don't don't answer that all right yeah all right but you're what you're basically saying is stacking the whole point is to put up together upside right the chance to be able to boom you're limiting your upside if you take a quarterback and a running back exactly right all right next question we have from chat this one comes from james brown and he's asking if you have a favorite running back comes from yo mustachio i like this harrison or rome a dunesay yeah yeah give me a dunesay yep yeah i mean we've talked we've talked a lot about harrison today we've talked about a dunesay in these bears wide receivers this week i'm still uh i'm still in camp a dunesay and uh make a note for our for tomorrow uh christina our producer whoever oh no tomorrow saturday yep all right i'm gonna say this hold on i'm gonna say this tomorrow i'm gonna say this right now and i'm i was walking past courtney cronin who covers the bears for us here at espn but also hosts a ton of shows she was hosting sports end of this morning and then doing an interview i didn't hear who she said but i heard the sentence he has been the bears most consistent player throughout training camp i said i found courtney after the interview and i was like i'm very curious who you were referring to when you said that and she goes cool andre swift he's been excellent really during training camp yeah wow so i mean that's that away that's good field so he's gonna be one of the boring guys that you started your rb2 all year long but we're gonna i'll be we'll bring this comment back up because not everybody listens to the entirety of every episode on monday during the mock draft okay we'll talk to you andre swift i like it i like it not tomorrow because we'll be i'll be at a i'm not gonna be here to play space or something tomorrow yeah last question from you guys at index of suspicion daniel dop looks like he has started a religion that congregates at a bucky's yeah that's not bad you're not wrong my friend bucky's you don't know no i don't know what that is you guys don't know bucky's no what is it oh my gosh we have so many questions you don't know bucky's no i don't but it sounds like we have a new punishment we need to put on the wheel that would be like if it's not a nascar sponsor i don't know what it is i don't know we're gonna make you go to a bucky's you're really gonna make me google this yeah it's just like a convenience store with all kinds of food of you know what is you guys have yeah of course mascot it's in the south oh okay you have sheets i think in pennsylvania that's what you're used to it's that okay all right yeah i guess i recognize my gosh i'm sorry that mike guys is so out of it we'll work hey look i'm here to learn okay not sigma today let's look at our punishment that we have voted on we had three i actually have a bucky's chipmunk suit don't that could be another punishment shut up all right all right let's take a look at what this poll result ended with of course oh boy waxing a leg took 61 of the vote fantasy haiku 11 and temporary neck tattoo 28 so waxing a leg gonna go on to our punishment wheel i thought my haikus were so good last year maybe that got us to 11 but we knew who was we knew what we knew what was we knew the yes the leg people want to be with some pain the other thing is with haikus they don't require much effort it's what it's whoa yeah it's 12 isn't it 12 syllables god man i worked so hard on those i wrote three of them that took mike like really seven evenings in a row you don't even the problem is they don't have that in excel that's yeah that's true they couldn't you know wow rude no haikus rude excel doesn't really get it i'm gonna have to have a conversation with mama dop and make sure she doesn't try to sign us up for too much punishment because she gets enjoyment out of it tomorrow she's like oh temporary neck tattoo how about a real how about we do a real one now she'd be like uh whoever loses gets punched in the face i'm just trying to that's aggressive and i like it all right that's gonna do it for us today hang out with us on monday gonna be a ton of fun don't forget to love each other and be kind to yourself you guys you deserve it we love you we'll see you back here when we're drafting on monday now at kroger your points add up to more ways to save every trip use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump you can even save up to 35 on your next fill up same points more choices and with low prices on fresh quality food plus digital and 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